Veil of Civility: A Black Shuck Thriller (Declan McIver Series) (52 page)

He exited the ditch and crossed quickly to the storage shed. The building had only one window, but he couldn't see through it in the dark. He ducked again and moved around the back of the building to the base of the rock wall. Grabbing onto one of the fence posts, he pulled himself up and over the wall. He landed on the uneven ground on the other side and caught himself with an outstretched hand as he nearly fell. Keeping low, he moved along the wall towards the gate.

At the gate he noticed a narrow path that cut off to the left from the main drive. Even from his position on the opposite side he could clearly see the tracks of a vehicle that had passed over the muddy road in recent days. He looked ahead and kept moving, the terrain inclining more as he moved along the wall. As he neared a grove of thick trees he came to a place where the rock wall turned ninety degrees and continued up and over a hill. He stood upright and again grabbed onto one of fence posts to lift himself over the wall. Instead of going all the way over this time, he lifted himself onto the top of it so he could see over the hill. As he did, he was hit with the smell of burning wood.

Looking down towards the base of the hill he could see the source of the smoke. A two story stone house sat just out of view from the main drive. Surrounded by a smaller rock wall and with a heavily overgrown garden in the back, he knew he couldn't be looking at Greumach Manor. For a lord's house he expected something far grander. He looked back towards where he'd left Shane parked. The SUV's headlights had been turned off but he could tell the vehicle was still running by the cloud of exhaust rising from its tail pipe. He was about to pull himself the rest of the way over the wall when the unmistakable sound of an engine starting came from somewhere near the house.

His turned his attention to a small barn when a pair of headlights were turned on and pierced the holes between the barn's wooden slat construction. Suddenly the doors were thrown open and a black Range Rover pulled forward, stopping briefly so the man who had opened the doors could get in.

"Anything?" he heard a British voice yell.

"No," came the response. "It's not moved away yet."

The man getting in slammed the door and the SUV took off. Declan ducked from view as the vehicle passed, making a quick right and then a quick left around the ninety degree turn in the rock wall. As soon as it was around the wall and its headlights shone over Shane's SUV, the driver floored the accelerator. Thirty yards later, the driver turned the vehicle suddenly and skidded to a stop in front of Shane, the passenger side door opening.

"Get out of the car!" Declan heard someone yell as he jumped down off the wall and began making his way back towards the gate, using the wall as cover to prevent his approach from being seen by what he could only assume were some kind of security guards. As he neared the gate he removed the Glock pistol he was carrying from his jacket and chambered a round. Securing the suppressor he'd been carrying in his pocket, he stopped at the edge of the gate and peered around. Two men stood behind the open doors of the black Range Rover, each aiming a sidearm in Shane's direction.

"Get out of the car now!" one of them yelled.

Declan watched as the driver's door of Shane's olive green 1986 Range Rover opened.

"Alright, alright," Shane said, his arms raised above his head as stepped out of the car. "I'm obviously in the wrong place."

"Keep your hands up and come around the front of the vehicle!"

Declan watched as Shane did as he was told. "I'm just a lost motorist," Shane said loudly. "Don't shoot. Don't shoot."

Looking through the windows of the black Range Rover, Declan could tell by the illumination from the headlights that the two guards were the only people in the vehicle. As Shane stepped slowly towards the front of his SUV, Declan pulled himself up and over the gate by placing his hands on its top rail and hopping over. He silently absorbed the impact of his landing by bending his knees and quickly withdrew the pistol from his belt again as he stood upright. The guards' attention was focused on Shane and neither saw him approaching as he moved slowly towards the rear of the vehicle. Whether Shane saw him, he wasn't sure. He just hoped that he was ready to act when the time came. He stopped at the back of the SUV and waited as Shane reached the front of his own Range Rover with his hands raised.

"Right then," the driver of the black Range Rover said, "Cuff him."

The passenger guard slowly moved out from around the door with his weapon still aimed.

"Easy, easy," Shane said. "I'm not looking for any trouble."

"Shut up," the guard replied, as he looked quickly over his shoulder at his partner. The partner nodded, indicating that he had the scene covered so his counterpart could holster his weapon and retrieve his handcuffs. Slowly the guard did just that, withdrawing a pair of white flexi-cuffs from the pocket of his black cargo pants after holstering his sidearm. Declan watched as he stepped towards Shane. Over the rumble of the two Range Rovers' engines, neither guard heard a sound as he stepped towards the right side of the black Range Rover and crept towards the driver, his pistol held by his side.

For a moment, Declan locked eyes with Shane who kept his hands in the air as he held his friend's gaze.

"He's not lookin' at me!" the driver suddenly shouted and he started to turn, but it was too late.

As the passenger guard dropped the flexi-cuffs and went for his sidearm, Shane stepped in and grabbed his gun hand before he could draw the weapon and threw a punch across the bridge of the man's nose. Declan blocked the driver's turning motion by grabbing his wrist as he struck him in the temple with the butt of his pistol. The man collapsed against the inside of the driver's door and slowly, Declan allowed him to fall to the ground still holding onto his gun hand. He wrenched the pistol away as the guard stared at him, bleary-eyed from the powerful strike.

"Jesus, Dec," Shane said from a few yards away. "I've still got it. Even after all these years."

Declan stood to see Shane wrench the passenger guard's pistol away, his hand under Shane's boot and pinned to the ground at the wrist. Shane stood with a smile, rubbing his knuckles.

"C'mon. Up with you," Declan said, as he grabbed the driver and pulled him to his feet, pushing him against the side of the black Range Rover with a hollow thunk.

A loud static filled the air. "Celt 2, this is Celt 1, over? Is everything clear down there?"

The voice came from a radio unit located on the dashboard of the guard's Range Rover. Declan and Shane locked eyes, each of them thinking the same thing.

"I repeat, Celt 2. This is Celt 1. Do we have an all clear?"

"Give 'em the all clear!" Shane said, as he leveled the passenger guard's sidearm at the man Declan had shoved against the side of the SUV.

"No," Declan said, raising his hands between Shane and the guard. "We can't risk it. He could give them an emergency code and we'd never know. You do it."

"Are you having a laugh?" Shane asked.

"Do it, in your best London accent. You've lived there long enough, haven't you?"

Shane lowered the weapon and stepped towards the driver's door of the SUV. "We could just as easily give them the wrong code," he said, as he lifted an eyebrow and looked at Declan.

"Well we've gotta give them something. From the way these guys have operated so far I'm guessing the security isn't exactly top of the line. I'm rather surprised, really."

Shane nodded with a slight grimace and slid into the driver's seat, picking up the mic on the front of the radio unit. "Celt 1, this is Celt 2. All's clear down here, just a lost tourist. We've got him sorted and on his way, his encounter with the famed British SAS coming soon to an American travel blog near you." He spoke the last sentence with more than a bit of sarcasm in his voice.

Several seconds passed after Shane clicked off the mic. He sat still in the driver's seat, waiting. Declan watched the eyes of the guard against the Range Rover for even the smallest sign of delight. Instead the man's eyes darted between him and Shane with worry.

"Roger that, Celt 2," the radio crackled. The voice sounded almost elderly now that it had relaxed. "God only knows what that poor bugger will think is over these hills."

Shane smiled broadly. "Werewolves or something, no doubt, Celt 2 over."

Silence followed and Shane hung the mic back on the front of the unit.

"Well, that's that," he said with a nod as he stepped out of the vehicle. "Now we just need to find the manor. I'm sure his lordship has a fire on in the hearth for us."

After Declan had cleared the stone house around the bend of any other inhabitants, he and Shane secured the guards in the barn with their own flexi-cuffs and took their keys. Locking the black Range Rover's keys inside it and leaving it parked outside the house, they drove back to the gate and unlocked it, pulling through onto the worn dirt road beyond.

As the SUV bounced over more potholes, Declan kept an eye out for more security measures, especially roadside sensors that might give away their approach. Twenty minutes and seven rough miles later he hadn't seen any. "Where in the bloody hell is this place?"

"Just over this next hill if the map my agent provided is correct."

"Then let's stop here. From the looks of the inside of that farmhouse down there, his lordship isn't expecting those two guards to come and visit him."

Shane nodded and stopped the SUV just before the base of a steep hill. "So what's our approach?"

"Let's get a look at this place first. Then I'll figure something out."

They exited the vehicle and climbed the hill, the inky black of the Scottish night and the low cloud cover making it nearly impossible to see more than twenty yards in any direction.

"Supposedly this place sits at the southern end of Loch Builg," Shane said, as they crested the hill and looked over into the valley below. Through the fog it was hard to see anything very clearly, but there was definitely a loch judging from the mist settled over it. Declan scanned the area and through the mist could just make out the dim lights in the windows of a building. "There," he said pointing.

"Aye, I see it."

Partially buried in a thick fog was a stone building with a round spire on its front right corner, its roof invisible in a white wisp of frozen air. Declan started down the hill and Shane followed. More of the building became visible as they came closer. Greumach Manor appeared to be three stories tall and was small by castle standards. It was clear from the style of the architecture that the castle had been built during the Perpendicular Gothic period, and in places its outer walls were covered in thick ivy. A small motor court stood on the left directly opposite the spire they'd seen from the hill above, a stone archway stretching over it to allow a vehicle to drop its passengers without them getting wet from the frequent rainfall. A black late-model Bentley was parked under the archway along with another black Range Rover, a twin of the vehicle the security guards had been driving.

"Jesus, Dec. We could have a full team of night vision wearing snipers looking at us from the roof and we wouldn't know it in this fog."

"If they're wearing night vision in this weather they're in more trouble than we are."

"Oh, right," Shane said, as he remembered that night vision goggles were useless in the fog. "Well, we still can't walk up and ring the bell. What're you planning?"

Declan noticed a flickering light in a large second floor window and watched as a shadow moved past. "There," he said pointing to the window. "It looks like you were right. His lordship has a fire on for us."

Shane followed his hand to the arched picture window.

"The windows in this place are rather old," Declan said. "I bet with the right motivation they'll open right up."

"Yeah, but we have to get to them first."

Declan ignored the objection and walked quickly towards the archway over the motor court where a rusted metal pipe ran down the side to drain water away from the roof. Grabbing ahold of it, he shook it to see if it was secure. It would hold. He grabbed onto the metal bracket that secured it to the stone archway and pulled himself up, using his feet to push from the bottom. His boots slid slightly against the pipe, but the rust gave him all the traction he needed. Water began to immediately soak through his clothes as he pulled himself up onto the archway's roof and leaned over the edge. "Here," he said sticking out his hand for Shane.

He looked up towards the windows making sure, as best he could through the fog, that no one was watching them. Feeling Shane grip his hand, he braced his arm and pulled upwards. He could hear Shane's shoes slide against the rusted metal and reached out with his other hand to help him along. He didn't want anyone inside to hear them. The element of surprise was critical to gaining entrance. He pulled Shane onto the roof and stood, doing his best to brush the water off his clothes, though it had already soaked through in multiple spots. He could feel the cold air sharply against the wet material and wished for a moment that he was back in the United States where the temperatures were far milder.