The Cassandra Sanction (14 page)

‘Oh, you’ll beg us,’ Raul snarled at him, making a fist. ‘You’ll beg for a bullet, if you don’t tell us what we want to know.’

Beg for
a bullet. Ben looked at Raul and raised a hand. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I’m handling this, all right?’

Turning back to their prisoner, he softened his tone and asked in English, ‘What’s your name?’

‘I am Kazem Behzadi. I work here. Please do not—’

‘Just answer the questions,’ Ben said.

Raul’s eyes narrowed and he chewed his lip as if remembering something. He nudged Ben’s arm and beckoned
him aside to say quietly, ‘She told me about a Kazem.’

Ben turned and walked to the kitchen. He came back holding a large chef’s knife from the block on the worktop. Kazem’s eyes popped at the sight of the blade, and he began to gibber in fear as Ben stepped around behind the chair.

‘Who’s your employer, Kazem?’ Ben asked.

‘Catalina! Catalina Fuentes! Don’t kill me!’

Ben believed
him, and holding the guy prisoner made no more sense. Ben quickly slashed the tape holding Kazem’s wrists to the chair, careful not to cut him, then did the same for his ankles. Realising that Ben wasn’t about to saw his head off, Kazem stopped panicking and sat quietly in the chair, rubbing his wrists. His eyes followed the knife as Ben laid it down on a side table with the point turned towards
the wall. Now that he understood that these two men were here neither to deport him nor to murder him, he looked bewildered. ‘Catalina Fuentes,’ he repeated softly, and then his eyes clouded. ‘But I do not work for her any more. She is dead.’

‘I’m her brother,’ Raul said. ‘Raul Fuentes.’

Kazem peered at Raul, and through the dissipating fog of his terror a look of recognition dawned as
he took in the physical resemblance. ‘Yes, yes, she talk about you all the time.’ Then his face fell again, etched deep with sadness. ‘I am so sorry she is gone.’

Raul looked down and said nothing.

‘How did you come to be here?’ Ben asked.

Stumbling over his English, Kazem explained that while working as a lab technician back home in Tehran, he’d been involved with a group of anti-government
campaigners and been drawn into the protests of 2011 and 2012 in which social unrest had sparked off violent rioting in the city. Amid the subsequent brutal clampdown by the Iranian authorities, in which thousands of people had been arrested, beaten and even killed by police, Kazem had fled the country. Like many other political refugees from the east he’d ended up in Germany, where, managing
to obtain a temporary visa and residence permit to allow him to work, he’d bummed about from one casual job to another until eventually finding suitable employment as a science lab tech at the University of Munich.

He’d been happy there, until two things had happened to shake his world. First, the expiry of his work visa, which slipped by him and also went unnoticed by the university personnel
department. Second, the retirement of his kindly supervisor and his replacement with a by-the-book hardass racist bigot who’d made it his business to harass and persecute Kazem at every turn. When his hated new supervisor had discovered that Kazem had outstayed his work visa, he’d gleefully threatened to denounce him to the immigration authorities.

Terrified that he was about to be deported
back to Iran, where many of his friends were still in jail, Kazem had been at a loss until Catalina Fuentes stepped in to rescue him. He explained how he’d often met her at work, and how pleasant and friendly she’d always been to him, helping him with his German and encouraging him to study towards a science degree, unlike many of the other academic staff who treated the techs like non-humans. When
his visa crisis had threatened to ruin everything, Catalina had offered him private employment, for better pay, as her personal assistant and live-in caretaker out here at the observatory. He’d been only too happy to move out of his shitty digs in the city and move here, where he had his own mini-apartment in a converted outbuilding, and a peaceful life working for someone he liked.

That had
been nearly eleven months ago, during which time they’d become friends. He was learning more about astronomy, maths and physics, studying German, English and even a little Spanish, and impressing her with his appetite for advancement through study. She’d bought him a motorbike to run errands on, as he didn’t drive a car. She had been a wonderful, warm, generous person.

Then it had all come
crashing down.

Kazem almost wept when he talked about her suicide. He was broken-hearted over it, as well as worried about his own future. He’d taken a part-time job washing dishes in a hotel nearby, still living here in the knowledge that he couldn’t remain forever, and in fear that the immigration people would come to whisk him away in the night. Sooner or later, he knew, this would all
be over.

As he talked, a large black cat appeared through the gap in the entrance door. It hovered there for a second, scrutinising the humans inside with suspicious green eyes, then stalked into the room, the tip of its tail switching to signal its displeasure.

‘That is Herschel,’ Kazem said. ‘He is kind of wild. He turn up here one day, and make this his home. Catalina name him after
her favourite astronomer.’

Ignoring the three of them, the cat wandered nonchalantly through into the kitchen, hopped onto the table and started chewing at the remains of the leftover sandwich.

‘Herschel,
hör auf damit, du blöde Katze
,’ Kazem called after him, then jumped up and went to scoop it up in his arms and march it back to the door. The cat wriggled and twisted as Kazem put it
outside and closed the door. ‘He always stealing my food,’ he explained to Ben and Raul. ‘I speak to him in German and he understand, but he never learn.’

Ben looked at Kazem Behzadi and saw a sincere, good-natured and completely guileless young guy in whom Catalina had obviously placed a great deal of trust. He felt bad about having treated him roughly before. But there was still one thing
Kazem had said that perplexed him.

‘Why did you think we were here to kill you, Kazem?’ Ben asked him.

Kazem shifted uncomfortably, hesitated a moment and then replied, ‘When you tell me you are not with the BAMF, then I think you have come to steal. Is lot of expensive equipment here. Is much crime in Germany. I am sorry,’ he added. ‘I should not have run.’

Ben reflected for a moment
and said, ‘I’m sorry too. We didn’t mean to alarm you. If I damaged your motorcycle, I’ll help you fix it up, okay?’

Raul hadn’t spoken during Kazem’s account. Now he leaned closer to the Iranian and said, ‘Let me tell you why we’re here. I believe that my sister is still alive. I came from Spain to find her. You were her friend. If you know anything, anything at all, that can help me find
out what really happened and where she is, I need to know. I don’t have a lot of money but I will pay you, and help you in whatever way I can.’

Kazem stared at Raul for the longest time. Then he shook his head. ‘No, she is dead. She has driven her car into sea. Nobody survive this. She not want to survive. I think she have a sad heart.’ He pressed a hand to his own chest.

‘They never found
the body,’ Raul said.

Kazem went on shaking his head and looking deeply uncomfortable. ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘This is not possible she is alive. She is gone and she is not coming back. I am sorry. Like you, I miss her very much. She look after me, help me in so many ways. I think perhaps one day I can study and become something in my life. If this can happen, it will be because of your sister.
She was honourable person.’ His eyes had become moist as he talked. He quickly reached up and dabbed at them.

Herschel the cat had stalked around to the window outside and jumped up onto the ledge, where it curled up with its legs tucked underneath its body and green eyes narrowed to slits.

‘Kazem, when was the last time you saw Catalina?’ Ben asked.

Kazem frowned and thought for a
moment. ‘It was just some days before she kill herself. She come here to use the Lunt.’

‘The Lunt?’

‘The solar scope,’ Kazem explained, motioning towards the observatory. ‘Lunt is its name. She want to observe a solar filament she very interested in. I help her set it up. Afterwards she cook dinner for us, then she stay the night and drive back to Munich the next morning. That is last
time I see her or speak to her.’

Ben didn’t bother asking what a solar filament was. ‘How did she seem to you? Considering what happened a few days later?’

Kazem shrugged. ‘She seem normal to me. I did not think anything is wrong. Her pain, she was hiding it very well.’

Ben glanced at Raul, who was staring down at the floor and chewing his lip. ‘I’d like you to think really carefully,
Kazem. Did she say anything to you that made you think she was frightened?’

Kazem frowned, and shook his head slowly. ‘I cannot think. Frightened of what?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ Raul said.

‘Did she need money? Was she in trouble? Was somebody threatening her?’ Ben knew that this line of questioning was going to run out soon, and he couldn’t think of anything more to ask Kazem.

‘I do not understand,’ Kazem said, shaking his head faster. ‘What is this you are talking about?’

It looked to Ben as if they were drawing a blank here. He turned away in frustration and walked to the window. He stood there as if looking out at the view, but his gaze was turned mostly inwards as he thought hard about the situation and what to do next. The window pane had a thin layer of dust
on it. The other side of the glass, the black cat was still nestled on the ledge.

Suddenly, the cat went rigid and sprang to its feet. The green eyes flared. A ridge of hair bristled up down its spine and its tail became rigid and spiked.

The cat sensed danger.

Chapter Eighteen

The BMW Gran Coupé coasted the last few metres with its engine switched off, small stones pinging from under its tyres. It ground to a halt on the track, followed by the blue Opel, then the black Fiat van. The very top of the white observatory dome was visible over the rise, but they couldn’t be seen from the house.

Cook, Lewis, Nicholson and Hacker got out of the two
cars. The back doors of the van swung open and the four gathered around. Patiently, calmly, they went back through the same motions as they had in Munich, though the equipment was different this time. With no need to conceal their light body armour under their normal clothing, each man put on a tactical vest with pouches for ammunition. And out here in the sticks where the ear-shattering noise of
heavy armament wasn’t going to draw a thousand police and land them in a siege situation, they could afford to relegate their pistols to backup status and bring on board some serious firepower. Ruddock and Dean were assigned a pair of black Benelli semiautomatic shotguns, Nicholson and Lewis a brace of their tried-and-trusted workhorse MP5 submachine guns, the A3 version with the collapsible shoulder
stock. Thirty-round magazines. They were old, worn but reliable weapons that had served them on assignments all over the world.

Just in case those weren’t enough, Cook had something extra. Unzipping a padded gun slip he pulled out an HK 417 battle rifle in sniper configuration, set up by him personally with the twenty-inch accurized barrel and telescopic sight and accurate at eight hundred
metres. He slapped in a magazine loaded with twenty gleaming bottlenecked 7.62mm NATO rounds, racked the bolt and set the selector lever to safe. Flipped open his scope lens covers. Ready to rock.

Between them, they had enough hardware to take on a platoon. Nobody was leaving anything to chance. This wasn’t some fatboy Mafia hood or drug-addled Somali militiaman they were going up against
today.

The six donned their black ski-masks and then fitted their earbud headsets with miniature condenser mikes that would keep them in touch by phone. Cook had already notified the Boss of their arrival, and the Boss was listening and waiting in anticipation of a rapidly and successfully executed mission.

They left the vehicles blocking the track and stalked up towards the house on foot.
As the roofline came into view, they split up and spread out, moving cautiously and keeping their heads low so as not to be spotted. The silver Kia was parked thirty yards from the house. They were bang on target. No other vehicles were in sight. It was probably just Hope and Fuentes in the place. If there was someone else inside, then too bad for them.

Nicholson, Ruddock and Lewis took a
wide, circuitous route around the right side of the property while the other three cut around the left. Hacker and Dean positioned themselves prone in the long grass beyond the fence overlooking the front of the house and awaited their orders. Short minutes later, Nicholson’s whisper in their earpieces told them that the three were successfully infiltrated among the outbuildings to the rear.

The Boss was eagerly listening in. The six could sense his presence there, silent and commanding and full of expectation.

Cook split himself off from the others and made his way slowly and carefully up and around behind the rocky rise, unseen from the windows, to a point on the hillside where he was roughly level with the roofline of the house, with a perfect view of the yard and front
entrance. Finding a spot between two rocks, he laid himself prone behind his rifle. Planted the HK’s bipod legs on the uneven ground and steadied the gun so that it was solidly mounted against the triangular support of his shoulder and his elbows. The left arm crooked with his hand resting loosely on his right bicep. His right hand not too tight on the pistol grip of the weapon’s synthetic stock.
His body at a slight angle behind the rifle, legs splayed, the right knee cocked for maximum stability. The classic sniper position that he’d been taught over twenty years earlier in the British army. His right cheek was pressed against the stock, with exactly the correct amount of eye relief for the scope. The optics mounted on the gun were Swiss, top quality and worth twice as much as the rifle
itself. The magnified image was pin-sharp, overlaid by the tactical mil-dot reticle of the crosshairs. The dots looked like tiny black beads threaded on a silk strand. Their purpose was to offer different aiming points to compensate for the bullet’s trajectory at long range, when the inevitable forces of gravity began to suck it towards the earth.