Read THE FIX: SAS hero turns Manchester hitman (A Rick Fuller Thriller Book 1) for Free Online Page B

to enjoy spending Joel’s money.
    Another of my newfound obsessions was cars, as you have probably gathered by now, they were very important to me. Cars, clothes, risk and making money were all I craved; that and my own personal space. I liked to be a little different but I wasn’t into flash for the sake of it.
    I was in my daytime car. A near new Range Rover Sport. It was the supercharged 4.2litre V8 Jaguar powered model, nearly 400bhp of grunt. The latest computer-controlled anti-roll system made the car more suitable for on-road. Brembo four-piston front discs stopped it on a sixpence and I liked it. Good sounds inside too. I’d had a six-speaker Bose system fitted that I could connect an iPod to. Snow Patrol played as I drove. The motor was just under fifty-five grand. The bullet-proofing was another eight. You have to be careful in my job.
    I pulled up at Thomas Cook’s, where I bought ten grand of U.S. dollars in draft form. The girl in the exchange posed the usual twenty questions and asked for two sets of ID. I had no problem with the new money-laundering legislation. I smiled and filled in the form. I used D.H.L. to post Mr. Colletti’s banker’s draft for $19,800 to a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. I could then move that by mobile phone later and it would be virtually untraceable.
    Now, that left me five grand to play with. Where do you start when you have that kind of money to blow on whatever you want?
    After all the years of wearing uniform, I had developed a liking for expensive clothes, so, first to Ralph Lauren. I spotted a nice navy two-piece suit for a meagre nine hundred and fifty quid. When you’re six foot tall you need a good tailor, and it fitted like the proverbial glove so I took it. A pair of formal plain toe Oxford shoes by Oliver Sweeney came next a snip at two nine five.
    Shirts, I love shirts. As I skipped around town I found classic white cotton by Ermenegildo Zegna at a hundred and twenty quid. A blue gingham check by Alfred Dunhill, eighty-five, a couple of casual shirts at Duck and Cover for under a ton and four ties at Thomas Pink for just two hundred dabs.
    That’s under two grand! I needed to look at boys toys.
    Now I nearly lost my fine mood in the first store. I wanted a new mobile. The little shit in the shop was so full of bollocks about, ‘you need this, sir, and you need that, sir, you get more free minutes with this model, sir…” I could gleefully have cut his fuckin’ ears off and posted them to his unlucky parents. Did I look like I needed free bloody minutes?
    Anyway, a few deep breaths and a quick squeeze of the little fella’s arm were enough to return me to my pleasant self. I think the manager was close to calling the cops, until I bought the new BlackBerry phone by Motorola at three hundred quid. I liked it. It didn’t spoil the line of my suit.
    I knew I had a couple of jobs on the horizon that needed a small video camera so I picked up the new Panasonic DS 33 digital camcorder, incidentally the smallest in the world, from a little camera place just off St Peter’s Square.
    With just over a grand left to spend, I stopped for coffee in Nero’s on Oxford Road and pondered dinner arrangements.
    I prefer Nero’s to Starbucks, even though they allowed smoking at the rear of the shop. The coffee is better, and it feels like a coffee shop rather than McDonalds.
    I was served my skinny latte by an overly camp lad with green hair. He almost hissed like snake when he pronounced his S’s delivering the company spiel of, “Any cakes or pastries, sir?”
    I gave a, “No thank you.”
    He added a cheeky, “Sweet enough?” as I handed over my money, which I politely ignored.
    I found a comfy, if slightly worn leather armchair by the front window and sat to sip my coffee and read the paper. It was a lovely early summer day, and Nero’s windows were folded open. I people watched for a few moments. The mixture of human beings wending their way along Oxford