Steel And Shadows

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Book excerpt

Chapter 1

The men made their way silently through the wood, careful that no noise came from the weapons they carried, the body-armour they wore, their heavy boots barely making a sound as they crept through the broken shadows.

It was a bright summer’s day with a light breeze that made the leaves on the trees rustle gently. Birds chased each other across a cloudless sky. In the grounds of an English mansion, a party was in progress. Friends and family laughed and joked, children ran around playing, despite the formal clothes they’d been forced to wear.

The grounds were large. There was a long lawn on which stood a marquee, ready prepared for the dinner later that evening. Next to it, wooden decking had been set down as a dance floor, with lights strung above it, criss-crossing between elegant temporary pillars. Trees completely enclosed the grounds.

Slipping discreetly between the guests, waiters hurried with trays of drinks or canapés. At the back entrance to the mansion lay a gravelled area enclosed by a balcony of stone that stretched around both sides of the house, broken only by a flight of white stone steps. Music played from two speakers that stood on either side of the rear doors. On the floor trailed a cable to a microphone stand set up beside one of the large stone vases that formed part of the balustrade. A statuesque, middle-aged woman stood, keeping an eye on her two children as they drank their lemonade from plastic beakers. The lady of the manor was still a handsome woman, with expensively cut shoulder-length brown hair and flawlessly sculpted features. A lace and silk dress hugged her slender figure. She smiled as another woman approached.

‘You do know, Elizabeth, it was a bad idea to make this a secret event, don’t you?’

The younger woman spoke with a trace of an American accent.

Elizabeth shrugged wryly at her daughter-in-law’s comment.

‘I spoke to his commanding officer asking him to make sure he comes straight here. All we can do, Helen, is hope that you are enough incentive for him to follow orders for once.’ Elizabeth laughed. Helen smiled and gave her mother-in-law a surprised look.

‘Jonny coming marching home, following orders, that’ll be a first,’ said the younger woman.

She too was tall, with soft, light brown hair and eyes the colour of a tropical lagoon. Both women were beautiful in their own different ways. It was Helen’s hope that her youthful, almost coltish beauty would mature into something like her mother-in-law’s. The two women turned their attention to the men standing on the gravelled area, talking. One of the pair was lofty and broad-shouldered, with thick black hair starting to grey at the temples. The second man stood a few inches shorter, wirier than the other, his blond hair neatly cut. The taller of the two had a dark beard, the shorter man was clean-shaven. Both wore tuxedos, as did all the other male guests, while the ladies wore elegant and expensive-looking cocktail dresses.

The smaller man gave the other a friendly pat on the left arm and moved away to join a party of people who were deep in conversation. The dark-haired man picked up the microphone and turned to the DJ, who was hidden behind a makeshift booth at the far end of the gravel courtyard. The man tapped the mic, sending a loud screech through the speakers, making everyone wince. He smiled like a naughty schoolboy.

‘Sorry, sorry!’ His British accent was playful. ‘Hello, everyone. My wife and I would like to thank you all for coming here this afternoon. We are here to celebrate two things: firstly, the latest blow to a certain world-wide gun trafficking ring a few days ago, when a special unit captured a horde with a value, it is thought, of over four million pounds.’ Everyone cheered and clapped.

‘But also, more importantly, the safe return of our elder son from a tour of duty overseas.’ He raised his glass to the crowd, but his eyes were fixed on the beautiful woman he had married. She stood poised in her silk dress; her dark hair highlighted by the handmade lace trim around the low-cut neckline. She smiled at the man, her eyes full of pride and happiness. Next to her stood their younger son Thomas, a dark-haired twelve-year-old with a rather serious expression on his face. Beside him stood their daughter, a pretty young girl of no more than ten years old but looking like a miniature mirror-image of her mother. They were even clad in the same style of dress. It was a little joke that they liked to play. Sophie smiled at her mother and squeezed her hand. Elizabeth looked down at her daughter and winked.

A waiter walked up to the man at the microphone and whispered something into his ear, causing him to smile. He turned back to the microphone.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, it would appear the problem with holding a surprise party is that one never knows when, or indeed if, the guest of honour might turn up. That seems to be the case today.’ The crowd laughed. ‘However, I don’t think he’d mind if we got started without him, what do you say?’ Again, he raised his glass.

‘I couldn’t agree more, your lordship,’ said a voice from behind him in a soft Eastern European accent.

A towering, fair-haired man had approached, all but unseen by everyone around. His bulky, solid form was dressed all in black, and his slicked-back hair glistened in the afternoon sun.

‘Who are you, and what do you want here? This is a private party,’ said the earl, as the man smiled and walked up to him.

‘I’m afraid, your grace, for you, the party’s over,’ came the reply. ‘And one more thing: my employer sends his regards.’ With that, the stranger turned to the crowd as if to make an announcement, seizing the microphone from the earl’s grasp. He raised it up as if to address the bewildered crowd of people who had just become his hostages.

Shots rang out. The interloper turned to see a bald, military-looking man with a menacing grin on his face, he held a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, pointing at the earl, who had dropped to his knees. His wife and children watched in horror as scarlet blossomed from his back. He fell face forward. The bald man stepped forward and fired a final shot into the back of the earl’s head, which exploded in a cloud of red and white. For a moment, everyone stood frozen. Their shock was broken by the sound of automatic gunfire from the Woodline. People were falling everywhere, cut down by random blasts. The guests ran hither and thither, desperately looking for cover, only to be cut down by stray bullets.

Elizabeth saw a group of four armed men heading for the marquee, followed moments later by mixed screams and gunshots. As she watched, holes were punched through the sides of the marquee, then there was silence. She grabbed her children’s hands and ran for the safety of the house. Her daughter-in-law picked up her skirts and followed, her long brown hair flowing behind her.

The bald killer smiled as he saw them and shook his head. The blond man raced up to him. He grabbed the killer by the arm and yanked him towards him.

‘This was not the plan, you moron, now we have to finish this,’ he snapped at the bald man. ‘None of the families was supposed to be harmed. The Man wanted them all alive.’ The bald man wasn’t listening, so the blonde man shook him again, shouting: ‘No more, am I understood?’

He was answered by a false smile as the bald man headed into the building, followed by a group of men, each holding a Kalashnikov.

Chapter 2

A taxi pulled up to the long driveway. Inside, a soldier sat, only vaguely listening to the driver chatter on about his opinions on the state of affairs in far-off lands. His passenger, weary from the long journey, gazed out of the window upon the green fields of his home. He was still dressed in his uniform battledress, the creases on the sleeves standing up like blade edges. He had been away for a long time, and now he was content to come home. He did not want any fuss, just a quiet time with his wife and the rest of the family, but he was afraid that his father was bound to come up with some sort of homecoming event.

It all seemed quite surreal to him, being home after spending so long in a land that was barren of luxuries, or even trees and grass as he knew it, so he had to readjust his thinking. Was this all a dream? Would he suddenly wake up and find himself back in the hell he thought he had left? He slowly touched the car’s window glass, hoping it would be there, and it wouldn’t fade away as soon as he laid fingers on it. He smiled as the feel of the cold glass sent a tingling sensation down his spine.

He rested his warm cheek against the window and closed his eyes. ‘Oh, that feels good,’ he said, and the cab driver looked at him through the rear-view mirror and shook his head. As they neared the house, loud pops could be heard. The soldier opened his eyes with a start and shot upright. ‘Stop the car!’ he ordered, but the cab driver paid no attention.

‘Stop this car now, God damn it!’ The cab came to a screeching halt.

‘Why shout at me, you crazy man?’ said the driver, as the soldier got out of the cab and listened. Loud cracks echoed through the trees followed by screams: something was terribly wrong.

‘Get the hell out of here and call the police, tell them, get this, there have been shots fired on this estate, and they weren’t sporting guns, they were military weapons, have you got that?’

The driver nodded, ‘military weapons, not sporting guns.’ He dropped the clutch and sped away, leaving the soldier to dart into the cover of the trees.

Making his way slowly through the woods he knew so well, to- wards the rear of the house, the soldier had not gone far when he saw a figure all in black, holding an automatic rifle. He took him to be a sentry, put there to ensure that nobody got away. This was not a robbery, this was an invasion, an execution. The soldier looked around and crept forward.

The guard had been standing for what seemed like hours. He had no real idea why he was here or who any of these people were. All he cared about was that he was getting paid at the end of it all.

Suddenly there was a loud crack behind him, so he ducked down and trained his weapon. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, the adrenaline surging through his body. He blew out a lungful of air as a large rabbit hopped by. He stood up and laughed in relief and turned, then gasped as a figure stepped in front of him and punched him in the throat. The mercenary dropped to his knees, clutching his fractured hyoid. A gargling sound came from the man’s collapsed airway. He fell to the ground and the sound ceased.

The soldier stripped the man of his tactical vest and checked the ammo content of the rifle and the pistol: they were both full. He smiled gravely. ‘Payback time,’ he muttered savagely. The radios on his vest crackled to life as the teams were giving sit reps.

He had to find his family and any other survivors and take out as many of these bastards as he could along the way. Moving quietly and stealthily, he crept towards the house. In front of him knelt another man. The soldier watched the man’s eyes darting here and there, sensing that he was jumpy and on edge. Good. On the far side of the jumpy man stood a group of his colleagues, laughing as they shot at the feet of a couple of the guests, making them dance back and forth.

The soldier crept between the solitary sentry and the armed group and suddenly sprang up. The mercenary yelped in surprise and instinctively opened fire with his weapon, just as the soldier dived out of the way. A hail of bullets slammed into the armed men in front of him. The soldier grimly watched from his new hiding place as a fire fight developed and they gunned each other down. Grinning ironically to himself, the soldier moved forwards and grabbed a dead man’s ammunition belt.

As he watched, the group of terrified guests fled for the woods and disappeared into what he hoped was safety. The soldier went back to searching the dead guard more carefully and was rewarded with a smoke grenade. He frowned as he surveyed the carnage before him. Who were these men and what did they want?

There were too many questions ringing in his head, but now was not the time to ask them. He knew he needed to reduce their numbers still further, and if he could do that without being seen, then so much the better.

After all, he reasoned, he was no good to his family dead. A large group of armed men stood at the bottom of the steps to the house, put there to make sure nobody got in or out. The soldier tossed the smoke grenade thoughtfully from hand to hand and hatched a plan. With the grenade tucked safely into a pocket, and the captured submachine gun slung round his neck, he moved carefully around the marquee to the end that was secured by guy ropes. He cut the canvas, using the knife he had taken from the first sentry, and crawled in. The large tent was empty apart for a heap of corpses in formal dress in the middle of the floor.

There was still cutlery laid out ceremoniously on the tables, as if nothing had happened, and many of the candlesticks were still decorated with pretty bows. He untied a ribbon from one of the candlesticks, then pulled the grenade from his pocket. He took one of the magazines from the pouch on his vest. Sliding out enough rounds from the clip to wrap round the green cylinder of the grenade, he began to strap them to the explosive, using the ribbon. Outside, the group of killers heard someone calling, ‘Help! Help me please!’ The voice was fading, and they headed back to the tent, fired up with blood lust to finish off the dying man.

Ten men entered the marquee in search of the crying man, weapons trained before them as they crept in deeper. The man in the rear walked backwards to cover their retreat. He suddenly stopped as his foot was hit by something, and he tried to shout a warning before the room was filled with smoke. The group started to cough and splutter from the fumes, half-blinded, and with arms swaying they tried to find the edge of the tent.

Then, as the container began to get hot, the rounds started to fire off. Loose bullets flew everywhere, causing the group to stop and start to return fire, not caring that they couldn’t see who or what they were shooting at. More men rushed into the tent to help the squad, only to be cut down as they ran through the door.

From inside the house, the blond man came to the window and watched the madness below. ‘For God’s sake let’s finish this before all the idiots end up killing each other,’ he muttered.

An enormous behemoth of a man stepped forwards and removed the automatic grenade launcher from where it rested on his back. Taking the two grips firmly in his hands, he placed three rounds into the tent. As the projectiles hit, they exploded with tremendous force. There were several bright flashes, then the marquee was ripped apart, sending pieces of timber and fabric whirling in all directions.

Where the tent had been, there was nothing to see but massive swathes of red and black flame. Burning pieces of debris, including the odd recognisable human shard, fell from the sky in a shower of fiery rain.

The man replaced the weapon on his back, grinning as he did so. ‘Boom,’ he said, his tone deep and hollow. The fewer mercenaries who survived, the blond man thought, the fewer they would have to pay off at the end of it. Joining the others, they proceeded to check the rooms for survivors, searching especially for the four people who had run into the house earlier.

‘The mother, the other woman, and her two children are not to be harmed in any way,’ said the blond man. He stopped abruptly, forcing the men behind him to come to a sudden halt, as he turned to make direct eye contact with one of them, a young man of average height, clean-shaven, an eager look upon his boyish face. ‘Is that understood?’ His stare became intense, almost burning through the youth, who backed off slightly and nodded.