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  ***

  Daniel had just put the finishing touches to his presentation and felt sure it hit exactly the right note. He printed off a copy to take home and as he waited for it to print wondered how much longer Mr Walker, William, would be before he phoned back. It had already been a couple of hours. However, a knock on the door removed him from those thoughts.

  “Come in,” he shouted, surprised when a non descript man aged forty-five to sixty walked towards him and was not a security guard.

  “Mr Koning. Hi, my name is Joseph Clark.”

  The man crossed the office quickly and shook Daniel’s hand. Only after they shook did he realise he had failed to remove his gloves. He smiled apologetically as he removed them and sat down in the seat facing Daniel’s desk.

  Daniel didn’t hide his surprise.

  “Oh, I was expecting a call from Mr Walker.”

  “Yes, he sent me instead,” explained Clark.

  “So what do you do Mr Clark?” asked Daniel.

  “I resolve problems before they become problems.”

  “Sorry, but what the hell does that mean?”

  Clark rose from his seat, walked around Daniel’s desk and looked down the 92 floors to the ground below.

  “It means exactly what I said, I pre-empt issues and resolve them.”

  “What sort of issues do you pre-empt?”

  Clark walked back towards his seat. As he passed Daniel he withdrew a small pistol from his pocket and expertly placed a silencer on the barrel with the other. Daniel could only see Clark’s back and did not see what he was doing. As Clark turned around, the pistol pointed directly at Daniel whose face drained.

  “Problems like you Daniel.”

  Daniel stared speechless. His eyes eventually moved from the pistol to the family portrait.

  Clark, watching Daniel’s pleading eyes, shook his head with genuine sorrow.

  “I told you to forget our conversation but you just didn’t listen.”

  Clark walked around the desk, pulling his gloves back on and instructing Daniel to place his hands on the armrests of his seat. He removed two lengths of cord and lightly tied Daniel’s hands to the chair. The cord was similar to that used on dressing gowns and would leave no marks.

  Daniel relaxed slightly. He worked for one of the oldest and most respected banks in America. They weren’t going to kill him, he was just being taught a lesson. They were just scaring him. If they were going to kill him, he’d be dead already. He had read enough novels and seen enough movies to know that.

  Clark wheeled Daniel away from his desk and placed him facing the window.

  “Don’t move or struggle and you may just make it out of here alive,” said Clark as he headed back to Daniel’s computer.

  Daniel hearing those words became even more convinced this was just a scare tactic. He obviously had heard something he shouldn’t have and they were making sure he’d remember to forget. A strange clicking noise caught his attention and as his head turned, Clark shouted a warning.

  “Don’t even think about looking over here.”

  Five minutes later, Clark returned to his side and announced cheerily “all done” and began to remove Daniel’s cords. Once he had removed them he checked for any tell tale marks or threads. Finding none, he grabbed a leg of the huge desk with one hand before raising the pistol and shooting the window three times, as the window exploded outwards, the wind rushed in before being sucked back out with even more force than it had rushed in. Clark held tightly to the leg of the desk and gave Daniel’s chair a helping nudge towards the gaping hole.

  “Well you can’t say I’m not a man of my word, you left here alive.”

  He gave the chair a final push sending Daniel plunging a thousand feet to certain death. As the atmosphere stabilised, Clark quickly checked he had everything he needed. The three shell casings, Daniel’s presentation and the cords used to tie his hands.

  Within ten seconds of Daniel’s exit, Clark was in the corridor making his way towards the fire exit. He was not looking forward to descending the 92 floors on foot, especially having just climbed them but it was the only way in and out of the building without anyone knowing he had been there. Investigators would quickly conclude suicide especially as Daniel’s perfect life had been altered in the last two hours. The perfect wife and two kids would be seen as a cover for Daniel’s real life as a closet homosexual. Clark had loaded a significant amount of gay porn onto his computer along with a few love letters from his gay lover who had just ended their secret relationship which had pushed Daniel over the edge. Clark had replaced Daniel’s presentation with a suicide note claiming he could no longer go on being somebody he wasn’t, particularly not without his one true love, Juan.

  Chapter 6

  London to Cambridge was only 60 miles, less than an hour in a fast car via the M11. The eight men wasted no time and clambered aboard the two supercharged Range Rovers. The blue lights mounted within the grills would ensure there would be no unnecessary delays. Their orders had come through the normal channels but unlike most of their previous work, this was domestic, something none of them had previously experienced. Their talents were almost exclusively reserved for the less salubrious parts of the world. They were guns for hire but only for a select few. When a conflict needed to be swung in a particular direction these men and their colleagues could make the difference. However this mission was much simpler, no kings were to be crowned just one small problem solved.

  As they neared Junction 12 of the M11, they killed the blue flashing lights and blended in with the rest of the traffic, exiting the motorway and following the A603 towards the historic city centre. Taking Queen’s Road, they followed the banks of the River Cam until they turned right onto Garret Lane, crossing the Cam into the heart of Cambridge University’s Colleges. Pubs lined the street as they made their way slowly along it, looking for an ideal spot.

  The German and Belgian drivers, like their passengers, were ex-military battle-hardened men from a diverse group of nationalities who had fought in just about every corner of the globe; not necessarily, however, on the side of their own countries. These men fought for money, their strongest allegiance. The leader was a British ex-colonel who had left the army disillusioned by a government which had sometimes commanded him to defend corrupt regimes whilst at other times to stand back and do nothing while innocent people were slaughtered and on some occasions, commanded him to help remove legitimate governments. He eventually realised that it was all about money and power; it was rarely about doing the right thing. He had heard rumours of an elite outfit of guns for hire that operated globally, men who were ready to move at a moment’s notice. Men like him, well trained, experienced soldiers who no longer cared about politics and were willing to take risks for significant rewards. The Unit, as they were called, had men stationed throughout the world, men who could be called on twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year who were ready to go within the hour. What none of them realised was that although guns were for hire to the highest bidder, they actually only ever had one client.

  As a group, they exuded a power and authority which ensured that all but the bravest would turn and run - essential requirements in Third World war zones but not ideal for their current mission. The Colonel, however, had thought about this and had brought along a few props.

  As the Range Rovers swept down the tight streets that characterised the historic areas of the city, the Colonel suddenly commanded his driver to stop. Both cars immediately came to a halt and following the Colonel’s directions, reversed back to the small car park just behind them. The German driver stayed in the Range Rover. He had a slightly different task and with a nod from the Colonel, was on his way. Seventeen miles to the Northwest was the town of Huntingdon and home of the Huntingdon FSS branch.

  The men assembled at the rear of the remaining Range Rover to receive their orders from the Colonel. As he outlined his plan in detail the men began to laugh. If nothing else,
this was going to be fun. Happy that everybody knew what was required of them, the Colonel opened the rear of the Range Rover and removed the false floor. An array of weaponry was on offer, Heckler & Koch MP5’s, an Accuracy International L115A1 sniper rifle, Sig Sauer P226 pistols, a pump action shotgun and various grenades, smoke, fragment and flash bangs. All in all it was enough to start a small war and in itself outgunned the predominantly unarmed Cambridgeshire constabulary. However, the Colonel bypassed all the weapons and withdrew a carrier bag, from which he proceeded to withdraw six shirts, one for each of the men. Another bag contained cans of beer. These were opened and after a number of large gulps each man tipped the remainder of the beer down the front of his new shirt. The Colonel happy with each man’s appearance wished them luck before jumping back in the Range Rover and driving off.

  The six men wasted no time and made their way back to the pubs they had just driven past. Normally the six would have paired off and slowly worked their way down the street, one pair either side with the final pair bringing up the rear. Everybody in their path would have been scanned and an analysis made of any potential threat. If any were detected, it would have been eliminated immediately with overwhelming force. However, on this occasion, all training had to be left firmly behind and a more undercover approach assumed, one that would allow six hard and war torn mercenaries to walk down a street in middle England and blend in without drawing attention to their violent histories. The group huddled together and became raucous, their normal deliberate and assured footing replaced by a stumbling, clumsy gait that had them clinging on to one another to stay upright. The new beer stained rugby shirts added to the look. They were well chosen and defined the men as just another group of rugby players who didn’t know how to control their boozing after a Sunday kickabout. The rugby shirts were especially well chosen and would ensure the next part of the plan would kick in without much effort.

  ***

  The German slowed down as he approached the roundabout. The navigation screen told him that the FSS offices were on the other side of the small woods that lined the roadside. The job was rushed and as such he had no idea what level of security protected the government building. He did however expect the car parks to be monitored by CCTV and therefore would approach the building on foot. Noticing a small parking area further up on the left, he drove past the entrance to a small industrial estate and parked. Opening the rear of the Range Rover, he extracted a number of weapons, night vision goggles and a black jumpsuit. Closing the boot, he turned and disappeared quickly into the treeline.

  As he worked his way through the woods and towards the building, he could clearly see that there was only one car in the car park, just as the Colonel had predicted. Of course, being a Sunday night at 10 p.m., it was not a particularly enlightened prediction but all the same it did make the job all the easier. The German checked for surveillance cameras and noted that the front of the building and the car parks were covered by CCTV. However, he could see a way to weave through those without being seen, at least until he reached the front door. After that, he was fairly certain he would be picked up but he was going to have to cover his tracks inside the building anyway.

  ***

  John Yates, the young FSS scientist had spent the last three hours working through the DNA sample. Uploading it to the database had taken less than an hour. However the results were proving anything but normal. So far, the sample did not match that taken from any of the previous four victims. It seemed certain the suspect was not the serial rapist. As for the latest sample from the most recent victim, not only did it not match the suspect but it did not match the previous samples. Whoever had attacked the latest victim was not the serial rapist. It seemed the suspect was completely innocent, something even the young and naïve Yates knew was going to give the police a serious problem. It was bad enough beating up a suspect but an innocent suspect? Just as Yates reached for the phone to call his supervisor, his computer screen bleeped and a match flashed onto his screen. He replaced the receiver and checked the results.

  Sample Match *************** eyes only Def. Min. Send

  He’d never seen anything like it, as far as he knew he had access to every name in the system. Yates knew a thing or two about computers and tried to circumvent the security. He hadn’t wasted his Sunday evening to come up with a row of asterisks. After a number of dead ends, he eventually gave up. The area which had identified the match was deeply buried and not available to Yates. In fact, it wasn’t shared with any other system. Of the three million samples stored, it seemed that around 50 samples were partitioned in a highly secure secret area. As he reached for the phone, the buzzer at the main door sounded. Thinking the only person likely to visit at that hour was his supervisor, to check up on him, he quickly deleted all tracks of his search for the secure area and hit the Send button, which alerted the Defence Minister of the match. He was surprised to see his screen instantly clear of any reference to the sample. Obviously, another security feature, out of sight out of mind.

  The buzzer at the main door sounded again. John quickly double-checked he had cleared any sign of wrong doing and happy that everything looked OK, he ran to the front door. The main reception area was well lit and as John approached, he could see a man behind the door, most definitely not his supervisor. Skidding to a halt, his mind thought back to the DNA match and the reference to the Defence Minister. Instead of just opening the door, he walked across to the empty security desk and pressed intercom button.

  “Can I help?” he asked nervously.

  “Yes, open the door please,” replied the German in perfect English.

  “May I ask who you are?”

  “Police taskforce.” his said, sounding slightly irritated.

  John wasn’t sure but the words ‘police’ and ‘taskforce’ did seem to ring true. The man was in some sort of tactical outfit and certainly looked like and sounded like a policeman. John pressed the button and the door lock clicked open.

  The German picked up his kit bag, opened the door and stepped into the reception area.

  “Hi, I’m John” said John offering his hand to the German.

  “Hi. Karl,” responded the German shaking John’s hand.

  “I was just about to phone my supervisor, it seems you’ve got the wrong guy,” said John offering an update.

  “Oh, OK, can you show me please,” asked Karl, directing John back into the building and away from the door.

  “Of course, this way.”

  John led the way back to his workstation. On arrival at his desk, John began to explain how the six samples had been analysed. The four from the first four victims all matched but the last two didn’t match any of the others. Meaning they definitely had arrested an innocent man. John left out any mention of the match and the link to the Defence Minister, it wasn’t for him to tell non-FSS staff top secret results.

  After John’s in depth explanation, Karl asked, “So where are the samples, now?”

  John pointed to the small fridge at the side of his desk.

  “In there.”

  “OK, and the latest sample has been uploaded into the network?”

  “Of course, that’s how I checked it didn’t match.”

  “Can you show me.”

  “Yes.” John turned to his PC and showed Karl the readouts and the sampling that had been uploaded from the suspect.

  Karl listened intently as John detailed exactly how the system worked. Comfortable he understood everything he needed to, Karl placed one foot behind John’s chair and in one swift motion placed his hand on John’s chest and pushed. John’s chair moved back, caught Karl’s foot and with nowhere else to go, tipped backwards. Karl pushed harder as the chair began to tip. John struggled as his body followed the chair and fell backwards. As the momentum built, John’s neck hit the desk behind him and as Karl continued to push, John’s struggling stopped as his spine snapped at the base of his skull. Karl stopped pushing and let the dead weight drop to the floor.r />
  Karl took note of the point at which the chair had tipped and removing his knife carefully created a small rip in the carpet. Using another chair leg, he placed it in the small tear and pulled it backwards, the resultant ridge was exactly what he was after. Having staged the death scene, he moved towards the fridge. The DNA samples needed to be altered. Within ten minutes, he had taken the suspect’s sample, replaced it with a small amount of the serial rapist’s sample from one of the first four victims. Having sorted the physical evidence, he moved towards the computer and deleted any reference to the suspect’s real sample, replacing it with a copy of the serial rapist’s. He quickly checked for any evidence of his visit before heading down to the security office with a high power magnet to take care of any video evidence showing his arrival or soon to be departure.

  Five minutes later, Karl was in the Range Rover and driving back to Cambridge having insured the suspect was now well and truly guilty of four rapes. The tragic accidental death of the young scientist would lead to a huge health and safety clampdown across the country, warning employers of the dangers of damaged carpeting.

  ***

  The six mercenaries walked into the packed pub and found that their shirts did exactly what they had hoped. The pub instantly silenced.

  “What the fuck…are you guys taking the piss?” came the shout from a large group of students proudly wearing their light blue and white Cambridge University Rugby tops.

  “Fuck you, you fuckin’ pussy,” shouted one of the mercenaries, pushing the student in the chest.

  The moment the six burly men wearing Oxford University Rugby tops walked into the pub, the landlord had dialled 999. He had run pubs long enough to know when shit was about to hit the fan.

  Nobody was sure who threw the first punch but despite their size and number, the Cambridge students didn’t stand a chance. The mercenaries waded through them like a men versus boys fight. They had a lifetime of experience in brawling and knew not only how to throw a punch to maximum effect but just as importantly how to take one.