Armageddon Heights (a thriller) Read online

  ARMAGEDDON

  HEIGHTS

  ____________________

  A novel by D. M. Mitchell

  ARMAGEDDON HEIGHTS

  Copyright © D. M. Mitchell 2014

  The right of Daniel M. Mitchell 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.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, organisations, businesses, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Agamemnon Independent Publishing

  By D. M. Mitchell

  Novels:

  Max

  Silent

  Mouse

  Blackdown

  After the Fall

  The Soul Fixer

  Flinder’s Field

  Pressure Cooker

  Latimer’s Demon

  The Domino Boys

  The King of Terrors

  Armageddon Heights

  Archangel Hawthorne

  The Ashenby Incident

  The House of the Wicked

  The Woman from the Blue Lias

  The First D. M. Mitchell Thriller Omnibus

  The Second D. M. Mitchell Thriller Omnibus

  The D.M. Mitchell Supernatural Double Bill

  Short Stories:

  Rabbits

  Mulligan’s Map

  The Pen of Manderby Pincher

  Visit the official D. M. Mitchell website at www.dm-mitchell.com for more information on books, blogs and author biographies

  You can also join D. M. Mitchell on Facebook, and on Twitter at D M Mitchell @dmtheauthor for details of his latest releases and free book offers

  CHAPTERS

  Prologue

  1: Nowhere to Hide

  2: Sweet Dreams

  3: Special Work

  4: Once Upon a Time

  5: All in a Day’s Work

  6: The Private Kind

  7: Huge, Powerful and Vicious

  8: A Regular Van Gogh

  9: Mainwaring

  10: From Confusion to Understanding to Terror

  11: Trophies

  12: An Impossible Possibility

  13: The Devil Behind, His Dogs Out Front

  14: The Pits of Hell

  15: Cold Beyond Cold

  16: A Heap of Distrust

  17: A Nice Ring to It

  18: Cobalt

  19: Mounting Apprehension

  20: A Flood of Black Oil

  21: Disappointed

  22: Screaming

  23: Live to fight another Day

  24: A Bright, Shining Star

  25: The Jaws of the Beast

  26: What New, Mad Hell?

  27: Mind Games

  28: Erewhon

  29: Butterfly-Weak

  30: Bad Blood

  31: Pain and Joy

  32: Alive

  33: An Offer They Can’t Refuse

  34: Playing God

  35: A Streak of Light

  36: Chilled to the Core

  37: Needs

  38: Vile Black Hatred

  39: Passing On

  40: Sacrifice

  41: Somewhere Appropriate

  42: Home

  43: Waves of Pure Evil

  Prologue

  For some inexplicable reason she was drawn to staring at the myriad raindrops on the car’s window. It had been raining heavily, not that she’d been in the frame of mind to really notice it – today would mark a new, and possibly frightening, beginning and her brain was just too full of the possibilities and the pitfalls that lay ahead – but now her attention was pulled irresistibly to the many glass-like blisters trembling in the slipstream as the car hurtled down the country lane. They shimmered in the sunlight that was starting to tease apart the heavy black clouds with its rapier-like beams, the raindrops’ edges painted in many colours, refracting the light and now giving the impression of crystal beads on a candle-lit chandelier.

  How curious, she thought, enthralled. Something so simple and yet so divine. And after the rain comes the sun…

  The countryside whipped by in a blur, the car’s engine all but silent, the only sound the hum of the tyres on tarmac and the rushing of the wind. Almost hypnotic. She looked beside her. Her father – elderly now, but still as large and imposing as always, a head of full white hair combed neatly back, his casual sweater and jeans belying the deadly seriousness of the man, a trait she’d inherited from him. And passion. Beneath his calm exterior frothed a zeal that had made him one of the most successful, respected and feared men in his chosen business. Lindegaard Software was now an immense global force to be reckoned with, and powered still by the immense force that was Jeremy Lindegaard.

  Melissa Lindegaard was justifiably proud of him, and he knew it, though they both pretended they were above such thoughts. And, she strongly suspected, he was proud of her. He’d only compared her to his dead wife (her much lamented dear mother) twice in her entire thirty-two years, and both times it concerned the late woman’s capacity for compassion, for empathy, for bringing something of the human to a business that by its nature could be cutthroat, sterile and artificial. And both times he told his daughter never to forget compassion, which coming from a hard-headed businessman she always thought faintly odd. As if he had to remind himself of his wife’s past influence, and his own deficiencies in this area.

  ‘It’s a little warm back here,’ said Jeremy Lindegaard, his deep voice level, authoritative and gentle.

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said the chauffer, and adjusted the air conditioning in the limousine.

  Melissa Lindegaard noticed how her father’s cheeks were starting to flush pink. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  His pale blue eyes regarded her, for a second looking like they might penetrate right through her and delve deep into her skull. As if he could read her thoughts like they were words on the page of a book. Most people were disconcerted by the effect his often steely gaze had upon them, but ordinarily she saw it as yet another focus for her admiration. The ability to second-guess people had made him extremely wealthy – one of the wealthiest men in the world. But today she felt a little uncomfortable beneath his hot stare. Had he guessed? Had he somehow worked things out? Did he know about her relationship with Robert? She wasn’t sure he would fully appreciate their newfound love.

  Love! Christ, that was so weird, hearing herself think the word like that and not feeling embarrassed or weakened by it. Yes, she did love him. Robert Napier had done what no other man had ever done and that was to steal her heart. She almost cringed at the phrase, to steal one’s heart – so quaint and old-fashioned these days, but somehow it summed up what she was feeling.

  She’d had her fair share of men – a rich man’s daughter, wealthy in her own right, young and attractive, was like a pot of jam for wasps. Yes, she was forced to admit it, though it was something she was forever playing down, she was attractive, and would have been even without the irresistible gloss of money. Yet it was nothing really but a chance mixing of genes that bestowed upon her the beauty that she always felt was being put above her genius for software design and her passion for human rights. At any function or conference she fronted, the media focussed more on what she was dressed in than what she had to say, and that rankled. So much so she took to wearing little or no makeup, hair long and tied back, and even clothes from charity shops. Grunge, some called it. But recently that had the effect of creating another ‘look’ that people wanted to ape, and before she knew it the glossies were full of articles on how to create it.
She ranted and blustered over it, but her father only smiled and told her to forget such things and concentrate on the higher business at hand.

  Robert insisted they told her father together. Finding the right time and place to inform him that they intended to marry. Robert, she felt, wasn’t exactly the sort of man he’d approve of or had in mind for her – sure, he liked the man, and Robert Napier had hauled himself up by his bootstraps from nothing to inhabit his respected but as yet lowly place in the business – but as for long-term matches her father talked of possible high-ranking politicians and businessmen, even the unlikely names of one or two European princes tripped lightly off his tongue over lunch one day. For a man whose family had risen from similar humble beginnings she found it remarkably odd. Thank goodness her Uncle Dale approved, her father’s beloved younger brother, the only other person they’d told, and that because his aid might prove beneficial in smoothing over any ruffled feathers on her father’s part. The one thing she didn’t want to do was cause any friction that would interfere with Robert’s career within Lindegaard Software, so she was banking on her Uncle Jeremy’s salve-like powers of negotiation when the time came.

  She’d be seeing her uncle today, and Robert, too. In fact all the top brass would be there in force. Today there would be an extraordinary meeting of all the executives at her uncle’s house. A major partner in the business, Dale Lindegaard still called her his Little Miss Muffet to tease and annoy her, and frequently recounted, with a mischievous glint in his eye, the days when he had to change her nappies. But she forgave him. He might be a tougher nut than her father when it came down to business, and that was saying something, but she loved him so much she could forgive him almost anything, though she’d never tell him that. Life would be insufferable if he knew how much she adored him.

  ‘I’m still warm!’ her father complained, shuffling in his seat.

  ‘It’s perfectly fine,’ she said.

  ‘I’m getting old, Melissa,’ he returned. ‘I get so overheated these days. I’m sweating like a pig. I’ll need a shower and a change of clothes before we see anyone.’ He looked at her again. ‘How’d you manage to keep looking so cool?’

  ‘You’re nervous, aren’t you?’ she said, her eyes widening. ‘Why, Mr Jeremy Lindegaard, I never thought I’d ever see the day!’

  ‘Pah!’ he said, wafting away the notion. ‘I’m roasting like a potato in a fire, that’s what I am!’ He rapped on the glass in front of him. ‘Is that damn air conditioning working?’

  ‘It’s working fine,’ Melissa assured, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Open a window.’

  ‘That makes the air conditioning pointless!’

  ‘Relax, father,’ she said.

  He stabbed at a button and the window crawled down. Fresh air and the earthy smell of wet grass and concrete gushed in. He sucked it in and closed his eyes. ‘It’s a big day…’ he said, his eyes still closed.

  ‘They’re not going to like it.’

  ‘Tough. It’s my business, my baby, and I’ll do with it as I please.’

  ‘To a point it’s yours…’ she said.

  ‘It’s mine!’ he said firmly. He opened his eyes. ‘I sometimes wonder if what we have done is right.’

  ‘Right? In what way?’

  ‘Right in the eyes of God…’

  She raised an eyebrow. He was a deeply religious man, but rarely did it leak out. ‘I think God will approve of what you are doing now.’

  His face was solemn. ‘You think so? Perhaps we should be condemned for doing what we did in the first place. Nothing we can do now can ever wipe away what we, in our search for basic pleasure and profit, have stumbled upon.’

  ‘Then it’s me that should be worried come the day of judgement,’ she laughed. ‘I was the one who was at the helm, remember?’

  He patted her small hand. ‘You are too much like your mother to do any wrong, Melissa.’ He sat back, angling his head thoughtfully. ‘And your skills – your genius – are surely God-given.’

  ‘You sound like you’re in a fight with yourself, father. Maybe it’s best to call a halt to it before you end up beating yourself up too much. The main thing is that today you are taking the bull by the horns and doing something positive about it.’

  He chuckled. ‘And, by God, they can be bulls, the lot of them!’

  ‘That’s the problem with choosing an executive team who are built like you are,’ she chastised.

  ‘All except Robert, of course…’ he said.

  She fell quiet, studied the raindrops again; they were fast drying up. The beautiful colours had disappeared as the sun appeared to creep behind another ominous-looking bank of grey cloud. ‘Robert?’ she pursued gently.

  He smiled warmly. ‘You think you can so easily fool your old man?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, feeling herself colour like a blushing little schoolgirl. God, she hadn’t done that in years! ‘You’re right, it is getting a trifle warm in here,’ she agreed.

  ‘Perhaps there is something you need to talk to me about after the meeting…’

  She nodded. ‘Perhaps.’ Thankfully the car took a turning in the road and drove down a private tree-lined lane that led to her uncle’s house. ‘We’re here now,’ she said, glad of the diversion.

  To call it a house would be an understatement. Her Uncle Dale’s property was an Elizabethan mansion – or had started out life that way – huge, sprawling, red-bricked and grey-black timbered throughout. Its many roofs, bent like the backs of aged donkeys, and a forest of elaborate chimneys was testament to its long history and many additions. It sat in a cloud of dark yew trees, said to predate the first building on this spot knocked down to make way for the grand spectacle that graced the plot now. The limousine glided up to a pair of wrought-iron gates and came to a halt. A few seconds passed as they waited for them to swing open. Beyond the gates, some three hundred yards away, the great old house watched them from its hiding place in the yews.

  ‘What the hell are they playing at?’ said Jeremy Lindegaard in frustration. ‘Why don’t they open the bloody gates?’

  ‘Patience,’ Melissa soothed.

  She became aware of a shadow to her right; something dark emerging swiftly from the bushes. Before she could speak there was the rattle of gunfire and the sound of shattering glass.

  The windows of the limousine collapsed as if they were sheets of ice. She screamed, instinctively ducking down as she saw the chauffeur slump sideways in his seat and disappear from view. Her father put a protective arm around her, his face sheathed in terror as a gunman appeared at his side of the car, his automatic rifle raised, the barrel pointing straight at him. Another man, his face covered by a balaclava, was level with the driver’s door and he calmly pulled the trigger of his weapon, a heavy burst of bullets eating into the chauffeur and killing him instantly.

  The second gunman, also wearing a balaclava, paused a split second, long enough for him to see the father and daughter cowering helplessly before him, almost as if drinking it in like a heady potion, and then he pulled the trigger, spraying the back of the limousine with bullets.

  Melissa felt something thump her in the chest, the arms, as if someone were kicking her, felt the weight of her father as he tumbled against her, felt the splash of warm blood against her face.

  And above all the din of the gunfire.

  She knew she would die.

  The gates began to swing slowly open and the two men, their gun barrels smoking, a smell of cordite tainting the air, ran off into the cover of the thick bushes and trees.

  Silence dropped like a softly falling handkerchief.

  A bird started to sing a lonely song.

  Minutes later, three men ran down the path from the house. Breathlessly they reached the car.

  ‘Oh Christ!’ said one of them, his heart racing, his nerves in shreds as he saw the blood-splashed interior of the car. ‘They’re dead! They’re all dead!’

  ‘Melissa! Melissa!’ yelled an
other, frantically pushing away the first man to open the car’s rear door. He could see that Jeremy Lindegaard was stone-cold dead; no one could have that much of their skull blown away and live, he thought. The man’s entire body was peppered with bullet holes, most of them weeping blood. He could just make out Melissa Lindegaard’s hair beneath the old man’s protective arm. But that, too, was soaked in blood. ‘Melissa!’ he wailed.

  ‘I think she’d dead also, Mr Napier,’ said one of the men, his voice threatening to break.

  ‘Help me get Mr Lindegaard off her…’ Napier said, undeterred.

  The two men heaved at the body, and the arm slid away to reveal Melissa Lindegaard’s face, all but completely red with blood.

  ‘The driver’s dead,’ said the third man. He looked up to see the familiar figure of Dale Lindegaard running down the path towards the gates.

  ‘There’s a pulse!’ said Napier, his bloodied hands coming away from the woman’s neck. ‘It’s weak, but she’s alive! Where’s the ambulance? Where’s the fucking ambulance?’

  Dale Lindegaard was out of breath by the time he reached the car. His face was pale. ‘Oh my God!’ he exclaimed, a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh my God!’ There were tears in his eyes as he came round to where Robert Napier was lifting Dale Lindegaard’s body from the car in an effort to reach the woman. ‘He’s dead! My poor brother is dead!’

  The body was lifted unceremoniously from the car and put on the grass.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that; it’s a crime scene,’ one of the men warned.

  ‘Screw that!’ Napier fired. ‘I’ve got to help Melissa. Oh hell, she’s covered in bullet wounds…’ he said weakly, watching as her lifeblood oozed from them like tiny erupting geysers, feeling powerless to help her.

  ‘She’s gone, Robert…’ said Dale Lindegaard. ‘Can’t you see? They’ve killed her.’

  ‘No, she’s alive!’ he returned. ‘I can feel a pulse!’