The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET (192 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

The moment he climbed into the Shogun, Ben could tell that the cops had been through every inch of the vehicle. Just the subtle telltale signs that only a professional could discern, like the grubby prints all over the dashboard, the sweet wrapper in the rear footwell and the undone straps on his old green army bag. His leather jacket was still on the passenger seat where he’d left it, but with consummate skill, whoever had checked out the contents of his wallet had replaced it in the wrong pocket. At least they hadn’t managed to lose his air tickets, or dipped their fingers into the thick wad of banknotes he preferred to carry rather than use cards. The driver’s seat had been adjusted for someone with legs about the length of a mandrill’s. Ben made himself comfortable, then fired up the engine and drove out of the forecourt of the Carabinieri headquarters. The armed guards waved him laconically out of the gate.

The night was warm, and Ben rolled down his windows as he drove out into the street. He felt tired. It was late, but in Rome it was never too late to find a hotel. All he wanted right now was to get to bed and close his eyes and wipe the last few hours from his memory forever.

In the glow of a streetlight a few metres away, three people were hanging about a parked silver Renault Espace. Two guys, one unshaven with spiky hair and a loud shirt, the other chubby in a denim jacket, talking to a tall, attractive brunette. The men were both smoking and the three were sharing a joke about something. The woman’s laughter carried across the street.

As Ben drove out of the police HQ and the gates closed behind him, he noticed the chubby guy glance his way through the Shogun’s open window, narrow his eyes in recognition and then tap the woman on the arm and mutter something in Italian that might have been ‘here he comes’. The woman and the spiky-haired guy turned to stare at him; then the spiky-haired guy quickly threw down his cigarette and crushed the butt with his shoe, ducked into the back of the Espace and came out with a lightweight TV camera that he slung over his shoulder like a surface-to-air missile launcher, while the chubby one produced a set of earphones and a boom mike. They all came striding across the street towards the approaching Shogun, and Ben had to brake to avoid running them down.

The woman held up her hand. ‘Excuse me?’ she called out in English. ‘Signor Hope? Silvana Lucenzi, TeleGiornale 1 News.’

Ben swore under his breath. Lario’s grip on secrecy was about as refined as his men’s hostage rescue skills. He waved the crew out of the way, but they circled the car and wouldn’t let him pass. The spiky-haired guy aimed his camera through the Shogun’s open passenger window at Ben while the woman came up to the driver’s side, smiling in that rapacious way ambitious reporters had when they were hot on the trail of an exclusive.

‘Signor Ben Hope? You are the hero of the gallery robbery. Can I have an interview?’ She put her hand, with long pink nails, on the door sill and trotted along beside the Mitsubishi as he nosed between them, trying to get past without running over their feet. That was all he needed.
Art gallery hero cripples TV reporter.

‘You have the wrong person,’ he said in an American accent. ‘Hugo Braunschweiger, US Embassy attaché.’

‘How did it feel to be facing death, Signor Hope?’ she asked, evidently not fooled. Ben could see the camera’s auto-focus lens zeroing in on him for a response. He stabbed the window control and the woman jerked her hand away as the glass wound up. He put his foot on the gas, forced the three of them aside and roared off down the street. In his mirror, Silvana Lucenzi pulled a face and waved her arms in frustration at her colleagues.

The streets of Rome were never asleep. Ben was immune to the spectacular sights as he drove by the illuminated Colosseum and up Via Fori Imperiali. A few cafés were still open, people sitting drinking in the beautiful evening. Lovers walking arm in arm, sports cars zapping through the streets and impetuous young guys on noisy little motorcycles popping wheelies to impress girls. After a couple of misses, Ben found a hotel with vacancies near the Piazza Venezia and wearily carried his bag over to the reception desk and booked a single room. The woman behind the desk seemed uninterested in him at first; then she suddenly looked at him more closely, frowned and cocked her head.

Uh-oh
, he thought, seeing the look of recognition dawn on her face.
Don’t tell me.

But she did, wide-eyed with animation and waving her incredulous colleagues over. Within seconds a whole group of women had gathered to stare at him as though he’d landed from Jupiter. Was he really the same man they’d just seen on the TV news? The one who’d helped the police to rescue the hostages from the masked gunmen? He was a real live hero. What was happening to the world? What could ordinary, innocent people do, without such heroes to step in and save them from evil men?

An angel, the eldest of the women said, gazing at him adoringly. ‘
Siete un angelo.
’

Ben escaped as politely and as quickly as he could before anybody proposed marriage, and rode the lift to the third floor. The room was small and neat. He dumped his things on an armchair, peeled off the ill-fitting shirt Lario had given him and put on a fresh light blue cotton one from his bag. He turned the lights down low and lay back on the bed, closing his eyes, and rolling over on his side. A lump in his pocket pressed into his leg. It was his phone. He sat up and dug it out. When he tried to switch it on, there was no response. The badly cracked screen and dented keypad offered some clue as to why. Ben guessed his tumble down the fire escape hadn’t done it any favours.

Another reminder he didn’t need of that day’s events. It was impossible to shut out the constant replays that kept running round and round inside his brain. He tossed away the broken phone. His head was spinning with fatigue, but he knew he couldn’t sleep.

The mini-bar had two miniatures of blended whisky. Infinitely better than nothing. He poured both into a tumbler, grabbed his cigarettes and Zippo from his jacket pocket and leaned out of the window, watching the lights of the night traffic and the architecture lit up gold across the city. He finished the rough-tasting liquor too fast and wished for more, then thought it was probably just as well the room didn’t come with a litre of the stuff. He kept smoking and staring out of the window. By the time he was properly wound down and ready for sleep, it was nearly four in the morning and the first glimmers of dawn were rising over the seven hills of Rome.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Georgia

The airstrip was a long straight tongue of concrete running through the middle of the shallow valley on the edge of the isolated Shikov estate. It was deserted except for a black Humvee with tinted windows, and two men. One of the men sat at the wheel of the hulking vehicle, gazing idly into space. It wasn’t his job to be concerned with who they might be waiting for out here, or why.

The other man had a great deal to be concerned about. Yuri Maisky stood a few metres away from the Humvee with the warm morning sun on his back, and gazed west. The snow-capped mountains were crisp and clear against the blue sky, but he hadn’t come out here to take in the beauty of the landscape.

Maisky had been working for his uncle for nearly twenty-five years, and in all that time he’d had no illusions about the nature of the business. They were all soaked in blood. If he’d been a religious man, he’d have felt damned to hell.

But fourteen months ago, things had changed. One of those unexpected events that could turn a man’s life around.

It had been during a business trip to Moscow that he’d met Leyla in the empty bar of his hotel one night. She was a sales rep from Kiev, there for a conference. One drink together had turned into three. One night together became a week. Two months later, they were married and Leyla had quit her job and moved to Georgia to live with him on the estate. He’d told her that his uncle was involved in government work.

Within a year, Leyla had given birth to little Anja. The day he’d held his newborn baby daughter in his arms had been the happiest of Maisky’s life.

But with the responsibility of fatherhood had come the beginning of Maisky’s problems. For the first time in his life, he’d become afraid. Afraid of his uncle’s increasing un predictability. Afraid of what would become of his wife and baby daughter if anything happened to him. He was a new man, and suddenly he was terrified.

He was even more terrified at this moment.

His watch read 7.06 as he heard the incoming light aircraft. Just a low buzz in the distance growing steadily louder, before his eyes picked out the white dot in the sky a hundred metres above the forest. He kept his eyes on it all the way as it approached and the pilot banked steeply in to line it up with the airstrip. The landing was perfect. A yelp of rubber as its fixed undercarriage touched down, then the pilot taxied the craft to within a short walking distance of the Humvee. The side hatch opened, and Maisky walked over to meet the man who was getting out.

Just one man.

Spartak Gourko’s face was expressionless as he stepped down from the plane. His only luggage was the black rectangular padded case hanging from a strap over his shoulder.

They didn’t shake hands. No greetings. No explanations. No ‘glad you made it’. No ‘sorry about what happened’.

‘Where is he?’ Gourko said.

‘In his study. He hasn’t come out since we heard. Hasn’t moved. Hasn’t spoken.’

Gourko said nothing. They got into the Humvee. As they drove away, the pilot was taxiing the plane around 180 degrees for take-off. Twenty minutes later, the Humvee passed through the gates of Shikov’s complex and pulled up in the concrete yard. The two men got out and walked towards the boathouse. The sun was getting warmer. Clouds of midges floated over the shimmering lake behind the house.

‘You’re very quiet, Yuri,’ Gourko said.

Maisky glanced into the man’s inscrutable eyes. He found it hard to look at Gourko without staring in disgust at the scar on his face. ‘It’s been a difficult time,’ he said.

Gourko didn’t reply.

They reached the boathouse. Two guards armed with AKS assault rifles opened the wrought-iron gate for them, and they stepped through into the ante-hall and down a broad, marble-floored passage filled with the scent of tropical plants and flowers. Another armed guard stood at the heavy oak door. Maisky waved him aside and showed Gourko into the study.

Shikov still had not moved from behind his desk. His face was as ashen grey as the rumpled suit he’d been wearing all night. White stubble coated his jaw and his hair was in disarray. An empty container of his pills lay in front of him, and next to it a whirring notebook computer showing the large, full-colour photograph of the man being hailed as a hero on the website of the Italian paper
La Repubblica
. On the small TV screen on the sideboard to his left was a muted DVD playback of yesterday’s RaiUno news, playing on a loop. It had been playing all night. Over and over.

Maisky motioned to Gourko to stay back. He cleared his throat nervously as he approached the desk. Shikov seemed not to register their presence at first; then his gaze came into focus. His breathing sounded laboured.

‘Are you all right, uncle?’ Maisky asked hesitantly, glancing at the empty pill bottle. He knew the answer to that. The old man’s illness was growing worse all the time.

‘You have it?’ Shikov asked Gourko. His voice was a hoarse whisper.

Gourko said nothing, just nodded.

‘Bring it to me,’ Shikov said softly.

Gourko stepped over to the desk. He unslung the pouch from his shoulder, laid it down carefully and unzipped it all the way around before stepping away. Shikov shoved the laptop to one side and peeled back the lid of the pouch to reveal the framed picture. He ran his fingers over the glass, and for a few moments he seemed lost in thought. Then his eyes snapped upwards and fixed intensely on Gourko.

‘I want to know,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything.’

And Gourko did, in a flat tone that conveyed no emotion. He described Anatoly’s idea to change the original plan. Said how he’d wanted to honour his father by bringing home the trophy more efficiently. How he’d proved his strength of leadership and his tactical skills. And how the man called Hope had somehow managed to trick him and then murder him.

As Gourko spoke, Maisky was watching his uncle with growing horror. Shikov’s face seemed to collapse into itself, as if a silent, slow-motion nuclear mushroom cloud was unfolding inside him. The light in his eyes dulled. He faltered, then gradually crumpled lower and lower, inch by inch, until his forehead was resting on the desk.

Maisky had never seen him this bad. He raised his hand, and Gourko stopped talking.

‘Uncle? Are you OK?’

No reply. For a few seconds, Maisky was convinced that the old man had suffered another heart attack. The big one they’d all been grimly waiting for. Visions of him lying dead in his casket, of the long winding funeral procession, unfolded in his mind’s eye. A hundred black limousines crawling in single file towards the cemetery.

On the sideboard was a carafe of water and some crystal tumblers. Maisky hurried over to it, poured a glass of water and was about to start opening desk drawers to look for another bottle of pills when he saw the old man raise his head and open his eyes. No tears. No red. Just a depth of silent rage that sent a chill down Maisky’s backbone.

Shikov drew in a long breath. He held it for what seemed like forever, then let it out, slowly. His lips rolled back from his teeth. He reached down and tore open the middle drawer of his desk, thrust his hand inside.

And came out with a gun.

His old Mauser automatic pistol. An ancient nineteenth-century collector’s piece, but still in perfect condition. The weapon gleamed dully with oil. Its barrel was long and tapered. Maisky stared at it, and for one terrible moment he believed the Tsar was going to shoot them both. Gourko, for having failed to save Anatoly’s life. Him, Maisky, for having failed to warn him against sending his son to Italy.

Unfair. Brutal, even. But then, unfairness and brutality were traits Grigori Shikov was well known for. Maisky waited for the muzzle of the gun to swing his way. Waited for the explosion of the shot, the punch of the high-velocity 7.63mm bullet ripping into his body.

It didn’t happen. Instead, Shikov flipped the pistol over in his right hand, gripping it like a hammer by its long barrel. He reached out with his left, grabbed the edge of the framed sketch and smashed the rounded wooden butt of the gun into the glass. Kept hitting it over and over again, until the frame was hanging in pieces, the card mount was battered and buckled and the picture itself was a crumpled mess.

Then Shikov dropped the ruined artwork down on his desk among the broken glass and splinters and dust, breathing hard. The sketch tore in two as he ripped it from the wrecked frame. He shoved his fingers between where the sketch had been and the twisted backing board, and with a deep grunt of satisfaction he drew his hand out clutching a yellowed old piece of folded paper. His hands trembled with excitement as he unfolded it. He hunched over it, studying it intently.

Maisky had never seen Gourko look baffled before. Only Shikov and his nephew had known what had lain hidden inside the sketch’s frame for more than eighty years.

Shikov finally tore his gaze from the paper and looked up at Maisky.

‘Get the Gulfstream ready,’ he rumbled.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To a ruined church near St Petersburg, in Russia,’ Shikov said. ‘To bring back the Dark Medusa.’