The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  But you could never be ready for this.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The sharp command halted Glass’s fist before it could make contact. Ben let out his breath and his muscles slackened.

  Glass lowered his arm and turned as a small man in his sixties walked into the hangar. Ben watched him approach, flanked by four guards carrying MP-5s. He was well groomed, immaculately dressed in a dark suit, sober tie and long tweed overcoat. The black patent-leather shoes clicked on the concrete floor. His face was long and pale, with a hooked nose and unblinking eyes that gave him the penetrating look of a bird of prey.

  ‘Change of plan,’ he said curtly to Glass. ‘Bring him into the office.’ His accent was German, his English perfect.

  Glass looked sullen and disappointed as he barked orders at the guards. He slipped off his knuckle-duster. Two men stepped forward and released Ben from the cuffs. He wasn’t going to fall on the floor, not in front of them. He stayed on his feet, swaying a little, trying hard to focus.

  A gun jabbed him in the back and they walked him across the hangar. Through a steel door at the far end was a dark corridor. Glass led the way and opened another door to a sparsely furnished office. The desk was bare, save for a computer hooked up to a pair of screens facing in opposite directions.

  The guards threw Ben down into a tubular steel chair facing the desk. He fought the pain and the dizziness, blinking to keep his mind clear.

  The smartly dressed old man walked calmly around the desk and sat in the swivel chair opposite Ben. He spoke softly and deliberately. ‘My name is Werner Kroll,’ he said.

  Ben knew who he was. The current Count von Adler.

  Kroll watched Ben for a minute. His eyes were sharp and intelligent and Ben could only guess what he was thinking. His wizened face had a look of detached curiosity, and a glimmer in his eyes that could have been taken for mild amusement. He dismissed the guards with a small gesture. They responded like well-trained dogs and filed out without a word. They all knew better than to hesitate when Kroll gave them an order.

  Glass took the CD-ROM case from his pocket and handed it to Kroll. ‘He was carrying this on him, sir.’

  The old man took out the disc and turned it over in his hands. His fingers were long and thin. He popped open the CD-drive of the computer on his desk and inserted the disc. There was silence in the room as the CD loaded up. The old man leaned back pensively in his chair and watched the video-clip without a word. Ben could see the flickering images reflected in the lenses of his spectacles.

  Then Kroll calmly ejected the disc. He turned it over in his hands again, looked coolly at Ben and snapped it in half. ‘Thank you for bringing that to me,’ he said. He scattered the broken shards on the desk in front of him.

  Then he picked up the cardboard tube containing the Mozart letter. He reached a finger inside and took out the rolled-up paper. ‘Interesting,’ he said as his eyes darted across it. ‘Very interesting. I begin to understand what this is all about. Mr Llewellyn’s research.’ He sighed and folded the letter in half, then again in quarters. He held the yellowed paper between his slim fingers and ripped it suddenly in two. He kept on ripping until Richard Llewellyn’s prize was lying in tiny tatters across the desk. He reached for a waste-paper basket and carefully swept the pieces into it. Ben sat still and didn’t speak a word.

  Glass stood behind Kroll’s chair, with his arms folded behind his back. There was a twisted half-smile on his face. He’d been looking forward to killing Ben Hope. Maybe he still would, if the old man let him. SAS. He could eat SAS for breakfast.

  Kroll reached calmly into a briefcase and took out a file. ‘I believe you two gentlemen have a long acquaintance,’ he said conversationally. ‘It must be nice to meet again after so many years.’

  Every time I meet him he tries to kill me, Ben thought, and it almost made him smile. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘My name’s—’

  ‘Paul Connors,’ Kroll cut in. ‘Yes, we know what your papers say. My compliments to your forger. Very convincing. I wonder why you didn’t use your Harris or Palmer identity this time?’

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man. I’m a journalist.’

  A crease deepened in Kroll’s wrinkled brow. ‘Games? Must we? We know exactly who you are. No point in pretending.’ He held up the pieces of the CD. ‘And we know precisely why you’re here.’ He flipped open the file. ‘You are Benedict Hope,’ he said quietly. ‘An interesting life. Private education. Attended Christ Church, Oxford, where you read Theology.’ He looked up and raised his eyebrows quizzically. ‘Unusual choice of subject. Evidently the Church was not your true vocation. You terminated your studies after two years to join the British Army. You were officer material but you enlisted as a private. You displayed great aptitude and rose rapidly through the ranks. Selected for 22 Regiment, Special Air Service. Something of a reputation for being a maverick, a little rebellious against authority, and the medical reports highlight a recurring drink problem. But it seems that none of that marred your career too badly. Decorated for bravery in the second Gulf War, left the army with the rank of Major.’

  Ben said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the old man.

  Kroll smiled. ‘No need to be modest. Your impressive record is the only reason I haven’t allowed my friend here to dispose of you as he saw fit.’ He looked back down at the file. ‘I see here that for the last several years you have been working freelance as a crisis response consultant. Rather an interesting euphemism for what you do, wouldn’t you say?’

  There was no point in keeping up the pretence any longer. ‘What do you want?’ Ben asked quietly.

  ‘An opportunity has just arisen. I have a job for you.’

  ‘What kind of job?’

  ‘The job you were trained to do.’

  ‘I’m retired.’

  ‘Come now, Major,’ Kroll said. ‘I know everything, and I do mean everything, about you, so please save yourself the trouble of lying to me. I can even tell you the name of the client who hired you for the Turkish assignment from which you were returning home when you went to meet Leigh Llewellyn. You escorted her to Langton Hall in Oxfordshire, where you damaged some precious equipment of mine. You’ve been a trouble to me ever since. Now-let me show you how I deal with people who are a trouble to me.’

  ‘I think I get the picture,’ Ben said.

  ‘Indulge me, please.’ Kroll reached out to a remote keyboard and tapped with a long, thin finger. Images flashed up on the screens. ‘This was broadcast on the ORF2 television news earlier today,’ Kroll said.

  The female reporter was dressed in a heavy coat and fur hat. Snow was streaking down as she spoke. Behind her, the ruins of a grey-stone building were smouldering and smoking. Black timbers littered the burnt-out shell, and little patches of flame still flickered here and there. Emergency vehicles bumped across the rough terrain with lights flashing, and a helicopter was thudding overhead.

  The building was so completely devastated that it took Ben a moment to recognize it.

  Kroll saw the horror in his face and smiled. His bony hand touched the remote and the volume rose.

  ‘…disaster. It is believed that the blaze, in which at least twenty-five Dominican nuns perished, may have been caused by a spark from an open fire. The tragedy has already prompted a demand for new health and safety regulations across…’

  ‘What have you done with Leigh and the child?’

  Kroll hit the remote again and the picture cut to black. ‘I was coming to that. I have some bad news for you. I am afraid the beautiful Ms Llewellyn did not survive the incident.’

  Behind him, Glass suppressed a snigger.

  ‘I would have preferred to take her alive,’ Kroll went on. ‘I was looking forward to meeting her in the flesh. But unfortunately for her, it appears that someone taught her how to operate a firearm. I wonder who that might have been?’ He smiled. ‘She took it upon herself to open fire on my men, and they were obliged to
take her down.’

  Fingers of ice curled around Ben’s spine and held it tight. ‘You’re a liar.’

  Kroll reached into his briefcase and laid something on the desk. It clunked on the wood. ‘Is this familiar to you?’

  It was a gold locket. Dull, dirty, and spattered with russety spots of dried blood.

  Glass’s shoulders quaked and a grin spread across his face. Kroll shoved the locket across the desk. ‘Look more closely.’

  Ben picked it up and turned it over in his hands. They were beginning to shake. The letters LL were finely engraved on the back.

  ‘Open it,’ said Kroll.

  Ben pressed the little catch with his thumb and the locket popped open. His heart was pounding, and when he saw what was inside all hope left him and he closed his eyes. The miniature photos faced one another inside the opened locket. On one side was Oliver, on the other Richard and Margaret Llewellyn.

  The last time Ben had seen it, it had been hanging around Leigh’s neck.

  He slowly snapped the locket shut and let it fall back on the desk.

  He swallowed. His mouth was dry. ‘That’s no proof.’

  ‘Very well. I wanted to spare you this, but you are stubborn.’ Kroll tapped another key and suddenly Leigh was on the screen.

  She was lying sprawled in a thicket.

  Her eyes were glazed and dead. There was blood on her face and all down her front.

  He sat still for a moment. It was impossible. But his eyes were telling him it was true. Screaming it. She was dead. Leigh Llewellyn, gone like smoke.

  There was so much he’d wanted to say to her.

  He felt faint, drifting in a black void. He swayed in his chair. His eyes clamped shut.

  ‘Beautiful even in death,’ Kroll said, gazing at the screen. ‘But she won’t remain so for long, after the wild animals have found her. They may have done already.’

  Ben couldn’t speak. Then, out of the emptiness inside him, a massive wave of rage came surging up. He snapped open his eyes. The first thing he saw, the only thing he could see, was Kroll sitting there with that impassive look on his face. It was the look of a scientist observing the death throes of a laboratory animal and calmly noting the details.

  Ben hurled himself across the desk. The blow he aimed at the old man’s neck would have crushed his windpipe against his spine. They could have done what they wanted to him after that, but he would have had the pleasure of watching Kroll die a panicked and tortured death within about fifteen seconds.

  But Glass was quick, and the frame of the 9mm came down hard on Ben’s head before he could reach the old man. Kroll kicked out with his shiny shoes and his executive swivel chair rolled out of range. The door burst open and the guards stormed in. They grabbed Ben and threw him back in his chair. His wrists were cuffed roughly behind his back with the chain through the steel tubing.

  Kroll wheeled himself back towards the desk and straightened his tie. ‘Evidently you cannot be trusted to behave in a civilized manner.’

  Ben shook blood out of his eye. ‘You’re a dead man, Kroll.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Kroll. ‘We haven’t finished yet. There was one survivor of the incident in Slovenia.’ He pressed another key and brought up another image.

  Ben’s shoulders dropped.

  It was Clara Kinski. They’d taken her.

  The cell looked small and dank. She was tied down to a bare mattress on an iron-framed bed, her small wrists and ankles strapped to the bars with duct tape. She was blindfolded and struggling weakly, as though her strength was giving out.

  ‘That is a live webcam image,’ Kroll said. ‘I can prove it to you by sending an email order this very moment to have one of her fingers removed as you watch. Would you like that?’

  ‘No,’ Ben said. ‘I wouldn’t. But I know what I would like to see.’

  A strange, wild light in the prisoner’s eyes disconcerted Kroll for an instant, but he hid it with a smile. ‘You are in no position to be defiant, Major,’ he said. ‘I am about to make you a proposal, and I suggest you consider it carefully. Based on your decision, the child either lives or she dies. It’s as simple as that.’

  Ben shut his eyes for a long moment. In his mind, Leigh was looking at him. She smiled. He opened his eyes again, controlling his heartbeat and his breathing. ‘I’m listening,’ he said quietly after a long pause.

  ‘Tell me if you recognize this person.’ Clara disappeared from the screen and was replaced by a picture of a handsome man in his early forties. He was well-tailored but casual, and the snap looked as though it had been taken at some kind of VIP function.

  ‘I don’t know who he is,’ Ben muttered truthfully.

  Kroll watched him closely, as though assessing whether or not to believe him. He nodded. ‘You should follow politics, Major. That is Philippe Aragon. The candidate for the EU Commission Vice-Presidency. He is your target.’

  ‘I’m not an assassin.’

  ‘That is precisely what you are. And you like to keep your skills well-practised. It isn’t long since you gunned down five men in cold blood on your little mercy mission in Turkey.’ Kroll waved that aside. ‘Anyway, I didn’t say I wanted him assassinated. We want you to bring him to us. We will take care of him.’

  ‘I imagine you will,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve seen the sick things your Order of Ra does to people.’

  ‘The Order of Ra!’ Kroll’s wrinkled face split into a yellow smile and he twisted his neck to grin up at Glass. Glass smirked.

  Kroll wiped his mouth and his grin faded. ‘It has been a long time since anyone has called us by that ridiculous old name. The Order of Ra is part of history, my young friend. It is as much a relic as its founder, my great-great-great grandfather Viktor Kroll.’

  ‘But I see you keep up some of your traditions,’ Ben said. ‘Bullet in the head too modern for you people?’

  ‘Some people are worth no more than a bullet,’ Kroll said. ‘For men like Philippe Aragon we reserve a special kind of reception.’

  ‘Like ritual execution,’ Ben replied.

  Kroll shrugged. ‘Some traditions are worth keeping.’

  ‘What are you going to do, cut his tongue out the way you did to that other guy-whoever he was?’

  Kroll said nothing. He watched Ben for a moment, again as though assessing the truth of his words. Then he gave that icy smile once more. ‘The punishment fits the crime,’ he said. ‘Men who cannot keep their tongues from wagging have them removed. In Aragon’s case we have something a little different in mind. This will take place in precisely two days from now, after you have acquired him and delivered him to a prearranged rendezvous with my agents.’ Kroll reached out and pressed another key. The image of Aragon was replaced with a picture of a house.

  Ben ran his eyes over the unusual building. The house was a radical design of curved steel and glass, cut into the side of a sweeping embankment. It was a peaceful setting. The sky was blue, the grass was green and there were rolling hills in the background.

  Cuffed in his chair, blood running down his face, Leigh dead, Ben wanted to be in that peaceful scene more than anything in the world. Anywhere but here.

  Kroll’s finger clicked rapidly and multiple images flowed in a slideshow, of the house from different angles, front and overhead views, lakes and hills in the background. Architect’s plans and design blueprints flashed up, and Ben took them in as Kroll went on: ‘The house is in Belgium, an hour from Brussels. An hour ago my sources informed me that he will be alone there for three days as of tomorrow while his wife and family attend a wedding in America. Aragon was planning to travel with them, but due to work pressures he changed his mind. This presents a perfect opportunity for a man with your skills and in your particular predicament. It’s the only reason I have decided to keep you alive. For the moment, I should add.’

  The screen went blank. Kroll leaned back in his chair. ‘If you complete the task successfully, we will let the girl go back to her father, and you will also
have your freedom. You can go back to freelance assassination in the name of rescuing the needy, or however you like to justify what you do.’ Kroll paused again and knitted his long fingers together under his chin. ‘If you refuse, or if you try to double-cross us in any way, you will first watch the girl die and then you yourself will die. I hope I make myself clear. There will be no second chances.’

  Ben said nothing.

  Kroll went on. ‘Now, I know what kind of man you are, Major Hope. I know perfectly well that if we let you walk free, it’s in your nature to attempt a reprisal against us. However, please remember that we can get to the child and her father at any time. Not only that, but we can also put a very quick end to your operation. If you ever show any sign of playing tricks with us, you will immediately be taken and transported to Turkey. Our contact there would be very interested in acquiring you for the murder of five men.’

  ‘I’m not a murderer,’ Ben said quietly. ‘I save people.’

  ‘Really? Yet you consider it fair exchange to expend five lives to free a single child.’

  ‘Two children,’ Ben said. ‘They were innocent. The men running the paedophile ring weren’t. And they weren’t going to stop doing it.’

  ‘What a noble calling you have, Major. Perhaps you were unaware that they were police officers? Corrupt officers, granted, but nonetheless the authorities do not like it when a vigilante takes it upon themselves to kill their agents.’

  ‘I did know that. All the more reason to kill them.’

  Kroll waved his thin hand dismissively. ‘Perhaps so. But we are not discussing ethics here. It’s you we are talking about. Imprisonment in Turkey is not a pleasant experience. There would be no trial, and no possibility of parole. You would spend the next three decades or so in great discomfort, and if you ever saw freedom again it would be as a very old and broken man. I want you to bear all this in mind as you make your decision, Major. We own your life. We control you completely. You have no options, other than a coward’s death here today if you refuse to cooperate.’