And Abbott took the shot.
CHAPTER 58
Kilgore’s body fell backwards away from Tess, who launched herself forward into Abbott’s grasp. For a second, he felt as though there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be, feeling almost desolate as she then hauled herself away with a look of panic and alarm, maybe even the fringes of hysteria. ‘The children,’ she said. ‘The children? Phil?’
‘He was bluffing, Tess,’ Abbott told her. ‘He was trying it on to get the drop on me, and it nearly worked.’
‘How can you be sure?’
The answer was that of course he couldn’t be sure, but McGregor came forward with a phone. ‘Can you try them?’ he was saying to her. At the same time he gave Abbott a look as though trying to exhort him to finish his business here. Abbott ignored it, staying with Tess as she dialled, trying not to interrogate his own feelings too hard, afraid of what they might reveal about him.
‘Oh, thank God,’ she was saying. Next, she was clearly responding to the worry at the other end of the line, trying to put her husband’s mind at rest, telling him she was fine, that she was with Alex. And then taking a deep breath and blurting it out. ‘Phil, I think you should get out. I think you should leave the house. Just to be on the safe side.’ God knows what he was saying at the other end of the line. ‘Just, please, please do as I ask. Just as a precaution. Yes, call the police . . .’
Abbott reached out to her. ‘No,’ he hissed, ‘whatever he does, don’t call the police. This lot,’ he gestured outside the open door of the room, across the quad to the conference room door, ‘they’ve got the police in their pockets. They’ve got the whole establishment sewn up. Just tell him to get out of there, go to a hotel. Is there a place that you both know where you can meet without saying so on an open line?’
‘Did you get that?’ she said into the phone.
Even at one remove, Abbott could hear the bewilderment in Phil’s voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ she tried to placate him. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
‘We have to go,’ Abbott told her softly, quietly, aware that McGregor was hopping about, wanting Tess to wind-up and trying to arrest Abbott’s full attention.
‘Abbott, we’ve got to go. We’ve got to get them,’ said McGregor. He was pointing now – pointing across the quad to the conference-room door.
‘Wait,’ Abbott told him furiously. ‘Wait – we’re not doing anything. Nothing until I say so, OK?’
But that wasn’t good enough, not for McGregor. Before Abbott could stop him, he’d grabbed his weapon from the waistband of Abbott’s jeans and was darting out of the guest suite. He was halfway around the balcony before Abbott could even react.
And something occurred to Abbott. He wondered why they had neither seen nor heard anything of the Nortons.
He wondered why there had been no guard stationed at the door of the conference room.
As he made it to the door of the guest suite, he shouted a warning across to McGregor. If there were no guards outside then they were inside, and if they were inside then McGregor was a sitting duck.
Except it wasn’t that, was it? Because as McGregor reached the door and recklessly threw it open to storm inside, Abbott from his vantage point could see directly through the anteroom and into the conference room.
Which was empty.
And too late, he saw the trip wire.
EPILOGUE
The gravedigger sat on a bench beneath a tree watching the funeral that was taking place a hundred yards or so away. Apparently, the deceased who had died of a heroin overdose went by the name Simon Norton. The gravedigger had never heard of him, but since he was the son of Sir Charles Norton, the famous billionaire, also recently deceased, he got a proper send-off and a place in the family plot.
Expensive cars had decanted immaculately dressed mourners who were all now clustered around the grave edge as the priest went through the service. Not a huge attendance by any means. Looking at them, the gravedigger thought that they were probably all immediate family. There was a much older woman, for example, who was probably the widow of Sir Charles. Now, what was her name? There was a glamorous woman the gravedigger took to be the mother of the deceased. Another man. The father? A slightly scruffily dressed young man. A brother, perhaps? It was difficult to tell.
Standing slightly to one side was a cluster of men in dark suits that he took to be assistants and/or security men.
What escaped the notice of the gravedigger – and indeed of the security men who should have known better – was a figure who, under the gaze of the disinterested chauffeurs who stood smoking by their cars, moved from the perimeter road, past the cars and towards the funeral. To the extent that any of the drivers thought about this man at all, they thought, This should be interesting. Should be a bit of a show when security get their hands on this turkey.
The man wore a long mac, suitable attire for the weather. As he narrowed the distance between himself and the funeral, he opened the mac. Slightly awkwardly, thanks to his still-wounded arm, he took from it a Heckler & Koch MP7 that had once belonged to a man named Owen Flyte.
He raised the MP7 to his shoulder and began firing.
The security men died first. Kennedy, being part of that group, also fell, followed shortly by the lawyer, Jeffrey Coombs, who had been reluctant to attend the funeral but thought he should pay his respects. Next to die were Ross, Montana and Cliff.
The last to fall was Juliet Norton, who lay beside her son’s open grave with a bullet in her chest, not far from where the vicar cowered, traumatised but otherwise unharmed.
She looked up at the man who had come to kill her.
‘You,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Abbott dispassionately, ‘me.’
He put a bullet in her head, and then turned and ran to the perimeter road and into the passenger seat of an Audi waiting there.
In the driving seat, Tess.
He looked at her. ‘They’ll be coming for us,’ he told her. ‘Everybody will be coming for us. Everybody.’
Ex-Special Forces soldier Alex Abbott escaped the Middle East under a cloud and now lives hand-to-mouth in Singapore. Scraping a living as a gun for hire and estranged from his family, Abbott is haunted by ghosts of the past, drinking to dull the pain.
When a job goes badly wrong, Abbott’s in hot water. Next he learns that his military son, Nathan, is missing in Iraq. Knowing something is wrong, Abbott has no choice but to go back.
As the body count rises and old wounds open, Alex he struggles to confront his demons, self-medicating the only way he knows how. But when one of his old crew turns up dead in mysterious circumstances and the link with Nathan is clear, Abbott begins to suspect a trap.
But who is the hunter? And who is the hunted?
Where is your break point?
Is it here? Facing the gruelling SAS selection process on one leg, with a busted ankle and the finish line nowhere in sight?
Or here? Under heavy fire from armed kidnappers while protecting journalists en route to Baghdad?
Or is it here? At the bottom of a bottle, with a family in pieces, unable to adapt to a civilian lifestyle, yearning for a warzone?
Ex-Special Forces soldier Ollie Ollerton has faced many break points in his life and now he tells us the vital lessons he has learnt. His incredible story features hardened criminals, high-speed car chases, counter-terrorism and humanitarian heroics.
How do you make a commitment and achieve your goals?
How do you end procrastination and hesitation that feeds self-doubt? How do you learn to be courageous in all aspects of your life?
Ollie Ollerton knows more than his fair share about keeping going. As a recruit he survived the infamously tough SAS selection process on a busted ankle with the Directing Staff pleading with him to give up. But it’s in Ollie’s personal life that he really had to dig deep. At his lowest he was battling a failed relationship, substance abuse, depression and a reckless disregard for his own l
ife.
In Battle Ready, Ollie tells the story of how he turned his life around and passes on the lessons he has learned. He shares the step-by-step plan that changed his life. From finding purpose and visualising an outcome, to breaking bad habits and establishing positive new routines, his advice will help readers to overcome their own obstacles; to become ready for any battle.
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