The Doomsday Prophecy

by Scott Mariani

  The thump of his heart was met by the deafening chop of rotor blades. A helicopter burst out from over the knoll, banking steeply, only twenty feet from the ground. It roared in towards him like a bird of prey, nose down and tail up, the wind from the blades tearing at his hair and clothes and flattening a wide circle of grass. A pair of shooters hung out of its open sides, wedged in tight with automatic rifles trained on him. Gunfire ripped a swathe of earth at his feet. He turned and ran back the other way, threw himself behind the husk of a fallen tree and rattled off three double-taps at the helicopter as it roared overhead, punching a line of holes in the black fuselage. The blasting wind of the rotors blew up dust, tore up vegetation debris and made his eyes water. The chopper veered sharply up to avoid the tree line and began banking to come in for another pass.

  A 9mm pistol was no kind of weapon against aircraft and military rifles. But it was all Ben had. He squared the sights on the advancing helicopter and loosed off five more rounds. Nothing happened. The chopper kept coming. The shooters were bringing their weapons back up to aim. He saw the red dot of a laser sight rake across his leg, and he jerked it away just in time. A storm of splinters flew up from the tree trunk before he even heard the shots. He hauled himself to his feet and ran for the cover of the bushes as bullets tore up the ground in his wake. The chopper passed overhead. He ran fast and blind through the thicket, leaping over rocks and ruts. Twice he stumbled and almost went down. Thorns tore at his hands as he swiped them out of his way, and then he was suddenly in a grassy clearing.

  But he wasn’t alone there. Two agents had headed him off. They were fifteen feet away, yelling at him to freeze, a pistol and a twelve-gauge pointed right at his head.

  For a moment it was a standoff. He kept the gun trained on them, wavering it from side to side. His mind was racing. Shoot the one with the shotgun first. The guy with the pistol would probably get off a round, but a single bullet was more likely to miss than the devastating hail of pellets from a short-barrelled scattergun at this range.

  But a second later the odds were climbing fast as more of them stepped out of the bushes. The woman was to his right, at three o’clock. Jones was at ten o’clock. Then another guy appeared behind the first two. Five on one. With a circle of guns trained on him, there was nowhere to go and no other choices.

  He tossed his weapon and put up his hands.

  The woman was frowning at him down the barrel of her gun. The look in her eyes seemed to be telling him he’d made it worse for himself by running. That seemed to matter to her. He didn’t know why, but he somehow knew she didn’t want to be there, and she wished this wasn’t happening.

  Jones’s eyes burned furiously in the mess of blood that was his face. He gave a garbled command, and two agents grabbed Ben’s arms and flung him down on the leafy ground. He felt the bite of a plastic cable-tie around his wrists. A knee in his back and the hard steel of a gun against his head. Then a sharp prick as someone jabbed him with a needle.

  ‘You’re going sleepy-bye for a while, motherfucker,’ he heard Jones say through smashed lips.

  After that, Ben was diving down into a black pool and the voices around him became echoes and died away to nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  After what seemed like a thousand years drifting through a hazy universe of disconnected dreams and nightmares, Ben was jerked awake by the sound of voices. He sat bolt upright and the first thing he realised was that he was sprawled on a bare mattress in the corner of a dingy room. The next thing he noticed was that his wrists were chained to the wall. He stared down at the steel cuffs biting into his flesh. Followed the line of the long chain from his left wrist, up the pitted wall and round a sturdy metal pipe, then back round to his right wrist. He tugged. The pipe was solid.

  The time on his watch was 8.36 p.m. Five and a half hours since his capture. Where the hell was he?

  He began to orientate himself as his mind cleared. His prison looked like some kind of old meat locker. It had no windows, and a single door made of riveted sheet aluminium. But it had been a long time since it was last used for storage. The floor was thick with dust, and cobwebs hung from the walls. The place had the musty, mousy smell of a building that had been lying empty for years.

  The voices outside grew louder. Footsteps. Shadows in the strip of light under the metal door. There was the rattle of a padlock, then the door clanged open and two big men strode into the room. One was thin and wiry, with veiny, clawed hands, his greying hair in a crew cut. The other man looked like a failed weightlifter who spent as much time on cheeseburgers as he did on the bench press, three hundred pounds of lardy muscle underneath a tiny bald head with a black goatee beard.

  Both of them were wearing dark suits, white shirts, sombre ties. They weren’t taking any chances. The wiry one stood back a few yards and aimed a pistol at Ben’s head while the muscular guy approached him, bent down cautiously and unlocked his left cuff.

  ‘The room service in this place is terrible,’ Ben said.

  The chunky guy gave a minute smirk. Without a word he yanked the bracelet harshly off Ben’s wrist and dragged it out on the end of its chain through the gap between the wall and the pipe.

  Ben eyed them both. Their movements were brisk, practised, professional. With his hands free, for a moment he was tempted to make a move against them. The lardy one, close enough for Ben to smell the grease on his breath, would be no problem. But from the way the wiry one was pointing the pistol, focusing keenly down the sights at him, fingertips white on the black steel, he knew any move would be his last.

  The big guy grabbed his free wrist and clapped the bracelet back on, painfully tight. Then he reached in, took a meaty fistful of Ben’s shirt and yanked him powerfully to his feet.

  ‘Walk,’ he said in a deep voice. Ben met his eyes. They were empty. ‘Walk,’ he repeated, shoving Ben with a big hand.

  The pistol was on him all the time as he stepped out of the meat locker and found himself looking around him at industrial kitchen equipment.

  Like the locker, the kitchen was neglected, abandoned-looking. Garbage sacks piled up in corners had long ago been torn up by rats and mice, rubbish strewn across the dusty tiles. More debris was piled up on work-tops and in sinks that hadn’t seen water in years. Cookware and glassware sat on cobwebbed shelves. A knife was embedded in a mouldy old chopping board.

  He was in a restaurant, or a hotel. Wherever it was, the place had been closed down a long, long time ago. There was a chill in the air that was more than just damp walls. Where was he?

  The two men prodded and shoved him across the kitchen and through a set of double doors into a murky corridor. In the gloom was the steel door of an old service lift. The muscular guy jabbed the button on the wall and the door split in the middle and glided open. Ben felt the gun in his back and stepped inside.

  The lift had the same decaying smell as the kitchen. Ben walked the three steps to the far corner, turned and leaned back against the wall. The pistol in the wiry guy’s hands was still pointed straight at his face from across the lift. The muscular guy followed, his weight making the floor judder. He pressed a button. The lift whooshed and rattled under their feet. Nobody spoke. Then the door slid open on the ground floor, and Ben was shoved out into another corridor. The walls were flecked with black mould and the feral stench of mice and rats was even stronger.

  ‘Keep moving,’ the muscular guy said, leading the way. Ben walked slowly, feeling the gun in his back, taking in his surroundings. They walked him to a second lift and took him up to the first floor, along another dingy corridor. They passed several doorways. Old hotel rooms, brass-plated numbers blackened with tarnish. The muscular guy stopped outside room thirty-six and rapped on the door. A voice answered from inside; Ben heard footsteps and then the door opened.

  A rangy man with slicked hair stood in the doorway.

  ‘I know you,’ Ben said. ‘How’re the teeth?’

  Jones scowled, showing the gaps
in his mouth. ‘Get him in here,’ he commanded the other two. His voice was squashy and distorted by his swollen lips. Ben was shoved inside the room and thrown down in a chair. He sat quietly, the chain lying across his lap.

  He was in a makeshift office. The room was bare apart from a few chairs, a cheap desk and a table with a DVD player and monitor. He didn’t suppose they’d brought him up here to watch a movie.

  Jones shut the door and moved to the middle of the room, rubbing his lips and jaw, his eyes full of hate. Ben didn’t recognise the other man. He was sitting on the desk, grinning with white teeth and almost jovial in his manner. Probably late thirties, slender, not tall, expensively dressed, flamboyant red hair. The watch on his wrist was chunky gold, its bezel studded with diamonds. He had the look of an intelligent man who didn’t have to be brutal to be in charge but was very used to giving orders. Someone always a step ahead, who had every angle sussed out well in advance. Someone very dangerous.

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ Ben said.

  The man grinned more widely. ‘Really, you think so?’ His voice was nasal, and he moved his hands a lot while talking. ‘I guess, being British and all. I personally think it’s a shithole. I can’t believe what it’s costing me. When I’m through here I’ll have my guy fly me the eighty miles back to civilisation.’

  ‘You talk a lot,’ Ben said.

  ‘So will you,’ the man answered. His smile dropped a notch.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

  ‘My name’s Slater. I think you already know Agent Jones here.’ Slater took a slim chocolate bar out of his pocket and started unwrapping it. ‘You like chocolate, Mr Hope?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘And I don’t think you should let Jones have any. His dentist wouldn’t approve.’

  Jones glared. Slater smiled. ‘All right, I appreciate humour but I’m not here for laughs. Don’t make this difficult. Believe me, it’s going to be a lot more pleasant if you don’t fuck around with us.’

  ‘You’re not going to get a lot out of me,’ Ben said.

  ‘Oh, I think we will,’ Slater replied. ‘Major.’

  ‘I’m not a major. I’m a theology student.’

  ‘Right.’ Slater chuckled. ‘Must be some other Benedict Hope that comes up all over the CIA computer, with the same face as you.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Ben said. ‘I’m just a theology student now.’

  ‘A regular man of God.’

  ‘I was trying to be,’ Ben said. ‘You guys got in the way.’

  ‘You were talking theology with Clayton Cleaver?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Slater suddenly got serious. ‘Why are you working with Zoë Bradbury?’

  ‘You people are way off the mark. I’m not working with her. I’m looking for her, but I barely know her. Up till eight days ago, I wouldn’t have known her in the street.’

  ‘So two SAS guys go all the way out to some Greek island looking for someone they barely know, just like that.’

  Ben shrugged. There was no reason to lie. ‘Like I said, I’m a student. Her father is one of my tutors. After she disappeared, he asked me to go to Corfu to find her. I said no, and sent an old associate of mine who needed the work. He ran into difficulties, so I went along to help.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’ Ben looked hard at Slater. ‘Then someone blew him up. I thought it was Clayton Cleaver. That’s why I went to talk to him. But I was wrong. Now I have a different theory. I think you killed Charlie, like you killed Nikos Karapiperis and all the other innocent people, because you need to know where Zoë put the rest of the ostraka she was blackmailing Cleaver with.’ Ben paused. ‘Now I’ve answered your questions, you answer mine. What do you need the ostraka for?

  Why are you doing all this? The Agency get religion all of a sudden?’

  ‘That’s not your concern,’ Slater said.

  ‘If you needed what she had, maybe you should have thought about asking her before you killed her.’

  Slater pursed his lips. ‘What makes you think we killed her?’

  ‘If she was alive, you wouldn’t need me to tell you.’

  ‘She’s alive,’ Slater replied. ‘Not only that, she’s right here. You’ll be meeting her sometime soon.’

  Ben was thinking furiously. She was alive. There was a chance. Possibilities filled his mind. But he didn’t let Slater see what he was thinking. ‘You’ve had her two weeks, and you can’t make her talk? I thought you were tough guys.’

  Jones pointed a finger. ‘You’re going to tell us, asshole.’

  ‘You should keep your mouth shut, Jones,’ Ben said. ‘It wasn’t the world’s greatest sight before I smashed your teeth in, but it’s a real eyesore now.’ He turned to Slater. ‘I think I get it. She doesn’t know, does she?’

  Slater just watched him impassively, munching on his chocolate.

  ‘The scooter she hired on Corfu went missing the same time she did,’ Ben continued. ‘So I think she was on her way to meet Nikos Karapiperis when your guys tried to catch her. Experts like Jones here. I think they scared her, and she panicked and crashed, and that the reason she isn’t talking to you is because she doesn’t remember. She’s got amnesia from a bang on the head, and you’re scared she isn’t going to remember. Basically, you’re screwed.’

  Slater crossed his arms. ‘You’re a very smart man, that’s for sure. Shame we couldn’t find a job for you on our team.’

  ‘Smarter than you,’ Ben said. ‘A cage load of monkeys could have done better. But that’s what happens when you hire a brainless piece of shit like Jones to do your dirty work.’

  ‘A man in your position should be trying to make me happy,’ Slater said. ‘You’re not making me happy.’

  ‘I haven’t even started yet,’ Ben replied. ‘You’re wasting your time on me. Even if I did know what you wanted to know, I wouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Even smart guys can get into the shit, and you’re in a whole heap of it. We can bury you for ever. You shot two cops, for a start.’

  ‘That was Jones,’ Ben said. ‘He’s the real hard guy here.’

  ‘We have a whole bunch of witnesses who watched you murder two officers in cold blood,’ Slater said. ‘Then there’s the question of the two missing agents in Greece. I figure you for that as well.’

  Ben didn’t reply.

  Slater grinned. ‘Don’t remember? Did you get a knock on the head too? Let’s see if this refreshes your memory.’ He gestured to Jones, who aimed a remote at the flatscreen monitor on the table. It flashed into life and Ben recognised the scene right away. It was crisp colour footage of him and Charlie sitting at the café table on Corfu. The sound was muted.

  Slater let it play for a few seconds, and Ben watched himself shifting around in his seat as Charlie unfolded the story to him. Then the kid with the ball came past, and moments later he saw himself jump up and run out into the road to save the child from the oncoming van. Charlie was up on his feet. It was the moment just before the explosion.

  ‘OK, you made your point,’ Ben said. He didn’t want to be reminded of that moment. He’d relived it enough times over the last few days.

  Jones drew his scabbed lips back over his jagged teeth. He aimed the remote and his thumb stabbed the pause key just as the shockwave erupted across the café terrace and hit Charlie, ripping his body apart in a red blur. The image froze. Jones gazed at it and seemed satisfied.

  Ben stared at the screen. He was seeing the blast in a whole new way. When the bomb had exploded, he’d been on the other side of the road behind the cover of the van, with his face down close to the ground. He’d hardly seen a thing.

  This image was taken from a completely different angle. It showed the direction of the blast, and it told Ben exactly where the bomb had been. Memories flooded through his mind. He remembered the little boy with the ball. The man at the nearby table with the laptop. He remembered the way the man had shouted at the kid. Most of a
ll, he remembered the fierce look in the man’s eyes.

  He’d never forget that face. Especially not now.

  He hadn’t noticed before that the man had slipped away while he and Charlie had been deep in conversation. That’s what people did in cafés, finish their drink and slip away – each table its own private, self-contained world. Nothing unusual about it. But he wished now that he’d taken more notice. Frozen up on the screen, caught in the exact moment it fragmented and belched fire and death across the café terrace, the laptop case was a dark blur under the empty table.

  Ben turned away from the screen and stared hard at Slater, then at Jones. ‘So I was right. You planted that bomb.’

  Slater waved his hand in the air. ‘I’m a businessman. I don’t plant bombs. I just pay other people to plant them.’

  ‘That recording was the last thing my agents sent to me before they went off the grid,’ Jones said. ‘What did you do to them?’

  ‘They’re both dead on a beach,’ Ben replied. ‘If you’re quick you might find them before the crabs finish what’s left of them.’

  Slater smiled. ‘So you’ve decided to be straight with us.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something else too,’ Ben said. ‘I’m going to kill you soon.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘Yes. That’s a fact. Jones too. I’d get those graves ready.’

  There was a silence. Slater paled, and covered it with a nervous laugh. ‘I was hoping you were going to be reasonable. This isn’t making it any easier for yourself.’

  ‘You’ve let me see your faces,’ Ben said. ‘You wouldn’t let me out of here alive anyway. So even if I knew where the ostraka were, which I don’t, I wouldn’t give you the pleasure.’

  Slater tossed his empty chocolate wrapper into a bin. ‘Fine. But there are quick and easy ways of dying, and there are slow and horrible ways to suffer.’

  ‘I’ll have to decide which one you deserve,’ Ben said.