Doubtful Hero

By Bill Dixon

Alex Hargreaves, a security consultant, is a hero during an Islamic terrorist attack on a South East Asian, luxury, island resort, but is desperate to avoid the fame that follows, and back in Sydney, Australia, does all he can to hide from the media. In Belfast, a former IRA officer still seethes with hatred for a man who, at Christmas 1990, drove a UDA death squad into Catholic Belfast—and would dearly love to find his hiding place. A suspenseful story weaves between events in 1990 and the present to reveal why Alex must fight to avoid a nemesis that could rise from his dark past and destroy him and his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Dixon
• Release date: Aug 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9780646560168

Bill Dixon

Bill Dixon has published several works of non-fiction. Doubtful Hero is his first fictional work. Born in the UK, he lives in Australia with his wife and daughter.

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Doubtful Hero

By Bill Dixon

Published by Bill Dixon at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Bill Dixon

ISBN 978-0-646-56016-8

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This work is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, or to actual events in Ireland or elsewhere, is purely coincidental.

This book contains occasional coarse language and violence.

***~~~~***

Chapter 1

‘Come on you two! The luau has started and all the food will be gone!’ said Alex.

‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ came a condescending voice from the bathroom. ‘The luau goes on for hours. Think of your blood pressure and chill out a bit’.

Jesus, that was typical of Janie. Nothing matters to fourteen year old girls except clothes, pop stars and ten other types of useless crap.

‘Relax darling, have a beer. We won’t be much longer,’ said Anne, Alex’s wife, as she peered out of the bedroom. She smiled and raised her eyebrows in a way that clearly said really darling there’s no need to be so Type A when you’re on holiday.

Begrudgingly forced into a semblance of relaxing, Alex took a beer from the bar fridge of their luxury cabin, wandered onto the veranda and sank his lean forty-something frame into one of the planter’s chairs overlooking the tropical lagoon. Ok, he conceded to himself, maybe the women in his life had a point. He’d spent a small fortune on bringing them to this small, rather exclusive South East Asian resort. What was the point if he didn’t relax? He might as well be back in Sydney designing security systems for his corporate clients. Can a leopard change its spots even for a short time? Well, perhaps, he would try to ‘chill out a bit’.

So, with the beer going down nicely, Alex concentrated on appreciating the colours and forms of the tropical twilight. He took in the vista around him—dark silhouettes of coconut palms to each side sat motionless against a steely, deep blue sky, while in front an intense red arc of light followed the sun and sank slowly into the Indian Ocean breaking into a myriad of tiny brushstrokes that danced on the canvas of the water.

The scene engaged him for a couple of minutes, but soon his thoughts returned to his perennial sore point: why am I the only one that is ever on time?

****

‘Just tell me, why am I the only one that’s ever on time? Eh? Why are you always late?’

Alex’s temper had gradually frayed as he sat alone in the driver’s seat of a freezing taxi looking out at the dark, dismal industrial estate in Belfast, nearly deserted now that it was more than four hours after going-home time on Christmas Eve.

‘Ah, don’t get your knickers in a twist, Brian,’ said Duncan sliding into the front passenger seat besides Alex, a.k.a. Brian, ‘we’re here now’. Three other men clambered into the back seat of the cab.

‘Close the bloody door will you, it’s miserable out there,’ complained Alex.

‘Yeah, I just saw a brass monkey crying his eyes out,’ said one of the men in the back. The other two giggled like schoolgirls. They all appeared over-excited.

‘What are you guys on?’ asked Alex, turning round.

‘It’s only a bit of whiz, Brian,’ said Duncan, ‘you don’t expect them to do a job like this without a little something to perk up the reactions, do you now?’

No, conceded Alex to himself, there aren’t many men who can do this without some recourse to Dutch courage of one form or another.

‘Have you familiarised yourselves with the photos of the target?’ he asked them.

The men bounced about and gave him the thumbs up, grinning and chattering like monkeys. Alex groaned quietly and turned back, keeping his despondent feelings to himself. He started the taxi and made his way along the bleak back roads of the industrial estate where he’d picked up the boys, then headed out across Belfast.

****

‘We’re ready!’ called Janie appearing at the veranda door.

‘Thank Christ for that,’ Alex mumbled as he raised himself out of the chair.

Faint sounds of laughter and chatter could be heard from the central dining area of the resort where the luau was in full swing. The resort was small and comprised the only habitations on the island. A dozen luxury cabins clustered in a convex arc along the shore with the reception and dining complex at the focus of the arc. A jetty reached into the water from the central point. Alex and his family were in the second last cabin along to the right.

We’ll be last there as usual, thought Alex.

Just then, sharp cracks and bangs came from the luau.

‘Fireworks,’ cried Janie, ‘we’re missing the fireworks!’

Alex leapt to the side of the veranda and peered round the side of the cabin towards the dining area.

‘That’s not fireworks,’ he said. ‘Get back inside quick.’

‘Dad!’

‘Shut up, get in!’ he said as he roughly pushed Janie back inside, so hard that she collided with her mother, nearly knocking her over.

‘Darling, what ever is the matter? You're frightening Janie…and me.’

‘That’s small arms fire…guns,’ said Alex. ‘Stay here, while I take a look what’s going on.’ ‘And get down low!’ he added.

Hugging Janie to her, Anne said ‘what do you mean…how do you know?’ Alex pushed past them and headed for the cabin door on the other side of the lounge area. He was three steps from it, when it burst open, kicked in by a small Asian man wearing combat fatigues and a black headband with Arabic writing on it. The man levelled an AK47 assault rifle at Alex and screamed over and over ‘Hand up! Hand up! You Come! You Come!’

The man shuffled to the side of the door, keeping the weapon on Alex while indicating with his head that he should go outside.

‘You Come! You Come!’ he screamed at Anne and Janie, who were shocked out of their stunned silence and started to cry and whimper.

‘Ok, ok,’ said Alex placing his hands on his head. ‘We’ll come, we’ll come.’

He glanced behind to his wife and daughter. ‘Get behind me but not too close. Keep me between you and him. Understand? Keep me between you and him.’

Anne and Janie, still hugging each other and crying, tottered over behind Alex, who took a couple of steps towards the door.

Their attacker was clearly expecting nothing but blind compliance because his expression was one of total surprise as Alex, as soon as he was within reach, suddenly brought his hands down at lightening speed and twisted the weapon out of the man’s grip. A split second later, Alex smashed the gun butt under the attacker’s chin, slamming him back against the wall. The man had barely bounced forward a few inches before Alex hit him with a short burst from the gun that threw him back again, leaving a wide bloody streak as he slid down the wall onto the floor, stone dead.

Anne and Janie screamed and screamed and screamed.

‘Quiet! For God’s sake be quiet. There are Islamic terrorists on the island.’ shouted Alex, as he grabbed them and pushed them back towards the veranda.

Then Alex heard the sound of boots coming up the steps to the door and spun round as another combat-clad, gun-toting man appeared in the open doorway. The man had barely enough time to even focus on the scene before Alex shot him dead.

So shocked that they’d held their breath as the second man appeared, Anne and Janie now started screaming again at the top of their lungs. Alex grabbed them by the shoulders and turned them towards him while keeping the door side-on to his right so that he could still see it in his peripheral vision and keep the weapon pointing at it.

‘Now, listen, LISTEN!’ he said in a calm but commanding way, ‘we’re going to be ok. I can get us out of this, but you must do as I say. Understand? You must do exactly as I say.’

Tears still streaming down their cheeks and breathing hard, the two women nodded.

‘Wait here a moment and keep very quiet,’ said Alex.

He went first to the dead man in the doorway and took his weapon and any clips of ammunition he could quickly find on the body, he also took clips from the other dead man. He turned and went back to the women.

‘Go back to the veranda, down the steps and on to the beach, but stay near me. I’ll watch our backs. Understand? Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ echoed his wife and daughter, who were visibly shaking and sobbing quietly.

Anne went first, followed by Janie then Alex. He’d noticed earlier when enjoying the sunset that there was a pronounced terrace of sand nearly a metre tall at the high water mark. He guided his family below it and told them to stop and squat down.

He pointed to a group of bushes just behind the beach about forty metres along from where they squatted.

‘See those bushes? We’re going to move to them as quickly as we can along the beach, but we’re going to keep so low below this ridge that we can’t be seen from the resort. Understand? Then when the bushes can hide us from the resort, we’re going to move up to them. Do you understand?’

‘Yes…yes.’

‘Good. Now, tell me what we’re going to do.’

‘Move up…the beach…(sob)…then…(sob)……’ said Anne.

‘And keep low,’ said Alex.

‘And keep low…until we get to the bushes…(sob)…and go to them.’

‘Near enough,’ said Alex. ‘Now do that even if someone comes along and I have to leave you. Understand? Ok, let’s go.’

He gave them a gentle push to start them moving. They scrambled, almost crawling, along the beach