TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
...rainer‘s failure...caldwell‘s rise...sara‘s beginning
CHAPTER 2
7 years later...a demon‘s muse...
CHAPTER 3
now...blake‘s fall...a psychiatrist‘s dilemma...monsters...
CHAPTER 4
the darkness rises...winter...a monster dies...a monster escapes...
CHAPTER 5
rainer‘s miss...
CHAPTER 6
blake‘s work...temptation...change of plans...sara taken...
CHAPTER 7
william straw...the burning house...sara‘s screams...
CHAPTER 8
the interrogation...warped eternity pendant...the mortuary...
CHAPTER 9
winter‘s calisthenics...retirement options...michael...josie...
CHAPTER 10
the test...histories and becoming...modus operandi...not enough...
CHAPTER 11
make me a list...drink to death...toy demon...i wish to be like you...
CHAPTER 12
rafiq...the gun...a demon‘s flight...the first target...
CHAPTER 13
the life and death of chicken jack...the making of Nathaniel Winter...
CHAPTER 14
the making of fallon...out of your league...hunted becomes hunter...
CHAPTER 15
burning loose ends...car in the lake...motel...healing...packages...
CHAPTER 16
depositing stashes...outrunning grief...end of the line...ray...
CHAPTER 17
winter‘s love...josie and the teacup...the hitlist...
CHAPTER 18
weapons training...a lover’s unwanted embrace...it‘s time...
CHAPTER 19
a dingy hotel...a pause...preparations for war...
CHAPTER 20
targeting simmonds...apartment firefight...blake shot...josie taken...
CHAPTER 21
shutting rainer down...ray‘s mission...blake‘s dream…
CHAPTER 22
josie‘s fate...blake recovers...winter burns...stephanie snaps rainer...
CHAPTER 23
scrapyard car...ambushing laroche...josie...holding the line...
CHAPTER 24
irradiated...upturned cockroach...finding erebus...battle with blades...
CHAPTER 25
wunderland...ryakorum‘s gambit...an angel dies...
CHAPTER 26
josie dying...interviewing rivers...blake found...desert riders...time to heal...
CHAPTER 27
penance...finding blake...second chance...winter freed...false endings...
CHAPTER 28
where did you get this...forsaken, abandoned...
CHAPTER 29
took everything from me...wake them for our guests...the sacrifice...
CHAPTER 30
the return...take my hand...executing simmonds...hello brother...
About the Book
What happens when a man whose buried demons are unleashed by an act of unimaginable horror?
The Winter Man is the story of Blake, a father and cutting-edge software programmer, whose search for his missing past has driven him to create software that now threatens the elites.
When his adopted daughter, Sara, is kidnapped and killed by traffickers, he is left with a choice; freedom from the unbearable pain by taking his own life or catharsis in revenge.
He chooses the latter, and using the software he has built, he identifies the men most responsible for his daughter’s murder and embarks on a journey to avenge her.
He descends into a criminal underworld that he is completely unprepared for and almost meets his death.
Broken but not yet beaten he turns to a man, Ray, who saved him once before and who trains and prepares him properly for both the men that he must face and the formidable veteran detective, Rainer, assigned to catch him.
He is introduced to the banned work of a prisoner, Nathaniel Winter, who too has seen his family destroyed and received no justice.
Now properly prepared and driven by the newly discovered Winter’s philosophy and guided by a demon whose purpose remains unknown, Blake cuts a bloody path through the men on his list.
And slowly comes to understand the powerful and, at times, supernatural forces he is up against all the while pursued by an increasingly conflicted and ruthless Rainer and comes face to face with the architect of his suffering, Caldwell, and discovers the terrible truth of his daughter and his past.
About the Author
Perry Bhandal is a novelist, director, writer, and producer. His films include Interview with a Hitman and The Last Boy. His previous novel is Prelude, a very personal collection of short stories and artwork. He is principal producer at Kirlian Pictures, a vertically integrated movie studio based out of London, Budapest and Los Angeles.
ALSO BY PERRY BHANDAL
Interview with a Hitman
The Last Boy
Prelude
THE
WINTER
MAN
Perry Bhandal
Kirlian
Pictures
London
CHAPTER 1
...rainer’s failure...caldwell’s rise...sara’s beginning
Just over six feet tall, black hair cropped close. An angular face beset with eyes of a blue so pale they were almost translucent. Rainer glassed the binoculars across the few lit windows of the mansion. Pocketing them he pulled up the collars of his black jacket buttoning them across his throat blocking the cold wind that had been picking at his neck.
Beside him were Kamal and Michael, their squat dark forms bristling with weaponry.
‘On my mark, not before,’ whispered Rainer.
The two nodded assent.
Silently like a piece of the night Rainer made his way along the shadows of the high walls surrounding the stately home.
Hoisting himself over, he rolled over the top and down the other side. Crouching between the trees lining the inside of the wall he waited for the sounds of alarm.
He counted out a full minute scanning the house beyond, orienting himself against the memorised intelligence images. He tried to ignore the children’s swings and toys dotted across the wide expanse of lawn. An incongruity he had never got used to no matter how often he saw it. The service doors were his way in.
He replayed the route he would have to take. Rainer felt the familiar tightening work its way down from his neck into his chest and finally settle in his gut. There were no pictures of the interior, just a twenty-five-year-old floor plan. He slipped off the light, black rucksack and set it on the soil. He unzipped it and laid out the explosive device, the Browning Hi-Power 9mm automatic pistol, silencer, a short-range location transmitter, a length of Velcro and the Serbu short barrel pump-action shotgun. He strapped a thigh holder in place and slipped the Serbu in and out a couple times checking for snags. He secured the Velcro round his forearm, pocketed the transmitter, screwed in the silencer, flicked off the safety and staying low, with the automatic in a double-handed grip, he sprinted across the open ground towards the service entrance.
The dog came out of nowhere. It was big and blurred through the night air impossibly fast. Rainer dropped. Huge yellow fangs brushed past his neck. The dog landed on paving behind Rainer and skittered across it trying to find purchase. Rainer rolled and came up with the scrabbling monster in his sights. Something in the back of his mind shouted, ‘PAIRS, PAIRS!’
He twisted round and shot the first dog’s identical twin through the mouth. The silenced bullet blew the back of the animal’s head clean out. In mid-air, for a moment, Rainer could make out the night sky through its mouth. Before it l
anded, Rainer twisted round and pumped two bullets into the first dog coiled on its haunches as it made ready to launch itself at him. It made a spastic attempt, as only part of a signal reached its hind legs.
Rainer crouched still, willing the roar of the blood in his ears to subside. He wanted to run so badly. But he stayed put, knowing that any searching eyes would be drawn to movement more than his dark static crouching form. He brought his breathing under control, oriented his ears to the wind, and scanned for any signs he had been seen.
The dogs hadn’t made a sound. Trained killers. His guns had made no sound and the silencers had suppressed any muzzle flash.
Rainer hated killing animals. Dogs especially. He’d had an Alsatian; it would have killed to protect him. Rainer pushed the thought from his head.
Taking a deep breath, he sprinted low and silent to the service entrance. He attached the location transmitter to the Velcro strap on his forearm.
An oblong length of light thrown by the opening door onto the manicured lawn momentarily signaling his entry into the house and then was dark once more.
Inside, the strip lighting overhead, bare white corridor and tiled floor made a tunnel of white light in which there was no place to hide. It smelled strongly of bleach. He moved forward, stark like a black spider on white tile.
A flush sounded and a man stepped out into the corridor, he looked directly at him, Rainer shot him in the face, hands still tugging up his zipper. The bullet exited a bloody comet splattering the walls and floor.
Rainer knelt down beside him. The man’s jacket had fallen open revealing a stub barreled Heckler and Koch MP5-K and a transceiver clipped to his belt, a line split in two - one going up the inside of his jacket ending in an earpiece hanging out over his collar, the other going along his arm to a mic at his wrist. The transceiver was set to receive, a push button would activate the mic at his wrist. Quickly Rainer unplugged the transceiver, pulled the ear line out, reinserted it and slipped it into his ear, locking the transceiver to receive he pocketed it. The mic hissed with background noise. If they were as professional as their kit there would be a roll-call soon. Rainer stepped over the spasming body and continued on. The clock was ticking.
He reached the door at the end of the corridor and stepped through into the kitchen area. The lights were dim here. He crouched low and jogged silently past the rows of stainless-steel worktops and shelves laden with sparkling utensils, enough to service a large hotel. He peeked through the porthole in the double doors into a huge banquet room. He pushed open one of the doors and slipped through. The hall was all dark wood and red velvet. Fake candles dimly lit it, enough for someone with good eyesight to walk around without knocking the expensive looking vases off the sideboards lining the walls.
He was halfway across the hall when a door opened at the far end. Rainer dropped to his knees and brought the Browning up in one smooth motion level with their heads. He knelt stock still. Two armed men entered the darkened hall. He knew that unless they looked directly at him, they would not see him. Without motion he would just merge into the dimness. Luck was definitely not with him tonight. One of the men looked directly at him. The other looked up at the ornate ceiling, bored. Rainer remained motionless. The man squinted his eyes. Rainer remained still. The man went to tap his partner on the arm, to call his attention.
Rainer shot him through the head. One short precise aim change and he shot the top of his partner’s head off.
He got up, keeping low, his Browning held close to his chest and made his way silently along the corridor.
Dark wood stretched either side, punctuated with ornate doors, mahogany desks with thin curved legs punctuated the gaps in between. Electric candelabras provided the dim light. Oil paintings of country scenery and proud round-chested men astride magnificent horses lined the walls. At the far end brighter light flooded out illuminating a huge painting of a dark horse on the opposite wall.
A massive form stepped into the corridor. He raised a wrist to his mouth and pressed at his belt. Rainer shot him in the side of the head. The bullet entered through his earpiece and exited straight out of the other side. The man shook his head once, twice and then he fell forward, his chin striking the edge of a heavy sideboard lining the wall, driving the bottom of his jaw into the upper and splitting his neck as the bulk of his body drove it against the dense unmoving wood. Rainer’s earbud registered a click and then nothing.
Rainer sprinted to the doorway, dropped and pressed himself flat against the wall.
He listened, feeling for a presence in the room beyond. A weak croaking voice sounded out.
‘Toby?’ A pause. Then again, this time with the edge of a man unused to repeating himself.
‘Toby?’
Below the low hum of the fake candles above him he could make out the sound of a tiny drip dripping.
Rainer slowly edged around the door. His face clearing the door frame at the same time as the muzzle of his Browning.
An etiolated figure lay in the middle of a vast inclined bed below a bank of LCD screens hung from the high ceiling.
Stick legs, reed thin arms, a bloated abdomen and sunken neck which looked barely able to support the oversized completely bald head. Helpless was the word that came to Rainer, helpless until you looked into the eyes shining with reptilian cunning.
The air above seemed to darken momentarily then clear. Rainer felt something leave the room.
One of the man’s excoriated arms moved slowly towards a red call button. Rainer shook his head and raised the Browning. His eyes narrowed, the hand stopped. Whatever sickness infected the thing in the bed it wanted to remain alive. The two outermost screens showed the empty interiors of dark rooms. At least they seemed empty as his eyes adjusted, he could see small movements in the gloom. The central one showed a woman strapped to a metal table.
Dina.
Rainer gestured to the screen, his heart quickening. ‘Where is she?’
The etiolated man eyed Rainer. A slow smile broke across his face.
‘The basement,’ He flicked his eyes up. ‘But you’re too late.’
Rainer looked up at the screen. The woman writhed from side to side pulling uselessly against her bonds. A masked face looked up into the camera, brought a scalpel up in one hand and tapped it on the side of his head and smiled.
Rainer put the gun to the etiolated man’s head. ‘Stop him or you’re dead.’
The etiolated man laughed and brought a blade up and into Rainer’s side. Rainer fell back, the etiolated man grabbed the call switch and pumped it. An ear-splitting klaxon sounded. Rainer shot the etiolated man from the floor, the bullet entering his shoulder, punching a tunnel through his neck and blowing out of his eye taking the side of his face out and spattering the bed with blood, brain and grey matter. Rainer got up unsteadily, holding his side. The earpiece filled with barked military orders. The sound of footsteps filled the corridor outside. He slipped the Browning into the shoulder holster and pulled out the Serbu.
A movement.
The first guard into the room was punched back out at twice the speed he entered, the Serbu’s round exploding in and out of the man’s chest. Rainer stepped aside, as the next one in sprayed his last position. The Serbu ignited again and the second guard’s face disappeared in a cloud of red.
He looked up at the screen. It was dead.
Rainer looked down. His side bled out freely.
He moved to the two dead men and relieved the first of his MP5 and the two spare cartridges. Slinging the Serbu across his back he moved towards the stairs leading to the basement and the shouts of the approaching men.
The floor plans he had memorised showed only one way in and out of the basement. Once inside he wouldn’t be able to fight his own way out let alone rescue Dina. What he hoped he wouldn’t have to do; he had no choice now. He thumbed the location transmitter.
Rainer came to a stop at the end of the long corridor. Beyond he could hear men make their way forward, slowly co
vering each other. The security earpiece remained. The intelligence work-up had them as a combination of special forces and the usual career enforcers. He was sure he hadn’t come across the former yet. He had killed four, he had another twelve to deal with. He had perhaps thirty minutes before the bleeding at his waist drained him too weak and he could fight no more. But Rainer wasn’t entirely without training. He was different from the man who had fallen all that time ago. Who had beat his fists at the impotence of his god. He needed no god now. He had his god strapped to his body. His god existed in the weapons he held by his side, in his fists, in the heels of his boots. These were his gods and they were not impotent.
Rainer waited until he heard the sounds of the men just beyond the door. He counted eight. He raised the Serbu as the door slowly opened. The sound of small clicks suddenly filled the air as if a flock of chittering birds had suddenly entered the space beyond the doors. Silenced weapons fire.
The door closed as the men beyond, what remained of them, focused their fire on Kamal and Michael.
A sweat drop fell into a pale blue eye. Flashing lights reflected off the cornea.
Rainer wiped his eye. The sound of crashing, booming music filled the air.
Rainer held his Serbu out aimed down the filthy corridor. Ceiling lights pulsed and flared. Television screens played images of sex above the doors leading off the passage. Michael and Kamal covered Rainer. Michael early fifties, Kamal in his thirties. Michael aimed along the corridor; Kamal covered the rear as Rainer moved forward.
A masked man appeared at the end of the corridor. Rainer and Michael opened fire punching him into the wall.
They reached a door. Rainer moved past covering. Michael pulled it open.
Inside half-dressed teenage boys and girls cowered in the room.
‘Police! Move!’ shouted Michael. The boys and girls hesitated.
‘Now!’ screamed Michael.
Jolted into action Michael corralled them out, one of them pregnant. Rainer turned briefly. Another masked man appeared at the end of the corridor and opened fire.
The Winter Man Page 1