Gregory lay in a shrivelled ball at his feet, moaning softly. Bowman watched him for several seconds with a look of cold contempt. He gave his back to Gregory. Nodded at Casey and Webb.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
‘Good idea,’ Casey said. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen enough shit for one day.’
Bowman started towards the cell door.
‘Look out!’ Webb cried.
He spun round.
He saw Gregory gripping a pistol. The gun he’d seen on the bench. The GSh-18 semi-automatic. Colonel Lubowa’s weapon. Gregory had snatched it up and swept it across his front in a flash.
The barrel pointed directly at Bowman’s chest.
Bowman had no time to react. It would take him a couple of seconds to thrust a hand down to his holster and bring up the Glock. By which time Gregory could have pulled the trigger. At a distance of four metres, there was no way he could miss.
Bowman waited to die.
Two cracks echoed violently inside the cell.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Webb standing with his Glock already drawn. The barrel flamed as he fired twice at Gregory. The bullets double-tapped him in the forehead and punched out of the back of his skull, splattering the wall with blood and brain matter. The pistol clattered against the concrete. Gregory’s arms and legs sagged, and then he dropped to the ground, as if someone had cut his strings.
Webb lowered his Glock.
Bowman nodded at him. ‘Thanks, mate.’
‘No need,’ Webb said as he stuffed his weapon back into his holster. ‘That animal had it coming.’
‘I thought you said he was a really great guy,’ Casey said.
‘He was,’ Bowman said. ‘Once. A long time ago.’
He stared at Gregory for a long moment. The former hero of B Squadron. One of the best officers in the history of the Regiment. Now he was dead. Slumped on the floor of a torture chamber in the heart of the jungle, his brains slicking down the wall. He didn’t feel a pang of sadness, or pity. He didn’t feel anything at all. He just wanted to get the hell out of Karatandu. And never come back.
They left the chamber, walked back past the cells and up the spiral staircase to the atrium. They stepped outside, into the sweltering midday heat. Mallet spotted the team and beat a quick path over from the guest house. Behind him, the tractor dumped another bucketload of bodies into the agricultural trailer. The trailer was almost full, but the battlefield was still thick with enemy dead. Torn limbs and glistening entrails putrifying beneath the burning sun.
‘Where the fuck have you lot been?’ Mallet snapped. ‘Where’s Mike?’
‘He’s busy,’ Webb said. ‘Tied up in the basement.’
‘Grab your kit. We’ve just been given clearance. We’re leaving on the Herc. We’re out of here now.’
He marched off in the direction of the Land Cruiser. Bowman paused and looked briefly back at the mansion, Gregory’s warning about Mallet ringing in his ears. John’s a great soldier, but he’s slippery.
None of the guys in the Regiment ever trusted him.
He wondered about that. He wondered about the lies Mallet had told him. He wondered what the future held for him in the Cell. He wondered if he could keep his promise to Loader and stay clean.
Casey gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go. We’ve got a friend to take home.’
THE END
Hello!
Thank you for picking up Manhunter.
I’ve always wanted to write a thriller set in the murky world of organised crime. Mobsters are everywhere these days: in some places, they’ve become more like professional corporations than traditional gangs. In Russia and elsewhere, the lines between government and the criminal underworld have become completely blurred, leading to the term ‘mafia state’. It seemed to me that the SAS would be perfectly suited to tackling this emerging new threat, working hand-in-glove with the security services and the police. So when I first sat down to think about Manhunter, I knew straight away what kind of story I wanted to tell.
I also knew that my hero would be radically different from anything I’d done before: an elite soldier with a talent for fighting mobsters. He would need a background in law enforcement before joining the army, with an insider’s knowledge of how criminals think. He would have grown up in a rough part of London, a world where violence and gangs are rife and only a lucky few escape – a world he can never quite leave behind. But that wasn’t enough, I knew. The character also needed a powerful personal motivation for wanting to take revenge on the criminal elite, so I gave him a tragic family backstory. This incident would only be revealed slowly, through the prism of the hero’s ongoing struggle with addiction. All that was left was to create a new covert SAS unit to combat this new threat. The Cell was born, and the idea snowballed from there.
Writing Manhunter has been a genuine pleasure. I’ve had great fun spending time with Josh Bowman, John Mallet and the other members of the Cell, and I hope you’ve had as much fun reading about them. Hopefully, this is the first of many adventures to come.
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