But it was the injustice of the Metropolitan Police, the death of his friend, and the safety of an innocent woman that had put a gun back in his hand.
That had made him do the right thing.
Sam glanced at the weapons, all of them polished and cleaned weekly, a regiment he had performed blindfolded to the delight of his comrades. During a few of his tours in Afghanistan, he had been christened ‘The Silent Death’, for his streak of headshots without ever giving away his position.
The L85IW assault rifle was affixed to two hooks on the inside of the door, Sam making a mental note to clean it thoroughly when he returned. On the inside of the other door was a Remington Model 870 Pump-Action Shotgun, used by the British Special Forces as a breaching weapon. The barrels were clean, and at the bottom of the cupboard were several segmented shelves, all of them filled with boxes of bullets or full cartridges.
Two Glock 20s were hanging on the back wall of the cupboard, their larger cartridges stacked neatly below. The powerful handguns were regularly cleaned by Sam, and he usually carried one in the inside of his jacket while on a recon mission.
He reached a muscular arm into the cupboard and withdrew one of them, quickly sliding back the chamber and inspecting the inside of the weapon.
It was good to go.
He pulled up a full, fifteen round cartridge and satisfyingly snapped it into the gun. Sam gave it one more admiring glance and tossed the weapon onto his bed, before reaching for the large, black case that rested atop his makeshift armoury.
With a large heave, he pulled it down, taking the weight of it onto his broad chest, before carefully lowering it to the recently swept floorboards. The case was locked with a combination lock, which Sam quickly set to his son’s birthday.
The case pinged open.
A smile crept across his stubble covered jaw.
His sniper rifle.
The Accuracy International Arctic Warfare bolt action sniper rifle had been with him through thick and thin.
It had been with him on the cliff face on the outskirts of Kabul when he single-handedly took out a squadron to protect his own.
It had been the instrument of over sixty deaths.
He had taken great joy in cleaning it two weeks previously, sliding the plastic tubing down the forty-six-inch barrel and removing the flakes of gun powder that would eventually cause a potential rivet in his shot. He had taken himself to Cassiobury Park in Watford one night, speeding up the M1 to Hertfordshire and found a dark, quiet spot on a pitch-black field.
He fired two rounds into a tree from over a hundred yards. It was a simple shot to make, but he needed to iron out the first few potential skewed shots which always happened after a clean.
Sam needed the gun to be accurate.
Just not tonight.
But soon. He could feel it.
Sam slowly ran the palm of his hand across the stock of the rifle, feeling every groove of his war-torn weapon and trusting every single inch of it.
It had become an extension of his body.
Sam patted the rifle and then slammed the lid shut. Pushing himself up again, he turned, stretching his lower back before heaving the case up once more and sliding it back atop of the cupboard. Before shutting the door, he unhooked his assault rifle from its hook, the trusted gun ready for another night of action. With a smile, he felt the rifle’s weight in his muscular arms as he turned and faced the opposite wall.
A map of London was pinned to the white wall, the recent paint work a poor attempt at injecting some brightness to the wall.
The map was littered with markings, with different pins denoting different points of interest.
Blue were known drug hot spots.
Green were the vicinities that willing snitches patrolled.
Yellow were strategically placed ‘emergency stashes’, which consisted of fake documents, weapons, and cash.
Red was his favourite, recording all the places he had hit since he’d begun his crusade.
Seventeen separate drug dens or gang hideouts had been successfully cleared down. All of them without killing.
But now, he marched to the map and slammed a pin into the Kodak factory in Shepherd’s Bush. Long since abandoned, he now knew it was the makeshift High Rise being run in memory of the one he had torn down six months ago.
All that bloodshed would not be for nothing.
He glanced at his wrist, the watch telling him it was a little after two.
With the rain refusing to relent, he snatched his parka from the back of the door and slid it around his muscular frame. Sam pulled a black sports bag from under the bed and laid it on the sheets, carefully placing the rifle inside. Lastly, he picked up his Glock 20, slid it into the back of his jeans, and headed to the door.
Sam knew it would take him roughly forty-five minutes to drive to Shepherd’s Bush and he wanted as much time as possible. Once he had scouted the area fully, he was planning on returning with his rifle.
Because tonight, he was going to introduce himself to Elmore Riggs.
He was going to shut down the final door of the High Rise once and for all.
Chapter Four
‘Come in.’
DI Adrian Pearce didn’t even look up from his blank computer screen, his scowl furrowing a brow that was turning grey. His hair, closely shorn to his scalp was already a faded grey colour, contrasting strongly with the darkness of his skin. Having passed his fiftieth birthday that summer, he knew he looked youthful for his age. But time was starting to catch-up with him.
A creak here.
A crack there.
And his utter contempt for computers.
The door to his small office opened, clattering against a metal filing cabinet that had been shoehorned into a corner that was just too small. The gap was just big enough
