‘Just like auld times, eh?’ Boonzie chuckled softly at Ben’s shoulder. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Ben was about to reply when the one-eyed dead man’s phone suddenly started to vibrate in his pocket. Ben hesitated, then crouched down to pick it up and answer the call. He stayed silent as a deep, rumbling voice that wasn’t Hacker’s said, ‘Socket? We heard gunfire. What’s happening? You find him yet?’
Ben answered, ‘No, I found Socket. Now I’m coming for the rest of you.’
He ended the call before the voice could reply. Pocketed the phone and stuck his pistol in his belt. He and Boonzie took up the dead men’s weapons. Romanian military AK-74s, with all the tactical bells and whistles. Loaded with thirty rounds apiece and set to fully-automatic fire. Not the kinds of items readily found in the rural Scottish Highlands.
‘Someone wiz expectin’ trouble,’ Boonzie muttered.
‘And they got it,’ Ben said.
They turned off the weapon lights and moved on. Like a silent, invisible wave sweeping through the castle. The enemy was not as silent. Ben and Boonzie were drawn to the sound of voices and slamming doors. They stalked around a corner and through an archway to spy a second two-man team busily hunting from room to room and making a lot of noise doing it. Whatever their military background had been, it wasn’t top-drawer. Ben and Boonzie got within a dozen metres before they activated their weapon lights and caught the enemy by surprise in a sudden dazzling blaze that paralysed them like a pair of lamped rabbits.
One of them was a scrawny little guy with nervous eyes. The other was a huge musclebound beast who looked like he gobbled steroids for breakfast. Boonzie delivered a burst into the scrawny guy’s chest and mowed him down with authoritative force. Ben’s triple-stitch of bullets caught the monster at the top of his nose and punched a vertical line of holes up to the crown of his shaven head. He dropped his weapon, staggered and then crashed over backwards like a felled redwood tree.
Body count: eight, with seven to go.
Chapter 63
Ben took the one-eyed dead man’s phone from his pocket and called back his associate with the rumbling voice. The guy answered the call without a word. Ben said, ‘This is a time-limited offer. Last chance to cut and run, friend. Otherwise we’re going to kill you all.’
‘Fuck you,’ said the deep voice.
So much for trying to be nice. Ben replied, ‘Then I withdraw my offer.’
He was thinking of Grace as he and Boonzie moved on. If she was hiding somewhere inside the castle she must be able to hear the gunfire and know that he’d come back for her. Or maybe his assumption was wrong, and she’d managed to escape.
Or not. Maybe they’d got her.
Ben had to put those thoughts out of his mind. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to function.
The castle was like a labyrinth, with passages and corridors and doors and archways everywhere. They came to a wide, curving flight of stairs, dimly lit from a window on the galleried landing above it. Ben nodded towards the stairs and led the way up to the first-floor landing. The window overlooked the courtyard. All was still except for the steady, unremitting slantwards fall of the snow. But as Ben was just about to pass by the window, a movement out there caught his eye. Five figures, silhouetted against the white courtyard, were racing from the castle entrance. They might have been ordinary staff employees making their panicked escape, except for the fact that they were all carrying automatic rifles. It looked as though some of the remaining enemy force must have decided to take his offer after all. He watched as they all clambered into the middle of the three parked Audis. By the glow of the inside light as the doors opened, he could see through the car’s side windows that none of the five was Hacker.
Like shooting trout in a barrel. Ben reached for his remote. His fingers hovered over the buttons. Wait for it.
The last door slammed. The Dishonourable behind the wheel fired up the engine and the SUV’s headlights sliced their bluish-tinged xenon beams across the courtyard. The wipers began to slew away the cake of snow piled over its windscreen. Clouds of exhaust billowed in the freezing air.
Now. Just as the car was about to take off, Ben stood back from the window and hit the second and third channels on the remote in quick succession. The pair of RDX bombs lying beneath the Audis went off a second apart. But the destructive power of one alone would have been enough. The middle car and the two either side of it were blown into the air like toys and the violent blast lit up the courtyard like daylight, engulfing and incinerating the five escaping Dishonourables before they even understood what was happening to them. Which was probably more of a humane end than they deserved, but you couldn’t have everything.
By Ben’s count the overall toll now stood at thirteen, with just two remaining plus Stuart. But among those three was the most dangerous of the whole bunch, Carl Hacker.
He turned away from the burning wrecks of the Audis to look at Boonzie, to say ‘Let’s go.’ But the words never came out, because his blood froze at the sight of his friend, in the light from the window, bent over double and clutching at his chest. This was what Ben had feared might happen. All this excitement and exertion had finally proved too much.
Ben let his rifle drop to the floor and he raced over to grasp Boonzie by the shoulders. ‘Boonzie. Boonzie. Talk to me. Are you all right? Boonzie!’
Boonzie’s weapon dropped from his hand and he slid down the wall to the floor. His teeth were clenched and his eyes were screwed shut in pain. He suddenly looked twenty years older, and terribly fragile. In that moment, Ben truly thought he was about to lose him. When Boonzie was able to speak, after several seconds, it seemed to take a superhuman effort to get the words out. ‘I’m—I’m fine,’ he gasped breathlessly. ‘Be okay. Just … a wee bit tired. Need tae rest a while. You go on.’
Ben shook his head. ‘No way. Forget it. I’m staying right here with you.’
Boonzie spent a few more moments fighting to gather himself. He swallowed gulps of air. Finally he managed to focus his eyes on Ben, and gave him a look so intense that Ben almost backed away. ‘I said go on, laddie! Move it or I’ll shoot ye myself!’
Ben hovered, indecisive, until he realised that the decision had already been made for him.
He left the sack of bombs with his friend and pressed on alone.
The double and triple doses of morphine and crystal meth were wearing off fast, and now the agony of Carl Hacker’s shattered shoulder was beating through him like tribal drums as he made his way, groping and stumbling, through the darkness of the castle.
Everything had started going to shit in the aftermath of the first explosion. Then just as he’d been getting his men organised into search teams while he went off looking for his boss, the bloody lights had gone off. Now he was alone, and the sporadic gunfire rattling within the castle walls that he feared was the sound of his gang getting systematically wiped out only made him feel more isolated with every passing moment. He’d tried calling Stuart’s mobile, but was getting no reply. Where the hell was the bastard?
Hacker tucked his pistol inside his bloody trouser waistband and was about to try again when his phone rang in his hand. It wasn’t Stuart, but Biggs, sounding panic-stricken. ‘Sod this, mate, we’re getting out! Khan, Hardstaff, Walker, Davies and me. You should come with us.’
‘It’s only one man,’ Hacker muttered through his pain. ‘You’re not going to run from just one man.’
‘Bollocks to that,’ Biggs said. ‘There’s got to be a whole sodding SAS unit going through the place. They’re mowing us down like sodding grass!’
‘Where’s Creece? He with you?’
‘No idea, pal. Far away from here, if he’s got any sense. So are you coming with us, or what?’
‘No,’ Hacker replied grimly. ‘I’m staying. I need to find the boss.’
‘Then good bloody luck, mate. We’re off.’
Hacker tried Stuart’s phone one more time, but there was still no reply. Hacker could
see his promised two million disappearing down the toilet. If necessary, he’d hold Stuart at gunpoint and make him fork out as much cash as he had stashed away within the castle. But he had to find him first, and pray Hope didn’t beat him to it.
It was more than just the prospect of the money that was slipping away. The sponge plug in Hacker’s shoulder was so saturated with blood that it was no longer able to stem the flow. He could feel it leaking out of him, warm and wet, and with every drop his life energy was fading a little more. He spurred himself on, and staggered up the stairs to Stuart’s study.
No Stuart. As Hacker lingered in the room he glanced out of the window and caught sight of the running shapes of Biggs and the other cowards making a break for the cars. Now he really was on his own. Fine, he thought. Fuck them all.
Hacker was turning away from the window when a thunderclap explosion ripped through the cars and blew all three of them into the air in a flaming tumble of wreckage, the five men caught right in the middle. Hacker gaped at the scene of destruction and bolted from the study. Half-blind with pain, he staggered down the stairs.
Then Hacker found himself suddenly enveloped in a pool of dazzling white light and heard someone say his name, and he stopped dead in his tracks and whirled around.
Chapter 64
The footsteps thudding down the staircase were lopsided and uneven. Just by their sound, Ben could tell that the man was badly injured. He moved closer to the foot of the stairs until he was just a few metres away. The man reached the bottom and was about to pass right by him, his breathing laboured, when Ben activated the weapon light.
In its bright white glare he instantly recognised the man. And at the same time, didn’t. Because Carl Hacker looked like a different person from before. His face was drawn and his body bent in pain and defeat. His clothes were black with blood and the arm not clutching his pistol was dangling limp. Maybe he hadn’t got away unscathed from the gunfight in the dungeon, after all.
Ben said, ‘Hacker. Stop.’
Hacker stopped. Turned, blinking at the light in his eyes. He weakly half-raised the pistol in his one usable hand.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Ben said. ‘You’ll be dead before you squeeze the trigger.’
‘You want to shoot me, go ahead,’ came Hacker’s reply. His voice sounded hollow, spent. ‘I’m already fucked.’
Ben said, ‘Where is she?’
Hacker managed a thin smile. ‘Love to know that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Take me to her, and I’ll let you walk out of here. You can survive this.’
‘So you’re the one making the deals now.’
‘First you drop the pistol, Hacker. Let it go.’
Then another voice from the darkness, deep and gruff, said, ‘No, mate. You hang onto that. You might need it in a minute.’
In the peripheral glow of the weapon light Ben saw the large figure of a man step from the shadows. Then the man’s own light was shining in Ben’s face, making him blink. The deep voice rumbled, ‘Well, Major. Looks like we gotcha in a clinch now, ain’t we?’ To Hacker he said, ‘Didn’t think I was gonna leave you all alone in the shit, did you, mate?’
Ben knew he could get one, but he couldn’t get them both. ‘Shoot me, he dies.’
The deep voice laughed. ‘By the look of the poor sod, you’d be doing him a favour. He’s fucked anyway, just like he said. And so are you, pal. Now why don’t you drop the shooter, and let’s talk.’
Ben didn’t move. He kept his gun on Hacker. Blood was dripping from Hacker’s side and he was swaying on his feet. Ben said, ‘Talk about what?’
‘Talk about how your uncle Mikey’s gonna get his hands on that nice big pile of gold I heard someone mention earlier. Why else would I really want to hang around in this bloody mess?’
Uncle Mikey. This would be Creece, Ben thought. He said, ‘You want the gold, you’re going to have to get yourself a shovel and dig for it.’
‘Cut the crap. I know you know. And now it’s mine. So let’s deal. You give me the gold, you go free. How’s that for a bargain?’
‘Shoot him,’ Hacker croaked.
The big guy chuckled. ‘What, and let him kill me old pal?’
‘He’s not that fast,’ Hacker mumbled.
‘Nobody wants to die here,’ Creece said. ‘And nobody has to.’
Then a fourth voice said, ‘Wrong.’
And Creece let out a sharp wail. His weapon light wobbled and fell. As though in slow motion, Ben simultaneously saw Hacker’s pistol begin to move. The finger on the trigger. The sights lining up in his direction. Ben fired. Hacker’s head snapped back as the high-velocity rifle bullet hit him square in the middle of the forehead. He collapsed in a dead heap.
Ben whirled around to shine his beam at Creece. Creece was on his knees, his mouth wide open in a red scream. Both hands clawing at something shiny and silvery that weirdly protruded from his stomach and glittered in the light. Ben blinked, realising in that surreal instant what he was seeing. It was the tip and first six inches of a broadsword blade that had penetrated Creece’s body back to front. Ben raised the light and saw a familiar figure standing there behind Creece, still clutching the sword’s hilt with both hands.
‘Grace?’
She replied something Ben couldn’t understand. Creece was shrieking in a high-pitched yowl three octaves above his speaking voice. Blood gushed from his stomach. Grace yanked and twisted at the sword, but she couldn’t get it out.
Ben said, ‘Step aside, will you? Fingers in your ears.’
He had to feel sorry for the guy. Or almost. As Grace dropped the sword and did what he asked, he put Creece out of his misery with a bullet to the brain. Creece’s yowling instantly stopped and he rolled over flat to the floor with the sword still embedded through his midsection.
‘Better,’ Ben said. ‘I couldn’t catch a word you were saying.’
‘I said, Hi. Long time no see.’
‘Hi yourself. Been looking for you.’
‘You found me.’
‘Or you found me.’
She shrugged. ‘I was hiding back there. Heard the voices. Thought you could use some help.’
‘I had it all pretty well under control, but thanks anyway.’
‘Bastard. So are you going to give me a hug, or what?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Ben said. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d meant anything more seriously. He dropped his rifle and stepped towards her, over Creece’s body. Grace opened her arms and the two of them embraced in the darkness.
‘Are they all—?’ she asked.
‘To the last man.’
‘What about Stuart?’
‘No sign.’
‘And … Boonzie?’ She said it tentatively, hardly daring to ask.
‘I found him. He’s back there. He’s going to be okay.’
‘Thank God,’ she sighed.
Ben had something else to thank God for, too. He clasped her for the longest time, as tightly as he’d ever held anyone before, and he felt the tension oozing out of him like a poison being sucked from his veins. Grace’s cheek was wet against his. ‘I was so scared I’d never see you again,’ she whispered.
‘I’m here,’ he said over and over. ‘I’m here.’
Chapter 65
Boonzie was where Ben had left him, but by now the ailing patient was up on his feet and trying to act as though nothing had happened. Grace flew at him and squeezed him so hard that Ben thought she was going to crush the life out of the poor guy.
‘Bless ye, lassie. It’s guid tae see ye again.’
Ben said, ‘Time to start thinking about making that call to Mirella, Boonzie. She needs to hear from you.’
‘Aye, but let’s finish this job first.’
‘Whatever you say. You okay to walk, old man, or shall I give you a piggy-back?’
‘Say that tae me again an’ it’ll be yer final words, ye bawheid.’
Grace said, ‘Whatever’s in that bag, I’m
guessing it isn’t fertiliser.’
Boonzie winked slyly. ‘Ye’ll see.’
‘Well, whatever it is you have in mind, do it fast because we’re going to have company. I made a phone call.’
Ben looked at her. ‘The police?’
‘I am one of them, in case you forgot.’
‘Then you’d best turn a blind eye to the next part. We’re not done yet.’
‘Oh, I’m getting used to turning a blind eye, Ben Hope. Ever since you came along.’
They left their weapons behind and worked their way back through the castle, scattering bombs as they went until the bag was empty. There was still no sign of Stuart.
Outside, the blizzard had finally died down and only a smattering of flakes was spiralling from the evening sky. Grace stared at the still burning wreckage of the cars. The bodies of the five dead Dishonourables were slowly barbecuing inside, blackened and curled, peeling and hairless. She cupped a hand over her mouth and quickly looked away. ‘Jesus Christ.’
The druggies’ Mazda had been undamaged by the blast and was almost completely covered with a blanket of white. Ben brushed the snow from the windscreen and driver’s window, peered inside and by the flickering light of the fires saw that the key was still in the ignition.
Then he took out the remote detonator trigger.
Boonzie said, ‘Go for it, laddie.’
Ben scrolled through the individual channel selection menu until he came to the one that said SEND ALL. One touch of the button would set off the remaining eighteen RDX charges. The grand finale.
Ben pressed it.
If Charles Stuart was hiding up there somewhere in one of his ivory towers, then too bad for him. Ben, Boonzie and Grace watched as the percussive explosions tore through the castle, shattering a hundred windows with their fiery breath. They watched as the inferno quickly gained a hold of the entire building from one end to the other, and the roof timbers began to collapse inwards, and the fires reached high into the night, and embers fell like glowing snow from the sky. By morning, all that would remain of Stuart’s pride and joy would be a smouldering ruin.
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