The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  She shrank away from him, fear in her eyes. Water was dripping from her hair, and her clothing was soaked. Ben could feel his own wet shirt clinging to him, and the wind chilling his skin. He knew he had to get the woman inside the house quickly. Even in summer, hypothermia was a dangerous reality.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said softly. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Sabrina.’ She wheezed, coughed up lake water. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Sabrina, you’re going to have to keep your head down. Don’t do anything unless I say. Understand?’

  The sound of car doors. Shouts carrying on the wind, right on cue.

  ‘Slatan?’ The woman’s voice, harsh and edged with anger. The name and the accent sounded Bulgarian or Estonian to Ben.

  He peered up over the long grass. The rain was moving on quickly. The wind tore a hole in the dark clouds and in the pale moonlight he saw the two figures approaching from the path along the side of the house, scanning right and left as they walked a few yards apart. Both had a grim, hard look and moved cautiously. Professional killers, Ben thought. And as they crossed the terrace to the edge of the grass, he saw the stubby black weapons they were holding in their arms that looked worryingly like Israeli Mini Uzi submachine guns. Sound suppressors, extended thirty-round magazines. The bright crimson dots of laser sight beams swept the lakeside. Whatever it was these people had come out here for, somebody wasn’t taking any chances.

  He quickly checked the pistol he’d taken from the dead man. Even in the dark, he could tell by touch what it was – a big-framed, old-fashioned Colt .45 automatic, maybe a Gold Cup or a Government model. It was a fancy piece, with an extended beavertail grip safety and a muzzle compensator to control recoil by diverting part of the gas blast from the barrel. But all the buttons and bells in the world couldn’t disguise the fact that he had only eight rounds at best and barely visible iron sights that were next to useless for shooting in the dark, against state-of-the-art laser optics and the high-capacity firepower of two machine guns. It didn’t seem quite fair.

  He shrugged to himself. One thing the SAS had taught him was that you did what you could with what you had. And he was lucky he had anything at all. He press-checked the breech. Glanced across at Sabrina and put a finger to his lips. Saw the whites of her eyes in the moonlight.

  The woman and the tall man were about fifteen yards away when the woman suddenly stopped and pointed at the lake.

  The floating dark shape in the water was exactly what Ben had been hoping they wouldn’t spot. His stomach tightened like a fist as he watched and waited for their reaction.

  The woman did pretty much what he expected. She was definitely the leader, and a decisive one. It took her less than two seconds to scan the long grass, jerk the cocking bolt on her Uzi with a ferocious snarl and let loose a ripping spray of gunfire that churned up the ground dangerously close to the grassy clump where Ben and Sabrina were hidden.

  The ball was rolling. No choice. Ben could hardly make out his sights against the target but he fired back anyway. The flat punch of the .45 stabbed his ears and he felt the recoil kick back against his palm. Shooting almost blind, but he’d hit something, because the woman cried out and staggered back a step and fell, clutching her arm. The tall man instantly opened up with his Uzi, lighting up the night with his muzzle flash.

  The sustained burst of fire drove Ben back down the slope, dragging Sabrina with him as clumps of earth and bits of grass showered down over them. Sabrina rolled in the dirt, wrapping her arms around her head for protection.

  Ben scrambled back up the bank just in time to see the tall man helping the woman to her feet and the two of them retreating back towards the side of the house. He chased after them. Saw blood on the ground where the woman had fallen, and a trail of bright red spots along the path.

  At that moment the moon was obscured by another black cloud and the grounds were plunged back into darkness. The man and woman were little more than shadows up ahead. Ben broke into a sprint. As he ran he pointed the Colt and let off three more blind shots that he instinctively knew all went wide of the mark. The flitting shadows darted around the side of the house and into the front yard. He heard running steps on the wet gravel. The sound of doors slamming and the Citroen’s engine revving high, the rasp of spinning wheels.

  Ben rounded the corner of the house and emerged into the yard just as the car was taking off at high speed. He fired at the taillights as they sped away from the gate and up the road, but they were already out of effective pistol range. He lowered the Colt and watched the headlamps carve through the bends, and then the Citroën was gone and the road was as black as the hills that merged into the night.

  He turned away and started running back to Sabrina.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The sky was clearing and the wind was dropping as Ben took Sabrina back to the house. He wasn’t quite sure whether her passivity was a sign of trust for him or a symptom of shock, but her body was limp as he carried her in his arms, and her dripping hair nuzzled against his shoulder. She didn’t seem able to speak, and the only sound she made was a weak sobbing as he carried her up the stairs to look for a bathroom. His first priority was to get her warm and dry. They could talk later.

  He found the bathroom he was looking for on the first floor, and kicked open the door. Lights came on automatically as he carried her in, and he remembered what Lenny Salt had told him about Adam O’Connor’s smart house technology business. He laid Sabrina gently down in a big cane chair in the corner, tore three fluffy cotton towels off a heated rail and wrapped them around her as he ran the bath to a temperature just warm enough to get her blood circulating again.

  He kneeled down beside where she sat, checked her pulse and spoke softly to her. She murmured back. Her face was still pale, but colour was returning quickly. Once he was satisfied that she wasn’t about to keel over, he left her alone to get out of her wet things and into the warm water, and went downstairs to check all the doors and windows. Everything had electronic locks that clunked like a car’s central locking at the touch of a button. He checked each room in turn, the house sensing his movement and lighting the path ahead everywhere he went.

  He could see no signs of a struggle anywhere, until he walked into the master bedroom back upstairs and found the rumpled bed, smashed bookcase and the electric guitar lying on the rug. Moving up to the second floor, the first door he tried led into what was obviously the bedroom of a young teenager. A single bed with an X-Men duvet set, a collection of electronic gadgets scattered across the floor, posters on the wall. He closed the door.

  Across the broad, lushly carpeted landing from the boy’s room was a darkened room with a half-open door. Ben went inside cautiously. Again the lights went on automatically for him as he entered, and he saw that he was in a large study.

  Someone else had visited the room, and not long ago. Ben crouched down and felt the shoeprints on the carpet. They were still damp from the rain. Two sets of them, one larger and one smaller. The tall man and the woman had been here.

  He stood up and looked around. The ultra-modern furnishings were sparse and tasteful. The walls were lined with framed black and white photos of space-age-looking houses in a variety of settings. Below a window overlooking the lake was a black leather swivel chair and a broad desk in ebony wood.

  The damp shoeprints led past the desk to a wall safe in the corner. Ben went over to it and saw how the shoeprints were more concentrated here, overlapping as though the intruders had spent a few moments standing in this spot examining the contents of the safe. They hadn’t bothered shutting the steel door after them, and it hung open. There was no keypad or dial visible anywhere, and he guessed that it was probably voice-activated using a password. No sign of forced entry. The intruders must have known the password.

  Inside the safe were various folders and files marked with printed labels for things like tax and insurance, a couple of lockable steel cash boxes, a presentation case for an e
xpensive Swiss watch, and two horizontal racks of CDs. Ben ran his eye along the double row of discs. None of them was music or DVDs. They were all computer files, and the professor appeared to keep his work life well organised because each little section was marked with labels obviously relating to his own smart house design concepts. CPU VOICE-ACTIVATION SYSTEM. IRIS SCAN RECOGNITION SYSTEM. EMERGENCY OVERRIDE SYSTEM. Ben ran his eye quickly along the line, then stopped.

  There was an empty space in the rack where four CDs used to be. The label underneath the empty space was completely unlike the others. It said KAMMLER STUFF.

  He gazed around the study for more clues. Nothing leaped out at him. He walked over to the desk. There were just a few items on its gleaming black surface. A chrome steel lamp, a closed MacBook and another framed photo, this time of a young boy of about thirteen smiling happily for the camera. Next to the computer was a phone handset off its charger with just one bar left on its battery life indicator, as though it had been left lying there for a few days by someone in a rush to get away. Near the phone was a ballpoint pen and a copy of the Irish Times, dated five days ago.

  Noticing a scrawled note in ballpoint on the upper margin on the front page, Ben leaned down to read it. The scribble had been done in a hurry, but he could make out that it was a set of flight times from Dublin to Graz via Vienna, arriving 6.06 p.m. Austrian time.

  He sensed a presence in the doorway and spun round quickly.

  It was Sabrina. She was wrapped in a bathrobe with a towel round her hair and another one round her shoulders. Her eyes looked a lot brighter, and there was a flush of pink in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘I thought you’d gone.’ She studied him curiously for a moment. ‘You saved me,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  She gave a shaky chuckle. ‘I’ll live. Thanks to you. I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘It’s Ben,’ he said.

  ‘Glad you showed up when you did, Ben.’

  ‘You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.’ She tried to smile. ‘Right now, everything is so screwed up, nothing seems that strange to me.’

  ‘Is Adam your husband, Sabrina?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s my brother. Are you a friend of his?’

  ‘I just want to ask him some questions. Where is he?’

  ‘He’s away on business.’

  ‘In Austria?’

  She frowned. ‘Scotland. At least, that’s what he said. But Rory’s gone.’

  Ben guessed that she was talking about the boy in the picture. ‘What do you mean, he’s gone?’

  ‘He was kidnapped,’ she blurted. ‘I wasn’t sure it was true, but now I know something’s going on. I should have called the cops.’ She looked at him as though a sudden thought had come to her. ‘Are you—’

  ‘No, I’m not the police. Nothing like that.’

  ‘Then what are you? Just some guy who knows how to break necks and shoot guns?’

  ‘I’ll explain everything to you. But not here. We need to leave.’

  She stared at him. ‘Leave?’

  ‘Your visitors seem to have found what they were looking for, but they might want to pay a return visit to tie up loose ends.’

  Realisation crept into her eyes. ‘You mean me?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Guess I don’t have a lot of choice. Where are we going?’

  ‘To the nearest pub.’

  ‘Good. I need a drink.’

  ‘Not to drink. To talk. Get some clothes on. My car’s outside.’

  Sabrina glanced up and down his body. ‘You’re soaked. You need to change. Try Adam’s wardrobe.’

  As she got dressed in the bathroom, he took her advice and found a change of clothes in the master bedroom. He gratefully stripped off his wet things, towelled himself down, and quickly pulled on the warm, dry clothes. The trousers were a thirty-six-inch waist, and he had to cinch the belt up tight to make them fit.

  A couple of miles from the house was a small village with an inn. Ben parked up the Audi, left the Colt in his bag on the back seat and led Sabrina into the lounge bar. The fire was crackling in the chimney and the atmosphere was cheery with a lot of chatter and clinking of glasses. Irish folk music was playing for the benefit of the tourists, and shamrocks and Guinness logos lined the walls.

  ‘Welcome home,’ Ben said, looking around.

  Sabrina shot him a curious glance.

  ‘I used to live here in Ireland. Out west, Galway Bay.’ He bought them each a double Bushmills and carried the drinks towards a little cubby-hole with a candlelit table for two.

  Sabrina sat opposite him. Brushed the hair away from her face, sniffed and cupped her whiskey in trembling fingers.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ he said.

  Sabrina told him everything. About who she was, about her week’s holiday in Ireland to be with her brother and nephew. About Adam’s peculiar behaviour, the tennis camp and the Edinburgh conference and the strange phone call from Rory. ‘The rest is pretty self-explanatory,’ she finished. ‘You saw what happened.’ As she said it, her eyes clouded.

  ‘I don’t believe Adam’s in Edinburgh,’ Ben said. ‘I’m pretty sure he took a plane to Austria. He’d been checking flight times before he left.’

  ‘Why Austria?’

  ‘Maybe to meet with the kidnappers and talk terms. Maybe that’s where they’re holding Rory. Maybe they’ve sent him on some kind of errand. Or else he’s gone there looking for help, which could be a foolish move.’

  Sabrina lowered her head against her hands. When she raised it and looked at him, her face was streaked with tears. ‘Kidnappers. So you really think they’ve taken him?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s what it looks like, Sabrina. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But why? What do they want? Money, like a ransom? Adam isn’t that rich. Richer than he was when he was an academic, but not what you’d call wealthy.’

  ‘You don’t have to be rich to be targeted by kidnappers,’ Ben said. ‘People will do anything to get their loved ones back.’ He paused. ‘But this isn’t about money, I don’t think.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Information. I think they’re using Adam for something, and Rory is their insurance policy.’

  ‘My brother’s a house designer. What information could he have that was so important?’

  Ben asked, ‘Did he ever mention the name Kammler to you?’

  She looked blank, thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Not that I can remember. Who’s Kammler?’

  ‘Your brother was involved in some kind of scientific research. He had some computer files on disc in his study safe. Those people took them. I think whatever is on those discs is what they were looking for.’

  Sabrina was quiet for a moment, biting her lip in agitation. Then she reached for her bag and started rummaging in it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She found her phone. ‘What I should have done days ago. I’m calling the cops. They’ll know how to handle this.’

  He shook his head and leaned across to grab her hand. ‘That’s not a good idea.’

  ‘For Chrissakes, if he’s in fucking Austria that’s a lead, isn’t it? Surely things can be done? Don’t they have, like, Interpol and stuff for situations like this?’

  ‘Look at me, Sabrina.’

  She was quiet and looked at him.

  ‘If you call the police, you’re signing your nephew’s death warrant.’

  She went white. ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘Because Adam is under orders,’ he said. ‘That much is obvious. It’s the reason he was acting strangely before he went away, the reason why he made up that cover story about the tennis camp and going to Edinburgh for business. The kidnappers will have made it clear to him that if he breathes a word of this to anyone, they’ll harm Rory. The last thing anyone needs to do right now is start stirring things up.’

  She didn’
t reply, looked down at the table.

  ‘Now, imagine what you’re going to put in motion if you involve the authorities in this. With all the best will in the world, it’ll leak out. There’s always someone willing to take a backhander in return for a juicy story. Television. Radio. Newspapers. A whole media circus, with the kidnappers watching every move. You might as well hold the gun to Rory’s head yourself and pull the trigger.’

  Alarm lit up her eyes. ‘How come you know so much about all this stuff?’

  ‘Because it was my job to deal with situations like this, and now I’m looking for someone who’s been missing for a long time. I think that person is in deep trouble, and I have a strong feeling it’s connected to the trouble your brother and nephew are in. Beyond that, right now I really can’t say any more.’

  She sighed. ‘So what happens now?’

  He leaned across the table and spoke gently. ‘Sabrina, I do know one thing for sure. You weren’t supposed to survive this evening. When those people go back to whoever sent them and report what happened, and that there’s a witness—’

  ‘They’re going to come looking for me.’ The words came out with a tremor, and she went a shade paler. Ben saw her pupils dilate with fear.

  He nodded. ‘It’ll be easy for them to find out from Adam who you are and where you live. They only have to threaten Rory, and there isn’t anything in the world he won’t tell them. That’s what kidnap is all about. Control.’

  ‘It means I can’t go home.’

  ‘No. It could be dangerous.’

  Her eyes brimmed with tears again. ‘So where I am going to go? Stay with friends? What the hell do I tell them?’

  ‘You tell them nothing. You can’t be in contact with anyone you know. They can be traced, and you’d just be putting them in danger too.’

  She looked helpless.

  ‘Do you trust me?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t even know who you are. But you saved my life. What am I supposed to say?’

  ‘London’s a big place. You can easily lose yourself in it. I know someone there, a very close friend of mine whom I trust completely. I’ll have to clear it with her, but I think she’d let you stay with her. You’d have to cancel everything, keep hidden, not even go out.’