Beyond The Law Box Set

by Tom Benson

  “I hope we get some visitors,” another man said, and laughed.

  Eva wanted to cry but knew she couldn’t afford such a luxury. Her vision blurred and the pain in her wounded leg was unbearable. She’d lost a lot of blood from both her leg and the physical abuse. Eva had been without food and drink for a long time, and had an overwhelming sensation of doom. She pulled out the mobile phone to check for a signal. It showed three out of five bars for signal strength, but the battery power warning showed less than 10%.

  “Not enough for a call—fucking thing.”

  Eva composed a text and pressed the send button. The message transmitted, and the screen flashed, ‘less than 7% power’. Eva leant back into her corner and closed her eyes to think.

  .

  Western Infirmary

  Glasgow

  Rachel listened to the consultant but refused to believe what he’d said. Jake had rallied through the night, and then there was a surge in the readings. A specialist had been on the scene with minutes. His immediate concern wasn’t Jake’s heart, because the equipment would keep it beating, and maintain his breathing.

  “Deteriorating brain activity?” Rachel had repeated after the consultant. “What can you do about it?”

  “In cases like this we can’t operate—only observe and hope for improvement.”

  “Is there a … a line where we have to rely on … prayers?”

  The consultant met her steady gaze, took a deep breath and pointed to the chart. “At this point here, we’ll be keeping Jake alive, but that’s all we’ll be doing.” He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Rachel.”

  “Thank you for your honesty.” Rachel turned to look at her partner, lover—hero.

  The consultant hung the patient chart on the rail at the foot of the bed and quietly left.

  Rachel’s phone buzzed with a text as she gazed at Jake’s blank expression and willed him to move, or blink. To a person trying to ignore them, the quiet, steady, monotonous, mechanical sounds made by the equipment were all deafening. She looked at the descending line on the graph, and the double zero the consultant had pointed to. The numbers blurred.

  Rachel wiped her eyes and focused on the text message from an unknown number.

  ‘FRED AND IAN R DEAD. I WON'T LAST. GET THEM 4 US. EVA.'

  Rachel inhaled deeply and looked at Jake. “I’ll be back my love.”

  .

  Fort Etive

  “Gentlemen,” McGinley said. “Welcome to what I hope will be the first of many of these business meetings.” She looked around the conference room. “I’m delighted to see so many of you.”

  Simpson stood beside the door and closed it when everybody had taken a seat. “We’ll be able to start in a few minutes, and I’ve organised a buffet to keep us going until later.”

  “Where are all our foot soldiers?” Montgomery said.

  “We have a couple of big rooms along the corridor. They’ll be fed in there before they go off into the woods to back up the guys we have out there already.”

  “How many people have we got in the forest?” Sammy Smart said.

  “We have twelve spread through the area, and two teams for the roof. I’ve kept a few guys as back-up. Unless they’re needed, they’ll patrol the corridors and floors.”

  “I have to hand it to you,” Smart said. “Your man was right when he said it would be a secure meeting place.” He nodded. “If the vigilante team is only a handful of people, I reckon the last couple are as good as dead.”

  A couple of the other underworld gang leaders joined McGinley when she laughed.

  Food and drink were served, and McGinley explained how she proposed to run the syndicate of gangland regions. She told the gathering there had been a time when her husband had intended to create this group, but William Hartley was greedy and would have started a turf war in the city.

  Montgomery said, “If we all agree to toe the line and pay our percentages, and you’re going to supply the legal side, in the end, it will save us a lot of money and bother, but I’m worried about those who haven’t joined us.”

  McGinley turned to Simpson and nodded.

  Simpson said, “After my visits around the city I ended up with five surviving people who were less than complimentary about Mrs McGinley, and I might add, less than complimentary about some of you.” He took a few seconds to gaze at each individual around the table.

  “What I would suggest is we agree who will tackle those five gang leaders, and as part of our alliance we demonstrate our strength by removing the stubborn individuals.”

  “You want us to deal with them, so they come into line?” Montgomery said.

  “No,” Simpson said. “I discussed this with Mrs McGinley, and we were thinking about something a bit more permanent. We’ll remove them one by one. After the first is dealt with, it will give the others an opportunity to rethink their future.”

  Judging from the grumbles and curses in the room the idea wasn’t favoured by everybody, but the men started to nod when the futility of tackling the new syndicate was appreciated.

  “Why have we all had to bring laptops with us today?” Sheridan said.

  Simpson said, “Mrs McGinley has hers with her too. As a show of good faith, and to help bind us as a group, the idea is for everybody present to send a simple email, donating £5,000 as a deposit for expenses incurred as we set up the new larger group.”

  Simpson passed a sheet of paper around with the appropriate email address printed on it to avoid any confusion or misspelling.

  “When the messages have all been received we can bring you up to date on our efforts regarding the capture and execution of the vigilante team who’ve been plaguing the city’s underworld for so long.”

  “How will we know you’ve caught them?” Sheridan said.

  “You’ll know,” McGinley said. “We have a traitor and two of the vigilantes along the corridor waiting to be taken out for a diving lesson in the loch.”

  Simpson said, “We also have a live one, but she’s contained within the building. The sentries are under orders not to kill her because we’d like you gentlemen to be entertained by her demise.”

  Simpson brought McGinley’s laptop to the table, and as she powered up the machine, she nodded to the other gang leaders. Each man lifted his laptop case, and they set up their individual computers. The transactions lined up on McGinley’s Inbox within a few minutes.

  She said, “Until Brian here located this excellent meeting place and made some renovations we didn’t have any means of using phones or the internet here.” In reality, when Simpson had told her there was no phone signal, she had never attempted to use her phone. Had she cared to look across the loch, a relay mast stood proudly in a little compound five miles away. McGinley wasn’t up to speed on such things as phone relays, how the internet worked, or the engineering behind any other modern technology.

  The gang leaders had taken the lack of phone signal in good faith and didn’t try.

  Simpson left the room by announcing he’d gone for an update on the last agent, who was on the loose in the building but known to be severely injured. It was a lie, and he returned ten minutes later and stood beside McGinley’s chair.

  “Boss, if you’d like to go along to Room Three, our final vigilante is waiting to meet you.”

  “Room Three?” It was a secret code Simpson had explained to her earlier.

  “Yes, it’s the one between Room Two and Room Four.” Simpson turned to smile at the gang leader nearest them.

  “Ha, fucking ha,” McGinley said. “Keep an eye on my laptop please, Brian.”

  As the door closed behind McGinley, Simpson shook his head and grinned.

  “You need to be careful, mate,” Sheridan said. “She is as dangerous as Mickey used to be.”

  “Ah, she’s a pussycat,” Simpson said.

  “Hullo, all stations Mike Romeo this is Max—let it go, let it go. Out.” Max crouched down among the bushes at the edge of the tree line, and
watched the black Mercedes as it exited the old brick building, went through the gates, and climbed the track to the forest. The wooden doors of the building swung closed, and the gates of the fence swung closed. The driver of the Merc made no effort to stop and lock the doors or gates.

  “Hullo, Max this is Dennis. I’m with Johnno, and we’re less than one-hundred yards from those gates. The X-rays have a man either side in the bushes.”

  “Roger that,” Max said. “Keep them covered, but don’t give away position. We might want to go in through there later, over.”

  “Roger,” Dennis said.

  “Hullo Daz, this is Max, over.”

  “Gotcha,” Daz said, not being one for voice procedure.

  “You and Vick pay a visit to the guy on the primary barrier. Take your time getting back there, and put him out of action; permanently.”

  “We’re on it,” Daz said. The joy was evident in his tone.

  “I’ll be right back.” Simpson stood. “Mrs Mac has been gone ten minutes. I’ll remind her, she’s got, guests.” He strode to the door and left the conference room, closing the door gently behind him.

  It took two minutes to reach the chamber where the three bodies had been left as a confidence booster if any of the gang leaders had become agitated. Simpson gazed once again at the corpse of the man who’d been sent to truss the bodies in fishing nets. He was as dead as the others and having his throat cut, it could only have been the vigilante bitch.

  Two of McGinley’s men approached from along the corridor.

  “How is the meeting going, Brian?”

  “Not bad, Alec.” Simpson looked over his shoulder. “We found out another one of ours was a traitor and the boss has dealt with him. He’s there with the others.”

  “What a fucking mess. When are we getting rid of the bodies?”

  “The nets are there if you two fancy a trip out in the little boat. It’s tied at our private pier around on the loch side of the building.”

  “It’s a messy job, but it’ll get us out of here for a couple of hours.” The two men stepped over the bodies and started to arrange a net for the first of the corpses. “What about weights, Brian?”

  “I’ve had a few big boulders stacked beside the pier. I reckon one inside each net will be enough.” He nodded to the two trusted gang members and left them to their thankless task.

  Five minutes later, Simpson walked through the dimly-lit parking floor. The black Mercedes was gone, and he rightly figured McGinley had taken it to get away. To suit his agenda he had to maintain her confidence a while longer.

  “So trusting for such a hard-faced woman.” Simpson approached the white BMW. He recalled his quick, last-minute chat with McGinley, timed to be while the other gang leaders were settling down in the conference room. He’d said, “If I give you a message about going to Room Three, it’s a covert message to get the fuck out of here.”

  McGinley had looked at him aghast, but he repeated the coded warning, and she’d nodded, expecting her right-hand man must have a good reason.

  Simpson reached the BMW, still shaking his head at how easily he’d coerced McGinley since they’d met. He glanced left and right around the vehicles, to ensure nobody would see him leave, and only then realised that the tyres were slashed on every vehicle except the BMW. McGinley must have got one with good tyres too—both being parked at one end.

  Simpson started the engine and eased the big car down into the tunnel. A few of the lights were out, so he flicked on the headlights for the short underground journey.

  “What the fuck—”

  Where the tunnel started to rise up from the lowest point, a young woman in a torn skirt and jacket knelt on one leg. Her other leg was out to one side and had a sizeable bloodstained piece of material tied around it.

  She had no shoes and was supporting herself with a straight arm—her left hand flat on the ground. The woman was in the centre of the vehicle’s path and staring straight at the advancing machine.

  Earlier, Eva had lost the strength to burst any more tyres and decided to crawl along the tunnel. She’d lie in wait and watch for anybody escaping—she could block the tunnel. The first car, driven by a woman had almost hit her at the entry to the subway.

  The trembling operative lifted her left arm to use a two-handed grip on her gun. Her head was lolling forward, and her eyes blinked rapidly. Eva’s head rose, her body became erect, and her lips parted as she took a deep breath. For several seconds she remained steady, focused on the driver—not a person—her target. Eva’s strength was ebbing fast as she curled a finger around the trigger.

  “Bitch!” Simpson howled as he floored the accelerator. He felt the intense pain of the first two bullets because one entered his chest and shattered his sternum. The second round ventilated his windpipe, but the next three made a tight group on his forehead.

  Eva was unconscious and her body was falling forward as the car reached her. Due to the confines of the tunnel, the operative’s lifeless body was thrown against the roof of the tunnel and landed against the windscreen of the powerful car. The out of control vehicle screamed out of the dark passage.

  The BMW launched through the wooden doors of the old building. Travelling at more than forty, the car flew over the mesh fence and overturned, dumping Eva’s broken body unceremoniously on a gangland gunman. The vehicle continued in flight for another few yards and landed on its roof.

  The man in the bushes had been shocked at the explosive intrusion into his daydreams. He stood up and fired three rounds into the bloodied and battered corpse.

  Dennis had waited long enough. He got up on one knee and with a brief, but accurate aim, put two bullets in the gangster’s head.

  A chain reaction developed whereby another Mental Rider fired at a member of the opposition, and the criminals returned fire. The scene resembled a Wild West bar brawl with automatic weapons.

  “Mike Romeo—cease firing,” Max shouted into his radio. He needn’t have used the radio. When the gorse and woodland around his men had gone quiet, Max issued a more subdued command. “All stations Mike Romeo—stay low and move to secondary positions.”

  He received a response from all call-signs and nodded with satisfaction. Max tapped Hank on the shoulder, and they moved out, keeping low to the ground.

  “What the fuck is going on out there?” Montgomery said. “It sounded like gunfire.”

  Sammy Smart went across to one of the half-dozen slit-like windows. “I can hardly see anything out of this bloody thing.”

  “They’re intended for archers,” Montgomery said. “It lets somebody fire out, but cuts down the target for an enemy.”

  “Well, this fucking archer wants to know what the fuck is going on.”

  “This door is locked,” Mathieson said. “It’s fucking locked from the outside.”

  In the next few seconds, a bunch of the worst criminal minds in Glasgow gazed at each other.

  “We’ve been fucking stitched up,” Sheridan said.

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Montgomery shook his head.

  “Fuck you.” Sheridan advanced towards the other man.

  “Hey guys,” Mathieson said. “Let’s not squabble among ourselves. We have to figure how to get out of this place.” He turned to the men who were standing around saying nothing. “Fellas, check those two doors at the other end of the room.”

  The two men raced to the other doors, both pulled violently, faced each other and turned to shake their heads.

  Eleven people who had spent their adult lives ruling by fear stood helplessly together in a large stone-walled room in the fort ruin.

  “What the fuck is this?” Montgomery stared at the screen of his laptop.

  “What’s up now?” Jennings said.

  “Cartoon men lining up against a wall, and fucking holes appearing everywhere—”

  “It’s on my machine as well,” Smart said.

  “St Valentine’s Day.” Davies stared at his screen as he slumped into his chair
, and he shook his head. “We’re fucked.”

  21. Making an Entrance

  .

  Loch Etive

  “It sounds like it’s kicking off mate,” Mike said. “Now we can move farther into the loch and set up shop.”

  “Great,” Sinbad said. “What should we do about those two arseholes in the red and white motorboat?”

  “We’ll tackle them first,” Mike said. “If you were right in what you saw a short while ago, they’ve got a couple of our people trussed up on board.”

  Sinbad knelt down and lifted the M16 he’d prepared for the mission.

  Mike opened the wooden crate which housed his favourite weapon. He lifted out the Light Machine Gun and tapped the bipod open. The ex-Commando knelt behind the gun, flicked the top cover open and fitted a thirty-round magazine. The big gun sat on the deck, bipod open, ready to lift into position.

  “Now we’re fucking ready,” Sinbad said.

  Mike lifted the Glock from his shoulder holster, cocked the mechanism and replaced the weapon. He went to the controls and urged the small cruiser forward across the loch at slow speed.

  “Come and stand beside the cabin, Sinbad,” Mike said. “Keep your weapon down along your leg out of sight.”

  “Until they provoke me.” the Mental Rider ambled along the boat.

  Five minutes later the cruiser came alongside the small red and white motorboat which had left the rocky pier at Fort Etive

  “Ahoy there,” Mike called.

  “Fuck off,” one of the gangsters shouted and pulled his jacket open to show his gun.

  “I hope that wasn’t a threat,” Mike said. “My young friend here doesn’t take kindly to being threatened.”

  “Fuck you, and your young friend,” the man said and reached under his jacket.

  Sinbad raised the combat weapon and fired two short bursts from waist height. The two gangsters collapsed into the boat on top of the bodies they intended to send to the depths of the loch.

  “Well done,” Mike said, and as he spoke a bullet thudded into the side of the boat. The hit was followed by another, and Mike pushed Sinbad away from where he stood. Sinbad fell to the deck, and a bullet tore a deep gouge in Mike’s left upper arm.