“He’s in France. He’s driving a white Ford Focus and heading towards Reims on the A26 motorway.”
“How can you be sure he’s not heading to Paris?”
‘Because he’s just driven past the Paris turn off. He will reach Reims, we think in an hour and a half.”
“That’s more like it. Do you have a car registration?”
She gave it to him.
“Very good. I will call you in two hours, not one.”
“Please let me speak with my mother, please,” she pleaded, but it was too late. She was already talking to herself, the call having been ended by Cheng. It had taken less than a minute.
The Scorpion had been given his name for a reason. It was said that the tattoo on his back was akin to that of a Japanese Yakuza gangster. It was so detailed, so intricate and so colourful. He always worked on his own, enjoying the freedom to scuttle around, waiting for his chosen prey in the shadows. He was something of an expert in hiding in plain sight, planning his moves and ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
One minute would normally have been insufficient time to get an accurate location fix. However, the Scorpion had already established himself in the area around Wigmore Street. It took the listeners at GCHQ less than ten seconds to relay the new phone number being used by Cheng back to the Scorpion in his lair. Currently this happened to be a white transit that looked to all intents and purposes like a BT telecommunications repair vehicle. Using equipment that had been carefully positioned within the last hour, he was able to acquire a precise fix on the building moments before the call had ended. One piece of gadgetry in particular, a direction finding hand-held scanner, told him that the man called Cheng had mostly probably been speaking from either a third or fourth floor apartment. He needed one final call to verify this. He was irritated to learn that this was now likely two hours away at least.
Which called for a different approach. He now knew the building. All he had to do was simply find the right apartment.
103
Near Reims
The next tollbooth is one where they need to part with money. It is on the northern outskirts of Reims. They have been making good progress. Lewis is still behind the wheel and Holly is dozing beside him. A small problem is that without any Euros in cash, they will need to pay with a card, something that Lewis is instinctively uncomfortable about. The moment the payment gets processed, it will be like a beacon to Zeltinger and others about how and where to find them.
Lewis then remembers that he still has on him the cards and cash that he took off the Russian, the one who had attacked him near Paddington earlier that morning. Had it only been that morning? It felt like half a lifetime ago already. Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, he finds one of the credit cards. Nudging Holly awake, he hands the card to her.
“You can use this at the tollbooth,” he says.
She looks at it and sees the name. “This isn’t yours,” she says accusingly.
“I borrowed it off a Russian. He was trying to kill me earlier. It seemed fair compensation at the time.”
“But you don’t know the PIN, do you?”
“You won’t need it.” He slows down as they approach the well-lit gare de péage, drawing up close to the automatic kiosk that is on Holly’s side of the car. “Insert the ticket first, then this card immediately after. That should do the trick, no PIN required.”
To Holly’s amazement, it works. Almost immediately the barrier in front of them rises, the card is ejected and once more they are underway. Lewis is looking in the rear view mirror as they drive off. The bright lights of the pay station are helpful in allowing him to review the traffic on the road behind him.
“Could you see anybody?” Holly asks, herself swivelling around to look.
“I’m not sure,” says Lewis tight-lipped, still with one eye on the mirror.
South of Reims they collect another ticket from a different tollbooth and shortly afterwards they see signs to a service station off to the right.
“We need petrol,” Lewis says, turning onto the exit slip road and reducing his speed.
“That’s good. I could use the bathroom and maybe get us something to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Lewis fills up the car and pays for the petrol at the kiosk using some of the Russian’s Euros. There is a supermarket and café in the building ahead of them. It looks all bright lights and French modernity. Lewis drives the short distance and finds somewhere to park, choosing a location near a thick hedgerow at the back of the building. This allows the car to remain hidden from the view of any newly arriving vehicles. He locks the car and tosses the keys to Holly. “Your turn to drive next,” he says to her, and together they head inside.
The place is busy. The majority appear to be single men, by the look of them truck or commercial vehicle drivers taking obligatory rest breaks. Most seem pre-occupied downing extra-strong espressos. To one side is a pantry area, the bored-looking uniformed waitress serving rectangular slices of rubbery-looking pizza reheated in a microwave. Lewis orders two slices and they arrive on flimsy cardboard plates with knives and forks made out of thin plastic. Holly gets coffees from a vending machine. They carry their purchases to a round aluminium table positioned at chest height designed for busy travellers wanting food-on-the-go. This is not a place for loitering or lingering.
Holly tries to pick up a piece of pizza with her fork but the plastic implement bends in half in her hand. “What is the point of forks that bend?” she asks incredulously.
Lewis simply shrugs, finishing a mouthful of pizza. “At least they’re recyclable. Anyway, it’s probably the same point as having knives that don’t cut. That must be why God gave us specialist eating tools of our own,” he says, picking the rest of his pizza up with his fingers and taking another bite. Everything about the place is barely functional: tables that wobble, coffee that is tepid, and chairs that are non-existent.
“How’s this shaping up for our dream date location?” Lewis asks, draining his coffee in one single gulp. “Kind of nice ambience, don’t you think?”
“Chose it specially, did you?”
“I always bring first dates here. It’s such a special place.”
“Right. Look, I need a pee. I’ll see you back at the car.”
“Me too.” He hands her some Euro notes. “Take these and grab something else for the journey on your way out, water and the like, whatever you fancy. You choose. It’s my treat,” he says with a big sarcastic grin. “Something chocolate might be nice.”
She takes the money. “You’re all heart, Ben Lewis. See you in a moment.”
104
Near Reims
They were some way behind the Ford Focus as it turned into the service area. They had been cautiously following at a distance. Panich breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Lewis stop to get petrol. Avoiding the filling station altogether, Stefan drove around the side of the main building, coming to rest in a zone reserved for trucks and lorries. From here they watched and waited, leaving the engine idling, sensing that the moment could be fast approaching. Already the adrenalin was pumping. They saw Lewis park up at the rear of the café. This would ordinarily have been a smart move – but then Lewis wasn’t to know that there were two Russians waiting for him on the other side of the car park. Once Lewis and the woman had gone inside the complex, Stefan reversed the van to within a few metres of the Ford. There was a thick hedge between the two. An inky dark night sky conveniently kept everything well hidden.
All that was left to do was wait.
Stefan is hiding behind the hedge when Lewis emerges from the complex. In his hand is the long, thin, metal rod used to crank up the car jack on the Mercedes. He and Panich have already agreed how they will be taking the Marine down. Panich is about to sell Lewis the dummy.
A
s Lewis begins walking towards the Ford, Panich emerges from the shadows of the building behind him. He points his gun directly at Lewis causing the former Marine to spin around to face the Russian. If Lewis is frightened, he doesn’t show it.
“Back away toward the car,” Panich instructs him, wiggling his gun to indicate the direction he expects Lewis to move. There is a good ten metres between the two men, too much distance for Lewis to try any smart moves. Instead he inches backwards towards the Ford, saying nothing.
“Raise your hands above your head and keep moving.”
Lewis does as he is told and keeps moving, glancing quickly over his left shoulder to see how close to the car he is getting.
“Don’t turn around, just look at me, arsehole.”
Lewis’s right leg touches the front bonnet of the car and he stops. Panich continues walking towards him slowly. He has a smile on his face. Lewis, by contrast, stares blankly at the Russian. He never sees Stefan coming, concentrating too hard on what Panich is doing to notice or hear anyone creeping up from behind. Which has been the whole idea. With one hefty thump on the back of the head from Stefan’s metal bar, Lewis’s legs instantly become jelly. His body sinks quickly to the ground. He is unconscious before he hits the deck.
105
Near Reims
Holly had been in the small hypermarket looking for crisps and snacks to buy. Only by chance had she looked out of one of the side windows and seen Lewis collapse to the ground before being swiftly dragged away by two men.
Several strands of half-connected thoughts tumbled through her mind. The first was that the surreal events of the last few hours might not, after all, have been part of a Ben Lewis fantasy. The second was whether she should shout for help. She quickly concluded that to be a bad idea. It was likely that Ben and most probably several others would end up getting killed, herself included. The third was whether Ben had been badly hurt? Quite probably, if he had been knocked unconscious. Should she call the police or, indeed, an ambulance? In theory, yes, but any second now and the two kidnappers would be about to drive away and no one would know where they had gone. She urgently needed to make a decision about what to do. Without consciously thinking about her own safety, she found herself heading outside to see what was happening.
Edging around the side of the building in the darkness, she ran in a crouch towards the hedge next to her car, gingerly peering over the top. She could see two men lifting Ben’s limp body into the back of a white Mercedes van, the same make and model of vehicle that Ben had been so concerned about. These had to be Russians.
She watched as they closed and locked the rear doors before climbing into the front. Seconds later, headlights switched on, the van was on the move. It was soon heading back onto the motorway, accelerating away from the service area at speed.
106
Near Reims
Panich had let Stefan continue to drive.
“Where do we go from here?”
They were back on the A26 motorway, heading south.
“Somewhere quiet.” Panich had already removed a cigarette from a packet lying on the front dashboard and lit it, quickly drawing smoke deep into his lungs before exhaling. “We won’t be needing long with him,” he said, half nodding to Lewis’s inert form in the back of the van.
“How about one of the small rest areas? There’s one in about five kilometres according to the sat nav.”
“Too public. We need somewhere private for what I have in mind.” He looked into the back at where Lewis was lying out cold. This one wasn’t going to be moving for a while.
“I have an idea,” Panich said eventually, pulling once more on his cigarette. “Two years ago, I was involved in the exfiltration of an asset we needed out of France in a hurry. We brought him to a disused airstrip near here, not far from a place called Épernay. There was a hanger. If it’s still there, the place will be perfect. It’s not far.”
“I was thinking more about some remote forest trail, you know a clearing in amongst some trees.”
“Not round here. This is champagne country. It’s mostly flat as a pancake. There won’t be any woods for miles.”
“So which way do we go?” Stefan asked. They were approaching a motorway interchange.
“Right at this next junction. Stay on the motorway, head towards Troyes, and come off at the first exit. It should be signposted. It won’t take long, if I remember correctly.”
“Perfect. How’s our visitor doing?”
Panich peered over into the rear of the van. Lewis hadn’t moved since they had bundled him into the van.
“Still out for the count. You must have given him a good whack.”
“He’ll have a sore head when he wakes.”
“That, my friend, will be the very least of his worries.”
107
Near Reims
This was what happened in books and films not in real life, surely? What a mess, what a complete and utter disaster. What on earth was she meant to do now?
With little time to think and almost as an automatic reflex, she got back into the car and started the engine. My God, she told herself as she reversed and accelerated away from the service area and back onto the motorway. Am I really being this stupid? She knew she had to, though. Ben’s life was on the line. She could hardly walk away and forget what she’d seen. She would never be able to live with herself.
There was light traffic on the motorway but it was intermittent. Her most pressing concern was whether it would be obvious to the two Russians that she was following them. Their van was some three hundred metres or so in front, its white bodywork still visible in the dim light ahead. She debated whether to switch her headlights off altogether. On balance she concluded that driving on a motorway without lights in the dark at over eighty miles an hour was more foolhardy than wise. A major junction was fast approaching: the road ahead continuing towards Strasburg and Germany; the right hand filter veered towards Troyes and Lyon. The van was heading towards the right. Holly, still keeping her distance, was able to follow without difficulty.
Just when she was wondering how long she could continue this for, the van’s rear brake lights came on, the red colour glowing brightly in the dark. It began veering toward the right hand filter lane that was fast approaching, part of the exit towards two places indicated on a sign: ‘Châlons’ and ‘Épernay’.
Whilst she’d been following the van, she had been worrying about the complications of motorway exits. Of particular concern were the toll payment arrangements. She needed to leave enough time for the van to clear the tollbooth at the exit without her car becoming visible as it approached the gare de péage. However, she couldn’t leave too much time because she had to see in which direction the van headed after leaving the motorway. There was also the small but important detail that the payment machine was going to be on the opposite side of the car to where she was sitting. She’d developed a simple two-point plan in her mind whilst driving, a plan that she had little choice but to implement the moment she started heading towards the exit. The first element comprised her rapidly slowing down as she took the exit ramp and turning off her headlights. She hoped that this might make her car less visible to the van in front. Next she undid her seatbelt, simultaneously buzzing the passenger-side window down. As she was doing this, she began rooting around in her handbag, lying next to her on the passenger seat, for a credit card.
She timed it to perfection. Drawing to a halt by the dimly lit automated pay station, in the distance she made out the white Mercedes van negotiating a roundabout about two hundred metres ahead of her. She was watching the van carefully. It was turning to take the road to the left.
Remembering to put the handbrake on and disengage the gears, Holly scrambled over the passenger seat, leaning out the open passenger window to insert the toll ticket and then her credit car
d into the slot in the machine. Within ten seconds, her card was returned, the barrier was up and she was on her way.
Ben, she hoped, would have been proud of her.
108
Pas de Calais
Saul Zeltinger was asleep in the back of the Kent police pool car when the phone in his shirt pocket began to vibrate. He stretched and removed the device, examining both the caller ID and the time. It slowly dawned on him that he had been asleep for well over an hour. The same police driver, Beck, was at the wheel. They were near the town of Saint-Quentin, about two hundred kilometres south of Calais. He moved the white button across the screen to take the call. It was a young trainee from his office called Ian.
“Sorry to disturb you, sir. We have just been notified by Holly Williams’s bank that her credit card has been used to pay a motorway toll at a payment booth to the south of Reims. To be precise, at the Châlon-en-Champagne exit off the A26 motorway.”
“When was this?”
“About three minutes ago.”
“Excellent, thank you. Tell me, is Meilin still in the office?”
“No sir, she went off sick earlier. She looked dreadful. I hope she’s alright.”
“Do me a favour, can you Ian? Call her right this minute on her mobile. Tell her that I told you to ring and relay exactly the same message that you gave me. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll do it right now, sir. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Ian. Good night.”
Zeltinger ended the call and turned to speak to Beck who was still at the wheel.
“Apparently, Beck, we need to be aiming for somewhere to the South of Reims, a place called Châlons-en-Champagne. How long is that likely to take do you think?”
The Dossier (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 1) Page 23