Ben Hope 05 - The Shadow Project

by Scott Mariani

  ?I don?t know what you?re talking about. Let me go.?

  ?Why did you want the Kammler papers??

  She stared at him, her rage suddenly giving way to suspicion. ?What did that bastard tell you about Kammler??

  ?Steiner? I think he told me a pack of lies.?

  She snorted. ?Why am I not surprised??

  ?And you?re going to tell me the truth. I want to know what?s going on.?

  ?Why the fuck should I tell you anything? Let me go to the bathroom, unless you want me to piss all over this pretty rug you have here.?

  ?All right. You go. But the door stays open.?

  ?So you can watch??

  ?I don?t want to watch my sister taking a piss.?

  ?I?m not your sister, buddy.?

  He grabbed her arm as she strode towards the bathroom, and jerked her round to face him. She tried to get away, but he held her tight.

  ?That scar on your arm,? he said. ?You want me to tell you how you got it? You were seven years old. We were burning leaves. You, me and our father. Not Maximilian Steiner. Our father, I?m talking about, Alistair Hope. You tripped and fell against the incinerator. Do you remember??

  She said nothing. Her whole body was tense.

  ?Maybe you remember Polly? She was your horse. A Welsh mountain pony, twelve hands, grey. And then there was your fluffy toy dog. You called him Ringle-the-Wee and you wouldn?t be parted from him. I still have him.? He pointed. ?I have a whole box of your things, there under my bed. Things I?ve kept all these years. Do you want to see them? Will that make you believe me?? He ripped his wallet out of his back pocket, opened it and took out a passport-sized picture. ?Look at this. It?s you, about a week before you disappeared. I?ve carried it with me everywhere since.?

  Ruth glanced at the picture, then stared at him defiantly. ?Stick it up your ass. Go tell it to your boss.?

  Anger seized him then, and he shook her violently. ?Steiner didn?t send me. He?s not here. We?re not in Switzerland, we?re in France. Normandy, at my place. Steiner doesn?t know you?re here.?

  ?Let go of my arm. You?re hurting me.?

  He held her tighter. ?I came looking for you because I wanted to save you, Ruth.?

  ?Save me!?

  ?From yourself, you stupid little idiot. I don?t know what crazy stuff you?re into. I just know that it?s going to end with you getting arrested or killed, all right? But if you want, if you really want, I only have to call Steiner and he?ll send someone right over to pick you up. I?m sure he?d be very interested to meet the woman who?s been trying to kidnap him. I might even take you there myself.?

  Her eyes were full of alarm at his words. She twisted furiously against his grip. ?Let go of me!? she screamed at him.

  He did, and she ran to the bathroom and slammed the door in his face, threw the bolt on the inside.

  He thought about breaking the door down, then relented and stood there helpless with his head hanging. Maybe he needed to back off a little.

  Perhaps Brooke was right ? he couldn?t handle this alone.

  Feeling suddenly a hundred years old, as if every last drop of strength had been drained out of him, he left his quarters and locked the door. She couldn?t escape from in there. Even if she broke through the shutters, it was a long drop to the concrete below, and there was no way she could climb down.

  He trudged wearily down the stairs, snatched a bottle of whisky from the kitchen, carried it back through to the dark hall and sat with it on the bottom stair. He could hear the sounds coming from the landing above. It hadn?t taken her long to figure out she was locked in. As he cracked open the whisky, she was already pounding furiously on the door, screaming to be let out.

  Then, as he was into his second gulp, the smashing began.

  He could only imagine what was happening up there. He sat there staring into the darkness and sipping the whisky, and after a while the sound of his possessions being hurled and broken into pieces just washed over him. He closed his eyes, felt his head nod. And gave in to it.

  When he awoke, slumped uncomfortably on the stairs with just the half-empty bottle for company, the house was silent and sunlight was streaming through the hallway from the fan light above the door. He got to his feet, stretching and rubbing his back, and staggered through to the kitchen hoping that a strong coffee would drive away the sharp ache that had set up camp in his temple.

  Someone else was awake, too. As he made his way down the hall the pounding and screaming started again upstairs. The sound of glass shattering. Another lamp, or maybe the mirror.

  Let her get on with it. There couldn?t be much left up there that wasn?t already broken, anyway.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table five minutes later, burning his tongue on scalding black coffee, when he heard the diesel chatter of a taxi pull up outside. The front door opening, familiar footsteps in the hall. He turned to see Brooke walk into the room.

  ?I told you you didn?t have to come,? he said. ?But it?s good to see you.?

  ?You look terrible. Where is she??

  He pointed upwards. ?Can?t you hear??

  ?What?s she doing??

  ?Smashing the place up. She?s been doing it on and off since last night.?

  ?I need a coffee,? Brooke said, rubbing her eyes. ?I was up at five to catch the plane.?

  Ben got up and poured her a cup. ?She says her name?s Luna, and she?s Steiner?s daughter,? he told her.

  ?As in Maximilian Steiner, the guy she was trying to kidnap??

  He nodded. Another crash came from upstairs. More screaming.

  ?Why would she do that?? Brooke asked, puzzled. ?I don?t know what?s going on,? he said. ?I?m going up there to talk to her.?

  ?I?ll come too.?

  ?No way, Ben. You?re staying here. Don?t interfere with this.?

  ?She?s wild. She could hurt you.?

  ?I know what I?m doing.? Brooke gulped down her coffee and left. Ben heard her climbing the stairs. Her soft knock and her voice saying, ?Luna? Can I come in?? before unlocking the door. Then it clicked shut and he heard no more.

  The two women were alone up there a long time. After ten minutes the smashing and yelling had become much less frequent, and after twenty it had stopped altogether. Ben knocked back cup after cup of coffee, pacing up and down in the kitchen and fighting the urge to go creeping up the stairs and listen at the door.

  What the hell was happening? That was his sister up there ? no doubt about that. And yet, she was ? or said she was ? Steiner?s daughter. Steiner?s adopted child? It was feasible, but the possibility was dizzying.

  Questions poured through Ben?s mind. Had Steiner known of the connection all along, and somehow contrived to hire him for that reason? But that seemed impossible. Shannon would have had to be in on it too. Deliberately provoking Ben into hurting him, one unlikely event tripping the next like a line of dominoes. Absurd. So what was the answer?

  Consumed with frustration and impatience, he just had to do something. He still had a card in his wallet with the main office number of the Steiner residence. He snatched up the phone and punched the keys, and asked for Heinrich Dorenkamp.

  When the man came to the phone, Ben came right to the point. ?You told me the Steiners didn?t have any children. Were you lying to me??

  A pause. ?I ? ah??

  ?Did the Steiners adopt a child? A girl of nine, more than twenty years ago? Yes or no, Heinrich? It?s simple.?

  ?I?m afraid I cannot help with your enquiry,? Dorenkamp said in a stiff tone. ?I am very busy at the moment. Goodbye.? And hung up.

  Ben was about to redial the number and get nasty when he heard the door open behind him and turned for the second time that morning to see Brooke walk in.

  He glanced at his watch. She?d been up there for nearly two hours. She looked tired as she pulled up a chair and sat down.

  He looked at her. ?Well??

  Brooke sighed. ?Well, we talked. She listened to what I had to say. And? ?

  ?And?? />
  ?And you were right all along, Ben. She?s who you said, and she knows it. I think she knew it before I got here. Things you said to her last night, things that only her brother could have known.?

  ?So now I?m going to talk to her,? he said. ?There?s something else, Ben. The situation?s stranger than you think.?

  ?Meaning what??

  ?She was convinced that her brother was dead.?

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Ben pushed open the door to his quarters and kicked aside the debris that littered the floor. Everything that could be broken, overturned or torn down, had been. Brickwork showed through the plaster where a chair had slammed into the wall. The chair itself lay in splintered pieces on the carpet. The place looked as though a tank had driven through it.

  ?I?m sorry about the room,? said Ruth quietly from behind him. He turned and saw her sitting in the corner, hugging her knees. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face drawn.

  ?It?s OK,? he said. ?I?d have done a lot worse. Not a stone left standing.?

  ?You and I,? she said. ?We?re Hopes.?

  ?I?m glad you?ve come round to thinking so.?

  She paused. ?I can?t believe this is real. My brother?s supposed to be dead.?

  ?It?s been tried,? he said. ?But it hasn?t happened yet.?

  ?I don?t know anything about you.?

  He nodded. ?We have a lot to talk about. And I think we?d better start at the beginning.?

  ?I could use some air,? she replied.

  ?You want to take a walk??

  * * *

  The sun was shining brightly, just a whisper of a breeze stirring the treetops, as Ben took his sister into the forest that surrounded the Le Val facility. They barely spoke as they walked. He knew the paths through the woods better than anyone, better even than the wild boar and deer that had created many of them, and he led her deep into the woods towards the old ruined church. Storm trotted along behind Ben, keenly sniffing out the scents in the undergrowth.

  They reached the ruin. Too much time had passed since his last visit to the place, and it was overgrown with wild-flowers now that summer was approaching its height. Ben pulled back a hanging curtain of ivy and led Ruth through the crumbling archway. He sat down on a mossy stone, and she settled in the long grass at his feet as Storm went scouting around the walls.

  He couldn?t stop himself from staring at her. He was scared to blink in case she disappeared.

  ?It?s weird, isn?t it?? she said, half-smiling. ?Us being here like this.?

  He nodded in agreement. ?Very weird. Can you talk about what happened to you?? he asked cautiously. After years of the worst speculation, it was a terrifying question to ask.

  ?I know what you?re thinking,? she said. ?I?ve heard about what?s done to the children the slavers take.?

  ?I?ve seen the things that are done to them.? He didn?t even want to think about it.

  ?It didn?t happen to me,? she said. ?Nobody raped me. Nobody drugged me. Really. I?m OK.?

  He breathed out a long, long sigh. Like letting out twenty-three years? worth of pent-up pain. He said nothing for a few moments. Took a pack of Gauloises and his Zippo out of his pocket and offered her one.

  ?I don?t smoke cigarettes,? she said.

  ?Don?t tell me. You prefer the other stuff.? She shrugged. ?It settles my nerves. I don?t smoke it a lot though.?

  Storm was scratching at the mossy earth at the foot of the wall, on the trail of a scent. Suddenly he stopped, stiffened, as if listening out for some imperceptible sound far beyond the range of human hearing. His shaggy hackles rose, and a long, low growl rumbled from his throat.

  ?Go and lie down,? Ben commanded softly. The dog glanced at him, then obeyed.

  Ben lit a cigarette, clanged his lighter shut and dropped it back into the breast pocket of his denim shirt. ?Do you remember the day you disappeared?? he asked Ruth.

  ?It was a long time ago. It?s like a dream.?

  ?Start at the beginning,? he said. ?Tell me everything.?

  She leaned back against the rough stone wall. ?I remember being with them. The kidnappers. I remember being inside a car, or a truck. It?s not so clear any more. They took me across the desert, and we met up with these other men. Like a rendezvous, in a tent pitched out there in the sand seas, the middle of nowhere. There was money on the table. I think they were meeting up to sell me on, you know? But then they started arguing. A fight broke out. One of them had a sword.? She chuckled. ?It was probably just a knife, but I remember thinking how huge it looked. He took it out, and another man shot him. They were so busy fighting, nobody saw me slip away. I ran and ran. I was scrambling up and down all these dunes that went on forever. I remember how hot the sand was. It burned my hands and feet. But I kept going, because I was so scared they were going to catch me. But then I remember hearing this strange noise behind me, like a roaring. I turned and saw what looked like a giant wave coming towards me.?

  ?A sandstorm,? Ben said.

  She nodded. ?I just ran like hell. The roaring got louder and louder. Then I saw this old van, buried up to its wheels in the sand. God knows how long it had been left abandoned there, but it saved me. I managed to climb in the back before the storm hit. That?s all I remember for a long time.?

  Ruth paused. ?I woke up lying in a soft bed of blankets and skins. I was in a Bedouin tent. Faces looking down at me, of the people who?d found me after the storm. I was ill for weeks, from dehydration and shock. They tended me, nursed me and fed me, and then I just stayed with them.? She smiled wistfully. ?They were kind, wonderful people. They called me ?Little Moon? in their language.?

  ?Because of the scar??

  She pulled back her sleeve and ran her finger along the white crescent shape on her skin. ?My little moon.?

  ?How long did you stay with them??

  ?Three years, more or less. I don?t really know. We moved around, setting up camp here and there. They sold camels, skins, beads. Never in one place for long.?

  He shook his head in amazement. ?And all that time, we were searching frantically for you.?

  ?I often thought about you. All of you, but especially you, Ben. I cried myself to sleep every night for the first year. But, you know, time passes.?

  ?And children adapt,? he said.

  ?And so that?s how it was for me. My new life, my new family. But I guess that they knew they couldn?t keep me forever. A little white girl growing up among the desert people, someone would have noticed sooner or later. And someone did.?

  ?The Steiners,? he said.

  ?I remember when I first met them. We?d travelled near an oasis to fill up with water. I was playing in the bushes with some of the other kids when this huge bus came along. The kids all ran over to it. I knew I wasn?t supposed to, but I ran over as well. At first we all thought it was a tourist bus, but then when we got up close, we realised it was just these two people and their driver. All tourists seemed like rich folks to us, but this was just incredible. They were giving out toys and money to the kids, and we were all going wild. I was so excited, I didn?t notice that my head garb had slipped down. That was when Silvia saw my hair, and my blue eyes. I remember her watching me, pointing me out to him.?

  ?Maximilian.?

  She pulled a face. ?Prick. Then, anyway, next thing I knew, there was this whole discussion going on, and everyone was crying and saying I had to go. After that, everything changed for me. For the second time, I was taken from everything I?d known, my friends, my new family. Suddenly I?m on a plane to Europe, and then a helicopter and this amazing fairytale house, and I?m wearing these new clothes. It was winter there, and so cold. A whole different world. From a poor Bedouin urchin to this little twelve-year-old rich kid.?

  ?So then Steiner adopted you,? Ben said. ?And he named you Luna, taken from your Bedouin name. Except that he must have cut a few corners and greased a few palms to make the adoption possible.?

  ?Oh, he?s very good at that.?

  ?So what should I call you?
Are you Luna, or Ruth??

  ?Everyone?s always known me as Luna. I hardly remember what it?s like to be Ruth any more.? She shrugged, smiled. ?But maybe I need to start learning to be her again. I?d like you to call me Ruth.?

  At that moment, the dog got to his feet, his lip curling back to show his fangs. Another long, low growl. He was intently focused on something behind the trees.

  ?Quiet,? Ben called over to him. Storm let out a little whimper and lay back down.

  ?What?s bothering him?? she said, peering over towards the trees.