absolutely no one. Indeed, he saw no living thing. To left and right stretched the sand, endless expanses of amber without a single feature. He relished this intense solitude. He could not remember the last time he had felt so relaxed, so far from the cloying presence of other human beings.
Azrael also felt comfortable in his Land Cruiser. It was packed with the latest communications equipment and he was armed to the teeth. He had hand-picked and loaded everything himself at the base near Ar Riyad in Saudi Arabia. He had the usual guns: a couple of Barrett M107s, a 500 S&W magnum and, tucked into his waistband, the favourite of killers everywhere, a Glock 17. But the really interesting item in his armoury was not to be found on any website or arms catalogue in the world. Well, at least not yet.
Azrael’s paymasters, men he had never met and who referred to themselves collectively as the Four Horsemen, had supplied him with the prototype of a missile launch system that was so new and so secret it did not even have a name. Azrael referred to it as the Collector, because that is how he viewed the device – as a taker of lives, a gatherer of souls, an exterminator that collected on the debt the world owed him.
Ten years ago, Azrael, or Marcus Hewson as he was then known, had been a normal human being, a pretty regular guy, a good guy, in fact, a British soldier. He was married to a fine woman, a schoolteacher called Emily, and they had a four-year-old daughter, Charlotte. He had been a captain in the SAS, had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan before teaching other soldiers at the army base in Aldershot. But he had been consistently passed over for promotion and, for a career soldier, that was like being branded – there was nowhere else for him to go. He simply had to accept that his life would be one long, ongoing slog until retirement.
Then, on a winter afternoon while he was up to his elbows in cold mud on a training course with raw recruits, Emily and Charlotte were hacked to death in a shopping mall in Bracknell by an escaped mental patient from Broadmoor. The killer had then gone on to murder six other innocent bystanders before shooting his brains out with a sawn-off shotgun.
Marcus Hewson had never recovered. He found he was quickly repelled by the sympathy people offered him. He was enraged by the incompetence of the police and the authorities at Broadmoor. Within a day of the terrible events that had taken the lives of his wife and child, he had slipped into such a deep depression he was inconsolable. But being a genuine tough guy, a war hero no less, a man who had witnessed a great deal of death and torment, he did not want anyone to see his pain. And so he forced it inward where it festered and then calcified.
Perhaps he had always been a pure, analytical killer. It was just that once upon a time he had worked for the forces of democracy and good. The worse thing for Marcus Hewson was the fact that the man who had murdered his family, an insect named Norman Gardener, had killed himself. There was nothing left for Hewson to do about the murders. He could not exact revenge. The scumbag’s suicide had rendered him impotent.
It was this that had pushed Hewson over the edge. Within six weeks he had transformed himself into Azrael, an assassin for hire, a man who no longer considered himself part of the human race, a man who wanted to kill and kill and to never be caught. A man who wanted revenge but never to be known for his actions. And as is the way with these things, in the twilight world in which he began to exist and thrive, he discovered that like attracts like. He quickly found himself in the employ of the Four Horsemen, four beings who, for their own individual reasons, shared an almost identical worldview to his own.
Azrael stopped the Land Cruiser and lifted the high-powered binoculars to his eyes. Across the flat expanse of desert he could see, 30 kilometres to the northwest, the vague shape of his
Azrael also felt comfortable in his Land Cruiser. It was packed with the latest communications equipment and he was armed to the teeth. He had hand-picked and loaded everything himself at the base near Ar Riyad in Saudi Arabia. He had the usual guns: a couple of Barrett M107s, a 500 S&W magnum and, tucked into his waistband, the favourite of killers everywhere, a Glock 17. But the really interesting item in his armoury was not to be found on any website or arms catalogue in the world. Well, at least not yet.
Azrael’s paymasters, men he had never met and who referred to themselves collectively as the Four Horsemen, had supplied him with the prototype of a missile launch system that was so new and so secret it did not even have a name. Azrael referred to it as the Collector, because that is how he viewed the device – as a taker of lives, a gatherer of souls, an exterminator that collected on the debt the world owed him.
Ten years ago, Azrael, or Marcus Hewson as he was then known, had been a normal human being, a pretty regular guy, a good guy, in fact, a British soldier. He was married to a fine woman, a schoolteacher called Emily, and they had a four-year-old daughter, Charlotte. He had been a captain in the SAS, had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan before teaching other soldiers at the army base in Aldershot. But he had been consistently passed over for promotion and, for a career soldier, that was like being branded – there was nowhere else for him to go. He simply had to accept that his life would be one long, ongoing slog until retirement.
Then, on a winter afternoon while he was up to his elbows in cold mud on a training course with raw recruits, Emily and Charlotte were hacked to death in a shopping mall in Bracknell by an escaped mental patient from Broadmoor. The killer had then gone on to murder six other innocent bystanders before shooting his brains out with a sawn-off shotgun.
Marcus Hewson had never recovered. He found he was quickly repelled by the sympathy people offered him. He was enraged by the incompetence of the police and the authorities at Broadmoor. Within a day of the terrible events that had taken the lives of his wife and child, he had slipped into such a deep depression he was inconsolable. But being a genuine tough guy, a war hero no less, a man who had witnessed a great deal of death and torment, he did not want anyone to see his pain. And so he forced it inward where it festered and then calcified.
Perhaps he had always been a pure, analytical killer. It was just that once upon a time he had worked for the forces of democracy and good. The worse thing for Marcus Hewson was the fact that the man who had murdered his family, an insect named Norman Gardener, had killed himself. There was nothing left for Hewson to do about the murders. He could not exact revenge. The scumbag’s suicide had rendered him impotent.
It was this that had pushed Hewson over the edge. Within six weeks he had transformed himself into Azrael, an assassin for hire, a man who no longer considered himself part of the human race, a man who wanted to kill and kill and to never be caught. A man who wanted revenge but never to be known for his actions. And as is the way with these things, in the twilight world in which he began to exist and thrive, he discovered that like attracts like. He quickly found himself in the employ of the Four Horsemen, four beings who, for their own individual reasons, shared an almost identical worldview to his own.
Azrael stopped the Land Cruiser and lifted the high-powered binoculars to his eyes. Across the flat expanse of desert he could see, 30 kilometres to the northwest, the vague shape of his
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