The sound of Levi Roots’ reggae music was coming from his stereo in the background, but it didn’t seem to be cheering Tuesday up. He looked even glummer than before.
‘You can come out now. Brooke’s gone,’ Ben said.
‘I only wanted to give you guys some space.’
‘So we could rip each other’s guts out in private. Thanks. Listen, Tues. Remember I said about you having to hold the fort here? Well, you’re going to have to hold it a little longer. There’s been a development and I have to go.’
‘Go where?’ Tuesday said, blinking.
‘I’ll call you from the road,’ Ben replied. ‘Any news about Jeff, any news about anything at all, keep me updated.’
Tuesday said he would. Without another word, Ben hurried to his own quarters on the top floor of the rambling old house. It was a small, simple space, which he kept uncluttered with a minimum of belongings, as neat as a military dorm. He rummaged through his cupboard, then grabbed his battered green canvas bag. The old army haversack was permanent home to various items that tended to come in handy when Ben was on his travels, such as his mini-Maglite torch with LED upgrade for when he found himself in dark spots, and a roll of super-strong duct tape that was useful for anything from trussing up captives to making improvised field dressings. Ben stuffed in a couple of changes of underwear, two pairs of Helikon winter socks, the same ones the Norwegian Army used, a spare pair of black Levi’s and a heavy denim shirt identical to the one he was already wearing. From a box on the dresser he took a thick roll of cash without counting it, wrapped it up with his passport inside a double skin of two plastic Ziploc bags and tucked the package in on top of his spare clothes. Then he jammed in two packs of Gauloises, his whisky flask, and a can of fluid for his lighter.
Finally, there was the other item he kept hidden under the loose floorboard at the foot of the single bed: one piece of hardware that the anti-terror cops couldn’t confiscate, because no official knew it even existed. The nine-millimetre Taurus automatic had belonged to a Romanian drug dealer called Dracul, before Ben had commandeered the handgun as a trophy of war. He snicked a full magazine of Federal +P hollowpoints into its butt, cocked it and locked it and tucked it into the bag where he could get to it quickly. Because in situations like this, it was a lot better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
Three minutes later, Ben was jumping into the Alpina, flinging his bag onto the passenger seat, firing up the engine with a throaty blast and gunning the car out of Le Val’s yard.
Eight hours to Father Pascal’s village of Saint-Jean. He aimed to make it there in seven.
Ben drove hard and fast through the night. Rain and sleet battered his windscreen, turned to snow for a while around Orléans, and then petered out again as he hammered southwards. He chain-smoked his way through the rest of his current pack of Gauloises, then broke into a fresh one. The strong, unfiltered cigarettes did little to settle his tension; the frenetic modern jazz station blasting from the Alpina’s sound system didn’t help much either.
Approaching Bourges, running low on fuel and energy, he pulled off the motorway into an aire de service. The night was chilly and damp. After he’d finished filling the tank, out of habit he parked the car in a corner of the rest area car park where it was shaded under the trees from the lights. He took his pistol from his bag and slipped it into his belt, behind the right hip where it was hidden by his jacket. Then he locked up the car and walked to the nearby all-night café and shop to get something to eat. He felt hollow and weary, yet jumpy and agitated. More conscious than usual of the hard steel lump of the gun nestling against the small of his back, he walked wide of any corners or doorways where an attacker could suddenly leap out. None did, but the edginess remained.
He walked into the café. It was warm inside. Tall windows offered a view of the brightly illuminated fuel station on one side, the darker car park on the other. Piped muzak was playing quietly in the background. There were a few late-night travellers taking a rest, some couples but mostly solitary men, sitting at plastic tables and desultorily sipping coffee while fiddling with phones or tablets. Nobody took any notice of Ben as he went in, but he eyed each one, sizing them up as though they could be a potential threat.
Maybe he was being paranoid, he thought. Or maybe he wasn’t. If the shooter had figured out by now that he’d got the wrong target, he could have hung around Le Val and picked up the trail of the Alpina. Ben was pretty sure nobody had followed him, but you could never be one hundred per cent certain of spotting a skilled tail. Especially when they worked in a team, relaying one another, keeping in contact by phone or radio, maintaining a constantly-shifting net of surveillance around their target. Ben had worked in enough of those teams himself to know exactly how they operated. If somehow Usberti was behind this – despite apparently being dead – then there was no telling how many paid guns he could have brought on board.
Ben bought a pack of sandwiches and a carry-out paper cup of steaming black coffee, paid cash and made his way back to the BMW. Nobody followed him. He locked himself inside the car, took the gun from his belt and laid it on the centre console close by his right hand. He tore open the sandwich pack: Gruyère cheese and pâté de campagne. His body craved food but he had no appetite. As he ate mechanically and slurped the hot coffee, he checked the latest news reports on his smartphone.
One small consolation was that the media were still in the dark about the details of the shooting incident at the obscure training facility in rural Normandy. The as-yet unidentified victim is believed to be a British national residing in France, with unconfirmed reports suggesting an ex-military connection. The British Ministry of Defence were unavailable for comment. Details of the victim’s condition have not yet been released and the exact circumstances of the incident remain uncertain … SDAT anti-terror officers have said they are involved in the investigation but have not revealed whether the shooting may have been carried out by a member or members of an extremist Islamic group. And on, and on.
The other news item he wanted to check was much more forthcoming on detail, but no more conclusive. INTERPOL’s fury in the wake of Luc Simon’s murder was splashed all over the media, along with gruesome images of the shower unit, post-body-removal, that looked as if a butcher had hung up a live pig in there by its hind legs and slit its throat.
It was no way to go for a good guy like Luc Simon.
INTERPOL were lining up suspects on the working theory that the killing was an act of revenge, carried out either by someone Luc had put away or on their behalf. No charges had yet been brought. Inevitably, the media were whipping up their own storm of speculation that the murder of a high-ranking law enforcement officer was yet another terrorist atrocity. Ben wouldn’t have been surprised if, in the next day or two, the cops pinned it on some claimed Muslim fanatic they found on an intelligence watch-list, complete with the ‘discovery’ of maps and photos of Luc Simon and his home in the suspect’s apartment, along with the requisite anti-West hate literature and bomb-making materials under his bed. And maybe they’d be right. But Ben didn’t think so.
Next he tried Roberta’s number, but her phone was switched off. Then he tried Pascal’s landline number once more for luck, and gnashed his teeth in frustration until the dial tone went dead. So much for the communication age.
But at least someone was answering their phone. The third number he tried, he got a reply after three rings.
‘Dr Lacombe? It’s Ben Hope.’
‘This
