Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,63

can handle it. These killers don't want Nikki, or Porter, or Archer. They want you.'

'I won't leave them.'

She moved across and took hold of him, looking into his eyes, putting more emphasis behind her words.

'These men are coming to kill you, Tim. They won't stop until they do. They know exactly where you are, and they’ve almost succeeded twice today. How many times will they have to try before they get lucky?'

Cobb didn’t respond.

'You can still command the Unit from elsewhere. Please Tim, I'm begging you to leave. Please.'

Pause.

‘And don’t forget you’re putting everyone else here in danger by staying.’

He looked at her.

He knew she was right.

'Where would we go?' he asked her.

'My family's house. It's off the radar, and none of these men will know about it. They won't have a clue where you'll be. From there, you can organise your team. You can still run the operation and track these men down, Tim. At least you won't still be here, with a big target painted on your chest.'

Cobb thought about what she had said. His wife came from a wealthy family, and their home was a beautiful Hall an hour or so outside the city. Called Hawkings, after her family surname, it had been passed down from generation to generation over hundreds of years. It was a big place, over two hundred acres of parkland and forestry surrounding a beautiful large manor.

She had a point. None of the soldiers would have any idea about the place.

'Damn it,' he said, quietly. 'I hate it when you're right.'

'Which is often,' she said, standing on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek.

'I'll explain to Nikki what's happening,’ he said, giving in. ‘Before we go, I need to call Porter and tell him to take over until I’m established at the house.'

As he turned and headed into the ops room, his wife watched him go and finally let her abject relief show. Her husband could be stubborn and was so caught up in the current situation she was worried he'd lost perspective.

The enemy he was dealing with here were professionals. All that had saved him so far was a cocky thief and an inch of reinforced glass.

As she watched the man she loved talk with Nikki, she looked over at the damaged panes of his office and felt her anxiety rise. The dents and pockmarks on the glass told a chilling story.

The same as the bloodstains on the floor beneath her feet.

Hurry, she thought, watching her husband explain the situation.

She wanted to get the hell out of here.

Before the men who did that to the glass came back to finish the job.

EIGHTEEN

Across town, former British Army Corporal Nick King was panicking.

The bonus of working nights at the shopping mall meant he had his days to himself. He had the luxury of sleeping in, typically waking up around noon, and had settled into a routine of heading out to the gym for a workout before he came back and enjoyed a late lunch around 2:30 pm. That Thursday morning had begun like any other. He'd woken, climbed out from under the covers, used the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then pulled on some tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie and headed out the front door to the gym fifteen minutes away. He liked to hit the weights before he put in an hour on the treadmill, some resistance training, then a chance to blow his lungs out on a steep incline. He'd seen a lot of his peers, guys who used to serve in the army slack off once they left the service, but he refused to let that happen to him. Just turned thirty six years old, he still had the body he'd had when he was twenty two, and he refused to let age dictate how his physique looked in the mirror.

He’d been about half-way through his cardiovascular workout on the treadmill, working hard, when the two o'clock news began on the screen mounted on the wall in front of his machine. Seeing as it was a pretty upmarket gym, the television screens all had cable with the one directly in front of him tuned to CNN.

Judging from the opening montage of news-clips, it seemed that it had been a pretty chaotic morning both sides of the Atlantic. The headlines were dominated by reports of two suicides by the Thames and a car-bombing in the US, as well as the discovery of two other men found dead, one in his car and the