The Disclosure Protocol (Warner & Lopez Book 8) Read online

  Table of Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  XI

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLIII

  XLIV

  XLV

  XLVI

  XLVII

  XLVIII

  Unnamed

  The Disclosure Protocol

  © 2018 Dean Crawford

  ASIN:

  B07CS33MNX

  Publisher: Fictum Ltd

  The right of Dean Crawford to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Dean Crawford Books

  I

  Carron Bridge, Scotland

  ‘I’m not goin’ onto the moors.’

  Tyler Nicks was not someone who would normally have shown fear, but standing on the edge of miles of uninhabited moorland in the dead of night, he figured that the guys could cut him a break. The growled reply blew that illusion right out of the water.

  ‘Don’t go yellow on us Tyler.’ Bill Shankley, known to his friends simply as “Shank”, sneered at Tyler, his features visible now in the faint glow from several torches held by their accomplices. ‘This was your idea, remember?’

  Shank was a local trouble maker whom Tyler had run into a few times in school. Tyler was the bigger but younger of the two, but what Shank lost in stature he more than made up for with a near-psychotic aggression. Shank was much feared, not so much because of his willingness to fight as much as the fear of what he might do in such a fight. Tyler reckoned Shank would be found dead within a few years with a knife in his guts, such was his reckless abandon.

  ‘Yeah, that was before the lights got worse,’ Tyler replied, trying to conceal the genuine fear that he felt creeping through his bones.

  They were standing to the west of a fire break that ran alongside Muir Mill, a lonely spot a few miles out of Bonnybridge. Beyond were the open moors and hills, a tapestry of lonely tracks and remote hiking paths. To the south the nearest town was a few miles away, to the west the Carron Valley Reservoir and nothing but miles of moors, hills and forests.

  ‘The lights was what got us here,’ Shank reminded him. ‘Are we gonna check this out or are you gonna head home to your mummy?’

  A ripple of sniggers from their companions, none of whom were more than fifteen years of age, stiffened Tyler’s resolve. He gripped his flashlight tighter in his hand, noting that despite his mocking Shank was making no attempt to take the lead. Tyler had noticed that about some people, how they were able to manipulate others into taking their risks for them and then mocking them if they failed. He wouldn’t let Shank get the better of him.

  ‘It’s this way.’

  Tyler led the way across the firebreak and into the woodland, following a natural gulley that would lead them west up the steep hillside. On the brow of the mountains was a clearing that afforded spectacular views to the west, but it was also where the lights had been seen.

  Tyler knew that lots of folk came from across the country from England, Wales and even from abroad to try to spot the lights. Most of them were UFO nuts, the kind of people who believed that the government was run by alien reptiles or some such, and who paraded around with cameras and wild-eyed expressions. The locals called them “Mulders” for some reason, although Tyler wasn’t sure what a Mulder was. Something to do with a television programme or something.

  ‘That way.’

  Shank spotted the old hiking trail and Tyler followed it up toward the peaks invisible against the deep blackness of the night. This far from major towns, there was absolutely no ambient light whatsoever and the heavy cloud cover made it seem as though they were walking a narrow path with nothing but deep space on all sides. It was only when Tyler reached the brow of the hills and turned to catch his breath that he spotted the glittering lights of Falkirk in the distance. A few headlights on distant country roads drifted like white beacons in the deep blackness, and he was surprised that the ever-present wind that normally buffeted the tops of the hillsides was missing, the air still and silent.

  The other three joined him and Shank wiped sweat from his brow and glanced over his shoulder at the view without interest. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now, we wait,’ Tyler replied.

  The lights had been seen for several nights in a row now, enough that the sightings had appeared in the local Gazette under various headlines; Strange lights haunt the moors. What are the lights that we see over the mountains? UFOs or natural phenomena? Is Scotland being visited by beings from another world?

  ‘How long do we have to wait?’

  Another thing about Shank was his lack of patience. Tyler went from being nervous about coming up here to annoyed that he’d even mentioned his plan to Shank at all.

  ‘How the hell should I know? If you don’t want to be here, go someplace else, okay?’

  Shank muttered something unintelligible and then sat down on a damp rock and got his cell phone out. The screen glowed in the darkness and lit his face with a ghoulish light as he began playing some sort of game. Tyler left his own cell phone where it was in his pocket, knowing that the light would spoil his night vision if he let the glare hit his face.

  Whereas Shank and the others had been brought up in Falkirk, Tyler had been raised on a farm and had spent most of his life outdoors. It was for that reason that he was surprised at his own reluctance to come out here at night, and the moment he started thinking about it, the worse it got. Why did he feel so concerned? The hillside was silent but for their own presence, and Murphy’s Law suggested that all they would get for their efforts tonight was damp arses and a scolding for being out so late without telling anyone where they were and…

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What’s what?’ Tyler asked.

  One of the lads was pointing out into the darkness, towards Falkirk. The distant town was little more than a glow reflected off the low clouds and obscured by distance, but Tyler quickly caught sight of a flickering glow a couple of miles away, out on the moors.

  ‘Looks like a camp fire,’ he replied. ‘Probably some of the tourists looking for the lights too.’

  ‘Bloody waste of time,’ Shank uttered. ‘At least they had the sense to start a fire.’

  Tyler tutted but said nothing. They sat down on the heather and tried to make themselves comfortable, but Tyler felt twitchy and unsettled. Again, he wondered why he was feeling so odd, and then it hit him as suddenly as though he had been struck. The wind.

  Tyler looked up at the clouds and watched them scudding along in the darkness above them. A twenty-knot wind, easy. Yet he could feel nothing on his face, the dense grasses around them utterly still and silent. He looked around at Shank and the others, all of them oblivious to the discrepancy.

  ‘Where’s the win
d?’ he asked out loud.

  ‘What now?’

  Tyler pointed up at the sky. ‘Where’s the wind, it should be blowing a gale up here.’

  The boys looked up at the clouds, and it was as if as one they all began to suddenly feel the concern that was haunting Tyler, as though finally realising that they really should not be here at all. Shank stood up and jammed his cell phone in his pocket, masking his unease with impatience.

  ‘Sod this, I’ve had enough. I’m going home.’

  The others made to leave, getting up off the heather, and Tyler opened his mouth to speak when there was a burst of light so bright that Tyler felt as though he had been hit with something physical. He heard himself cry out, heard the shouts of alarm from the others as they all toppled over in the sudden, blinding brightness.

  The hairs on Tyler’s arms and neck rose up beneath his thick winter jacket and the air hummed as though alive, but it felt as though he was under water and could not move freely. His arms felt heavy and lethargic and all sound seemed dull and muted. He tried to shield his eyes against the fearsome orb of white light blazing into his eyes but it was so powerful that even when he closed them he could still see a vivid red glow.

  ‘What’s happening?!’ Shank yelled in horror, and tried to scramble away from the light.

  Tyler reached out to stop him, worried that they would be in greater danger if they split up, and then suddenly the light vanished and they were plunged into a deep blackness. The intense humming vanished and Tyler heard their breathing in the darkness, panicked and uneasy, and then he heard something else.

  The wind was back, rumbling across the lonely mountains as it always had. He looked up in confusion across the hilltop, saw the gleaming lights of Falkirk far to the east. The flickering camp fires they had seen earlier had disappeared, as though the tourists had suddenly left without warning.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Shank uttered.

  The fury that it seemed had been permanently etched into Shank’s features had been replaced by open panic, his eyes wide and wild. Tyler couldn’t get his thoughts in order but he knew that they had been virtually right beneath the light, or whatever it had been. He was trying to think about whether they should get off the mountain and back home when the youngest boy in the group threw an arm out and pointed across the hillside.

  ‘There’s someone there.’

  Tyler felt a cold dread run like ice through his veins as he turned and saw a figure moving unsteadily across the hilltop, dimly illuminated by the glow from their flashlights. Tyler recognised the figure as a man, although somewhat short and walking as though he might be injured in some way. He wondered if one of the tourists had been on the hillside and had been injured when the light struck.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  The man looked up at them as he approached, but he did not reply. As he moved close enough to be seen clearly in the flashlight beams, Tyler realised that there was something not quite right about him. At first, he couldn’t put his finger on it but gradually he began noticing things that didn’t make any sense. The man looked to be about thirty years old, and yet he was a good three inches shorter than Tyler. He wore a thin beard, and his jaw was wide and his eyes somewhat sunken, his skin a little pale and dirty. On the wind, Tyler got a whiff of intense body odour from the man, and Shank coughed a little as he too smelled the man’s scent.

  Tyler looked the man up and down. He was wearing a loose tunic of some sort, made from woven wool and open at the neck, and his pants were long and tied up at the ankle beneath oddly shaped boots. The flashlight beams converged on the man as he came to stand before them, and he looked at the flashlights in apparent terror as he threw his arms up and staggered away from them.

  ‘Thoust oone as baernett hr aecan and binnan eower thy han?!’ the man uttered.

  Tyler hesitated. The man’s voice was not of a local tone, and the dialect was something that he didn’t recognise but sounded oddly familiar. The man must be one of the odd-ball tourists who had gotten lost on the mountain, or maybe even a homeless vagrant.

  ‘Where are you from, pal?’ Shank asked, some of his confusion and terror now having abated as he stood up off the heather and confronted the man.

  The man looked at him in confusion and shook his head, staring around himself in the darkness with his arms still shielding his face from the flashlights. ‘Yonder yfel?’

  Tyler began to feel a superstitious awe creep through his body as he watched the man. He was strangely smaller than he should have been and there was something both alien and familiar about the way he was speaking that reminded Tyler of his great grandmother. Before she had passed away she had occasionally drifted off into some kind of reminiscence, perhaps because she was suffering from Alzheimers. On those occasions she had stopped speaking English and reverted to her childhood language, Gaelic.

  ‘Co as a that hu?’ Tyler asked the man where he was from, using what he could recall of the language.

  The man looked at him but shook his head, confused and agitated. Shank laughed suddenly.

  ‘I reckon this one’s had too many happy biscuits! Hey fella, how about you share some of them with us?’

  Shank walked toward the man, but Tyler tried to stop him. ‘Shank, get away from him.’

  ‘What’s he gonna do, kick me in the shins?’ Shank chuckled as he shone his flashlight straight at the man’s face. ‘Look at him, he’s a couple of stones short of a wall. Hey, where are you from?’

  The man backed away and cast a fearful gaze at the flashlight beams pointing at him.

  ‘Waegn swelan cwide ofbeatan mey!’

  The man’s tone had changed from fear to panic.

  ‘Shank, leave him be!’ Tyler yelled.

  Shank laughed, advancing on the man, and all at once the stranger yanked a short-bladed knife from beneath his tunic, the dull metal blade flashing wickedly in the flashlight beams. Shank let out a yelp of panic and tried to scramble away, but the man was far too fast. The blade flickered as he swiped and Tyler felt his gut churn over as Shank’s cry for help was snatched from his throat along with a spray of blood as the blade sliced through flesh.

  Shank’s flashlight fell from his hand and he toppled onto his back on the heather, choking on his own blood as Tyler and the other boys whirled and fled screaming down the hillside in the darkness, their voices echoing out into the wilderness on the lonely winds.

  ***

  II

  Larbert Police Station, near Falkirk

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on up there?’

  Detective Sergeant Andy McLoughlin was not the sort to be easily alarmed, but for the first time in years his heart was beating hard inside his chest and he knew that something major had gone down. The police helicopter was hovering over the moors to the east of the town, ambulances were out in force and the public were screaming down the phones at him to get officers out to Carron Bridge as fast as he could.

  ‘We’re not sure,’ his desk duty officer, Jenkins, replied, one hand covering a phone. ‘Reports are that one youth is dead and two more severely injured. We have one man in custody but all hell’s broken loose up there.’

  Time seemed to stand still for Andy as he heard the words that he knew were about to turn his world upside-down. One youth dead. Murder was not something that happened much in this community, the local crime sprees limited to shoplifting and the occasional vandalism. Out in the villages, crime was almost unheard of because the low population density meant that everyone knew, well, everyone. A farmer couldn’t sneeze out there without someone else knowing about it within an hour.

  ‘I’m taking a unit out. You say one’s in custody?’

  ‘An unidentified male was tracked down by a local farmer,’ came Jenkin’s reply. ‘There’s a patrol car on site holding him and waiting for a van to bring him in. No identifying marks, no fingerprint record showing up after the field test. Believed to be under the influence of drugs.’

  Drugs. If there wa
s one thing that had brought crime even up here it was drugs. When people couldn’t get them or couldn’t afford to buy them, their desperation was such that otherwise sane and law-abiding folks would turn overnight into prolific offenders to feed their growing addiction. Andy hated drugs perhaps more than anything else on the streets.

  ‘OK, have the van bring him straight here. I’ll take over when they arrive.’

  Andy made his way to the interview room and set up the tape recorder and also the CCTV camera that would record the interview. There was nothing left to chance, no way that a person charged with an offence could make up stories of abuse at the hands of police – everything was recorded as proof of what had taken place. Satisfied that everything was in order, Andy headed back out to the front of the station in time to see the police van pull in.

  The man that his officers pulled out of the back looked as though he’d been living in the wild for some time. Andy felt his concerns increase as the man was hauled out of the van by two police officers who clearly had a tough time controlling him. The man was dressed in meagre clothing, thin cloth or wool of some kind, his hair lank and his build slightly smaller than Andy would have expected. His voice was rough and his language indecipherable, and he was apparently fighting for his life.

  ‘He’s been tasered once but he won’t calm down!’ an officer yelled at Andy.

  Drugs could do that to a man, make them supernaturally strong, if only for a while. Coupled with genuine fear or a warped psychology, they could be capable of anything. Andy’s first instinct was that this man was a European immigrant who had been left behind and was surviving on basic instinct, and that might mean that his fear was genuine. As the officers struggled to control the man, Andy stepped forward and grabbed the captive by his shoulders and pushed him backwards to pin him against the van.

  The man was six inches shorter than Andy but he was tremendously strong. Wild, pale blue eyes glared up at him, spittle flying from his lips as he garbled something unintelligible. Andy held him in place, and then gradually began to release the pressure with each expulsion of breath. An old psychological trick he’d learned in the army, it was a way of calming someone down when they’re unable to escape and are panicking. The man sensed the gradual release of pressure and some of the feral panic in his eyes abated as he looked at Andy again.