‘My name is Abdullah Bin Akbar.’ The man spoke in broken English, his words stuttering with fear. ‘We are unarmed.’
‘What the hell is going on?’ Sam asked, stepping forward, his hands held up as a show of attrition.
‘I find information. Information that Taliban working with governments.’ The man looked back at his terrified family, trying to calm them in his native tongue. He turned back to Sam. ‘Taliban receive funding from countries to build on campaign.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Please. My family. We go into hiding.’ The man began, but suddenly, a deafening bang echoed through the room and Sam felt a searing pain through his back, followed by another before he hit the ground. It only took him a couple of seconds to realise he’d been shot twice, the bullets ripping out through his chest and he hit the stone hard, his breathing quickening as blood pumped from the bullet wounds.
As his vision began to blur, he arched his head up towards the family, watching as Farukh stepped forward, grabbing the two children by the hair and dragging them away from their screaming mother, another gunshot turning the top of her skull to paint. As she dropped to the floor a few feet from Sam, he watched as Abdullah fell to his knees, looking over her. Two large, military boots obscured Sam’s vision, and Abdullah flashed him a knowing look, confirming the entire lie that was Project Hailstorm.
Abdullah Bin Akbar wasn’t a terrorist. He was a man who had discovered the truth.
General Wallace pointed the gun at Abdullah and pulled the trigger, the bullet eviscerating the man’s skull and he fell atop his wife, both of them dead. As Sam’s consciousness faded, he heard the sickening sound of a knife piercing skin and shed a tear for the children who were being slain.
Project Hailstorm had been a cover-up job.
Hiding the links between the UK, US, and other governments with global terrorism.
Wallace.
Sam’s eyes began to close against his wishes, the life leaving his body and he thought of Lucy, begging her forgiveness for not returning to her and for the part he’d unwittingly played in it all.
Chapter Twenty
Sam and Etheridge sat in silence for the next few hours, pouring over the files in sheer disbelief.
The war that Sam had been a part of for most of his career had been a lie, the betrayal laid out for him in documents only to be seen by those who portrayed it. There was a very real terrorist threat on a global scale. But instead of fighting against it, Sam had been helping lay the foundations for it.
As the tears fell from his eyes, Sam read report after report, his actions leaping from the page. Several targets he’d eliminated during Project Hailstorm had been those trying to expose the truth, all of them silenced by the pull of his trigger.
He had helped to hide the truth.
To allow Wallace, in collusion with other powerful figures from around the world, to build an empire based off the fear of terrorism.
As Etheridge read on, he felt sick, realising that his own government had been duped by a man who had risen to an unassailable level of power.
Wallace was funding global terrorism through Blackridge, with several untraceable payments sent to the likes of the IRA, the Taliban, and ISIS. He had started a revolution in Bolivia, allowing a militia regime to take the throne and through it, had portrayed himself as a hero.
He was fighting a war he’d instigated.
For every promotion or reward Wallace had received for his public fight on the world’s biggest threat, he had ensured thousands had died for it to happen.
The man was a monster.
Pure evil.
But the government, the media, and the country held him as a hero, a man who had dedicated his life to keeping the world safe.
Sam pushed his chair back, the legs squealing as they scraped the floor. He stood woozily, the truth hitting him like a ten-tonne truck and Etheridge struggled to his feet to help him.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Sam snapped, clattering into the door and half falling down the stairs. Etheridge watched from the doorway as Sam rushed into the bathroom, dropped to his knees, and emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet.
He felt sorrow for the man who had lost so much and now had to face the very real reality of his actions.
Sam had always strived to do the right thing. It was what had driven his mission over the past year, using the skills he had to bring an end to pain and corruption. To help those who were held under the oppressive boot of injustice.
But now, the entire backbone of his once proud career had been shattered.
He had blood on his hands.
Lots of it.
Etheridge gingerly lowered himself down the stairs and sat on the last step, stretching out his damaged leg and looking at the top of the range knee brace clamped around it. He was another man caught in the cross fire, his permanent crippling a ripple effect of Sam’s actions. While he would never blame Sam, he knew it was just another cross that Sam bore.
The man had been racked by guilt ever since his son had been taken from him, and while he found redemption in every criminal he took off the street, there was no way back from the truth.
Sam had been an assassin for a secretive terrorist movement.
The deaths by his hands had helped set in motion a rise to power of a man who had lied to him. The files made for horrifying reading.
A man known as Yohan Henri, a French diplomat had been killed by Sam seven months before the fateful night on the outskirts of Kabul. Henri had been extradited back to the country under the pretence of arrest in China, but the truth was far uglier. The man had discovered a viable link between the French, UK, and Chinese governments regarding questionable payments to an Afghanistan corporation.
Further digging unearthed
