The Sacred Sword (Ben Hope 7)

by Scott Mariani

  Penrose Lucas was standing behind the living room door. He was wearing a long tweed coat and shiny shoes. The Coonan pistol hung loosely from his hand.

  O’Neill boggled at him, anger quickly gaining ground over the initial shock. ‘What are you doing in my home?’

  ‘You left Capri in such a tearing hurry,’ Penrose said. ‘I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Nice little place you have here, by the way. So pleased to meet your wife at last.’

  O’Neill glanced at the gun. ‘I’ve been reassigned,’ he blurted. ‘It wasn’t my decision.’

  Penrose reached into his left coat pocket and took out a tiny electronic device. ‘You see, Rex, I trust no-one. That way I’m never disappointed when they betray me.’

  ‘Betray you?’ O’Neill burst out. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Penrose tutted and shook his head, then activated the electronic device. O’Neill closed his eyes and went cold as he heard the metallic playback of his own voice over the miniature speaker. It was the call he’d made to London just hours earlier, reporting his boss to the overlords at the Trimble Group. Words like ‘insane’ and ‘psychopathic’ rang out horribly loud and clear, shooting through O’Neill’s brain like bullets of ice.

  Megan was rooted to the chair, terrified to move and glancing from the gun to her husband and back again. Her eyes were imploring and full of tears.

  Penrose switched the machine off. He paced around the room, toying with the pistol. ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment, Rex. I’ve known from the start that you disapproved of my plans. The simple fact of the matter is that you were unsuited to my team all along. And if you think this foolish attempt at denunciation will have the slightest effect, you’re sadly mistaken. The Trimble Group are behind me every step of the way. Nothing will change. My plans are destined to be realised, don’t you see?’

  Any other time, O’Neill would have let out a scornful laugh at such crazy talk. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the gun. He could barely breathe. His mind was filled with the fresh memory of what Penrose had done to the prostitute. He had to do something. He didn’t even care if he got shot. He had to stop this madman from harming Megan.

  Penrose stopped pacing and peered at his former assistant with the look of a schoolmaster forced against his better nature to mete out punishment to a wayward pupil. ‘Didn’t I tell you, Rex, that I wouldn’t let anybody stand in my way? You should have listened.’

  He snapped his fingers. Three more men walked into the room. Megan let out a whimper. O’Neill’s blood turned a degree colder as he recognised the men. Suggs, Doyle and Prosser, three of Steve Cutter’s brutes whom Penrose had adopted as his personal bodyguards, professional hardmen and bone breakers who never had a thought of their own and would do anything for another cash handout from their favourite employer.

  ‘I can call the Trimble Group again,’ O’Neill said. ‘I can tell them I made a mistake. Explain that there’s been some misunderstanding. We can work this out. Really, we can.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter to me,’ Penrose replied. ‘What matters is your betrayal. Treachery isn’t something you can undo, Rex. There is no going back.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ O’Neill quavered.

  At a nod from Penrose, the three bodyguards closed in a circle around O’Neill and Megan. Doyle took hold of her arm and wrenched her roughly to her feet. She let out a scream of fear. Suggs and Prosser grabbed O’Neill.

  ‘Leave her out of this,’ O’Neill implored. ‘Please. I beg you, Penrose. I’ll give you everything I have.’

  ‘Oh, I know you will,’ Penrose said, then waved to his men. ‘Take them into the dining room.’ The bodyguards obeyed instantly without a word, and began marching their captives towards a closed door. Megan twisted and struggled in Doyle’s grip. He lashed out with a muscular arm and backhanded her across the face. She sagged to the floor, moaning.

  ‘She’s pregnant!’ O’Neill cried out, fighting to get free so that he could run to his wife’s aid. ‘For God’s sake! Have pity!’

  Penrose flinched at the word. ‘For God’s sake? You’d appeal to him, would you, Rex? You want to believe in him? You think he’s going to send down a miracle to save you now?’

  ‘Please, Penrose!’

  Suggs kicked open the dining room door. O’Neill felt the air leave his body as he saw what lay beyond the doorway. The dining room was no longer the same room in which he and Megan had shared so many happy meals and had looked forward to sharing many more. The table was gone, and so were the chairs and the antique sideboard. The floor was covered with thick, black, shiny plastic sheeting. The walls, windows and ceiling were draped completely over with the same material, stapled firmly into place. A pair of portable tool chests sat in the corner by the door.

  But what threatened to send Rex O’Neill’s mind over the edge was the sight of the crude wooden frame that had been erected in the middle of the room, rising almost to the ceiling. Its top beam was fitted with four steel rings, each one of which had a length of chain passed through it. The ends of the chains dangled midway above the black floor, each attached to an iron manacle.

  ‘No!’ O’Neill screamed, and fought with all his might against the powerful grip of Suggs and Prosser. They were much too strong for him, and he could do nothing to resist as they dragged him into the room. The plastic sheeting crackled underfoot. He collapsed to his knees and they dragged him towards the wooden frame. Megan wasn’t screaming any longer. She staggered behind Doyle as if in a trance, her eyes staring and her mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

  Penrose entered the room last, and leaned against the doorway. At his signal, Rex O’Neill and his wife were hauled up to the wooden frame and their wrists were tightly manacled above their heads. Prosser and Doyle each grabbed the free ends of a pair of chains and heaved downwards, hoisting their victims into the air, dangling from their wrists. Megan hung limply, virtually catatonic with dread. Her husband was thrashing and kicking like a captured animal. The ends of the chains were secured to bolts in the wooden frame, holding them in place. Prosser spat on his hands and rubbed his palms together.

  ‘You bastard! You fucker! You’ll die for this!’ O’Neill roared at Penrose, who was watching from the doorway, keeping his distance because he knew what was coming next.

  ‘Shout all you like, Rex. The room is completely soundproofed.’ While O’Neill had been biting his nails in the departure lounge at Naples airport and hustling through passport control at Heathrow, Penrose and his men had winged their way over in the Learjet in plenty of time to prepare the place for his arrival.

  Suggs lumbered over to the tool chests, opened them up and began mechanically unloading their contents. One was stuffed with a pair of coroner’s bodybags and three sets of protective overalls. The other contained a selection of assorted hardware that clanked and rattled as Suggs reached inside. He handed a meat cleaver to Prosser and a butcher’s knife to Doyle. He took out a machete for himself. It had a rubber handle. Non-slip, for when the blood really started pouring.

  ‘Cut the child out,’ Penrose said. ‘I want Rex to see his baby before he dies.’

  O’Neill went hysterical. Megan just dangled there, withdrawn into some altered state of consciousness.

  Suggs, Prosser and Doyle paused a moment and exchanged glances. Chucking priests off bridges was one thing, but … ‘That’s a bit fucking much, innit, boss?’ Doyle muttered.

  ‘Thought you just wanted to scare ’em,’ Prosser said.

  ‘Do it!’ Penrose roared at him. ‘Or there’ll be no money for any of you!’

  The muffled screams in Belgrade Gardens would soon become far more intense. A full twenty minutes had passed by the time they eventually stopped.

  Mr and Mrs Higgins next door watched television through the whole thing.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  With a rushed, delayed connecting midnight flight from Jerusalem and another five and a half thousand miles behind them, Ben and J
ude touched down at Logan International Airport in Boston sometime after nine in the morning, Eastern Time, and hired a Jeep Patriot from Alamo car rental. They seemed to have arrived just in time for the snowy season; crews were out in force clearing the roads as they headed away from Boston and cut southwards through a picture-postcard New England blanketed in white.

  In the poor weather conditions it took nearly two more hours to cover the seventy-five or so miles to Woods Hole. By the time they reached the coastal ferry port, they’d left the snow behind them and exchanged it for a blanket of freezing mist.

  It was approaching midday as the long, low stretch of Martha’s Vineyard coastline appeared through the thinning fog, together with the gently swaying masts of hundreds of sailing boats in the harbour that were dwarfed by the ferry gliding in amongst them to dock. Ben drove the Jeep down the ramp with the twenty or so other cars aboard, and he and Jude contemplated the island scene before them.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ Jude said. ‘Now we just need to find Wesley Holland. I don’t suppose he’d be listed in the local phone directory?’

  ‘That might be just a little too easy,’ Ben said.

  As they drove into Oak Bluffs Jude described what a madhouse the place had been when he’d last been here, for the Jawsfest event of 2005. Then, the whole island had been heaving with tourists and movie fans. But despite the islanders’ attempts to dress the town up for Christmas, it was nonetheless very obviously low season, with many places closed up for winter. They parked the Jeep in the tree-lined Circuit Avenue near the harbour, and strolled down the street past neat little stores and restaurants.

  ‘You think we’ll find him in there having breakfast?’ Jude said, peering inside the door of an eatery that was still open for business.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then what are we here for?’

  ‘Shopping,’ Ben said.

  A few blocks down the street, he found what he was looking for. A bell tinkled as he opened the door of the general store and walked inside. The proprietor was a jovial, shiny-cheeked little man with round glasses and a moustache that curled upwards when he smiled. Ben asked him if he sold a good guidebook to the island.

  ‘This one here is my best seller,’ the storekeeper said, selecting a glossy pocket-sized book from a shelf. ‘Opens up into a handy map. Shows you all the places to stay, eat, things to do. Bearing in mind that the Vineyard goes kinda dead over the colder months.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ Ben said. ‘This will do fine.’ He pointed at a stand to the side of the counter. ‘I’d also like a pair of those binoculars.’

  ‘Minolta ten by fifties,’ the storekeeper said, handing them over to show him. ‘Good price, too. Popular with the tourists. Don’t sell too many this time of year, though.’

  Ben gave the binoculars a quick once-over. ‘No need for the box. I’ll take them as they are.’

  The storekeeper glowed behind the little round glasses. ‘First time on the Vineyard for you good folks?’

  Jude was about to reply, but Ben cut across him. ‘Yes, it is. It’s a beautiful place.’

  ‘Sure is that,’ the storekeeper said with a smile.

  ‘In fact I was thinking of bringing my family to live here,’ Ben told him. ‘Tired of the city. I’d bet there’s not a lot of crime out here.’

  ‘Oh no. The Vineyard’s a real peaceful place. Nothing ever happens here; in fact the only folks who don’t take to Vineyard life are the ones who think it’s too boring. But I’ve lived here all my life and I can’t think of a single place on earth I’d sooner be.’ The storekeeper beamed, and turned to Jude. ‘And so, this must be your son,’ he said.

  Ben was taken aback for a moment. Before he could answer, Jude said quickly, ‘We’re not related.’ The storekeeper raised his eyebrows. ‘No? Pardon me.’

  Now that Jude had his opening, he pressed on. ‘Do you know if there’s a man called Wesley Holland living on the island?’ he asked, leaning across the counter. ‘He’s a billionaire. White hair. You’d know him from the TV.’

  Ben would have grabbed Jude by the neck and turfed him out of the store doorway, but it was too late. He gave him a scalding look.

  The storekeeper’s friendly tone became instantly cooler. ‘There’s a lot of wealthy folks and celebrities come to live or stay on the island. They like it here because their privacy is respected; folks leave them alone and don’t ask too many questions.’

  The chit-chat was plainly over. Ben paid for his goods and they left the store with a nod.

  ‘There are ways of finding things out,’ he said as they walked back down Circuit Avenue towards the car. ‘That’s not one of them. Next time, keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking, all right?’

  ‘What was all that crap about wanting to come and live here with your non-existent family?’ Jude retorted.

  Ben flipped through the guidebook as he walked, refusing to let it show that Jude’s words had stung him. ‘Thanks to our friend back there, we know that nothing’s happened on the island lately that might not have hit the news yet. Such as no murders, no robberies.’

  ‘And no dead billionaires found on the beach this morning. I get it.’

  ‘So if Wesley Holland is here at all, chances are he’s safely tucked up somewhere in his house by the ocean. Now we just need to locate it.’

  ‘How big is the island?’

  ‘Eighty-seven square miles.’

  ‘And just how does the great detective propose to find this one house in all of that coastline?’

  ‘The tower of light,’ Ben said simply. When Jude looked puzzled, he explained, ‘Remember what Hillel told us – how Wesley loves to spend time looking out at the waves and the tower of light shining across the water at night? Come on, you’re an ocean kind of person. What does that sound like to you?’ They’d reached the car. Ben bleeped the locks and got behind the wheel.

  ‘A lighthouse,’ Jude said as he climbed into the passenger side. ‘It sounds like a lighthouse.’

  Ben skimmed the guidebook onto Jude’s lap. ‘And according to this book, there are only five of those on the island. Wherever Holland’s place is, it’s got to be within easy reach of one of those five locations.’ He started the engine.

  ‘You’re the guy. Where do we begin?’

  ‘We already passed two out of the five on our way in here on the ferry, flanking the mouth of the harbour. They’re called West Chop Light and East Chop Light. Let’s go and check them out.’

  Within a few minutes they were driving along East Chop Drive and within sight of the first lighthouse. Built in 1877, according to the guidebook, its first keeper had been a character by the name of Captain Silas Daggett. The eighty-foot whitewashed conical tower stood away from the road, behind a neat white picket fence with a gate and a sandy path that led right up to it.

  They got out of the Jeep, walked around the broad base of the lighthouse and scanned the land horizon in all directions, searching for any sign of a billionaire residence with tall windows from which the great man liked to drink in the majestic ocean view. The only houses within sight were fairly unostentatious wooden buildings that nobody would have been ashamed to call home, yet wouldn’t have been the abode of choice for a man of Holland’s limitless wealth. Compared to the Whitworth Mansion, even a comfortable family home for lesser mortals would have seemed like slumming it.

  ‘This is weird,’ Jude muttered. ‘I feel kind of like a stalker or something.’ After a couple of beats he said, ‘What’s that place over there?’ Ben gazed in the direction he was pointing, and saw a white house through the trees that, from where they were standing, looked larger than the other homes within sight and appeared to offer a view of the waterfront and the lighthouse.

  Jude seemed hopeful. ‘Looks promising, wouldn’t you say?’

  Up close, the house was obscured from the sea by thick foliage. As they turned into the gate they saw that it was a traditional white-painted wooden nineteenth-century farmhouse with
a broad, low veranda over the front porch. There was paint peeling off some of the window frames and the barn roof was rusting in places. Quaint rustic living, low on glamour.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it to me,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s move on.’

  ‘Wait. What’s the harm in asking? Maybe somebody here knows him.’ Jude climbed out of the car and walked up to the house. Ben stayed behind the wheel, going through his time-honoured Zippo-and-Gauloise ritual as he watched the house door open and a squat woman with pigtails come out to spend a few moments talking to Jude before shaking her head and returning inside.

  ‘Told you,’ Ben said as Jude climbed back into the car.

  ‘At least I tried,’ Jude muttered, brushing his windblown hair out of his eyes. They sped off westwards along Beach Road, skirting the harbour with the Lagoon Pond to their left, before turning north.

  The second location was situated on the northernmost fork tip of the island, on the opposite side of the harbour mouth from East Chop Light. They found the lighthouse beyond another neat white fence. Nearby was a pretty wooden house with a U.S. flag hanging from a pole on the neat lawn. It had a balcony facing the sea, with the perfect view of the lighthouse.

  ‘Possible?’ Jude asked.

  ‘A little cosy and twee,’ Ben said. ‘But possible. Maybe.’ They parked the car and walked up to the front door together. Ben knocked. An old man answered, and for the briefest instant Ben thought he was standing face to face with the billionaire himself. ‘Mr Holland?’

  ‘Who?’ the old man asked, gurning up at Ben toothlessly. A dog started yapping from inside. An old woman appeared in the hallway behind her husband. Her legs were swollen and bandaged, and she needed to lean heavily on two crutches to stay upright. ‘Who’s there, Frank?’ she quavered.

  ‘We’re looking for—’ Jude began.

  ‘Forget it,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s go. I’m sorry we disturbed you, sir,’ he said to the old man.

  Two down, three more to go. It wasn’t time to worry, not quite yet. The next point on the map was the Edgartown Light Station, a few miles to the southeast along the coastal road in the island’s main town. By the time they reached it, the afternoon was already wearing on. The rising, bitterly cold wind from the ocean had dispersed the mist, and the sun was shining.