CHAPTER ONE
Phillip eased his thick woollen scarf over the lower part of his face and leaned one heavily muscled shoulder against the huge wooden door of the dark and empty warehouse. Tugging the hood of his thick cloak higher over his head, he settled into the darkest shadows and studied the quiet harbour before him. He knew the gloom protected him from even the most watchful of eyes, but he remained wary as he ran a lazy eye over the boats bobbing in the small cove. He mentally plotted where each of his colleagues were. They too were hard to find. The only suggestion of their presence was the faint shifting of shapes amidst the obsidian night; an indefinable change within the darkness. But only in the places Phillip knew Niall, Justin, Angus, Oliver and Aaron lay in wait. Behind him, Callum was watching the warehouse’s back doors, and the long wide driveway which led up to it. Oliver and Jasper were in two of the small fishermen’s cottages lining the harbour, watching the roads leading down to the dockside, but which ones they were in even Phillip didn’t know. Together, they were waiting for the two men the entire Star Elite had spent the last several months chasing: Claude Smidgley and his friend and partner in crime, Connor Haugham.
‘Well, tonight we are going to put you behind bars. Both of you,’ Phillip breathed. He mentally cursed when he saw faint wisps of warm breath fog the air before him. Shaking his head, he shivered and clamped his lips together and settled deeper into the warmth of his winter cloak.
Several hours later, the peace of the harbour was broken by several gruff barks from an outraged dog whose slumber within one of the cottages had been disturbed. Two men emerged out of the gloom. Phillip watched them scurry down the small, narrow road leading through the village to the dockside, their movements furtive, their stride brisk. They stopped once, twice, but only to check the area was still quiet. They reached the small harbour of Bladley Weeks and stopped to study the boats in the water. Together, they turned to the left and headed toward the warehouse where Phillip was hiding. He doubted that was their destination. They were heading to the only boat in the harbour that was occupied; a small fishing vessel called: The Starling. The skipper had, throughout the last ten minutes or so, peered warily out of the hatch on his vessel in search of his passengers on several occasions. Phillip didn’t doubt the sailor had probably been paid handsomely to get the two criminals out of the country and help them avoid facing justice for their crimes. While all roads were closed to Smidgley and Haugham, the seas remained their only escape route the Star Elite couldn’t block. The English Channel was only forty miles away and France just beyond it; a day’s sailing for any experienced fisherman.
‘Well, you are not going to escape justice on this night,’ Phil growled.
He watched Claude throw a nervous glance behind him before turning to whisper something to Connor. Neither man moved toward the boat. They remained in deep conversation for several minutes. Impatient to set sail, the skipper appeared on the deck of his boat and began to untie it from its mooring. Dressed completely in black, he was nothing more than a shifting shadow, but Phillip knew he was armed and was as much of a threat to the Star Elite as Smidgley and Haugham, whose guns glinted in the moonlight.
It was Callum’s owl-like hoot which changed everything. Within seconds of the call to arms, Oliver bellowed an order out of the window of a small fishing cottage half-way along the far end of the harbour. ‘Stay right there! Smidgley. Haugham.’
Stepping out into the moonlight, Niall pointed his gun at the men standing just six feet away from where he had been hiding. ‘Stand still!’ he growled.
His order was ignored by Haugham, who lifted his hand out of his cloak. Dropping to one knee he fired at Niall, who dodged back into the gloom with a curse.
Smidgley turned toward the warehouse door. Phillip knew the second that Smidgley looked straight at him that he had known where he was all along. That someone had most probably watched him take up position and reported his whereabouts to the criminals before the fugitives had appeared in the harbour. Phillip barely had the time to duck before the bullet Smidgley fired at him embedded itself in the coarse door frame where he had been standing. Phillip shot at Smidgley who had nowhere to hide. The skipper of the fishing boat suddenly began to yank a little harder at the ropes securing his boat.
‘Get over here!’ Haugham bellowed at him.
Niall took aim and fired at the fugitive closest to him. Haugham screamed and clutched his wounded thigh as he fell to the ground, but he didn’t lie still. He cursed and spat, wriggled and rolled around, until he was closer to his friend. Niall tried to aim at him again but found it impossible. He watched Haugham lift a hand out to Smidgley, who helped him back onto his feet. Before either man could move, Niall fired another shot, this time striking Haugham’s hand. With a feral curse, Smidgley fired several shots back at Niall, forcing him backwards and into the driveway behind the warehouse. Phillip stepped out of the shadows only to realise he was no longer alone. Turning to fire off several shots, he heard Oliver bellow: ‘Don’t let him get into the water!’
Once his attacker had been killed, Phillip turned to look for the man he had to keep out of the water. He looked up and saw Oliver race out of the house and begin to run toward them. It was then that the harbour came alive.
Several gunmen stepped out of their various hiding places around the harbour and began to fire upon the men from the Star Elite. Guns blasted deadly bullets in every direction until moving anywhere was lethal. Pinned down, Phillip tried to take aim at anybody who moved and could only hope none of them were his colleagues. It was difficult to identify who was who in the darkness. What he did do was pick out the men closest to him who he didn’t recognise. One by one, shot after shot, he watched Smidgley’s men fall. Bullet after bullet struck the enemy, fatally wounding and ending the danger they brought to the small harbour.
How long he stood beside the harbour door and picked off targets he couldn’t remember. After what seemed like an age, his arm began to tire. It made him clumsy when he tried to reload his gun. Phillip fumble
d before cursing fluidly and forcing himself to remain calm. Seconds later, with a hard click his gun was ready. Before he could take another shot, movement behind him made him look up. Beside him, the wooden door of the large warehouse continued to explode into splinters as it was pounded by a steady stream of bullets from several men. That small break in gunfire while he had fumbled had cost him his advantage and had allowed several gunmen to creep up on him. Phillip didn’t even bother to glance at the building again but was painfully aware that if the gunmen outside fired at the wooden sides of the building around him as well, he was going to die.
It was time to move.
Phillip turned to the back doors of the large warehouse and mentally cursed when he watched several more dark shapes scurry into the building. Settling back into the shadows, he silently removed his flick knife from his boot and waited. His gaze constantly scanned the warehouse, watching and waiting for someone to venture too close. He was heavily outnumbered but there was nothing he could do. Phillip’s mind raced. As he watched several more men enter the building, all heavily armed, all after him, what concerned him was that they had all passed Callum to get to him. Mentally praying that his colleague was all right, Phillip watched one of Smidgley’s men creep closer. As soon as he was within arm’s reach, Phillip slammed a hand over the man’s mouth to stifle his scream and stabbed him once in the side of the neck. Aside from a few scuffles and snorts, the man remained silent as he slithered down to lie in a pool of blood. Phillip squatted down and looked for his next target.
He ducked when a wooden beam directly above his head was struck by a bullet. Phillip didn’t wait to see if the bullet had been meant for him. He ducked low and tried to find a way to cross the warehouse without being killed. Before he had taken more than half a dozen steps he was shot at by several men. Dodging bullets, he cursed and raced for the darkness. But he knew the corner of the building was the very last place he should be. He would be stuck, with no way out, no way of surviving. Firing back in random directions earnt him the cries of two wounded men, but it wasn’t enough to ensure his freedom. Phillip knew he needed to do more.
Phillip looked around but already knew from his earlier scouting of the area that there were very few options available to him. But he was going to die if he couldn’t think of something. What he did know was that there were too many of Smidgley’s men for the Star Elite to fight, no matter how determined or well-armed they were. They were heavily outgunned.
I must get myself out of this mess.
The loud blasts of gunfire echoed all about the small village. It was interspersed with the frantic barking of several dogs, and the cries and screams of the terrified villagers, and of men dying. Everywhere, bullets slammed into woodwork, brickwork, boats and people as the battle between criminals and the Star Elite raged on. Phillip didn’t need to look at the harbour to know that he would see carnage. He didn’t need to count heads to know that he faced certain death. As if to prove just how much danger he was in, a bullet grazed his shoulder. He immediately felt the damp warmth of blood trickle down his arm from the stinging cut now on his flesh. His fingers tingled so badly he struggled to hold his knife, but Phillip refused to simply die without defending himself. Turning around, he fired into the darkness once more as he backstepped toward the empty doorway. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that nobody else was coming into the warehouse. All he could see was the sea. It seemed to fill the doorway, his vision, his life. Lying just beyond a small path to the side of the warehouse, it glinted in the moonlight. It was his only salvation. His only hope at life. His only chance of escape.
Mentally praying that his colleagues would be all right, Phillip dodged around the corner of the door. He ducked low and winced when the warehouse blasted to life behind him as several men fired bullets at him. His long legs ate up the distance to the harbour wall. A hail of gunfire followed him, exploding in his ears as he ground beneath his boots shook warningly. He cursed when a bullet burned through the skin on his side. Kicking his legs high, Phillip took a huge breath and threw himself headfirst into the water. Rather than surface, he swam deeper and deeper. He couldn’t see anything but heard the loud plops of bullets hitting the water above him.
Only when they had stopped did Phillip cease forcing himself to dive deeper. He then began to swim outward; as far out to sea as his starving lungs could keep him beneath the waves. Eventually, he had to surface. The need for air was threatening to make him black out. When he did emerge from the water, he turned around to look back at the harbour.
It was like something out of the horrors of a battlefield. People were running this way and that as they tried to escape the bullets. Bodies lay on the paths surrounding the harbour on all sides. The night sky was lit with the flares from guns being fired. Over and over, women and children screamed as they cowered within the houses. Men cried out in pain, others bellowed orders. Some tried to dive into the water only for bullets to strike them before they could reach safety. There was nothing Phillip could do to save them. He knew that going back to help anybody would mean certain death.
Rather than swim away, as he knew he should, Phillip forced himself to stay afloat and tried to find his colleagues amongst the carnage. He looked at each of the places where he knew his colleagues had been, but gunfire no longer lit their hiding places. What he didn’t know was whether that was because they were no longer alive or had moved to a safer position. Phillip was about to turn away when he suddenly saw Oliver stagger out of the cottage he had been hiding in. He was immediately forced back by the hail of bullets fired at him. Phillip cried out in fury when he saw Oliver glance down. He knew that his colleague had been hit by how Oliver grabbed his side. It was the only reason why Oliver would fall to the floor amidst such dire threat. Phillip looked around once more for the rest of his colleagues, to see if anybody was close enough to help him, but all he could see were more and more men charging to the harbour side, all armed with guns, all trying to kill the Star Elite. It was difficult to identify who belonged to which group. Phillip hoped that some of the men were the magistrate’s men, or reinforcements Sir Hugo had said he was going to round up. Whoever they were, the Star Elite had no chance of doing anything more than escaping. But the fight was far from over. Smidgley and Haugham were still alive, and that mean that the investigation couldn’t be considered closed.
Phillip contemplated going back. He studied the warehouse, and the harbour wall, and tried to look for a way to climb them so he could get ashore again when he noticed a small rowing boat leaving the safety of the harbour. He knew immediately that he saw the thugs weren’t coming after him to save him. That suspicion was confirmed when they saw him and immediately began to fire at him. With a curse, Phillip watched the water begin to churn all about him, and immediately sank beneath the surface once more.
Carlotta clutched her basket so tightly her knuckles hurt. She was so scared she was physically shaking but forced herself to carry on. It took a lot of effort to remain calm and outwardly appear as unaffected as everyone else who was out on this busy morning. Inside, Carlotta was exhausted by the effort it took. Even so, she forced herself to keep her gait slow and steady as she walked down the busy main street of Windwidger. While she had her shawl tucked high over her head in the fashion most of the fishermen’s wives wore, she was still terrified that the thugs would recognise her.