Cover

Half Title

By the Same Author

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Break Point

Battle Ready

Scar Tissue

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Laura who became my wife on my 50th birthday in December 2020. Our adventure is just beginning and having you by my side is fundamental to the strength and positivity I feel each day. I love you!

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing All Or Nothing has been a labour of love. I’d like to thank everyone who has helped bring this book to life: Andrew Holmes, David Riding, Matt Phillips, Sophie Nevrkla, as well as everyone else at Bonnier Books UK. And, of course, my amazing family, especially my brilliant wife, Laura, without whom this would not have been possible. Thank you one and all.

Prologue

PROLOGUE

On the carpet lay a dead man, and who knows what had gone on inside his head, but most of it now dripped down the walls. Blood and brain matter, incongruous in the suburban front room.

Sprawled on the sofa was another man. He had fought a brave battle marked by its brutality and longevity. He wore a bloodstained T-shirt bearing the words ‘Finchley Sportsman’, and though he had lost the battle, he was not dead. Not yet.

As for the victor, he stood in the middle of the devastated lounge. At his feet was a Heckler & Koch MP7 fitted with a suppressor and a sight, still warm. In his hand was a Glock, also suppressed. He watched the unconscious figure on the sofa carefully, ready to deliver the coup de grâce should the man awake, reflecting on the fact that he had been a fine and worthy opponent. When the skills of the combatants are matched, the outcome of a battle often comes down to chance. Luck, in other words. And one of them had been lucky.

The doorbell rang, and he went to it, used the chain and opened the door a crack. Outside lay a newbuild estate of quiet. The kids at school, the adults either inside or at work.

Standing on the doorstep was the visitor, who seemed about to say something until he looked down and saw the suppressed barrel of the Glock, trained on his groin.

The gunman spoke. ‘Sasquatch?’ he said.

‘We called him Bigfoot in our house,’ came the reply.

‘Then you would be Mr McGregor?’

‘Aye, I am,’ growled the visitor in broad Glaswegian. ‘And that would make you Owen Flyte.’

‘You don’t look as if you’ve come to do the cleaning,’ said Flyte warily. His Glock was still trained on McGregor.

‘I’m what they call a right-hand man in this operation. I don’t do the fuckin’ cleaning, pal. I assess ahead of the cleaning. Now how about you lower the persuader and we continue this inside, eh?’