The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  ‘It certainly looks interesting,’ Ben said.

  ‘Take it,’ she said instantly. ‘I have many copies.’

  ‘That’s very kind, Miss Vale. I look forward to reading it very much. I’m looking forward to meeting the author too.’

  She beamed at him. ‘I believe this must have been meant to happen. I just know you and Clayton will get along.’

  Mae showed Ben to the carriage house. The guest quarters were situated at the back of the mansion, on the ground floor. It was a substantial apartment in its own right, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, living room and even its own dining room. The furnishings were exquisite. Ben tossed his bag onto the four-poster bed and walked back to the living room. French windows looked out over a magnificent subtropical garden filled with palm trees and Spanish moss, and roses of every colour imaginable.

  Looking around him at his elegant surroundings and thinking of his amiable, obviously very generous and charming hostess, he couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing with a thug like Clayton Cleaver.

  He wondered what kind of man Cleaver must be. He looked at his watch. In a few hours he’d find out.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Far away, Zoë Bradbury was sitting up in her bed, her hands folded limply in her lap, gazing into the middle distance. At the bedside, sitting in a plastic chair, the doctor was making notes on his pad. It was just the two of them. As always, his questions were soft and gentle.

  ‘That’s a very nice bracelet you’re wearing, Zoë. Is it real gold?’

  She held out her right arm and stared at the shiny link bracelet as though she’d never seen it before. ‘I suppose so,’ she muttered suspiciously. She knew that every line of questioning, however indirect and subtle, was a probe searching for a way inside her head. Part of her wanted to scream and run, to fight it until she dropped, to hate this man. But there was a soft look in the doctor’s eye that was genuine, and some part of her very much wanted to trust him, reach out to him. It was an inner conflict she was finding hard to resolve. She was a prisoner; she was kidnapped; yet this man seemed sincerely to want to help her.

  ‘It looks antique,’ the doctor said. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘I don’t remember where it came from. I don’t know how long it’s been there.’

  ‘Maybe it was a gift from someone close,’ the doctor suggested. ‘Someone who loves you, like a relative. Tell me about your family.’

  ‘I see faces in my mind. I think they’re my parents’.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s good progress. Things are starting to come back to you, just like I said they would.’

  ‘Will it all come back?’

  ‘What you have is called post-traumatic retrograde amnesia,’ he said. ‘The memory loss is usually transient, depending on the severity of the injury. You had a nasty knock on the head. But I’ve seen a lot worse.’ He reached into his briefcase and brought out a book. ‘Now, I have something to show you.’

  ‘Where am I?’ she asked flatly, ignoring the book. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d asked him that.

  He gave his standard reply. ‘A place where we’re going to make you better.’

  She sensed his discomfort as he said it. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ she asked, looking him in the eye. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  He glanced away. ‘You’re going to get your memory back.’

  ‘But what about afterwards? If I remember, what next?’

  He laid the book gently across the bed. ‘Let’s focus on this, OK?’

  She looked at it. It was a book of dog breeds, filled with colour pictures. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘You told me you thought you had a dog back home. Why don’t we see if we can find out what kind he is?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it might help jog other memories. That’s how the mind works, by unconscious association. One recalled detail can trigger another. So, if we can find your dog, we might remember his name. Then maybe some related incident will come back to you, like say a day at the beach. Before you know it, we might be able to start making all kinds of inroads into areas that are still blanked out. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ she whispered.

  He started patiently flipping the pages, one by one. ‘Let’s see. Does he look like this?’ He pointed to a picture of a Labrador.

  She frowned. ‘I don’t think he’s that big.’

  ‘OK, let’s look at some small dogs. Here’s one. King Charles spaniel. Does he look like this?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘What about this one?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  He flipped another page.

  ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘There.’

  ‘This one?’ He pointed. ‘West Highland White terrier.’

  She recognised the picture. It was the small white dog from her cloudy memory. ‘That’s him. That’s my dog.’

  ‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘We’re making really good progress, Zoë.’

  ‘Can I go soon?’

  ‘Soon,’ he said.

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘I can’t say yet. It all depends on your recovery.’

  ‘What am I supposed to be remembering?’ she asked, her voice rising fast. ‘This isn’t therapy. I’m being held against my will. What’s so important that I’m being kept prisoner in this place?’

  The doctor had no answer to that. ‘Let’s take this one step at a time, OK?’

  When the session was over, he left her in her room. As the guard locked the door behind him, the doctor closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

  You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to be helping people. This is all wrong. What the hell did you get mixed up in?

  ‘Jones wants to see you in his office,’ the guard informed him.

  ‘Later,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Jones says right now.’

  The doctor sighed again. His shoulders drooped.

  He got there three minutes later. Knocked on the door and walked in. The room was small and square. The walls were plain, the floor bare concrete. Jones’s desk was clear apart from a phone and a laptop. Jones was leaning back in his chair, smirking at him.

  The doctor found it harder every day to hide his hatred of this man. He would have loved to smash that smirk off his face – but he knew what Jones would do to him. ‘What did you want to see me about?’

  ‘Got any good news for me?’ Jones demanded.

  The doctor hesitated. ‘Not the news you want to hear, certainly.’

  Jones grunted. ‘I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t say this so-called therapy of yours is getting us anywhere, would you?’

  ‘Yes, actually I would. Besides, it’s still early days.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t realise what’s going on here, Dr Greenberg. We’re on the clock with this.’

  ‘You can’t just click your fingers and make severe retrograde amnesia disappear overnight. Her GOAT results are improving steadily.’

  ‘What the hell is a goat?’ Jones snapped.

  ‘Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test,’ the doctor said, trying to preserve his calm.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me with medical jargon. She’s lying.’

  ‘You saw the polygraph result.’

  ‘The lie detector isn’t reliable. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ the doctor hissed. ‘We’re close. Really close. A few more days, a week. Maybe two, and it’s my guess that her memory will come back completely.’

  Jones shook his head. ‘Why is it I get the feeling that you’re stalling me?’

  ‘I’m not stalling.’

  ‘Yes you are. You sympathise with the bitch. Buying her time. Let me tell you something. You’re not paid to sympathise. You’re paid to get results, and you ain’t getting them. I’ve given you all the leeway I’m prepared to give. We even redecorated the whole goddamn upper floor so we could move her to a nice little room, because you said the gentle approac
h would help. But I’ve had it with gentle.’

  The doctor looked down at his feet and balled his fists at his sides. ‘So what are you suggesting we do?’

  ‘Apply more pressure. There are ways.’

  ‘What kind of pressure?’

  Jones shrugged. ‘Whatever works. I don’t give a shit.’

  ‘You’re talking about torture.’

  Jones shrugged again. ‘Like I said, whatever gets the job done.’

  The doctor stared. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  Jones said nothing. His eyes were steady and cold.

  ‘You apply any kind of severe stress to her, and all you’ll do is drive the memories deeper,’ the doctor said. ‘She’ll regress dramatically. And I won’t have anything to do with torture. That isn’t what you hired me for.’

  ‘You’ll do what I tell you to do,’ Jones said. ‘And this is where we’re going to start.’ He grabbed a sheet of paper from his desk and brusquely handed it across.

  The doctor scanned it quickly. There was just one name scrawled on the sheet. It was the name of a chemical. He looked up in alarm. ‘You can’t give that to her. You’re not authorised to use it. It’s experimental. And illegal.’

  ‘I can give anything I want to her,’ Jones said softly. ‘Now tell me. This shit goes a lot deeper than sodium pentothal, right?’

  ‘I’m not happy with this.’

  ‘Like I give a fuck. Answer the question.’

  ‘It’s designed to repress higher cortical functions and remove all inhibitions,’ the doctor muttered. ‘In theory, potentially, it’s the most powerful truth serum ever developed. But –’

  ‘That’s what I heard too.’

  ‘The only people who ever used this drug are terrorists and mass murderers,’ the doctor said. ‘This is America, not Sierra Leone.’

  Jones just smiled, showing yellow teeth.

  ‘You’ve heard about the side effects?’

  Jones didn’t answer.

  ‘Ninety-five-plus per cent chance of complete, irreversible psychosis. Those are the stories, and there are lab results on chimps to confirm it. That’s what you want to do to this girl? Fry her brain down to the size of a peanut so she has to spend the rest of her life in a mental hospital?’

  Jones nodded slowly. ‘If I can get what I need from her first, yes.’

  ‘Just so you can get this information from her. You’re willing to make that trade?’

  ‘Absolutely. This matters a great deal to the people I work for.’

  ‘Then you can find someone else to help you. I won’t be party to this.’

  ‘Think you have a choice, Greenberg?’

  ‘I don’t answer to you.’ The doctor turned to go. But the metallic sound of the gun being cocked behind him stopped him in his tracks. He turned back to face Jones.

  The man was aiming a pistol right at his head. In his other hand he was holding a phone. ‘You’re going to make a call, doc. You’re going to get me some of that serum. And then you’re going to administer it to our little patient in there, and we’ll see who’s right.’

  The doctor hung his head. He was powerless here. They had him. ‘All right. I have a contact. But I can’t just write out a prescription for this stuff. It might take a few days.’

  ‘Too slow,’ Jones said. ‘My employer isn’t a patient man.’ He checked his watch. ‘You get it for me by tonight.’

  ‘Tonight!’

  ‘Fail me, and you’ll watch me torture the girl before I put a bullet in your eye,’ Jones said. ‘Your choice.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Savannah, Georgia

  Ben spent the afternoon in Augusta Vale’s luxurious guest quarters, sitting on the four-poster bed and poring over Cleaver’s book.

  The book was two things. First it was an account of how the humble preacher from Alabama had become the mouthpiece of John the Apostle after the saint had appeared to him years before in a miracle vision. Much of the text was devoted to persuading the reader of the truth of this, which the author did in fine style. Ben noticed that the last page of the book was a detachable slip for readers to mail their donations to the Cleaver Foundation, part of whose function was to raise funds for the author’s political ambitions.

  Secondly, the book was a scalding doomsday forecast based squarely on the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic text of the New Testament and the key biblical reference for millions of evangelical Christians, predominantly Americans, who believed in the coming End Times.

  Cleaver certainly knew his Bible. His style was pounding, insistent, articulate and utterly sincere. His book went into enormous detail about what was coming, any time now, all closely referenced from the Book of Revelation: global meltdown, the destruction of social order and the rise of the Antichrist, soon followed by the battle of Armageddon, when the returning Christ would vanquish his enemies forever and lead the faithful into eternal glory.

  Ben noticed that, like most evangelical Christians, Cleaver assumed without question that all the ‘John’ books of the Bible were the work of one man, John the Apostle – Christ’s loyal follower, ‘the disciple Jesus loved’, present at the Crucifixion and the first to believe that Christ had truly risen. The traditional account, reflected in Cleaver’s book, was that after the crucifixion John had travelled widely preaching the Gospel. Then, seized by the Romans and thrown in boiling oil, he had miraculously escaped without so much as a blister. After the embarrassing miracle the Roman authorities had banished him to the remote Greek island of Patmos, off the Turkish coast. There he had penned his strangest and darkest work, the doom-laden Book of Revelation in which he set out his vision of the future. A book so dramatic and thunderous in its terrible imagery that, millennia later, it remained more imprinted on the public consciousness than ever.

  The rest was Cleaver’s unique twist on the tale, explaining how St John had personally appeared to him and confirmed in no uncertain terms that the End Times were truly coming, and that the faithful must rally. Things were about to get nasty.

  But Ben wondered how deeply Cleaver had looked into the theological studies surrounding Revelation. Many modern scholars didn’t agree that the author of the Gospel of St John and the Book of Revelation were the same man. They distinguished between at least three different biblical Johns: John the Evangelist, John the Presbyter and John of Patmos. John of Patmos, most agreed, was the author of the apocalyptic book. But was he the same John who had been numbered among Christ’s twelve apostles? The blood and violence of Revelation, contrasted with the milder and more philosophic Gospel of St John, seemed like the work of two different writers.

  Theories abounded. Some scholars were more moderate, suggesting that St John might have been the author of Revelation but written it under the influence of hallucinogens. Others were more hard line, pointing out that this John of Patmos could be just about anybody; in which case Revelation might have no legitimate claim to be included in the New Testament at all and should possibly be scrapped. But the frustrating lack of proof either way prevented the issue from being settled once and for all.

  Meanwhile, as Ben could see from Cleaver’s book, core evangelical belief remained untouched by the raging debates within academic theology circles. As far as the Georgia preacher was concerned, his direct line to St John was all the proof anyone needed that this generation was living in the Last Days.

  And somehow, this all had something to do with what had happened to Zoë Bradbury. Whatever hold it was she had over Clayton Cleaver, it involved Bible prophecy.

  But how?

  Ben thought about it for hours. He was still thinking about it as seven o’clock approached and it was time for dinner with Miss Vale and the man himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ben left the carriage house and wandered over to the main residence. Mae greeted him with a smile, and chatted warmly as she led him into the grand hallway. He could hear Miss Vale’s voice, and a man’s, coming from the drawing room. He was
shown inside. Miss Vale’s visitor stood up and strode over to meet him.

  He was a man in his mid-fifties wearing a well-tailored light grey suit that looked Italian. He obviously played squash or tennis and was in good shape, with only a little spare padding around the middle and under his chin. He was about Ben’s height, just a little under six feet. His hair was thick and dark, swept back from his brow, maybe tinted to hide the grey. He approached Ben with a broad smile and an outstretched hand.

  ‘Clayton, this is the young man I was telling you about,’ Miss Vale said. She gestured towards Cleaver with a glow in her eyes. ‘Benedict, it’s my great pleasure to introduce you to my dear friend Clayton Cleaver. Or should I say Governor Cleaver?’

  Cleaver flashed a white grin at her. ‘God willing, Augusta. God willing. But we’re not there yet.’

  ‘With ninety per cent of Georgia behind you,’ she said, ‘you soon will be.’

  Cleaver seized and shook Ben’s hand in a dry and powerful fist, greeting him like a long-lost brother. ‘It is a true pleasure to meet you, Benedict,’ he said with absolute sincerity. ‘May I call you Benedict?’

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you too, Mr Cleaver.’

  ‘Please. Call me Clayton. Augusta tells me you’re a believer. That’s just wonderful. Just wonderful.’

  The maid came in with a tray of canapés and martini cocktails. They made small talk for a while, chatting about the difference between English and Georgia weather; the things Ben really had to see while he was staying in Savannah; what it was like to study theology at Oxford.

  ‘Final year, I guess you would have branched out a little,’ Cleaver said. ‘Do you have a specialised interest, Benedict?’

  ‘Actually I do.’ Ben sipped his drink. ‘My special subject for my final year dissertation is Bible prophecy.’

  Miss Vale and Cleaver exchanged knowing, approving glances. ‘I just knew this was meant to happen,’ the old lady said. ‘You couldn’t be in better company, Benedict. Did you get a chance –’