‘Not entirely, that’s just a nice by-product.’ He stood and walked to the window. Gazing across the rooftops of London.
Culpepper’s gaze followed him.
‘So, tell me Lucas, what was the aim of this? Because I’m really struggling to see why you’d want to blow the crap out of London.’
Fostervold left the view as he turned to face Culpepper once more.
‘Have you seen the order book lately, Jim? Sales are down. Price drop after price drop, profits in decline. Margins so tight you can’t get cigarette paper between them. There won’t be a company left at this rate.’
‘So you thought it would be a good idea to help things along by blowing up your home town?’
‘Well, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound like the best of plans.’ He forced a small grin. ‘But you just heard Rob, a fifty grand order, from The Met no less. Ammunition, tasers and body armour. Not a massive order, admittedly, but they’ll come.’
‘You know I should call the police, don’t you. It’s my duty to do so.’
‘Really? And then what?’
‘I don’t know. Dammit! I know one thing, though. I’m going to take Raynor’s advice and leave early. I have a lot of thinking to do.’
Fostervold’s expression changed from calm, to shocked, to confused. He took his seat once more then asked.
‘Raynor told you to go home?’
‘He did. He said we waste too much time trying to accumulate cash and that I should have an early finish. Give the whole office an early finish, in fact. Actually, that’s a good idea.’
Culpepper made his way to the door. Fostervold interrupted.
‘Jim, wait. Raynor told you to give everyone the rest of the day off? Don’t you think that’s kind of suspicious?’
‘Get over yourself Luke. Raynor was here, in my bloody office. If he’d wanted to do something to you, he could have done it. Quite easily’
‘I suppose you’re right. Listen, Jim, I know I’ve put you in a terrible position, but this isn’t on your head, in fact it can’t even be traced back to me, so think carefully before doing anything impetuous.’
Culpepper left the office to address his staff.
‘Right, everybody, good news. Thanks to Rob and his amazing selling skills, Lucas and I have decided to give you the rest of the afternoon off. So see you all tomorrow, have a lovely evening.’
With that, he went into his office, grabbed his jacket and briefcase and left through the reception area.
‘You can go home now, Jackie.’ were the last words anybody heard from James Culpepper. When he returned home that afternoon he went straight to his garage. He smiled as he admired his Aston Martin DB7. After taking a tow rope from the neatly arranged tool-wall he went into his house and up to the first floor hallway which overlooked the spacious entrance hall below.
He tied one end of the tow rope around the balustrade and checked it was securely tightened. With the other end, he tied a noose, put it over his head and around his neck. He climbed up on the balustrade. Please forgive me, darling, he thought as he took his last step.
Sam and Mickey continued to browse through the MOD data. They’d seen Raynor listed in the SCU8 file, and had moved onto a folder titled SCU-SERVICE-RECORDS, which had all the personal details for members of the individual iterations of the unit.
Once more, when they browsed the SCU4 files, the name William Thomas caught Sam’s eye. He ignored it, and they continued on to SCU8 and Nathan Raynor.
Sam started to read Raynor’s service record.
Raynor enlisted, with the other SCU8 members, in 1998 and was immediately sent to Kosovo to perform sabotage missions on behalf of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Kosovo and Albanian rebel group trying to claim back the land from minority rule.
The Yugoslav army had allegedly taken to killing civilians in a drive to eliminate KLA sympathisers. Raynor was tasked with disabling vehicles and communications infrastructure as well as the assassination of several mid-level military personnel within the Serbian and Yugoslavian forces, the idea being to sever the chain of command by removing key mid-ranking officers.
He spent two years in Kosovo, destroying forty-eight key opposition targets and killing thirteen mid-ranking officers within the forces opposing the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The dawn of the twenty-first century started quietly for SCU8. The American Secret Services were keeping an eye on an organisation known as al-Qaeda, who in 1998 had bombed the American Embassies of Kenya and Tanzania using truck bombs parked outside the embassy buildings.
On September 11th 2001, the world changed forever, and so did the SCU programme. The Special Covert Unit was once again sent to Afghanistan. To the foothills of the White Mountains and the Tora Bora cave complex.
Raynor found himself working for the coalition. He started by providing intelligence, undergoing cross-border excursions into Pakistan, attempting to gain information relating to the exact whereabouts of the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
His intel provided vital information to the American forces and led to the Battle of Tora Bora which started on December 6th 2001. Osama bin Laden fled to Pakistan and Raynor took up other missions until his return in 2003.
‘Been a busy boy.’ Commented Mickey.
Sam replied ‘He certainly has.’ and continued to scroll through the file. He stopped at a section titled ‘Core Skills’.
‘This should be interesting.’ Sam said.
‘I hope it’s short, for your sake.’ Mickey grinned.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Page after page of detail on Raynor’s expertise. Unarmed combat. Several styles of martial arts from every corner of the globe. Firearms, small calibre, assault rifles, machine guns, large calibre. He could strip down and reassemble just about every handheld firearm manufactured since World War II.
A skilled sniper. He often shot in excess of one thousand metres with greater precision than most could demonstrate over one hundred metres.
Sam let out a puff of air and stretched his arms upwards. He said, ‘I hadn’t realised we were going up against Superman.’
‘It’s an incredibly impressive CV.’ Agreed Mickey.
They kept reading, then something caught Sam’s eye and he pointed at the screen.
‘Explosives. Well that’s pretty bloody obvious.’ Said Mickey.
‘Yeah, but look underneath. Communications. Information Technology. Networking. Hacking. He’s Superman, Turing and Hawking rolled into one.
‘Look at the footnote. Able to write malicious software, infiltrate state networks and insert said software. Sounds like he’d give you a run for your money mate.’
‘Bring it on, I’ll hack his ass to hell and back.’
‘You do realise how wrong that sounds, don’t you?’
They laughed. The fleeting relief welcome to them both.
‘Seriously though Mick, this is one seriously skilled bloke, why the hell didn’t he get into the SAS?’
‘Dunno mate, maybe he’s preserved the corpse of his dead mother and then heard her voice in his head, telling him to kill people.’
Sam sat back and glared at Mickey.
‘What?’ Asked Mickey.
‘Do you know how spooky that is?’
‘What?’ Mickey asked again, slightly agitated this time.
‘Oh, nothing.’ Sam suddenly felt embarrassed at the reason Psycho came to mind.
‘No, come on mate, you can’t say spooky and not say why.’
Sam sighed.
‘Okay.’ He said. ‘Last night, I was stabbing the film lid of a microwave lasagne while making the Psycho violin screeches. Happy?’
Mickey started to snigger. It quickly turned into a full-on laugh.
‘You fucking idiot!’ Mickey exclaimed between laughs.