‘Anything else?’ Sam asked, not taking his eyes off the window.
‘The trigger.’ The young receptionist peeked over her blanket, nervous as all eyes fell on her. ‘He said it was a dead trigger. His thumb was on it.’
‘Jesus,’ Stout exclaimed.
‘What’s wrong?’ Singh asked, worried.
‘It’s a dead man’s switch,’ Sam interjected before Stout could. ‘If he takes his thumb off of it, then the whole hospital will come down.’
‘Sam…’ Singh began, but she knew it was pointless. The man had Lucy in the firing line. Even if the ARU targeted their guns at him, it wouldn’t stop Sam from trying to get to her.
‘Good luck,’ Stout said, before giving the order to the ARU to let Sam through. ‘They’ll be right behind you.’
‘Keep them a floor below,’ Sam demanded. ‘He wants just me. Let’s give him that.’
Stout nodded and stepped to the side; his attention pulled away by a frantic analyst who had raced towards them. Sam gave Singh a final look before he stepped forward towards the building, only halting when he heard the devastating words from the analyst.
They had discovered the man’s identity.
Sam’s wild suspicions about his attacker in Rome came true.
The man holding the hospital hostage. Who had strapped a bomb to his ex-wife?
His name was Matthew McLaughlin.
Mac.
Sam raced towards the doors of the hospital, ready confront a ghost from his haunted past.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TEN YEARS AGO…
The relentless heat of the sun bore down on the Afghanistan terrain like it held a grudge and Sam could feel the sweat dripping down the back of his shirt.
It had been two weeks since he’d been rescued by Theo and Marsden, their helicopter landing just outside of the war zone Sam had created.
A mission gone wrong.
Horribly wrong.
What should have been a simple elimination soon became a fight for survival, as a missile had sent Sam sprawling down the cliff face. The fact that he’d survived had been a miracle, and the sacrifice of a local doctor had been what had kept him alive. The doctor, Farhad Nabizada, had kept Sam alive, treating his wounds from the explosion, and eventually giving his own life to protect Sam and his children.
Tamir and Masood.
A local Taliban recruitment operation had laid siege to the doctor’s home, then murdered the loving father in cold blood in front of his children.
Sam had avenged him, slaying the entire regiment.
He had asked Marsden, his commanding officer, to help find the children, but they’d vanished. Lost in the abyss of war.
But now, as Sam trudged across the stony cliff face from which he tumbled, he was searching for someone else.
Mac.
Mac was gone.
‘Come on, Sam.’
Theo Walker, Sam’s best friend and one of the finest medics in the team, rested his hand on Sam’s shoulder in comfort. Sam stepped away, walking slowly to the scorched earth where the missile impacted.
‘I can’t leave him,’ Sam stated, scanning the endless horizon in hope.
‘We’ve been searching for days.’ Theo sighed. ‘Marsden has sent two choppers to find him. He’s gone, Sam. Wallace has already confirmed it.’
Sam felt his fingers tighten into a fist and his arm shook with rage. He had promised Mac he would keep him alive and he’d failed. Despite everything Sam went through in the small village of Chikari below the cliff, he’d not been able to keep his promise.
Sam was built to survive.
Mac, sadly, had not.
‘What if he is still out there?’ Sam wondered out loud, before turning to face his friend. ‘What if he needs us, right now? We can’t just walk away. He’s one of us.’
‘Sam, Mac was a great soldier. But we all know the price we pay for this job. He died in the fight against oppression. The war on terror has a number of casualties, believe me, I’ve tried my best to lower that number.’ Theo shook his head solemnly. ‘But Mac died in the heat of battle. Don’t take that away from him. And for the love of God, Sam, don’t carry this burden with you. You did everything you could.’
Sam sighed.
Theo was right. It annoyed him how often he had to admit that. With one final look towards the wasteland before them, Sam offered a silent apology to Mac, promising himself that he would do everything to honour the man’s memory. Later that afternoon, he once again relayed the story to Wallace, who begrudgingly submitted Mac’s death record into the system, declaring the young soldier KIA.
Sam had done everything he could.
But the guilt of the young man’s death was something he knew he would never be able to wash away.
* * *
With each step of his boot echoing through the empty reception, Sam felt the unnerving emptiness of the building. Usually, the hospital would have been a hive of activity, but under the severe threat of an explosion, it presented Sam with a dark and ghostly atmosphere.
Like the world had ended and he was walking through its remains.
Rows upon rows of plastic seats sat empty, the coffee shop abandoned. There was nobody stationed behind the reception desk and Sam approached it, knowing his every move was being monitored from the outside. Sam climbed over the desk, dropping behind to the staff only area. His right hand was throbbing, and he checked the bandage which has stained red with blood.
Etheridge’s handiwork wasn’t holding.
Sam searched the drawers and found another roll of bandages and wrapped another layer around his wounded hand. It would do for now.
Taped to the desk was an itinerary of the numerous departments and wards which were dotted throughout the incredible medical facility and Sam ran through them. Handily, they were listed by floor and then in alphabetical order and it didn’t take long for Sam to find the extension number. With over twenty patients on the ward under siege, the police had not disengaged the power to the building and Sam lifted the phone and welcomed the dial tone.
He tapped in the four digits and the phone began to ring.
* * *
The longer the wait, the harder it was for Mac to keep his mind straight. For a decade, he’d dreamt of this moment.
There was never a plan in place on how he would get to this point, but the thought of killing Sam, of putting him through his own hell, was what had fuelled his survival.
Waiting for them to present Sam to him was intolerable, and Mac felt like a petulant kid who couldn’t wait for Christmas Eve to be over.
With his thumb pressed firmly on the trigger, he paced the foyer of the Teenage and Young Adult ward, fighting to keep control. Lucy still sat on the first chair of a row of five, and beyond her, nurses pottered between rooms, doing their best to keep the terrified patients calm.
The shrill ring of the phone cut through the silent tension like a knife and Mac raised his only eyebrow. Holding up the trigger as a warning for no one to do anything stupid, he rounded the desk and lifted the receiver.
‘Hello.’
Mac froze.
Sam’s voice drilled into his ear and an avalanche of memories flooded back. Their time together in the army camps, the lukewarm beer while hiking through rough terrain.
A genuine friendship.
But Mac gritted his teeth, refusing to offer the man a greeting. Beyond the desk, Mac noticed Lucy’s eyes light up in a misguided sense of hope. With no response forthcoming, Sam continued.
‘Mac? Is it really you?’
Again, nothing. Mac held his jaw tight, pulling his charred lips into a thin line.
‘Jesus, I thought you were dead. They told me you were dead. I’m downstairs in the reception, but if you want me to come up and we do this face to face, then you need to let everyone else go. Okay?’
Mac shuffled uncomfortably, his breathing loud enough to inform Sam he was listening.
‘Those kids are sick, Mac. Th
ey need to be treated somewhere safe. If you let everyone go, I promise you, I will come upstairs.’
Mac scoffed.
Sam had made promises before and Mac valued them as much as he valued the lives of all the captives under his instruction. But Mac knew that Sam had a sense of purpose, one that he’d once admired.
One that he’d desired himself.
When Wallace told Mac that he needed him to track Sam down six months ago, he’d warned Mac of Sam’s hero complex. That he would tear apart anything that stood in his way if it meant saving an innocent life.
This wasn’t a negotiation.
It was a necessary move to get what he wanted. With his grip tightening around the phone, Mac finally spoke.
‘Fine. But she stays. Then you have thirty seconds, or I will kill her.’
Mac slammed the phone down with a force that shattered its plastic coating. Lucy, having heard the ominous threat, looked hopefully towards the nurses, encouraging them to follow Mac’s instructions. He strode into the centre of the corridor, with the trigger and his pistol held out for all to see.
A visual warning that he wasn’t playing a game.
‘You are all free to leave. Get out now.’
Confusion spread around the ward and Mac sighed, then blasted another bullet into the ceiling, ripping through the cheap panels and causing a light fixture to drop, entangled in wires. A scream of terror accompanied it and Mac’s voice rose with his rage.
‘Everyone out. Now!’
With the reality of the situation hitting home, the nurses and doctors leapt into action, helping their patients from their beds or chairs, and slowly, they began to file down the corridor. As a few of the teenagers shuffled past, holding their drips, Mac could feel their terrified stares.
In their eyes he was a monster.
He looked away, furious at where the road to redemption had led him.
If he was a monster, then he wanted the person responsible for making him so.
A cleaner who spoke little English, wheeled out a bed, under the guidance of a doctor who was whispering comforting words to a terminally sick teenager, who was slipping in and out of consciousness. As the final doctor approached the door, he turned back to Mac, nodding towards Lucy.
‘And her?’
Mac aimed the gun at the young doctor’s face.
‘She stays.’
The doctor offered Lucy a sympathetic eyebrow raise, but his loyalty was to his patients and he turned and hurried towards the lift. The doors closed and it began its ascension. Mac would give them a minute or so to vacate the building.
Once it passed, he pulled Lucy from her chair and marched her thirty feet down the corridor and shoved her to her knees. Facing the door, Mac pressed the gun against the top of her skull, and she shook with fear. Tears ran down her cheeks, before crashing to the clean tiles below.
Mac began to count.
‘Thirty…twenty-nine…twenty-eight…’
* * *
Sam held open the emergency door beside the revolving entrance and ushered the nurses and patients out as quickly as he could. They burst out into the rainy night, some of them shaking with fear, others infuriated that a situation like this had manifested.
The Armed Response Unit stood to the side, allowing police officers and other nurses to rush to the aid of the group, with the more seriously stricken patients quickly whisked away in ambulances, the sirens wailing as they headed to the nearest hospitals.
As the final doctor raced through the door, the ARU began to fall into position, but Sam looked to Stout and held up a hand, shaking his head.
‘Stand down.’ Stout ordered, much to the unit’s disappointment and Sam shut the door. He didn’t have long, and he burst into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. Lucy was still up there, no doubt terrified for her life and the child waiting for her at home.
Sam may not have been able to save their son, but he wouldn’t allow Lucy’s daughter to grow up without a mother.
Whatever it took, Sam was willing to sacrifice.
As he bounded up to the door, marked with a large 3 sign, Sam felt his heart pound.
Not a day had gone by that he hadn’t beaten himself up about Mac’s death. Sam had failed to keep him safe, and despite his best efforts, he never found his fallen friend.
There were no words he could offer Mac. Sam knew that.
He was out of ideas.
He was unarmed.
There was no plan.
All Sam had was himself, which is exactly what Mac had demanded. Whatever happened, Sam had to get Lucy out of the building.
Sam marched through the corridor, following the signs to the ward. As he rounded the final corner, he was welcomed by an already open door and he stepped through, ready to deal with the wrath of days gone by.
He saw Lucy first, on her knees, her eyes red, her cheeks wet with tears. Wrapped around her was a barbaric vest, lined with enough explosives to wipe them off the face of the earth.
Pressed against her blonde hair was a gun.
Sam stopped dead with shock at the horribly scarred face of the man holding it. The man’s stare bore a hole through Sam, which felt like it knocked him off balance.
Sam could barely muster the words.
‘Mac?’
‘What’s the matter, Sam? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sam took a few tentative steps forward, his hands held up in surrender. He scanned the corridor, but there were no details worth remembering. A friend he thought dead stood less than twenty feet away, with his ex-wife teetering on the edge of extinction.
No minor details could help him now.
The trade seemed simple enough.
‘Mac. I thought you were dead.’
Mac lifted the gun and pointed it squarely at Sam.
‘That’s close enough.’
Sam stopped on the spot and his heart broke. Mac’s youthful face bore the horrific scars of a man who went beyond his own pain threshold. Sam felt the tears begin to form in his eyes and he looked to Lucy, who looked on helplessly.
‘Lucy, are you okay?’
‘What do you think?’ Mac spat; his familiar Manchurian accent brought back echoes of the night Sam almost died in Rome. ‘This is your fault, Sam.’
‘Mac, just let her go. She has nothing to do with this.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’ Mac agreed, the gun still pointed at Sam’s chest. ‘But imagine being put through more pain than humanly possible and knowing that you had promised you would protect her. That you would keep her safe.’
Sam took another step closer, the gap down to less than ten feet and Mac shifted the gun and pointed it at Lucy once more, causing her to weep loudly.
‘I said stay where you are.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Sam held his hands up again. Above Mac, the halogen light was flickering, hanging from its wires, an errant bullet hole next to it.
‘You left me, Sam. You left me for them.’
‘I tried to save you,’ Sam said.
‘You abandoned me. Do you know what they did to me? They kept me in a fucking cage for years. They beat me, they cut me, pissed on me. They raped me. I was their pet, feeding on scraps while you were given medal after medal and got to live the life YOU wanted.’
Mac’s voice was getting louder with each horrific memory, spit dribbling from his mouth as his crazed anger took over. He pointed the gun at Sam again.
‘You promised me, Sam. Promised me you would bring me back.’
‘Mac, they told me you had died. Wallace even signed your death certificate.’
Mac pointed the gun a few inches above Lucy’s head and pulled the trigger. She screamed in pain, holding her ear as the bullet shattered the thin plaster wall behind her. Sam took a step closer in panic, but Mac lifted the gun once more.
‘One more step and I’ll blow her brains out,’ Mac threatened. ‘Wallace saved me. He pulled me out of that hellhole, and h
e gave me more than I ever thought possible. Then you killed him. You took that from me, too.’
‘Wallace was a terrorist. And I didn’t kill him.’
‘Get on your knees,’ Mac said coldly. Sam took another step closer and Mac pressed the gun against Lucy’s head. Blood was trickling from her hair, the blast from the handgun damaging her ear drum. ‘Get on your fucking knees.’
Sam obliged.
‘Can you please just let her go? She has nothing to do with this.’ Sam caught Lucy’s eye and offered her a smile, his undying love for her shining through. ‘Everything is going to be fine. Just stay calm.’
‘Do you know what it feels like to want to die? To dream that today is your last day on this planet?’ Mac asked, enjoying watching Sam on his knees, begging for mercy. ‘Every day I woke up in that cage, I begged whatever twisted God was watching that it would be my last. That when they dragged my naked body out into the sun, they would finally go too far. Do you know what that’s like?’
Sam kept his eyes on Lucy, trying his best to keep her calm. He looked up at his former partner, shaking his head.
‘Mac, I am sorry for what happened.’
‘Answer my question.’
‘Yes. I have. I felt that way for a long time. But like you, I made it out the other side. You don’t have to go down this path, Mac. Put the gun down and let me help you.’
Mac chuckled and then broke into a sinister laugh, his grasp on his composure slowly dissipating.
‘Help me? It’s too late for that, Sam.’ Mac turned the gun back onto Lucy. ‘I prayed for death for seven years. You better start praying, too.’
Lucy’s eyes widened in terror and Sam felt a tear roll down his cheek. There was no coming back from this. Mac was beyond salvation. All he wanted, regardless of the cost, was for Sam to suffer.
To pay for his alleged betrayal.
Think, Sam. Think.
Mac, with his eyes focused on the woman, regrettably straightened his arm, ready to absorb the impact of the gunshot.
The Final Mile: A SAM POPE NOVEL Page 22