Read The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Online
Authors: Scott Mariani
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET (217 page)
Nothing. The machine was less than two hundred metres away now.
Two rounds left. Ben fired again. Saw the sparking flash of his impact on the armour plating just a hand’s breadth away from the only weak point the impregnable machine had – the thick plate glass of the cockpit was resistant to normal small arms fire, but not to anti-materiel rounds.
One hundred and fifty metres and closing.
Ben ejected the hot casing and slammed shut the bolt for the last time. He sucked in a breath. The target was wobbling crazily in the crosshairs of the scope.
One shot, one kill.
He squeezed the trigger. Just before the recoil tore the sight picture away, he thought he saw a small black hole appear in the corner of the cockpit screen.
The Black Shark kept coming, undeterred. One hundred metres.
Ben ripped open the bolt and stared at the empty breech. That was it. He’d given it his best shot.
The readout on Gourko’s console told him his missile systems were armed and ready to go. He had his thumb on the fire button, but he wanted to wait until the final instant. He wanted to see the last look in Ben Hope’s eyes just before the rockets pulverised his body across a hundred metres of rocks. Who was this man who thought he could shoot him down with a puny little rifle?
Gourko watched the magnified figure in his viewfinder.
I have you now.
He hit the trigger.
Hit it again. Nothing happened.
The rockets didn’t launch.
The quarry wall was looming up fast. Gourko yanked on the stick to peel off for another pass.
That was when he realised something was dreadfully wrong. The controls were no longer responding. For the first time in his life, Spartak Gourko experienced the cold tremor of fear. Twisting in his seat, he saw the smoke and flame pouring from the banks of electronics behind him, where he now realised the bullet had hit.
Malfunction. Systems meltdown.
The quarry wall was racing towards him.
Gourko had only one option. The Ka-50 was just about the only combat helicopter in the world with an ejector seat. He reached for the control, armed it, braced himself. His fingers closed on the lever. He yanked, hard.
And in that terrible fraction of a split instant of time that seemed to last forever before the rockets ignited under his seat and fired him to safety, he understood that the electronic safeguard that would blow out the rotor blades from the turret a flash before the ejector system kicked in . . .
Wasn’t . . .
Working . . .
From where Ben was crouching among the rocks, clutching his empty rifle and unable to do anything but wait for death, he saw the pilot’s overhead canopy burst open. In the next instant, Spartak Gourko was launched like a human cannonball from the cockpit.
Straight up into the concentric rotor blades.
There wasn’t time to look away. From seventy-five metres, Ben could almost see the man’s mouth opening in a scream – and then his body disintegrated into a red mist as he was minced into nothing by the spinning blades.
The Black Shark’s nose, sprayed with blood and gore, dipped as the aircraft began its terminal descent.
Straight towards Ben’s vantage point.
Ben let the rifle clatter away. He scrambled desperately up the quarry wall.
The aircraft impacted with the force of an earthquake. Its rotors shattered and its armoured fuselage crumpled and blew apart. Wreckage tumbled down the quarry face, flew a hundred metres in the air. Ben flattened himself against the rocks. For an instant he thought the fireball that engulfed the slope was going to roast him where he lay; then the hot breath of flames receded suddenly, and the next thing he was engulfed in choking, blinding black smoke. Racked with coughing, he kept climbing and climbing until finally he reached the top and stumbled over the lip.
He glanced back down at the quarry. The smoke was rising high into the sky from the burning helicopter.
‘Maybe not so hard to kill, then,’ he muttered.
He turned away.
He could see the lake in the distance, and Shikov’s house, as peaceful as if nothing had ever happened there. He started walking towards it.
‘You utter, absolute bastard.’
Ben smiled to hear the sound of her voice on the other end. ‘Hello, Darcey.’
‘It took me six hours to get out of that bloody cellar.’
‘I knew you’d find a way out eventually,’ he said. ‘A resourceful lady like you. How was the champagne?’ With his free hand he uncapped the bottle of old Bowmore single malt he’d been pleasantly surprised to find among the well-stocked drinks cabinet in Shikov’s huge, luxurious kitchen. If there’d been any more of the Russian’s men around, they’d long since scattered.
‘Where are you? Where did you go?’ Ben could hear the anxiety in Darcey’s voice.
‘I think I’m in Georgia,’ he said. ‘Not sure where exactly.’ He poured a couple of fingers of the whisky into the crystal glass on the gleaming hardwood worktop. ‘Shikov’s dead,’ he added. ‘I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘Are you all right?’
Ben touched his side gingerly and narrowed his eyes from the pain of the cracked rib. ‘You should see the nine other guys.’
Darcey paused. ‘You did it to protect me, didn’t you?’
‘I had a feeling you’d want to come along. You’re stubborn that way.’
‘What a fine twosome,’ she said. ‘I’m stubborn. And you’re crazy.’
‘Maybe just a little,’ he said.
Darcey sighed. ‘Then it’s over.’
‘Not quite. Where are you?’
‘I’m where you left me. In the old bag’s place. Where else could I go?’
Ben smiled. ‘Tell the old bag I’ll do what she asked,’ he said. ‘On one condition.’
‘What’s the condition?’
‘That she has her driver take you to Rome in the back of that limo of hers. I’ll meet you there tomorrow at midday. Piazza del Campidoglio, in the Capitol.’
‘I know it,’ she said. ‘Why Rome?’
‘Because I could really use an ice cream,’ he said. ‘Oh, and Darcey? Bring that fax printout with you.’
When he’d finished talking to Darcey, Ben dialled the number for Le Val. Jeff wasn’t around, so Ben left him a brief message to reassure him that things were OK and he’d be home soon.
After that, he poured himself another measure of whisky and stared at the phone for a long time. He saw Brooke’s face in his mind.
He didn’t even know where she was. Back in London, maybe, or still in Portugal with . . . it hurt to think about it. And the idea of talking to her confused and terrified him even more. He swallowed hard, grabbed the phone and stabbed out the digits of her mobile number. As he waited for it to ring, he downed an anxious gulp of whisky and tried to formulate what he wanted to say. Nothing came to him.
He caught his breath when a woman’s voice answered – but then he realised it was the sugary tones of Brooke’s answering service.
He hung up.
Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome
Ben’s journey back from Georgia had been a long one, and a couple of times he’d thought he wouldn’t make his rendezvous. In the end, he was there fifteen minutes early. The world passed him by as he stood in the middle of the square, licking a curly vanilla cone and gazing across at Michelangelo’s facade of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. White statues gleamed against the blue sky. Pigeons flapped about the piazza, squabbling over the scraps left by the tourists.
At exactly twelve o’clock, Ben saw Darcey making her way through the crowd towards him. She was wearing new clothes and carrying a shoulder bag. He couldn’t help but grin at the sight of her.
She trotted the last few steps towards him, put her hand on his shoulder and kissed him quickly. ‘All this way, for an ice cream?’
‘And a couple of other things,’ he said. ‘Am I one of them?’ she asked with a smile.
Ben scanned up and down the broad square. ‘She should be here in a minute. There she is.’
Darcey followed his gaze and saw a tall, attractive brunette in a dark trouser suit cutting across the square’s geometric paving towards them. ‘Looks glamorous. And familiar. Who is she?’
‘She’s someone we might be seeing an awful lot of on TV soon,’ Ben said. ‘Her name’s Silvana Lucenzi. She’s a reporter.’
Darcey raised an eyebrow. ‘
Might
be seeing an awful lot of?’
‘That depends, Darcey. Depends on you. Did you bring the file?’
She nodded, dipped a hand in her shoulder bag and brought out a clear plastic folder.
‘There are two ways we can go with this,’ Ben said. ‘One, we can call this guy Mason Ferris, tell him we have evidence that could sink him and his whole department for a thousand years and quietly blackmail him into dropping all the charges against both of us, as well as giving you your old job back. With promotion, of course.’
Darcey said nothing.
Ben nodded towards the approaching Silvana Lucenzi. ‘Two, we give the file to Silvana and let her do her thing. Press the nuclear button on these people. The world will never be the same again. Neither will your career. It’s your call.’
‘You think I’d even hesitate?’ she said. ‘Fuck ’em. Let’s do it.’
Silvana Lucenzi walked up to them, staring at Ben in astonishment. ‘What are you doing here? You are wanted by the police.’
‘Not any more,’ Darcey said, handing her the folder. ‘Not after this gets out.’
Silvana Lucenzi took it hesitantly. She flipped open the clear plastic cover, thumbed through a few of the pages and her eyes bugged. By the time she reached the last page, she was speechless.
‘It’s genuine,’ Ben said.
‘And if you want the original file,’ Darcey added, ‘you’ll have to come to London for it. Just name the place and the time.’
The reporter’s initial shock was already fading away rapidly. Ben could see the wheels turning. Possibilities spinning through her mind faster than news front pages through a printing press. Her eyes shone.
‘You just got yourself the hottest scoop in media history, Silvana,’ Ben said. ‘Now go and do what you do best.’
‘W-would the two of you like a coffee?’ Silvana asked. Ben and Darcey exchanged glances. ‘Some other time,’ Darcey told her.
They walked away through the crowds milling about the piazza, leaving Silvana rooted to the spot and still staring agape at the file in her hands.
‘Bombs away.’ Darcey laughed. She paused, looking at him as they walked. ‘So what next, Ben? You heading back to France?’
‘Thought I might stick around here for a couple of days,’ he said. ‘You?’
‘I’m kind of at a loose end now, aren’t I?’
‘Let me buy you lunch,’ he said.
She smiled at him. ‘Lunch would be a start.’
London
Less than an hour later
Mason Ferris was at his desk going through some papers when his phone rang. He calmly reached out and picked up the receiver. ‘Talk to me.’
The panicking, babbling voice on the other end was Brewster Blackmore’s. As Ferris listened, his jaw fell slowly open and the blood chugged to a halt in his veins.
‘They WHAT—!?’
For much of the historical background to this novel I am heavily indebted to my late and sadly-missed friend Contessa M. Manzini, whose spellbinding recollections about her life in 1920s Italy partly inspired me to write
The Lost Relic
. Thanks also to Tim Boswell for invaluable insider knowledge on SOCA and special police operations; as well as to all those others whose efforts, great or small, have contributed to the creation of this book.
The village of St Elowen
Southwest Cornwall
Where two quiet lanes crossed, just a stone’s throw from the edge of the village, the grey stone church had stood more or less unchanged since not long after Henry V had ascended to the throne of England. The glow from its leaded windows haloed out into the frosty November night. From behind its ancient iron-studded, ivy-framed door, the sound of singing drifted on the wind.
Just another Thursday evening’s choir practice.
Although that night would be remembered quite differently by those villagers who would survive the events soon to become infamous as ‘The St Elowen Massacre’.
Inside the church, Reverend Keith Perry beamed with pride as the harmonies of his fourteen singers soared up to the vaulted ceiling. What many of them lacked in vocal ability, they more than made up for with their enthusiasm. Rick Souter, the village butcher, was the loudest, with a deep baritone voice that was only a little rough and almost in tune. Then there was young Lucy Maxwell, just turned seventeen, giving it all she had. The most naturally talented of them all was little Sam Drinkwater, who in a few weeks’ time was set to audition for a place as boy soprano at King’s College, Cambridge. Sam’s parents, Liz and Brian, were there too, sharing a hymn book as they all belted out
All Things Bright and Beautiful
to the strains of the electronic organ played by Mrs Hudson, the local music teacher.
The only face missing was that of Charlie Fitch, the plumber. Charlie was normally punctual, but his elderly mother had been quite ill lately; Perry prayed that nothing awful had happened.
That was when the church door banged open behind them. A few heads turned to see the man standing there at the entrance, watching them all. Mrs Hudson’s fingers faltered on the organ keys. Reverend Perry’s smile froze on his lips.
The drifter had been sighted on the edge of the village a few days before. The first concerned whispers had been exchanged in the shop and post office, and it hadn’t been long before most of St Elowen’s population of three hundred or so had heard the talk. The general consensus was that the drifter’s presence was somewhat worrying, somewhat discomfiting; and everyone’s hope was that it would be temporary. He was unusually tall and broad, perhaps thirty years old. Nobody knew his name, or where he’d come from, or where he was staying. His appearance suggested that he might have been living rough, travelling on foot from place to place like an aimless vagrant. His boots were caked in dirt and the military-style greatcoat he wore was rumpled and torn. But he was no new-age traveler, the villagers agreed. His face was as clean-shaven as a soldier’s, and his scalp gleamed from the razor. There were no visible tattoos. No rings in his nose or ears; just that look that anyone who saw him found deeply disconcerting. Cold. Indifferent. Somehow not quite right. Somehow – this was the account that had reached Reverend Perry’s ears – somehow not quite
human
.
Mrs Hudson stopped playing altogether. The voices of the choir fell away to silence as all eyes turned towards the stranger.
For a drawn-out moment, the man returned their gaze. Then, without taking his eyes off the assembly, he reached behind him and turned the heavy iron key. The door locked with a clunk that echoed around the silent church. The man drew the key out of the lock and dropped it into the pocket of that long greatcoat of his.
Little Sam Drinkwater took his mother’s hand. Lucy Maxwell’s eyes were wide with worry as she glanced at the vicar.
Reverend Perry swallowed back his nervousness, forced the smile back onto his lips and walked up the centre aisle towards the man. ‘Good evening,’ he said as brightly as he could. ‘Welcome to St Elowen’s. It’s always a pleasure to see—’
As the man slowly reached down and swept back the hem of his long coat, Reverend Perry’s words died in his mouth. Around the man’s waist was a broad leather belt. Dangling from the belt, at his left hip, was an enormous sword. Its basket hilt was lined with scarlet cloth. Its polished scabbard glinted in the church lights.
Reverend Perry was too shocked to utter a word more. The man said nothing either. In no hurry, he reached his right hand across his body. His fingers wrapped themselves around the sword’s hilt and drew the weapon out with a metallic swishing sound. Its blade was long and straight and broad and had been crudely etched with strange symbols.
Reverend Perry gaped dumbly at the sight of the weapon in his church. He was only peripherally aware of the gasps and cries of horror that had started breaking out among the choir members.
The drifter smiled at Reverend Perry. And then, in a smooth and rapid motion that was over before anyone could react, he swung the sword.
The chopping impact of the blade was drowned out by Mrs Hudson’s scream. Keith Perry’s severed head bounced up the aisle and came to a rest between the pews. And the choir exploded into screaming panic.
The drifter held the blade up lovingly in front of his face. He licked the running blood off the steel. Began walking slowly up the aisle towards the terrified parishioners.
‘The vestry door!’ Lucy Maxwell shrieked, pointing. Liz Drinkwater grabbed her son’s arm tightly as she and her husband fled for the exit at the right of the altar. The others quickly followed, tripping over each other and their own feet in their desperation to get away. Rick Souter snatched up a heavy candlestick. With a scowl of rage he ran at the intruder and raised his makeshift weapon to strike.
The drifter swung the sword again. Rick Souter’s amputated arm fell to the floor still clutching the candlestick. The blade whooshed down and back up, slitting the butcher from groin to chin so that his innards spilled across the flagstones even before he’d collapsed on his face.
The drifter crouched over the fallen body to dab his fingers into the pool of blood that was rapidly spreading over the church floor. With a look of passionate joy he smeared the blood over his lips, greedily sucked it from his fingers. Then he stood, raised his face to the vaulted ceiling and laughed out loud.
‘You think you’re safe in here? Think your
God
will protect you?’
The vestry door was bolted from the outside. Lucy Maxwell and the Drinkwaters were desperately trying to force it open, but even as the other choir members joined them, they knew the door wouldn’t give. Little Sam howled as his mother clutched him to her. Brian Drinkwater was looking around him in panic for some other way out.
But there wasn’t one. They were all trapped in here with the madman.
Charlie Fitch parked his van outside the little church. As he walked briskly down the stone path leading to the door, his mind was still full of his hospital visit to his mother earlier that evening. Thank God she was okay and would be home again soon.
Then Charlie heard the sounds that froze the blood inside his veins. It wasn’t the singing of his friends in the choir he could hear from inside the church, nor the playing of the organ. They were screaming.
Screaming in horror and terror. In agony.
He rattled the door handle. The door was locked. He scrambled up the mossy bank behind him so he could peer in through the leaded panes of the stained-glass window.
What he saw inside was a sight that would remain with him until his dying day. The church floor littered with corpses and severed body parts. Blood spattered across the altar, on the pews, on everything.
In the middle of the nightmare stood a man in a long coat. Blood was spattered across his face, his shaven head, and the blade of the sword he was swinging wildly at the fleeing, screeching figure of Lucy Maxwell. It was surreal. Charlie watched as the girl’s head was separated from her shoulders by the gore-streaked blade. Then the madman turned to little Sam Drinkwater, who was kneeling by the bloody bodies of his parents, too frightened to scream.
It wasn’t until he witnessed what the man did to the boy that Charlie was able to break out of his trance of horror and run. He ran until his heart was about to burst, fell to his knees and ripped his phone out of his pocket.
Nineteen minutes later, the police armed response unit broke in the church door and burst onto the scene of the devastation. The first man inside nearly dropped his weapon when he took in the carnage in front of him.
Nothing remained of the Reverend Keith Perry or his choir members. Nothing except the horrific gobbets of diced human flesh that were scattered across the entire inside of the church.
The killer was still there. He stood calmly at the altar with his back to the door, stripped naked, bloodied from head to foot. His sword lay across the altar in front of him, gore still dripping from its blade. In his powerful hands he held a blood-filled chalice over his head.
The squad leader yelled ‘Armed police! Step away from the weapon!’. The man ignored the command and the guns that were aimed at his back. Murmuring softly to himself in a language the officers had never heard before, he slowly turned his face upwards and tipped the bloody contents of the chalice over his head, drinking and slurping greedily.
‘
Who the fuck is this person?
’ The squad leader didn’t even realize he’d spoken those words out loud.
Not until the man at the altar turned round to face him. And said: ‘I am a vampire.’