by Neal Martin
"I don't understand, Declan. Are you saying you were brainwashed?"
"Yes, in the worst way imaginable."
Edger could hardly believe what he was hearing. All these years he thought his brother was dead, when in fact Declan was out there, doing terrible things for terrible people. Not unlike Edger's own life on occasion. "Are you still under their control?"
He shook his head. "I had an accident. Fell out of a two storey window while on assignment in Italy. The head trauma from the fall disrupted the programming. Freed me, you might say."
"Who are these people who did this to you?"
"There are many," his brother said. "Many who did the torture and abuse. And it still goes on. They have new victims all the time."
"McGinty?"
"He was one. One of the first. But he isn't part of the program. McGinty and the others are just a bunch of sick fucks who get off on hurting and abusing kids. It's the man—the monster—at the head of it all who needs to be stopped."
"The Angel Of Death?"
"His real name is—"
That was as far as he got before the top of his head was blown off.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Edger didn't think. The second he heard the gunshot ring out behind him—the instant he saw his brother's head get half blown off by the heavy calibre round that hit him—Edger hit the deck with Kaitlin in his arms, just as more bullets pierced the air where he was standing, slamming into the wood at the back end of the barn.
Kaitlin screamed as she lay underneath him, his arms still wrapped around her. He was glad she was facing the other way when the bullet hit his brother.
Edger began to crawl forward as best he could while still holding Kaitlin, towards the minimal cover afforded by the stacks of tires and oil drums just a few feet away.
"Daddy!" Kaitlin cried.
Edger kept crawling as more bullets hit the floor around him, sending chips of concrete flying into the air. He pulled himself along with one arm, holding Kaitlin underneath him with the other, until he finally made it behind a stack of large tires.
That's when the automatic fire started. Bullets began to power into everything around them, including the tires they were taking cover behind. Going by the impact, he figured the shooters were using 7.62mm rounds. It was only a matter of time before the heavy calibre rounds pieced the tires they were hiding behind.
He had to do something.
Kaitlin screamed as the hail of bullets continued.
Edger chanced a quick look around the edge of the tire stack and saw three shooters advancing on their position. The shooters were at the edge of the field at the front of the farm, about to step onto the concrete yard. That put them about 300 yards away.
Not much time.
And he didn't even have a gun to return fire with. The Glock 17 was in the middle of the barn where he left it. His brother's gun lay beside his dead body at the other side of the tire stack. Edger knew he would be riddled with bullets if he tried to get the gun, so he didn't even try.
"Shit!" he said, looking around him frantically. Then his eyes fixed on the back of the barn itself. The whole barn was constructed of wood. The walls were just vertical wood panels, most of which were not in great shape. He could kick a few out and escape around the back of the barn, and then into the farmhouse where hopefully Declan had another weapon stashed.
But he had to be quick. Once the three shooters came into the barn, that would be it. There were be no escaping.
He tightened his grip on Kaitlin and began to drag himself along the floor towards the back of the barn, which thankfully wasn't that far away. He crawled in behind an old engine block, and just as he did, a volley of shots clanged of the metal.
"I don't want to die, Daddy!" Kaitlin screamed.
Edger turned over onto his back and hugged his daughter tight to him, using one hand to keep her head protected against his chest. "You're not going to die," he told her, gritting his teeth and kicking at the wood panels of the barn in an effort to force some of the bottom panels of the railing they were nailed to.
Behind him, the sound of the gunfire drew nearer as the shooters approached the barn from across the front yard.
Edger kicked at two of the panels as hard as he could. The first panel came off easy. The second was a little more stubborn, but he eventually snapped it in half with his boot, creating enough of a gap to squeeze through.
As another volley of rounds peppered the wood panels of the barn, punching huge holes in them, Edger gripped his daughter and dived forward through the gap that he had created, his shoulder taking out another panel as he went through. Immediately, he got to his feet and ran with his daughter in his arms across the yard towards the back door of the farmhouse, which was lying open.
Upon entering the kitchen, he knew he wouldn't have long. The shooters were probably already heading for the house.
He had to hide Kaitlin somewhere. He couldn't protect her or himself otherwise.
Stepping out of the kitchen to the hallway, he noticed the small door set into the side of the stairs. He pulled the door open to reveal a tiny cubbyhole. Prising his daughter of him, he quickly ushered her inside the dark cubbyhole. "No!" she squealed, refusing to let go of his hand.
"I have to," he told her, looking straight into her fear-filled eyes. "I'll be back. I promise."
Her face contorted with fright, but his daughter reluctantly let go of his hand and then pointed towards the door opposite. "In there," she said. "There's guns."
Thank Christ.
He wanted to hug his daughter, but there was no time. "Don't move from here until I come back for you."
He closed the door on her, sealing her in darkness. Then he rushed into the living room. He barely took in the photographs on the wall before he spotted the canvas bag on the floor, filled with guns. He ran over and lifted the tactical rifle of the top of the pile, checked the magazine was full. It wasn't. Half the rounds were missing. He searched in the bag and found another magazine, this one full. He inserted the full magazine into the rifle and put the half full one in his jacket pocket. Then he took a Beretta 92FS 9mm semi-automatic pistol from the bag and inserted it into the empty shoulder holster beneath his jacket.
A second later, the front door was booted in.
At the same time, Edger heard footsteps coming through the kitchen.
He pressed himself against the wall nearest the door, the rifle held in both hands, ready to throw up to his shoulder when he needed to fire.
Floorboards creaked in the front hallway as one of the shooters walked towards the stairs.
The shooter in the kitchen was getting closer, their footsteps making faint slapping sounds on the linoleum floor. He could spin round to the living room doorway and try to take out the shooter that way, but in doing so he would risk getting shot himself. The shooter would open up the instant he saw Edger in the doorway.
Instead, Edger waited until he heard the creaking of floorboards in the hallway, which would mean the shooter had stepped out of the kitchen. The second Edger heard the sound of creaking floorboards, he swung the Colt rifle around the door frame, keeping himself pressed back against the wall. Pulling the trigger, he fired of a volley of blind shots, hoping at least one would hit the shooter in the hallway, then brought the rifle back around the door frame, just as the other shooter, the one near the front door, fired off a volley of shots that slammed into the living room door. There was no return fire from the other shooter near the kitchen, so Edger assumed the guy was down.
Another blast of shots decimated the door in the living room. Staying close to the wall, Edger moved back a few steps, the rifle pressed into his shoulder.
And waited.
A second later, the other shooter spun himself around the door frame and into the room. His mistake was to aim to the far corner of the room as he came in shooting. As soon as he did, Edger fired two shots in quick succession at the shooter's chest, both rounds pounding into the guy's body a
rmour and sending him flying back against the wall. Edger didn't hesitate after that. He aimed again, fired a single shot at the guy's head, the bullet entering the shooter's forehead and exploding out the back of his skull, where it carried on into the plaster wall behind him, taking a huge amount of the guy's skull and brain with it.
The small room now stinking of gunpowder, Edger's ears rang with the loudness of all the shots that had just been fired. He backed up against the bullet ridden living room door, next to where the dead shooter lay, his blood and brains oozing down the damp wallpaper.
Taking a breath, Edger peeked around the doorway and saw the other shooter lying on the floor in the kitchen, unmoving. But that didn't mean he was dead. His body armour could have took the shots Edger fired earlier. He could just be unconscious.
Edger looked to his right, down the hallway towards the front door. Where was the other shooter?
Rifle to his shoulder, Edger moved out into the hallway, aware that his daughter was still in the cubbyhole under the stairs. He prayed that no stray bullets had went through the wood of the stairs, or through the little door. He didn't want to call out and risk drawing attention to her, especially when he couldn't see the other shooter. He also didn't know if there were more shooters out there, or on their way.
He cautiously moved towards the unmoving gunman lying on the kitchen floor. There were three bullet holes in the guy's vest, and one in his unprotected shoulder. Edger put a bullet in the shooter's head, splatting the guy's brains all over the dirty brown linoleum floor.
Two down.
Now where the fuck is the other guy?
His question was answered when a volley of shots came from the front door. One of the bullets hit Edger on the back of his right shoulder, tearing through the flesh just underneath his collar bone and exploding out of his deltoid muscle, before carrying on in its trajectory, embedding itself in the kitchen wall. The shock of being hit caused the rifle to go flying out of Edger's hand, and he dived left into the kitchen, turning onto his back as he took the Beretta out of its holster inside his jacket, aiming it at the doorway just as the other shooter came rushing through firing. The 7.62mm rounds from the shooter's gun blew holes in the lower kitchen cupboards and linoleum floor, but none of them hit Edger, as close as they were. The shooter had rushed in, firing blind.
Edger didn't fire blind. Despite the pain in his right shoulder, he was able to point the Beretta out in front of him, holding it steady until he had a shot. It was a risk. The shooter could have killed Edger if his shots had of been more accurate. Instead, the shooter burst in and sprayed the kitchen with bullets in the hope one would hit Edger, but none of them did. Edger didn't fire until he had a shot. He squeezed the trigger and put a 9mm round through the other shooter's neck. The shooter froze as he dropped his weapon, staggering back into the wall as arcs of blood began to jet from his punctured jugular. When Edger fired again, the bullet hit the shooter in the temple, creating a red rose on the wall just as the shooter fell dead to the floor.
Adrenaline pumping through his system like rocket fuel, his ears ringing from all the shots, Edger got quickly to his feet and did a cursory check of the bullet wound in his shoulder. He still had some movement in it, so the bullet obviously hadn't hit any bones. Soft tissue damage only, for which he was thankful, but he was losing a lot of blood through the gaping hole in his front deltoid. He didn't have time to do anything about it, not yet anyway. He had to get Kaitlin and get as far away from the farm as possible in case any more shooters turned up.
Before he left the kitchen, he did a quick check on the body of the shooter he had shot with the Beretta. Young guy in his twenties, dressed all in black. No identifying tags. Most likely mercenaries, working for whoever the hell Declan had been involved with.
Declan.
He still couldn't believe his brother had turned up after all these years. Neither could he believe that Declan was really dead now, even though the man who got shot in the barn little resembled the brother Edger remembered from all those years ago. He still felt sick when he thought of his brother's head being blown off right in front of him.
He shook his head and went to the cubbyhole under the stairs, the Beretta still in his left hand as he looked up and down the hallway for signs of any more shooters. "Kaitlin?"
She was huddled in the corner of the tiny space under the stairs, shaking, obviously traumatised and in shock from all the shooting. She didn't come to him immediately, but stayed where she was like a frightened rabbit.
He held his bloody right hand out. "It's me, Kaitlin," he said as gently as possible. "You're safe now, love. We have to go."
Kaitlin slowly extended one hand for him to take, and he guided her out of the cubbyhole. When she stepped outside, she looked down at the bodies lying in the kitchen and released a shuttering breath at the horror of seeing two obviously dead men on the floor. Edger pulled her to him. "Don't look, Kaitlin."
"Can we go home now, Daddy?" she asked him in the smallest of voices.
"Yes, love." He was looking into the living room. "First I need you to help me. Can you do that?"
She looked up at him and her face nearly reduced him to tears. "Yes."
"That's my girl."
Edger moved into the living room and Kaitlin followed behind him. She stopped to stare at the dead shooter slumped against the wall.
"Don't look," he said, getting her attention, and then pointing to a laptop lying on the floor next to the canvas bag filled with weapons. "Pick the laptop up for me."
Kaitlin went and picked the black laptop up, sliding it underneath one arm. He saw her wince with every movement she made, but he resisted the urge to tend to her. Now wasn't the time, not when their lives were still in danger.
He turned and looked at the photographs on the wall. The first one, with the smears of blood on it, he knew was a recent photo of Brian McGinty. As he looked at the rest of the men in the photos, Edger realised that he recognised all but one of them. Each of the men were powerful figures in business, and at some point in the past year, Edger realised that they had all availed of Rankin's VIP protection services. Edger himself had worked alongside Rankin on each of the details. He stared at the photos a moment longer, wondering if it was just a coincidence that he had come in contact with all these men. Then he shook his head. He hadn't time to think about it. Whatever the connection was, if any, he would figure it out later when he spoke to Rankin about it.
Switching the Beretta to his bloody right hand, he used his left hand to take all the photos of the wall and dropped them into the large canvas bag on the floor. Then he went to the dead man on the other side of the room and took the guy's weapon, along with the spare clips attached to the front of his body armour. Bringing the gun and the magazines over to the bag, Edger dropped them in before grabbing the bag by the straps and hoisting the straps over his left shoulder, groaning at the pain it caused his other shoulder.
"Daddy, you're hurt," Kaitlin said.
"I know, love. I'll be fine though. Let's go. We're getting out of here."
Edger went first, the heavy bag over his shoulder, the Beretta in his left hand. When he got to the front door, he stopped and looked around outside, hoping there were no snipers in the fields beyond. If there was, there wasn't much he could do about it from where he was. He needed to get to the car though, so getting shot at was a chance he would have to take. He stepped out of the front doorway and moved quickly towards the Ford Fiesta, stopping when he realised Kaitlin was some ways behind him, limping as fast as she could. Again, his heart nearly broke seeing her so obviously in pain, yet still moving with such grit and determination. He went back for her, helping her along as best he could, all the while keeping an eye out around him until they reached the car.
Edger dropped the heavy canvas bag to the ground, relieved to get it off his shoulder. He opened the back door of the Fiesta and told Kaitlin to lie on the back seat, and to keep her head down until he told her otherwise. The
twelve year old silently climbed onto the back seat of the car and lay down after placing the laptop she still carried on the floor. Shutting the door, Edger lifted the bag of weapons and put them in the boot, before slamming the lid closed and going to the driver's side door. He hesitated when he went to open the door however, his eyes staring over at the barn.
Declan's body was still inside the barn.
He couldn't just leave his brother behind, even after what he had done.
Edger opened the back door of the car and told Kaitlin to stay down, that he would just be a minute. He saw the panic in her eyes when she realised he was leaving her. "Trust me," he said. "I'll only be a minute."
Kaitlin nodded and he closed the door.
He ran to the barn, Beretta still in hand.
His older brother's body lay lifeless on the dirty concrete floor, a pool of dark blood spread out around his head. His eyes were still open, staring lifelessly up at Edger. Edger knelt down and pulled his brother's eyelids down over his dead eyes, then he sat looking down at his brother for a moment, wishing things could have turned out differently.
But they hadn't, and there was nothing he could do about it now.
He pushed the Beretta into the shoulder holster and bent down to pick up his brother's body. Lifting his brother's upper body towards him, he grabbed him under the armpits, disgusted when a large piece of his brother's brain fell out of the hole in the back of his skull and landed on the floor with a wet slapping sound. He did his best to push down the nausea that rose in him, and despite the pain in his right shoulder, he was able to lift his brother's body up and over his left shoulder, then he walked as quickly as he could out of the barn and back to the car, where he opened the boot and dropped his brother's body inside with a heavy thump. Because of everything else that was inside the boot, Edger had to arrange Declan's body a bit in order to get the boot closed. When that was done, he went to the driver's side door and got inside the car himself.
