Stephen Leather - Breakout

The chairman remained silent and Harper studied his expression carefully before continuing. ‘So my only question is: are you going to do the right and honourable thing and take care of his widow, or will I be forced to put the word out on the Circuit that if any of the guys get into trouble while on a job for you, Risk Reduction will just abandon its self-employed contractors without a backward glance, and will make no effort at all to rescue them or compensate their families if they’re badly injured, crippled or killed. And if they need proof of that, I can just tell them what happened to Scouse.’ He paused. ‘Doesn’t paint a very appetising picture, does it? And I’m sure it wouldn’t be good for your Kidnap and Rescue business if the guys who actually do the dirty work for you got word of Scouse’s fate, let alone what the media would make of it, if I were to spread the word to them too.’

The chairman’s normally urbane smile had now completely disappeared. ‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’

‘No, not really, though you can choose to look at it that way if you want. Actually, I’m just trying to state the reality without the PR gloss, and I’m trying to get you to do the right thing by someone who lost his life while working on your behalf, without having to be forced to do it. Your company made 120 million dollars profit last year, I’m only asking you to devote about a tenth of one per cent of that to compensate a woman who has lost her husband and the father of her child, because of the work he was doing for you. I don’t know if we’re talking a seven figure sum here, but I think we’re certainly in the ball park of a pretty substantial six figure one, don’t you? Even that seems scant compensation for his poor widow, who’s lost her man and her provider, and will now have to bring up their child as a solo parent.’ Harper waited, watching the chairman’s fingers drumming on the desk. ‘So, do we see eye to eye on this?’

The chairman stood up, walked to the window and stood with his back to Harper, looking out over the lake. Finally he took a deep breath and turned to face him. ‘I’ll have to clear this with my board members, of course, but I think in these special circumstances, without in any way admitting liability on our part, or setting a precedent for any similar incidents in the future, I will be able to persuade them that it would be appropriate for the company to make an ex gratia payment to Mr Davies’s widow along the lines you have suggested.’

Harper gave a broad smile. ‘There you go. Thank you and trust me, you’ll sleep a lot sounder tonight as a result of that decision.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’ll say goodbye then and I hope - as I’m quite sure you do too - that it won’t be necessary for us to meet again. If we do, I can’t imagine that it will be as friendly a meeting and it will probably take place in much less salubrious surroundings.’

After a brief hesitation as he took that in, the chairman shook Harper’s hand and managed to force a smile. ‘As you say. Well, goodbye Mr Harper. I can’t say it’s been entirely a pleasure, but it has certainly been an education.’

‘You and me both,’ said Harper.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider” Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times , the Daily Mirror , the Glasgow Herald , the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country’s most successful eBook authors and his eBooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. The Bookseller magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world.

Born in Manchester, he began writing full-time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London’s Burning , The Knock and the BBC’s Murder in Mind series, Two of his novels, The Stretch and The Bombmaker , were filmed for TV and The Chinaman is now a major motion picture starring Pierce Brosnan and Jackie Chan.

To find out more, you can visit his websiteor find him on Facebook.

SLOW BURN

The fight against terrorism never ends, and Dan “Spider” Shepherd is on the front line of Britain’s defence against the extremists.

When an ISIS bombmaker arrives at Heathrow Aiport asking for asylum in exchange for revealing details of his paymasters, Shepherd is given the case. The bombmaker specialises in drone strikes, and homegrown jihadists that he has trained are already back in the UK, planning their attacks. But before he’ll agree to talk, the terrorist insists that his wife and son are rescued from a refugee camp in Turkey. Shepherd is tasked with bringing the family back to London, but he soon discovers that dark forces are out to stop him. And if he fails, hundreds will die

Hodder and Stoughton have published seventeen books featuring Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd written by Sunday Times bestselling author Stephen Leather. The eighteenth, Slow Burn , will be published in July 2020.

You can preorder Slow Burn now on Amazon