Staring into space, Gideon Spanner sat on the concrete floor, knees pulled up to his chest, his back resting against the metal wall. In his hand was the clipping he’d taken from yesterday’s newspaper, reporting the deaths of another four British soldiers in Afghanistan, blown to bits by a roadside bomb while out on patrol. Gideon had known two of the dead well, they had spent three months on active service together before Gideon upped and left, and ended up working for Dominic Silver. Lee McCormack and Giles Smith were just boys like himself — they didn’t want to stay on the front line, but they didn’t want to come home either. They were soldiers who wanted to fight, but to fight for something they could understand.
As things turned out, the soldiers were merely the latest casualties in a campaign aimed at making Helmand Province secure for local elections to take place. In the end, only 110 people had felt safe enough to vote — 110 fucking people, Gideon thought. His mates had died for 110 votes. Funny kind of democracy, that.
How many such comrades did he know now? Fifteen? Sixteen? Something like that. Why had it not been him? he often wondered. Sometimes it made his eyes tear up, and his throat constrict until he couldn’t breathe. Tonight he felt his heart beating strongly in his chest and a pain throbbing in his temples. His finger tickled the trigger of his Sig Sauer P226. All he had to do was flip the safety-catch and he would be good to go. One in the brain and it would all be over. Three seconds — one, two, three…
‘Gideon! Come over here, please.’
Slowly getting to his feet, he headed towards Dominic Silver.
‘Has he given you what you wanted, boss?’ Gideon asked.
‘Yes,’ Silver nodded.
‘And?’ Gideon idly fingered the safety on the Sig.
‘And now,’ Dominic said in a conversational tone, ‘it is time to get rid of him.’
‘Okay.’ Gideon stepped past Silver and stood in front of the man chained to the floor. There was nothing cocky about him now as he looked at his executioner with a mixture of resignation and pleading. Gideon finally flicked off the safety and stepped closer.
Hagger’s eyes grew wide with fright. ‘You can’t!’
Gideon listened to Silver’s receding footsteps and frowned. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s… murder,’ Hagger croaked.
‘Yes,’ Gideon nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’ He stepped closer, inhaling Hagger’s stench, breathing in deeply, feeling that little bit more alive. ‘But lots of good people, top blokes, get murdered all the time. So why not a useless little scumbag like you?’
‘But-’
Before Hagger could say any more, Gideon raised the Sig and put two. 357 rounds into his chest, instantly ending the debate.