Joshua unclipped his Rolex Submariner and carefully concealed it in the undergrowth ahead of him. He covered it with loose autumn leaves to obscure any hint of metal. The watch face itself was visible only from his position. As it always was when he settled in to await a shot.
His internal clock was exceptional, but confirmation of time at a glance was a crutch he had never left behind.
The time displayed was 5.30 p.m. It would not be a long wait.
Joshua had arrived over an hour earlier and done exactly as Stanton had instructed. Sarah had been secured inside the isolated cabin, bound and gagged.
He had spent little time in there with her. Just a minute or two. Long enough to take a mental note of its layout. The pervasive odour of damp had revealed how long the cabin had been empty; the overall effect suggesting a return to the wild. Maybe it was the deteriorating furniture. Or the moss that grew on happy family photographs.
Not that he had been there to observe nature. There was a job to do, and he would not be distracted.
It was essential to his mission that the cabin could offer no protection to anyone who took refuge inside. With Sarah secured to a chair in the centre of the cold lounge, Joshua had assessed the room. It had not taken long. The open area was surrounded on all sides by windows. It would be near impossible for anyone inside to avoid his line of sight.
It was all Joshua needed to know. Satisfied, he had returned to his newly rented four-wheel-drive vehicle and driven away, navigating the narrow country roads that led to the small village of Avoca at the bottom of the wooded hills.
Joshua parked directly outside of Avoca’s dominant feature, a nineteenth-century grey stone church. The car was instantly anonymous in a line of similar utility vehicles, most left by the many fishermen now dotted along the gentle river that ran alongside the single village road.
Joshua had looked around as he climbed out of the car. Once satisfied that he was not overlooked, he removed a leather gun case from the car’s back seat. He strapped it to his back and began the return journey to the top of the mountainous hill on foot, moving through the uneven terrain easily. Experience and training made him well suited to the task, and he reached the top of the steep, wooded hills in a time that would have been remarkable for a man in his twenties.
Once there, Joshua had moved silently through the shade of the trees, eyes fixed on the clearing ahead of the cabin. That would be where it happened. Where the confrontation between Stanton’s and Casey’s groups would take place.
Which meant that the best possible view of the clearing was needed. Taking a pencil-thin, hand-held telescopic sight, he had slowly walked the hillside.
Instinct had already told him the ideal vantage point; the spot with an unobstructed view of both the clearing and the cabin. But Joshua still followed the process. His compulsions had brought him this far. He would not abandon them now. And so he had moved from possible location to possible location. Always stopping to check the scene below through his sight. Always assessing which spot was best.
It had been time-consuming. An hour went by before he finally settled on a location. The spot his instinct had first identified. Inevitable, really. But time spent on diligence was never time wasted.
Next came concealment. A much quicker task. There was abundant foliage. Distinctive ground markings. With these Joshua could disappear completely. Within minutes both he and his Accuracy International sniper rifle had become invisible. So well hidden that even an expert eye would struggle to see him from feet away. It was a skill Joshua had mastered over decades. It required speed and it required confidence. Fear of discovery could not be a consideration. It could not be allowed to distract from the deadly accuracy of his shot.
Joshua glanced at his concealed wristwatch. Time was short, but there was still more than enough for him to align the rifle’s Schmidt & Bender 3-12 × 50 PM II telescopic sight. Joshua went through a series of delicate adjustments. After two minutes the scope’s calibration and view were perfect, capable of sweeping from target to target with the slightest movement. Ten minutes more – seven separate checks – and even Joshua was satisfied.
With accuracy assured, Joshua removed the rifle’s magazine from his inside pocket and locked it into place. He removed two more identical leather cases and placed them within easy reach, carefully hidden by the ample fallen foliage. Each case carried five lethal rounds. Fifteen .338 Lapua Magnum calibre bullets in total. It was more than Joshua could expect to need. Enough to bring Stanton’s enterprise to a bloody end.
Joshua was trained to remain motionless for days at a time, in locations far less hospitable than the wet but moderate Irish climate. It should have made the ninety or so minutes that lay ahead seem like barely a pause. But the thoughts that now raced through Joshua’s mind made that impossible.
As hard as he tried, Joshua could not stop imagining what his own reaction would be when he first glimpsed Stanton. It was unhelpful. He tried to distract himself by studying the area through his rifle’s sight.
The clearing at the front of the cabin was between forty and fifty feet below, and perhaps 500 yards ahead. Far enough that no sound quieter than a gunshot would reach from one location to the other, but still close enough that every shot would be both accurate and lethal.
He took in every detail of what would soon become his killing zone. Scanned from tree to tree. From shrub to shrub. Moving his rifle slowly, he made himself familiar with every object that could be capable of obscuring his view and calculated the clear angles he would need if those objects were used for cover.
Joshua continued his sweep of the area, preparing for every eventuality. Finally he came to the cabin. He had to determine in advance which window gave which unobstructed angle. To ensure that no spot inside was beyond the reach of his bullet. His selection of shooting spot had already ensured that there were available lines of fire for every eventuality. And one of those lines now gave him a clear view of Sarah Truman, who was conscious and fighting to free herself.
Joshua watched Sarah as she struggled. Beads of sweat ran down her cheeks and off her jaw as she fought against her restraints. The woman was still trying to break free, over half a day after her capture. Most would have retired in exhaustion by now. But not Sarah.
Her determination was remarkable.
It was hardly a surprise, though. He had expected Sarah would fight back before he had even entered the lock-up the previous night. She couldn’t have come this far without that kind of resilience. But still he had been unprepared for the alley-cat assault that had followed.
The men in the garage had been easily dealt with. Joshua had taken the inner door from its hinges with one well-placed kick. Two head-shots dealt with the first two men. Quick. Efficient. Two bullets in the heart of the third and another two for Mullen should have ended all meaningful resistance.
They had not.
Sarah had frozen in the seconds it took Joshua to dispatch Casey’s men. That was natural enough. So she had been rooted to the spot when his gun then turned on her. Then he had lowered his gun and walked towards her. He had put out his hand, intending to take Sarah by the arm. Sure that she would come quietly if it meant that she would live. Looking back, Joshua was amused by how wrong he had been.
Sarah had followed the best self-defence instruction: go for the eyes and the groin. She struck out with her right foot, though far too slowly to come close to its delicate target. Joshua had reacted with his usual sublime skill, unbalancing her with only the slightest movement of his body. A light push. Sarah had fallen back clumsily and struggled to regain her footing. But the effortless defence had not stopped her. She must have known from the outset that she was outmatched, but she seemed determined to not go down without a fight.
Regaining her balance, she had launched herself at Joshua. He allowed her right hand to sail past his own, knowing she would miss his eye by inches and that the momentum would make her unsteady. But those inches could be misinterpreted, and the illusion of success had seemed to encourage Sarah. It made her fight harder, trying to scratch and tear at Joshua’s skin. It was as much as Joshua had been prepared to accept, and so he had pushed Sarah’s flailing arms aside, lifted her from the floor and threw her across the garage.
Sarah had landed heavily on the hard floor, hurt, but adrenaline had forced her to her feet. And instinct had told her what to do. Taking a lesson from Michael, Sarah had grabbed the nearest thing she could use as a weapon. A four-pointed, cast-iron wheel brace. Metal in hand, she had rushed at Joshua, just moments after she had been tossed aside. It was so fast that Joshua had not yet wiped the fresh blood from his eye. But it was still not fast enough.
Sarah’s gender had made Joshua underestimate her. But only at first. By this point he wanted their struggle over, and there was one way to do that without killing her. So Joshua had subtly moved his feet – planting them shoulder-width apart – and waited for Sarah to rush in with the wheel brace raised above her head.
The blow that Sarah ran on to was devastating. Joshua had positioned himself perfectly. His timing was impeccable. A right cross had slammed onto Sarah’s jaw as she came within reach. It sent her crashing to the ground. And it kept her there.
Blood had run free from Sarah’s mouth while her entire body shook; her nervous system coming alive just as her mind shut down.
Joshua had not even needed to look. Experience had told him that it would be a long time before Sarah regained consciousness. And he wasted none of it. He had immediately bound her hands and feet, picked up the deadweight of her unconscious body and thrown her over his shoulder. He had then stalked out of the lock-up without looking back, leaving nothing but death and destruction in his wake.
As he watched Sarah now – hours later and through the dehumanising distance of his rifle’s sight – he could see a blackening bruise covered the entire left-hand side of her face. The result of the punch she had run into. But it meant nothing to Joshua. He had harmed many women in his career. It was no different to hurting a man. To him, anyway.
A sudden intrusion of sound brought Joshua’s focus back to the moment. All distractions were immediately wiped from his mind. With the smallest movement he turned his sight away from the cabin and into the clearing.
A small motorcade emerged from the darkness of the tree-lined road. Joshua moved his scope from car to car. He watched as three identical off-road vehicles came to a halt in the open area ahead of the cabin.
Joshua moved his eye away from his rifle sight and relied instead on his own un-enhanced vision. It gave him a full view of the scene ahead of him, too far for real detail but close enough to follow the full movement of the vehicles that was denied to him by the limited focus of his sight.
The vehicles’ occupants were climbing out of various doors. Joshua watched their inept attempt to secure the area. He counted eleven men in total and he presumed that all were heavily armed.
Enough to start a graveyard.
Joshua became conscious of his breathing as he watched. It was now an effort. He knew what it meant: that his anticipation was heightening.
Stanton was in one of those cars, Joshua knew that. He knew that Stanton was waiting for the all-clear from his team before he would climb out.
It amused Joshua that Stanton would trust these amateurs. A smile itched the corner of his mouth. Because none of these men could protect Stanton from the greatest threat that night: Joshua’s murderous intent towards the bastard who had threatened his family.
But it was a threat that Joshua could not carry out. Not yet. Not until he knew that his family were safe and that Stanton did not have measures in place to ensure their deaths in the event of his own. Stanton must have known this when he answered to the assessment of ‘all-clear’.
Joshua was too distant to hear what words followed. So he moved the scope back to his eye, to observe the response to the ‘all-clear’.
Stanton’s men responded by returning to the first and third vehicles. Two bound and gagged captives were dragged from each. A man, two women and a child, all marched into the cabin and seated next to Sarah.
Joshua’s scope swept then swept back to the middle vehicle and he felt his heart miss a beat as Stanton stepped into view.