She shook her head. ‘You believe in a lie. Harry Paxton, then a Lieutenant Colonel with the Special Air Service, did not save your life that day. You were just supposed to think he did.’
‘I didn’t see you there that day, Valentine. Where were you, hiding under a stone? I’m the only witness to the fact that Harry saved my life. He shot the Cross Bones captain who was just about to kill me. He was awarded decorations and promotion for it.’
‘There was another witness,’ Valentine said. ‘One who saw the whole thing. Someone who wasn’t shot to pieces and half unconscious when it all happened. Someone whose testimony holds up a lot better than yours.’
‘Who?’
‘His name is Tinashe. He was sixteen when your SAS squad attacked the Makapela Creek mission in Sierra Leone. He was a member of the Cross Bones Boys militia. One of the many youngsters brainwashed by The Baron into killing.’
‘A great witness. A brainwashed murderer, sixteen years old.’
‘He’s a different person now. In some ways, it’s thanks to you. After that day, it was like the spell broke. He ran away from the Cross Bones militia and swore he’d never get sucked into anything like that again. That’s why he was so hard to find. It took us a long time to track him down. Shall I tell you what he saw that day-what really happened?’
Ben tried to control the anger that made him want to tear the room apart. ‘Let’s have it,’ he said coldly.
‘Tinashe was frightened by the battle. He managed to crawl into the hollow of a dead tree. From there he had an open view of the ruined schoolhouse.’
Ben felt a stab of shock at the words. In any official archived report that Valentine might have been able to access, the scene of the battle was described as the mission complex at Makapela Creek. There’d never been any mention of the schoolhouse. He could feel his insides churning.
Valentine went on. ‘According to my witness, most of the militia force fled when the air support arrived on the scene. Does that sound accurate?’
‘It’s perfectly accurate.’
‘So far, so good,’ Valentine replied. ‘Now let me tell you the rest. It was at that moment, just after the helicopters came in, that the witness saw Lieutenant Colonel Paxton walk up behind you and your teammate, later named in the official report as Sergeant Gary Smith. But Paxton wasn’t alone. He was with the Cross Bones second-in-command, Captain Kananga.’
Ben was too stunned and furious to do anything but listen.
‘The witness then saw Paxton shoot you in the back, then shoot Smith. Smith went down. Then Paxton walked over to you as Kananga watched. You had gone down on your face, but you rolled over and were looking up at Paxton as he was about to kill you.’ Valentine paused. ‘Is this detailed enough for you? No way we could have known all this, correct?’
Ben didn’t answer.
‘Smith was almost dead from Paxton’s bullet, but not quite. He still had enough reserves of energy to let off a burst of fire. It took down Kananga and it caught Paxton in the arm. Smith’s the man who really saved your life that day, Major Hope. He’s the one you should be honouring.’
Ben was silent.
‘Paxton turned around and shot him in the head. That’s the point where you passed out. Your colonel would have put one in your brain, but that’s when the troops from 1 Para had touched down and were moving through the wreckage. Paxton had to let you live.’
Ben’s heart was pounding. It was hard to breathe. ‘Why?’ was all he could say.
‘Can’t you guess what it’s about? Paxton was supplying arms to the Cross Bones Boys. Among many other rebel groups he was trading with, using the army as his cover. While your unit was twiddling its thumbs in the Embassy in Freetown waiting for the green light, he was sneaking away and doing business with The Baron. Guns for conflict diamonds.’
‘The Makapela Creek operation was a trap,’ Wolff said from his armchair. ‘We think that Paxton suspected someone from your unit was onto him. We think he deliberately engineered the intelligence leak that led to the assault, so that your team could be ambushed and wiped out. Paxton was meant to be the sole survivor. As it turned out, you managed to slip through the net.’
‘Think about it,’ Valentine said. ‘It all makes perfect sense. There’s nothing in the witness account that you can deny. And his testimony would have been enough to bring Paxton down.’ She sighed. ‘But the problem we have is that Tinashe’s too scared to talk openly. Even now, the child soldiers who helped in the genocide of the Sierra Leone Civil War are hated by their own people-even though they were victims too. There have been reprisals, revenge killings. They’ve become like some kind of untouchable underclass. Tinashe is one of the lucky ones. He’s managed to leave his past behind and he wants to keep it that way. Which leaves us with you. You’re the only one left who can help us.’ She looked at him earnestly, searchingly. ‘So will you? Please?’
There was dead silence in the room as Ben sat and digested the whole thing. A whole minute went by. His mind was bursting.
He stood up. ‘No. You’re all lying.’ He headed for the door.
Zara rushed after him, grabbing at his arm. ‘Ben, wait—’
He brushed her away. ‘Leave me alone.’ He crashed through the door and walked out into the dingy hallway. She ran out after him, pleading and protesting. ‘Please, Ben. I love you.’
He stopped. ‘Do you?’
She looked as if she’d been slapped.
‘You’ve done nothing but lie to me and use me,’ he said. ‘So that your little friends could spy on the man who saved my life.’ He started back up the hallway, heading for the front door.
‘What was I supposed to do?’ she screamed.
He didn’t reply. Reached the front door and tore it open.
‘Where are you going?’
‘As far away from you as I can possibly get,’ he said. ‘Go back to your cronies in there, Zara. They’re waiting for you.’ He stepped outside into the rainy night and slammed the door in her face.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben drove the twenty minutes to the underground parking lot in a daze, and was barely conscious of parking the Mini and stumbling up the concrete steps to his safehouse. He managed to key in the code for the door, and staggered into the flat. The pistol was a hard lump against his hip. He tore it out of his belt and flung it away.
Heading straight for the kitchen, he tore open the cupboard door and snatched one of the bottles of table wine. He stood there balancing it in his hand, for a moment unable to decide whether to open it or hurl it through the window. He opened it. Filled a glass. Paced up and down, fists clenched, wanting to smash something. Wanting to punch the wall until his knuckles were a bleeding mess.
Then he slumped at the table and downed one glass after another. The bottle seemed to empty itself in seconds. He grabbed another and started on that one.
His head was spinning feverishly. It wasn’t the wine or even the fact that he hadn’t slept properly for days. He felt completely overwhelmed by the things he’d just been told.
After a while, he walked in a stupor to the bedroom, fell back on the bed and closed his eyes. He lay there, trying to shut down his thoughts and relax the cramping tension in his muscles.
Slowly, he began to drift. Thoughts blurred. He slept, but it wasn’t a restful sleep. He was back reliving the horror of Makapela Creek once again.
The nightmare unfolded in slow motion. Ben saw the figure walk out of the fire, gun in hand as he gazed down at the man he was about to kill.
But something had changed. Now there were two men standing over Ben and, instead of the faceless, nebulous forms that normally visited him in his dreams, now he could see them vividly. Two men, one African and one European. The black man was powerfully built, wearing khaki fatigues, and the ArmaLite rifle cradled in his arms looked shiny and new and glittered in the firelight.
It was Kananga. He was glancing nervously this way and that, up at the helicopters that were closing
in on the mission complex, then across at the dark jungle as though anxious to follow his fleeing men. Let’s get this done, his expression said.
Beside him stood a tall, thin white man in SAS tropical combat uniform. Paxton. Ben was suddenly seeing him for the first time-that face so familiar and yet so alien, half bathed in the red glow of the burning mission. The eyes filled with a strange and terrifying light. The pistol in his fist rose up to point at Ben.
Ben tried to say something, but his words were a muffled echo lost in the thump of the choppers. He saw Paxton smile.
And, behind Paxton, lying in the bloody dirt, propped up on one elbow, his face pale, shaking with the effort of raising his gun one last time, Ben saw Smith. Paxton spun as the dying soldier’s bullet caught his arm, fired back and Smith crumpled into a lifeless heap.
Then Ben was awake, jolting upright on the bed, every nerve in his body jangling. He put his head in his hands and remembered what Brooke had said. You should listen to your dreams. She’d been right. And he was listening now, seeing it clearly for the first time.
It was as though a part of his brain had awoken after a long sleep, dormant memories suddenly leaping into focus. As if, somewhere deep inside, he’d always known the truth but just hadn’t wanted to face it. Easier to repress it from his conscious mind. Easier just to stay in the comfort zone of self-deception.
The realisation left him breathless. He’d been fooling himself for years. He’d been on the verge of killing for this man, so close he could taste it. And Paxton had just been using him, exploiting a debt of honour that had never existed.
As he sat there, his mind spinning, Ben remembered what Wolff had said. Paxton thought someone in your unit was onto him.
His mind flew back, connections firing that had lain in hibernation for years, images flashing up that he’d completely wiped away. He remembered Smith. Saw the man’s face as clearly as though it had happened yesterday.
They’d been in their quarters attached to the Embassy when the sergeant had come up to him. He seemed agitated about something.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he’d said. There’d been no sirs between them.
‘Talk,’ Ben had replied. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s delicate,’ Smith had said. ‘I’m not even sure.’
Then Paxton had appeared in the doorway and suddenly Smith didn’t want to talk any more; he just lowered his eyes and shuffled away. Strange behaviour from the normally confident soldier. Ben had meant to approach him about it later on-but then they’d had the green light for the assault, and everything had started rolling so fast there’d never been another chance. After what had happened next, Ben’s memory had just blanked it out. Until now.
As he sat there on the bed, he thought back to the old Bible story of the conversion of St Paul in Damascus. Once blind, Paul had suddenly been able to see God when scales fell from his eyes. That was how Ben felt at this moment-except it wasn’t God he could see but the face of Harry Paxton in his mind.
And Paxton was going to pay.
Ben’s head was suddenly clear. He burst out of the flat, sprinted like an athlete to the Mini and took off through the night streets. The rain had stopped, and the stars were twinkling over the Parisian skyline.
He cut across the city, back to the house in the suburbs. Parked the car, ran to the door and banged on it loudly.
This time it was Valentine who answered it. She stared at him, bemused.
‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ she said. ‘Why are you here?’
‘To say I believe you now. And that I want to help, if I can.’
Valentine smiled. For the second time since he’d met her, she went up on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘You’d better come inside.’
‘Is she still here?’ he asked her in the hallway.
Valentine nodded. ‘She’s staying the night here, and going back to San Remo tomorrow.’
Ben didn’t reply. He followed her through to the makeshift operations room. Harrison and Wolff were sitting drinking coffee. They exchanged glances as Ben walked in, and grinned at one another and at Valentine.
‘Glad to have you back,’ Wolff said.
‘Sorry about the neck,’ Ben replied, pointing at the brace.
‘Forget it. You did what you had to do.’
Valentine put her head around a doorway. ‘Someone here to see you,’ she said.
A moment later, Zara appeared. She saw Ben and rushed over to embrace him, eyes shining.
‘I’m sorry I doubted you,’ he said. ‘Sorry I’ve been so blind for so long.’ He turned to Valentine. ‘You want me to work with you?’
‘I was kind of hoping so,’ she said.
‘Then you’ve got your wish. But I have some conditions.’
She blinked. ‘Such as?’
‘I don’t want Zara involved in this any longer. It’s far too dangerous.’
‘Hold on,’ Zara protested. ‘I want to be involved. Nobody’s going to stop me. I’m going back to San Remo in the morning, and I’ll be working from on board the yacht to find out everything I can while Harry’s here on business.’
‘These guys aren’t an official team any more,’ he told her. ‘That means no backup for you if something goes wrong. No extraction plan. No witness programme to hide you. You’ll be completely vulnerable and out in the open.’
‘So will you.’
‘It won’t be the first time for me.’
Zara shook her head. ‘I have to go back. Even if I were leaving him, I’d need to go back for my things.’
‘I’ll get you new things. Anything you want.’
‘My documents.’
‘Easily replaced.’
‘And what about me? Where am I going?’
‘My place.’
‘In Normandy?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll drive you to Le Val in the morning.’
‘But Harry knows where it is,’ she said. ‘You don’t think he’ll come looking for me? I know him.’
‘Harry will have other things on his mind, once I get started on him. And you’ll be safe there. It’s like a military camp, and I have trained men, with guns and dogs. Not even Harry can get in there. You’ll be safe.’ Ben turned to Valentine. ‘Then I’ll come back here, and we’ll make plans.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Valentine cut in. ‘This isn’t the deal. We need Zara on board. She’s an integral part of this. You can’t just take her out of the equation.’
‘Negative,’ Ben said. ‘We do this my way, or you’re on your own.’
Valentine sighed and glanced at Harrison and Wolff. Harrison shrugged. ‘We can’t afford to turn him away,’ he said.
‘OK,’ Valentine said to Ben. ‘It’s a deal. So what happens next?’
Ben took Zara’s hand, felt her warm fingers slip eagerly through his. ‘Let’s go.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Cairo
Around midnight, Egyptian time
Claudel had been working on the encrypted file day and night for longer than his frazzled brain could recall, and was seriously worried for his own sanity.
He’d exhausted every possibility, explored every avenue until his eyes were burning, his fingers trembling. He’d scoured his brain for every name, place and any other kind of reference he could come up with that might somehow unlock this infernal thing. But it was simply not within the bounds of feasibility to hit on the correct password. It could be absolutely anything. It might have to do with the Pharaoh Akhenaten; or then again it could be the name of Morgan Paxton’s great-grandfather’s cat.
And the more Claudel racked his brains and sat there typing in random entries that never came to anything, the more bitterly he resented Kamal for making him do this.
Earlier that day, feeling on the brink of a nervous breakdown, he’d driven back out to the Abusir pyramid site and just stood there under the hot sun. He wanted to weep as he scanned the ocean of rubble that was the four-thousand-year-old wreck of Sahur
e’s necropolis. Prayed for a miracle that could make him see what it was that Paxton was into. None had come.
Then he’d had a thought. Something poor Aziz had said that day, minutes before his death. That when Morgan Paxton had come running from the ruins, he’d been covered in dust and cobwebs. Cobwebs, in a place like this. That could mean only one thing. Paxton had been inside something. And there was only one place you could actually be inside in this arid ruin. Sahure’s pyramid.
Why didn’t I think of that before? he’d thought. He knew the answer. With Kamal’s brooding presence around, it was impossible to think clearly about anything.
So Claudel had dashed towards the crumbling old heap that was all that remained of the king’s ancient tomb. He’d run around the edge of the monument to the dilapidated entrance. He’d crawled inside the claustrophobic passage, webs brushing his face. No archaeology excavation had ever managed to access the rubble-choked interior burial chamber-but maybe there was something in the shaft leading up to it. He’d shone his torch all over the inside, looking for markings, clues, anything.
Nothing. Just dust and spiders and crumbled rock.
He’d crawled out again, feeling utterly defeated. Dragged himself back to the villa and the hated computer. He’d been sitting staring at that password box ever since, deep into the night, too paralysed with fear and stress and rage and frustration to eat or drink or even take a piss.
A sudden surge of resentment made him kick his desk chair back and stand up. He paced the room. Sitting on another chair nearby was the well-worn military-type haversack Kamal had taken from the Englishman, Hope. Claudel lashed out with his foot and sent the chair clattering to the floor.
For a moment Claudel thought he’d broken his toe, and he cried out at the pain. He fell back on the floor and sat there for a minute, groaning and rubbing his foot and hating himself for smashing up his own beautiful possessions. It was the kind of thing Kamal did.
Then he noticed the fallen bag. Half spilled out of it was the crumpled blazer that had belonged to Morgan Paxton.
Claudel staggered up to his feet and hobbled over. Even in his seething rage he hated to see these nasty things trailing on his expensive carpet. He bent down and picked up the blazer between finger and thumb and inspected it in disgust, holding it up in front of him the way someone might hold up a dead rat by its tail. Only an Englishman could wear something this tasteless, he thought to himself.
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 118