by J. D. Weston
Stone Fall
A Stone Cold Thriller
J. D. Weston
Contents
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1. Fallen Angel
2. The Eyes of the Beast
3. Green Eyed Monster
4. The Pack
5. Unleash the Beast
6. Sheep
7. Shadow of the Monster
8. Beast of Burden
9. Knock Knock
10. Monster of Depravity
11. Monster’s Manor
12. Discovery
13. Showed Hands
14. Break In
15. Fallen Hero
16. Beast’s Revenge
17. Luring the Monster
18. Capturing the Beast
19. Gentle Giant
20. The Angel and the Beast
21. The Serpent’s Trap
22. Love Thy Beast
23. Down with the Serpent
24. The Beast Reborn
25. Heroes Song
26. Alive
27. A Gift from the Beast
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A Note from the Author
Also By J.D.Weston.
Stone Cold
Stone Fury
Stone Fall
Stone Rage
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1
Fallen Angel
Two men sat in a black cab outside St Leonard’s Primary School. The driver looked like any other black cab driver and took the same fare every day. He was dressed for comfort in trainers, a t-shirt and jogging bottoms, just like he did on most days. The other man sat in the large rear space with an open newspaper and flicked through the trashy photos of celebrities. He wore a pair of jeans and a loose jacket over an open-necked polo shirt.
All around them were mums and friends chatting while they waited to collect their children from school. The women stood in groups of two or three making idle small talk between glances at the front doors of the large brick building. They were waiting for the first opportunity to break away from the meaningless chat and get back home to their lives.
Among the mums were several men, not dads, but drivers, who stood unsmiling beside their cars. The school was private, well-regarded and extremely expensive.
The driver had parked a hundred yards back from the main gate, close enough for the little girl to see the cab, but far enough away from the eyes of prying mothers.
The main doors opened, and dozens of uniformed kids ran out towards the waiting arms of their mums. They showed pictures they had painted during class, some opened tupperware boxes to display the cakes they had baked and passed their mums their bags to carry for them. Other kids met their drivers and simply climbed into the back of the car without conversation.
“You’ll never get away with this,” said the driver to the man in the back. “She’s just a kid.”
“Relax, she is merely a pawn,” said the man in the back seat. “Just like your family, Mr Bell. I have no use for them, but sometimes we need a little…” he paused, “encouragement. I have far greater ambitions, Mr Bell, than anything to do with the lives of young children. I deal in nations. So much grander, don't you think?”
“But she won’t recognise you, you’ll scare her,” the driver replied.
“Inshallah, by the time she opens the door it will be too late.”
The intuition of the man in the rear paid off. A short while later the door was opened by a little girl, and she climbed in.
“Hey, who are you?” she said.
“”Oh, you must be Angel?” said the man in the back. “It’s okay, I am helping, Mr Bell today. Why don’t you close the door, it’s cold outside, yes?”
Angel turned and pulled the heavy door closed, before settling herself onto the seat.
“Do you need help with the seatbelt?”
“No, I can do it myself, I do it every day.”
“Oh, well you must be a very clever girl then, Angel. Drive on.”
The driver indicated, pulled away from the kerb and joined the slow moving traffic.
“So,” said the man in the back, “tell me about your day, Angel. Did you make a painting? Or cook a cake?”
“You don’t make a painting, you paint a painting, and you don’t cook a cake, you bake a cake.”
The man laughed. “Such a clever girl, you know when I went to school, we didn’t learn such things.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“A long way from here, Angel. Somewhere very far away, but it is always in my heart, and I can find my way home with my eyes closed. Is this place in your heart, Angel?”
“My school?”
“Yes, your school, your friends and the city. Do you love them?”
“I love my friends, but not my school.”
“And the city, Angel? Do you love London?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t been anywhere else, so I don’t know what’s better.”
“You really are a very clever girl for somebody so young.”
“How do you know how old I am?” Angel asked.
“Oh, Angel, we know all about you. And your Mum.”
“Where are we going? This isn’t the way.”
“I must be honest with you, Angel, we are going for a little holiday. Perhaps afterwards you will know if you miss your home or not.”
The man was busy pouring a liquid from a small plastic bottle onto a handkerchief.
“Where are we going? What’s that you’re doing?” asked Angel. “I want my mum.”
“Little girl, you have asked too many questions. It’s nap time.”
2
The Eyes of the Beast
Ordinary people walked past where Harvey sat, they led ordinary lives, had ordinary jobs, wore ordinary clothes and had ordinary reasons for being there.
Harvey was far from ordinary. He wore casual clothes, tan boots, black cargo pants and a plain white t-shirt underneath his leather bikers jacket, and he sat in a coffee shop amongst ordinary people on Queen Victoria Street in the city of London. But he was looking for the extraordinary.
He’d been sat for over an hour, observing.
His ear-piece was barely visible unless somebody was looking for it. It crackled into life.
“Stone, how are you doing there?” It was Melody Mills, his colleague.
He scratched his face and discreetly tapped the button twice to confirm nothing had happened yet.
“We’re doing another pass along Cannon Street, keep your eyes open and shout if you see him.”
He was looking for an ordinary man in an ordinary world with an extraordinary reason for being in London.
A group of four women walked past the coffee shop, where Harvey sat by the window in the corner with his back to the wall. Protecting his back was an old habit, part of his past life, back when he’d looked over his shoulder more than he looked in front.
The women laughed and joked at something one of them was showing on her phone, and they walked on carefree.
Two men in suits passed them walking in the opposite direction. One of the men, a short, stocky man in a tight suit and long heavy jacket casually turned to admire them walking away then continued on. The ma
n turned to keep up with his friend and bumped shoulders with another man in jeans, trainers and an oversized fleece jacket. His hair was shaved bald, and a tattoo crawled up his neck. He carried a rucksack slung over both shoulders and walked with his hands in his jacket pockets at a faster than average speed.
Harvey stood up, left the coffee shop and began to follow the bald man along Queen Victoria Street. The man crossed over Bread Street, where he passed the group of girls without looking or admiring, then crossed to the other side of Queen Victoria Street. Harvey stayed on his side of the road, but matched the man’s pace, giving the impression he was heading somewhere ordinary like the hundreds of other people in view. It was London, and hiding in plain sight was fairly simple if you acted ordinarily.
The man turned into Lambeth Hill, a quieter road that led down to Upper Thames Street. Harvey crossed the road after him, dodging between taxis and cars as the man disappeared from sight. He sprinted across the last few lanes of traffic and up to the corner of Lambeth Hill then resumed his brisk walk. He turned the corner but saw nothing ahead. Harvey discreetly checked around him, in doorways and alleyways, nothing. The street was empty of cars and people. Harvey began to run.
“Stone, you’re on the move, we saw your tracker, you have eyes on him?” said Mills.
Harvey began to jog. “Lambeth Hill, heading down to Upper Thames Street, he’s on foot moving fast, jeans and a blue fleece, shaved head and carrying a rucksack.”
“Reg has you on-screen, we’re on Puddle Dock coming onto Upper Thames Street now.”
“Target has disappeared,” said Harvey.
“You lost him?”
Harvey didn’t reply.
Harvey picked up the pace of his run. He rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of the man ahead turning onto Upper Thames Street, heading toward Mills and the team. He was running.
“I’ve got eyes on him, he’s onto me, he’s running toward you on Upper Thames-”
“Okay, we have a visual.”
Harvey heard the roar of the team’s Audi a hundred yards away, followed by the screech of tyres on tarmac. He sprinted to the end of the road to see the man running across the four-lane street, then disappear into a cobbled road between two buildings that led to the waterside. Angry drivers honked their horns, and other cars skidded to avoid crashing into the mass of stopped traffic. Harvey leapt across a car bonnet and narrowly missed being hit by another vehicle skidding to a halt in the next lane.
Melody was a hundred yards ahead, running away from the man into an alleyway to cut him off.
Harvey reached the riverside, he looked left then right, and saw the tattooed man running across the Millennium Bridge above him. Melody was fifty yards behind him sprinting hard between groups of tourists. Harvey carried on running and made his way onto the bridge but by the time he reached it, he was well behind Melody and the man.
By the time Harvey reached the centre of the bridge, crowds of people blocked his path. He called out to them, “Move, move, move,” and barged through the barrier of pedestrians. He reached the middle of a crowd where people were stopped and staring, men and women held their phones up making a video of the scene. Harvey broke through to find the man standing with a machete to Melody’s throat.
“Let her go, Victor,” said Harvey. “What’s she done to you?”
“What’s she done to me?” Victor replied. “You think I don't know you guys have been watching me?” Victor was shaking, he was at breaking point.
Harvey didn't reply.
“It ends now, right here.”
“You don’t tell me when it ends, Victor.”
Victor looked surprised.
“You think I’m going to play into your hands?” began Harvey. “You think I’m going to tell you what you want to hear, Victor? You think this is a movie? Well it’s not, you’re holding a machete to my friend's throat, and you have two possible outcomes.” Harvey stopped and stared at him, then spoke calmly at the man. “You drop the machete, she arrests you, you live-”
“And if I don't, you’re gonna take this off me and kill me in front of all these people?”
“I haven’t decided if you die yet, Victor,” replied Harvey, “that’s your gamble isn’t it?” Harvey gave an almost imperceptible nod to Melody, who smashed her head back into Victor’s nose. The man released his hold just enough for her to move away from him, and twist his left arm back in one smooth action. But Victor was stronger than he looked. He pulled Melody’s arm away, released her grip on him and grabbed her hair. He wrenched her head back, and with his right hand swung the machete back, ready to land the blade on her neck.
Harvey pounced forwards and tackled Victor while his arm was swung back. He pinned him against the railing and crunched his forehead down onto the man’s nose. Victor swung again, this time at Harvey, but Harvey stepped into the swing, blocked Victor’s arm and ripped the weapon from the bald man’s hands. Harvey turned the blade and, with a flick of his wrist, jammed it down into Victor’s arm. The sharp, heavy knife sliced through the man’s wrist like it was cutting bananas from a tree. The hand fell uselessly to the floor.
Victor doubled over in agony, and Melody reached out to cuff his good hand, but he saw it coming and stood upright, sucking in air between his gritted teeth.
“Are you coming easy, Victor?” said Melody. “Don't make this any harder than it needs to be.”
Harvey pulled his Sig. “On the ground, now,” he shouted at Victor.
“I have to,” said Victor. “They have my son,” he reached for the bloodied cuff of his ruined arm.
“Don’t move, Victor, put your arm down now,” shouted Harvey. “Melody get those people out of here,” he continued, not releasing his eyes from Victor's.
“Who has him, Victor? We can help,” said Harvey.
Melody turned, and shouted to the crowds, “Move back, get out of here, come on, move back.”
“They’ll kill him if I don’t-“
“Victor, talk to me.”
The noise of the crowd control fell to a distant hum in the background of Harvey’s concentration, only the dull thud of his heartbeat in his ears played in his mind. Victor stopped with the fingers of his left hand hidden inside the right-hand cuff. Harvey glanced down and saw the small switch and two thin wires.
Tears began to roll down Victor's face. He looked up at the sky, and his fingers stumbled in the sticky mess.
Harvey fired.
His two shots found Victor’s forehead. It had been a risk. Victor could have still hit the switch, but if Harvey hadn’t fired, he would have definitely hit the switch.
Victor fell to his knees, his hand still on the little bundle of wires that stuck out of his cuff. Before his body had a chance to fall to the ground and possibly blow them all sky high, Harvey stepped forwards and caught him, then with a grunt, he hoisted the man over the handrail.
The dead body plummeted to the river below and landed face down. There was no explosion. There was no surge of water. There was no more Victor Hague.
3
Green Eyed Monster
Faisal bin Yasser al Sayan leaned against a stolen black taxi in a mechanic’s garage in Stratford, East London. There were three taxis in total, all parked side by side in the narrow space. The warehouse was an open space, cluttered with car parts, such as gearboxes, exhausts and engine blocks, arranged in no particular fashion. To the right-hand side of the space were four rooms built from concrete blocks with heavy wooden doors. Each room was twelve-foot square. Door number one stood ajar, door two was locked and doors three and four were also open.
Stood beside Al Sayan was Angel. She looked up at him and then around at the dirty garage.
Al Sayan took a phone from his pocket and dialled a number from memory. The ringtone was answered quickly, but no voice offered a greeting.
“I know you’re there,” said Al Sayan, “I can hear you breathing.”
“Where is she?”
“All in good time,�
�� said Al Sayan.
“Who are you?”
“Oh you’ll know me when we meet, but until then-“
“You’re messing with the wrong person.”
“Is that correct?” asked Al Sayan. “I believe it is me who will call the shots, as you say. Let's keep the childish threats out of this, it is purely business, something I understand you are extremely good at.”
“What do you want? Money?”
“Do not insult me, I am no petty criminal.”
“Tell me what you want, it’s yours, but harm her, and I’ll make sure you suffer.”
“How very boring,” said Al Sayan. “We have a mutual friend. Or should I say, we had a mutual friend? Until this morning.”
“Hague?”
“Ah, so you watch the news, it was exciting wasn’t it? He was supposed to complete a task, after which I would release his child,” said Al Sayan. “He failed his task, as you know.”
“And his child?”
Al Sayan tutted. “Such a waste of life.”
“Tell me what you want, I haven’t failed yet.”
“I know, Victor spoke very highly of you, I believe we shared a shipment.”
“He’s got a big mouth.”
“He had a big mouth,” corrected Al Sayan. “He also told me you are planning something. I’m not a collector, but I am very interested in ancient artefacts.”