The Pretender's Gold

by Scott Mariani

  ‘It could easily be. There’s a lot of losers and wannabes running around harbouring infantile warrior fantasies. But the one on his neck suggests that it’s real. See?’ Ben used the knife to slash the jacket collar so that Grace could get a better look at the skull-and-daggers Gothic D.

  ‘I see it, but I don’t get it. D could just be his initial. How do you know his name isn’t Dave, or Donald, or Darren?’

  ‘Trust me. Even if it was, this is something else.’ He put the knife away, took out his phone and used its camera to snap three images, one of each tattoo and one of the dead guy’s face.

  She frowned. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because there aren’t too many people in the world wearing this tattoo,’ Ben said. ‘In fact it’s extremely rare, because it takes a unique kind of qualification to even be allowed to wear it. This is the first one I’ve ever seen in the flesh. I’ll explain it to you. But first I think we ought to get out of here.’

  Chapter 33

  Grace said, ‘What about Jamie? We can’t just leave him here to rot.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Ben replied. ‘If nobody else finds them in the next few hours, Jamie and our friend here will ice up like a couple of frozen chickens. They probably won’t thaw out until next year.’

  ‘God, this is awful.’ She watched as Ben stuck the dead guy’s Glock in his belt. ‘What, you didn’t have enough guns already?’

  ‘Better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them,’ he replied. ‘And I think we’re going to need them.’ He gathered up his bag and jumped in behind the wheel of the Mercedes as Grace piled in the other side. The screen was cracked and there were several bullet holes in the bodywork. He had to hope that the damn thing would still go.

  It did. They took off across the field, exited the gate, and Ben skidded out onto the road heading back around the village outskirts.

  ‘Where to now?’ Grace asked.

  ‘First I’m taking you back to your car. Your shift starts in a few hours, remember?’

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘Screw that. I’m calling in sick. You and I are partners in this now.’

  ‘People are getting killed, Grace.’

  ‘So tell me something new. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. Either I ride along with you and see this out, or you can consider yourself under arrest.’

  ‘And I thought we had an understanding about that.’

  ‘And I could still change my mind.’

  ‘Arrest me, you’ll have a hell of a lot of explaining to do to your superiors. Besides, what if I decide not to come quietly?’

  ‘You want to put that to the test?’

  Ben glanced at her. Her eyes were as hard as bullets. He sensed that she wasn’t joking. He could easily prevent her from arresting him. But given how determined she was, he’d probably have to kill her in the process. And that wasn’t an option for him.

  She said, ‘So. Partners, or not?’

  ‘Your choice.’

  ‘Yes, it is. And I already made it. Partners?’

  He sighed, relenting. ‘Fine. Suit yourself. Partners.’

  Some of the hardness melted from her expression. ‘You can begin our collaboration by telling me what kind of person wears a D tattoo with a skull and crossed daggers.’

  Ben threaded the car through the turnings leading them back in the direction of the loch. As they sped along the icy road and the white-capped trees flashed by on either side, he explained, ‘The D stands for a small, select group of individuals. Except you might say that “select” is the wrong word. And you’d be right. They call themselves “the Dishonourables”. Not everyone in that world even believes that they really exist. They’re a legend, almost a myth.’

  ‘But who are they?’

  ‘Ex-military,’ Ben said. ‘As their name suggests, their careers didn’t last long, because they didn’t exactly distinguish themselves. Once you get a DD stamp on your record it makes it virtually impossible that you’ll ever be readmitted into any branch of HM Armed Forces, for as long as you live.’

  ‘DD,’ Grace said. ‘As in “dishonourable discharge”?’

  Ben nodded. ‘The army, navy and air force don’t like letting go of people they’ve invested an awful lot of time and effort into training and equipping. Screw up, and there’s no end to the punishments they’ll dish out in the hope that you’ll straighten yourself out. But for the real rotten eggs, there’s no choice but to court-martial them and boot them out as fast and as hard as they can. It’s not a decision they take lightly. Getting a DD can ruin your life. It all but destroys your chances of getting decent civilian work in the future. The lucky few might manage to land okay jobs in the personal security industry. A number of them enlist into other militaries, like the Foreign Legion, who aren’t too fussy about who they take on. Some might sign up as private military contractors and go off to do the mercenary thing, fighting for cash in dirty little wars and putting down rebel insurrections on behalf of nasty tin-pot regimes in places you’ve never even heard of. Others just burn out, become junkies or alcoholics and end up killing themselves. But the Dishonourables went a different path, or so the legend goes.’

  He eased the pressure on the gas to let the car roll gently over a large patch of ice. A pale mist was descending that made it hard to distinguish the distant hills from the snow-laden sky. Grace said, ‘I’m listening.’

  Ben continued, ‘Nobody knows how they found one another, or who first came up with the idea, or even exactly when it happened. But they discovered a way to turn their badge of disgrace into a mark of virtue, in their way of seeing things, by forming a tightly-knit and loyal band of their own.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I was in that world a long time, Grace. You hear things. What I heard was that if the Dishonourables existed at all, they were a mixed bunch from a whole range of different regiments and backgrounds. Some had been drummed out of the forces for selling drugs. Others for using excessive violence and taking part in atrocities against the enemy, or occasionally civilians, in war zones like Afghanistan or Iraq. But what they all had in common was that they were the worst of the worst. Instead of the cream that rises to the top, these guys were the sludge that sinks to the bottom. They were comfortable doing the kind of things that suited them to the line of work the Dishonourables allegedly specialised in.’

  ‘What kind of work was that?’

  ‘Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap. Murder contracts. Intimidation. Extortion. Targeted robberies. Drug smuggling. Human trafficking. You name it. They’re said to travel all over the world, taking whatever jobs they can get their hands on, sometimes working together and sometimes alone. No rules, no limits. The story went that to be inducted into the brotherhood, first you had to satisfy the committee that you were the right stuff. Or the wrong stuff, depending on your point of view. Once you’d got through the basic selection process, then came the final test.’

  ‘Tell me about the test.’

  ‘You don’t want to hear it, Grace. Seriously.’

  ‘I’m asking.’

  ‘The test was to kill someone. The Dishonourables would single out a victim at random – man, woman, child, didn’t matter. The chosen target would be kidnapped and taken to a secret location, like an abandoned building or warehouse, where everyone would gather for the occasion. Then the prospective new recruit would have to murder them in front of the others, in a manner decided on by the group. Gun, knife, hammer, bat, strangulation, dismemberment, flaying, burning alive—’

  Grace held up a hand and put the other over her mouth, as though she was going to throw up. ‘Stop. Please. I get the picture.’

  ‘I told you you didn’t want to hear it,’ Ben said. ‘The whole show was filmed on a camcorder and multiple copies stored in different safes, their own private collection of snuff movies. That way your fellow Dishonourables would always have a hold over you, in case you ever tried to rat on them.
Like the mafia. Once you passed the test and got the ink, you were in for life.’

  ‘I’ve been a police officer for a long time. But I can still hardly believe things like this actually happen.’

  ‘What, that people could be so evil and warped?’ Ben said. ‘If you’d seen the things I have, you’d have no problem believing it. But as to whether the Dishonourables really existed or the whole thing was just a wild myth, I didn’t have an opinion until today. Now I have to believe it’s true.’

  ‘And that guy back there was one of them?’

  Ben nodded. ‘Looks that way to me. From serving with a top-class regiment like the Paras, to hooking up with the lowest, scummiest bunch of cutthroats money can buy. How and why he managed to fall so far, we’ll never know.’

  ‘The one who got away. Do you think he was one of them, too?’

  ‘Makes sense. Same goes for the military-grade sniper who nearly drilled a .308 rifle round into me last night when he mistook me for the poacher, down by the loch. It might have been one of the pair we met today. Or there could be a third player. Or more. There could be a whole gang of Dishonourables out there, working for whoever’s behind all this.’

  Grace looked at him. ‘This is the first I’ve heard about a sniper shooting at you down by the loch.’

  He shrugged. ‘I survived. What’s behind me isn’t important. My concern is what’s ahead. And right now the one who got away is heading back to base to report to his employers. He’s going to tell them exactly what happened, and describe the man and woman in the black Mercedes who killed his associate. Which means you and I are officially involved in this now. They know we’re onto them and they’ll be hunting for us, too. Same as they hunted for Jamie McGlashan. Same as I believe they hunted for Boonzie, because he was getting involved and asking questions. They’ll go after anyone who stands in their way.’

  Grace said in a softer voice, ‘You think they got Boonzie, don’t you?’

  Ben made no reply.

  Grace fell into her own silence, deep in thought for a long minute. ‘Okay. Let’s say you’re right about all this. In which case, we’ve learned something about what’s going on here. But we haven’t learned anything that can help us. I mean, we have no idea who these people really are, who they could be working for, or anything useful about them. All we know is that whoever hired them is obviously willing to do anything to get what they want. Such as the gold coins that Ross Campbell found, or whatever. But aside from that, we’re back at square one, with nothing to go on.’

  Ben had already worked through the same thought process ahead of her, and knew what he had to do next.

  He said, ‘You’re right. We don’t know much. But there’s someone else who might.’

  Chapter 34

  It had now been three days since Boonzie McCulloch’s capture and incarceration inside the dungeon deep beneath Charles Stuart’s castle. Three days of total lack of cooperation from the prisoner. Three days of growing frustration for his captors.

  Hacker and his men had spent so many hours trying to make the stubborn old bastard talk that at various times he’d had to pull Carter, O’Donnell, Graham and Banks off the job of hunting for the poacher. Which Hacker had deeply resented, because it had meant having to work along with a bunch of Stuart’s amateurish local goons. If that situation hadn’t been forced on him, the man they’d spotted by the lochside the night before – Hacker had been pretty damn certain it must be Jamie McGlashan, because who else would have been hanging around there in the middle of a freezing cold night? – surely wouldn’t have got away.

  All to no avail.

  Of course, Hacker had known from the start that prising the truth out of Boonzie McCulloch would be problematic. Firstly, they still had no idea whether he actually knew anything of value to them, concerning Ross Campbell’s discovery and his nephew’s possible involvement in it.

  Secondly, it was clear to them that the old guy would never reveal the location of the gold, not even if he’d been carrying a mental treasure map around with him. This was a man who had been trained not to divulge information to captors, at any cost. Hacker had experienced a taste of that same kind of training in his past, even if the mock interrogations he’d been subjected to were nothing in comparison to the brutality and realism of the capture simulations the SAS had to endure. Hacker understood only too well that they’d have to tear Boonzie McCulloch apart limb from limb before he’d utter a single syllable to them.

  And therein lay the problem. Because while Hacker’s crew had been champing at the bit to get the cash bonus coming to them if McCulloch talked, Hacker needed to be careful to restrain them from going too far with a prisoner who obviously wasn’t a well man. How do you forcefully extract information from a captive you have to pussyfoot around at the same time, in case he ups and dies on you? You can’t starve him of food and water, can’t overly stress him physically, and certainly can’t torture him – an option Hacker knew was uppermost in his men’s minds. The Dishonourables were old hands at torture.

  Forced to compromise, Hacker had been at pains to ensure that the prisoner’s physical needs were met. He’d even been grinding up the pills from McCulloch’s medicine bottle and mixing them into his food according to the dosage on the label, which was in Italian and caused him a major headache to translate. Whether or not the diet of pills was preventing the old guy from keeling over again, Hacker couldn’t be sure. But nonetheless he worried about what would happen when the bottle ran empty. If the pills were keeping the prisoner alive and he was liable to kick the bucket without them, whatever information he might be withholding would die with him.

  Stuart had played this one well, all right, Hacker thought. For all his business genius, he was being a complete fool.

  Something more was needed. If physical stress wasn’t an option, then perhaps it was time to try a more subtle approach. Hacker had been sitting alone in his private quarters within the castle when the idea had come to him. He’d called his employer on his mobile to run it by him. It had been approved.

  And so, a little after two-thirty that afternoon, Hacker went to pay another visit to the prisoner. From deep in the castle’s stone passageways he descended the steps to the cellars. There was a whole complex down there, great vaulted storerooms packed with all kinds of junk and antiques. Another flight of steps led down to a dingy sub-basement where Hacker unlocked four heavy padlocks securing a thick steel door that could have contained a bomb blast. He heaved it open and locked it behind him.

  From there, using an electric lantern to find his way in the darkness, he descended yet another flight of steps and passed through a steel cage door to an arched stone passageway at whose bottom was the access to the dungeon itself, an iron grid trapdoor held fast by a massive bolt. It was dank and airless down here, making even Hacker feel claustrophobic. The thought of being kept prisoner in such a place was as bone-chilling as the dampness. He slid back the bolt, set down his lantern, raised the trapdoor and lowered the ladder that was the only way in and out of the hole.

  Hacker climbed down the ladder and held up his lantern, scanning around him for the prisoner but seeing only shapes and shadows. A steady drip-drip-drip of moisture leaked from the curved stone walls and echoed in the darkness. It was like entering a cave inhabited by a dangerous predator that might suddenly attack out of nowhere. Hacker drew his pistol.

  ‘McCulloch? Are you awake?’

  No reply. Hacker took a cautious step deeper into the chamber. He’d seen better conditions than these in the worst Third World prisons, but he felt no compunction for the man locked up inside. He felt only the same tiny tingle of fear that Boonzie McCulloch’s unseen presence somehow managed to kindle in him every time he came down here.

  ‘McCulloch?’

  Then Hacker saw him. The prisoner was sitting quietly in a corner, back to the wall, totally immobile. Hacker moved closer, holding the lantern and the gun out in front of him, but not too close. Boonzie McCulloch’s eyes
were shut and he seemed to be barely breathing, sunk into a trancelike state like a Buddhist monk deep in meditation.

  Hacker said, ‘I know you can hear me, McCulloch.’

  No reply. Not a flicker of movement from the prisoner.

  ‘I have to say, you’re a disappointment to me,’ Hacker told him. ‘I’d have expected you to cooperate with us by now. If not for your own sake, then for the sake of people you care about. I mean, that’s not just being unreasonable. It’s downright selfish.’

  No response.

  It was time for Hacker to spring the new plan on him.

  ‘Think we don’t know everything about you? You’d be wrong. We know where you live in Italy. And we know you have a wife there.’

  The inert shape in the corner showed no sign of reaction.

  Hacker went on, ‘We can get to her, you know. It’s just a question of sending a couple of my guys out there to pay her a little visit. And I will, if you carry on refusing to talk. Is that what you want?’

  Silence.

  ‘Here’s how it will go,’ Hacker said. ‘First I’ll run an extension cable in here and bring down a screen. Like a tablet or a laptop. The biggest one I can find. It’ll be hooked up to a live internet feed, so that you can watch the recording of my guys going to work on your dear beloved spouse. They’ll take their time. It’ll be a long show, and we’ll get to savour every moment of it. After they’ve finished enjoying themselves in every way imaginable, they’ll torture her. Believe me, they’re experts at it. And then they’ll kill her, very very slowly indeed. I’ll rig up extra speakers down here so that you can listen to her screams, full volume.’

  Still no response from McCulloch. For an unsettling moment, Hacker thought he was dead. But then thought he could hear his breathing, slow and deep. He was awake and conscious, all right. And listening to every word.

  ‘Afterwards you’ll be left to rot in here,’ Hacker said. ‘No more food, no more water, and no more sleep because I’ll keep the playback of her screams running day and night. You’ll die listening to her pleading for mercy. Knowing that you could have saved her life. Knowing you could have spared her all that terrible suffering, just by telling us what we want to know. Is that what you want?’