The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  Ruth’s eyes were narrowed with fury. ‘Don’t listen to his bullshit, Mother. He wanted Ben to find me so that he could have us both killed. The easiest way to cover up all his lies and take me out of the picture at the same time. Nice and neat.’

  Steiner’s eyes opened wide as he listened to her words, and the colour drained from his face. ‘No,’ he quavered. ‘You don’t understand. I love you. I wanted you back. I … I swear I would never harm you. On my mother’s grave …’

  Silvia slapped him across the face. ‘What did you do, Max?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Steiner protested. ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about. I never—’

  ‘Six professional assassins were sent to my home in France,’ Ben said, looking hard at him. ‘Their mission was to kill the two of us. They’re not coming back. Before the last one died, he told me Steiner had sent him. And I know he was telling the truth. Men tend to do that, when they’re about to have their legs chewed off.’

  Steiner said nothing.

  ‘Lie your way out of that one, Maximilian,’ Ruth spat at him. ‘You fucker.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ said a voice behind them. They all turned.

  Otto had stepped away from the window. ‘It’s true,’ he repeated. ‘Steiner did send them.’ He pointed down the length of the conference table at his uncle. ‘But I’m not talking about that sack of shit over there. It wasn’t that Steiner. It was the Steiner that everyone forgets about. This one right here. Me.’

  Then Otto dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a .380 Beretta. Pointed it right at them and the strange little smile on his face spread out into a grin.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  ‘Have you gone totally insane?’ Ruth yelled.

  Otto’s grin broadened even more. ‘Actually, I’ve got you to thank for this, cousin. Remember that time you came to me, wanting me to help you steal the old man’s papers out of his safe? Well, that got me thinking. What was there about a bunch of antique documents that could be so valuable? Why was the old fucker keeping them a secret? So I had a little sneak peek and made a few photocopies. Very interesting. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so, either.’

  ‘You stupid bastard, Otto,’ Ruth shouted. ‘You have no idea what you’re messing with.’

  Otto’s eyes bulged in sudden anger, the grin evaporating. ‘Don’t call me stupid,’ he screamed. ‘Everyone thinks I’m stupid. Otto the loser. Poor Otto, have to humour him.’ He jabbed his chest with his left thumb, still holding the pistol steady in his right fist. ‘But I’m the fucking smart one here. I know important people. People who respect me for just how fucking smart I am. So you call me stupid one more time and I’ll kill you all right now.’

  His rant had left him breathless. He wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his free hand, then went on.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. I talked to people. Put the word out. And it wasn’t long before I got a call. See, golf isn’t just about hitting balls. It’s about networking. Getting shit done. When you lot think “Oh, there’s Otto out there playing his silly little game again,” guess what? I’m organising. Planning.’

  ‘Planning kidnap and murder,’ Ben said quietly. The connections were flying together in his mind now. ‘Using the Steiner resources and transport links to move people around the world.’

  ‘I’m a businessman,’ Otto smirked. ‘So we did business. They wanted the documents, they got them faxed through pronto. They paid me a lot of money. Trusted me to run the show. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Snatch a few fucking science geeks. So what? Who’s going to miss them anyway?’

  Ruth groaned. ‘Jesus, Otto. Who are these people?’

  ‘I don’t think he even knows the answer to that,’ Ben said. ‘You think they’d trust him with that knowledge? They’re just using him, setting him up to take the rap if anything goes wrong. As soon as they’re done with him, they’ll swat him like a bluebottle. But he can’t see that. Can you, Otto?’

  Otto shrugged. ‘There you go again. Underestimating me. But that’s OK, because you’ll all be dead pretty soon anyway.’

  ‘So where does a guy like you hire a mercenary team? What did you do, reply to an ad in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazine? Some rag-tag crew floating about Eastern Europe looking for easy work? You should have picked better.’

  ‘Oh, you really think you know it all, don’t you?’

  ‘I know a lot,’ Ben said. ‘I know that these associates of yours are holding a young boy hostage to coerce his father into working for them. I know that whoever is payrolling this is after the weapons technology in those Kammler documents. I’m pretty sure you found the location of the Bell. And I also know that you can still make this all OK. Just put the gun down and tell me where your people are keeping Adam and Rory O’Connor.’

  Otto sneered at him. ‘Somewhere you’ll never find them.’

  ‘Do what he says, Otto,’ Dorenkamp implored. ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘Yes, Otto,’ Silvia said. ‘Put the gun down.’ She moved towards him tentatively.

  Otto swung the pistol in her direction. His fingers were twitchy on its hard black rubber grip. ‘Back, bitch.’

  She stared at him, and at the weapon he was pointing at her. ‘Am I dreaming this? You would pay to have your own cousin murdered?’

  ‘Luna’s not the only one in this family who listens in to other people’s conversations,’ Otto said. He wagged a finger at Dorenkamp, then at Steiner. ‘I know you’ve been plotting to cut me out so I don’t take over the business when you retire.’ The finger pointed across at Ruth. ‘And that you wanted to reconcile your differences with this little twit here, and make her your heir over me. Me! She’s not even your flesh and blood. What, am I the one who fucking ran off, spat in your face, tried to kidnap you for Christ’s sake? No. I was loyal to you. All these years, I’ve been taking your shit. Then what do I hear? I could hardly believe my fucking ears. That the long lost brother is back and he’s going looking for his little sister. How sweet.’ He grinned. ‘And how convenient for me. All I had to do was wait and watch, and send in the Ninjas at the right moment. Problem solved.’

  Ben took a step closer to him. Watching the muzzle of the .380. Assessing the distance and Otto’s reaction time. If he could get a few steps closer, he might be able to get the pistol off him. ‘Didn’t quite work out that way, did it?’ he said. ‘Not for you, and not for your Ninjas either.’ Another step.

  But Otto wasn’t that stupid. ‘Back off, Major Hope.’ Ben stopped.

  Otto looked pleased. ‘Not so dangerous now, are you? Fine, so you managed to get out of it first time round. But a smart guy like me always has a Plan B. Why do you think I agreed to come up here today? Because I’m some little heel-hound at your beck and call that you can just order about? Think again. I came here to kill you all. And then I’m going to shoot myself.’

  ‘Otto!’ Silvia screamed.

  ‘Don’t worry, Aunt Silvia. I’ll be fine. I’m just going to put one in my arm. Nothing too bad.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to spoil your golf swing,’ Ben said. He took another half-step forward.

  ‘Everyone will think mad Major Hope came back for revenge,’ Otto went on. ‘He couldn’t bear that he’d been sacked like that. You know what these Special Forces people are like. Maniacs. Psychopaths who live to kill. I heard the shots. Came running to see what was going on, and he shot me in the arm but I managed to get away to call the cops. Then he blew his own brains out before they could catch him.’

  ‘Leaving you the only heir to the Steiner billions,’ Ben said. ‘You really are a clever guy, the way you’ve thought this out.’

  ‘You’d better believe it,’ Otto said.

  ‘Really. I’m impressed.’ Keep him talking. Two more steps, and he could chance it. He didn’t care any more about taking a hit.

  But the chance never came. Ruth had been standing there, to Ben’s right and just behind, listening in dumb hor
ror. She suddenly stepped forward and walked quickly towards Otto, holding out her hand. ‘That’s enough. Just stop, right now. Hear me? Give me the g—’

  The deafening report of the .380 filled the room. Ruth spun round from the impact of the bullet and fell to the floor.

  Silvia let out a screech of horror. Dorenkamp stood frozen for a fraction of a second and then dived under the table for cover.

  Otto backed away towards the window, his eyes bulging at what he’d done, clutching the gun with both hands.

  Ben gaped down at his sister’s prone body. Saw the quick spread of the blood through the material of her blouse.

  But before he could react, he heard a roar of fury. Maximilian Steiner had said nothing for a long time and hadn’t moved a muscle. Now he was on his feet. Kicking out his chair from behind him and charging around the side of the conference table at Otto.

  Otto fired from the hip. Steiner staggered and kept on coming, and Otto fired again. Blood flew, but the billionaire’s momentum couldn’t be stopped by a small-calibre bullet. He slammed bodily into his nephew. The little black pistol spun out of Otto’s grip and bounced across the floor as the two men crashed through the window with a splintering of glass and wood. Steiner drove Otto out onto the balcony. His fists were locked around his neck and he was shaking him violently, shoving him up against the white stone balustrade.

  Ben fell to his knees beside Ruth. She wasn’t moving. His hand was shaking uncontrollably as he felt for a pulse. Don’t-die-don’t-die-don’t-die. When he felt it his heart did a backflip. Silvia threw herself down on the other side of her daughter’s body and he had to push her out of the way as he feverishly checked to see where the bullet had hit. Ripped open the neck of her blouse and saw that the blood was welling up from a clean round hole in her shoulder. His fingers were slick with it as he felt for the damage. No bone fragments in the exit wound. The jacketed round had passed right through.

  Silvia was wailing. Ben shook her with his bloody hands. ‘Call an ambulance. Now.’ Then Ben was on his feet.

  Just in time to see Steiner throw Otto right over the stone balustrade.

  Ben reached the edge at the same moment that Otto’s cartwheeling body hit the glass dome of the conservatory that was directly below the conference room window. He crashed right through it. Right down into the ornamental fountain below.

  He never hit the water. His fall was abruptly halted by the bronze tines of Neptune’s trident. Impaled like a trout on a harpoon. The spikes pierced through his belly and ribs and jutted out through his back. Otto screamed and thrashed for a few seconds, and then his body fell limp. The water of the fountain was turning rapidly pink as Ben looked away.

  Maximilian Steiner lay collapsed on the balcony beside him and the blood began to spread across the stone floor.

  Ben ran back inside for Ruth.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  When the three ambulances shrieked out of the Steiner residence gates, Ben was riding with his sister, and he clutched her hand in his all the way to Bern. She drifted in and out of consciousness as the sedatives the paramedics had pumped into her took effect. Not long before they reached the hospital, her eyes fluttered open and she looked drowsily up at him from the stretcher.

  ‘This was all my fault,’ she murmured. ‘It was me who told him about it. None of these things would have happened if—’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ Ben said.

  The ambulances screeched into the emergency room bays. Paramedics threw open the doors and Ruth was rushed out and wheeled hurriedly down white-lit corridors towards the operating theatre with her drip bag swaying on its stand. Ben walked with the gurney as far as the hospital staff would let him. Steiner was up ahead, the blood soaking fast through the sheets that covered his body, tubes in his mouth and nose. Two doctors burst out of a double doorway at the end of the corridor, one male, one female, already prepped for theatre.

  ‘We’ll take it from here,’ the female doctor said, raising a hand to halt him. Ben stood back and watched as Steiner and Ruth were wheeled through the doors and out of sight.

  Then all he could do was pace anxiously up and down in the waiting room as people came and went around him. Every second of waiting seemed like a week. After forty minutes, Silvia Steiner arrived. Her eyes were puffy and red as she joined Ben in the waiting area and perched herself on the edge of one of the chairs.

  ‘Heinrich and I have just finished talking to the police,’ she said. Her voice was husky from crying and weak with emotion, but as she went on there was a note of fierceness that Ben hadn’t heard before. ‘I told them that our nephew was insane with jealousy because he thought he was being denied his proper inheritance. He took a gun and tried to kill his cousin, and he would have killed us all if Max hadn’t acted to defend us. Then there was a terrible accident and Otto fell off the balcony.’ She reached for a handkerchief, dabbed her eyes and composed herself. ‘That’s what I told them. And I made sure that Heinrich said the same. That will be our story. The whole story,’ she added.

  Ben looked at her and admired her strength. Not just hers. ‘Your husband’s a hero,’ he said. It sounded strange to hear the words coming from his own mouth. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.

  ‘Your name has been left out of it,’ she told him. ‘This is a family matter. Although I suppose you are family now, in a way.’

  He thanked her. Just at that moment, the female doctor who’d talked to Ben earlier came striding up the corridor. The first piece of news was good. Ruth was fine. There had been no complications, no major damage. Her arm would be in a sling for a few weeks but would heal perfectly.

  ‘My husband?’

  ‘I’m sorry to say that Herr Steiner suffered a minor stroke on the operating table,’ the doctor replied gravely. ‘We’re doing everything we can. He’s in intensive care right now.’

  ‘When can I see him?’

  ‘Not yet. But soon. Please try not to worry.’ The doctor smiled and tried to look reassuring, then turned and hurried away.

  Silvia Steiner fell back into her chair. Ben crouched beside her. ‘He’ll be OK,’ he said. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Pray for him.’

  ‘I will. And you look after yourself, Silvia.’ She looked at him tearfully. ‘You’re going?’ He nodded.

  She gripped his arm. ‘You go. Finish this.’

  ‘I need to get into Maximilian’s safe. Do you have the combination?’

  She shook her head. ‘But Heinrich does. You tell him that I said to provide you with anything you need. Anything. He won’t give you any trouble.’

  Before she’d even finished saying it, Ben was heading for the exit.

  ‘You take care,’ she called after him, but he wasn’t listening.

  The Steiner residence was a hive of police and forensic teams. The media were already at the gates, and pretty soon they’d be swarming all over Heinrich Dorenkamp for a statement about the tragedy that had seen Otto Steiner, heir to one of Europe’s biggest fortunes, fall to a horrible death. The newspapers and TV would be full of it that night and probably for the next week, until a fresh disaster came along to turn everyone’s heads the other way.

  Silvia had been right. Dorenkamp didn’t even try to resist Ben’s request to see inside the safe. Five minutes after walking into the foyer, Ben was sitting alone at the billionaire’s Louis XIV desk, reading a sixty-page bound sheaf of waxy, yellowed papers that few eyes had seen since 1945. Each faded page was headed with a Nazi imperial eagle perched on a wreathed swastika, and the official seal of the SS.

  Ruth wouldn’t have been disappointed. The documents had it all. Detailed diagrams and cutaway drawings of the mysterious Bell, showing all its bizarre internal workings. Column after column of technical data whose meaning Ben couldn’t even begin to decipher. Grainy photographs of what looked like some kind of enormous underground factory, a maze of tunnels and galleries, shafts and chambers, together with comprehensive plans of its layout. Everyt
hing he could have asked for was right here.

  As well as some things that he didn’t need to know, but found himself reading with a chill in his spine. Buried near the back, yellowed and faded with age, was a written military order dated 1944, and Ben’s German was good enough to work out what it was. It was an order sanctioning the building of the secret facility under the supervision of the Kammlerstab, the general’s own personal staff. This hadn’t just been some disused munitions factory that Kammler had commandeered for his own use. The whole mammoth construction development had been undertaken for the single purpose of housing his special weapons project and keeping it a deadly secret from the outside world.

  Two names were signed at the foot of the page. The upper scrawl belonged to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, Head of the SS.

  Underneath it was an ugly, spiky flourish of a signature. The ultimate sanction. The mark of Adolf Hitler himself.

  The next few pages were a detailed report on the construction of the secret facility, showing plans of the temporary railway that had carried trainload after trainload of forced labourers from the concentration camps to work on the project. Among the figures in the right margin were statistics of the number who had died, from exhaustion or disease, or from electrocution or drowning or tunnel cave-in, during the build. Tens of thousands of them, their unspeakable suffering reduced to an anonymous typed entry in a report, and all just so that Hans Kammler could keep his machine hidden from Allied Intelligence. The place had been a death camp in its own right.

  Ben had read enough. He put the papers down on the desk. Reached for Steiner’s phone and called Jeff at Le Val.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Jeff asked.

  ‘Plenty. I’ll explain when I see you. Is Brooke still there?’

  ‘She’s back in London,’ Jeff said. ‘Left this morning.’