Bring Him Back

by Scott Mariani

  *

  The tiny principality of Monaco, all two square kilometres of it, went about achieving its enviable record as the safest and most crime-free corner of Europe, even of the world, by means of a virtual police state. The heavily armed cops didn’t tolerate vagrants, any more than they would look kindly on unshaven, slovenly-looking former British Special Forces soldiers kipping in their cars with the remnants of a flask of malt whisky between their knees and a “borrowed” .25-calibre semi-auto pistol in their pocket. Sometime before dawn, Ben found a secluded spot in the wooded hills overlooking the small city and its moonlit harbour, and settled back in his reclined driver’s seat for a couple of hours’ nap.

  By the time he’d awoken, feeling none too refreshed, cleaned himself up as best he could, revitalised himself with the first Gauloise of the day and driven down into the winding streets of Monte Carlo to find a parking place, the place was already buzzing. Yesterday’s Grand Prix was now winding up, but in the aftermath of the huge annual event the streets were still crowded and crackling with the excitement of thousands of spectators from all over Europe and beyond. Crews of race personnel were busily dismantling the crash barriers that lined the streets; in just a few hours one of the most famous race circuits of all time would revert back to being simply one of the wealthiest and most fashionable resorts in the world.

  Ben now knew the exact spot where the Argentinian driver Enrique Hernandez had spun off the track and totalled his McLaren, in what had been the only real dramatic incident of yesterday’s Grand Prix. Debris from the accident was still being gathered up and loaded onto a trailer as he walked by. The crash had happened on the approach to a hairpin bend at the end of a narrow straight that ran within sight of the harbour. Anyone living in the snazzy apartments overlooking the narrow street would get a stunning view of the race, if they could stand the din of the cars rocketing past below their balconies.

  Ben walked on. It was warm. The scintillating morning sunshine glared off the white buildings. Blue sky, blue water, lazy yachts and whispering palm trees. The place must have had some real allure once, he thought, before it had become a haven for the self-consciously rich who lived only to flash their toys, their tans and their starvation-diet bodies, immaculately groomed and preened down to the last designer thread. He knew he stood out like a sore thumb here among the beautiful people. Every second vehicle was a Rolls or a Lambo. Perhaps inspired by the thrill of the Grand Prix, all the moneyed young bucks were out in force, cruising the drag in their aviator shades, arms dangling from the windows of their gleaming red sports cars and trying to look all aloof and studly for the preternaturally large numbers of attractive young females on the street.

  Fifty metres up from the crash site, right on the hairpin bend for which Hernandez had been braking when he lost control, was the café from where Carl Hunter had made his brief phone call home. Scantily clad women in sunglasses and men with gold watches the size of wagon wheels were taking their morning coffees and champagne breakfasts at parasol-shaded tables on the pavement outside.

  Ben flicked his unfinished Gauloise into a vacant ashtray, strolled into the bustling café and glanced about. He approved of the John Coltrane jazz playing in the background; other than that, the place was way too glitzy for his tastes, but he hadn’t come here to appreciate the decor. Second alcove on the right: that was the table where Gianni Barberini had been necking distractedly with his girlfriend when Carl had managed to snatch the mobile phone from the table for a few moments.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked a waiter.

  ‘Maybe,’ Ben said. ‘Were you working here yesterday?’

  ‘Sure. It was crazy.’

  Ben took out the photo of Carl to show him. ‘Did you see this boy? He may have dark hair now.’

  The waiter peered closely at Ben. ‘Police?’

  ‘Scotland Yard,’ Ben said, and flashed an old military pass at the guy. ‘What about this man?’ he asked, taking out the photo of a slightly younger and much slimmer Drew Hunter that Jessica had given him. ‘Again, dark hair now. We think he may be living locally.’

  ‘What’d he do, default on his taxes?’ the waiter asked with a grin.

  ‘Terrorist bomber,’ Ben said.

  ‘No shit.’ The waiter studied the pictures for a moment, then shook his head. ‘Can’t say they look familiar to me.’

  ‘Think I might show these to a couple of your other staff here?’

  ‘Sure, no problem. See Valérie over there? Go ask her.’

  But Ben drew a blank with Valérie and the other three members of staff he quizzed. He downed a quick espresso at the bar, then walked back out into the sunshine and gave a sigh.

  ‘Fine,’ he murmured aloud. ‘Then we do this the hard way.’

  The hard way was to go hoofing it door-to-door, and just keep trying until, with any luck, someone recognised either Carl or Drew from the photos. It was gruelling and time-consuming work, but Ben didn’t have a lot of choice. The only question was where to start. He glanced left, glanced right, and began making his way back down the busy street towards the apartment buildings near the crash site.

  He walked briskly, deep in thought. He passed a boutique. Then a little charcuterie. Next door was a bakery, emanating the wonderful odour of fresh baguette still warm from the oven. A man stepped out of the bakery, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a white polo shirt. He was slim and clean-shaven, with dark glasses and a Panama hat. He had a shopping basket in one hand and a couple of baguettes wrapped in brown paper tucked under his arm. His son followed him out of the bakery, a pre-teenage boy who looked like any other Mediterranean kid: tanned, black hair.

  They were Drew and Carl Hunter.

  12

  BEN BARELY PAUSED in his stride, even though every nerve in his body was jangling like an alarm bell at the sight of them. Covering his reaction perfectly without a flicker of emotion showing on his face, he walked on a few steps and then paused and gazed in the bakery window, ostensibly to admire hungrily a rack of ornate chocolate-laced delicacies on display.

  Drew and Carl passed within just a couple of feet of him and then went walking on up the street. Ben waited a few tantalising seconds, watching them from the corner of his eye as he allowed a little distance to come between himself and the pair, then moved away from the window and began to follow them.

  They didn’t seem to be in a hurry, just ambling along at a pace that allowed Ben to merge into the slow-moving crowds about twenty yards behind. Watching them, they could have been any father and son on earth. Nothing whatsoever in Carl’s body language suggested any of the unease or distress Ben would have expected to see in a kidnap victim. What was going on?

  But he didn’t have long to dwell over the matter. Because without warning, Carl turned, picked Ben out of the crowd of people and looked right at him.

  Ben’s heart skipped a beat. Again, he managed to cover up his reaction, avoiding eye contact and pretending to be gazing at something across the street. For two seconds that felt like minutes, he could feel the boy’s eyes on him.

  Finally, Carl turned away and kept walking alongside his father, who didn’t seem to have noticed anything.

  It must be a fluke, Ben thought. Okay, so maybe he didn’t quite fit the Monaco image and looked a little rougher, a little less manicured, than the typical good citizen of the place. But surely he didn’t stand out that much. There was no way anyone, let alone a twelve-year-old kid totally untrained in the art of counter-surveillance, could jump to the conclusion or have any inkling that they were being trailed.

  He went on following them. Now father and son were in conversation about something. Ben relaxed, certain that he hadn’t been spotted after all.

  And then Carl turned again. This time, he whirled around very quickly, too suddenly for Ben to look away until it was too late.

  Carl stared right at him. He seemed to know. But how? Had the boy phoned Jessica again that morning? Had she let slip about Ben?

  C
arl started nudging his father and tugging at his sleeve, pointing back in Ben’s direction. ‘Oh, shit,’ Ben said, and turned to peer in another window. But it was pointless. He was blown.

  Drew turned and looked in the direction Carl was pointing, right at Ben. He frowned questioningly down at the boy. The boy nodded up to him, as if to say ‘I’m sure’. Now they were both staring at Ben. The game was up. Fear was in the air. Drew Hunter dropped his shopping basket and his baguettes where he stood. He grabbed his son by the arm, and they took off.

  ‘Shit,’ Ben said again, and broke through the slow-moving pedestrians to give chase. Drew and Carl dashed across the street, weaving between honking traffic. Ben went after them. Too late, he saw a motorcycle bearing down on him, tried to dive out of its way and lost his footing, falling and grazing his knee. The rider braked hard. Too hard. With a screech, the front wheel locked and washed out from under the machine as it toppled over with a scraping clatter. The rider tumbled to the road, but sprang up again almost instantly, and Ben could see he wasn’t hurt. No time to hang around and help the guy straighten his bent handlebar. Drew and Carl were getting away.

  Cursing and ignoring the pain from his scraped knee, Ben ran on after them. People stared and pointed. The motorcyclist yelled after him. Ben lost sight of the father and son among a crowd of shoppers, then saw them again, fifty yards further up the street, battling against the tide of pedestrians. Drew had lost his hat, revealing the black-dyed hair beneath. There was nowhere they could run. Ben sprinted up the road, avoiding the pavement. He could catch them.

  A guy in a florid shirt was getting into a white open-top Ferrari that was parked at the kerbside. Drew grabbed him by the collar, spun him away from the car, snatched the key from his hand and leapt behind the wheel, dragging Carl in with him. The car roared into life and took off with a squeal, leaving snakes of rubber on the road and its owner standing bellowing and shaking his fist.

  The Ferrari came belting down the street towards Ben, and he bounded onto the kerb to get out of its way. He caught a glimpse of the boy gaping at him from the passenger seat as the car streaked past, heading back the way they’d come, towards the straight and past the scene of yesterday’s crash.

  Ben stood in the gutter, helplessly staring at the disappearing car. People were looking and pointing in alarm. The Ferrari’s owner was screaming murder. It wouldn’t be long before the police turned up, bristling with weaponry.

  Ben had little chance of catching Drew now, but went sprinting down the street after the Ferrari anyway, yelling at frightened pedestrians to get out of his way and making them scatter. Ahead, a little old woman emerged from a fashion boutique laden with boxes, and he almost ran right into her. ‘Watch where you’re going, asshole!’ she shrieked at him. Across the pavement, a chauffeur in uniform and cap was opening the back door of a stately Rolls Royce to let her in. Its engine was purring softly.

  ‘Thanks for the ride,’ Ben said to her, and before the chauffeur could stop him, he jumped into the Rolls and floored the accelerator. The car was ungainly but powerful, and Ben was pressed into the red leather of the driver’s seat under the acceleration. The swinging open back door scraped a lamppost and crashed shut. Glancing in the mirror, he could see the little old woman and the chauffeur standing speechless on the pavement.

  The Ferrari had long since vanished around the hairpin bend at the bottom, past the café. Ben gunned the Rolls down the straight at full throttle, overtaking everything in sight as if he was trying to re-enact the Grand Prix. But it was no racing car. As soon as Ben entered the bend and felt the heavy bodywork begin to pitch on its soft suspension, he knew it was about to go into a slide. He eased off the gas and changed course, clipping the corner and mounting the kerb. There was no avoiding the empty café tables in his path. The Rolls trampled several of them down. Another flew up onto the bonnet, smacked off the windscreen and went tumbling in his wake.

  He hit the gas again as the road straightened up ahead. Still no sign of the Ferrari. Unless—

  Yes, there it was, a long way up the road, speeding past the traffic. Ben was still in the chase. As he raced after it, he saw its brake lights flare as it stopped for a red light. Drew wasn’t exactly schooled in the art of urban high-speed pursuit, which only helped even the odds a little in Ben’s favour. The Rolls quickly caught up. He was thirty yards behind the Ferrari when the lights changed and he heard the rasp of its exhausts before it took off again like a bullet fired from a rifle.

  The Rolls sped through the junction after it, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car as Ben held the pedal to the floor and struggled to keep this overpowered barge in a straight line. The Ferrari was a shrinking white dot in the distance. There was no way Ben could stay with it. He saw it vanish around a right-hand bend a hundred and fifty yards away, and knew that might be the last he’d see of it.

  He couldn’t afford to lose Drew and Carl. Not now that they knew he was after them. They’d simply go to ground and he’d never find them again.

  It was time for a short cut. Ben saw the little sidestreet flashing up on his right and took the gamble, turning into it with a squeal of tyres and roaring through the narrow space between the houses. Never mind the no vehicular access sign. If his hunch was right, this would cut off a corner and he’d have a sporting chance of catching the Ferrari at the other end.

  Or perhaps not. The sidestreet came to an abrupt end up ahead.

  ‘Christ,’ Ben muttered as he went to hit the brakes; then he saw it wasn’t a cul-de-sac. It was a steep downward flight of steps, bisected down the middle by an iron hand railing.

  There was nothing for it. Ben steered right for the steps, keeping his foot down hard on the gas. The brink flashed towards him, like the edge of a waterfall that was about to tip his boat vertical and send it plummeting down to the bottom. He aimed the big square nose of the Rolls at the gap between the iron railing and the stone wall. Felt his front wheels run out of road; then they seemed to fall into space for a second before hitting the steps with a violent jolt that almost pitched Ben through the windscreen. The space between the railing and the wall was perhaps half an inch wider than the Rolls. With a screeching rending of handbuilt coachwork on stone on one side and solid iron on the other, the car hammered unstoppably down the steps.

  All Ben could do was hang on. He braced himself for impact as the bottom of the steps raced closer. The Rolls crunched down at a forty-five-degree angle, bouncing all over the road in a shower of sparks, trailing its badly twisted front bumper and leaving the shattered remains of a headlight behind it. Ben sawed wildly at the wheel and stamped on the accelerator. If the old tank was as solid as it felt, it could take a little abuse. This was nothing.

  And there was the Ferrari, dead ahead. Ben’s gamble had paid off. He smiled grimly as he saw Drew glance back with a look of astonishment. ‘You don’t get away that easily, matey boy.’

  Moments later, they were approaching the limits of town and roaring into the hills. The last of the buildings gave way to verdant countryside, the road twisting upwards between the trees as they climbed over the town. Once again, the Ferrari’s huge speed advantage quickly began to tell as it shrank smaller and smaller into the distance ahead. Ben swore. Drew was going to leave him far behind, and that would be it. Then all hopes of catching him would have to be pinned on the French and Italian police.

  Ben clenched his jaw as he finally lost sight of the tiny white speck of the speeding sports car. He eased back on the throttle, and the Rolls engine settled down to a smooth purr. The chase was over and he’d lost.

  13

  BEN WAS WONDERING what the hell to do next when he rounded the next bend, tighter than the others, and saw smoke drifting on the breeze up ahead. His heart began to thump.

  Piled into a tree at the side of the road was the buckled wreckage of the Ferrari, deep trenches cut into the verge where it had skidded out of control. The twisted-up tyre marks were all over the Tarmac.

  Drew Hu
nter was sitting on the grass near the wrecked car, blood trickling from a cut on his temple. Carl was bent over him, apparently quite unhurt and dabbing attentively at his father’s wound with a handkerchief. They both turned to look as the Rolls appeared. Ben saw Drew lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if to say, ‘I’m sorry, son. I tried.’

  Ben screeched to a halt. He had to push hard against his battered driver’s door to open it. ‘Carl, are you okay?’ he called out.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Carl replied in a small voice. There was resentment in his eyes as he looked at Ben.

  ‘You’re all done, Drew,’ Ben said as he walked over to them. ‘It’s time to go home and face the music. Jessica wants her boy back.’

  ‘Jessica sent you?’ Drew said. He staggered to his feet as Ben approached. He reached into his trouser pocket and came out with a pistol.

  ‘Not you as well,’ Ben said. He could have got Barberini’s .25 auto out a lot faster and put half the magazine into Drew, but his job was to take the guy back to Jersey, not shoot him. Besides, something about Drew’s gun didn’t look right. Ben snatched it from him, without twisting any fingers this time.

  Just as he’d thought. It weighed nothing in his hand. Pressed tin and plastic. It was just a non-functioning replica, little more than a toy, totally harmless and, at least to a trained eye, absolutely unrealistic. ‘You kidnapped your son with this?’ Ben said in bemusement. He didn’t understand. How could a man with a toy gun be the same guy who’d hired heavies to kill him? The same guy who’d orchestrated the stabbing of Paul Finley?

  ‘I didn’t kidnap him,’ Drew retorted. ‘I rescued him’.

  ‘Tell that to Jessica and all the cops who’re hunting for you,’ Ben said.

  Drew shook his head in defeat. ‘I can’t believe you found us.’

  ‘The moral is, don’t phone home. Calls have a habit of being tracked.’

  ‘Don’t what?’ Drew said. ‘Nobody phoned.’