Chris Ryan - Who Dares Wins

Chances were it was just some guy waiting for his girlfriend, or his dealer, or who just happened to be standing outside Sam’s house. But there was no doubt that Sam felt a cold, bristling uncertainty, a kind of sixth sense that experience had taught him never to ignore. He checked the weapon quickly before leaving the bathroom and walking back down the corridor, the shallow, steady sound of his breath the only noise in his ears.

He stopped at the door to the front room, pressed his back against the wall and, squinting his eyes slightly, peered across the room and out of the window. Sam gripped the weapon a little bit more firmly when he realised the figure under the lamppost was no longer there.

Out of the blue, a motorbike roared down the street. It made Sam start momentarily, but more than that it messed with his hearing, which had been carefully tuned to the quiet. The noise of the motor took a while to fade; only when it had finally disappeared could Sam readjust his ears to the thick silence of his flat.

But silence wasn’t what he heard.

It was faint, but it was there: the sound of footsteps. They were brisk and they were getting louder.

Sam felt his jaw setting solid. The handgun was pointed out in front of him now as he backed up and headed towards the front door.

The top panel was made of frosted glass. He stood several metres from it and held the gun at arm’s length towards the door. Head height. His eyes twitched slightly as he watched the blurred silhouette of a figure come into view. It was easy to determine the curved outline of the man’s hooded top, the broad shape of his shoulders.

It would take two shots, he calculated, to kill him. One to shatter the glass, one to finish him off. And Sam was ready to do it; ready to defend himself at the first sign of danger.

The figure remained perfectly still. In some part of his brain that was not concentrating on keeping the guy in his sights, Sam wondered if the hooded figure knew he was there.

Movement.

Sam’s trigger finger twitched.

A noise.

It was the sound of the letter box opening. Sam watched as an envelope slowly glided through the hole in his door. Instinctively he threw his back to the wall, not knowing whether that envelope was concealing something else; but it fell harmlessly to the floor. Almost immediately, the silhouette melted away and Sam heard once more the sound of footsteps, getting quieter this time. He ran to the front room window just in time to see the unknown delivery boy disappear round the corner of the street.

Only then did he shake his head. Jesus, he thought to himself. And you thought Dad was paranoid. He felt stupid. He felt angry with himself. But why, then, did he still not want to turn on the lights?

Why did he still not want to illuminate himself?

Why did he still feel safer with the gun in his hand?

He stepped away from the window and returned to the front door. The envelope was still lying there.

Sam Redman bent down and picked it up.

It was a plain, brown A4 envelope. There was no writing on the front and the seal had been Sellotaped down. It crossed Sam’s mind as he opened it up that the lack of saliva on the seal would make it difficult for anyone to discover who this envelope had come from, if they were of a mind to do so.

Inside there was a thin sheaf of papers stapled together at one corner. In the darkness of the hallway Sam was unable to read what they said; he made his way back to the bathroom, closed the door and switched on the light above the shaving mirror. Only then, as he sat perched on the edge of the bath, did he start to read.

The document consisted of four pages. It was barely legible, however, because large chunks of the text had been blacked out. At the top of the front page was an official stamp.

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

SUPPRESSED UNDER DA-NOTICE 05 (UNITED KINGDOM SECURITY & INTELLIGENCE SERVICES & SPECIAL SERVICES)

Sam read those bits of the text that remained: ‘ .. a car park of a service station on the M4 … cold day … seemed agitated … second meeting in a country pub … ’ It was meaningless to Sam. He held the paper up to the light, hoping to read what was underneath. Nothing doing. Whatever this was, it had been heavily censored. Someone had wanted to make sure that it was incomprehensible. They’d done a good job.

But there was something else.

On the top page, scrawled in blue biro and roughly circled, was a name – Clare Corbett – and next to it a telephone number. A mobile.

Sam looked at the number for a good long while. He even went so far as to punch it into his phone. But something stopped him from dialling. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. Everything was so muddled, so confusing. Who was this Clare Corbett? Did the document he held in his hand come from her? What was the point of him seeing it if he couldn’t understand a word that was written?

No. This wasn’t right. He saved the number to his phone, but didn’t dial. He had a another idea.

Sam glanced at his watch. Ten thirty. He couldn’t believe that the day had passed – it seemed like only a few minutes ago that he was in the briefing back at HQ. It was late, but that didn’t matter. He sniffed and then searched for another number on his phone. Nodding with satisfaction when it appeared on his screen, he allowed his thumb to hover over the dial button.

He stopped again, then shook his head. No. He knew that it was too easy for someone to listen in on his phone calls and until he knew what the hell this was all about, that wasn’t a risk he was going to take. He switched off the light, allowed his eyes to get used to the darkness, then moved to his bedroom.

Sam’s leather jacket was slung over the back of his chair. He put it on, secreted the handgun in the inside pocket, then returned to the front door. Moments later he was on the pavement, walking almost at random until he found a public phone box.

Only then did he make his call.

Detective Inspector Nicola Ledbury of the Metropolitan Police had endured, even by her standards, an extremely shitty day. The trial she’d been working on for three months solid had gone tits up on a technicality, prompting a bollocking from the judge and her DCI – no doubt there would be more to come in the morning, if she ever made it in. She dumped her bag in the hallway and went to the kitchen to pour herself a large glass of wine. As she did so, she looked at the clock on the oven. Ten-thirty and she was just getting in. No wonder her personal life was such a disaster.

She took two deep gulps of wine before going into her small bathroom. As she always did, she glanced in the mirror. Nicola knew she was quite pretty on a good day, but today wasn’t one of them. Her blonde hair was a disaster and she had bags under her eyes. The kind of clothes that she had to wear on the job flattened out her slim, curvy figure and she couldn’t wait to get out of them. So, running the bath, she started to strip. Her clothes stank of London fumes – it was disgusting and all she wanted to do was wash away the grime of the city. Her blouse dropped to the floor, then her bra. As she was undoing her trousers, however, she felt her mobile phone buzz against her skin. Nicola’s heart sank. Who the hell was calling her at this hour? She pulled out the phone and looked at it. Number withheld.

The DI sighed. It was probably the office. Wearily she switched off the bath taps and took the call.

‘Yeah?’ she intoned, making no attempt to hide the reluctance in her voice.

‘Nicola?’ A man’s voice. Quite deep. She recognised it, but couldn’t place it.

‘Who’s this?’

‘Sam,’ came the reply. ‘Sam Redman.’