‘You do realise this isn’t going to work,’ Mike said, turning round with a scowl. ‘The pilot’s going to take one look at you and sound the alert. I’m supposed to be the only passenger.’
Ben nodded. ‘You’re right. It won’t work. In fact, I was meaning to talk to you about that.’
Mike stared at him in blank incomprehension. ‘But you said—’
‘I know what I said,’ Ben replied, laying the briefcase down on the bonnet of the car. ‘That I didn’t want you to miss this flight. Fact is, Mike, I lied. Which I have no problem doing to vermin like you. This is as far as you go.’
Mike’s jaw hung open as he realised what Ben was saying. ‘No,’ he mumbled, staggering back a step, then another. ‘Wait. Let’s be reas—’
Ben made it quick, for the sake of economy if not merciful compassion. The blow to the neck was sharp, swift and instantly lethal, and he caught Mike’s falling body before it hit the ground.
The approaching plane was beginning to drop in altitude as the pilot prepared to land. It would be here in ninety seconds. Ben had work to do, and he needed to move fast. Cupping his hands under the dead man’s arms, he dragged the corpse a few yards and let it flop to the concrete next to the car while he transferred his own wallet from his leather jacket to his jeans. It contained only cash, no cards, no ID. Taking off his jacket, he bundled it into the back of the car alongside his bag. Next came off the dead man’s tweed jacket, which Ben laid across the car bonnet beside the briefcase. He locked the car up, pocketed the key and then bent down to grab the dead body by the wrists and haul it hurriedly out of sight into the thick bushes at the edge of the airstrip.
It only took a moment to dump the corpse where nobody would find it for a good while. Ben ran back to the car. The plane was coming in to land. He slipped on the tweed jacket; not a bad fit. Opening up the briefcase, he took out Mike’s spare glasses: chunky designer plastic, different from the thin wire frames Ben had always seen him in. Ben put them on. They made everything look too small, and threatened to start his eyes watering if he wore them too long. Next he took out the dead man’s comb, and used the wing mirror to quickly smooth and part his hair in a rough imitation of the way Mike had worn his.
By this time, the plane had touched down and was taxiing along the strip towards him. A red and white Cessna 400. Single pilot, capacity for three passengers and a fuel range of over twelve hundred miles. Ben smiled and waved casually as he walked up to meet it, briefcase in hand.
The aircraft halted and its gullwing cockpit hatches popped open. The pilot climbed out to greet Ben. He was in his early to mid-forties, casually dressed in jeans and a check shirt. ‘Dr Simonsen?’ he called over the noise of the idling engine.
It was a worrying moment. If the pilot knew Mike well from previous trips, Ben couldn’t be sure that the masquerade would fool him. That was where Plan B came in, involving two dead bodies in the bushes instead of one. Ben could fly the plane all right; he’d just have to hope that he could figure out his exact destination. The Black Forest was a big area.
But as the pilot broke into a smile, Ben’s anxiety melted away.
‘We haven’t met,’ the pilot said, extending his hand. ‘I’m Tommy. Standing in for Jürgen today.’ His accent was European tinged with American.
They shook hands. ‘How is Jürgen?’ Ben asked amiably, doing a passable imitation of Mike’s voice.
‘Lying on a beach somewhere for the next two weeks, the lucky fuck.’
‘Nice for some, eh?’ Ben said as Tommy ushered him on board. The plane’s interior was like a small car’s. Ben strapped himself into a passenger seat. The pilot climbed in after him, settled behind the controls and clapped on his headset. Moments later, the plane began to taxi round in a circle for takeoff.
Ben settled back in his seat, gratefully removed the eye-watering glasses and watched as the ground fell away below. For the next couple of hours of so, he’d have little to do but try to relax, clear his mind and prepare mentally for what lay ahead of him.
21
URBAN SPRAWL ALTERNATED with open country as the aircraft tracked in an eastward curve across over France towards southern Germany; bridges and railway lines and industrial zones tiny down below. Ben took little notice, letting himself be lulled into a deep thoughtful state by the monotone of the engine. It was only much later, as he sensed they must be nearing their destination, that he looked out of the window and saw a completely altered landscape of rolling hills, lakes and alpine forest. The afternoon was slowly moving into evening, the sinking sun turning redder as it sank towards the misty mountain skyline.
Tommy brought the plane steadily down over a thickly wooded cleft between the hills, banked tightly around the base of a steep rise, and then Ben caught sight of the complex of white buildings perched high up above the valley, at the end of a single twisting road he could barely see through the trees. A little distance away, an area of woodland had been cleared to make way for a small airstrip. Tommy expertly brought the Cessna round, lining up their course and dropping the landing gear. ‘Here we go,’ he called cheerfully over his shoulder. ‘Welcome to sunny Schwarzwald. Bet you’re glad to be back.’
‘No rest for the wicked,’ Ben called back, and Tommy grinned.
Soon afterwards, the plane was rolling to a stop on the landing strip. Tommy shut down the prop, opened up the hatches and the two of them disembarked. ‘Be seeing you,’ Tommy said as he jumped down from the wing, and headed at a trot towards some buildings. He seemed like a decent kind of guy, with probably no idea of what really went on in this place.
Ben hoped he wouldn’t have to kill him.
Now what? he thought, looking around him. The white buildings were just visible through the trees, and appeared to be connected to the airstrip by a little curving road. He stood and waited, the late Dr Simonsen’s briefcase dangling from his hand. Moments later, a black Mercedes four-wheel-drive came speeding up the little road.
This must be the taxi, Ben thought as it halted near the parked aircraft. He slipped on the glasses, smoothed his hair and adopted the body language of the expert consultant on just another routine visit. The driver barely glanced at him as he got into the back with the briefcase across his knees. The Mercedes U-turned and sped off towards the buildings.
It was a short journey. A set of tall gates stood in front of the complex, which Ben now saw was screened off behind a high wire fence. The entrance was manned by a guard, who strode up to the Mercedes and rapped on the back window to check Ben’s ID pass before returning to his little gatehouse. The gates glided open and Ben’s driver, who hadn’t said a word, proceeded on. The Mercedes crossed a concrete forecourt and turned in between two buildings. Left at a junction; then right at another. The place was a labyrinth. Here and there was a parked vehicle. No obvious sign of industrial activity going on; no sign of anything in particular.
Fifty yards further, the driver stopped outside what appeared to be the main building, stepped briskly out of the car and opened the back door for his passenger to get out. As he did, Ben was very much aware of the unseen eyes that could be watching him from behind any number of windows. He nodded casually to the driver and gazed around him as if he’d seen the place a thousand times before. The main building’s entrance was glassy and modernistic, above which gleamed the name DREXLER OPTIK.
How charming, Ben thought. Secluded, picture-postcard alpine environment. Clean, unpolluted mountain air. Just the spot for a phoney optics manufacturing plant. And a little child abduction and torture on the side.
The facility might indeed have looked totally innocuous from the exterior, if it hadn’t been for the armed guards. Two of them, flanking the doors. The privacy of the setting allowed them to carry their weapons openly; Ben instantly recognised the ubiquitous M4 automatic carbines that he’d been so familiar with in 22 SAS and used himself on three continents. As the Mercedes drove away and he walked towards the entrance, the guards maintained a steely eyes-fro
nt demeanour. Ben could tell at a glance that they were ex-services. The kind who took orders and asked no questions. That had always been the part he’d had trouble with.
He was on the steps leading to the entrance when the glass doors swung open and a third guard emerged to meet him. In a black cap and boots and with a holstered Glock on his hip, he looked almost like a military officer and was obviously in charge of security. He was in his fifties but trim and fit, his black uniform hugging his lean torso. ‘Dr Simonsen?’ The German accent was crisp. The grey eyes unblinking.
‘Here at last,’ Ben said jovially. ‘Traffic was terrible.’
The man didn’t smile back. His cold gaze scanned up and down Ben’s features. ‘You look different, Doctor.’
‘Hardly recognise myself, even,’ Ben said, pointing at his own face. ‘New glasses. I’m still getting used to them.’
The head of security scrutinised the laminated ID card that Ben showed him. Ben watched the grey eyes flick from the photo on the card and up to his face; down, up. Then the man handed the card back to Ben and appeared to relax. ‘My wife got new spectacles last month,’ he said with a sudden smile that was incongruous on that reptilian face. ‘She looks like another woman in them. Just what I needed, no?’
Ben laughed.
‘Come inside, Dr Simonsen. Dr Rascher has been waiting for you.’
‘He has?’ Ben said, following the head of security through the glass doors.
‘I believe he wants to discuss matters relating to our latest addition, Test Subject 16-M.’
A tremor of volcanic rage shot through every vein in Ben’s body. Outwardly, he was completely calm as he nodded and said nonchalantly, ‘The Hunter boy?’ They might have been teachers talking about a child’s progress in maths class.
They were walking down a bare white corridor with a gleaming tiled floor and doors on each side with small wire-reinforced windows. The head of security nodded. ‘There have been problems. Resistance, aggression, unwillingness to co-operate. TS-16M has had to be kept heavily sedated and in isolation. Dr Rascher has expressed concerns about his suitability for the program.’
The head of security pushed through a fire door and led Ben down a short flight of steps to another bare white corridor. A pair of patrolling guards passed by in the opposite direction, pausing to nod deferentially at their superior, who barely acknowledged them.
‘I see,’ Ben said. ‘That’s very regrettable. The subject showed such promise. Did Dr Rascher say any more?’
‘You can ask him yourself,’ the head of security said, pointing at an office door up ahead, which bore a plaque reading DIREKTOR. He stopped and knocked three times. A voice from inside called ‘Hereinkommen’, and the head of security opened the door.
Rascher was a large, broad man with a shiny bald crown and a thick grey-black beard. He was wearing a white lab coat and holding a computer printout covered in graphs and figures. He turned to greet his visitor as the head of security ushered Ben into the office. ‘Ah, Dr Simonsen, there you are,’ he said in English, in a voice as big as he was.
This is it, Ben thought.
Rascher’s brow creased in sudden consternation. He took a step closer and peered at Ben, then turned to face the head of security. ‘What’s the meaning of this, Aumeier?’ he demanded. ‘This man isn’t Mark Simonsen.’
‘I’m afraid Dr Simonsen isn’t on top form,’ Ben said, dropping the briefcase, taking off the glasses and flinging them away. ‘So I’m here in his place.’
‘This is an outrage!’ Rascher shouted, his face darkening. ‘Aumeier!’
22
AUMEIER REACTED, BUT not quickly enough. Before he could draw his Glock clear of its holster, Ben’s elbow caught him square in the throat and crushed his windpipe. The head of security fell to the floor, turning purple and choking for air that would never come. Ben pinned the arm holding the gun to the floor with his foot. In one fluid move, he scooped up the weapon and pointed it at Rascher’s head.
‘Here’s the deal, Doctor,’ he said. ‘Show me where you’re keeping Drew Hunter and maybe I won’t perform a radical brainectomy on you with this thing.’
‘Wh-who are you?’ Rascher boomed.
‘Just think of me as the end of your Indigo Project,’ Ben said.
‘You’ll never succeed. They’ll kill you.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Ben said. ‘But not in time to help you.’ He battered Rascher across the face with the butt of the gun. The man fell stunned to the carpet.
‘Fuck it,’ Ben said to himself. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to die wearing a tweed jacket. He stripped it off and tossed it over Aumeier’s body. Then he bent down, heaved Rascher to his feet and spun him towards the open door. Rascher staggered out into the corridor, blood trickling from his face.
‘You take me to him,’ Ben said, shoving him along with the gun pressed hard up against the back of his head. ‘You take me to Carl. Or should I say, TS-16M? You’ve got seven children captive here. Another had an “accident”. If Carl’s the sixteenth to be forced into the program, what happened to the remaining eight? What did you do to them, Rascher? Put them to sleep like dogs? Did you stick the needle in yourself or get one of your ghouls to do it for you?’
‘Please,’ Rascher moaned. ‘Please don’t shoot me.’
‘No? Maybe I should just strap you inside a CT scanner and let you get fried with radiation for a few hours,’ Ben said, shoving him along. ‘Or how’d you like a pound or two of Valium pills to munch on? Stop your bleating and lead the way.’
‘Isolation room four,’ Rascher panted, sweating heavily and motioning up another flight of steps. ‘This way.’
Ben shoved and wrestled the big man up the steps. At the top, the corridor went left and right. Rascher led him to the right. ‘Along here,’ he groaned, pointing to a bend ahead. ‘Then we take the elevator to the isolation block on the top floor.’
As they rounded the corner, before Ben could stop him Rascher suddenly yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Mir helfen! Alarm! Alarm!’
Ben clubbed him over the head with the gun, but it was too late. A door burst open and three guards emerged into the corridor, looking startled. The one on the left was still clutching the mug of coffee he’d just been drinking.
It had been a trap. Ben realised that Rascher had led him right to a security personnel staff room.
As if in slow motion, the guards reached for their guns. The coffee drinker let his mug drop and spill on the floor as he made a grab for the M4 automatic carbine slung behind his back. The one in the middle was the first to squeeze the trigger. The weapon was set to burst-fire. Ben ducked. A window behind him shattered. He grabbed the struggling Rascher by the collar of his lab coat and yanked him backwards, nearly off his feet, using him as a human shield as another burst of gunfire erupted in the corridor. Ben felt the impacts of the bullets slamming into the doctor’s chest. He ripped the Glock pistol from his belt, aimed it past Rascher’s shoulder and fired twice, taking down the coffee drinker and the middle guard. The one on the right was still getting to grips with his weapon, wild-eyed with panic.
Rascher’s dead body collapsed in Ben’s grip, catching him off balance and making him stumble back a step. It was at that instant that the remaining guard brought his weapon to bear and fired. But in his haste to shoot, the gun jerked off-aim at the last moment and the shots went wide.
Ben had seen it happen before with men who were experiencing real combat for the first time. Training was one thing, but not even the best simulation could fully prepare you for the terror and intensity of the real deal. The extra pressure made some people slower. They fumbled. They lost their focus. This guy was one of those.
Ben wasn’t. Before the guard could touch off another burst, two shots from the Glock snapped out in such quick succession that they sounded like one ragged explosion. The guard tumbled over backwards with a hole between his eyes and another in his chest.
Then, silence. Just the
ringing in Ben’s ears and the muffled tinkle of a cartridge case rolling across the tiles. Four dead men in the corridor. Their blood rapidly mingling into a spreading pool.
Ben knew his element of surprise was spent now. The sound of gunfire would have resonated through the whole building, sparking off a red alert. How many more guards were there? Could be five; could be twenty.
Ben stepped over Rascher’s body. ‘Never trust a doctor,’ he muttered under his breath as he thrust the pistol back in his belt, behind the hip. Avoiding the blood so as not to leave a trail of red footprints, he bent over one of the dead guards and picked up his M4. Releasing the magazines from the two other automatic carbines, he slipped one mag in each of his trouser pockets.
‘That’s more like it,’ he said to himself.
Already, he could hear raised voices and racing footsteps echoing through the corridors and getting rapidly closer. It was time to get moving.
As Ben broke into a run, four more guards appeared in the bend of the corridor behind him. Their shouts were drowned in gunfire. Bullets raked the wall inches from him. He reached another bend ahead and kept running.
He crashed through what he thought was another set of fire doors, and skidded to a halt, cursing. Too late to turn back, he realised he was trapped inside a room with no other exits. The guards were close behind.
He glanced about him. The room was huge and white, looking and smelling like a chemistry lab. Long tables stretched across the middle of the tiled floor, and its edges were lined with benches and racks covered with equipment. Wires and tubes, blinking lights, dials and readouts, screens, jars and beakers and trays of implements. Mounted around the walls above were glass cabinets filled with rows of large specimen jars containing what appeared to be chunks of some kind of matter floating in a clear, viscous liquid. It looked like pickled cauliflower.
Bring Him Back Page 10