‘Long time,’ Ben said.
‘Long enough for the hurt to fade,’ she said. ‘His name was Sam.’
Ben looked at her.
‘Oh, he’s not dead or anything like that,’ she said, catching his expression. ‘Though he fucking well deserves to be. Now happily married to Angie, who used to be my best friend and now holds the number two spot on my personal shit list.’ Her brow flickered with anger, and then she relaxed and smiled. ‘So I do understand how you feel, Ben. I was pretty fucked up over it for a while. But then one morning I woke up there in my little flat and I just realised how free I was.’
Ben smiled. ‘Thanks, Darcey.’ He reached out and touched her hand. She didn’t pull away from his touch.
‘Free to do all kinds of wicked, wonderful things,’ Darcey said. She laced her fingers into his, and moved a little closer.
Ben didn’t pull away either.
Darcey stood up, leading him up to his feet. Her smile fell away and she looked seriously into his eyes. As he stood, her arms slipped around his neck and her lips came up to meet his.
Ben closed his eyes. He couldn’t tell if it was tiredness making him dizzy, or the wine, or something else. He was standing on the edge of the cliff, everything happening in slow motion as part of him struggled to keep from tumbling head over heels into the warm, inviting waters below.
‘Her loss, anyway,’ Darcey murmured.
The first kiss was tentative, almost furtive. Then she pulled him in tight and crushed her lips hard against his. He felt her body pressing into him, and realised it was because he was holding her close. He could feel her heart beating fast against his own as the kissing turned more passionate.
She broke away, breathing hard, her face flushed. ‘Come on.’ Gripping his hand, she led him inside the annexe. Before they even got to the bedroom door she was kissing him again. She shoved open the door with her behind, then pulled him to the bed and swung him round with surprising strength. He flopped down on the soft duvet as she quickly stripped off her top and then clambered onto him, straddling him and smothering him with more kisses, giving him no time to think or to want to stop. She rolled over on her back, slipped one long leg out of her jeans, then the other, and kicked the jeans away and rolled back on top of him, giggling as she fumbled for his belt buckle.
Her phone rang inside the pocket of her jeans on the floor.
They both froze.
‘There’s only one person that could be,’ Darcey said, her mouth an inch from Ben’s. She tore herself off him, swung an arm down from the bed and scrabbled for her jeans. The phone was still ringing insistently. Fishing it out, she quickly put it into hands-free mode so Ben could hear, and hit reply.
‘Darcey?’ A man’s voice Ben hadn’t heard before.
‘Mick?’
‘You OK? You sound a little breathless.’
Darcey brushed a tangle of hair away from her eyes. She couldn’t stop smiling. ‘I had to run for the phone. What’s happening?’
‘It was there in the locker,’ Walker said. ‘Just like you said. I got it, no problem.’ He lowered his voice and sounded serious. ‘It’s a file, Darcey. And I think you need to see it immediately. Have you got a fax there?’
Ben pointed through the open bedroom door. There was a compact phone-fax on a stand in the front hallway of the annexe.
‘Hold on, Mick,’ Darcey said. She and Ben ran over to the fax machine, and she read the number out to Walker.
‘Copy that,’ Walker said. ‘Sending it now. You might want to keep it safe, Darce. Original’s going into a bank deposit box first thing tomorrow. You’ll see why when you read it,’ he added cryptically. ‘Keep in touch, OK?’
Moments after Walker ended the call, the little fax machine whirred into life, sucked in the first sheet of paper and its printer went to work.
‘What do you think it is?’ Darcey asked as she hurriedly pulled her clothes back on.
Ben looked at the digital readout on the front of the machine. ‘Whatever it is, there’s twelve pages of it headed our way.’
The colour fax took less than two minutes to print. It was the entire intelligence file on Operation Jericho.
‘Jamie Lister must have smuggled it out of his office when he went AWOL,’ Darcey breathed. ‘Holy shit. Look at this.’
The classified operation was described in fine detail. It was all there, every official stamp, every high-ranking signature. Some names, like Ferris, Blackmore and Yemm, came up over and over. The first two pages consisted of profiles of Grigori Shikov and his son, the latter shown in a couple of photos on the deck of a motor yacht with a pretty blonde in a bikini.
It wasn’t until Ben got to the third page that the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Here was irrefutable black-on-white proof that the senior intelligence chiefs heading up Lister’s department had known about the gallery robbery well in advance from the reports they’d received from their informant Urbano Tassoni.
The next page showed a face Ben remembered from the robbery. Bruno Bellomo, one of the men he’d dangled from the window. His real name was Mario Belli, and he’d been an undercover agent with clear orders, signed and counter-signed by Lister’s superiors.
‘They didn’t care if innocent people got killed,’ Darcey said in disgust. ‘Look at this line: “a degree of collateral damage may be deemed permissible in order to facilitate the operation”. It’s just like Lister said.’
On the following pages was a dry official summary of the Tassoni shakedown, incorporating a series of compromising photos of him with underage prostitutes, and a summary of the deal that he’d been offered. That information alone was enough to cause a major international incident.
And then, on the next page, came the money shot.
‘Fuck me,’ Darcey muttered.
Tassoni’s picture, with the word ‘ELIMINATED’ stamped in official red across his face. Below it was the codename of the operative who’d carried out the job, with the signature of the chief who’d sanctioned it – Mason Ferris. The next page was a still from the suppressed security footage, showing the real assassin arriving at Tassoni’s house several minutes before Ben.
The final printed sheets consisted of Ben’s military record and some satellite images of him walking through the streets of Rome the night of the shooting. He was too dazed to even look at them.
‘Waste of time, eh?’ Darcey beamed.
That was when they heard the phone ring again. It was a different ringtone from before. The phone Ben had taken from Gourko. He laid the fax printout on a table, dug the phone out of his pocket and answered it. The voice on the other end was deep, gravelly, and hard as titanium.
‘This is Grigori Shikov,’ the voice said. ‘You have something that I want.’
Chapter Seventy-Two
‘You’d better believe it,’ Ben said to Shikov.
A rasping chuckle down the phone. ‘This is the problem. Why should I believe you have the Dark Medusa?’
‘Because I’m sitting here looking at it,’ Ben said. ‘Let me see. I’d say the egg’s about eight inches high, white gold, diamond-encrusted, with images from classical mythology around the outside.’
Shikov was silent for a moment. ‘And on the inside?’ he said suspiciously.
‘The Medusa herself, you mean? The miniature bust is made of bloodstone, dark with little flecks of red. Scary-looking lady. What are those eyes made of? Alexandrite, isn’t it?’
‘Where did you find it?’ Shikov said, audibly shaken and fighting to cover the tremor in his voice.
‘In Bezukhov’s grave,’ Ben replied. ‘Right where the map said. You were just a little too late, Shikov.’ It was a wild bluff. The Russian had only to ask one hard question, and it was over. Ben knew he needed to steer the conversation away fast. ‘So do you want it or not? I have other buyers interested.’
‘How is this possible?’ Shikov asked. ‘It’s possible because I’m smarter than you,’ Ben said.
‘I w
ant it,’ Shikov said. ‘You must meet me. We will talk.’
‘Right. And then you’ll have your men kill me, for Anatoly.’
‘My son was a worthless piece of shit,’ Shikov said. ‘So was Tassoni. The egg means much more. Trust me. I am a businessman. But I also must trust you to come alone.’
‘You think I’d bring the cops?’ Ben said. ‘Think again. I’m a fugitive, wanted for murder. Tassoni might have been a shit, but he was an important shit.’
‘Then we have a deal. You give me what I want, I give you what you want. The egg, for your life.’
‘Not good enough. I need to disappear after this, Shikov. I want money.’ As he talked, Ben carried the phone into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.
From outside the door, Darcey could hear him talking but couldn’t make out the words. She paced, chewing her lip and wondering why he’d shut her out like that. After a minute or so, he’d gone quiet. The phone rang again, and she heard him answer it and talk a while longer. Almost twenty more minutes went by before he finally emerged from the bedroom and she attacked him with questions.
‘Well?’
‘We set up a meeting,’ Ben said. ‘We figured halfway house. Berlin.’
‘What was all that about money?’
‘To make it believable that I really have the egg. Nobody would let it go for free.’
‘Who called you afterwards?’
‘Shikov lost his signal for a minute. He called back.’
‘This RV in Berlin. A precise location?’
Ben nodded.
‘You’re not thinking of going?’
Ben didn’t reply.
‘It’d be madness, Ben. Don’t you see? This is perfect. I’ll call Applewood. We’ll spring the biggest trap in history and stick Shikov in a cage where he belongs. Anybody tries to fuck with us, we have that.’ She pointed to the fax printout on the table. ‘Our ticket to freedom. That information right there is all the bargaining power we need to buy us both our lives back.’
Ben grinned at her. ‘You know, you’re right.’
‘Damn right I’m right.’
‘Let’s celebrate. Did you say there was champagne down in the cellar?’
‘Enough bottles to knock out the whole of Monaco,’ she said.
‘You go and fetch one. I’ll grab two glasses from the kitchen.’
‘Now you’re talking, Ben Hope.’ Darcey trotted down the passage and unbolted the little door that led down to the wine cellar. She skipped down the concrete steps. The cellar was like a maze. Tall racks surrounded her, filled from floor to ceiling with row after row of dusty bottles. She drew one out, brushed away cobwebs. A vintage Moët. This would do just fine. As she ran her eyes over the label, she was thinking about when the bottle was empty and how she was going to haul Ben back in the bedroom and . . .
The cellar door banged shut. She heard the creak of the bolt sliding home.
‘Ben!’ she yelled. She flew up the steps, still clutching the bottle.
There was something on the top step that hadn’t been there just a moment ago. A dinner plate, and on it a whole roast chicken, cellophane-wrapped, cold from the fridge. Next to that was a two-litre bottle of mineral water. Propped against the bottle was a scrawled note that said simply:
Sorry.
B
Darcey beat against the cellar door. ‘Let me out, you bastard!’
But Ben was already gone.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Monaco’s city lights glittered below as Ben ran down the winding cliff road with his bag on his shoulder. He hailed down a cab that took him the rest of the way to the harbour. Sitting on a low wall, he smoked a Gauloise, gazed out across the dark water and listened to the soft lap of the tide against the harbour wall and the jostle of the sailing yachts and catamarans in the marina. A party was in full swing on the lit-up deck of some trillion-dollar megayacht, a band playing, and women in long dresses parading up and down the jetty where it was moored. As he watched them from a distance, Ben thought about Darcey Kane. He’d had no option but to lie to her about meeting Shikov in Berlin, any more than he’d had a choice about shutting her in the cellar. She was too clever and tenacious. And his next move was one he needed to make alone, his way.
Then he thought about what had nearly happened between them. He’d had a choice there, all right.
He sighed and decided to try to stop thinking so much.
Far out to sea, a small aircraft was approaching. Ben watched as the seaplane’s lights descended towards the horizon and it touched down a few kilometres away over the water. Dead on time. Shikov was definitely taking the bait.
Moments later, a fast outboard launch cut across the harbour, and Ben knew it was for him. He walked down the jetty to meet it and two guys ushered him aboard. One of them pointed a Smith & Wesson revolver at the pit of Ben’s stomach as the other frisked him and checked his bag for any concealed weapons. Then the launch motored out of the harbour and out to sea, where the guy with the revolver waved him aboard the waiting Bombardier amphibious aircraft. More silent armed men flanked him as he buckled into a seat. The plane gathered speed, bounced once and then took off.
From the Côte d’Azur, the thrumming, vibrating Bombardier flew overland. Roughly northeast, Ben guessed by the stars, though he didn’t ask, aware he’d get no reply. A long time passed before they finally touched down at a remote private airfield that could have been anywhere between Geneva, Milan or even Zürich. A Mercedes saloon took him and his armed escorts a few hundred metres up the runway as the Bombardier taxied away. A sleek white Gulfstream jet was on standby. Ben was hustled unceremoniously up the gangway and shown to a seat in the back. It was a little more luxurious than the flying boat. Ben spread himself out in the plush leather seat, ignoring his hosts, and closed his eyes.
He lost count of how many hours the jet stayed in the air – maybe six, maybe longer. By the time the Gulfstream dropped below the clouds, they’d passed through a couple of time zones and dawn was breaking over the wild landscape of mountain and pine forest that Ben could see from his porthole.
After a low pass through a wooded valley, the jet dropped suddenly and came down to land on a runway that looked as though it might have been hastily knocked together years before by military engineers. Ben noticed the rocket-pitted concrete and wondered what former European war zone they were in. Georgia, maybe.
As Ben stepped down from the jet, the Georgian plates of the black Humvee parked waiting at the foot of the strip told him his guess had been correct. The same pair of armed goons prodded him down towards the vehicle as its doors opened and another two men climbed out. Neither of them appeared to be Grigori Shikov. Ben guessed that honour would have to wait. The Humvee passenger was holding a stubby Kalashnikov rifle with a folding stock and a long, curved magazine. He barked an order, and one of Ben’s escorts grinned and whipped a cloth hood from the pocket of his jacket. He stepped up to Ben and jerked it roughly over his head. Ben felt a big hand grab his arm, and he was shoved into the back seat of the Humvee.
Then it was more travelling, lurching and bouncing over rough roads as the vehicle headed east into the rising sun, whose glow Ben could see through the material of the hood. The drive lasted another twenty minutes or so; by the time the Humvee paused to pass through a set of gates and then lurched to a halt, Ben’s eyes were tired from straining to make out his surroundings through the hood. He heard the doors opening, and the men hauled him out of the vehicle. They walked him across a stretch of paving, then shoved him through a door into a cool, airy building. Down a corridor, and into another room that smelled of antique leather and gun oil. He was thrust into a chair. Voices all around him. A whiff of foul breath as someone stepped up close to yank the hood off his head.
And Ben found himself sitting across a broad desk, face to face with Grigori Shikov.
The old man wore a light grey suit that was stretched too tightly across the bulk of his shoulders and broad back. His
large, rough hands, like a manual worker’s hands, were curled into fists on the leather desktop. His eyes were set far apart, hooded underneath scowling brows and boring into Ben’s. To Shikov’s left stood a younger man, late forties, balding, wearing a suit, glasses and a nervous frown.
The big, broad, grizzled old man stared at Ben for a long time. Ben returned the stare, while in his peripheral vision he’d already counted the other men standing in the room in a loose semi-circle either side of him. In addition to the two heavies who’d accompanied him on the jet, there were the other two from the Humvee and another pair he was seeing for the first time. As far as he could tell, all the men were carrying concealed pistols. The Kalashnikov rifles were more obvious, and two of them were pointed right at Ben’s head. He sat very still.
‘You know who I am,’ Shikov grated.
‘I know who you are,’ Ben answered.
Shikov motioned to the man at his side. ‘This is my associate, Yuri Maisky.’ Then he turned and cast a heavy glance at Ben’s bag, which had been turned upside down and left sitting on a chair across the room. ‘It seems you are travelling light, Mr Hope,’ he rumbled.
‘We’ll do this the way we discussed on the phone,’ Ben said. ‘You give me half the money up front. Then I take you to where I left the egg and we exchange for the rest.’
Shikov let out a long breath, with the look of a patient teacher speaking to a slow-witted child. ‘I could have these men extract whatever information I need from you.’
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve had a man tortured,’ Ben said, glancing over at Maisky, whose frown had deepened as he stood listening. ‘But if anything happens to me and I don’t make a phone call sometime in the next couple of hours, my colleague will know something’s wrong. The only place you’ll ever see that egg then is in your dreams.’
Shikov’s eyes bored deeper into Ben, as if scanning the contents of his mind. Ben maintained eye contact. After a few seconds, Shikov nodded slowly. ‘Very well. Show him, Yuri.’
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 201