The old stone house looked welcoming, even after all these years. I hadn't been back here in decades. There was more ivy growing up the walls than there had been the last time I'd been here, but other than that it looked the same. Timeless. Fergus had made sure that someone had always looked after the place.
The heavy wooden front door was unlocked, and we walked into the warmly lit front room. There was a fire burning in the grate, flanked by two elderly leather armchairs, and Mark made a beeline for it and held his hands out. It was colder here than down south in England, but I felt invigorated by the frosty air. Mark just felt cold, I suppose.
I showed him briefly around the house, turning up the central heating along the way. He dived into the fridge as soon as we entered the oversized kitchen, and hauled out the roast the housekeeper had left for us. I left him to dish up, and went to look for my packages. I found them in a shed near the front door of the house. I carried them indoors to the kitchen where Mark was already chewing on a hunk of roast beef.
"I thought you were a vegetarian," I teased him.
"Nah, Mum's a vegetarian. We just go along with it for her. I've eaten meat before. Delicious." He smiled happily.
I lifted the wrapped packages onto the big oak table in the middle of the kitchen.
"I'm just going to check these out, make sure they work."
"Sure," Mark nodded, too busy carving the roast to look up. "Potatoes?"
"Please."
I unwrapped the largest of the three parcels, and lifted the Heckler and Koch sniper rifle out of its protective cocoon of bubble wrap. It was in good condition. Not brand new, but looked after, like somebody had appreciated it. It was a weapon I had used many times in Germany; it was reliable and accurate, and could fire up to twenty rounds without having to be reloaded. I would have to check that it was in working order in a few minutes, and line up the scope. I had a laser in my pocket for that purpose, and a few shots in the countryside were likely to go unnoticed. The second largest package contained the rounds for the rifle, as well as those for the handguns. Hollow tipped, like I'd requested. I thought of them splitting apart on impact and exploding through the soft inner organs of Rebecca's kidnappers, and I smiled to myself.