Ben Hope 05 - The Shadow Project (14 page)

The perfect front. Nobody would ever have guessed who or what they were. More importantly, the guards at the Swiss-German border wouldn?t be likely to stop and search respectable-looking equestrian folks on their way home from a horse show bearing their prizes.

Which meant nobody would have had any idea of what they were really carrying. Under the straw in the trailer was a false floor, sturdy enough to take the weight of the horse. It had two concealed compartments. One was for their weapons and combat gear and, as Luna and Franz were changing their clothes, the others were stuffing the bags and rolled-up rifles inside and re-covering the floor with a deep layer of straw.

The second compartment was twice the size, big enough to accommodate a large man. It had been intended for Steiner, to smuggle him back into Germany. He?d have been able to breathe through some holes discreetly punched in the steel panelling. The dope they?d have used to tranquillise him was in the Range Rover?s glove compartment, labelled to look like a veterinary product.

?It was a good plan,? Luna said wistfully to Franz as she led the horse up the ramp into the trailer with a clatter of hooves.

He smiled. ?It was. But don?t worry. We?ll get him.?

?Will we?? She patted the horse, then skipped back down the ramp, raised it up and made sure everything was secure before she bolted the trailer doors. Her face was grim as she worked.

?Don?t beat yourself up over it,? Franz told her. ?We?ll come up with another plan.?

?Let?s not talk about it now,? she said.

They were ready to go their separate ways. ?Everyone remember the routes we talked about?? Luna said as they headed for their vehicles.

Nods and murmurs from the others.

?OK. See you back in Germany. Be careful.? She and Franz got into the front of the Range Rover with Steffi in the back. Andreas, Victor, Dominik and Thomas climbed into the VW Golf. Rudi threw a leg over the Honda, fired it up and blipped the throttle as J?rgen got on the pillion and snapped his visor shut.

The little convoy left the field by an open gate at the far side. Fifty yards up the lane they rejoined the main road, and a little way after that they came to a crossroads. The Range Rover carried on straight ahead, the Golf went left and the Honda went right.

Behind them, the column of smoke from the burning vehicles was still rising into the clear blue sky.

Chapter Twenty

Steiner and Dorenkamp took off back for the ch?teau in the lead chopper with the second craft?s pilot at the controls while his co-pilot took his place and flew the bodyguard team behind them.

Ben sat with the others and felt the hot stares on him like a poultice. He didn?t make eye contact, didn?t speak. A couple of times he thought he heard angry mutters over the blast of the turbine, but he didn?t react.

They say the return journey is always quicker, but this one seemed to take forty times longer. Ben had the hatch open and was on the ground before the chopper had even settled down on the helipad. Steiner?s personal helicopter was powering back up for take-off. The billionaire and his PA were already gone.

Ben strode towards the house. Behind him, the rest of the team slouched moodily off in the direction of their quarters, carrying their stun weapons.

The interior of the ch?teau was cool after the baking sun. Ben walked across the main entrance hall, past the mounted knight. A maid carrying a pile of linen stared at the muddied, torn state of him as he went by, but he barely registered her.

He found Dorenkamp in the corridor not far away.

?I want to speak to Steiner. Where is he??

Dorenkamp?s brows were knitted with worry and embarrassment.

?He won?t see you. I?m sorry.?

?I?m not asking him to change his mind about firing me,? Ben said.

Dorenkamp?s look of discomfort deepened even more, and he shifted from foot to foot, as though he couldn?t wait to be out of there. ?That?s good, because I think there?s little chance he would agree.?

?I want to ask him to keep the rest of the team on,? Ben said. ?I?ll go, but let them stay. As soon as Shannon?s healed up, he can fly out and join them. Then things are back to the way they would have been, and I?ll be out of the picture for good.?

Dorenkamp shook his head. ?I meant what I told you before. Once Herr Steiner has decided on something, he will not go back on it.?

?I personally don?t think much of them as a team,? Ben said. ?I would never have hired them, and I think this whole set-up stinks. But what happened back there wasn?t their fault. It was mine.?

Dorenkamp looked as if he was about to dash off. Then he seemed to change his mind, like someone struggling over whether or not to pass on a burdensome secret. He glanced up and down the empty corridor and spoke in a low voice.

?Listen. I personally believe that what you did was the right course of action. I think that if you hadn?t acted as you did, Herr Steiner would have been taken captive by those people, and you and I would most certainly still be there in the woods with bullets in our heads. And I think that Herr Steiner knows it, too.?

?Then why is he acting like such a stubborn old goat??

?Because he can?t tolerate the way you humiliated him back there. You held a
gun
to his head. Nobody does that to him.?

?Maybe he should try getting over himself a little bit. He?d have lost a lot more dignity than that if he?d ended up a kidnap victim.?

Dorenkamp shrugged.

Ben turned away.
I tried
, he thought.
And that?s that
.

But now he had more important things on his mind. Things that he could hardly believe. He couldn?t shut the image of the woman in the woods out of his head. As he walked back out of the house and headed for the team?s quarters, he was playing the events over again and again.

It?s impossible
.

But maybe some things that were impossible were real.

He walked into the communal living space and met a dead silence from the others. He went to his room and locked the door behind him. In the en-suite bathroom he stripped off his dirty clothes and left them strewn on the tiles as he showered. He turned the water up hot, on full blast so that the force of it stung his skin. His neck and shoulders were aching with pent-up tension, and he rotated them under the pounding water to relax the muscles. It didn?t work.

It?s just not possible
, he kept thinking.

He stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and dried himself off, then wrapped it around his waist and started making his way into the bedroom. Then he stopped. Looked down. The kidnappers? pistol was lying among the dirty clothes on the floor. He snatched it up, stared at it for a moment, wondering what to do with it, then carried it through to the bedroom and tossed it on the bed, deciding to drop it into Dorenkamp?s office on his way out. Let them deal with the damn thing.

He changed into his black jeans and black T-shirt, pulled on his shoes and his battered old leather jacket, found his cigarettes and the familiar shape of his Zippo in the jacket pocket and started to feel a bit more like himself again - though not much. Then he stuffed the dirty clothes into a plastic bag, packed up the few things he?d brought with him and headed for the door.

A lot had happened in the last couple of hours. It was just after three in the afternoon. If he hurried, he could be home at Le Val before midnight.

As he came out of his room, there was a reception committee waiting for him. Neville seemed to have assumed control of the group. He was standing there with his arms crossed, feet planted apart, a scowl on his face.

?Oi, you,? he said as Ben went by.

Ben kept going, eyes front, aiming for the front door.

?Oi. Talking to you, you fucking piece of shit.?

Ben stopped with his hand on the door handle. Hung his head. Breathed out through his nose. Turned round to face them.

?We want words with you,? Neville said.

Woodcock was standing behind him, staring at Ben over his leader?s shoulder. On the other side of Neville, there was a sneer on Morgan?s face that said, ?You?re in deep shit now, buddy boy.?

?You and us, outside,? Neville said. ?Now.?

Ben slowly set down his case. Reached into his pocket and took out the cigarettes and lighter. Picked out a cigarette, put it to his lips, thumbed the Zippo and lit up. He took his time blowing out the smoke. Then asked, ?Me and you lot outside? What for??

?So that we can express our thanks to you for losing our fucking jobs for us,? Neville said. Woodcock laughed. Morgan just kept up the sneer. Burton, Powell and Jackson were nodding in agreement.

Ben took another drag on his cigarette and watched the smoke drift up to the ceiling. ?I don?t think that would be a very wise idea,? he said. ?There?s already one of you in the hospital.?

?Fucking smartarse,? Neville spat.

?You can?t smoke in here, shithead,? Powell said, pointing at the cigarette.

Ben gave him a long, calm look and held it until the guy broke eye contact. He took another pull on the cigarette and savoured the taste of it. Then let out another cloud of smoke.

The alarm went off with a piercing electronic blast.

Ben looked up at it. It was right over the heads of the men. Just a little white plastic disc screwed to the ceiling, no bigger in diameter than an espresso saucer, but the volume of the furious, eardrum-rattling shriek it emitted was wildly, ridiculously disproportionate to its size. It sounded like a squadron of Tornado jet fighters taking off inside the room.

Ben frowned up at the alarm for about half a second, then reached his hand behind his hip. Drew out the kidnappers? Beretta and brought it up to aim, thumbing off the safety and squeezing the trigger almost simultaneously.

9mm Parabellum is not the biggest, fastest or most potent handgun calibre in the world, but the sound of an unsilenced round going off in an enclosed space is massive and stunning. The harsh bark of the gunshot swallowed the scream of the alarm, and ? an indetectably tiny fraction of a second later ? the copper-jacketed bullet blew the white disc, the circuit-board and miniature speaker into a million pieces of plastic and silicone and solder. Ben kept firing as fast as his finger could move ? BLAM-BLAM-BLAM ? so that the blasting shots almost blended into one continuous detonation, like a length of high-explosive demolition cord going off.

By the time he?d stopped firing, Ben had pumped out half the magazine. Plaster dust and pieces of ceiling and the shattered remains of the alarm rained down onto the heads of the team. Morgan was cowering with his hands over his ears. Neville blinked and spluttered, his hair and face white with dust.

Suddenly there was silence in the room, just the ringing in Ben?s ears that made the coughs and yells of the men sound muffled and distant.

?Cathartic,? he said. He flung the half-empty pistol on the floor at their feet, snatched up his case and walked out of the building.

Outside, the sun was still warm.

He turned his face up to the sky. ?Yeah, I know. I?m sorry.?

It didn?t take long to hunt down Dieter and get the key to the Mini from him. Ben walked over to the ch?teau?s garage block and found his car squeezed up next to the boxy hulk of a brand new Rolls. He hit a button on the wall to open up the steel shutter, got in the Mini and left a long, deep pair of tyre ruts across the gravel. He didn?t glance back once in the rearview mirror as he left the Steiner place behind.

Then it was the long journey home. And he?d thought he was preoccupied on the way out to Switzerland. As he pushed the car on hard and fast, the thoughts swirled furiously round inside his head.

What was wrong with him? Was this some kind of mid-life crisis hitting? Was he losing his edge at last?

Maybe Rupert Shannon had been right. Maybe the best place for him was behind a desk, marking time until he became just another double-chinned, bloodshot-eyed, cigar-chewing businessman with his gut hanging out over his lap, arteries more furred up than a chinchilla coat and a resting heart-rate of a hundred and fifty beats a minute. The well-trodden road to an early death. Perhaps that was all he was good for.

But the thought that was lodged in his head more than any other ? spinning round and round like a pinball as the miles flew by, long after he?d passed back over the Swiss border and was heading westwards across France ? was of the woman.

Thinking the same thing over and over again. Round and round, getting louder and more bewildering with every passing mile.

It couldn?t be true. And yet ?

He gripped the wheel tightly as he drove, as though somehow by holding on he wouldn?t lose his grip on reality. But he was scared that he was.

So scared that he was shaking. So scared, that he could hardly bring himself to dredge up out of the dark corners of his memory the things that had happened all those years ago. The events that had changed his life and shaped his whole destiny.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sometime after Paris, the first raindrop spattered out of the darkness onto his windscreen. By the time he reached Normandy, around eleven, his headlights were cutting a twin swathe through the hammering rain and the road was slick and shiny.