BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (45)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Contents
  4. Prologue
  5. 2046
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Thirty-Three
  39. Thirty-Four
  40. Thirty-Five
  41. Thirty-Six
  42. Thirty-Seven
  43. Thirty-Eight
  44. Thirty-Nine
  45. About the Author

The five look at him. They stay silent. An air of expectation hangs.

The man in front of Charlie shakes his head. ‘Fuck off,’ he spits. He has worth. He has value. They need him alive. It’s the only hope he has.

Alpha pulls his pistol and shoots the man in front of him through the head. Bravo shoots next. Echo fires.

One remains. He sobs and squeezes his eyes closed. The smell of blood, piss and shit hangs in the air. The corpses of his mates on the ground next to him. Charlie pulls his pistol and aims.

‘NO! Please . . .’ The threat is too great. The fear too much. The intensity of the situation grips his mind. These men are ruthless beyond anything he could ever imagine. ‘Warehouse . . . back street in central Berlin . . .’ He clams up. Holding back in the desperate hope they will not kill him.

Alpha nods. Bravo moves away. The man sobs. Snot drools from his nose. Everything hurts. Bravo comes back holding a briefcase, which he holds flat towards Delta, who presses the two locks and lifts the lid. Bravo shows the kneeling man the banknotes stacked neatly inside.

The man swallows at the lifeline thrown his way. The sheer need to survive suddenly has a glint of greed. He locks eyes on the money, swaying with adrenaline and gut-twisting fear.

‘Where?’ Alpha speaks for the first time.

‘You promise me?’ the man asks, turning towards Alpha with a rush of terror-induced rage pulsing through his body. ‘PROMISE ME.’ He screams the words out, snot and spittle spraying from his mouth.

‘Where?’ Alpha asks as Bravo takes a small step closer with the briefcase.

The man heaves for air. His eyes darting to the briefcase then round to his dead mates. They will kill him. He knows that. He only has one bit of information left and if he tells them they will kill him.

‘I don’t know Berlin.’ The man whispers the words out ragged and broken. ‘We went through a hundred streets and . . . it was down a back street and . . .’

Alpha nods. Bravo starts closing the briefcase. Charlie lifts his pistol.

‘NO . . . er . . . oh shit . . . grey bricks! The warehouse bricks were grey . . . oh fuck . . . please . . . you promised . . .’

He has nothing left to give. Alpha senses it. A grey-bricked warehouse down a back street in central Berlin. Not much, but enough.

He nods. Charlie fires. The man’s screams cut off. Bravo closes the lid. The others look round then over at Alpha, who shrugs. ‘Looks like we’ll be out on foot then.’

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Three

Remove the magazine and check the chamber. Release the slide. Point the weapon in a safe direction. Pull the trigger. Thumb under the slide round the back of the grip, fingers over the slide. Pull back and pull down while pulling down the slide. Remove the slide. Take the spring assembly out. Remove the barrel. The weapon is field stripped.

‘Assemble it.’