Friday, 1 July
The City of London
English summers are unreliable, and even July evenings can be damp and chilly. This one was no exception. Sunshine earlier in the day had given way to heavy grey cloud and blustery showers, so Ronnie Braddock had a raincoat on and the collar up as he arrived for his interview to be Head of Security at Bandekar Technologies. The legitimate aspects of his career, including his exemplary military service record, made him well-qualified for the role, while the illegitimate aspects were not known to anyone except the people who had hired him. And they certainly weren’t talking.
Braddock was listed as Mr Bandekar’s final interview at 6.00 p.m. on Friday — a last-minute addition to the list. He arrived early, showing his driver’s licence to the goons on the door, neither of whom had ever had anything to do with him. When he got to the conference room, he asked the receptionist if there was a men’s room anywhere near. ‘Pre-match nerves,’ he explained, with an embarrassed smile.
He was given directions to the nearest toilet, but when he left the conference room he forgot all about them. Instead he went to the storeroom where the flight-cases had been stacked. He opened the case with the false bottom, and then removed the two shrink-wrapped packages. Using a Swiss Army knife he then cut open the smaller of the two packages and took out the box it contained. Inside the box was a fully loaded Glock 27 subcompact pistol, an AAC Evolution. 40 suppressor, and a spare eleven-round magazine. Braddock checked the Glock, fitted the suppressor, then placed the fully assembled gun within easy reach while he dealt with the other package. It didn’t take long to be reassured that everything was in order. The XM-25 Punisher grenade launcher that he had gone to such trouble to steal in Afghanistan had made it all the way to the City of London in one piece. It wouldn’t be long now before he found out just how good it really was. First, though, there was one other piece of business to attend to.
He put the Punisher back in the flight-case, closing the top. Then he picked up the Glock and held it down behind his back as he returned to the conference room.
‘Hello!’ said the receptionist cheerfully as she saw him come back in. ‘You were gone a long time. You must have been nervous! Well, there’s no need to worry. Mr Bandekar’s a charming gentleman. Can I get you some tea?’
‘Cheers, that would be great, yeah.’
She got up from behind her desk, and as she did Braddock shot her twice: one bullet in the body, and then another at point-blank range to the head before she had a chance to scream.
The suppressor was very effective, but there’s no such thing as a total silencer. So Braddock needed to move quickly now, before anyone worked out what was happening. He went straight to the door to the inner office, opened it, and shot the interviewee in the back of his head, blowing a chunk of his brains out through his forehead and on to the desk behind which Bandekar was desperately trying to heave his massive bulk to his feet.
‘You’ll need more than two, big boy,’ said Braddock. So he used four bullets on the portly Indian. Then he went to the window and drew the blind, repeating the process with the conference room windows. He did not turn the lights on, so the room was in semidarkness as he dragged the three corpses behind the display panels. It was more to get them out of the way than to hide them; the thick trails of blood smeared across the carpet were like arrows leading the eye to the bodies’ locations.
Braddock was sweaty, panting and irritable by the time he’d finished shifting Bandekar. He took a minute to cool down mentally as well as emotionally before he returned to the storeroom, collected the Punisher and went back to the office. Lifting the blind and peering out, he could see five huge, brightly lit windows across the way. Not long to go now.