The Nemesis Program_Ben Hope

by Scott Mariani

  ‘There’s some old shirts of mine in the cupboard in the hall,’ he told her. ‘Might be a bit baggy on you, but feel free to borrow one.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She watched him as he arranged his makeshift bed for the night. ‘You know, Ben?’

  ‘What?’ he said, pausing and looking up.

  ‘I hate to make you sleep on your own floor. It’s your apartment, after all. And you need to rest as badly as I do.’

  ‘I’ve kipped in a lot worse places than the floor,’ he said.

  ‘Spare me the gruesome details. We could always share, you know?’

  He looked at her guardedly.

  ‘You don’t have to be coy. I didn’t mean it that way,’ she said. ‘In any case, apparently we already got over that phase of our relationship a long time ago.’

  ‘I suppose we did,’ he said.

  ‘We’re friends, right? And friends can share a bed without it meaning anything, yes?’

  ‘I suppose they could,’ he said. ‘As long as everyone was clear that it didn’t mean anything. That it couldn’t possibly …’

  ‘Everyone is clear,’ she said. ‘Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?’

  But neither was unaware of the awkwardness between them as they settled down to grab a few hours’ sleep, as widely spaced apart as the double mattress would allow, with their backs to one another.

  ‘Goodnight, Ben,’ came her soft voice in the darkness after they’d switched out the lights.

  ‘Goodnight, Roberta.’

  A long silence, then: ‘Ben?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m glad you’re with me.’

  He said nothing. After a time he heard her breathing fall into the slow, deep rhythm of sleep. He lay and stared into the darkness, grappling with his thoughts and listening to the hypnotic, never-ending background murmur of the Parisian traffic until, sometime after dawn, he slipped away into a restless slumber of his own.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Virginia

  Thirty-two days earlier

  In the middle of a warm, sultry night in May, in an attractive townhouse in a sleepy, moonlit, tree-lined street in Shepherdstown, Fairfax County, a cell phone had started ringing on the bedside table.

  The man in the bed woke up, shot an arm out from under the sheet and grabbed the phone. He scowled as he clamped it to his ear. ‘Who the hell’s this? Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘Am I speaking to Jack Quigley?’ said the caller. Male, maybe forties, gravelly voice, audibly agitated.

  ‘This is Quigley. Who’re you?’

  ‘Carlisle,’ the caller said. ‘Yeah, Steve Carlisle, that’s right.’

  ‘You don’t sound too sure about that, Mr Carlisle.’ Quigley also thought he sounded as if he’d been drinking. ‘I don’t really care. I don’t know you, I don’t know how you got this number. Call me again and I’ll have the cops on you, understand?’

  ‘Don’t hang up,’ the caller pleaded. ‘I need your help. Can’t say who gave me your number. They said you could be trusted.’ A pause. ‘I worked for the government, too. Please listen to me.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just a private citizen,’ Quigley lied. ‘You need help with something, I suggest you go to the cops.’

  ‘I can’t go to the cops. I can’t go to the Feds. You’re Company, right? You’re who I need.’

  ‘The Company’ was what its employees and other United States Government officials called the CIA. Jack Quigley was a Special Investigator with the agency, but what he did for a living wasn’t meant to be public knowledge. ‘Whoever told you that is mistaken, and this conversation’s over. Do not attempt to contact me again. That’s a warning. Goodbye.’

  Quigley was just about to end the call when he heard the caller say, ‘Mitch Shelton.’

  He instantly snatched the phone back to his ear. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Mitch Shelton,’ the caller repeated. A pause, then: ‘I know how he died.’

  The words were like a slap. Shelton and Quigley had joined the agency at the same time back in the early 2000s and gone through several recruit training programs together, forming a friendship. There was a framed photograph of the two of them on the wall in Quigley’s office, taken five years or so earlier on a canoe trip in the Missouri Breaks. Quigley, then 39 and still looking as fit as in his Marine Corps days; Shelton, a year older, tanned and handsome with a mile-wide grin – the two of them were in brightly-coloured wetsuits and mock-sparring with their canoe paddles. In latter years, Mitch had been deployed in various roles overseas, not all of which he could talk openly about, and they’d only been able to catch up now and then over a beer or six.

  Then four months ago, while on a scuba diving vacation off the Florida coast with his wife Janice, tragedy struck.

  According to the coroner’s report, the cause of Mitch’s death had been accidental drowning, perhaps brought on by a cramp, nobody knew. Even more horrifically, his floating body had been caught up in the propellers of a boat sometime after death had occurred, causing such mutilation that he’d had to be identified from dental records.

  ‘Everyone knows how Mitch died,’ Quigley said, swallowing hard.

  ‘No, they don’t,’ the caller said. ‘But if you wanna go on believing a bunch of lies, that’s up to you. Not just about Shelton. He’s just for starters.’

  ‘Your name isn’t Carlisle,’ Quigley snapped. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘There’s a phone booth two blocks south of your house. Be there in ten minutes and dial this number.’ The caller read it out twice. ‘You got that?’

  ‘I have it. But why should I do it?’

  ‘You want to know more, don’t you?’ the caller said, then hung up.

  Quigley almost didn’t bother taking the bait. He didn’t waste time on cranks and he was upset by the reminder of what had happened to poor Mitch. More importantly, to respond to this guy was an admission of what he did. It could be a mistake.

  Minutes ticked by. Quigley sat on the edge of the bed and fretted, unable to put the call out of his mind. Finally, as time was running out, his burning curiosity overwhelmed him. He did want to know more.

  He pulled on his clothes and hurried downstairs. The dog had come out of his basket and was wagging his tail in the dark hallway, full of expectation. ‘Hey, Red. You feel like a midnight run?’ Quigley said, grabbing the leash from the stand and clipping it onto his collar. He and the big Labrador lived alone together in the townhouse. There was no Mrs Quigley, not yet. The CIA didn’t leave a lot of time for a personal life, especially for someone as dedicated to their job as he was.

  Quigley leapt down the steps from his front door and sprinted up the night street with the dog pounding happily along behind him, tongue lolling. Quigley reached the phone booth two blocks south and dialled the number he’d been given. He was out of breath and knew he needed to work on his fitness.

  ‘I was beginning to think you wouldn’t call,’ said Carlisle’s voice.

  ‘All right, you got my attention. I don’t like this anonymous crap, and I especially don’t like being gotten out of bed in the middle of the night. You know who I am, so you know the kind of trouble I can bring on you if you mess with me.’ Against his better judgement, Quigley was coming out in the open now, but he was hooked.

  ‘Nobody’s messing. You alone? Definitely nobody followed you?’

  Quigley waved his arm exasperatedly at the empty street around him. ‘Who’s going to follow me through Shepherdstown at this time of the goddamn night?’

  ‘If you only knew. You really have no idea, do you?’

  ‘You’d better start talking to me, asshole,’ Quigley said, ready to put the phone down.

  There was a pause. ‘Three words,’ Carlisle said. ‘The Nemesis Program.’

  To Quigley, it sounded like something out of a bad spy movie. ‘What the hell is that? I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘If I’d thought you had, I wou
ldn’t even be speaking to you.’

  ‘Quit talking in riddles. Tell me about Mitch Shelton instead.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing,’ Carlisle explained. ‘Shelton was involved with Nemesis. He was recruited to the program nearly two years ago.’

  ‘He never told me anything about it.’

  ‘Go figure,’ Carlisle said. ‘These guys don’t do transparency. Nobody talks about Nemesis, nobody knows about it. Not CIA, not Homeland Security, not even the President.’

  ‘But you do,’ Quigley said sceptically. ‘That makes you someone really special, right?’

  ‘I was part of it,’ Carlisle said. ‘I know everything there is to know. Shit that’d bring down the whole administration if it got out. The most highly classified government program there is, and for a good reason. What they’re into makes the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency look like kids’ stuff.’

  ‘So you can tell me all about DARPA,’ Quigley challenged him, probing.

  ‘I could tell you plenty,’ Carlisle said. ‘Look, you gotta believe me. I was with the Nemesis Program for three years, until I quit two months ago. Got myself discharged on medical grounds – depression and alcohol and substance abuse problems. Truth is, I just couldn’t live with myself anymore, knowing what they were doing. I just had to get out. Now I’m scared, I’m shit scared, but I have to do something.’

  ‘Do something about what?’ Quigley demanded.

  There was a heavy pause. ‘That’s all I’m gonna say for now. You want to know the rest, we have to meet in person.’

  ‘You’re telling me you’re a drunken addict with mental health issues. That doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence.’

  ‘Like I say, you want to go on swallowing their motherfucking lies, that’s your business. What I have to say could bust everything wide open. I figured you could help me, but maybe I should just take my chances with CNN. When it blows up you’ll be real sorry you missed out.’

  ‘Hold on. Why me? I’m just an investigator. I’m part of a machine, a small part. I don’t have any real power.’

  ‘This is hot, my friend. I go straight to the higher levels with it, I’ll get fried. What I heard is, you’re a real straight shooter and you don’t fuck around. That true?’

  ‘I do my job,’ Quigley said. ‘Whatever it takes to get it done. If that makes me a straight shooter, then I guess that’s the way it is.’

  ‘Then meet me tomorrow night in D.C. The American City Diner on Connecticut Avenue Northwest. Know it?’

  Quigley could feel himself getting sucked in deeper. He paused a beat. ‘I’ll find it.’

  ‘Seven-thirty. Be there. You won’t know me but I’ll know you.’

  Click. And the phone went dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Paris wouldn’t have been Paris in the morning without the aroma of fresh-baked bread in the air, and it still lingered in the streets along with the ever-present traffic fumes as Ben ventured out early to get them some breakfast. He returned carrying a brown paper bag from the boulangerie down the road, and was making coffee when he heard Roberta get up. Moments later she made a tousle-haired appearance in the kitchen doorway, bare-legged below the hem of the old shirt of his she’d borrowed to sleep in.

  ‘I got us some croissants,’ he said, averting his eyes.

  ‘Oh. Nice. Guess I’d better put some clothes on.’

  They had breakfast in the kitchen, sitting across the table from one another dunking their croissants in their coffee in silence. ‘You look thoughtful,’ she commented.

  ‘The wedding rehearsal would have been this afternoon. I keep thinking about it.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  Ben shrugged. He knocked back the last of his coffee, patted his pockets for his cigarettes.

  ‘What’s the point?’ she asked, watching him.

  ‘What’s the point of what?’

  ‘Of working so hard to keep in shape if you’re just going to harm your body with those damn things anyway.’

  ‘Bodily harm is my middle name,’ he said. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Apart from having to suck second-hand smoke? Nothing. Just that I heard you doing your exercises earlier, that’s all. You put a lot into it.’

  ‘Sorry if I woke you.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep. How many do you do?’

  ‘Press-ups? A hundred, hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Every morning?’

  ‘Twice a day, usually. And a run, if I get time. It keeps me sharp.’

  ‘Not bad for an old dog,’ she said with a smile. ‘You don’t drink like you used to. That’s good. But you really need to quit those cigarettes, Ben.’

  He shot her a foul look, took a Gauloise from the pack, then muttered ‘Fuck it’ under his breath and shoved it back in. ‘Hurry up and finish your coffee. We have a busy morning ahead.’

  The fat taxi driver, crammed so tightly behind the wheel of his grey Mercedes that he looked like a permanent fixture in there, dropped them outside the Banque National de Paris off Boulevard Jourdan, close to the Porte d’Orléans on the southern edge of the city. Ben told the driver to wait, which the guy seemed all too happy to do in order to rip open a fresh pack of Haribo snacks from a bulging supply on the front passenger seat. Walking into the crowded bank, Ben took Roberta’s elbow and steered her away from the tellers. ‘Not that way.’

  ‘I thought you came to get money.’

  ‘We won’t be making a withdrawal from an account,’ he said. He still had a personal bank account in France, but couldn’t afford to take the risk of tapping into it. Depending on who was really after them, an open, recorded transaction could potentially flag up a chain of computer alerts that would pinpoint their exact location within seconds. ‘There’s a better way of doing it.’

  ‘How else do you get money from a bank?’ she asked.

  In his days of working the kidnap and ransom scene across Europe, Ben had maintained several safe deposit boxes in different cities. Some people kept diamond tiaras locked away in theirs, some people kept gold bars. Ben’s boxes were strictly for the utilitarian purpose of storing quantities of cash, the false IDs he’d sometimes needed to carry out his business, and other tools of the trade for which he could dip in and out whenever he liked. Just as he’d never fully got around to selling off the safehouse, he’d never quite taken the step of closing down his deposit boxes.

  Some old habits just wouldn’t die. It was as if they’d been sitting there waiting for him all this time. Maybe it’s true, he reflected bitterly. Maybe I always knew I’d come back to this sooner or later.

  Following a few discreet formalities and a short wait seated in a velvety little lounge area, Ben and Roberta were shown through to the private viewing room where his box had been brought up from the vault.

  She gasped when she saw the stacks of banknotes inside, wrapped in transparent plastic. Ben lifted the cash out of the box. He didn’t need to count it to know there was about fifteen thousand euros there.

  ‘Just a little something for a rainy day, huh?’ Roberta said.

  ‘I think we’re in for a spell. But I’m hoping this should cover our expenses until we figure a way through this situation.’

  Roberta’s eyebrows rose when she saw the semi-automatic handgun that had been nestling underneath the cash. Ben lifted it out along with its five loaded spare magazines. It was an old Browning Hi-Power, superseded now as a military arm, but the model of weapon he’d spent more hundreds of hours training with during his time than any other and which suited him like a well-worn shoe. Not to mention that for his purposes, the Hi-Power was a hell of a lot easier to conceal, ready for instant use, than a bulky machine carbine.

  No, some old habits really wouldn’t die. Here I go again, he thought. He stuck the pistol into his belt behind the right hip, where it was neatly covered by his jacket, and dropped the magazines into his pockets. He was now carrying seventy-eight rounds of 9mm Parabellum on his perso
n, not counting the capacity of the submachine gun inside his bag, where he stuffed the thick pile of wrapped money, minus a wad that he folded inside his wallet.

  The last item Ben took from the box was one of several false passports he’d had made back when he’d been active on the kidnap and ransom circuit. He hadn’t used them for years; the duplicates he’d kept at Le Val were still gathering dust in his personal safe in the training facility’s armoury room. He picked one out, a cover that had never been blown or compromised: John Freeman, a professional wine buyer born in Oxford a few months before Ben’s real birthdate. He hadn’t done any travelling in quite a while – maybe now he’d get the chance again.

  ‘I think we’re good to go,’ he said. He strapped the items up inside his bag, closed the box and called the guards in to come and take it away.

  The enormous screen filled almost an entire wall of the Director’s tranquil personal office. He was watching it now as he sat at his desk, his fingers laced together, lips pursed and a customary frown of deep concentration on his wizened brow. He might have been staring fixedly at the high-definition image of the vast container ship gliding across his screen, which a few days ago had been the primary focus of his current plans, but now the core of his thoughts was elsewhere. He picked up a remote and jabbed it at the screen; the image of the ship disappeared to make way for the news report footage that had been troubling him from the moment it had broken earlier.

  French Emergency Services had completed their search for survivors among the ruins of the gutted private chapel on the De Bourg family estate near Paris. Their official report, which the Director already had on another screen in front of him, stated in effect that the only bodies in the place were the ones already interred in the family tomb beneath the chapel.

  The Director had been in this game a long, long time, and he was an extremely hard man to trick. And yet, tricked he had been. It was now painfully clear that this Ben Hope, this troublesome new player who’d appeared out of left field, had caught him out with a ploy intended to buy time for himself and the Ryder woman.