The Babylon Idol

by Scott Mariani

  Ben hadn’t found himself in Florence since then, and he didn’t have a number for her in any case. Returning to the computer, he Googled the Pagine Bianche, the white pages online phone directory for Italy. When the website came up he entered MANZINI and FIRENZE into a search box and punched TROVA. The computer came up with ‘30 Risultati trovati’, lots of Manzinis but not the one he was looking for. Unlisted. Damn.

  Next he brought up the Florence University website and clicked open the faculty page to check through the list of academic staff. Unlikely that the university would divulge the phone details of faculty members, but there might be an email contact.

  He found neither, because Anna Manzini was no longer listed there. Instead, he found her on a separate page for former faculty members, which gave no details at all except her name, department and the dates of her service. She’d left Florence University nearly two years ago.

  It looked as though he’d lost her trail, until a new idea came to him. Anna had always been more than just an academic; she was a successful writer too, which was what had brought her to live in France in the first place, where she’d been researching a new project on the Cathars. ‘Who knows?’ she’d said to Ben during that last meeting. ‘Perhaps one day I’ll finish my book.’ When he widened his online search on her, Ben discovered her author website and found that she’d not only finished it, but that it had been a bestseller – the first of several successful works of historical non-fiction she’d churned out in the last few years. Her latest biography of the mystic, visionary, and polymath, Hildegard of Bingen, had sold quarter of a million copies.

  Anna’s picture beamed at him from the screen. She’d been forty-two when he’d known her, but looked thirty-eight. She seemed not to have aged a day since. Either thanks to the wonders of plastic surgery, or else maybe the miracle of Photoshop, there wasn’t a trace of a scar from Usberti’s attempt to kill her. But selling a truckload of books wasn’t going to protect her from this renewed threat. Ben had to warn her, and fast.

  Her author website gave no email address or social media handle, just a generic form. Frustrated, he filled it in, giving his mobile number and a brief note saying it was vital that she contacted him immediately. All he could do then was hope she’d respond.

  He’d been sitting in the office far too long. The last thing he did before leaving was to try Pascal’s number again – to no avail.

  ‘Damn,’ he muttered. Then there was nothing else for it.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Storm. The dog followed him as he sprinted back to the house. He ran upstairs to Tuesday’s room and banged on the door. Tuesday answered. The sound of Levi Roots’ reggae music was coming from his stereo in the background, but it didn’t seem to be cheering Tuesday up. He looked even glummer than before.

  ‘You can come out now. Brooke’s gone,’ Ben said.

  ‘I only wanted to give you guys some space.’

  ‘So we could rip each other’s guts out in private. Thanks. Listen, Tues. Remember I said about you having to hold the fort here? Well, you’re going to have to hold it a little longer. There’s been a development and I have to go.’

  ‘Go where?’ Tuesday said, blinking.

  ‘I’ll call you from the road,’ Ben replied. ‘Any news about Jeff, any news about anything at all, keep me updated.’

  Tuesday said he would. Without another word, Ben hurried to his own quarters on the top floor of the rambling old house. It was a small, simple space, which he kept uncluttered with a minimum of belongings, as neat as a military dorm. He rummaged through his cupboard, then grabbed his battered green canvas bag. The old army haversack was permanent home to various items that tended to come in handy when Ben was on his travels, such as his mini-Maglite torch with LED upgrade for when he found himself in dark spots, and a roll of super-strong duct tape that was useful for anything from trussing up captives to making improvised field dressings. Ben stuffed in a couple of changes of underwear, two pairs of Helikon winter socks, the same ones the Norwegian Army used, a spare pair of black Levi’s and a heavy denim shirt identical to the one he was already wearing. From a box on the dresser he took a thick roll of cash without counting it, wrapped it up with his passport inside a double skin of two plastic Ziploc bags and tucked the package in on top of his spare clothes. Then he jammed in two packs of Gauloises, his whisky flask, and a can of fluid for his lighter.

  Finally, there was the other item he kept hidden under the loose floorboard at the foot of the single bed: one piece of hardware that the anti-terror cops couldn’t confiscate, because no official knew it even existed. The nine-millimetre Taurus automatic had belonged to a Romanian drug dealer called Dracul, before Ben had commandeered the handgun as a trophy of war. He snicked a full magazine of Federal +P hollowpoints into its butt, cocked it and locked it and tucked it into the bag where he could get to it quickly. Because in situations like this, it was a lot better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

  Three minutes later, Ben was jumping into the Alpina, flinging his bag onto the passenger seat, firing up the engine with a throaty blast and gunning the car out of Le Val’s yard.

  Eight hours to Father Pascal’s village of Saint-Jean. He aimed to make it there in seven.

  Chapter 12

  Ben drove hard and fast through the night. Rain and sleet battered his windscreen, turned to snow for a while around Orléans, and then petered out again as he hammered southwards. He chain-smoked his way through the rest of his current pack of Gauloises, then broke into a fresh one. The strong, unfiltered cigarettes did little to settle his tension; the frenetic modern jazz station blasting from the Alpina’s sound system didn’t help much either.

  Approaching Bourges, running low on fuel and energy, he pulled off the motorway into an aire de service. The night was chilly and damp. After he’d finished filling the tank, out of habit he parked the car in a corner of the rest area car park where it was shaded under the trees from the lights. He took his pistol from his bag and slipped it into his belt, behind the right hip where it was hidden by his jacket. Then he locked up the car and walked to the nearby all-night café and shop to get something to eat. He felt hollow and weary, yet jumpy and agitated. More conscious than usual of the hard steel lump of the gun nestling against the small of his back, he walked wide of any corners or doorways where an attacker could suddenly leap out. None did, but the edginess remained.

  He walked into the café. It was warm inside. Tall windows offered a view of the brightly illuminated fuel station on one side, the darker car park on the other. Piped muzak was playing quietly in the background. There were a few late-night travellers taking a rest, some couples but mostly solitary men, sitting at plastic tables and desultorily sipping coffee while fiddling with phones or tablets. Nobody took any notice of Ben as he went in, but he eyed each one, sizing them up as though they could be a potential threat.

  Maybe he was being paranoid, he thought. Or maybe he wasn’t. If the shooter had figured out by now that he’d got the wrong target, he could have hung around Le Val and picked up the trail of the Alpina. Ben was pretty sure nobody had followed him, but you could never be one hundred per cent certain of spotting a skilled tail. Especially when they worked in a team, relaying one another, keeping in contact by phone or radio, maintaining a constantly-shifting net of surveillance around their target. Ben had worked in enough of those teams himself to know exactly how they operated. If somehow Usberti was behind this – despite apparently being dead – then there was no telling how many paid guns he could have brought on board.

  Ben bought a pack of sandwiches and a carry-out paper cup of steaming black coffee, paid cash and made his way back to the BMW. Nobody followed him. He locked himself inside the car, took the gun from his belt and laid it on the centre console close by his right hand. He tore open the sandwich pack: Gruyère cheese and pâté de campagne. His body craved food but he had no appetite. As he ate mechanically and slurped the hot coffee, he checked the
latest news reports on his smartphone.

  One small consolation was that the media were still in the dark about the details of the shooting incident at the obscure training facility in rural Normandy. The as-yet unidentified victim is believed to be a British national residing in France, with unconfirmed reports suggesting an ex-military connection. The British Ministry of Defence were unavailable for comment. Details of the victim’s condition have not yet been released and the exact circumstances of the incident remain uncertain … SDAT anti-terror officers have said they are involved in the investigation but have not revealed whether the shooting may have been carried out by a member or members of an extremist Islamic group. And on, and on.

  The other news item he wanted to check was much more forthcoming on detail, but no more conclusive. INTERPOL’s fury in the wake of Luc Simon’s murder was splashed all over the media, along with gruesome images of the shower unit, post-body-removal, that looked as if a butcher had hung up a live pig in there by its hind legs and slit its throat.

  It was no way to go for a good guy like Luc Simon.

  INTERPOL were lining up suspects on the working theory that the killing was an act of revenge, carried out either by someone Luc had put away or on their behalf. No charges had yet been brought. Inevitably, the media were whipping up their own storm of speculation that the murder of a high-ranking law enforcement officer was yet another terrorist atrocity. Ben wouldn’t have been surprised if, in the next day or two, the cops pinned it on some claimed Muslim fanatic they found on an intelligence watch-list, complete with the ‘discovery’ of maps and photos of Luc Simon and his home in the suspect’s apartment, along with the requisite anti-West hate literature and bomb-making materials under his bed. And maybe they’d be right. But Ben didn’t think so.

  Next he tried Roberta’s number, but her phone was switched off. Then he tried Pascal’s landline number once more for luck, and gnashed his teeth in frustration until the dial tone went dead. So much for the communication age.

  But at least someone was answering their phone. The third number he tried, he got a reply after three rings.

  ‘Dr Lacombe? It’s Ben Hope.’

  ‘This is why I don’t generally give out my personal number,’ complained the sleepy voice on the other end of the line. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘How is he? Any change?’

  ‘There hadn’t been, when I came home to get some sleep. They haven’t called. So, no, none.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I woke you, Doctor.’

  ‘It’s okay. And you can call me Sandrine.’

  ‘Are you alone, Sandrine?’

  ‘What kind of question is that?’ she said sharply. ‘Yes, I do happen to live alone, for your information. Did you call to ask me on a date or something?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Ben said. ‘The reason I asked is because I need a favour.’

  ‘What kind of favour?’

  ‘The sensitive kind that needs to be strictly between you and me. One that concerns Section Forty-Five of the French Code of Medical Ethics.’

  ‘I see. Regarding patient confidentiality?’

  ‘Specifically, the matter of releasing a victim’s identity to the media. Or not releasing it, more to the point.’

  ‘And you have some reason for having it kept quiet, I suppose.’

  ‘I have reason to think the shooter got the wrong guy, but doesn’t know it yet. I’d like that knowledge to be kept from him for as long as possible. Now you understand what I meant by sensitive.’

  A rustling sound as she sat up in bed, fully awake now and unlikely to get any more sleep that night. ‘What are you telling me here? If he was the wrong guy, then who was the intended target?’

  ‘Let’s just say if they’d succeeded, it would have been a little hard for me to call you.’

  ‘Someone tried to kill you? But who?’

  ‘A dead man,’ Ben said. ‘Or so people believe. If he isn’t one already, he soon will be.’

  ‘Do the police know this?’

  ‘They’re fixated on their own ideas of what this is about. If I told them I thought I was the target, I’d spend the next week sitting in an interrogation room being hammered with all the questions they can’t ask Jeff.’

  ‘Where you’d at least be safe.’

  ‘But other people wouldn’t be. And I can’t have that. So no, I have no intention of telling the cops what I know.’

  ‘This is just plain crazy. Things like this don’t happen in my world.’

  ‘Things are a little different in mine,’ Ben said.

  ‘I can’t be drawn into this intrigue,’ she said. ‘Have you seen the news? The story’s getting bigger by the hour. I’m a doctor, not a spy. There are rules, you know?’

  ‘I understand. Forget I mentioned it.’ He was about to end the call when she said, ‘Hold on, don’t go.’

  ‘I’m still here.’

  There was a pause on the line, followed by a sigh of resignation; then she said, ‘To reply to your question, the answer is no, I haven’t signed off on that disclosure, and can’t, without the consent of the victim or their next of kin, which I haven’t got at this point. If this was an instance of, say, rape or child abuse, where there’s a clear case for withholding the victim’s identity, that’s one thing. But where a violent crime has been committed involving firearms, especially in this day and age—’

  ‘The media are hungry for all they can get and the police can release the details themselves, I know. They haven’t yet, but it could all change by morning. I was hoping you could exert some professional influence.’

  ‘When you said you wanted a favour, you weren’t kidding.’ She heaved another sigh. ‘All right. I can try to delay things from my end, but probably not for more than a day, maybe two. And I know someone who knows someone in the police media liaison department. It’s possible that I can pull a few strings there, too, assuming I can come up with a plausible-sounding reason to persuade them. It won’t be easy.’

  ‘Whatever you can do, it’s appreciated.’

  ‘I can’t promise anything,’ she warned him. ‘I don’t even know why I’m agreeing to this.’

  ‘I’ll bring you a big bunch of flowers.’

  ‘Your friend needs them more than I do.’

  ‘He’s not really that into them.’

  ‘You take care,’ she said. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘Why change the habit of a lifetime? I’ll be in touch.’

  Chapter 13

  Ben sped on southwards through the night. As he drove, he made one last call.

  The kind of help Ben needed to ask for next could only be had from certain highly specialised quarters. And sixty-odd-year-old former sergeant Boonzie McCulloch, once Ben’s military instructor, later his friend and mentor, long since retired to an idyllic rural life in Campo Basso but still with a few fingers in a few pies, was just the man to go to.

  Along with the rest of the world, Boonzie had seen the news about the shooting at Le Val and had been just about to call when Ben beat him to it. The Scotsman’s shocked silence quickly turned to molten anger as Ben described Jeff’s condition. ‘If I’m right, whoever did this is after me. And the moment it leaks that they got the wrong guy, they’ll be back.’

  ‘Aw, fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ Boonzie’s gravelly voice rumbled over the line. ‘I’m on ma way. Tonight, reet noo. I’m gettin’ in the car and I’m comin’.’ It was like letting a rabid pit bull off the leash. Ben could almost hear the phone cracking in Boonzie’s iron fist.

  ‘That’s not what I want,’ Ben said firmly, reining him in. ‘I’ve already dragged you into too much trouble in the past. I’ll deal with this my way, alone. But I could use some backup.’

  ‘Say the fuckin’ word, laddie,’ Boonzie rasped, wanting blood.

  ‘I need six guys. I was thinking maybe McGuire, Fry and Blackwood, if they’re available, plus three more. How fast can you get a team together for me?’

&n
bsp; ‘For you? They’ll be trippin’ over themselves tae help, son. And woe betide these murderin’ basturts when we get oor haunds on them. Leave it wi’ me. I’ll get back tae ye asap.’

  By the time Ben had reached Limoges in west-central France, it was all arranged. Within a few hours three good ex-regiment men would be rolling up at Le Val, two of them flown in from London and the third from Germany where he’d just finished a VIP close protection stint. They’d be heavily armed, and they wouldn’t need to use the main gate. Their mission: to back up Tuesday and the others in case the bad guys tried to strike again. Meanwhile, another trio urgently summoned in from various parts of Europe would speedily converge on Cherbourg, where they’d station themselves in and around Louis Pasteur Hospital to spot, intercept and detain anyone suspicious who might come snooping in the event of an information leak.

  Sandrine Lacombe would flip if she knew her place of work was under guard by professional hard men with guns. But the good doctor would never know. Unless something happened – in which case all hell might just break loose.

  With his insurance policy in place as best he could arrange it, Ben stormed on through the night. The Alpina ate up the distance as he carved southwards on the A20 motorway. Driving, driving, driving. A cold stream of wind whistling from the cracked-open window. The heater blasting, the radio blaring. Fists clenched on the steering wheel, eyes wedged open against his growing fatigue and burning with anger as he thought about Jeff lying there in that hospital bed and about Luc Simon in the morgue. When his thoughts turned to Father Pascal, to Anna Manzini and Roberta Ryder, frustration and impatience scoured him like acid and he willed the car to go even faster.

  From Limousin he passed into the Midi-Pyrénées. A while later the signs for Toulouse flashed by. He left the motorway and veered south-east into Roussillon, then due south from Carcassonne, deep into the rugged landscape along ever narrower and twistier roads, slippery with ice, that led him up dizzying mountain passes where the ruins of medieval castles stood silhouetted on craggy snow-capped peaks against the winter sky; then plunged steeply down into green pine valleys, through small towns and villages and hamlets too small to feature on the map. Couiza, Quillan, Montségur. He passed within a couple of kilometres of the villa that had been Anna Manzini’s base for her research on ancient Languedoc history and the mysteries of the Cathars. The same villa where Franco Bozza had almost managed to kill her.