The Shadow Project bh-5

by Scott Mariani

  ‘No, I already know where it is. I just want to ask some questions. Nice and easy, nothing sinister.’

  ‘So why not talk to whoever has it? Why go looking for someone else?’

  ‘Long and boring story. Let’s just say I’m not flavour of the month with the owner. Plus, I don’t think he knows much. So, are you going to help me or not?’

  Simon was quiet for a moment, and Ben could almost hear him thinking. ‘There are a few prominent Holocaust deniers we keep an eye on,’ Simon said. ‘Now and then we pick one up for racial assault or firearms charges. It’s not exactly top secret. These guys attract a lot of attention, if you know where to look.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t be risking anything by telling me a name or two.’

  ‘I could tell you more than one or two,’ Simon said. ‘But here’s the problem. I don’t know exactly what you want from them, but I do know the way you work. I give you this information, you’re going to start kicking down doors. They’re not going to like that, and when they try to get in your way it’s going to end with you wiping the floor with them. As a result of which, people like me will have to go in and clean up the mess. I’m not sure I like that idea.’

  ‘You went out on a limb for me before, Luc.’

  ‘And half of France got shot to pieces.’

  ‘That won’t happen this time.’

  Simon paused again. ‘Let’s say I trusted you and gave you some names. It’s not going to take you very far. These guys’ thing is violence against the weak, stamping about chanting slogans, getting swastikas tattooed on their foreheads, breeding pit bulls and sawing off shotguns. Fine, it might satisfy you to kick some asses, but if it’s historical information you’re after, I have someone in mind who I think would be a lot more use to you.’

  Ben smiled into the phone. The idea of meeting these characters with swastikas on their foreheads appealed to him. Just the kind he’d enjoy pressing information out of. People like that knew other people, giving him a whole network he could take down if necessary. He’d dealt with that type before. But first things first, and it sounded as if Simon had something interesting here.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s a guy called Don Jarrett. A fellow countryman of yours. I think you’ll be interested in him.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Let me start off with who he was. Back in the seventies and eighties, he was a very well-respected historian and author. Third Reich expert of the highest order, apparently. But then he started getting a little too pally with some of the old Nazi officers he hung about with for his research. He was seen at a lot of far-right rallies and his name went down on the list of people to watch. Then, a few years ago, he stepped up his profile by writing a book claiming that the Nazi Final Solution against the Jews was a fabrication, a con trick by governments. When he tried to back up the book sales with a European lecture tour, he was arrested in Germany, charged with illegally denying the Holocaust, and put in jail for three years. Only served half that, but while he was inside his wife left him, he lost his job and his home in England, and when he was released he went into exile. These days he keeps his head down and isn’t a threat, though we still like to keep an eye on him. Bit of a loner, and a real cold fish. He might not be willing to talk to you. But if you could absolutely promise me that there’d be no trouble—’

  ‘Where do I find this Jarrett?’ Ben cut in.

  ‘I’m waiting for that promise first. That you’ll go easy, and be discreet, and all of those things that’ll make me happy. Or else no dice.’

  ‘Everybody’s got me making promises today.’

  ‘Still waiting.’

  ‘All right, I promise,’ Ben said.

  ‘I hope I’m not making a big mistake here.’

  ‘I won’t lay a finger on him. Unless he makes the first move, in which case I swear to hide the body really, really well.’

  ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘Come on, Luc.’

  ‘All right. Jarrett has an apartment in Bruges. He eats lunch at the same café in the middle of town, same time, every day. You’ll find him there. Let me have your fax number. I need to go and talk to someone right now, but give me twenty minutes and I’ll send over what you need.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  By the time Brooke came back downstairs fifteen minutes later, Ben had a map spread out across the table. On the chair was his old green army bag, packed, strapped and ready to go.

  ‘You don’t waste any time, Hope.’

  ‘Just twenty-three years,’ he said.

  Brooke watched as he traced his route across the map. ‘So where are you heading now?’

  ‘Belgium.’

  ‘What, right this minute?’

  ‘I have another call to make, and I’m waiting for a fax to come through. Then I’m gone. I’ve got a lunch date in Bruges.’

  ‘Looks like your Interpol guy came up trumps for you.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Better hurry, then.’

  ‘I’ll make it.’ He folded up the map, grabbed the webbing shoulder strap of the bag and started heading for the door.

  ‘Ben?’ she said hesitantly.

  He looked back at her. For a fleeting moment it struck him how good she looked standing there with her hair still damp from the shower. She had nice eyes. Something he didn’t notice often enough.

  ‘Maybe you’d like me to come along?’

  ‘What about your lectures?’

  ‘Jeff could stand in for me, couldn’t he? Just this once?’

  ‘I don’t know if that would be a good idea, Brooke.’ She looked away, flushing. ‘Shouldn’t have asked. You’re the boss.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I’d be happy for Jeff to stand in for you, if you needed it. But this is something I have to do on my own.’

  She nodded. ‘I understand. When will you be back?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully. ‘Soon as I can.’

  ‘I’m flying back to London the day after tomorrow. Call me there if I don’t see you before, OK?’

  Outside the sun was shining brightly and the air tasted fresh and sweet after last night’s rainstorm. It felt like it was going to be a hot day. Ben looked around him as he walked across the yard, and on top of all the other things he was feeling, he felt a tingle of apprehension wash through him. He didn’t want to lose this place.

  He strode over to the office and walked in to see that Luc Simon’s fax had come through already. He dumped his bag on the floor, tore the single sheet out of the machine and studied it. There were two police mugshots of Don Jarrett, a photocopy of a Der Spiegel newspaper cutting about his trial and imprisonment for Holocaust denial, and some information hastily jotted down in Luc’s handwriting with the address and location of Jarrett’s regular lunchtime hangout in Bruges.

  Ben folded the paper into his pocket. Then he took a deep breath, picked up the office phone and dialled the number for the bank manager.

  Five minutes later he had set up an appointment at the branch in Valognes. Dupont, the manager, was away fishing and couldn’t see him for ten days. That suited Ben fine. He wasn’t in too much of a hurry to find out whether or not he was about to lose his livelihood.

  He wondered what Dupont’s reaction was going to be when he told him how much money he needed to raise. As a going concern and with all the work he’d done on the place, Le Val had to be worth at least a million and a half. Business was better than he’d ever anticipated. The facility was bringing commerce to the area. Thanks to his clients and delegates, the local village brasserie had never had it so good. Ben was liked, and he was employing local people. Maybe the bank would look favourably on his needs.

  Maybe. Or maybe not. But right now, he couldn’t think about that.

  As he was about to leave the office, the phone rang again. Ben knew the voice immediately. Shannon. Screaming at the top of his voice.

  ‘Motherfucker, you’re going to pay me that fucking money!’

&nb
sp; ‘How’s the back, Rupert?’

  ‘I want the fucking money. I want it now.’

  ‘You can’t have it now.’

  ‘I want it.’

  ‘You’ll get it when I have it. That’s the best I can do.’

  Shannon went on screaming down the phone about his lost contract, his ruined reputation, his damaged back, that bitch Brooke walking out on him, and Ben’s personal responsibility for all the ills of the world. After about thirty seconds of furious invective, Ben had had enough and took the phone away from his ear. Even at arm’s length, he could still hear the tinny little voice rasping from the receiver. He gently laid the phone handset down on the desk, turned and walked away. Shannon was still screaming at him as he shut the office door.

  Something to worry about later.

  From the office, Ben went over to the old converted Dutch barn at the side of the house where he kept the Mini, and tossed his bag onto the passenger seat. He’d always been a light traveller. He was carrying just a change of clothing, his well-worn whisky flask topped up with his favourite ten-year-old Laphroaig, two spare packs of untipped Gauloises and a few other travelling items.

  In addition to which he’d packed something that Luc Simon wouldn’t have been too happy about.

  The pistol wasn’t part of the official weapons inventory at Le Val, every item of which was registered and logged, serial numbers on file everywhere from NATO to the French Defence Ministry. It was a scuffed old plain steel Smith & Wesson automatic that had probably seen criminal use at some point in its life, the serial numbers filed off both frame and slide. The child kidnapper Ben had taken it from didn’t need it any more, the same way he hadn’t needed any food, water or air for the last six years. It had lain at the bottom of Ben’s safe deposit box at the Banque Nationale in Paris for most of that time, and it wasn’t until he’d cleared it out before moving to Le Val that he’d even remembered it was there.

  He didn’t expect any serious need for it in Bruges. But in his experience there was only one really effective way of liberating information from someone who didn’t want to talk. There was no need to hurt them, or even to make specific threats. Just the sight of the weapon was usually enough, especially for a bookish type of guy like Don Jarrett.

  Luc Simon would be pissed off. Get in line, Ben thought.

  He fired up the Mini, drove out of the barn and across the yard. As he passed the house he glanced over and saw Brooke standing at the window watching him go. She gave a sad little wave.

  On the track that led towards the road, he met Silvain Bourdon’s minibus, waved at the driver and pulled to the side to let it by. Bourdon was the local guy whose taxi firm Ben used to shuttle delegates back and forth from the airport at Cherbourg. As the dusty minibus passed by, he could see the pasty faces of the eight insurance brokers who were here for Brooke’s hostage psychology course.

  Hating himself for leaving her and Jeff at a time like this, Ben drove on up to the road, passed through the gates and pointed the car east across France for the second time in three days.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Rory woke up in a soft bed. At first he thought he was at home, and it was all a bad dream. That he was going to sit up in bed and see all his things around him, his posters on the wall and his chess computer on the desk, his astrobinoculars on their tripod over the other side of the room, and then look out of the window and see the sun rising over the lake and hear the birds singing in the trees outside and the sound of his Aunt Sabrina’s voice calling his name from downstairs.

  But when he blinked away the bleariness and his vision came into focus, he saw where he really was and felt that cold, skin-shrivelling feeling down the back of his neck.

  He was in a room he’d never seen before, and he had no idea how he’d got here. He only knew how very, very desperately he didn’t want to be here. The stone walls had no windows, and the only light came from a dull naked bulb that hung from a wire above his head and was covered with spider’s webs and the dried-out corpses of flies.

  The other side of the iron bed frame, two men were standing watching him. One was tall with sandy hair, about the same age as his dad or maybe a little younger. The other was shorter, not much taller than Rory, with a ruddy complexion and thick dark hair.

  Rory shrank away from them.

  ‘You’re awake,’ the sandy-haired man said. He sounded English. ‘You’ve been asleep for a long time.’

  Rory could feel the bruise in the crook of his left elbow where the needle had gone in. He remembered now. The ship, the sea, the distant islands he’d seen from the deck when he’d managed to get away. The kidnappers who’d chased him. The way he’d managed to toss the stolen phone overboard before they’d caught him and dragged him roughly out from under the lifeboat and shaken him violently, asking him who he’d telephoned; how he’d struggled and kicked and screamed and spat in their faces as they’d held him tight and rolled up his sleeve and the horrible woman had jabbed the syringe into his arm. The last thing he could recall was being hauled back down to that stinking hold and being cuffed to the pipe again. Nothing after that.

  He glared at the strangers at the foot of his bed and thought about his secret. He was smarter than they were. Only he knew that he’d talked to Sabrina. She and his dad would have called the cops. There had to be the biggest search of all time underway by now.

  ‘You assholes had better let me go,’ he said darkly.

  The sandy-haired man grinned. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. Because my dad happens to be in the Special Forces, and if you don’t let me go home right now, he’s going to hunt you down and take you apart.’

  ‘Your dad sounds like quite a fellow,’ the sandy-haired man said. ‘But the thing is, Rory, I know you’re making that up. I’ve spoken to your dad. In fact, he and I are very well acquainted. And it might interest you to know that he’s on his way here even as we speak. You’ll be seeing him in no time.’

  Rory frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he and I have some business to take care of. But that needn’t concern you. All you have to do is sit quietly and wait.’

  ‘I think you’re lying.’

  ‘You’ll soon see, won’t you?’ the man replied. ‘Anyway, now that you’re awake, you might want to take a shower and change into the clothes we have ready for you. You must be hungry, too.’

  ‘I don’t want anything, jerkoff.’

  The man smiled. ‘Actually, the name’s Pelham.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Rory yelled at him.

  ‘Now, Rory. I’m sure your father wouldn’t like you to use language like that. We all have to try to get on, don’t you think? Better for everyone that way.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a kid,’ Rory spat.

  ‘You’re a brave boy,’ Pelham said. ‘And I know you’re also a clever boy who understands what’s best for him. So why don’t you settle down and behave, and the minute your father and I have finished our business together, it’ll all be over.’ Pelham smiled again. ‘Now, I’m sort of in charge here, and I have a lot to do, so you won’t be seeing too much of me.’ He motioned to the man standing next to him, who hadn’t spoken. ‘This gentleman here is called Ivan, and he’s going to be looking after you.’

  ‘Hello, Rory,’ Ivan said. His voice was gentle. Rory had heard accents like his in movies. He figured the guy was Polish or Russian or something. He glowered at him.

  Pelham looked at his watch. ‘It was good to talk to you, Rory. Ivan and I have to go now, but he’ll be back in a minute to show you where the bathroom is and get you something to eat.’ He turned to Ivan and they exchanged a few words in a language that Rory didn’t understand. After that, they left the room and Rory heard the sound of a key in the lock. He stared at the door for as long as he could hold in his tears, then buried his face in the pillow.

  No way was he going to let them hear him cry.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  If Bruges was the best-pres
erved medieval city in Europe, the motorway that sliced through the countryside to its outskirts was one of the fastest and most modern. Ben reached the place with just about enough time to make his rendezvous, left the car in an out-of-town parking complex and boarded a bus heading for the historic centre.

  Alone in the back row, he unfolded the fax sheet from his pocket and ran back through the details Luc Simon had sent him. The little family café-restaurant where Don Jarrett liked to have his lunch each day was right in the middle of the old town, off the largest of its squares. Afterwards, according to the Interpol agents who had been keeping tabs on him, it was the Holocaust denier’s habit to take a daily stroll down by the picturesque canals.

  Sweet, Ben thought.

  He got off the bus on the edge of the old town and mingled with the many tourists in the squares and narrow cobbled streets. He bought a Belgian newspaper from a little newsagent stand, then checked his watch and went looking for the main square and the location of Jarrett’s regular lunchtime haunt.

  It didn’t take long to find, and it was just as Luc Simon had said, next to the clock tower. On the adjacent side of the square was a bistro with an outdoor terrace. Ben took a parasol-shaded table between a romantic hand-holding young couple and an argumentative American family who looked like they were going for some kind of burgers-and-Coke speed record. He leaned back in the wicker seat and started flipping nonchalantly through his paper. Over the top of the pages he kept his eye on the restaurant entrance across the way.

  Creatures of habit were easy to track. At 1.29 p.m. Ben saw a man cut across the square, head straight for the restaurant and go inside without glancing at the sign on the awning or checking out the menu beside the door. A regular customer for sure, but in his beige safari jacket and that conspicuous manner that the British always seemed to exude abroad, he wasn’t ever going to pass for a local. There was a large book under his arm, which told Ben this was someone intending to sit alone for a while. He looked to be in his early sixties, with a curly ring of grey hair around a bald crown. A good deal heavier and paunchier than in the picture Luc Simon had faxed through from Lyon, but it was definitely Don Jarrett.