action pulse pounding tales vo Read online

  He didn’t head directly across the parade ground. He used the buildings at its edge as cover, moving from structure to structure and staying in the shadows cast by the dawning sun. It took him a little over three minutes to make it to the far side, but at least he’d done so undetected. He hunkered down against a pile of rubble, evidence of a once collapsed shelter. From his waistband he took out the cleaver he’d liberated from the knifeman back at the farm. It was a cumbersome weapon, but he wasn’t complaining. He weighed it for balance in his palm, as he judged the distance to the first of the two sentries. Then he was up and sprinting at them.

  Within twenty feet of the nearest guard he let loose the cleaver in an over arm throw. It somersaulted three times and sank deep into the man’s breastbone as he turned to the sound of running feet. The cleaver did what it promised and the man fell backwards, letting out a howl of agony. Ramm vaulted over him, powering in a jumping front kick to the second sentry. His kick forced the man back, and he made only a spirited but wholly ineffectual swipe with his baton at Ramm’s head. Ramm caught the man’s outstretched arm, ducked beneath it and locked it in an unnatural position alongside his body. An extra inch of twist would snap the man’s wrist and elbow.

  ‘Where are the women?’ Ramm demanded as he gave the tortured arm a subtle twist. ‘Are they still inside.’

  The captured guard danced on his toes, trying to alleviate the pressure. ‘Aah, eeh, aaah!’

  ‘Where are they?’ Ramm asked again.

  ‘They’re still down in the tunnel,’ the man yelped.

  ‘Who else is down there?’

  ‘The Bi…Bishop!’

  ‘Good,’ Ramm said, and completed the Koppojutsu twist. The man’s arm splintered. He shrieked in pain. Ramm released the broken limb, but only so that he could slam a palm up under the man’s jaw to shut him up. The man fell, unconscious on the ground. Ramm looked at the man with the cleaver in his breastbone. The cleaver hadn’t sunk in far enough to kill, but the man was out of the fight. He was in ferocious pain, but Ramm had no pity for him. He yanked out the blade, and then used its flat edge to whack the man’s skull, putting him to sleep.

  Holding the cleaver in his left hand, Ramm entered the hangar. The structure was large enough to hold upward of four helicopters, with space for a truck or two. It was empty now and it rang hollowly to his footsteps. Catwalks ran the length of the building on both sides, and Ramm visually checked them for observers. No one. At the far end was an observation deck with what amounted to a control room. It was in darkness, but he was happy that there was nobody watching him from the high aerie. Beneath the observation platform was a cuboid structure, fronted by double steel doors. It was the entrance to a tunnel that led to a bomb shelter buried beneath the very concrete over which he strode.

  Going down in the tunnel was tantamount to walking into a trap.

  But Ramm went in nonetheless.

  The Bishop greeted him. He was sitting on his relocated throne. At his feet was Shelly Cannon. She’d been stripped down to her undergarments. Her sleek hair hung over her shoulders, a thick lock of hair across her features. When she looked up at Ramm, he saw it was with little recognition. She was doped.

  ‘Ah, the second best fighter in camp,’ The Bishop said with faux joviality. ‘I knew you would return.’

  Beyond their leader a group of men came forward, numbering around twenty. They were holding cudgels and knives. Ramm could see no sign of Hector Buntz, for which he was thankful. He didn’t fear Buntz, he had proven he was more than the giant’s equal, but then Buntz plus the group of armed men would have been beyond even Ramm’s considerable skill.

  The Bishop stood from his chair. Shelly pawed at his shins, as if she relied on his presence to steady her. Ramm noted that The Bishop didn’t come forward.

  ‘Only second best?’ Ramm asked. ‘Tell you what, Bishop. Prove you’re the better man. If not, let me take Shelly and leave. There’ll be no more trouble from me.’

  ‘I’d love to accept your challenge, but alas.’ The Bishop didn’t finish his thought. He didn’t have to. He hitched up a leg of his trousers and Ramm caught the glint of metal. The reason that ballistic weaponry was banned from his compound was because The Bishop had good cause to hate them. He teetered where he stood, unable to balance well on his recently adapted prosthetic leg. Little more than five years ago Sgt Roy Bishop had been on patrol in Helmand Province when a traitorous Afghan soldier had turned his weapon on him, cutting his legs out from beneath him before The Bishop could return fire. The medics had saved his life, but were unable to save his shattered right leg. Amputation had been his only recourse. Ordinarily Ramm respected veterans, particularly those that had suffered for their country. But he’d lost all respect for The Bishop when he’d learned how the doomsday prepper was building a post-apocalyptic future on a promise of extreme violence and the subjugation of women as breeding or pleasure stock. The man was trash.

  ‘So let the girl go,’ Ramm said. ‘The way you’ve forced her to lay at your feet, it’s obvious you know who I’m here for.’

  ‘I’d a feeling that Adrian Cannon would send some champion to rescue her. When I heard you’d been spotted skulking around in the harem I guessed what you were up to. I also guessed that once you’d lost the hunting party sent after you, then you’d be back.’

  ‘Very astute of you, Bishop. If you’re such a wise man, then you should realise it will be easier for everyone if you just let Shelly go.’

  The Bishop sat again. He did so in order to hook a finger under Shelly’s chin and lift her head. ‘I can’t do that. Shelly has no desire to leave. Do you my sweet?’

  Shelly’s eyes rolled. She made a mewling noise.

  ‘See?’ asked The Bishop.

  ‘I see a girl whose will has been taken away from her, the way your leg was stolen from you. I’m warning you, Bishop. Let me take Shelly – and the other women prisoners – and I’ll let you live. Refuse, and the fact you’re half crippled won’t stop me ripping you a new asshole.’

  The Bishop opened his mouth wide and laughed at the ceiling.

  ‘You think I’m bluffing?’

  ‘You are only one man. Yes, you’re a skilled fighter, but you are no match for all of my men.’

  ‘I haven’t got started yet,’ Ramm said. ‘That little charade I put on yesterday? I didn’t even get past first gear.’

  ‘I never met a blowhard yet who was half the man he professed to be!’

  ‘That’s like the pot calling the kettle,’ Ramm countered.

  ‘No one I’ve heard of is the equal of almost two dozen armed men.’

  ‘Then you’ve never heard of the Battering Ramm.’ Ramm quickly stripped out of the leather jacket he’d taken from one of the dead men at the farm. He stood not in the dirty singlet and jeans of yesterday, but in his nanocomposite anti-ballistic/stab suit. ‘While you were setting up this trap, didn’t you wonder what was taking me so long to get back here? On my first arrival in camp I couldn’t enter wearing my armour so I arranged my flight out of here last night. After finishing off your hunting party I was able to ride to a prearranged meeting place where Shelly’s daddy was waiting for me. He’d had the presence of mind to bring my equipment to me.’ Ramm dropped the cleaver. ‘Oh, plus these.’

  From behind his back Ramm drew a twin set of automatic pistols given to him by a grateful Israeli Mossad agent who owed him his life, and more importantly the lives of his children. Ramm aimed the Jericho 941 Uzi Eagles beyond The Bishop. While the crowd of armed men muttered and cursed, The Bishop’s face reddened.

  ‘I forbid the use of firearms here!’ he roared.

  ‘I forbid the use of women as sex slaves,’ said Ramm. ‘I think my cause trumps yours.’

  The Bishop screamed at his men. ‘Get him! Tear him to pieces. He can’t shoot you all!’

  He was right. Not even Ramm could shoot twenty men in the space it took them to charge forward. But he managed to get half of them, and that suited him fine. His guns sang a duet of death and destruction in the tunnel. Bodies jerked and spun and fell while others pushed past the dying. Some of the more hopeful fighters hurled their weapons at Ramm. Cudgels rebounded from his NAS suit and the tips of blades were turned away. Ramm didn’t wait for the surge of bodies to overwhelm him. He dropped his empty guns, dipped a hand to each ankle holster and came up with a punch-dagger in each fist, then swept in to meet the remaining fighters. To engage one at a time would be his death: while fighting one, the others could drag him down and pound him to death. Ramm kept moving, dipping in and out, swerving away, jumping and dropping, counterattacking constantly, and each time his blades found a throat or gut or extended wrist. Blood danced around him as though he was a dervish wind skimming a crimson pond.

  He took a few strikes to his body, but his suit fended off the blows. A knife tip took a slither of skin from above his right eyebrow, which brought a grimace from Ramm, but also a renewed intensity to his attack. He cut and punched, and men fell all around him.

  Finally only two men remained standing.

  Ramm faced a lithe fighter whose arms were decorated with prison tattoos. The man held his blade close to his body, angled down from his fist. From his stance he knew a thing or two about knife fighting. Ramm quirked his bleeding eyebrow at the man. ‘It’s one thing shivving a guy in the showers, quite another facing a trained killer. You sure you still want to do this?’

  The man licked his lips, weighing his chances. His gaze went to the twin push-daggers protruding from Ramm’s fists. They dripped gore. In comparison his knife was shiny new. ‘Fuck this, man! I only joined this outfit on the promise of some easy pussy!’ he said, dropping his blade and scurrying off down the tunnel. Ramm grunted in disapproval.

  He tur
ned back to The Bishop just in time for the big man to slam a meaty forearm across his jaw, taking him backwards in the classic clothesline manoeuvre made famous in the wrestling ring.

  Ramm landed on his back, but he didn’t flounder there. He allowed the momentum of his fall to roll him over one shoulder and he came back up onto one knee. The Bishop had followed after him and had lifted his right leg to stamp down on Ramm’s chest. While Ramm had been engaged in the fight with the others, the big man had kicked off his boot – along with the prosthetic foot - to bare the metal joint of his ankle. In effect he speared down at Ramm’s chest with a steel spike and all his not inconsiderable weight behind it. ‘Let’s see if your fancy suit will turn aside this blade!’ he crowed as he thrust his leg into Ramm.

  ‘That’s something you’ll never know.’ Ramm twisted and the spearing leg missed him by inches. His move knocked aside the leg and The Bishop splayed over him, his stance ungainly with one limb shorter than the other. Ramm grunted as he thrust forward with both daggers and buried them deep in The Bishop’s groin. ‘I warned you I’d rip you a new asshole.’

  The Bishop howled out in horror as Ramm withdrew the blades with a twist of his wrists.

  ‘You should’ve stayed in that chair of yours,’ Ramm told him. ‘I’d have allowed you to live out the rest of your miserable life. But you brought the fight to me.’ Ramm crossed his arms, and then whipped them outwards. The tips of the daggers ploughed twin furrows across the big man’s throat.

  After…

  All that was left to do was to carry Shelly Cannon from the tunnel. She was still half-naked, still half-doped, but her father was pleased to see her safe and sound when he met them at the compound’s front gate. Ramm handed the young woman over to her father, then returned to the tunnel. The tattooed knifeman wasn’t anywhere to be found, but Ramm didn’t care about him, or about the pile of corpses topped off by The Bishop. He went down to the bomb shelter and unlocked the door behind which the other sex slaves were held. There’d be many more parents who’d be pleased to see their children returned home to them. Adrian Cannon had promised him half a million dollars to rescue Shelly: Ramm would have taken the job for nothing, but the rich man could afford his bill. From the other parents he’d accept only their gratitude.

  Ramm headed home. He was hungry. He thought about ordering one of Joey’s special twelve-inch pizzas to be delivered on his arrival. Then he had second thoughts. He called in at Bitsy Horton’s house: after the other night she owed him dinner at her place.

  BIO:

  Matt Hilton quit his career as a police officer with Cumbria Constabulary to pursue his love of writing tight, cinematic American-style thrillers. He is the author of the high-octane Joe Hunter thriller series, including his most recent novel ‘Rules of Honour’, published in February 2013 by Hodder and Stoughton. His first book, Dead Men’s Dust, was shortlisted for the International Thriller Writers’ Debut Book of 2009 Award, and was a Sunday Times bestseller.

  Matt is a high-ranking martial artist and has been a detective and private security specialist, all of which lend an authenticity to the action scenes in his books.

  www.matthiltonbooks.com

  SINS OF OMISSION

  By Ian Graham

  Chapter One

  10:52pm Local Time – Thursday June 7th, 1990

  Glenshesk Road

  Armoy, Northern Ireland

  The ancient church loomed on the crag overhead as Declan McIver revved the Honda motorcycle and leaned into the turn that would bring him up the hill and around into the twelfth century churchyard. Bringing the bike to a stop next to the rock wall surrounding the property, he could see a man waiting at the base of the church's round tower, the moonlight cutting between the many gravestones to illuminate him as he lingered, alone.

  Declan reached into a saddlebag and withdrew a Beretta pistol, tucking it into his black rain jacket as he stood from the bike and removed his helmet, his shortish trimmed blonde hair undisturbed by the headgear. While he had once trusted the man he was meeting with his life, a lot had changed in the past six months. At the edge of the wall, he stepped up the overgrown hill and into the graveyard surrounding the church, his eyes moving about as he zigzagged between the tombs to the base of the tower.

  "Has it really gone that bad?" the man said with a frown on his pallid face. "Never thought we'd need guns to come and talk to each other."

  "You always need a gun in this country. Why did you call?"

  "Oh for fuck's sake, Dec, we've been friends for eight years. What do you mean why did I call?"

  Shane O'Reilly was right. They had been friends for eight years and in that time they'd formed the kind of bond that only soldiers fighting a war side by side could know. Declan considered the moppy, red headed youth for a moment and then relaxed. "Aye, get over here you. How ya been?"

  The two embraced, their hands slapping over each other's backs.

  "Grand, just grand." Shane said as they separated.

  "How're things at home?"

  Shane shrugged. "Not been there much really. Kinda busy and all."

  "Aye. So why did you call?"

  "Because there's a lot to talk about," another voice said loudly from the covered doorway of the church. Declan turned fast and drew the Beretta.

  "Easy!" a dark haired man with a lined face said raising his hands as he stepped out of the darkened entrance. "I'm just here to talk."

  Declan kept the pistol aimed but flashed a hateful glance at Shane.

  "I'm sorry, Dec," Shane said shaking his head. "He just wants to talk, and it's important."

  Declan turned his eyes back toward Eamon McGuire who still stood with his hands raised to shoulder level. "I told you I didn't want to talk to ya, that I didn't want anything to do with ya, didn't I? Leave me alone." He flipped the safety on the Beretta and lowered it. He didn't trust McGuire as far as he could throw him, but the man wasn't a threat. At least not to him, not now. He walked briskly back towards the motorcycle.

  "It's Meaghan, Dec!" Shane called. "It's Meaghan McCraven!"

  Declan stopped at the name of his former girlfriend.

  "That's why he's here. That's why I brought him!"

  Slowly, Declan turned back and looked at the two men. Shane had a pleading look. "I wouldn't have broke your confidence if I didn't think what he had to say was important."

  "It's a gesture of good will, between you and me," McGuire said as he lowered his hands. "Your bird's in trouble, or at least she's going to be."

  "She's not mine. Not anymore."

  McGuire nodded. "But you still care for her. I know you do. You never stopped. She's going to get herself killed and possibly a lot of others, too."

  Declan took a deep breath and walked back to the base of the tower.

  "First off," McGuire said, "I don't bear you any ill-will. I never have. You're like a son to me. You're all like sons to me. I know times have been hard, but we're a family and I'm here because I want us all to get through this, alive and well."

  Declan nodded. He couldn't argue with McGuire's claim. The McGuire family had been good to him and somewhere deep inside he knew he wasn't being fair by turning his back on them, but he felt like he had to if he was ever going to get away from the violent life he had been leading for the last seven years. "So what about Meaghan?"

  "After you left for Afghanistan one of the lads said she'd started in with a group of Provos out of Belfast. Ciaran Donovan's in charge of that lot now. They've been planning some dicey operations. They've sent the unit she's with to Anguilla."

  "Anguilla?"

  "Aye. It's a British territory in the Caribbean. They're planning to put a bomb along the route of a parade honoring the Queen's birthday. It's just like the botched attack in Gibraltar. The Brits are all over it. The unit's gonna be slaughtered."

  "The SAS?"

  McGuire shook his head. "No. This'll be even worse. The Brits learned from the bad press after they shot down the ASU in Gibraltar. This time they've sent a group of Defence Regiment boys linked to the Ulster Freedom Fighters."

  "They're going to blame a rival paramilitary?"

  McGuire nodded. "Aye, and there's talk they've been given orders to go ahead with the bombing so the IRA can be blamed."