The Takers

by Robert Enright

  Everyone had their demons.

  He knew that more than anyone.

  Before Sam could speak, the clicking of heels echoed through the house and Kayleigh stepped into the kitchen. Wearing a white blouse, designer black jeans, and heels, she marched into the conversation, her heavily made-up face scowling below an expensive haircut. Etheridge stepped forward to embrace her, receiving a cold glance and offering Sam another insight into a life that was only luxurious to the outside world.

  ‘Honey, this is my old friend, Sam.’

  ‘I know who he is,’ Kayleigh snapped, her stern words betraying her upper-class lifestyle. ‘He’s the one from the telly. The one the police are after.’

  Etheridge looked at Sam apologetically but before he could respond, Sam spoke.

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry to turn up here at your lovely home but I need Paul’s help.’

  ‘You need to leave,’ Kayleigh barked, before turning to her husband, a look of disdain wrestling her make-up for domination of her face. ‘Get him out of here or I’m calling the police.’

  Both men watched her stomp back towards the archway, her outfit hugging her tremendous figure. Sam could see why she would make the perfect trophy wife for a middle-aged entrepreneur, but Sam didn’t put his stock in beauty only being skin deep. Terrible people tend to show themselves to be unattractive, regardless of how much they spend to look ‘pretty’. Etheridge’s shoulders slumped and he turned back to Sam.

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I should go,’ Sam offered, resealing his water bottle and placing it on the side.

  ‘Nonsense. This is my house.’ Etheridge stated, more for himself than Sam. ‘Besides, I owe you.’

  ‘That’s not why I came.’

  ‘I know.’ Etheridge finished his second beer. ‘But none of this would have been possible without you. I don’t give a shit what they say on the news. We’re brothers and it’s going to take more than you killing some drug dealers for me to turn you away.’

  Sam smiled and patted Etheridge on the arm.

  ‘Thanks, Paul.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ Etheridge opened the fridge and retrieved another cold beer. ‘Besides, it might be fun.’

  Two hours later and Etheridge was sat in his loft converted office, the entire floor adapted into a slick, all white room with a large desk, four monitors, and enough computer power to send a rocket into space. The barrel of Sam’s gun was pressed against the back of his head, a bruise forming from the pressure. Sam had kept his finger off the trigger but insisted on holding a gun to Etheridge’s head. When the police inevitably questioned him, he could at least say that he was forced at gun point. A forensic specialist would be able to corroborate it and Etheridge would have been acting to preserve his life. Sam’s arms ached, but it was a small price to pay to keep his friend out of the firing line, the irony not lost on either of them as he held the gun to Etheridge’s skull. The air conditioning units controlled the temperature, the large shelves of data intimidated Sam, the clear glass giving him a view of a world he would never understand. It had taken Etheridge half an hour to hack into the London Borough of Brent’s CCTV network, the man throwing out terms like ‘wormholes’ and ‘data access channels’ like they would mean something.

  Sam trusted him.

  Etheridge may have shown himself to be locked in a loveless marriage, but the one thing he knew was how to hack into a system. It was what he did for his country out in the war zones he was sent to.

  It was how he had built his fortune when he returned.

  As Sam watched, equal parts impressed and baffled, Etheridge navigated through a number of secluded files, using a separate program to generate a passcode that allowed him to circumvent their security protocols and access their files undetected. When Sam queried how Etheridge even knew to do that, the response came with a victorious grin.

  ‘Because I fucking built it for them.’

  Soon they were looking at a video feed from the night Jasmine went missing, with the four monitors all split into eight different cameras giving them thirty-two different streets around Wembley Stadium. Sure enough, on the road positioned behind the nearby KFC, a white van pulled up, a large white man at the wheel. They watched, the man sitting statue-esque in the driver’s seat, his large hands gripping the wheel. Etheridge made a couple of clicks of the mouse and the footage sped up, blurs of people zipping past and then Sam spoke up.

  ‘Slow it down.’

  His words were cold, and Etheridge obliged. Sam’s eyes narrowed with anger as he watched a car pull up next to the van and two black youths spill out of the back, both of them grabbing at the terrified girl in the backseat, who swung her feet and clawed for freedom.

  No one was coming to help her.

  Not in that area.

  Sam watched as one of the young men lunged into the back seat, throwing a violent fist and the kicking stopped. Quickly and with little regard for her safety, they hauled her out, roughly grabbing her arms and legs before the side panel of the van slid open, another unknown man waiting inside. With the same amount of care as a baggage handler at an airport, the two youths tossed Jasmine Hill into the back of the van.

  The door slid shut.

  Both vehicles sped off in different directions.

  ‘Run the plates,’ Sam demanded.

  ‘Already on it,’ Etheridge responded, his eyes glued to the screen. ‘The van is registered to a Vaneheim Building Solutions. It’s a dud. A shell company.’

  ‘Damn it.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Etheridge’s fingers clicked along the keys. ‘Checking the government records and the company was set up a week ago as a subsidiary to a larger company known as Red Room Inc., a property management company. One that has set up separate shell companies every two weeks for the last few years.’

  Etheridge rolled the screen, the information whizzing by and Sam watched, impressed as his genius friend began to connect the dots. The screen stopped and he placed a finger on the screen.

  ‘Red Room Inc. has a controlling stake in a small shipping firm, with weekly shipments heading out to Europe from the Docklands in South London.’

  ‘That’s them.’ Sam stood, his eyes wide with fury. ‘The guy I spoke to, he told me he worked for some guys with thick accents.’

  ‘Spoke to?’ Etheridge smiled. ‘He just offered that information did him?’

  ‘I can be persuasive if I have to.’

  ‘Well, they have another shipment heading out tomorrow. Scheduled in.’

  ‘That’s her. I need that crate number.’

  Before Etheridge could respond, a shrill alarm erupted in the corner of the room, a red light flashing into life. Both men looked at each other and Etheridge made a couple of clicks of his mouse and the perimeter of his expensive house filled the screen. A man who spent his life securing the online world made sure he had top of the line security for his own.

  A large police van was parked to the side of the gate and Sam watched as six men with tactical vests and rifles quietly and carefully filtered out of the van, lining up against the wall.

  Sam saw the same woman he’d seen at Shepherd’s Bush, the lady who had grilled Aaron Hill and was clearly in charge of the task force set up to catch him. She was stood, hands on hips, talking to Kayleigh.

  Sam glanced at Etheridge, who remorsefully looked away.

  Both men knew that marriage had an expiry date.

  They also knew they didn’t have much time.

  ‘Paul, I need that crate number and location.’

  ‘It’s going to take some time, they’re covering their tracks well with an ever-changing manifest working off a two-minute algorithm.’

  ‘English?’

  ‘They are doing a good fucking job covering their tracks.’ Etheridge scanned the screen, which was filled with numbers and symbols that may as well have been Russian to Sam. ‘I don’t have time to decipher it. We need to go.’

  ‘Find it and call me. You
still good with numbers?’

  Etheridge raised his eyebrows and committed to memory the mobile number Sam gave him. On the left-hand screen, they watched as four of the armed men approached the patio door in the back garden. Two stood guard at the front gate, rifles clutched to their bodies. Sam stepped away from the computer, walking with purpose towards the stairs.

  The power died in the house.

  Emergency lighting filtered through, enough to light the way.

  ‘Where are you going, Sam?’

  Sam didn’t look back as he approached the stairs to the first floor of the mansion.

  ‘To buy you some time.’

  On the ground floor below, the panel to the patio door shattered and the SWAT team breached the house.

  As Sam disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell, Etheridge turned back to his screen, cracked his knuckles, and hoped like hell he could find what they needed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When the call had come through that Sam Pope was holed up in a luxurious mansion forty miles from London, Singh had been in the incident room, her eyes firmly on the wall of evidence before her. The pyramid of photos all led to a smart photo of Sam Pope, his military issued beret inch perfect on his shaven head. The scattered photos below all presented bullet-ridden bodies, broken buildings, and the devastation he had left in his wake. A picture of Aaron Hill was pinned to the side, along with Sean Wiseman.

  Both men were protecting Pope.

  It made her blood boil.

  As her fists had clenched with anger, a young officer had knocked on the door, her eyes full of admiration for the strong woman leading the task force.

  ‘Ma’am,’ she muttered nervously. ‘It’s Sam Pope. We have him.’

  Singh burst through the door and into the corridor, the young officer struggling to keep up. As they entered the office, a gathering crowd quietened down as Singh snatched up the phone and curtly demanded information from the Farnham police department.

  The wife of an old army acquaintance confirmed that Sam Pope was in her house and was working with her husband. She had recognised him from the TV, even argued with her husband about the merits of such a man.

  Her husband thought he was a hero.

  Singh had taken an instant disliking to him.

  Due to a nationwide request that any information for Sam Pope be run through this channel, the officer awaited further instruction.

  Singh told him to sit tight, put two squad cars either side of the house, and wait for them to get there. It would take just over forty minutes with the blues and twos going.

  As soon as she’d slammed down the phone, she gave the order for a small Armed Response unit to mobilise, following them to the armoury with every intention to go with them. After what had happened in Shepherd’s Bush, she was adamant she would bring Sam Pope through the doors herself.

  ‘Singh,’ a stern voice called out. ‘A word.’

  Singh angrily stopped in her tracks, her face relaxing with respect as Assistant Commissioner Ashton approached. Other officers stood to attention, their senior nodding her approval.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am?’

  ‘What’s the commotion?’

  ‘We have him, Ma’am. Pope. He’s at an acquaintance’s house in Farnham. I’ve deployed an AR unit and we are heading there now.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Ashton rubbed her chin. ‘It’s risky. The man is smart and heavily trained in the art of disappearing. Surely he won’t stay in one place for long enough for you to reach him.’

  ‘It’s not a social call, Ma’am. I have reason to believe that he is investigating a missing person and…’

  ‘How have you come across this information?’ Ashton could sense Singh’s impatience and decided to take a menacing step closer, underlining her authority. ‘Is this a new line of enquiry?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am. I had to act quickly and DI Pearce theorised that…’

  ‘Pearce? Don’t make me laugh,’ Ashton spat. ‘The man is a busted flush on borrowed time. When I told you to use every resource available, Singh, I didn’t mean for you to waste your time.’

  Singh scowled. The van was ready to go and she wanted to be on it. She glanced towards the window, the darkness falling over the city earlier than ever. Regardless of the time of day, the rain continued to batter the city.

  ‘I haven’t been wasting my time,’ Singh insisted. ‘I’ve been doing what you asked me to. Bring in Sam Pope. Now if you don’t mind, Ma’am, that’s what I intend to do.’

  Ashton glowered at Singh, her opinion of the ambitious DI flipping back and forth like an acrobat. After a few more moments, she slowly stood to the side.

  ‘Then get it done,’ Ashton said coldly. ‘Otherwise the next time we talk, I won’t be so polite.’

  Singh stormed past her superior, instantly regretting the animosity between the two of them. As a high-ranking female, Ashton was someone she’d looked up to as a mentor. It was Ashton who had pushed for Singh to be put in charge of this task force and had been a guiding presence in her career for many years.

  But Singh knew how the game was played.

  If the task force failed, it wouldn’t be Ashton who’d be thrown under the bus.

  It would be her.

  Sam Pope was the key to her career growing or dying. Her mission was slowly becoming an obsession which was pushing her to breaking point.

  So, as she stood outside the mansion in Farnham, the rain slapping her face with mocking repetition, she jostled impatiently from foot to foot.

  The lights in the house died.

  Word came through on the radio that they’d breached.

  Moments later, a gunshot echoed throughout the house.

  Followed by another.

  The two other armed officers abandoned their posts at the gate and hurried towards the building as a panicked voice crackled through the radio. Kayleigh Etheridge, the helpful trophy wife who watched from the van, looked terrified.

  Singh’s eyes narrowed, her hand snapping to the holster on her belt, the handle of her gun brushing against her handcuffs.

  When a third gunshot rang out into the torrential rain, Singh’s resolve broke. Allowing her obsession to catch Sam Pope to take the wheel, she darted through the gate, towards the war erupting in the house.

  As the shadows of the stairwell engulfed him, Sam slowly removed his Glock from the back of his jeans and held it loosely in his hand. He reached the first floor, listening carefully as the muffled steps of the armed team tried to carefully navigate the ground floor layout.

  Sam had committed it to memory. The placement of furniture. The number of steps from the kitchen to the stairs. He counted backwards from three and sure enough, a beam of light filtered up the stairs. Sam took a deep breath. The last thing he wanted was another altercation with the police, but with the idea of Jasmine Hill being violated by an angry, drunk customer rattling around in his head, he swallowed his reservations.

  These men were good men. Following orders and upholding the law.

  He was the criminal here.

  As he waited in the darkness, that sobering thought washed over him. In the eyes of the justice system, he was deemed a bigger monster than those responsible for the capture and trafficking of teenage girls.

  Sam Pope was the bogeyman.

  The men who were approaching the stairs, they were the heroes. Sam wasn’t going to kill them. Despite the recent evidence to the contrary, he wanted to uphold his promise to his son. These men were just following orders.

  Upholding the law.

  But sometimes, the lawful thing wasn’t always the right thing.

  As the first footsteps began to ascend the stairs towards him, Sam took a few steps back into one of the darkened doorways, the room opening out into a large dance studio that Kayleigh obviously frequented. Through the darkness of the corridor, Sam watched as the first armoured man stepped by, his entire body clad in uniform, the issued rifle held expertly to his shoulder. A torch was strapped to
the bottom, illuminating the corridor.

  A second followed, sweeping the surrounding room with his rifle. Sam ducked back, evading detection by a millisecond.

  They both walked beyond, the captain at the front signalling for the following two men to sweep the rest of the floor as they continued their search. The magnificent house provided plenty of space, for which Sam was eternally grateful. As two men searched the bedrooms further down the hall, Sam waited for the third officer to reach the landing.

  Sam stepped out.

  Cloaked by the darkness, he swung the gun towards the officer, the butt of the handle colliding with the man’s skull with a sickening thud, shaking his brain like a maraca. As the officer slumped unconscious, his partner turned, raised his rifle, casting them both in a magnificent glare.

  Sam grabbed hold of the falling officer, holding him upright and protecting him from the scope of the rifle.

  The officer demanded Sam raise his hands but refused to fire. With his human shield in front of him, Sam regrettably lifted his pistol and pulled the trigger, shattering the officer’s shin bone with a precise shot. The armed officer instantly fell to the floor, roaring in pain and clutching the broken leg, blood pumping from the wound and ruining the soft, white carpet below. The noise instantly drew the attention of the two other officers, both flashlights landing on the chaos before them.

  ‘Drop your weapon,’ a voice called out, Sam unable to place it due to the glare of the torches. He spun the unconscious body around before dropping to the ground, tugging the motionless body on top of him. As the two bodies crumpled to the ground, Sam’s vision fell out of the torch’s blinding radius and instantly zoned in on the legs of the officers.

  Two shots.

  Two more broken legs.

  Sam knew that they would survive, he had delivered enough killer shots in his time to know that. But it had immobilised them sufficiently and they would soon pass out due to either shock or blood loss. Either way, he had less than a minute before the final two armed officers were on him, and he angrily shoved the unconscious officer to the side and rolled back into the studio, away from any potential shots from the recently wounded.