Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
Being told something and seeing it for yourself are two different things and Harry doesn’t show a flicker other than leaning closer to the screen. Safa watches him for a reaction but the soldier gives nothing away. Her eyes go back to the footage and Ben running towards while everyone else runs away. People falling on the tracks, dying from electrocution. Smoke hanging in the air and body parts strewn across the ground. The ginger man trying to detonate his vest and Ben running towards him. The dark-haired man using a sawn-off shotgun to devastating effect and the speed at which Ben switches from running towards the ginger guy to heading into the blonde woman firing the two pistols. He takes her down, driving her hard into the floor as she screams at the man with the shotgun. An instinct in Ben to stop that communication between the attackers and he kills the woman with the pistol taken from her hand. A split second later and he’s up, firing into the man with the shotgun, killing him outright, before spinning round to scan for the ginger man now throwing people on to the live rails.
Another attack, this one from a woman lunging at Ben with a knife. The speed of reaction and sheer aggression shown by Ben is staggering. They watch him slipping and sliding but his reactions are perfect and the reason this clip is shown to specialist firearms officers all over the world. Be this man. Match his aggression. Ben shoots the woman in the head. Another split second and that threat is negated, and so Ben switches back to the primary target and somewhere in his untrained mind he knows the ginger man has a bomb and therefore poses the greatest risk. Running and firing with a face snarling with determination and fear. We can train you not to miss, but only you can match the aggression and instincts of Ben Ryder.
Even when the pistol clicks empty Ben doesn’t falter, but takes the bomber down on to the tracks with a show of absolute, extreme violence, pinning the man down while driving fists into his face. They could never ask Ben, but the analysis produced after suggested that Ben knew the train was approaching, which is why he tore the suicide vest open and switched from punching to stamping, in so doing delivering the killing blow and rendering the man unable to detonate himself.
Still that threat assessment continues. On his feet, dragging the dead man down the tracks, desperately trying to get the bomb away from the train. He almost makes it too. Another few metres and he would have survived.
‘Is that you?’ Harry asks, blinking at the younger Safa on the screen, running on to the platform in full uniform.