Read Online Dead Men's Harvest by Matt Hilton - Free Book Online Page B

asked.
    ‘With Cain out and Hendrickson behind him, I don’t want to take the chance. They might get the wrong impression that she’s a direct line to John again.’
    ‘Soon as you hang up I’ll call her, get her somewhere safe.’
    ‘You two aren’t an item any more?’
    ‘No, Hunter. It was a short-lived thing. Louise moved on, has herself a new man, a new job and a new home. Not sure how she’ll react when she hears me on the other end of the phone.’
    ‘There’s only one way to find out. Speak to you later, Harve.’
    I hung up, letting him get on with the job.
    Then I settled down to catch a nap while we crossed the country. Sleepless nights were a factor in my life, but like many soldiers I’d developed the skill of catching a few minutes at every opportunity. In my game you didn’t know when next you’d eat, sleep or shit, so you did so whenever you could. Only on this occasion the sleep wouldn’t come. Too many things were playing through my mind, a parade of horrors that wouldn’t let me rest.
    Bryce Lang’s face appeared, and I conjured the fear he’d been in when he thought that Luke Rickard was after him. It would have been nothing compared to coming face to face with Tubal Cain. That segued into an image of my brother strung from a wall in Cain’s ossuary in the Mojave, the flesh stripped from his back as Cain had tried to whittle the living bones from his ribcage. I watched in detached horror as John turned his face to mine and let out a bleat of terror, except this time it wasn’t John but Rink who was squirming under the maniac’s ministrations. The sight of my best friend chewing his lips in agony forced my eyes open and I blinked around the cabin of the plane. Beyond the windows the clouds pressed close, huge towers of cumulus as steel-grey as the phantom blade that had dug into Rink’s body.
    Maybe I’d let out a moan because the pilot was staring at me over his shoulder. I nodded him back to the controls. As verbose as a brick, he offered a grimace then returned to guiding the plane. I closed my eyes again, scrunched down in the seat and tried to get comfortable. That wasn’t going to happen, of course. My heart was hammering in my chest and the distinctive flutter of an adrenalin spike caused my extremities to shiver.
    Growing up on the streets of Manchester in the north of England, I recall nothing remarkable about my early days. My father, Joseph, died when I was young, and shortly after that, my mother, Anita, remarried. Bob Telfer wasn’t the man my dad was, and maybe that was why we never seemed to gel. He was a good enough person, but he wasn’t the ambitious type and was happy as long as there was food on the table and a tin of lager in the fridge. He didn’t deem spending time with a boy a worthwhile pursuit. That was OK by me; I just roamed the streets, or immersed myself in comic books or pulp fiction novels, dreaming of being like the heroes on those dog-eared pages. When my little brother was born I was shoved even further away. I wasn’t jealous of John, but it seemed that he could do no wrong in Bob’s eyes. I distanced myself even more, becoming involved in the skinhead scene that was rife at the time; as a result I ended up in scrapes with other groups. Arrested twice for fighting, I almost got myself a criminal record, but there was one cop who took me to one side and put me straight on a thing or two. He was an old-school copper, the type who’d take you down an alley and smack some sense into you, but on this occasion he only gave me some good advice. You think you’re some sort of tough guy, huh? Well, why don’t you prove it? Go join the army, lad. They’re always looking for tough guys.
    His words stayed with me, and as soon as I was old enough I enlisted. To prove something to the cop, I tried for the elite Parachute Regiment and made it through the rigorous selection process, and I stayed with 1 PARA until I was drafted into the specialised unit