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  ACTION:

  Pulse Pounding Tales

  Volume 2

  Collected by Matt Hilton

  ACTION:

  Pulse Pounding Tales

  Volume 2

  Collected by Matt Hilton

  Published by Sempre Vigile Press 2013

  Copyright © 2013 Matt Hilton and by individual authors for their respective works

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of each author’s respective imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental. Views expressed by the individual authors are their own and not necessarily shared by the publisher.

  Cover image © licensed from Getty Images

  Cover design © Matt Hilton and Nicola Birrell

  CONTENTS

  Introduction by Matt Hilton

  Dirk Ramm: Unsheathed by Matt Hilton

  Sins of Omission by Ian Graham

  See Saw by James Oliver Hilton

  Uninvited Guests by Rod Glenn

  The Missionary by Paul D Brazill

  Hard Wood by Tyson Adams

  Black Tuesday by Alex Shaw

  .50 Contingency Plan by Jochem Vandersteen

  Cold Redemption By Les Morris

  Kokoro by Andrew Scorah

  Get Cutter! By James Hopwood

  Jardine Rides Again by Ian McAdam

  Jack Be Nimble by Gavin Hunt

  Exit Wound by Steve Christie

  As Heroes Fall By Frank Sonderborg

  Goofy Brings The House Down by Richard Godwin

  Grand Central: Terminal by Terrence P. McCauley

  The Fixer by Dean Breckenridge

  Soup Sandwich by Christopher L. Irvin

  Pasnuta Means Arena of Death! by Richard Prosch

  Mududa’s Revenge by Graham Smith

  97 Ways To Die In Istanbul by Paul Grzegorzek

  It’s Noir or Never by Absolutely*Kate

  Push by Kevin Michaels

  You Only Die Once by Rhesa Sealy

  Man About Town by Alan Griffiths

  Hanoi Heat by Iain Purdie

  Hammertime by Asher Wismer

  When The Devil Catches Up by Lee Hughes

  *Bonus Tale* Suited and Booted by Matt Hilton

  Afterword

  INTRODUCTION

  During a review of one of my recently published Joe Hunter thrillers a critic said that I was verging on writing pulp fiction. ‘Hell, yes!’ I thought before realising he was actually intending his comment as an insult. Little does he know but I took his snippy aside as a bit of a sideways compliment. I grew up reading pulp fiction, was inspired to write by pulp fiction, and am going to make no apologies for that fact. To me pulp fiction is accessible to all readers, is enjoyable, and is generally fast paced and exciting stuff. What’s wrong with that, I ask you?

  It was through my love of pulp fiction, and of the action adventure genre in particular, that I set out to publish Action: Pulse Pounding Tales (Vol 1), and it was apparent from the number of authors who submitted that other writers had an equal love of the genre. The book garnered some great reviews and attracted readers from all over the globe. It gladdened my heart to find that some of those readers were asking for a second edition, and to appease them, here we have it, Volume 2.

  This second volume of pulse-pounding action tales features short stories from both new and established authors, some you will know and some you won’t; but isn’t that the joy of reading a collection like this? You get to enjoy some excellent tales while also discovering new authors to follow who you might not otherwise have come across. Do check out their other works, you won’t be disappointed.

  Because of the mix of writers, each with their own unique voice, I’ve tried to stay true to the spirit of their writing by wielding the editing pencil only very minimally. You will find tales represented here with British English or with US English, with double or single attributions, some with a noir bent, or leaning more towards ‘dodgy geezer’ talk. If there’s enough demand, I’ll think of adding a glossary of slang terms for those who struggle with the lingo…actually, I’m joking. I can almost guarantee that you’ll learn a new repertoire of words just by reading this collection. But your real reason for reading it should be for pure unadulterated enjoyment: I’m sure you’ve come to the right place.

  Here we have hit men, secret agents, vigilantes, private eyes, assassins and professional thieves, savage warriors and one or two others who can’t be easily categorized, all kicking ass and taking names. It’s fast, it’s furious, it’s…yep, pulpy!

  But that’s no bad thing. In fact, to get those pulses racing it’s just what the doctor ordered.

  Now, all I’ve got to add is…

  …Kick back and enjoy the ride!

  Matt Hilton

  Author of the Joe Hunter thrillers

  2013

  DIRK RAMM: UNSHEATHED

  By Matt Hilton

  Now…

  Dirk Ramm feared no man.

  At six feet two inches, with not an ounce of lazy fat on his lean muscled frame, he knew how to fight. He held black belts in the better-known Japanese combat arts of Ju-Jitsu, Karate and Aikido. On top of that he was an exponent of lesser-known but equally deadly styles like Savate, Krav Maga and the secretive bone breaking arts of Ninpo Koppojutsu and Hawaiian Kuialua. Plus, he was happy in a blood-and-snot-barroom-brawl if it came to it. He could fight for fun, and had proven himself during a long career with the CIA, and then later during his one-man campaign to bring down the Red Mafia. Put him up against any man, armed or unarmed it didn’t matter, and he’d at least give out as much punishment as he received.

  Attack dogs were a different story entirely.

  These dogs didn’t care about black belts or any title other than master.

  They answered to different rules of combat than men, were unpredictable in their attack, but totally predictable in their intent. Unlike the inherent weakness of most men, who preferred that they survive an encounter, attack dogs were driven by one savage predisposition: kill or be killed. Instinct bade them tear out the throat of anything their master sicked them on.

  Three slavering beasts were on his trail as he ran, coming like silent spectres through the fog. Trained to stay quiet, so that their attack came with shock and awe, none of the trio elicited as much as a yip of excitement or even a deep throated growl. If not for the tackety tack of their claws on the hard packed dirt the first Ramm would have known of them was when one of the huge Doberman’s barreled out of the mist and clamped its jaws around his throat.

  He couldn’t outrun the beasts.

  He couldn’t fight them in the open. While one went for his throat, the others would hamstring him, maybe core out his groin, and bring him down. He searched for a wall to put his back against, but in the cloying mist could spot no refuge. He cursed himself for foregoing his combat suit on this mission. Formed of super tensile silk, a layer of nano-gel inserts beneath, it made him largely infallible to bullets or knives. Jokingly referred to as his Sheath of Steel, his experimental Israeli nanocomposite anti-ballistic/stab suit would have saved him from the ripping teeth of the dogs. But this mission had called for a mode of apparel unlikely to conceal his suit, and he’d regretfully left it behind.

  Quit worrying over spilt milk! Better he concern himself with his unspilled blood and kept thing
s that way.

  Ramm continued running.

  The dogs were barely exerting any energy as they kept pace. Any second now and they’d hit the afterburners and they would catch him. They were disciplined fiends, though, and were waiting for the precise moment to launch their three-pronged attack.

  Through the fog shapes began to materialise: a farmhouse, a barn, a couple of smaller sheds. Ramm had no intention of placing any innocent at risk of the dogs, so angled away from the house, sprinting now for the barn. He hoped that it had doors that he could throw shut, but also that the wished for doors weren’t locked. As soon as he dug in for an extra spurt of speed the dogs came as fleet and as deadly as arrows. And, with the extra push came their first sounds of anticipation. The lead dog made a huffing noise deep in its chest, and Ramm knew that the beast was going to lead the charge.

  A knife would have been handy, a gun more so. But Ramm had neither. Like his NAS suit, he’d had to leave behind his weapons when infiltrating The Bishop’s compound. Suit or small arms would have picked him out as an interloper and though he’d have brought blazing fury among The Bishop’s flock, it would have done nothing for saving Shelly Cannon who’d been secreted deep within the tunnels beneath the compound. His only weapons here were his bare hands and his willingness to fight to the death. Partly he didn’t regret the coming battle. Maybe he’d grown complacent of late; that he’d grown to rely too much on his technologically advanced suit and weaponry, and going tooth and claw against these dogs in primal combat would just be the test he required.

  Two nights ago…

  Ramm stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his hips. Behind him, dripping with sweat from their exertions, as much as the water from the showerhead, Bitsy Horton reached after him, to draw him back into her embrace. Her scarlet nails dragged down the tight muscles of his back and hooked into the towel. She wouldn’t let him leave.

  Ramm glanced back at the heaving breasts of Bitsy, saw a spot he’d not yet covered in soap, or by his lips, and thought twice about answering the urgent ringing of his doorbell. But then, for what he had in mind he’d need all of his strength.

  ‘I’d best get that,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the pizza guy.’

  ‘We can eat later,’ Bitsy pouted. ‘That’s if you’re still hungry.’

  With an appraising eye cast over her voluptuous curves, Ramm winked at her. He nodded at the shower stall. ‘This is simply the entre.’ He gestured at the large bed in the adjoining room. ‘That there’s for afters. But for the main course we have a couple of Joey’s special twelve inchers. We’ll both be thankful of the extra nourishment.’

  Bitsy’s eyes flashed with lurid delight, and her voice was breathy. ‘I’m sure I just had a twelve inch as my entre, I’m not sure I could take any more.’

  Ramm grunted out a laugh. ‘Thanks for the compliment, but you exaggerate surely?’

  ‘And there was me thinking that wasn’t a loofa you kept running up and down my back.’

  Bitsy retreated beneath the warm water, pulling too the glass door. Ramm listened to the doorbell, but didn’t rush to answer it. Through the misted glass he watched Bitsy lather up, and was glad that he’d ordered the Joey Special, with all the trimmings on top. Bitsy was voracious, but Ramm was all for sating her appetite.

  The bell continued its incessant ringing. Joey had a fifteen minutes promise: if his pizza arrived late, the customer didn’t pay. Whoever had delivered the takeout food wasn’t prepared to go back to the shop empty-handed.

  ‘OK, I’m coming. Give me a second, will ya?’ Ramm didn’t head directly for his apartment door. He went to the closet in the corner of his bedroom and pulled open the doors. Hanging among his suits and shirts was a shoulder holster, in it a matte black pistol. As he walked through the living room for the door he spun the chamber making an unnecessary visual check that the gun was fully loaded. He picked up his wallet from the coffee table. There was a spy hole in his door, but Ramm didn’t place his eye to it. Too many people had fallen foul of the old “shoot through the spyhole when it grows dark” ploy. Ramm never used the spy hole. It was there to draw in the unwary assassin, while he viewed them through the hidden fisheye lens of the CCTV camera hidden lower down the doorframe in an artistically designed, but wholly natural-looking knot in the wood. He checked out the small monitor on the wall next to the door.

  Outside stood Old Gampie, the regular delivery guy from Joey’s place. He was holding two boxes flat on both his palms. He wasn’t the one pressing the doorbell. Two large men stood close enough behind him for the steam from the pizzas to mist their shades. One of them leaned past Old Gampie, keeping steady pressure on the doorbell. Ramm frowned.

  He pushed the gun down the back of his towel, then rattled the door chain. The two guys in shades stepped aside, so that Ramm would see only the delivery guy on opening the door. Both of them took out guns he was unhappy to note, so it stood to reason they were up to no good.

  Regardless, Ramm opened the door.

  Gampie was no more Italian than Ramm was. He was an African American, an old school tough guy from Harlem back in the day. Nowadays his Afro was cropped short and white as snow, his flared jeans, silk shirts and platform shoes replaced with a red cotton jacket, with JOEY’S stitched on the breast pocket, khaki trousers and pumps. One time, Ramm had seen the old guy’s shirt fall open and he’d seen the faded clenched fist tattoo on his pigeon chest. Back in the seventies Gampie was into Black Power, but now he was as faded as his tattoo, and barely had the power to lift more than a couple of twelve inch pizzas at once. Ramm liked the old fella and was pissed that he’d been caught in the middle of Ramm’s troubles.

  The old man didn’t speak. He rolled his rheumy eyes right and left. Ramm winked at him.

  ‘I shouldn’t have to pay for these,’ Ramm said, as he quickly took hold of the boxes. ‘Your fifteen minutes is up. I just bet these are cold by now.’

  ‘Uh-uh. Scalding hot,’ Gampie told him, with another roll of his eyes.

  ‘That’s good,’ Ramm said, and flipped open the top box. Hot steam wafted up. ‘Mmm. Extra garlic, too.’

  Ramm handed Gampie forty bucks and told him keep the change. ‘Now go on, get outta here, or you’ll be late for your next customer as well.’

  Grateful for the quick escape, Gampie spun on his heel and alighted the stairs down to street level. His flight was enough to draw the attention of both big guys for the few seconds it took Ramm to drop his wallet and the unopened box, and to dip one hand under the steaming hot pizza in the other.

  As the first of the big guys stepped around the frame to wedge open the door with his foot, he was met by the twelve inch special that draped over his entire features like a hot rag. Melted mozzarella wasn’t quite napalm, but you wouldn’t know it from the muffled shriek of agony as the man clawed at his burning face, dropping his gun in the process. Ramm ignored him, snapped a hand down on the wrist of the second man and dragged him into the open. Ramm nutted him full in the nose. The bridge of the man’s nose flattened and his shades slipped down his face as it lengthened in pain and shock. Ramm dragged the man inside and kicked him over. The man stayed on his knees, his fingers prodding and pushing as he tried to reshape his features and to stem the flow of blood. He too had dropped his gun, and Ramm toed it out of reach.

  The first man had bent at the waist as he clawed melted cheese and peperoni out of his eyes. Ramm grabbed hold of his jacket collar and dragged him inside, flinging him down by his pal. From behind his back, Ramm withdrew his revolver and pointed it lazily in their direction. He stooped to pick up the man’s dropped gun and set it aside, while wondering who had sent these bums after him.

  A slow clap answered the unspoken thought.

  Ramm turned to regard the third man walking up his steps.

  The middle-aged man was smiling lazily, his teeth as white and perfect as in a toothpaste advertisement. His hair was as neat as his tailored suit, only a few shades darker than his tanned
skin. Ramm recognised the guy.

  He was called Adrian Cannon. A big cheese, multi-millionaire entrepreneur, a humanitarian and philanthropist supposedly, a player definitely. Lately Cannon was a regular guest speaker on the TV news since his daughter Shelly had gone missing. All of his connections hadn’t meant a damn thing when it came to getting his daughter back.

  Ramm let the man see his gun.

  Cannon smiled, giving him a flash of his pearly whites. ‘You won’t need that pistol, Mr Ramm. I come in peace.’

  ‘So what’s with the dumb clucks you sent to ring my bell?’ Ramm made a quick check of the men behind him, but neither was in a fit state to trouble him.

  ‘Oh, they were just a little test. To ensure I’d found the right man.’

  ‘All you had to do was come to the door, state your business, and I’d have confirmed you’d come to the right place.’

  ‘I knew I was at the right place. I only had to ensure that I had the right kind of man. I wished to witness first hand how you handled yourself in a pinch, before offering you a fortune in cash.’ Cannon stood on the threshold. He cast a glance over his two incapacitated thugs. ‘Seems the rumours about you were unfounded. I’m very impressed, Mr Ramm.’

  ‘I’m not. You made me waste a good pizza, and it’s not the only thing getting cold. You have a job on offer I take it? So come in and let me close the door.’

  Cannon stepped inside the hall, avoiding the splatters of cheese and blood decorating the floor. His men had regained enough of their composure to blink up at him in shame. Cannon aimed one of his searchlight bright smiles at them. ‘Don’t worry guys; you’ll still receive the agreed fee for your assistance. Now I suggest you get yourselves out of here before Mr Ramm decides to make you clean the floor.’

  Ramm picked up the unopened pizza box. As the two men squeezed by casting him frightened looks, he offered it to the one with the broken nose. ‘You may as well take that, buddy. Not sure your pal will want any more pizza tonight.’