Siege

Seventy-one

SCOPE WORKED AS quietly and methodically as he could under the circumstances, going through each of the cupboards one at a time, amazed that they had such an array of medicines on-site.

He’d taken a huge risk coming back as he knew the terrorists were aware how much he needed the insulin. He’d been only feet away from them, hidden behind the bar in the ground floor restaurant, while they’d discussed the fact that they could take him out when he emerged from cover to find it. He’d even seen the face of one of them in the bar mirror as he’d temporarily removed his balaclava, and was surprised to see that it belonged to an ordinary-looking white man in his thirties.

Right now, Scope was relying on the fact that the terrorists were too busy upstairs, and too short of numbers, to send someone down here. But if he was wrong then he was trapped, and almost certainly dead. Strangely, though, it wasn’t death he was scared of. He’d faced that on many occasions in his time as a soldier fighting other men’s wars. And in truth, since Mary Ann, probably the only truly important person in his life, had gone, life had ceased to be anything other than a simple mission for revenge.

No, he didn’t fear death. What he feared was failure. He had to save Abby and her son. He cared about them now, had bonded with them, which was something he hadn’t done with anyone in a long time. The world was a hard, brutal place; it had destroyed his daughter, and it had come close to destroying him. But so far it hadn’t, and right then he was determined to keep it that way.

He found the insulin pens in a box at the back of the middle cupboard.

Feeling a sudden burst of elation, he ripped open the box and pulled out a handful of the pens, shoving them in his trouser pocket.

Then, holding his knife by the blade, in case he ran into one of the terrorists, he exited the room at a run, praying he wasn’t too late.