He ended the call before the voice could reply. Pocketed the phone and stuck his pistol in his belt. He and Boonzie took up the dead men’s weapons. Romanian military AK-74s, with all the tactical bells and whistles. Loaded with thirty rounds apiece and set to fully-automatic fire. Not the kinds of items readily found in the rural Scottish Highlands.

‘Someone wiz expectin’ trouble,’ Boonzie muttered.

‘And they got it,’ Ben said.

They turned off the weapon lights and moved on. Like a silent, invisible wave sweeping through the castle. The enemy was not as silent. Ben and Boonzie were drawn to the sound of voices and slamming doors. They stalked around a corner and through an archway to spy a second two-man team busily hunting from room to room and making a lot of noise doing it. Whatever their military background had been, it wasn’t top-drawer. Ben and Boonzie got within a dozen metres before they activated their weapon lights and caught the enemy by surprise in a sudden dazzling blaze that paralysed them like a pair of lamped rabbits.

One of them was a scrawny little guy with nervous eyes. The other was a huge musclebound beast who looked like he gobbled steroids for breakfast. Boonzie delivered a burst into the scrawny guy’s chest and mowed him down with authoritative force. Ben’s triple-stitch of bullets caught the monster at the top of his nose and punched a vertical line of holes up to the crown of his shaven head. He dropped his weapon, staggered and then crashed over backwards like a felled redwood tree.

Body count: eight, with seven to go.

Chapter 63

Ben took the one-eyed dead man’s phone from his pocket and called back his associate with the rumbling voice. The guy answered the call without a word. Ben said, ‘This is a time-limited offer. Last chance to cut and run, friend. Otherwise we’re going to kill you all.’

‘Fuck you,’ said the deep voice.

So much for trying to be nice. Ben replied, ‘Then I withdraw my offer.’

He was thinking of Grace as he and Boonzie moved on. If she was hiding somewhere inside the castle she must be able to hear the gunfire and know that he’d come back for her. Or maybe his assumption was wrong, and she’d managed to escape.

Or not. Maybe they’d got her.

Ben had to put those thoughts out of his mind. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to function.