Andy McNab: Avenger

He found the neatly typed envelope bearing a blue company logo in the central drawer of the desk. It was addressed to his son, and as Charles Pointer II took out the perfectly folded letter, he saw that his hands were trembling.

The paper was expensive, with a watermark. In one corner was the same blue company logo, and beneath the logo was the name Hanover, a British finance company, with the address of its New York offices. Pointer's heart tightened in his chest.

He read the short, businesslike letter inviting his son for an interview that morning at 9 a.m.

At that moment he knew. Chuck, his beloved seventeen-year-old son, was dead.

Pointer's legs felt as though they could no longer support him and he sank down onto Chuck's bed. He stared at the letter, but he was no longer seeing the words. Instead, the horrifying images he had watched throughout the day came back into his mind. The planes, the flames, victims hurling themselves to their death, the Twin Towers collapsing one after another, the billowing black smoke and dust enveloping whole blocks of the city.

He had no idea how long he sat on the bed, staring at the letter, but eventually the words on the page came into focus again. He re-read the letter, and his eyes fixed on the last line before the 'Yours sincerely' and the signature: 'I look forward to seeing you.'

'I look forward to seeing you,' he whispered. But Charles Pointer II could never again look forward to seeing his precious son. Not in this lifetime.

The printed words began to blur on the paper, and Pointer eventually realized that they were slowly dissolving, being washed away. By his own silent tears.

Chuck's body was never identified, or, like hundreds of others, it was simply never found. The memorial service was simple, dignified. Some of Chuck's school-friends; a few very old and very distant relatives; some business associates.

Charles Pointer II was now alone. His wife had died four years earlier and since then – before then, if he was totally honest with himself – all his love and energy had been channelled towards his son's welfare and future. Now there was no future.

In the days, weeks and months that followed, the USA and the rest of the world attempted to come to terms with the enormity of the outrage committed on 9/11.

'Life must go on,' said many of the family and friends of the victims. 'They would want us to go on. To remember them, but to go on.'

But Charles Pointer II never came to terms with what had happened. First he was overwhelmed by grief, then grief gave way to anger, and then that anger grew to an all-consuming rage – and a quest for revenge. And then Pointer began making his plans.

The family business was easy to sell, particularly as it went for a knockdown price. But that still meant many millions of dollars, far more than Pointer would ever need.

Once the deal was concluded, Pointer retreated to his summer home in The Hamptons. The long stretch of coastline was just a couple of hours away from Manhattan and was famed as the playground of New York's rich and famous.

Pointer's mock-Gothic mansion, surrounded by high chain-link fencing and even higher gate, became his fortress. The doors were locked and the shutters at the windows were closed and secured. From then on he never left the safety and sanctuary of his fortress, and only ever had face-to-face contact with one man.

Herman Ramirez had turned up at the Pointers' summer home some fifteen years earlier, offering his services as a gardener and general handyman. There were no references – Herman had arrived in the US as an illegal immigrant from Mexico several years before that.

Pointer had almost sent him packing. But something about the quietly spoken, polite but determined Mexican made him stop and listen. Herman explained that he was a good gardener, had trained as a mechanic in Mexico, was hardworking and trustworthy.

Pointer believed him, and he remembered the Pointer family motto: initiative and determination. He took him on, part-time at first, but Herman soon made himself indispensable. For the first five years he travelled in every day from his tenement room in New York. Occasionally, when there was a lot to do, he would stay over in the small separate annexe.

Eventually he just moved in. For good. Not just because he had become a loyal and trusted member of the Pointer household, but also because he'd become a firm friend and favourite of young Chuck.

He was now one of the family. He had no family of his own – or none that he had ever mentioned – and he treated Chuck as if he were his own son. At Chuck's memorial service Pointer and Herman had stood side by side, weeping silently.

Now they met when it was necessary. Pointer would summon him by mobile and Herman would use his key to the back door of the darkened house. Then he would wait until his master emerged from the gloom. They would discuss what was necessary, what was required, and then go back to their separate tasks. They never spoke about Chuck; there was nothing more they could say.

From the outside, the house and grounds looked just as they always had. Neat, tidy, well-clipped hedges, fir trees and trimmed lawns.

Inside, it was totally different. Changed completely, like its owner. Most of the rooms were no longer used; they simply gathered dust behind closed curtains and fixed shutters. The few rooms Pointer inhabited in the eastern wing of the grand building never saw daylight. The decorative chandeliers were never switched on. Pointer moved around and operated in nothing more than the light from a single small lamp. Darkness had enveloped his soul. His world was darkness too.

Pointer's rage against the world was all-consuming. Families like his were the backbone of the country; they were the moneymakers, the employers, the sort of family that had made America great. But now it had ended; the last of the line was dead. And Pointer blamed not just Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden or Muslim extremists in general. He blamed the whole world. The warmongers, the arms sellers, the empire builders, the Americans, the British. Black, white, Muslim, Christian, Jew. The entire world and everyone in it was responsible for snatching away Pointer's beloved son, and the entire world would have to pay.

However long it took, Charles Pointer III – Charlie Three, Chuck – would be avenged.

The brush-contact exercise needed to be repeated and perfected after the dismal showing Danny and Elena had put on the last time they had attempted it.

The failure was mainly down to Elena, although Danny had blamed himself when Fergus gave them a hard time during the debrief back at the hotel. But Elena was having none of it: it was her cock-up; it was up to her to get it right.

'It's up to both of you to get it right,' Fergus had told them. 'You're a team, we're a team, and a mistake by one could lead to the death of another. So, first and foremost, we're looking out for each other. Got it?'

They both nodded. When he put it like that, the full realization of what they had agreed to be part of hit home. Hard.

Fergus had lived by the seven Ps maxim – Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance – during his years in the SAS, and nothing was going to change now.

But the training had to be quick and intense – there was no knowing when Black Star would decide he had groomed Elena sufficiently for her to carry out an attack. Every effort was being made to trace the whereabouts of Black Star's lair, but so far they had found nothing.

With each passing day it seemed more likely that Black Star would move Elena on to an attack phase. She hadn't been in regular contact with him for long, but she seemed to be convincing him that she was as disillusioned with life as the other teenagers he had picked to carry out his terrible revenge. When he decided to go ahead, Marcie Deveraux was convinced that he would have to reveal more information to her; information that would ultimately lead to his downfall.