Capital Falling | Book 4 | Sever Winkless, Lance (most popular ebook readers TXT) 📖

know we don’t see eye to eye, but that’s in the past. What’s happening?” I resist referring to Briggs by his full first name. Calling him Donald will only wind him up even more, I know he hates it. I’ll keep that in my pocket in case I need it.

“Sorry, Richards, I can’t help you,” Briggs replies.

“Andy?” Karen asks worriedly as Briggs’s men try to usher her towards the steps down to the beach.

“Go with them, Karen. They will look after you and I’ll see you later.” I hope that my words might resonate with Briggs’s men if not with him, about the women.

“Okay. I’ll see you soon, Andy. And thanks again,” Karen says as she turns to leave.

“Thank you, Andy,” Tanya tells me with a worried look on her face. I try to give her a reassuring smile in return.

I watch Karen and Tanya walk towards the steps for a moment, two black-clad operators escorting them along.

“What now?” I ask turning to Briggs.

“Now you take a little flight.” Briggs smiles sarcastically. With that, he turns and whistles sharply, raises his arm above his head and winds it around in the air.

Immediately, the rest of Briggs’s men begin to close in their perimeter, stepping back towards us, their rifles still pointing outwards, covering the rear.

Before my radio is confiscated, which it undoubtedly will be, my hand snaps across to my chest.

“Josh, they are taking me. I don’t know where, but I won’t be coming back with you. Tell the girls I love them, and you.”

Briggs steps angrily towards me, his hand going to my chest. This is not the time for a fight or a scuffle, so I let him, my hands spreading out in surrender. The radio is ripped off my combat vest just as I hear Josh’s panicked voice sound.

“Think you’re so fucking clever, don’t you Richards?” Briggs says as he drops the radio to the ground. He looks at me for a second before he stamps his size ten boot down onto the radio, cutting off Josh’s voice with a crack of breaking plastic.

“There is no need for this,” I plead to Briggs, who looks back at me with disdain.

“Take his weapons,” Briggs orders his men.

Reluctantly, but voluntarily, I unclip and hold up my trusted M4 to the masked operative who steps forward at Briggs’s order. I feel bare without the weapon, especially considering we are still in harm’s way.

“Your sidearm,” a muffled voice comes from behind the mask, handing the M4 to his colleague.

This time I pause to look at Briggs, he knows very well that surrendering my sidearm is the ultimate show of defeat. Any notion of honour between SAS comrades is quickly dispelled, however, as the Sergeant just stands watching my capitulation.

“Your sidearm, Sir,” the operative repeats. I do notice that this time he adds ‘Sir’ at the end of his demand.

Deliberately, keeping my eyes on Briggs, I slowly reach for the Sig, pull it out of its holster, before handing it over. I then pull my combat knife from its sleeve on the opposite side of my holster and hand that over also. I don’t give Briggs the satisfaction of it having to be demanded from me.

“Satisfied?” I ask Briggs.

“Secure the prisoner, Corporal,” Briggs orders, completely ignoring my question.

“Sergeant?” the masked face questions sounding doubtful.

“You heard me, Corporal,” Briggs orders, once again.

Reluctantly, the Corporal’s hand reaches behind his back and pulls a pair of plastic zip cuffs off his utility belt. He then walks around the back of me to tighten them around my wrists behind my back, the plastic tightening against my skin with a fast-clicking sound as they zip closed.

“Sorry, Sir,” the Corporal whispers in my ear, ensuring the Sergeant won’t be able to hear his words over the sound of the helicopter.

With my humiliation complete, I turn my back on Briggs, deciding to let him have his moment. Instead, with my hands bound behind my back, I look over the embankment wall to see what is going on.

Josh and Alice are still blocked in a pincer movement with the two patrol boats, and Josh has his back to me again. He has taken up his complaints with one of the patrol boat crew again, not that it will get him anywhere, I am sure of that.

Low down, on the shore of the beach, I see that Karen and Tanya have been loaded into one of the black fast boats. They look lost as they sit tight-lipped in the middle of one of the boats, waiting to see what will happen to them next.

I glance behind me and see that Briggs’s men have closed right in behind me, and any moment now they will start their evacuation from the wharf and down to the beach to join Karen and Tanya in the boats. The only thing they are waiting for is for me to be loaded into the hold of the helicopter which is beginning its approach to the embankment wall.

I take a few steps back from the wall as the downdraft and overpowering noise from the helicopter begins to close in. A strong hand closes its vice-like grip around my upper arm behind me and I look to see that Briggs is unsurprisingly, the owner of the hand that has taken hold of me.

“Going somewhere?” Briggs asks with a smile of victory spread across his lips.

Looking away from his smug face without giving him the satisfaction of an answer, I simply stand and watch the helicopter come down, its door gun still pointing straight down the street behind me.

The pilot brings the helicopter down, slowly but surely, until its hold door is within reach. Pain shoots through my bicep muscle as Briggs applies pressure, ensuring any thoughts of me making a break for it is quashed. I don’t know where he thinks I am going to run to, there is nowhere to go, certainly not without a weapon and with my hands tied behind my back. On the other hand,