The Prodigal Son Read online

  “Rob, stop! No, please!”

  Somewhere in his subconscious, he heard a voice screaming at him and he stopped.

  “You’ll kill him. He’s not worth it,” Justine pleaded.

  Rob picked up Bruce by the scruff of his neck and plonked him at the kitchen table. “Watch him,” he shouted to no one in particular. He glowered. “The man with the red dots is watching you Brucie boy, so don’t tempt him.”

  He hastened to the two women and lifted Lorna’s chair upright. As he started to untie Justine’s hands, he looked at Lorna and saw tears running down her face. “Are you both okay? Did he hurt or touch you?”

  “I think we’re okay,” Justine answered. “Sore from being tied up and manhandled, but other than that, we’re fine. Right, Lorna?”

  “I’m fine,” she replied flat. “I just want out of this nightmare.”

  “It’s not over yet,” said Rob putting an arm round each of them. Lorna hugged him back, but Justine pulled away and started sobbing, her head in her hands. Rob tried to pull her back.

  “No Rob, please, don’t.” She pulled her arm away.

  Rob sat Lorna down again and looked at Bruce, now semi-conscious. He walked back over to his brother, picked up Bruce’s SIG Sauer P220, and tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

  Bruce looked at him, but said nothing.

  “The way I see it,” Rob said dryly. “You and your cronies are smuggling women—girls—from Eastern Europe into the UK. Drugging them to the eyeballs and selling them for prostitution in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and other places no doubt. What’s a woman’s life worth in your marketplace, Bruce?”

  Bruce closed swelling eyes. “Lots of money, little brother.” His smile was ugly.

  “Family business. Why don’t you join us? It’s not too late. Money’s great. Those two over there would fetch a pretty penny.” He chortled, then coughed.

  “Don’t think so.” He entered the kitchen and splashed cold water on his face, then returned to his brother. “They come from Stade. Where do they go from here and how do you move them on?”

  “You’ve been doing your homework, little brother,” he smirked, then laughed and winced. Carefully, he fingered his broken ribs. “We get them over to the mainland in a van on the ferries and then we …” Bruce glanced at movement behind Rob, through the window, and gasped a split second before the window shattered and a neat hole appeared in his glistening forehead.

  Rob dropped to the floor and rolled towards the window. As he reached the wall, he heard the sound of feet on the gravel, then a second gunshot, a grunt and silence. He sprinted to the door and flung it wide open, and rolled onto the parking area.

  He lay, arms stretched out in front with Bruce’s gun in both hands, pointed at a prone figure on the gravel. A gun lay nearby. Rob got to his feet, keeping his gun trained on the prone figure as he carefully approached.

  “Keep perfectly still,” he ordered, stooping to pick up a SIG Sauer P220. He tucked it into the waistband of his jeans and regarded the shooter. The figure was tall and dressed from head to foot in a loose-fitting black track suit and wore a black balaclava. A dark wet patch was viewable above the right hip.

  Rob could hear laboured breathing; he was conscious of the severe pain from a gunshot wound to the hip would be. He bent down to see who the shooter was, hoping that he wouldn’t find the person he was dreading finding. He reached out, grabbed the balaclava and pulled yanked it off the shooters head. The shooter moaned in pain.

  Stella,” he whispered, then exhaled slowly. “I really hoped it wasn’t going to be you.”

  “Are you okay?” Joe asked from behind.

  Rob looked at his partner. “Depends on what you mean by okay.”

  Stella wasn’t going anywhere as she writhed in agony, so Rob and Joe went into the cottage to tell the women what had just happened. Justine stood with her arms round Lorna, who stared at the body of the man she had known all her life. Bruce had fallen off the chair and stared at the ceiling through lifeless eyes. A small pool of blood had formed around his head.

  Rob approached the body and closed the unseeing eyes. “What have you done, Bruce?” he whispered and stood.

  He saw Joe lead Justine and Lorna to the settee where he and Lorna had recently sat, reminiscing about old times and bringing each other up-to-date with their lives.

  “Joe, can you get a hold of Chris Hall, bring him up to speed … and tell him we have an injured conspirator who shot and killed Bruce? We need him to take over.” Rob motioned Joe to do so outside. Once his partner had left the dwelling, he drew a deep breath, knowing what had to be done next.

  “Lorna, I need to tell you something,” he said softly as he kneeled beside his still sobbing friend.

  “I’ll leave you to it.” Justine started to walk away.

  “Stay here! I need you.”

  “I’ve had enough. I don’t want to be anywhere near you at the moment.”

  “Stay for Lorna’s sake, not mine,” he said firmly, looking Justine in the eye.

  She folded her arms and stood where she was.

  He sighed and turned back to Lorna. “Joe shot and wounded the person who shot Bruce. She’s lying in the car park and medical assistance should be here soon—”

  “She?” Lorna looked incredulous. She gazed from Rob to Justine and held out a hand. Justine stepped over to take it. “Please tell me you don’t mean …”

  “I’m sorry. It was Stella who shot my brother”

  “Oh God, please no.” Lorna began sobbing again and before Rob or Justine could stop her, she rushed outside.

  Rob and Justine followed.

  “Stella!” She screamed when she saw her partner lying on the gravel with Joe holding a cloth on her hip. “Stella, did you shoot Bruce?” Lorna demanded.

  “I’m sorry,” Stella said through gritted teeth. “I never meant you to get involved. I’d never have hurt you … you know that. I’m so sorry.”

  Lorna shook her head in disbelief and looked at Justine.

  Justine put an arm round her. “Come inside and calm down. You need to get your head round all of this.” She led her back into the cottage as Chris Hall and his team arrived.

  Rob went back into the cottage and picked up the jacket he had thrown into the corner and carefully took out his second smartphone. He checked that the call made earlier was still connected. Taking it off speakerphone, he lifted it to his ear. “Big Mac, are you there?”

  “Big Mac’s got yer back, just like old times,” the soft voice at the other end said.

  “You haven’t lost your touch with a sniper rifle and a laser sight.”

  “Ach, it’s like riding a bike, wee man. What now?”

  “Joe wounded a shooter; she’s going to need medical assistance. Can you get her that fairly quickly? She’s the only one who knows details of the operation. NCA will need to talk to her. The NCA guys will cover you for tonight.”

  “Let me make a call and I’ll be with you in five.”

  “Thanks mate, I owe you.” Rob turned to Chris. “Can you guys get Lorna and Justine out of here? Take them back to the Red Lion, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure, Tom?”

  Tom Parker gave Chris a thumb’s up and walked away.

  22

  Drained, Rob sat on the low wall outside the cottage. He always felt this way after an operation, when there was loss of life involving someone he knew. He’d killed many times before, part of the job; as a covert operative, it was what he did. He hated losing someone he knew, be it a colleague, friendly collaborator … or a brother.

  He’d hated Bruce most of his adult life and could have killed him with his bare hands at one point earlier but, ultimately, he’d not have wished his brother dead. He also recognised that Lorna’s life would never be the same again. Stella wasn’t dead, but she’d no longer be part of Lorna’s life. His dear friend had lost someone she’d loved; he felt sorry for her.

  As he watched the BMW drive off,
Joe appeared at his side and sat down.

  “I’m sorry Rob. I know you hated Bruce for what he did, but nobody deserves to see their own brother killed like that. I can’t even begin to understand what you’re feeling.”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking, to be honest, I’ve got so much running through my head. I can’t believe what happened in there. Justine and Lorna have been kidnapped, held hostage, threatened with sexual assault, and saw two people shot dead. They should never have had to witness something like that. Lorna was in pieces, even before she found out about Stella, and Justine can’t stand to be in the same room as me.”

  “You did what you had to do tonight, the girls will see that when things calm down and get a chance to think things through. You put your life on the line tonight to save then. Bruce and his cronies would have assaulted them sexually and when they were finished, would have killed them. You put a stop to that tonight. It might not have been pleasant for them, but it needed doing.” Joe squeezed Rob’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have brought Justine up with me, but she was so adamant that she was coming and I had no idea that she’d get caught up in a bloodbath like this.” He shook his head and gazed into the distance.

  “You weren’t to know; even I didn’t see this coming,” Rob said, standing as Chris approached.

  “I know this isn’t a good time, but we need a quick debrief. I’m going with the big guy and the prisoner. We have to question her before things go cold. By the way, we found the girls who were brought on the boat; they were still on board. Your brother must have known we were on to him, so he never brought them to the warehouse.”

  “He knew. Stella must have kept him well informed. He knew our every plan, our every move. I didn’t see that coming till earlier tonight and it was too late by then,” Rob said dully.

  “You knew Stella was involved,” said Joe, eyeing his partner closely.

  “I wasn’t sure until earlier, but when we came here for the first time, I noticed things about the place. The way the bushes and trees and been arranged—to give a clear area round the cottage and the floodlights with motion sensors.” He gestured. “Look at this gravel. It’s right round the cottage, everywhere, really deep, really loose, and really noisy. Nobody would get near that cottage without being seen or heard. I did a sweep of the place when we arrived that night and found microphones in all the rooms and cameras in the living areas. Someone wanted to know what was happening and being talked about in this place. Deadlocks on all the windows and doors; it’s not a holiday cottage, Joe, it’s a fortress.”

  “So Stella, or someone else, would know what you and Lorna were planning and talking about from the time you walked into the place?”

  Rob nodded. “I dare say that was the plan. It was Stella’s idea to use this place and I remember being surprised at how understanding she was about Lorna and I being alone that night. She almost threw us together … but, in retrospect, she wanted to know how much we knew and what we were planning. When I set the alarm on my bedside clock, I also activated a jamming device, which killed the mics. I stuck tape over the camera lenses, which I took off later.” He exhaled slowly. “Bruce pretty much said that he knew I was on Achravie … and tonight they knew we were coming … they were expecting us. We threw them with the explosion, but they were expecting us. That meant we were set up by someone who knew our plans; apart from Chris and his guys, only Lorna and Stella, you and I knew. ”

  Rob spent the next minutes giving Chris a rundown of the events of the evening. Chris had heard some of it, because Rob had included him in a conference call with Big Mac and Joe. On the second mobile, he’d instigated the call and left it open when he hid the phone in the jacket lining, banking on the first phone being found easily and no one looking too hard for a second one.

  When Rob had entered the cottage, Big Mac was positioned in the woods behind the cottage with a laser-sighted sniper rifle. That kept him well out of the pool of light generated by the floodlights surrounding the place. Chris also knew that Joe was similarly positioned in front of the building, behind a stone wall. Both men were highly proficient and experienced ex Special Forces snipers, who’d plied their trades in the battle fields and warzones that were Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia.

  Rob and Joe watched the NCA team arrange the clear-up of the scene and when an ambulance arrived to transport the bodies to the hospital mortuary, Rob rose slowly.

  “I need to get to the hospital and see Fraser. He’s going to hear things when the bodies arrive and I want to tell him all about it before he hears it from others. Once I’ve done that, I need to face my father. If he hated me before, he’s going to hate me even more when he finds out I’ve been involved in Bruce’s death tonight. What a mess!”

  “I’ll come with you and stay in the car, and make sure there’s no other hired muscle about the place. You never know,” Joe said quietly.

  “Probably best,” Rob murmured distractedly.

  23

  The two friends drove into the hospital carpark and parked Big Mac’s Defender so that Joe could see the front door. Rob took a deep calming breath and climbed the front stairs into the hospital reception area. He was met by a middle-aged, worried looking nurse, who made to escort Rob to a cubical.

  “Are you all right? What happened?” she asked anxiously, glancing at Rob’s chest. “Sit over here, sir, and I’ll get a doctor.”

  It was only then that Rob realised his shirt was stained with blood. “Most of this isn’t my blood, but to someone who’s already here. I’ve got a bump on the head, but I’m okay. I do need to speak to Fraser McEwan, though. Is he still in the same room?”

  “Yes, but he might be asleep.”

  Rob leaned close and lowered his voice. “Fraser needs to hear what I have to tell him and he needs to hear it now. It’s part of the reason I’m covered in someone else’s blood.”

  “Let’s go then,” she said and led him in the direction of Fraser’s room. She peered round the door into the darkened room. “Mr McEwan? Are you awake?” she asked softly.

  “Whit a daft question,” came the reply. “Racket you lot are making out there; you expect anyone to be sleeping, dear God, you’ll waken the dead, lass. What’s going on? Is that you, Robbie?”

  “It is, Fraser,” Rob replied, entering the room and stopping by the bedside chair. He turned on the lamp.

  “What are you doing here at this time of night?” Fraser asked apprehensively.

  “You might help sit him up, before you go,” Rob suggested to the nurse.

  “Sit me up?” Fraser laughed heartily. “I can sit myself up, for God’s sake. See?” He pulled himself up, but obviously felt the effort.

  The nurse moved to the other side of the bed and propped his pillows to make him more comfortable.

  “Get away lassie and stop fussing.” He scanned Rob from head to toe. “Bloody hell.”

  “Aye, Fraser, that just about describes it,” he said, glancing at his shirt.

  “Thanks, Louise.” Fraser nodded to the woman standing by the door. “A wee cuppa might go down well. I think this is going to take a while.”

  With a nod, she left.

  “What’s happened?” Fraser demanded.

  “Bruce was shot and killed tonight. Not by me I might add, although I was there when it happened.”

  “Oh dear. Tell me what the hell happened—wait.” Fraser held up a bruised hand, now free of tubes and needles, as Louise brought in a tray of tea and biscuits.

  “I’ve nothing stronger,” she advised. “You look like you could use it.” She put the tray down and turned to leave. “If you need anything, give me a buzz.”

  “Aye lass, thanks.” Fraser poured two cups of tea. “Is this to do with the goings on at the estate?”

  “Everything to do with it.” Rob moved the chair close and related the events of the last two nights.

  Fraser sat silently, listening, every so often shaking his head as he took in the enormity of what had transpired. Whe
n he finished relating the events, he started to ask questions, wanting to hear details Rob missed and relating them to information or knowledge he already had. Finally, Fraser leaned forward and put a hand on Rob’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t gotten Lorna to phone you, none of this would have happened. I don’t know what to say, son.”

  “What you did was the right thing. Two people died tonight, but we’ll now be able to save the lives of numerous young girls. These guys were involved in a hideous trafficking ring, which had no compunction about killing innocent girls and young women after getting them hooked on drugs and serving as prostitutes. They deserved all they got,” Rob declared, a note of anger in his voice.

  “But your brother …”

  “Bruce stopped being my brother many years ago. I’ve had no family because of the web of lies he spun around that road accident, and now he’s ruined a relationship for Lorna and probably alienated me from a woman that I thought I might have a future with. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t grieve over his demise.”

  “I’m … sorry.”

  “You have absolutely nothing to apologise for. When my family threw me out, you supported me. You got me a future in the military and that got me to where I am today. The security company is doing well—it and a good military pension ensures I’m financially secure the rest of my life.” He smiled fleetingly. “I’ve got a new luxury apartment overlooking the river Thames in London, nice Italian sports car for non-working days, cash in the bank and money invested … all of that built on what you did for me at a time when you could have walked away like everyone else. You’ve done more for me than my own father, Fraser, and I’ll never forget that.”

  “I did what I knew was right. You weren’t driving your car that night, Bruce was—a blind man running for a bus would have seen that if he’d taken the time to look. But Bruce created a great story and convinced your father, who convinced everyone else, that it was you who killed the wee lass.” He smiled ruefully. “There’s no honour in deceit, Robbie.”