Normal protocol – stop the vehicle, get out, take cover, evaluate, respond. Fairly obvious. But the soldiers in the Snatch were under fire, and there was no time. If they weren’t dead already, they would be soon. Either by gunshot or exploding fuel tank.
Black hit the gas pedal. The Snatch Land Rover was built to be quick in rough terrain. He headed off-road, direct to where the Taliban had dug in. Suddenly, the direction of the fight changed. The windscreen exploded into a million pieces. The front chassis shuddered, absorbing round after round of Taliban bullets, the armour-plated shielding doing its job. Black kept on.
Five seconds later, screams of consternation as he drove the vehicle across the stones and on top of their heads. Maybe eight assailants. Four crushed on impact. Black leapt from the vehicle, already aiming, firing once, twice. Another two down. A man came from nowhere, leaping on his back, knife poised to slit his throat. Black hurled him over his shoulder, fired a bullet in his head, close range. A man scrambled across the sand to get away. Black calmly shot him in the back. Eight dead men.
He sprinted back to the flipped over Land Rover. Clock was ticking. The sounds of gunfire could attract a hundred more insurgents in minutes. Black reached in.
“Got to get you out of here and to a hospital.”
Black pulled the driver from the wreckage, delicately. His legs were twisted. Other men had now arrived to help.
The driver held Black’s hand for a second longer.
“Thank you.”
And that was the one and only conversation Black had with the man he would come to know as Gilbert Bartholomew.
20
Mr Lincoln was in Oxford when he was given the contract on Adam Black’s life. “The City of Dreaming Spires” as it is known, and how he preferred to call it.
He visited every year, at about the same time, for a week. He was a man of routine. This was, for him, a short holiday. He made it his business to visit the Bodleian Library. Books fascinated him. Literature. Poetry mesmerised him. He had acquired a collection of rare first editions, which he kept secure in his home in a little fishing village called Monnickendam, a fifteen-minute drive from Amsterdam, a place few people knew about.
He wasn’t Dutch. Far from it. He was American. The name he was using currently, and the name he liked his American friends to use, was Jonathan Lincoln. He worked under several assumed names, had several passports. He spoke without accent, always in a soft, well-modulated voice, which was rarely raised. He spoke several languages. Fluently. Self-taught. He kept supremely fit, running five miles every day. He was skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and competent with knife and sword. He was an expert marksman, particularly the pistol. He was patient and precise. He planned to the point of obsession. There was nothing in his demeanour to stand him out from the crowd, which suited him perfectly. Forgettable. Average height, lean, medium-length hair. A very slight scar above his left eyebrow. He dressed casually. Never formal, unless he had to. At first glance, he seemed like any other tourist, completely at ease in his surroundings. Which he was, when he visited Oxford.
Mr Lincoln. A one hundred per cent kill rate. Hitman for the super wealthy.
His holiday had been interrupted by the urgent email from Norman Sands. Normally, he would have ignored such an intrusion. But Sands represented people who paid generously.
When he got the details of the target, he knew, instinctively, the task would represent a challenge. More challenging than the average kill. Perhaps the most challenging he’d been asked to face. He could refuse. But the prospect intrigued him. Compelled him. And of course, there was the money.
He was sitting in the Bodleian Library, as he re-read the résumé of the man he was to kill. The résumé was thorough and meticulous, every aspect of his life captured and condensed. It seemed the man Captain Adam Black had led an interesting life.
Mr Lincoln had asked for double his usual fee, given the urgency, and got it instantly. Which told him they wanted him silenced very badly. It wouldn’t be easy. Far from it. The man had spent a good chunk of his adult life in Special Forces, had won the Military Cross. Plus, he was already aware he was being hunted, so the element of surprise was reduced. To complicate things, he had no family, so there was no leverage. He had already killed, possibly four people. He was not scared to spill blood. In fact, pondered Lincoln, he might enjoy it.
Lincoln deliberated, alone and in the tranquil ambience of the Bodleian, where silence was the absolute rule. He had an almost intuitive sense about his intended victims, piecing together the facts of their lives, creating a picture of their psyche, behaviour patterns, habits, determining what they would do, their next move, their fears, their desires. In Adam Black’s case, Lincoln saw something he had never seen, and thought he never would. He saw something of himself. A killer. A man used to death, who wasn’t scared of it.
He would catch a flight to Glasgow that evening, and book himself into a hotel. The instruction was clear. Black had to be expunged quickly. And discreetly. Lincoln already had a half-plan formulated. Despite his apparent invulnerability, Lincoln saw an angle – the chink in Black’s armour.
For the first time for as long as he could remember, he felt his heart race with excitement. He would have taken on this job for nothing, for the sheer thrill of killing a man like Captain Adam Black.
A trophy kill.
21
The trick is to stay alive. How do you accomplish this? Simple. Kill every bastard in the room.
Advice given by Staff Sergeant to recruits of the 22nd Regiment of the Special Air Service
Black toyed with the memory stick.
