The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  Everything around him was destroyed. The shattered buildings were on fire. Bodies lay strewn across the ground, and the stench of charred flesh filled the air. The chopper was a blazing skeleton.

  Ben stepped out from behind the tractor. The rifle was lying in the dirt a few yards away. He went to snatch it up, then saw that a piece of flying shrapnel had crushed the receiver. He swore, grabbed the pistol from his bag and emptied out the useless BAR magazines.

  Then suddenly, the troopers that had landed from the third chopper were back. All six of them, darting between the shell of the burning aircraft and the wrecked buildings. Weapons raised, fire reflected on their goggles.

  And now Ben realised with an icy shock that he was in trouble. More men were coming down the other way. Their leader’s face split into a wide grin.

  Jones. He must have landed a fourth chopper somewhere behind the trees, using the first three as a distraction. There were five troopers with him, all clad in tactical battle gear, all aiming the same M-16 assault rifles.

  A dozen men in all. Maybe three hundred and fifty rounds of high-velocity rifle ammunition, all for him. And he was trapped right in the middle, with no time to get back behind cover.

  ‘Got you now,’ Jones yelled. ‘You’re all alone.’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  When Ben heard the next gunshot his body involuntarily tensed up solid like a boxer tightening up to take a punch. In that suspended-animation breath of time that is all a man has to ready himself for sudden death, he waited for the impact of the bullet that would kill him.

  What happened instead was that one of the troopers was suddenly jerked off his feet as though someone had hooked him up with a cable to a speeding train. He landed spreadeagled in the dust, his rifle clattering to his side. The boom of the gunshot echoed across the farm.

  ‘Not quite alone,’ a voice shouted.

  Suddenly there was chaos. Shots seemed to be coming from all directions. The snap of a small-calibre rifle and another trooper went down, clutching his head. The rest scattered, flinging themselves down behind whatever bits of discarded farm machinery, rusted-out drums, stacked tractor tyres, offered them shelter.

  Whoever was shooting was moving from cover to cover. It had to be someone who knew the layout of the farm blindfolded. Another rolling boom, and a trooper screamed as his thigh burst open with a spatter of blood. Another snappy report and the man next to Jones fell forward without a sound.

  Two shooters. The.22 Marlin and the Ithaca shotgun. Riley and Ira had joined the party.

  Ben dived back behind the tractor. To his left, four troopers were pinned down under cover near the burning chopper. To his right were Jones and his team, crouched behind a pile of firewood logs. They were firing sporadically at nothing, panic showing in their movements. Ben punched the pistol up and shot one. Return fire ricocheted off the tractor’s fender. He fired again. Hit another.

  But then he saw something that made his heart stop. At the end of the alleyway between the wrecked and now blazing cowshed and the storeroom building, ten yards from Jones and his remaining men, Ira was stepping out into the open with the .22 Marlin in his hands. His chin was high and there was a glint of pride in his eyes. Old Riley Tarson hobbled out behind him, the shotgun clamped in his fists, thunder in his face. ‘You people have no right to be here,’ he yelled.

  Jones whipped his rifle round towards the two men. Ben let off four rapid rounds from across the alley and Jones flung himself back down in the dirt behind the log pile.

  Then it was mayhem, shots rattling back and forth across a wild V of fire. Ira went down, grimacing in pain. Riley stood his ground, working the pump on his old Ithaca, loosing off blast after blast. The Beretta kicked and boomed in Ben’s hands until it was empty.

  The gun battle was over as quickly as it had begun. A strange silence hung over the farm. The alleyway was littered with dead men.

  Jones was the only intruder left alive. He burst from cover, threw down his empty rifle and ran for all he was worth, shielding his face with his arm as he stumbled through the flames of the burning chopper and disappeared among the buildings.

  Riley dropped the shotgun and crouched down beside the fallen Ira. The young Indian was clutching his leg, groaning in agony, blood seeping between his fingers.

  Riley looked up as Ben approached. ‘Figured you might want a little help,’ the old farmer said.

  Ben nodded. ‘I owe you one.’

  Ira grinned weakly up at him. ‘Whipped ’em good, didn’t we?’

  Ben crouched and examined the wound. ‘It’s just a graze,’ he said. ‘Riley, you’d better get him out of here. There might be more of them coming.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Riley said.

  ‘To get Jones.’ Ben turned and started walking fast. Ejected the empty magazine from the pistol and let it drop down into the dust as he slammed in another.

  Fire was crackling up the side of the cowshed, blocking his way. He ducked inside the wrecked storeroom, battled through the flames and ran out through the front entrance into the yard just in time to see Jones stumbling over to the big barn. He was moving clumsily in his tactical gear. Ben crossed the yard after him and walked inside the barn. It was one of the few buildings that hadn’t caught fire.

  It was dark and cool inside. Ben looked about him.

  Then Jones was bursting out of the shadows and the prongs of a pitchfork were flying at Ben’s chest.

  Ben sidestepped the thrust, and the fork embedded itself in the timber wall.

  Jones staggered away, hatred in his eyes. He reached down and ripped away the Velcro strap holding his tactical combat knife in its leg sheath. He whipped the blade out and crouched low, like an animal about to pounce.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ Ben said quietly. ‘Big mistake.’

  Jones let out a wild scream and charged at him. He swung the knife at Ben’s throat. Ben stepped into the arc of the swing, caught the wrist and twisted it hard. The knife spun out of Jones’s grip.

  The CIA man cried out in pain. He writhed away and backed further into the shadows of the barn, moving towards the ladder that led up to the hayloft, glancing wildly around him for anything he could use as a weapon. He stumbled over an empty drum and knocked over a stack of fencing poles. Grabbed one of the poles. It was five feet long, thick pine, sharpened to a crude point. He tried to throw it like a spear, but it was too heavy and crashed against the rusted housing of a large circular saw with its point sticking upwards at an angle.

  Ben kept coming. Jones had nowhere to run to now.

  ‘You’re in my world now,’ Ben said. ‘You’re weak and you’re unarmed, and you’re finished. You should never have got in my way.’

  Jones let out a strangled noise and scrambled up the rickety ladder. Ben followed him up to the raised platform thirty feet above, where cobwebbed bales were stacked up in the dusty shaft of light streaming from a gable window. He raised the pistol and aimed it at Jones’s head.

  Jones dropped down on his knees in the hay, his face contorted. ‘Don’t kill me. Please.’

  Ben lowered the gun and thrust it in his belt.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to kill you.’ He reached into his bag.

  Jones screamed in horror as Ben took out the bottle and syringe. He unslung the bag, let it fall and stepped towards the CIA man. Jabbed the needle into the bottle and pulled back the plunger. Jones tried to scrabble away. He was blubbering with terror now. Ben grabbed him, threw him down in the hay and jabbed the needle deep into his neck. He pushed the plunger home.

  Jones screamed again, broken teeth bared in gibbering fear. ‘What have you done to me?’

  Ben stood back. He tossed the empty syringe into the shadows.

  Then Jones went to pieces in front of his eyes. He battered his head against the floor. Tore out his hair. Stuffed his fingers down his throat in a desperate attempt to vomit the drug from his system. Tears poured down his face.

 
; ‘Tell me how it feels, Jones,’ Ben said. ‘Knowing that in a few hours you’ll be as insane as the poor bastard on the video.’

  ‘Kill me,’ Jones sobbed, bits of hay stuck to his wet face. ‘Please just kill me.’

  ‘No chance,’ Ben said. ‘You’re going to tell me everything.’ He leaned back against the hay bales and watched as the drug circulated through the man’s veins. After a minute or so, Jones’s frenzy diminished and he seemed to relax. He slumped down in the hay.

  The transformation was weird to watch. It took a few more minutes for the man to start loosening up. His face hung expressionless, as though the muscles had been anaesthetised. His eyes rolled back in his head. Then he began to talk, in a mumbling voice.

  Ben knew what he had to do. He was at the end of a thousand-mile trail of dead government agents and police. That added up to some of the worst trouble he’d ever been in, and it was going to take a lot of very persuasive evidence to get him out. He only hoped that Jones was about to provide just that.

  He reached back into his bag and found the oblong shape of his phone. He took it out, turned it on and activated the video camera function. Pointed the phone at Jones.

  He spoke loudly and clearly. ‘Tell the camera who you are.’

  The agent’s eyelids fluttered. ‘My name is Alban Hainsworth Jones,’ he muttered without hesitation. ‘I work for the CIA.’

  Ben nodded. Looked like the stuff was working. Now to press on. ‘Tell the camera the name of the person who was kidnapped on Corfu by former Government agents Kaplan and Hudson, with the collusion of active members of the CIA.’

  Jones’s eyes darted back and forth. His fingers were twitching and clawing, as though there was some desperate internal struggle going on to hold in the truth despite the chemical signals flooding his brain. ‘Zoë Bradbury,’ he mumbled. ‘Zoë Bradbury was kidnapped by US agents and brought to an unauthorised secure facility in rural Montana for questioning.’

  ‘What was your part in this, Agent Jones?’

  ‘To extract the information from her using brutality and torture if needed,’ Jones said. ‘And to eliminate any opposition, which is why I murdered Dr Joshua Greenberg and two Georgia police officers.’ Sweat was pouring off his brow. His face was contorting, veins standing out in a livid Y-shape on his forehead. The conflict inside him seemed to be tearing him apart.

  Ben held the camera closer. ‘Why was Zoë Bradbury’s information so important?’

  ‘Because of Jerusalem.’

  ‘Explain that.’

  Jones’s eyes rolled back in his head, so that just the whites showed. His lips peeled back to show his jagged teeth. He looked like a zombie. It sent a shiver down Ben’s spine.

  ‘Too late to stop it now,’ Jones muttered. ‘It’s in motion. It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen in less than twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Too late to stop what?’

  ‘It was never about the girl. It was about war.’

  ‘What war?’

  Jones’s eyes rolled back down and focused on him. He smiled weirdly. ‘The war in the Bible,’ he said.

  Ben processed the words. They were like a slap in the face. They wouldn’t sink in. ‘Keep talking.’

  Sweat dripped down the man’s nose. It was pouring off him faster than anything Ben had ever seen. Pooling in the hollow at the base of his throat, soaking rapidly through his clothes. He seemed to be on fire. His eyes were rolling and darting alarmingly. ‘The end of the world,’ he croaked. ‘The End Times. Armageddon. They’re starting it. They’re going to make it happen. Starting in Jerusalem.’

  ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Something massive,’ Jones said. ‘And there’s nothing you or anyone can do to stop it.’

  Ben was stunned, hardly able to think straight as his mind raced to make sense of this. ‘Slater’s in charge of all this? Who is he?’

  Jones’s grin was frozen and wild. He was beginning to shake violently. He mumbled something incomprehensible.

  ‘Speak clearly,’ Ben said.

  Jones looked up at him. His eyes were rimmed with blood. ‘I’m going to go mad,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes. You are. Now answer the question.’

  It might have been the effect of the drug, or it might have been just the horror in the man’s mind, knowing that he was going to spend the rest of his life as a babbling lunatic. But something snapped in Jones’s head. Ben read it in his eyes – but reacted too slowly.

  Jones was suddenly rearing up to his feet. Ben reached out to press him back down, but there was some kind of mad power in him that allowed him to force past.

  Before Ben could stop him, Jones had covered the ten steps to the edge of the hayloft platform. There was no rail or barrier to stop him. He didn’t slow down. He hurled himself off the edge and sailed out into space, twisting in midair. Ben caught a glimpse of the wild light in Jones’s eyes as he dropped towards the floor below.

  He didn’t hit the floor.

  His fall was arrested by the upward-pointing fence post that he’d tried to spear Ben with earlier. It caught him between the shoulder blades, and his falling weight drove it right through him, through organs and ribcage and right out of his chest. The wooden point protruded grotesquely, slick with gore.

  Jones stared upwards at Ben. His head was thrown back at an unnatural angle. The blade of the old circular saw was embedded in his skull. Blood and cranial fluids oozed down the rusty steel disc, down the housing of the machine to the dirt floor.

  Ben shut off the phone, dropped it in his pocket. He grabbed up his bag and climbed back down the ladder. His mind was still reeling from what Jones had said.

  They kidnapped Zoë to start Armageddon.

  It seemed insane, and for a moment he wondered whether what he’d heard was genuine or the brain-frazzling effects of a drug that turned men insane.

  But no. There had been something in Jones’s eyes, even as his sanity was slipping away. He was telling the truth.

  Ben stood staring at the CIA man’s corpse, trying to understand what he had meant.

  Then he tensed, alerted by the sound outside. He ran to the barn door and out into the sunlight. The wreckage in the yard and the alleyway was still blazing, hot on his face. Through the shimmering heat-haze and the slowly rising pall of smoke he saw the helicopters landing beyond the farm gate. Four of them, so dark green as to be almost black, the letters FBI in white across their sides.

  The first one to touch down was the big twin-prop Boeing. Ben hadn’t seen one since his army days. Hatches slid open. A man stepped out. He wasn’t wearing tactical clothing, but a grey suit. His sandy hair fluttered in the whipping blast of the rotors as he hurried across the grass, keeping his head low.

  Behind him was Alex. Her eyes were wide as she took in the devastation of the farm, the burning buildings, the wrecked choppers. Then she caught sight of Ben and her face lit up.

  Ben walked towards them out of the carnage. He reached for the Beretta in his belt and tossed it away into the dirt.

  More personnel were spilling out of the helicopters as they landed. The grey-suited man strode purposefully up to Ben. His hand went to his jacket, and came up holding a badge. Armed agents swarmed round his flanks, pistols trained on Ben.

  Ben wearily raised his hands.

  ‘I’m Special Agent Callaghan,’ said the grey-suited man. ‘And you’re under arrest.’

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Ben was frisked and ushered briskly into one of the choppers by big, silent men in dark suits and dark glasses. He watched through a window as Callaghan put Alex and Zoë on the second chopper and boarded with them.

  The flight took a long time, and it was evening when the helicopters touched down at a private airstrip where black SUVs stood on the runway together with men with guns. Ben was escorted across the tarmac to a sleek jet. The guards kept him away from Alex and Zoë.

  Some time later, the jet landed at what looked like a military airfield. M
ore black cars were waiting for them. Ben was marched across to one of them, a door held open for him, an agent sitting either side of him. Callaghan climbed into the front passenger seat and the car took off at high speed, leading the way for a procession of vehicles. Nobody spoke.

  But Ben could guess where he was being taken.

  Langley, Virginia, CIA Headquarters. As the cavalcade of cars approached the vast sprawl of buildings, he saw his guess was right. Armed security personnel guarded the tall steel gates that bore the eagle-and-star seal of the Central Intelligence Agency. Callaghan flashed a card as they went through, and a series of gates glided open for them. They drove through building complexes with thousands of windows, illuminated like starships in the dusk, past floodlit lawns where rows of US flags fluttered in the breeze. Everything was immaculate, a monument to unflinching national pride and self-possessed superiority.

  Then the car stopped and Ben was led inside a building. The place was milling with activity, more layers of security to pass through and hundreds of workers swarming through the wide corridors. Callaghan walked briskly, and Ben followed, aware of the men in black suits right behind him. Glancing over his shoulder he spotted Alex fifteen yards behind. She was being escorted along by more of the same dark, taciturn men. She smiled at him, but it was a nervous smile. Zoë was nowhere to be seen.

  Ben followed Callaghan through an open-plan labyrinth of operations rooms that were heavily cluttered with desks and computer terminals, staff and security personnel swarming everywhere. The place looked like the London Stock Exchange. Rows of clocks displaying the times in different countries. Hundreds of monitors flashing and blinking, giant screens on the walls showing news broadcasts from all over the world. Brightly lit electronic political maps of the globe, animated to show movements and developments that Ben could only guess at as he walked by. Everywhere he looked, scores of people were glued to the screens as though American national security would collapse into rubble and anarchy if they glanced away for just an instant.