Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3)
Page 75
“But the Security Services—”
“Are going to have all they can do to handle the revelations of these last few days,” Colville interjected, cutting him off. “And those yet to come. It may well bring them down.”
Nothing but silence on the other end of the phone. Was it remorse? Regret? “We both knew going in that this could be the result,” the publisher said, a stern edge to his voice as he looked down into the courtyard below, the rose bushes already blooming between the close-trimmed hedges. “But in the end, to what does your loyalty truly belong? An institution, corrupted and crippled by bureaucracy? Or to the ideals that institution was intended from the first to rest upon? Regnum defende. The defence of the realm. We are on the cusp of bringing to birth a new world, Norris, and the actions we have taken will ensure that it not only comes into being, but that those who are entrusted with its defence are able to do so. Unhampered by the restrictions of a government which has proven…”
His voice trailing off suddenly as he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye, in the garden below. The body of one of his bodyguards—one of the men Hale had secured to protect him—lying prostrate on the cobblestones of the walk, only his head and shoulders visible from behind the hedge. Something dark pooling around the man’s head. Blood.
A cold chill ran down his spine, his mouth dry—a faint sound from somewhere in the house striking his ears in that moment, even as he struggled to grasp what was happening. The sound of something—someone—falling.
The phone slipped from his grasp to fall unheeded to the floor, the sound of Norrris’ voice suddenly muffled as he hurried back across the room to the desk—hands trembling as he jerked open the top drawer.
Fingers closing around the butt of his grandfather’s old Webley, a service revolver Second Leftenant Rupert Colville had carried into the trenches of Passchendaele. Heritage.
“Don’t even think it,” a voice warned sharply, Colville’s head snapping up to see a tall, dark-haired man in the open doorway of the study, leaning heavily against the doorframe as if it were the only thing holding him aright—his jacket gaping open to reveal a shirt torn and sodden red with blood, his face pale and drawn beneath the dark stubble of his beard. Eyes the color of blued steel staring into his own. The eyes of a man half-dead already.
The suppressed pistol in the man’s outstretched hand aimed straight at his head.
“The Security Services are getting desperate,” Colville said, managing a false, nervous laugh, raising his empty hand from the drawer, “if they think they can send someone here—to my home—to try to frighten me.”
“No one sent me,” the man replied grimly, shaking his head. “And I didn’t come here to frighten you. I came here to kill you.”
10:26 A.M.
London Bridge
Central London
“…came here to kill you.” The muffled words struck Norris like a thunderbolt, his face draining of color. His hand suddenly trembling as if he had been taken with a fever.
“Then who are you?” he heard Colville ask. Desperation, fear—filling the publisher’s voice.
A part of him wanting to do nothing more than throw the burner into the Thames. To run.
But it felt as if he was rooted to the spot, the phone held tightly against his ear. Straining to hear every word.
10:27 A.M.
Colville’s estate
The Midlands
“My name really isn’t that important,” Harry said, taking a limping step forward—his bloodstained hand finding the back of an antique armchair, steadying himself with an effort. Still so desperately weak.
His eyes never leaving Arthur Colville’s face, framed in the sights of the Sig-Sauer. “What’s important is that I know who you are. And what you’ve done.”
“What I’ve done,” the publisher responded, seeming to master himself with an effort, “has been done for England. For all that she once was, for all that she may yet be. Her future—if she is to have a future.”
“For the greater good, then?” Harry shook his head. “That’s an old refrain, and one that rings down through the pages of human history, ever accompanied by the weeping of widows and orphans, mourning their dead.”
“For the only good there is in this world,” Colville spat, his eyes flashing. “Islam is a cancer, and if the patient that is this country is to survive, it must be excised by force. Wholesale. Every last vestige of that pestilent cult driven from our shores, lest it return to grow again once more. If you think that can be done without the necessary—if tragic—sacrifice of a few innocent lives…you’re a fool. If you don’t think it needs to be done, you haven’t begun to understand the threat.”
“Oh, I understand the threat,” he said, his grip on the chair tightening as he stared into the publisher’s eyes. Fighting through the pain, struggling to keep himself aright. “Far better than you could even begin to imagine. I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life fighting it, all across the Middle East—more than a fair bit of the rest of the world. I’ve buried friends I loved more than brothers, stood by their graves as their wives wept in my arms. Comforted their children as a color guard came to ‘present arms’, rifle shots crashing out through the hush.”
“Then for God’s sake, why—”
“You’d be surprised,” Harry went on, continuing as if the man had never spoken, “how much you remind me of them, the tactics they’re willing to employ. They’ve never hesitated to kill their own, by the thousands, to advance their agenda—to achieve their ends. Religion, nationalism…the excuses change, but the reality doesn’t. That all of these excuses are little more than a mask for something far older—the desire to rule.”
His face hardened, biting back the pain—the weapon trembling in his outstretched hand, his finger curling around the trigger. “And if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that if there’s any cancer in this world, it’s to be found in the hearts of men who seek to control—to exert power over—their fellow man. To sit in the seat of God. Men like you.”
The trigger broke beneath his finger in that moment, the Sig-Sauer recoiling into his hand—the sound of a suppressed shot echoing through the study. Followed by another.
The rounds tearing their way through the publisher’s lungs, mushrooming and expanding as they went. Fire and death.
10:30 A.M.
London Bridge
Central London
Norris ripped the phone away from his ear, his entire body shuddering—the deathly handclap of suppressed gunfire still ringing in his ears, harsh and discordant. Applause at a funeral.
Knowing with everything in him that he should report the murder he had just borne witness to, but daring not.Glancing around wildly, his eyes searching the crowd of passers-by.
As if suspecting that even now, Death was coming for him.
Seized by a desperate impulse, he took the phone in both hands—snapping it in half and dropping both pieces into the turgid waters of the Thames below as he turned, beginning to shoulder his way through the press, his panic rising with every moment.
Get away.
10:31 A.M.
Colville’s estate
Central London
Colville staggered back at the impact of the bullets, his eyes wide and staring—his mouth opened as if in one last, desperate protest. Too late.
So always to tyrants. Harry shook his head remorselessly, raising the Sig-Sauer one final time. “Goodbye.”
The pistol bucking against his palm, a single red hole appearing between the publisher’s eyes—blood and brains spraying over the painting on the wall behind him. Nelson at Trafalgar.
He went down hard, his body striking the chair and taking it over with him—crumpling to the floor in a heap.
And it was over. The last echoes of gunfire fading away through the old house as Harry safed the pistol, returning it to its shoulder holster beneath his jacket.
He pushed himself away from the chair, start
ing over to check Colville’s body. The adrenaline draining from his body, leaving him suddenly faint, light-headed—still weak from the wounds, the loss of blood.
Staggering forward…Carol’s face seeming to rise suddenly before his eyes. So real he could have touched it, felt the softness of her skin. Her eyes beckoning to him. Come, and be at rest.
Another step, and then his legs gave way—the floor coming rushing up to meet him as he fell to the carpet of the study. Everything else fading away, his hand reaching out as he tried and failed to pull himself up. So very weak.
And then the darkness closed around him…
The End
Coming Soon…A New Novel From Stephen England
He’s a man without a country…fighting a war without end.
Gravely wounded and at the point of death following the terrorist attacks on Balmoral, Scotland, former CIA officer Harry Nichols finds himself a fugitive.
On the run from the British security services, and his own former employers, the combined might of the Western intelligence community closing in upon him on the continent of Europe.
He’s never been farther out in the cold. He’s never been more dangerous.
There’s nowhere to run.
And the only place left to hide…is among the very people he’s spent a career hunting.
Look for Presence of Mine Enemies, the fourth full-length volume of the Shadow Warriors series from bestselling author Stephen England, coming soon.
For news and release information, visit www.stephenwrites.com and sign up for the mailing list.
An author lives by word-of-mouth recommendations. If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a customer review(even if only a few lines) on Amazon. It would be greatly helpful and much appreciated.
Author’s Note
As I work here today, finishing up final edits, I can’t help but be amazed at how much our world has changed since the late fall of 2013, when I first sat down to write the opening scenes of Embrace the Fire. The rise of the Islamic State, massive terrorist attacks in France and Belgium…real-life events have begun to mirror those laid out in these pages to a disturbing degree.
But that has, after all, been the goal of this series from the very beginning—to bring readers into the realities of the War on Terror as seen through the eyes of those who fight it.
It’s been nearly five years now since the Shadow Warriors saga first broke onto the thriller scene with the debut release of Pandora’s Grave in the summer of 2011, and not only has this series come much farther than I could have imagined…the vision for what is yet to come has only grown. There is so much more of Nichols’ story remaining to be told.
Any undertaking of this scale is impossible to accomplish on one’s own, and I owe heartfelt thanks to all those who have aided me along the way. I regret that there is not place to thank everyone, but I will make an attempt at a partial list.
To my parents, without whose support through the earliest years of my writing I would likely not be where I am today. I thank God for their influence and encouragement.
To the artistic geniuses behind the Shadow Warriors series’ visuals. Louis Vaney, my cover artist—and Jānis Zunda Kalnins, the creator of Embrace the Fire video trailer.
To the ever-diligent members of the Embrace the Fire beta-reading team: Tyler Donoghue, Joseph Walsh, Mary Thompson, Dan Keller, Jessica Keppler, Chris Herron, Paula Tyler, and Jeannie Clarke. The hours they put in reviewing the unproofed manuscript were indispensable to the process.
To the tight circle of highly-talented independent thriller authors who have become dear friends through the course of this journey. Steven Hildreth, Jr., Robert Bidinotto, Nate Granzow, Ian Graham, and R.E. McDermott. I strongly encourage any fan of the Shadow Warriors series to check out these men’s work and it is my hope that they will know success equal to their skills.
To the many members of both the American and the British military and intelligence communities who have offered advice and guidance along the way. What mistakes which remain are mine, but they would be vastly more numerous without the technical expertise and tradecraft these men and women have provided.
And perhaps most of all, I owe thanks to my readers, whose outpouring of enthusiasm for Nichols’ story has been a font of inspiration through the years. I look forward to continuing this journey together.
May God bless America, and watch over those who defend her.
Read more from the Shadow Warriors series!
Pandora’s Grave
Go back to where it all began, with the thriller Brad Thor called a “terrific read from a great new author”.
With Iran and Israel on the brink of war, one man must make an impossible choice. To save the world, he must kill his friend…
NIGHTSHADE
Praised by readers as “hard-hitting” and “poignant”, this short story reaches into the past of the shadow warriors for a mission gone wrong.
It was supposed to be simple. But there’s nothing simple about killing a man.
Day of Reckoning
A thriller hailed as “simply phenomenal…breathless,” England delivers a powerful story of love and sacrifice against the backdrop of a devastating terrorist attack on the homeland—and treason reaching to the highest levels of the US government.
You’d have to be a fool to fall in love with a man made of lies…or would you?
TALISMAN
“We are going to find the people who did this to our country. And we are going to see them burn.”
America has been attacked. Now is the time for vengeance…
LODESTONE
She’s the Agency’s most valuable asset in Lebanon. Her husband wants her dead. The CIA has promised to keep her alive.
But as the mission descends into chaos, as the night explodes in fire…
Some promises will prove impossible to keep.
Also by Stephen England
Lion of God: Episode I
It’s the year 2000. The dawn of the new millennium…and the Second Intifada. And when a pair of IDF reservists are lynched in the West Bank city of Ramallah—vengeance is certain. And far-reaching.
“The Jewish people do not forget. We do not forgive.”
Sword of Neamha
In a novel heralded by the Historical Novel Review as “visceral”, author Stephen England makes his debut with a sweeping saga of ancient Briton, as seen through the eyes of a young Gaelic warrior coming of age in a time of civil war.
What price will a man pay for honor?