Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,66

some of the greatest of his life. He'd mistakenly figured it would all last forever.

But it hadn't. His wife had become pregnant the year before and although they’d been expecting just one child, they’d had twins. After a decade of being absent and away on operations with the Rangers overseas, she’d begged him to leave the military. She told him she needed him around to help her with the two babies, but he also knew that she wanted her boys to grow up with their father, not just look at images of him in photograph frames or ultimately at a wooden coffin lifted off a plane from some foreign country, an American flag laid across the top as a brass trumpet played on the runway.

He’d relented and mustered out in December, saying goodbye to his fellow Rangers and a career he’d spent sixteen years building. He’d applied and been accepted for the job in this office, offered a reasonable salary and no healthcare. Considering the responsibilities he’d used to carry, like taking on rebel forces in Iraq or performing covert hostage rescues in Kosovo, reviewing software specifications paled in comparison.

He had arrived just over an hour ago, Thursday, two days before the weekend, and was at his desk examining some emails on his computer, most of them from disgruntled customers asking a question about the company products or claiming something didn't work and demanding action. He reached over and picked up a cup of coffee by the screen, taking a sip and hoping that the more he read the complaint on the screen the more he would end up giving a damn about it.

As he leant back, bored already, he caught a glimpse of some movement in the long window running down the upper half of the door to his office. Leaning right, he saw two men in suits talking with one of the workers out there. The two men both looked his way and then started heading straight for his office, spotting him through the glass. They looked official, definitely government men, and in a hurry, one of them holding a cell phone to his ear and talking into it, keeping his eyes on Fraser. The former US Ranger could have picked them out in a crowd. CIA, or maybe NSA. Square jaws, clean shaven, pistols in pancake holsters hidden under their suit jackets. He took a long pull from his cup of coffee as they approached wondering what they wanted, secretly thankful for the break in his monotonous routine. He felt his pulse quicken, for the first time in a long time, that old rush, like a junkie scoring a fix.

Finally, some excitement.

Suddenly, there was a smash of glass as something hit the window of his office.

The bullet hit Fraser in the side of the head, shredding through his skull and brain and exiting the other side in a bloody spray, killing him in an instant. He was dead before his cup of coffee hit the desk. The mug hit the table side-on, the hot liquid spilling out over the keyboard and the dead man’s thighs. Fraser dropped from his seat, the spattering of his blood and brains a harsh red on the clean white of the far office wall.

The two CIA agents in suits saw all this through the window and rushed forward, barging open the door. Looking down at the dead man, they both pulled their pistols, shouting back at everyone else on the level to get down as they tried to see where the shot had come from.

NINETEEN

Back in London, Archer and Chalky moved fast up the stairs of the apartment building, their MP5s tight to their shoulders and in the aim, scaling the steps quickly and silently. They arrived on 8, and Chalky grabbed the door handle. He looked at Archer, who nodded, and he pulled the door open.

Archer was the first into the corridor, looking straight down through the aimed MP5's hair-trigger.

And he saw King.

The man was slumped against the wall in front of the lift doors, a smeared red stain behind him from where he had been shot in the head and his body had slid down the wall. He had a carry-on bag next to him on the ground, the bag half-unzipped, clothes spilling to the floor. Archer and Chalky ran down the corridor, coming to a halt by the dead man. Just then, the elevator arrived and the doors parted, Porter and Fox seeing for themselves what had happened.

'Oh Jesus