Manhunt Quotes

“Simpson shook his head. ‘As I said to Richter only last week, the days when traitors to Britain could get just a slap on the wrist are over, at least as far as I’m concerned. After we’ve questioned you and we’ve milked you dry, I’ll make sure that you die, and preferably painfully. You’re a dead man walking, Holbeche. You just don’t know how long you’ve got left.’ Holbeche shook his head. ‘That’s never going to happen, Simpson. You know it and I know it.’ Quite deliberately, he raised the Glock to point it at Simpson’s head, and the beginnings of a smile appeared on his face. The two men behind Simpson fired instantly, the two shots so close together that they sounded almost like a single report”
― James Barrington, Manhunt

“Two other men appeared behind Simpson, each holding a semi-automatic pistol aimed at the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. A couple of passengers standing nearby suddenly noticed the drawn weapons, and a woman began screaming. Instantly, it seemed, chaos erupted in that particular section of the terminal. People were running and shouting, desperate to get away from these armed men standing near the Air France desk. But Holbeche, Simpson and the two other men remained stationary, seemingly oblivious to what was going on all around them. Holbeche ignored the two armed men confronting him, and stared only at Simpson. ‘I’ve had a good run, Richard,’ he said. ‘Twenty-odd years — nearly a quarter of a century — working my way up through the ranks in the service, and at the same time cementing my position as the most important single asset the SVR has ever had. Did you know that they’ve already made me an honorary general at Yasenevo?’ ‘But now it’s all over,’ Simpson snapped. ‘You’ve nowhere to go.”
― James Barrington, Manhunt

“Now, we can do this the hard way or the easy way,’ he said. ‘The easy way is for you to simply turn around and walk out of the terminal with the two of us.’ Holbeche lowered his head, then reached inside his jacket and pulled out a 9-millimetre Glock 26 subcompact pistol. He aimed the weapon directly at Simpson’s stomach and smiled bitterly. ‘Did you really think you could get onto an aircraft carrying that?’ Simpson asked, apparently unfazed by the threat. ‘With my diplomatic passport and a carry permit issued by the Metropolitan Police, it wouldn’t have been difficult,’ Holbeche said. ‘Now get the hell out of my way, Simpson.’ ‘I’m sorry, Holbeche, but you’re going nowhere.”
― James Barrington, Manhunt

“No bloody option. You any good with a rifle?’ ‘Not as good as you are. But I can drive.’ ‘You might have to, then,’ Dekker said tightly. ‘Let’s put some distance between us and them. While I do that, get that rifle assembled, just in case we have to shoot our way out of this.’ Richter unsnapped the catches on the case Dekker had laid on the floor in front of the rear seats, and took out the weapons’ component parts. He’d never seen this particular model before, but he was familiar with rifles from his military career. Within a couple of minutes he’d assembled the rifle, attached the telescopic sight, and loaded a full magazine of subsonic 7.62-millimetre ammunition. ‘Mean piece of kit,’ he remarked. ‘Ideal tool for the job,’ Dekker said, ‘and that’s the point.”
― James Barrington, Manhunt

“On the far side of the square, a dark-coloured saloon suddenly appeared, one occupant visible behind the wheel, and it raced across to the fallen man. As it stopped, the car was directly broadside on to Dekker’s position, offering too good an opportunity to miss. He sighted again, the AWS sniper rifle cracked twice more, and both the tyres on the near side of the car blew in quick succession. ‘Now get going, Paul,’ he muttered, and quickly started to disassemble his weapon and pack it away”
― James Barrington, Manhunt

“Before leaving Hammersmith, Dekker and Simpson had discussed what type of bullet should be used. ‘It all depends,’ Dekker had said, ‘on whether you want me to stop this guy dead, literally, or just stop him. If I use a hollow-point or a dumdum bullet, at the ranges you’re talking about, a hit anywhere on the torso is going to kill him pretty much instantly.’ Simpson had shaken his head. ‘If we need him dead, you can put a bullet through his head, right? No, just use standard copper-jacketed rounds, and hopefully there’ll be enough left of him to talk to us afterwards.’ Dekker took five rounds out of the box and loaded the magazine, then pressed it into the slot in front of the trigger guard. The last item was the scope. The normal sight used on the AW rifle was from the Schmidt and Bender PMII range, but Dekker preferred something slightly different. He’d chosen a huge Zeiss telescopic sight that offered variable magnification, and incorporated a laser sighting attachment which would project a spot of red laser light directly onto the target, but he probably wouldn’t need to use that, not at this range.”
― James Barrington, Manhunt

“The weapon was one of the variants of the standard SAS sniper rifle, the British-made Accuracy International PM — Precision Marksman — or L96A1. Designed for covert operations, the rifle Dekker had chosen was the AWS, or Arctic Warfare Suppressed, model. The name was a hangover from the days when the manufacturer produced a modified version for the Swedish armed forces, a move which spawned several different models generically known as the AW range. The stainless-steel barrel was fitted with an integrated suppressor which reduced the sound of a shot to about that of a standard .22 rifle. It was a comparatively short-range weapon, because of the subsonic ammunition, effective only to about three hundred yards in contrast to other versions and calibres of the rifle, some of which were accurate at up to a mile. Both the stock, its green polymer side panels already attached, and the barrel were a tight fit in the case, each lying diagonally across its interior. He pulled them both out, fitted and secured the barrel, and lowered the bipod legs mounted at the fore-end of the machined-aluminium chassis to support it, while he completed the assembly. Then he took a five-round magazine out of the recess in the briefcase, along with an oblong cardboard box containing twenty rounds of 7.62 x 51-millimetre rifle ammunition.”
― James Barrington, Manhunt

“Golfo”
― James Barrington, Manhunt