The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (41 page)

He glanced down at the letter.

He was intrigued.

Who the hell would drop off a letter this late at night?

Reaching over, he picked it up. He ripped open the envelope, then pulled out a letter.

He unfolded it and started to read, curious.

He read it from beginning to end, slowly.

He only read it once.

Then he found two photographs inside the envelope. He looked at them both, staring at each one slowly, examining every millimetre, every pixel of detail.

And for the next hour, he remained where he was.

He didn’t move.

He barely even blinked.

He just stared straight ahead, the letter and pair of photographs resting on his lap.

Not long after he read the letter, Jamie stepped out of the building across the street and locked up, but she didn't notice him sitting there in the car. She headed off down the pavement, turning the corner and disappeared out of sight, as the man sat motionless in the Volvo, staring unseeingly through the front windscreen.

After just over an hour had passed, he made a decision and twisted the keys, firing the ignition. He drove straight home, on autopilot. The next thing he knew he was parked outside his front door, in a quiet neighbourhood in the west of the city. He got out of the car and shutting the door behind him, he walked up to at the front door and sliding his key into the lock, he twisted it and walked into the house.

He entered quietly, listening, waiting. There was nothing. The house was silent and dark. He placed his keys gently on a table by the door, and then headed straight upstairs. After a few moments, he came back down again slowly, in a daze, walked to the kitchen and took a seat at the table in the dark, all alone, a still black figure silhouetted by the moonlight from the open curtains behind him.

He sat motionless for some time. Then he rose and walked into his den next door. Pulling open the top drawer of his desk, he retrieved two separate items and tucked one into each pocket.

Then he walked back into the hallway, grabbed his coat and left the house.

He sat on a bench on the South Bank until morning. He watched the sun rise on the horizon, bathing the London skyline in an orange glow, the air fresh, the smell of salt from the Thames in the air, the city waking up from a deep slumber in front of him. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. He felt unaccustomed tears well in his eyes as he looked at the view, the sun slowly bringing light to the city and the start of a new day. He checked his watch. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out the letter and the two photographs. He took a lighter from another pocket and sparked a flame. He set the paper and photos on fire, watching them curl and burn away between his fingers, eventually dropping the smoking edges of what was left on the ground by his foot, twisted, black and destroyed.

He then reached into his pocket again and pulled out something else.

It was an old revolver, six bullets inside, the second item he had retrieved from the desk in his den.

He put it in his mouth and pulled back the hammer with his forefinger.

He took one last look at the city in front of him.

And he pulled the trigger.

Blackout

By

Tom Barber

Three men are dead.

One committed suicide.

Another was strangled.

The third was shot in the face as he slept.

The deaths seem random, thousands of miles apart, but they are connected. And there are more to come.  All linked by an event fifteen years before.

As attacks continue and the death toll rises, Archer and the team in
London
are drawn into a series of sudden and violent confrontations. As they engage a well-trained, brutal and anonymous enemy, they need to find out who the remaining targets are so they can protect them.  The ARU soon realise that the group of strangers will stop at nothing to succeed in their mission.

And one of their own is on the extermination list.

The new Sam Archer thriller.

Now available on Amazon Kindle.