Beyond The Law Box Set Read online

  Beyond The Law:

  The Trilogy (Box Set)

  Tom Benson

  Copyright © Tom Benson 2019

  The right of Tom Benson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him

  in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

  recording or otherwise)

  without the prior written permission

  of the publisher.

  Any person who performs any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be

  liable to criminal prosecution

  and civil claims for damages.

  Individual book cover designs by

  Aimee Coveney of Author Design Studio

  Trilogy cover design by Tom Benson

  Olive - wife, soulmate and steadfast support

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the following for their assistance,

  and for use of their established names:

  The City of Glasgow

  Bellhaven Pubs -

  (The Scotia, Stockwell Street)

  Callander Golf Club

  Daily Record and Sunday Mail

  Gart Caravan Park, Callander

  Glasgow Life - advice

  Encore Hospitality Services -

  (Encore Cafe, The People’s Palace)

  The Rosslea Hall Hotel - Rhu

  Contents

  I. Beyond The Law

  1. Deceived and Framed

  2. Changing Direction

  3. The Good, The Bad, and The Lovely

  4. Flavours

  5. Mobility

  6. Protection

  7. Welcoming Arms

  8. Testing Times

  9. Relationships

  10. Plans and Promises

  11. House Clearance

  12. Taking Care

  13. Thoughts

  14. Discoveries

  15. Rehearsals

  16. Sharing Opinions

  17. Emergencies

  18. Getting In, Getting Out

  19. Surprises

  20. Visits

  21. House Calls

  22. Observations

  23. Intelligence

  24. Office Work

  25. Preparations

  26. More Surprises

  27. Codes and Caring

  28. Shots in the Dark

  29. Kidnaps and Killings

  30. Deliveries

  Epilogue

  II. Beyond The Law

  Acknowledgments

  1. Out and About

  2. Going Abroad

  3. Brotherly Love

  4. Hello and Goodbye

  5. Specialists

  6. Jungle Animals

  7. Men in Black

  8. Allies and Enemies

  9. Reunion

  10. The Bait

  11. Agendas

  12. Unexpected Guests

  13. All for One

  14. Scene of Crime

  15. The Six P’s

  16. Welcome to Glasgow

  17. Information Exchange

  18. Relationships

  19. Arrivals

  20. Assessment and Training

  21. Routine and Recce

  22. Introductions

  23. Situation Reports

  24. Trust Issues

  25. Stirling Castle

  26. Girl Power

  27. Revelations

  28. Arranging Interviews

  29. Interview Techniques

  30. Interview Results

  31. Deliveries

  32. Beds and Breakfasts

  33. Castle Tour

  34. Location, Location, Location

  35. Recognition

  36. White Van Men

  37. Trojan Horse

  38. Judge Mental

  39. Head Count

  Epilogue

  III. Beyond The Law

  1. Revelations

  2. Hide and Seek

  3. Getting the Point

  4. Assessment

  5. An Unholy Alliance

  6. Bad News Travels Fast

  7. Questions

  8. Possible Answers

  9. Hidden in Plain View

  10. Ailsa Craig

  11. Keeping Track

  12. Keeping Secrets

  13. Special Relationships

  14. Simpson’s Greetings

  15. Deception

  16. Hide and Seek

  17. Openings

  18. From Bad to Worse

  19. Girl Power

  20. Making an Exit

  21. Making an Entrance

  22. Closure

  Epilogue

  Endnotes

  A word from the author

  About the Author

  Also by the author

  Part I

  Beyond The Law

  Formation

  (This first book was previously titled

  Beyond The Law.

  The title was amended to suit the trilogy)

  1. Deceived and Framed

  .

  Friday 5th January, 1996

  Kentobi, Central Africa

  From under the trees, Phil McKenzie observed the two helicopters at take-off. They adopted a forward tilting attitude, engines screaming as height and speed were gained. When the leading aircraft reached two hundred feet, Phil raised his rifle and fired two rapid shots into the front of the Perspex canopy.

  “Do you think it’ll work Phil?” Joe Conroy asked.

  The Russian-built Hind plummeted to the ground, hit the Kentobi dust, and exploded in a ball of flame.

  “It’ll work,” Phil replied. “Without his escort, the fearless dictator will turn back.”

  The second Hind, containing General Amadi Meterenge, banked to the right taking evasive action. The General’s helicopter also went out of control, spiralled to the ground and exploded in a ball of flame.

  “Shit!” Phil gritted his teeth. “Before it spun, the Perspex splintered on the second chopper. I didn’t hear a shot.”

  “Long range with a suppressor fitted.” Joe scanned the countryside to the north with his binoculars. “I reckon it came from the outcrop over there, but who the fuck was it?” He continued looking. “It’s a range of at least five hundred metres.”

  “No time to ponder,” Phil said, before turning to the other two members of the team. “Let’s go lads. We can’t hang about here.”

  Pete Kelly and Dave Carter had been lying prone behind Phil, keeping watch to the rear of the small group. When they heard the second explosion, they exchanged a glance before continuing to observe their individual arcs.

  Phil was the leader of Bravo Two-One, a team of British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers. They had jogged fifteen kilometres across undulating scrub under a rising sun, and through a forest to meet their deadline. The team had arrived with minutes to spare and left the scene in a hurry. Their lightweight combat kit was saturated from the outward run.

  In the opinion of his peers and superiors alike, Phil had the ability to lead, or blend in and be the grey man. His short dark hair and athletic build ensured he appeared unassuming and ordinary in civilian clothes. On a mission, he was 100 % emotionless weapon of war.

  According to those who knew him well, and they were few, he was always emotionless. No humour or sadness. He was handsome and fit, but an automaton. Training and instinct had served him faithfully over the years in many international operations. He lived for his job.

  Joe was thirty-six, like Phil, but there, the similarity ended.
At six-foot-two, Joe was four inches taller, had a muscular build, blond hair, and the nickname Viking. He had served with Phil for seven years, and they’d been in many tight scrapes together. Joe’s dry humour usually helped in the bad times, aided by his selfless attitude.

  Apart from the brief exchanges between Phil and Joe, and the instruction to move out, nobody spoke for twenty minutes after the shooting.

  The team maintained a steady pace when they left the scene. The forest canopy provided minimal shelter, but on reaching the western edge, they would be in the open for at least thirty minutes.

  Phil signalled a halt while inside the tree line. “Okay lads.” He was taking deep breaths. “I don’t know who else is out there ... but somebody wanted the General dead.” Phil paused. “Now think about our flight out here.”

  Like the others, Dave used the stop to take in some water. He capped his bottle. “While we’ve been runnin’,” he said, “I’ve been thinkin’—it doesn’t make sense.”

  Phil said, “It was a bloody set-up?” He turned to Joe. “Viking?”

  “Now you mention it, I agree,” the big man said, having caught his breath. “Our pilot wasn’t happy when you said we’d continue the mission on foot.” He nodded as he recalled. “For a pilot, he was more agitated by your decision, than he was by his helicopter malfunctioning. If it had been one of our regular pilots, he’d have been cursing the machine.”

  “When we reach the chopper,” Phil said, “watch our aircrew.” He glanced at Joe and nodded. “We’ll bring it up at the main debrief. I don’t want anybody to say anything to the two flyboys.” Each of the men made eye contact with Phil to acknowledge, and they continued to watch for danger.

  “Let me do the talking,” Phil continued as he packed away his bottle. “Something isn’t right.” The others nodded, and the team set off at a trot.

  At twenty-four, Dave was the youngest of the squad. He was a short, dark-haired Scotsman with a great soldiering attitude, a quick mind—and sometimes a quick tongue. Having completed SAS selection six months earlier, this was his first live mission.

  He had been in the Highland Light Infantry before his transfer, and his personal assets were his weapon skills and medical knowledge. He was good at logical thinking, like all who passed the rigorous selection process to join the SAS. It had been suggested Dave should control his tendency to question everything.

  Phil’s team were at peak fitness but dehydrated rapidly under the intense heat. They stopped after another fifteen minutes, each going down on one knee, watching terrain and skyline while listening for any signs of military hardware or human movement. All they saw as they took turns drinking were the grazing wildebeest, zebra and giraffe in the distance.

  Pete was a ginger-haired, thirty-year-old ex-Para who had worked with Phil and Joe on several missions and trusted them both. Phil had saved Pete’s life twice. Taking care of comrades was natural to some men.

  As ‘Tail-end-Charlie’ in patrol formation, Pete kept his rifle butt in the shoulder and a watchful eye to the rear while he was listening. Wherever he focused, his rifle pointed. He was a wiry man whose head and eyes constantly moved, like a wild animal. He spoke when necessary. As they covered ground, he was continually thinking; assessing.

  Dave said, “It must be thirty minutes flying time, for any of their planes to get here.”

  Pete smiled but said nothing. His young colleague was on edge. It occurred to Phil, young Dave wanted reassurance a helicopter gunship, or a brace of Kentobi fighters wasn’t about to show. He winked at Viking.

  “Don’t worry Dave,” Viking said and grinned. “By the time they get organised, we’ll be in a different fucking country. It isn’t NATO we’re dealing with here.”

  Phil said, “You got something on your mind, Pete?”

  “It might be something, and nothing, Boss,” Pete glanced at the others. “Before you fired, I turned to do a quick three-sixty, and for a split second I thought I saw something.” He squinted.

  “Go on,” Viking said. “Spit it out, mate.”

  “Before the boss fired at the chopper—a flash or reflection occurred on the outcrop to the north of our position.”

  “Fuckin’ hell,” Dave said.

  “Dave,” Phil said, “shut the fuck up!” He turned to Viking, “What do you reckon mate?”

  “It could have been binoculars,” the big man said. “It might have been a telescopic sight.”

  “A pro wouldn’t be careless,” Pete said, “aiming at us without firing.”

  “Unless it was a pro with a last minute briefing or a change of heart.” Viking nodded. “Yeah, maybe we were meant to be targets.”

  Dave’s top teeth closed on his bottom lip. He was silenced by a raised eyebrow from Phil, and the expletive was cancelled.

  “Keep everything for the debriefing,” Phil said.

  “Boss,” Pete said, looking to their rear. “Unless we’ve discovered hungry lions hunting in the daytime ....” He pointed to a herd of wildebeest which had taken fright. Their dust trail camouflaged whatever had spooked them until two separate dust trails rose behind them.

  “They’re fucking big lions,” Viking said.

  The team set off at a steady jog. It was hoped whatever the pursuit vehicles were—they didn’t have mounted machine guns. A heavy machine gun could send its deadly message over a serious distance.

  The border was indistinct, with no official markings, but they could make out the helicopter parked in the haze three kilometres distant. They reached a point without cover—an ideal range for pursuing troops. Other men might have considered an extra burst of adrenalin and start an early, meaningless sprint. Those sprints faded over distance. The men of Bravo Two-One continued at their steady pace.

  An acacia tree between them and their helicopter was the closest thing to a border recognition point. Spits of earth erupted in a row, a few metres to the right of the team. A few seconds later the deep thud, thud, of the machine gun, carried on the breeze. The team zigzagged as they ran, but on the baked, pitted ground, it was hazardous.

  As they passed a sizeable solitary boulder, Joe stopped and turned to face their rear.

  “Viking!” Phil shouted and glanced back.

  “Go, Boss,” Viking called as he took cover behind the boulder. “Pick me up.” He took aim and fired a series of single, effective shots at the approaching vehicles.

  “Move it, lads,” Phil said to the others, who had also stopped and turned. He ran to Joe’s side and placed two full magazines next to him. “We’ll be right back mate.” It was a tough decision to take on the role of rearguard. He’d done it himself more than once. Viking was a man’s man—a warrior.

  As Phil ran, he held his rifle across his chest and kept a steady pace, confident he would be okay. Bursts of automatic fire no longer sent streams of bullets to land around his feet, and he could hear the single shots from Viking. Rapid fire was being returned to the rearguard. The big man would be firing at the pursuing vehicles with alternate shots which would affect their accuracy.

  Phil caught up with the others. Every second would count for Joe. It was ten agonising minutes before they crossed the open border into Mowhandi; and their helicopter. When five hundred metres away, Phil raised his left hand with forefinger extended and made a circular motion.

  The pilot and co-pilot had been standing in the shadow of the Puma’s fuselage, staring into the heat-haze. They donned their helmets and climbed into the cockpit. When the three elite soldiers reached the machine, the rotor blades were circling, and a cloud of dust rose up.

  “We’ve got one to pick up back there!” Phil screamed, leaping into the cargo area.

  “I’m not crossing the border—” The pilot was silenced by a pistol muzzle being pressed to his kidneys.

  “You pick him up,” Phil said, “or your fucking co-pilot gets a rapid promotion.”

  The helicopter’s engines screamed on take-off, and the pilot glared over his shoulder at Phil. The othe
r two men in the fighting team eased themselves into the large doorway, rifle butts in the shoulder, heels of their boots hooked into the metal runner beneath the open hatch. They exchanged a look, and Dave’s lips pressed together. Dimples appeared in his cheeks. The team had changed from hunted to hunters.

  It took two minutes before the Puma was close to the boulder, flying at fifty feet above the ground, nose inclined forward, rotors kicking up dust. The pilot turned his aircraft side-on. It was the wrong thing to do defensively, but briefings aside, his passengers were the elite and could shoot more accurately with a full view.

  Phil knelt close behind the others in the doorway and surveyed the scene below. One vehicle was overturned, and four bodies were strewn around the area. A second vehicle was within one hundred metres of Viking’s location. Two bodies lay beside the second vehicle, and one man lay spread-eagled in the open. A lone surviving Kentobi soldier was exchanging fire with Viking.