My Heart Belongs To You: A Psycho Thriller

Chapter One

13 February
-
0
9
:
45

(
Life
remaining 33
hrs 15 mins)

‘
Tom will die at precisely 7 p.m. tomorrow night.
’

John Hanson pulled the chirping mobile from his
pocket and studied the screen.

A momentary frown took control of
his
rugged but handsome features.
The light blue screen told him that the caller ID had been withheld.
Carrying two mob
i
le phones might seem confusing to some
,
and
to others, it might
label him as a drug dealer
,
but to Hanson it was clarity itself
. He had a
business line for clients,
and a
second line for private calls or key people
,
sepa
rate
and
neat.

On this occasion
,
it was his second mobile
,
hence his hesitation
, because
only four other people had
th
at
number and he was confident that none of them would ever pass it on to another party.
Each of those four
was
listed
only
as an in
i
tial. “S” was Stephanie
,
his
sav
ant sister and the most important person in his life
.
A
life he would lay down for his sister.  It´s what b
ig brothers did
, or a
t
le
ast, it was what John Hanson would do
.

“T” was Tom Wilson
,
his back
-
up man through countless scrapes during his time in the regiment
.
More
recently
,
since he set up Hanson
S
ecurities,
he was
his right hand man and more importantly, his
clos
est
friend.

”J” was for Jane
,
his secretary at the office of Hanson Securities
,
who  manned the office and did everything from answering the phone to ensuring that every time you opened the biscuit tin
,
it contained more than crumbs.        

Finally,
there was “D” for Donald
Myers
,
the curr
ent
head of MI5
,
whose office w
as
housed in Thames House
.
The
iconic building sat on the banks of the River Thames at Vauxhall
C
ross, a building
that
John Hanson
’s
work brought him
t
o
on many occasions.

John pu
n
ched the green symbol and backed into
a
shop doorway.
Whenever he took a call in a busy
street,
he moved instinctively
,
so he had his back to something solid
.
It
also
served as
a spot
, which
allowed
a good field of vision around him.
Taking a call generally sucked a person
’
s attention away from his im
m
edi
a
te
envi
ro
nm
e
nt
.
John Hanson was the
opposite
;
with
Hanson,
i
t heightened his awareness.
Rig
o
rous training
,
tested in some of the most deadly parts of the world
,
had added this second nature reaction
to
his survival
toolbox
.
 
If someone wanted
to distract
,
or
get the drop
on another person
,
they could
simply call th
at person
on their mobile.
Suddenly
,
they would become deaf and blind.

‘
I
s
this
John Hanson?’ came a male
voice in his ear.
Hanson
’s
quick mind did a flash search
of his mem
ory.
No face sprang forward,
and
no
memory
file opened to offer a name.

‘
W
ho am I speaking to?’
asked Hanson
.

‘
My name is Richard
Turner
, Detective
I
nspector Richard
Turner
. 
Donald
Myers
from MI5
gave
me
this number
.  Are you John Hanson?’

T
he hairs on Hanson
’
s neck
stood up
.
If Donald
Myers
had passed on this number
to another
person,
it wa
sn’
t in co
n
nection with an invitation to a birthday party.
 
                 ‘
Yes, this
is Hanson.’

‘
I have been given your name as conta
ct in the event of Tom Wilson’s death.’

For just a split second
,
John Hanson
’
s eyes stopped sweeping the busy street in front of him
.
His
brain stopped filtering the endless passers
-
by
,
looking for threats,
or
for any signs that the tide
s
of shoppers washing by
were anything other than that. 
Hanson took a quick steadying breath before he spoke
.  ‘
When d
id he die?’ 
The answer that came back
was not what he expected.

‘
Tom will
die at precisely 7 p.m. tomorrow night.
´

Chapter Two

13
February
-
0
9
:
46

(
Life
remaining 33
hrs 14
m
ins)

‘
Karen we’ve been kidnapped.’

Tom Wilson waited, and waited.
He knew that
at
any
minute,
he would wake up and this bizarre dream, no
,
this nightmare
,
would vanish as the early morning light banished it back into the dark recesses of his imagination from where it had clearly originated. Visions of being carried and laid onto a large slab
-
like table
,
and
of being stripped and bound
,
would soon evaporate
,
melt
ing away as day wrestled control
from
the
night
.  T
he strange thing was that it still felt so real
that
he could almost feel the st
raps cutting into his wrists
and
biting into
his ankles
.
He
could feel the wide re
straint band
across his abdomen and some kind of collar around his neck.
He frowned a
s
he tried to follow the sound of his breathing, it was
…
well
,
it was odd
,
because it had an echo
.
It
was
as
if there was someone else breathing close by.

‘
T
…
Tom
,
Tom is that you
?’

Tom
’
s eyes snapped open at the anguished voice of his
fiancée’s
question
.
  ‘
Karen,
wha
…what’
s happening
?
Where
are you
?’
He
swallowed deeply
,
his mouth feeling sticky and so dry
that
it distorted his speech.
Trying to turn his
head,
he realised that the straps he thought he had imagined were real
,
and that
,
as he struggled
,
they did cut into him
. 
There
was
another ban
d
pulled
tightly
across
his forehead
,
preventing him from turning
,
and another
was
across his throat
.
It
was impossible
to look to his left where he sensed Karen was.
Not that he could see her
, even
if he could turn
,
because
they were c
o
cooned in a place of inky black
that was
so dark
,
so disorientating
,
it made perception of space and scale difficult.
However, the
hollow echo suggested a structure of large
proportions,
even cavernous
.

Karen was sobbing now, a pitiful sound in the darkness that cut into Tom like a
hot
razor
.
Each
whimper
was
watered down as it
scampered
away to the far
recesses
of what he was now convinced was a large structure
.

‘
Tom wha
…w
hat
’
s happened to us
?’

Tom flexed against the bindings that held him
.
His
sinewy muscles bunching as they strained
, the
anguished
sound of his fiancé
e’s
  voice sending neat adrenalin into his blood stream
,
but he quickly reali
s
ed there was no chance of breaking them.
He took one deep breath as the shock s
tarted to wear off and the prof
es
s
ional side of his char
a
cter slid into place.