The Nemesis Program_Ben Hope

by Scott Mariani

  Leaving Daniel to his own devices for a couple of hours, Ben and Roberta raided a local Edeka supermarket for fresh clothing, food and bottled water for the rest of the long journey ahead. It was in the car heading back to the airfield that Ben turned to her with his idea.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘You can travel anywhere from here without anyone knowing where you are.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I’m coming with you to Indonesia.’

  ‘We don’t know what we’re going into. I’d be a lot happier if you stayed behind. I can give you enough money to lie low for as long as you need.’

  ‘Lie low. You mean hide.’

  ‘Call it what you like. You’d be safe.’

  She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Shook her head vehemently. ‘Absolutely no way. It was me who got you into this, and a whole lot more besides. You think I’d bow out now and let you carry the can? Forget it, Ben. I’m seeing this through, no matter what.’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I tried.’

  Then it was back to the plane, to illegally spend the night on board. It was hot and airless inside the hangar, but Ben didn’t let it bother him. He was intent on grabbing as much rest as he could, ahead of the sleep deprivation he was going to suffer over the coming forty-eight or so hours.

  Shortly after dawn the following morning, the Steiner ST-1 was back in the air and rapidly leaving Germany behind as they headed eastwards towards the Polish border on the first five-hour leg of the journey. Poland; Ukraine: the landscape unrolled beneath them, green pasture-land and small towns and villages, hilltop churches, lakes and forests. Skirting the northern coastline of the Black Sea, the sunlight dappling the waters; into Georgia, the landscape harsher, rockier. Soon afterwards, the plane was buffeted by high winds and a violent rainstorm that lashed the windows and shook the plane like a toy. Roberta joined Ben in the cockpit and sat anxiously by him as he wrestled with the controls.

  They arrived in Tbilisi, just after 11 a.m. local time and only minutes behind schedule despite the heavy weather. The clouds had vanished and the sun shone brightly as they completed their second refuel on the Steiner Industries tab. It felt a little parasitical, like a mosquito drawing blood from its unsuspecting host. Ben consoled his pang of guilt by thinking of the billions the corporation pulled in from its activities all over the world. It would take more than a few drops of aviation fuel to bring his sister’s company down. ‘Anyway,’ he said to himself more than once as the high-pressure pumps filled his tanks, ‘I’ll pay her back.’

  Just ninety minutes after touchdown, they were off again, this time setting their course southwards. Roberta stayed up front with Ben while Daniel slouched and slumbered in the back, never once offering to make himself useful.

  Flying, flying. The constant hum of the engines and the hypnotic vibration through the floor and the seats would have lulled Ben to sleep if he hadn’t been so on edge about this long leg of the journey. Something else was on his mind, too.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Roberta asked, seeing his expression as he stared fixedly ahead.

  ‘It’s not important.’

  ‘Tell me. Something’s bothering y—’ She broke off, suddenly remembering what day it was. ‘I get it. You and Brooke would’ve been getting married this afternoon.’

  Ben said nothing.

  ‘You can still fix it with her,’ she said, affecting a cheery look. ‘You know that, right? It’s going to be okay. Really.’

  Ben said nothing.

  Armenia came and went; then it was into Iranian airspace where his personal concerns were overshadowed by the very real worry of crossing paths with trigger-happy military fighter jets. Just as troubling was the significant potential threat from the ground. It was a restless and perpetually inflamed situation down there, and with a thousand disparate militia groups going about armed to the nines and a good deal of illicit training of Syrian and other rebel forces going on in hidden camps across the country, it would only take a single sniper to object to their presence and a well-aimed .50-calibre anti-materiel round tearing through their flimsy unarmoured fuselage to bring them down.

  But Ben’s anxiety proved unfounded. The long hours passed and they weren’t shot down or pursued, and he settled a little in the pilot’s seat as the vastness of the rocky landscape skimmed endlessly by beneath them. Roberta gazed out and marvelled at the rugged splendour of the Alpine-Himalayan mountain system that fringed the vast Iranian central plateau. ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ she breathed.

  ‘It looks pretty from up here,’ he said. ‘But you wouldn’t want to be down there. It’s not the most hospitable of environments.’

  ‘I guess you’d know all about that kind of thing. Don’t crash the plane, huh?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Just as the craggy landscape seemed as if it might go on forever, the terrain began to turn into a flattening desert as they headed further south. Flying, flying: the burning sun casting a perfect shadow of the plane on the ground below them; the monotone of the engines taking on something of eternity. Ben was feeling the fatigue hit him acutely now after so many hours in the air. He kept having to blink. Only his frequent checks of their fuel readout were keeping him awake.

  ‘Talk to me,’ he said at last. It seemed a long time since he’d heard the sound of his own voice. It came out as a dry croak.

  Roberta looked almost as worn out as he felt. ‘Okay,’ she said numbly. ‘What shall we talk about?’

  ‘Anything you like except Tesla and physics,’ he replied.

  ‘You want to hear a joke?’

  ‘You actually know any?’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. Check this one out. What does a dyslexic insomniac agnostic do in bed at night?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  ‘Lie there worrying about whether or not there’s a dog.’

  A weak smile was all he could manage.

  ‘One to entertain your future congregation with,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be sure to remember. Got any more?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Okay. Another religious one for you. Why did the scientist take a Higgs Boson into church? Because you can’t have Mass without it.’

  Ben looked at her. ‘I thought we said no physics.’

  She shrugged. ‘Those are all the jokes I know.’

  ‘Remind me to say a prayer for your sense of humour.’

  ‘Hey. That’s the thanks I get for keeping you awake?’

  ‘Speaking of barrels of laughs,’ Ben said, ‘what’s His Nibs up to back there?’

  Roberta craned her neck and peered through the Perspex window in the bulkhead that separated the cabin from the passenger section. Daniel was slouched deep in a window seat with his head lolling on his shoulder. On the seat next to him were an empty crisp packet, two crushed drinks cans and several crumpled sandwich containers. ‘Well, it looks like he’s eaten his way through most of our provisions and now he’s asleep again.’

  Ben shook his head and had a vision of Daniel freefalling from the plane, a tiny cartwheeling figure getting rapidly smaller.

  ‘Never mind him,’ Roberta said. ‘Whereabouts are we, anyway?’

  Ben pointed to the right. ‘About a hundred miles thataway is Kuwait.’ He pointed left. ‘About five hundred miles thataway is Afghanistan.’

  ‘All I can see is sand and more sand,’ she replied.

  Sand and more sand was all they did see for a long time. But eventually, the arid monotony came to an end and they were greeted by the welcome sight of the Persian Gulf. Just gazing across the clear, flat waters, as pure and blue as the unbroken sky, was enough to make them feel quenched and refreshed after the unremitting wilderness. As Ben hugged the coastline, they roared above little towns and ports of whitewashed stone that glittered like pearls against the blue. Yachts and fishing boats dotted the crystal-clear ocean. Onwards south: Qatar; Abu Dhabi; then over the Strait
of Hormuz, through which giant supertankers carried more than a fifth of the world’s petroleum. From the air the busy shipping route looked choked with traffic and military convoys. Soon afterwards the plane was skirting the Gulf of Oman, overflying ancient coastal forts and palm-fringed beaches.

  Every mile that separated Ben further from what should have been his home and his new life added to the dull, leaden pain that wouldn’t leave his heart. Today, of all days, Brooke had never felt so hopelessly out of reach.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  At 6.33 p.m. local time, a little more than twelve hours since they’d left Germany, Ben touched down at a small commercial air base a few miles inland of the port city of Muscat. The heat slammed into them like a breath of fire as they stepped down from the air-conditioned plane. Within minutes Ben could feel his shirt sticking to him. The sleek white fuselage of the ST-1 was caked with sand and looked as travel-weary as pilot and co-pilot did.

  The only one who appeared fresh and rested was Daniel. ‘How’s it going?’ Ben asked him. ‘Hope the journey’s not too tiring for you.’

  ‘There’s not a lot of sandwiches left.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ Ben said.

  The air base was filled with activity, with a variety of aircraft from small propeller planes to big Lear jets constantly arriving and departing. In a corner near the refuelling dock, a low shady building offered a lounge where pilots, crew and passengers could get out of the still-blazing evening sun and cool themselves with iced coffee. It was an inviting prospect. The asphalt felt like it was burning holes in Ben’s shoes as he saw to the refuelling, and he ached for the chance to relax and close his eyes for a couple of hours.

  But as the last few gallons of 100LL avgas were being pumped on board, he caught sight of a Royal Oman Police Jeep speeding through a gate in the distance. Perched up front with an imperious air, in dark glasses and peaked cap, was an officer, most likely a captain. There were four heavily-armed khaki-shirted goons riding in the back, and they looked like they meant business. Ben watched as they screeched up a hundred yards away and all piled out of the Jeep to collar the pilot of a private Cessna that had come in to land within the last twenty minutes, checking papers and acting tough while two of the goons went aboard clutching their rifles as if they expected to flush out a nest of terrorists.

  The last thing Ben needed was a bunch of overzealous storm-troopers combing through the inside of the ST-1 and start barking unanswerable questions about the little cargo of weaponry he was carrying. ‘I think we’ve outstayed our welcome here,’ he said to Roberta.

  After less than a hour on the ground, Ben was back in the pilot’s seat and pointing the aircraft south-eastwards for the 1,250-nautical-mile journey across the Arabian Sea to India. The Oman coastline shrunk away, the last land they would see for some time as the aircraft roared over the water. The giant fireball of the sun gradually sank into the western horizon, scorching the darkening ocean with shimmering reds and golds.

  Darkness fell, and the cockpit was dimly illuminated by the glow of the instruments and the navigation lights that twinkled with the moonlight on the waves. Now and then they overflew a ship. Time passed. They were too tired to say much to one another. Ben felt Roberta’s hand on his shoulder, and realised with a start that his chin had been sinking to his chest. He ground his teeth and willed himself to stay alert. Another hour ticked by, then another. Nothing seemed to exist but the infinity of dark ocean stretching out ahead, a surreal impression as if all the world’s land masses had sunk without a trace while they’d been in the air.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not very good company,’ Roberta murmured, turning towards him so he could see her smile in the glow of the instrument panels. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open either.’

  ‘Go and get some sleep in the back,’ he told her gently, but she shook her head and replied, ‘I’d rather stay here with you. If you want me, that is.’

  ‘I do want you,’ he said, and took a hand off the controls to reach out and softly touch her arm.

  It wasn’t until a few minutes later, in the long silence that followed, that he suddenly realised how his words to her had sounded like a lover’s – a thought that cut through the mist of fatigue and made him feel strangely unsettled.

  He had loved her, once. It had taken him a long time to get over her, and now here she was again. The warmth of her presence brought back a lot of old memories. Perhaps too many.

  Don’t get confused, said a stern voice deep inside his head. Ben let out a long breath to clear his mind.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked in the darkness.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied.

  ‘You always say that.’

  The first they saw of India was a glow on the flat, black horizon. At long last, the illuminated sprawl of Mumbai rose above the sea. They skirted the southern edge of the city and stayed on course until, sometime before 1 a.m., Ben’s navigational instruments told him that they were approaching the city of Bangalore and their nearby destination, an airstrip near Ramanagaram. Tall trees all around the strip made for a sharp descent and a tricky landing. Ben was so exhausted that he could hardly see the runway lights, but managed to get the plane down safely on the second pass with Roberta gripping his arm.

  At last, Ben could tear himself away from the controls and rest his weary muscles. He more or less ignored Daniel as he gulped down the last of their German sandwiches. Then, completely spent, he fell back into one of the reclining passenger seats, felt the tension ooze out of him and was tumbling into a dreamless void the moment he closed his eyes.

  The first thing he saw when he opened them again was Roberta sitting next to him. The first light of dawn was creeping in through the plane’s oval porthole windows.

  She smiled. ‘It’s beautiful here. I was going to go for a walk. You want to stretch your legs a little?’

  The stars were fading, chased off by the crimson glow of the rising sun. They filled their lungs with the fresh, crisp morning air as they walked through the trees. That strange, unsettling feeling that Ben had experienced the night before returned as it struck him that they might have been a romantic couple strolling peacefully along together.

  The feeling became stronger still when she suddenly stopped and took his hand. Hers was warm and soft, like the sound of her voice. ‘I like being here with you, Ben. Even with everything that’s happened, everything that could still happen, I feel happy. Please don’t be angry with me for telling you.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he muttered.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. But I do.’ She paused, glancing down at her feet. ‘You know, I lived a long time without you. It was really hard for me, never knowing how you were, never hearing a word from you.’ She looked up again, directly into his eyes. ‘I don’t want to relive that time again.’

  ‘I’m sorry I hurt you,’ he said. ‘All I can do is keep saying it.’

  ‘If we make it through this, you’ll stay in touch with me, won’t you?’ she asked earnestly. Her face looked pale in the dawn light and her eyes were shining.

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ Ben said. ‘Of course we’re going to make it through this.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘You’re a good friend, Roberta.’

  ‘I know that’s all I can ever be to you,’ she said. ‘But friends keep in contact. Don’t they?’

  He nodded. Sighed. ‘It’s not as if I didn’t think about you,’ he said. ‘I did, a lot.’

  ‘I wish you’d called. Even just one single time.’

  ‘You don’t know me. There are a lot of things I’m not good at. Keeping in touch with people is just one of them.’

  ‘I know you better than you realise, Ben Hope.’ She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. ‘Tell me I don’t have to lose you again. That’s all I want to know.’

  ‘We should be getting back to the plane,’ he said after a long pause. He delicately let go of her hand and they started slowly retra
cing their steps through the trees glowing in the morning light.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  It had been a blur of space and time. The sun was clear of the treetops and already burning hot as the plane took off, carrying on board every drop of fuel the little airfield had to offer. ‘It’ll be enough,’ Ben told himself. ‘More than enough.’

  By mid-morning they’d left the southern shores of India behind them and were striking out across the Bay of Bengal and the vast waters of another sparkling blue-green ocean. Children waved and smiled up at the roaring aircraft from fishing boats on the white sandy beaches of Sri Lanka, the last land that Ben and Roberta would see until they raised the west coast of Sumatra hours later.

  As the last leg of the journey unrolled, lulled by the unwavering rumble of the twin engines, the constant monitoring of their course, speed and altitude, the cloudless sky like a vast aquamarine dome up above and the presence of Roberta at his side, Ben caught himself more than once almost forgetting what they were heading towards. It felt strangely as if the two of them could stay up here forever, just flying aimlessly across clear, warm oceans that would never end. It wasn’t happiness – his troubles were never far beneath the surface – but it was the nearest he’d come to it for what seemed like a long time.

  It wasn’t until soon after midday, as the first glimpse of Sumatra’s tropical landscape appeared on the horizon, that Ben’s easy state of mind was broken and reality bit.

  There was no warning of the fighters’ approach until they were right there with them. A pair of F16s, with Indonesian Air Force markings and bristling with armament: they drew level either side of the ST-1, throttled off and boxed it in, dwarfing the little white turboprop like a sparrow flanked by two dragons. From the cockpit window Ben could clearly see the masked face of the fighter pilot to starboard, and the strong heat haze from the jets. As a show of intimidating strength, it was highly effective.