Fast forward a couple of months, and an old acquaintance had shown up at his door.
Sam Pope.
Having begun his career in the military, Etheridge had excelled with his technical wizardry, even if his physical prowess was lacking. As a talented bomb disposal expert, he’d joined Marsden’s elite platoon and soon bonded with the ruthlessly efficient soldier.
Then, one fateful night on the Turkish border, Etheridge slipped and fell. With his leg shattered and the enemy closing in, his life had flashed before his eyes.
In a matter of seconds, Sam had eliminated the approaching assailants, the sight of his scope ensuring the bullets from his rifle sent them all to the afterlife.
Sam had saved his life.
So when the UK’s most wanted vigilante turned up at his house begging him for help, he had to return the favour. A missing girl was at stake and Etheridge, using his intimate knowledge of security systems, was able to help Sam not only locate her, but bring her home safely.
Sure, it cost him his marriage.
The Armed Response Unit of the Metropolitan Police had engaged Sam in Etheridge’s own home, only to be left incapacitated.
Sam had shot to wound.
After a few rigorous interviews by the desperate detectives hell-bent on catching the man, Etheridge was off the hook. Sam had found the young girl, Jasmine Hill, along with three others, all on the cusp of a horrific future in the Eastern European sex trade.
He forged Sam a passport, gave him some cash, and sent him on his way to Kiev to finish the job. As he awaited further contact, Etheridge was soon visited by a stranger, dressed in black and with one goal.
To find Sam Pope.
The pain he put Etheridge through was unlike anything he’d felt. Worse than the broken leg he’d suffered all those years ago. The man, burnt and disfigured, had water boarded him in his own office, bring him to the brink of death time and again, but Etheridge had shocked himself.
He had not talked.
But his computers did.
Sam’s fake passport triggered an alert on his system, giving the sadistic attacker his location. The man in black had gotten what he wanted, but it wasn’t enough. Without batting a charred eyelid, he’d pressed a handgun to Etheridge’s surgically repaired knee and pulled the trigger.
The pain had been instant.
The burning sensation roared through his body like an explosion as the bone and cartilage was eviscerated. Blood loss and shock caused him to lose consciousness and as his vision faded and his torturer left, Etheridge had accepted his death.
When he awoke in the hospital later that evening, he found DI Adrian Pearce sat next to him. The friendly detective had visited him with a fellow detective, Amara Singh, for Etheridge’s expertise. When they asked him again, he bluntly refused.
A few days later, after extensive surgery and a few trips to physio, Etheridge had been fitted with a permanent knee brace which would hinder his mobility for the rest of his life. Pearce had kindly taken him back to his mansion, where to no surprise, Kayleigh had already taken a bag and left.
He was expecting the divorce papers any day.
After refusing Pearce’s offer of help one last time he’d stumbled into his house and sat at the vast marble breakfast bar that framed the island in the centre of his kitchen.
Something had clicked.
As he looked around the home he’d held as a symbol of his success, he felt disgust. None of it mattered.
The cars.
The expensive sofas.
The 4k TVs dotted around the house.
All of it meant nothing.
Coming so close to death had changed something within him.
What should have sent him running for the hills had done the opposite. While Sam had been willing to run into a gun fight to save a young girl he’d never met, he’d been too obsessed with making money. With living a life of luxury. While his accomplishments in the business world had been incredible and made him a wealthy man, he felt empty.
He had used his considerable knowledge and skills to widen his bank account.
That was about to change.
Over the following few months, he’d readily signed the divorce papers, wilfully allowing Kayleigh to take a large settlement that would no doubt feed her materialistic itch. He had also decided to sell his controlling shares in BlackOut, which were eagerly gobbled up by the other stiffs who sat at the executive table.
Within a few weeks, he was free of it all, with a bank balance capable of funding a small country and the brain of a man capable of weaponising it.
He put the house on the market, and it sold within a day.
Being a prodigy behind a keyboard meant piling a number of names behind numerous shell companies was child’s play. He sold the house to himself effectively, before purchasing a small flat in Tenerife.
A little record manipulation not only moved his own life to another country but showed him just how easily he could shock the system if he needed to.
Even to the most trained eye of the government or whatever nefarious outfit came looking, he’d given it all up after his assault and had retired to the Canary Islands to live a life of luxury. He even made weekly transactions to a local supermarket in Tenerife, before having the deliveries diverted to a local charity.
He was no longer a concern or an interest.
But, still based in his home, he upgraded his software, spending a small fortune on the best computers money could buy. His office which was once a place for him to mull over corporate contracts, was now a control centre, the walls covered in screens and with his own data centre powering it.
He was in every system without them knowing it.
He was a ghost in the machine.
All he needed was a purpose.
A mission.
Then, just like the man in black had, an opportunity had come knocking.
As soon as Jonathan Cooper’s passport had pinged up on his screen, he’d quietly left the sanctuary of his control room and stepped
