The Shadow Project

by Scott Mariani

  Ben had his hand on the Mini’s door handle. He nodded. ‘That’s right, Johann. My little sister.’

  ‘You look like her,’ Johann said.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Ben stood and stared at the big man. ‘What did you just say?’

  Johann blinked. The wide-set eyes darted sideways at the stable-block, as if he were scared of getting into trouble with his boss.

  ‘It’s OK, Johann. You can talk to me. You know her, don’t you?’

  Johann dipped his chin to his muscular chest and gave a slow, solemn nod. Ben believed him. The poor guy didn’t have enough upstairs to tell a lie.

  ‘I take care of Solo,’ Johann said. ‘She keeps him here.’

  Ben had to hold the Mini door handle tight to stop himself from rocking on his feet. ‘She comes here to ride?’

  Johann gave another slow nod. ‘Most afternoons. She is not here yet. Maybe she will come.’

  ‘Does she drive here?’

  Nod.

  ‘What kind of car does she drive?’

  ‘Big silver car. Like that one.’ Johann raised one of his massive arms and pointed at a top-of-the-line Range Rover parked four cars down from the Mini.

  ‘Listen to me carefully, Johann. It’s my sister’s birthday today, and I have a present for her. I want it to be a nice big surprise. So when she arrives here, do not tell her that her brother was here. Do you understand?’

  Nod.

  ‘What is it you’re not to say?’

  ‘That you were here,’ Johann repeated carefully. ‘Her brother.’

  Ben took out his wallet and shelled out a couple of twenty-euro notes. ‘This is for you, Johann. You’ve helped me more than you know. You’re a good guy.’ He left the big man standing there looking at the money in his palm as he drove off.

  Back on the main road, he found a layby within sight of the equestrian centre but shaded by enough overhanging foliage to mask his car. A perfect spot to sit and wait and watch the gates. He settled back in the driver’s seat and lit the first cigarette.

  Time passed. People came and went. The Jaguar X-type turned out of the gates and disappeared down the road. A while later, a black Subaru 4×4 towing a double trailer arrived. Some riders passed Ben’s layby, returning from a hack, the horses sweated up. Ben sat and smoked, two cigarettes, then three, keeping low in the driver’s seat.

  He’d been sitting there for just under two hours and his watch was edging its way towards four thirty when he saw the silver Range Rover come up the road. Just one occupant. The car slowed for the gate and the indicator flashed, and as it turned in he got a brief but clear view of the driver. A woman, white polo shirt, short blond hair, wraparound shades.

  Ben stubbed out his cigarette. His mouth was suddenly dry and his heart felt like he’d just done a three-hundred-metre sprint.

  The Range Rover rolled up the drive towards the stable buildings, tyres rasping on the gravel, and pulled into the car park.

  His first instinct was to drive in after her, go right up to her and talk to her. Tell her who he was. Just come right out with it. ‘Ruth, it’s me. Your brother Ben. Remember me? Where have you been the last twenty-three years?’

  But that was just his heart talking. The part of him that was still able to think rationally through the swell of emotions that was surging through him knew that the situation was a little more complicated than that.

  He scanned the layout of the land. The equestrian centre consisted of the central buildings complex with the office, the stables and tack rooms and the main house, the paddocks and sand school, and a big prefabricated metal building that looked like it might be an indoor riding ménage. Maybe a dozen acres in all, but long and narrow. While the paddocks and riding areas were fenced with white wood, the outer boundary of the property was ringed with hedges. Most of the way round, what lay beyond the hedge was pine woodland. The trees extended all the way along the side of the road where he was parked, and there was just a single strand of barbed-wire fence between him and several hundred yards of thick, uninterrupted cover that would allow him to move unnoticed around the perimeter.

  He got out of the car, shut the door quietly and crossed the road. There was nobody about. He peeled off his leather jacket and laid it over the barbed wire. Swung one leg over and then the other, slipped the jacket back on and made his way into the trees.

  It didn’t take him long to track around the edge of the equestrian centre. Staying well back in the sun-dappled shadow of the trees, he had a good view of the place. Good enough to see the angry manager strutting across the stable-yard, yelling at one of the staff. Good enough to notice the gentle giant Johann over at the dung-heap, discreetly tucked away behind the stable-blocks, emptying his wheelbarrow of soiled straw.

  And good enough to spot the woman who was his little sister leading a shiny, well-groomed, expensive-looking chestnut gelding over towards the big metal building. She’d put on a riding hat and boots, and the horse was saddled and bridled. He watched her go in through the tall doorway. Waited a few seconds. Stepped out of the trees towards the hedge. Hesitated. Was this a mistake? Maybe, but he was way beyond recall now.

  In three seconds he was over the hedge and running low across the stretch of clipped grass to the side of the indoor space. He skirted round its edge, pressed his back flat against the shiny corrugated wall and glanced around the corner to see if anyone had spotted him. Nobody had. In the distance, the manager was walking back towards the office, talking on a phone. The grooms and other staff carried on unsuspectingly with their business.

  Ben slipped inside the building. The interior was like any other large industrial prefab construction, with H-section steel pillars and riveted joists holding up the high roof. The sand-filled arena at its centre was laid out with a course of jumps and brightly lit by neon strip-lights. Around the edges of the arena were rows of seats for spectators, all empty, the outer rows in shadow. He stayed back, near the wall.

  And watched from the gloom as Ruth led her horse out across the sand. She seemed relaxed, and completely oblivious of his presence. The horse stood calmly as she tightened up his saddle girth, then she put her left foot in the left stirrup and nimbly mounted him. A gentle nudge of her heels and he trotted off. She guided him briskly round the edge of the arena, picking up pace and warming the horse’s muscles before putting him over the jumps. A grin spread across her face. She looked totally in her element.

  More than ever, Ben wanted to step out of the shadows and go to her. But he held back, and the pain knotted up his stomach and his throat and tears prickled his eyes. She was so much the same Ruth he’d known back then, but also so different. He watched for twenty minutes as she expertly took the horse round the jumps, faster and faster and higher and higher. She cleared each pole faultlessly, just the way she’d always done as a little girl. Then she dismounted, gave the horse a warm hug and led him away.

  By the time she was halfway back towards the stable-blocks, Ben was already over the hedge and working his way round through the trees to his car. Another half hour passed before he saw the silver Range Rover pull out onto the road and drive off. He followed it.

  Now it was time to talk.

  The Range Rover led him through the countryside. She drove at a steady fifty, slowing only to pass through a village, then over a narrow stone bridge across a stream. There was nothing about her driving that made him think she’d spotted the Mini following her. After eight kilometres he saw her indicator come on, and she turned into a rough lane. He hung back, and saw the Range Rover go bumping forty metres down the lane and then turn in through a gap in the wild, unkempt bushes.

  He left the Mini in the shade of a tree, grabbed his bag from the passenger seat and started walking. By the gap where she’d disappeared was a lopsided sign in German that he translated to read ‘ceramics workshop’. Peering around the corner, he saw the Range Rover parked in front of a long, low-slung whitewashed cottage. Someone had been practising their art
work on the side wall of the place – a spray-painted swirl of colours that he guessed was meant to look psychedelic. Dangling chimes tinkled in the soft breeze, and bees hummed among the flowerbeds. So far, so not the kind of place he’d have expected to find a cell of neo-Nazi terrorists.

  Someone else was home. Next to the ticking Range Rover was a rusty VW Golf, and a battered Honda 750 motorcycle sat by an outhouse with a cat sleeping on its saddle.

  Ben moved silently through the garden. The place had obviously been a smallholding once, but now most of the outbuildings were disused. A block-built garage that at one time would have housed a couple of tractors had been converted into a pottery workshop, with a potter’s wheel and a long bench, both covered in clay dust. The flue pipe from the cold, ash-dusted kiln poked up through the tin roof. Swirly-coloured glazed plates and jugs and cups and vases crowded an industrial shelving unit against the wall. Ben didn’t see any clay busts of Hitler up there.

  He moved on. A nylon washing line hung between the corner of the house and a disused poultry shed, and a glance at the clothes on it told him that two women lived here, someone Ruth’s build and someone a good bit heavier. Plus, judging by the different sizes of men’s jeans hanging out to dry, at least two males.

  He slipped back around the side of the poultry shed as the front door of the house suddenly opened.

  Footsteps walking his way. Then a scrawny young guy in a sleeveless T-shirt, with long hair and a patchy beard, walked within a foot of him, stopped and turned and stared with saucer eyes. His mouth opened to yell in alarm.

  Ben didn’t let him make a sound. The guy was quick and easy to subdue; four seconds later he was lying unconscious among the dried-out droppings on the henhouse floor. Ben crouched over him, studying him. No shaven head. No swastikas on the neck or arms. He opened up his bag, took out two plastic cable-ties and bound up the guy’s wrists and ankles. Tore off a five-inch length of silver duct tape and stuck it tightly to his mouth.

  Leaving the bag next to the unconscious body he stepped out of the poultry shed and slipped round to the rear of the house. Knocked on the door, three loud raps, then darted quickly back around the corner. After a few seconds’ delay, the door opened and another man stepped out onto the cracked patio.

  ‘Hello? Someone there?’

  Ben peered out from around the corner. This guy looked a few years older than his bearded friend, maybe thirty-two. Good looking, short dark hair, a denim shirt splotched with dried clay. The potter. Ben found himself wondering if this was his sister’s boyfriend. Better than the other one, at least, it occurred to him – and then he scolded himself for thinking such absurd thoughts at a time like this.

  The guy was heading back inside when Ben came up behind him without a sound and took him down with a stranglehold that was just hard and long enough to make him pass out without doing any lasting damage. He glanced round, then dragged him to the poultry shed and dumped him there beside his buddy. Quickly trussed and gagged him, then got to his feet and closed the unconscious bodies inside. Two down.

  At that moment, the front door flew open and a third person appeared in the doorway. Someone too quick and too sharp for Ben to duck for cover. But by that point, he didn’t want to hide from her any more.

  ‘Franz, where did you—’ She stopped mid-sentence, and stared at him. He stared back.

  Face to face with his sister Ruth.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Time seemed to pause as they stood there, frozen, eyes locked. They were just five yards away from each other, and it was the first really good view he’d had of her face. Her eyes were exactly the same blue he remembered from so long ago, but sharp now. The soft, round features of childhood were long gone, and had left behind them a certain hardness. The set of her jaw spoke of a strong will and a tough attitude. Another man would have found her attractive, her lean runner’s build, the broad shoulders and trim waist. In all the pictures Ben had of her as a child, her hair was long and thick and lustrous. Cropped the way it was now, it gave her a severe look. But somewhere behind that dangerous, edgy exterior, she was still the Ruth he’d thought about every day for twenty-three years.

  For a long second he looked into her eyes. Long enough to pray for a glimmer of recognition in there. He saw none. Then that suspended moment suddenly ended; time seemed to restart. She bolted back into the house.

  Ben ran after her and managed to get his foot in the door before it slammed violently shut in his face. He crashed it open, pressed through the doorway, made a lunge for her arm. She darted out of his grasp, whirled around and with a scream she aimed a vicious kick at his groin. If he hadn’t reacted in time and twisted out of the way, he’d have run straight into it and been crippled in agony.

  Even in that moment, he couldn’t help but admire her feistiness. Quick as a panther, she grabbed a wooden chair by the rungs of its backrest and jabbed the legs at his face. He ducked the blow, caught one of the spars. The cold part of his mind that had been forged through hard combat and even harder training told him he could ram the chair back at his opponent and smash their teeth in, end the fight there and then. He pushed that thought away, tore the chair out of her grip and dropped it.

  She ran through another doorway and into a kitchen. On a wooden surface cluttered with saucepans and jars of utensils was a block of knives. In one fast movement she drew a long carving knife out of its slot and threw it at him. He twitched out of the way, felt the wind of the blade past his cheek, heard the hollow thunk and the judder of the blade as it embedded itself point-first in the doorframe a few inches to the right of his head.

  Then she was escaping through the kitchen, bursting through a bead curtain and down a narrow corridor. He sprinted after her and saw her fly into a bedroom, slipping on bare varnished floorboards as she made for a single bed in the middle of the room. She somersaulted across it, dragging half the bedclothes with her as she rolled to the floor on the other side.

  No way out of the room. She’d cut off her escape route.

  But when she ripped open the bedside table drawer and came up from behind the bed with a pistol in both hands, he understood why she’d made for this bedroom. Fight before flight. Definitely his sister.

  The numbing crack of the shot filled the small space. He threw himself down and hit the smooth floor, sliding feet first. Crashed into the bottom edge of the bed and flipped it violently up on its side, shattering the bedstead and jamming her between the mattress and the wall. She let out a muffled cry, and the pistol went tumbling out of her hand.

  Ben was up on his feet before she could do anything, and tore the bed aside. She threw a punch at him, but she was disoriented by the impact and he easily slapped it aside.

  It was time to finish this.

  Every so often in his life, Ben had to do things he hated doing. This was one of the worst. With the heel of his right hand he delivered a short, hard, stunning blow to the side of the neck. She went limp and crumpled, knees buckling under her. He caught her before she could fall to the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ruth.’ He laid her down on the broken bed, checked her pulse. When he was sure he hadn’t done her any lasting harm, he picked up the fallen pistol, made it safe and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he grabbed her arms and flipped her body up over his shoulder.

  He hadn’t known exactly what his plan was as he followed her home, but now he realised there was only one option open to him if he wanted to get her somewhere quiet and have it out with her. He was going to have to smuggle her back over the border into France and west to Le Val. And he needed to move fast. He was pretty certain there were more than three of the gang living here. Sooner or later, someone was going to return home, and he didn’t want to be there when they did. He might not be so lucky if four or five of them jumped him at once – especially if they were armed.

  He carried his sister out to the poultry shed. Her two friends, the handsome one and the scrawny bearded one, were still out cold. He laid her very careful
ly down next to them and used more of the cable-ties to bind her wrists and ankles, taking care not to pull them so tight against her flesh. Then he taped her mouth and ran to fetch the car.

  A body was a tight fit inside the boot of a Mini. Not the best car in the world for this purpose, he thought as he lowered her gently inside the cramped space, but he guessed that was something the designers hadn’t felt the need to consider. He did his best to position her comfortably for when she woke up, then slammed the lid.

  He stared pensively at the back of the car. Sighed, bit his lip, shook his head. No, that wasn’t going to do at all. He had a long drive ahead, and it was a confined space in there with very little ventilation. He’d only just found her. The last thing he wanted was to suffocate her.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said out loud. Opened up the boot, slipped the pistol out of his pocket. Thumbed off the safety, picked the best angle and emptied the rest of the magazine into the inside of the metal panel. The 9mm bullets punched neat round holes through the shiny green bodywork. Fourteen of them. When he closed the boot lid a second time, it looked like a colander – but at least she’d be able to breathe.

  He walked back to the poultry shed, thinking about what he was going to do about the other two. If they’d been the kind of shaved-headed hard-nuts who normally went about wearing swastika badges, he might just have left them to rot where they lay. But these guys were different. Something else was going on.

  He trotted over to the house, yanked the carving knife Ruth had thrown at him out of the doorframe, and snatched a black felt pen from the table where the phone was. He used the knife to cut the ties around the handsome one’s wrists, then reached into his bag for another tie and attached the guy’s left hand to the bearded one’s ankle. He tossed the carving knife a few yards across the garden, so that they’d see it when they came to. The good-looking one would be able to use his free hand to cut himself and his friend loose, but not before they’d had to drag themselves several very difficult yards over the ground. That should delay things a bit.