then he had another thought as the dial tone sounded in his ear, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. What if Brooke wasn’t alone? What if she had company – male company – the kind Ben didn’t want to think about? How would she react to her ex calling out of the blue at this time?
Ben almost aborted the call, but then hung on in nervous anticipation. He turned back towards the house as the dial tone went on ringing. Stepped inside the hallway, trying to marshal his thoughts and figure out where to begin.
A second later, Brooke replied. ‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded sleepy. It sounded nice. ‘Who is it? Hello?’
But Ben didn’t reply. He could hear her voice coming from the receiver, but he said nothing and slowly lowered the phone to his side. With his thumb he pressed the button to end the call.
Because the hallway was suddenly filled with masked men in black. Six of them. Six automatic weapons pointed right at him.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Wesley Holland’s island refuge hadn’t been safe at all. The enemy had wasted very little time in catching up with them, and now Ben was in real trouble.
The six gunmen were almost certainly a pair of three-man teams who’d approached the house by stealth from different angles and entered by different routes to converge in the middle. Ben didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say, no point asking ‘Who are you?’ or ‘What do you want?’ He let the phone drop from his hand and raised his arms shoulder-high as he backed away a step.
His mind was trained to work fast in these situations, and he already had a plan. The lamp he’d turned on a moment earlier was the only light in the hallway. The sideboard on which it stood was just two steps to his right. One swift movement, and he could smash the lamp to the floor, plunging the hallway into darkness. The couple of seconds’ confusion might buy him enough time to disarm one of the team and let loose four or five rounds before tumbling out of the door onto the terrace. He’d have to move fast, but if he didn’t take a bullet in the process it was just about feasible.
But even some of the best plans didn’t survive long in a real-life confrontation. The men immediately circled Ben as he backed away, two of them slipping around his right flank to block off his access to the lamp. The eyes in the ski masks all watched him intently, as if the men all knew exactly who he was and had been instructed to take no chances. Fingers were on triggers, safeties set to ‘FIRE’. Ben was pretty certain that if he made a single abrupt move, they’d gun him down where he stood.
‘Grab him and cuff him,’ said one. Every team had a leader. He was it. Two men stepped closer, one from the left, one from the right, still keeping their pistols trained on him.
The team leader spoke into a tiny radio mike on his collar. ‘Target acquired. Move in.’ Almost instantly, Ben heard the thump of a helicopter approaching.
The man on Ben’s left produced a thick plastic cable tie, the kind that police and military forces used to secure prisoners’ wrists behind their backs. He pressed the muzzle of his pistol against Ben’s head and took a hold of Ben’s arm. His movements were slick and practised. The operation was being executed with perfect efficiency and control.
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