by Mark Dawson
He made his way into the building and rode the elevator to the top floor. He took a key from his pocket and opened the door. The penthouse had been on the market for six million dollars, but Milton had secured it on a six-month lease for thirty grand a month. It was set on two storeys and had been constructed in the loft style that would not have looked out of place in New York. It had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the city, all of the neighbourhoods and the suburbs and then the flat country beyond.
There were three men waiting for him.
Ziggy Penn was sitting at the large eight-seat kitchen table with three laptops arranged around him. He was wearing a pair of headphones, and his attention was caught somewhere between the three screens.
Alex Hicks was on the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table while he watched the Premier League on an illegal stream that Ziggy had somehow conjured up. The weapons were on the table: two Glocks, a Heckler & Koch MP5 and all the ammunition that they would need.
Chase Baxter was on the terrace, smoking a cigarette.
Milton took off the dark glasses and put them on the kitchen counter. He removed the suit jacket and hooked that on the back of one of the chairs.
Hicks was ex-SAS and had worked with Milton before. He looked away from the television. “Everything okay?”
“All good,” Milton said.
Chase heard him and came inside.
Ziggy was still absorbed by whatever it was he was doing.
“Ziggy,” Milton said.
He didn’t hear.
Milton reached over and swiped the headphones off his head.
“What?”
“I want to talk to you all.”
Milton had arrived in the city first to reconnoitre the lay of the land, and then he had sent for Hicks and Ziggy to ask whether they would be interested in working a job with him. Both, more to the point, had long relationships with Milton. He had made it very plain that he was not calling in favours owed, because the assistance that he was requesting would be much more perilous than anything that he had done for either of them. Instead, he had offered them a quarter of a million dollars each. Ziggy was venal, and his acceptance was no surprise. The cancer that Hicks’s wife had been fighting for several years had returned, and her treatment was expensive; he had gladly accepted. Milton had given further thought to Chase’s demand that he be involved, and had ultimately decided that he was not in a position to deny him the chance to avenge his father’s death. He looked capable, too, and Milton knew that doing what needed to be done was not something that he would be able to do alone. There had been no mention of payment for his assistance, but Milton would transfer the same quarter million to him, too, in due course.
Hicks switched off the TV.
“This is it,” Milton said to them. “Last chance. If you go any further, there might not be a way back.”
“You’re giving us a chance to walk away?” Hicks asked.
“I am.”
“I didn’t come all the way here to go back home. I’m in.”
Milton looked at Ziggy. “What about you? Are you sure?”
“No,” he replied. “I’m not sure. But you’ve made a persuasive case.”
“You mean he offered you a lot of money,” Hicks suggested.
Ziggy grinned. “Also true. I’m in.”
Milton turned to Baxter. The younger man didn’t give him the opportunity to ask the question.
“I’d do it myself if you didn’t want to do it,” he said.
Milton went over to the open doors that gave onto the terrace and gazed at the sprawl of the city beyond.
“When do we start?” Hicks asked.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “We make contact tomorrow.”
A word from Mark
I hope you enjoyed this collection of Milton’s stories.
There’s much more to come, with Milton’s next adventures taking him to Colombia (he has unfinished business following the end of BRIGHT LIGHTS), the Atlantic coast of Scotland and Kansas City.
Join my reader club for news on upcoming books and to grab two free books:
1. A free copy of Milton’s adventure in North Korea - 1000 Yards.
2. A free copy of Milton’s battle with the Mafia and an assassin called Tarantula.
3. An eyes-only profile of Milton from a Group Fifteen psychologist.
You can get your content for free, by signing up here.
Also By Mark Dawson
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Salvation Row
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Milton’s attempted good deed becomes a quest to unveil corruption at the highest levels of government and murder at the dark heart of the criminal underworld. Milton is pulled back into the game, and that’s going to have serious consequences for everyone who crosses his path.
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Blackout
A message from Milton’s past leads him to Manila and a confrontation with an adversary he thought he would never meet again. Milton finds himself accused of murder and imprisoned inside a brutal Filipino jail - can he escape, uncover the truth and gain vengeance for his friend?
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The Alamo
A young boy witnesses a murder in a New York subway restroom. Milton finds him, and protects him from corrupt cops and the ruthless boss of a local gang.
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Redeemer
Milton is in Brazil, helping out an old friend with a close protection business. When a young girl is kidnapped, he finds himself battling a local crime lord to get her back.
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Sleepers
A sleepy English town. A murdered Russian spy. Milton and Michael Pope find themselves chasing the assassins to Moscow.
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In the Beatrix Rose Series
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Blood and Roses
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The Assassin
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is the most dangerous city in the world. And when a mission to break the local cartel’s grip goes wrong, Isabella Rose, the Angel, finds herself on the wrong side of prison bars. Fearing the worst, Isabella plays her only remaining card…
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In the Soho Noir Series
Gaslight
When Harry and his brother Frank are blackmailed into paying off a local hood they decide to take care of the problem themselves. But when all of London’s underworld is in thrall to the man’s boss, was their plan audacious or the most foolish thing that they could possibly have done?
Free Download
The Black Mile
London, 1940: the Luftwaffe blitzes London every night for fifty-seven nights. Houses, shops and entire streets are wiped from the map. The underworld is in flux: the Italian criminals who dominated the West End have been interned and now their rivals are fighting to replace them. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, the Black-Out Ripper sharpens his knife and sets to his grisly work.
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The Imposter
War hero Edward Fabian finds himself drawn into a criminal family’s web of vice and soon he is an accomplice to their scheming. But he’s not the man they think he is - he’s far more dangerous than they could possibly imagine.
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About the Author
Mark Dawson is the author of the bestselling John Milton, Beatrix and Isabella Rose and Soho Noir series.
For more information:
www.markjdawson.com
[email protected]
AN UNPUTDOWNABLE ebook.
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by UNPUTDOWNABLE LIMITED
Copyright © UNPUTDOWNABLE LIMITED 2013-2014 v2
The moral right of Mark Dawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.