The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  ‘You’ve really got this sewn up, haven’t you?’

  Kroll chuckled. ‘We should have by now, after two centuries of practice.’

  Ben let his straining muscles relax against the chair. ‘Why me?’ he asked wearily. Blood trickled into his mouth.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ Kroll said. ‘Aragon has many bodyguards. We have tried to get him before, and he has become very suspicious. He is well protected. We need someone with proven expertise in the art of stealth, who can slip in and out of heavily guarded places undetected. Secondly, you cannot be connected to us. If you get caught or killed, the newspapers will report that a loner, a neo-fascist, tried to assassinate the great man.’ He smiled. ‘Naturally, I need not remind you that if you are caught, you will keep your mouth shut. Or else the child dies and it’s a one-way ticket to Turkey for you.’

  ‘I should go with him,’ Glass said, watching Ben intently from behind Kroll’s chair. ‘Make sure he doesn’t get up to any tricks.’

  Kroll smiled and shook his head. ‘No need for that,’ he replied. ‘I believe we can trust our finder of lost children not to misbehave. He knows what will happen to our young guest if he does.’ He sat back, satisfied with himself. It was a perfect plan, an opportunity he’d been waiting for a long time. Aragon dead, Hope neutralized and pressed into service, Kinski silenced, all at a stroke.

  Ben hung his head. He searched for a way out.

  There wasn’t one.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The von Adler mansion

  Later that evening

  Kroll had laid out some more clothes and jewels for her. As Eve slipped into the low-cut dress, his voice in the speakers told her quietly that she was to come upstairs. Not to the mirror room this time, but to a place she hadn’t been inside for over a year. He wanted her in his bedroom.

  As she climbed the stairs to the second floor, she wondered what he had in store for her this time. The relationship had never been sexual, not in any normal sense, since that first time. The idea of getting physical with him made her cringe.

  She walked the wide corridor and arrived at the double doors. She could hear Kroll’s voice on the phone inside the room. She listened.

  ‘The whole committee will be in attendance, as usual,’ he was saying. ‘If all goes according to plan, and I’m confident it will, we’ll be in a position to conclude our business matter on the night of my little Christmas soirée.’ A pause. ‘Yes, I’ll keep you informed.’ Another pause. ‘Very well. I will see you in two days, then.’ Silence.

  She waited a minute or so before she knocked on the door.

  He was waiting for her inside the vast bedroom, sitting primly in a wing chair beside a crackling fire. There was champagne in an ice bucket on the table near the four-poster. He was wearing a silk robe. He greeted her with a smile. ‘Champagne?’

  ‘What’s the celebration?’ she asked. She accepted the crystal flute he passed her, and sipped a little.

  ‘An opportunity has arisen to dispose of a certain little problem that has been bothering me for a long time,’ he said. ‘But don’t let me bore you with such details, my dear.’ Kroll walked around behind her. She closed her eyes as he laid his bony, cold hands on her naked shoulders. She could feel his thumbs rubbing on her skin. ‘You’re tense,’ he said softly.

  She was repulsed by his touch. She put down her glass and moved away quickly.

  ‘Why do you hate me?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t hate you, Werner.’

  ‘You find me repellent,’ he said. ‘Don’t think it escapes me. Nothing does.’ He watched her. ‘You’ve changed somehow. There’s something different about you.’

  She looked away. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  He thought for a moment, rubbing his chin and observing her in that birdlike way of his. ‘Something has been perplexing me, Eve,’ he said. ‘You were alone with Hope for a long time. Much longer than usual. I did wonder why that was.’

  Eve measured her reply cautiously. ‘I had to be careful with him. He was more dangerous than the others.’

  ‘Very dangerous,’ Kroll agreed. ‘Yet you didn’t seem too anxious to get away from him. You were alone for nearly three hours. A lot can happen in that time.’

  ‘I had to find the right moment.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘We talked,’ she said.

  ‘You talked. About what?’

  ‘Just things. Music. Life. Nothing special. Then he slept for a while. Why are you asking me these questions? I got him for you. I did what you told me to do. Finished. It’s over.’

  Kroll raised one eyebrow. ‘He slept? In your bed?’

  ‘On my sofa,’ she said impatiently. ‘I suppose you think I was fucking him, is that it?’

  ‘It had crossed my mind,’ he said. ‘I understand that you have needs. I saw the way you were looking at his picture. He’s young, and not entirely unattractive.’

  ‘You mean was?’

  He smiled coldly. ‘Oh, he isn’t dead, if that’s what you think. He’s far too useful to me for that.’

  Eve’s pulse quickened, but she was an expert in covering her reactions. ‘I don’t care either way,’ she said. ‘I just don’t like these questions.’ She turned away from him. Ben Hope was still alive.

  Kroll took a tiny, dainty sip of his drink, watching her. ‘It’s not your place to challenge my questions,’ he said. ‘Remember who and what you are.’

  Who and what she was. The words bit into her. She spun and glared at him. ‘You’re jealous, aren’t you? You think I felt something for him and you can’t stand it.’

  His smile slipped. ‘Don’t fence with me.’

  ‘You can’t stand it because you know that deep down you’re just a frightened, weak old man who can’t get it u—’

  His hand caught her hard around the face and her head spun. His eyes bulged in the bony skull, and his white hair was in disarray. ‘All it takes is one phone call,’ he warned in a trembling voice. ‘And I can erase you. I will end you.’

  ‘I’m already officially dead,’ she retorted. ‘You might as well finish the job.’

  ‘I wouldn’t make it that easy for you. Your life would become a living hell.’

  ‘I’m already there.’

  He turned his back on her and walked across the room. He laughed bitterly. ‘I should have let them lock you away forever six years ago.’

  There wasn’t a day when she didn’t wish he had. He’d owned her completely for those six years.

  She’d been twenty years old when it had happened. Back in those days, she’d had a proper identity, for what it was worth. There’d been nothing more than a violent, abusive father and a drunk of a mother to hold Eva Schultz in Hamburg. She’d hitched a ride and somehow ended up at the other end of the country. Men were drawn to her pretty face and striking figure. She’d quickly learned you could make money out of that. As time went by, she got very good at doing things that very few of the girls would do. She was popular and attracted a particular clientele-a lot of the clients were rich men who turned up with bodyguards and limousines.

  Kroll had been a client once, just once. The sex had been a disaster. Ever since then, he’d just wanted to watch. He barely slackened his tie.

  The fat Russian was different. He was a slob who loved dirty sex and went at it like a slavering mastiff to a plate of meat. That was fine, she could cater for that. He’d hired her for the whole night, and she’d kept him going for most of it. Outside the door, the two guards with Uzi submachine pistols had waited quietly, listening. They were used to hearing what was coming through the door.

  In the morning the guards were gone. Eva Schultz woke up and rolled out of bed. She’d felt strangely drowsy, but she put it down to the vodka he’d brought with him. It had never occurred to her that she’d been drugged. The moment she’d realized something was wrong was when she’d placed a bare foot on the floor and felt something sticky. She’d looked down. The
room was a sea of blood. The Russian had been stabbed. Later, she’d learn he had sixty-seven stab wounds in him. His bloated body was lying at the foot of the bed.

  She’d still been staggering about the room in shock when the men in dark coats had found her. One of them was someone she knew. It was Werner Kroll. The ID he showed meant nothing to her. He’d said something about the secret service, but her mind had been too full of horror and the after-effects of the drug to take it in properly. She’d been bundled into a car and taken to a room with no windows. They’d told her the deal, told her how lucky she was that the police hadn’t found her first.

  They sympathized. Yes, they knew she was innocent. But who would believe a whore? Her prints were all over the knife and it didn’t look good. Her client was a very important man and the courts were going to crucify her. She’d go to jail for the rest of her life.

  And there was more. Kravchenko had connections. They didn’t tell her what those connections were. It was enough for her to know that she wouldn’t be safe in prison. Someone would get to her sooner or later. But if she let them deal with it they could help her. They told her some of the ways she could do that.

  She’d been too scared to refuse Kroll’s offer, and with her prospects in tatters there’d been no real reason not to clutch at the lifeline he was giving her. She’d grabbed it with both hands and said yes to everything.

  She’d never seen the inside of a jail or a courtroom. Instead, they’d taken her away to a compound somewhere. She didn’t ask what was going on, and she didn’t care. All she knew, over the next few months, was that she was safe. She’d been given a set of rooms to live in, simple but comfortable. She’d accepted the confinement, the guards outside the door, the total lack of communication with the outside world. Kroll had come to see her once a week, checking she was all right and being looked after. He told her nothing about the Kravchenko incident. She’d wondered if he was going to ask her for sex. He never did.

  Eva Schultz had officially died in the same accident that killed the Russian. Eva had become Eve. Eve nobody. A non-person, a ghost. She never asked who really killed the Russian. She never asked whose body had doubled for hers, or how it had been obtained. She just wanted to forget the whole thing and start afresh.

  Of course, there’d been a price to pay.

  After six months, with a new nose and a different look, she’d left the compound and come to live at the big house. Now she was directly, personally, under Kroll’s wing. She had jewels and beautiful clothes. He’d taught her how to pass herself off as a lady-how to talk, how to walk, how to dress. Her acting ability surprised even her.

  She was suffocated in his care. The more she’d found out about who he really was and what he really did, the deeper he’d sucked her into his world. Information. Manipulation. Power. She was the honeytrap that none of the carefully selected targets seemed to be able to resist.

  One day, he’d taken her into a study, opened a safe and asked her to look inside. Stored in a plastic bag was the knife that had killed Kravchenko, still smeared in the dead man’s dried blood and with her fingerprints on the handle. He had said nothing. Just showed her, so she understood.

  There were more crimes to add to the list now, and some of them she really had been involved with. She could never get out of here, never tell anyone the truth. If she did, she knew she probably wouldn’t even make it as far as jail.

  She watched him now as he walked across the room and stood near the crackling fire with his back to her. Her face was livid and tingling where he’d slapped her.

  ‘You were right, Werner,’ she said. ‘I do hate you.’

  He turned with a wrinkled yellow grin. ‘I’ve never doubted it,’ he said. ‘But you’ll always stay close to me.’

  ‘What choice do I have?’

  ‘None whatsoever,’ he said. ‘By the way, I have a little job for you.’

  She grimaced. What was it this time?

  ‘You might enjoy this,’ he said, seeing her expression. ‘You can learn to exercise your underused maternal instincts. Clara Kinski is coming to stay with us. I want you to look after her, keep her quiet. If necessary subdue her.’

  Even Kroll had never descended to anything like child abduction before. Her heart began to pound harder. ‘How long are you keeping her here?’ she asked.

  Kroll smiled. ‘Oh, not long,’ he said. ‘Just for the rest of her life.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Ben lay and stared at the dark, grey ceiling above him until it swam in front of his eyes. He looked at his watch. Only five minutes had gone by since the last time he’d checked it. His mind had been working so furiously that it seemed like hours.

  He had checked the cell a hundred times for weak spots. The only light filtered in through a high barred window. He’d jumped up, scrabbled up the wall and grabbed the cold, black steel bars, wedged his knees against the wall and jerked them with all his strength. There was no give in them, no movement at all. They were solid. It would take a tractor to tear them out of their concrete bedding.

  Dropping back down into the shadows, he’d run his fingers along the contour of every stone block. The walls were in perfect condition and at least double-skinned. Nothing to work on. Then he’d tried the door. It was sheet steel, the hinges were concealed and the rivets were flush. Finally, he’d turned to the bunk, looking for something he could use as a lever or a hammer. But the steel frame was welded solid and its feet cemented into the floor.

  Worse than the prison walls around him, he was trapped inside his own thoughts.

  Leigh was dead. Leigh was dead.

  And it was his fault. He’d left her on her own. She’d died alone, unprotected, in fear.

  Just as Oliver had died. It was his fault. And now the little girl was a hostage. That was his fault, too. He’d get her out, or he’d die trying.

  Tomorrow his mission would begin. He’d have the equipment he’d asked for, a vehicle, some clothes, some cash, a weapon and a phone to call them on when he’d acquired his target. They were going to let him go free, and he already knew what his first move would be. But he’d never felt so powerless in his life.

  There was no use in hammering on the steel door until his knuckles were a mess of blood. No use in screaming his frustration until his vocal cords were in tatters. No use beating his own brains out against the stone walls. He dropped to the floor, down on his fists and the tips of his toes, and pressed thirty push-ups out of his screaming muscles. Then another thirty. The pain purged his thoughts for a few minutes. It helped him to focus on what he was going to do next.

  He started at the sound of jangling keys against the steel door. The lock turned. A sliver of light shone from the corridor outside as a figure slipped inside the cell.

  It was a woman, furtive, nervous. He knew her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  ‘I had to come,’ she said. Her eyes were moist and caught the light.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  The ring of keys glinted in the shadows. ‘Kroll keeps a spare set in his study,’ she whispered.

  ‘What do you want, Ingrid? Or whatever your name is today.’

  Eve winced and put her finger to her lips. ‘Shhh. Glass is out there. They’d kill me if they knew I was here.’

  ‘Then I’ll call them,’ he said. ‘They might let me watch.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what you said last time we met.’

  She crept across the cell towards him. In the light of the window her eyes were wide and bright with terror. ‘I’m Eve,’ she muttered. ‘Eve’s my real name. That’s the truth. I promise it.’

  ‘I don’t care what your name is,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘They have the little girl,’ she said.

  ‘You came here to tell me that?’

  ‘I want to help,’ she whispered. Her voice was husky and urgent.

  ‘I don’t trust you,’ he said.
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  ‘I’m sorry about what happened. I had no choice. You have to believe me.’

  ‘You won’t fool me twice.’

  ‘I can help,’ she protested. ‘Please listen to me. I know things.’

  He could smell her fear. That couldn’t be faked. She was telling the truth. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  ‘They’re planning something,’ she said. ‘Kroll is holding a party. Those men will all be there. They’re going to kill someone.’

  ‘Who?’ He already knew the answer.

  She shook her head. ‘Someone important to them. I don’t know. I just know that every time they have one of their gatherings, someone dies. There’s a signal. It’s usually between nine and ten, when the party’s in full swing and the guests are distracted by the music. The men leave one by one and go down to a special part of the house. That’s where it happens.’

  ‘Who are these men?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re in business with Kroll. That’s all I know. Old men in suits who kill people. Politics. Money. I don’t know. I just know they make people disappear.’

  ‘Where does it happen?’ he asked.

  She glanced nervously at the cell door. ‘The house has its own private church,’ she said. ‘I think that’s where they go. I’ve never seen it. Kroll keeps it all locked up.’

  ‘Would it have a vaulted ceiling, pillars? A tiled floor with a checkered pattern.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe. But I wanted to tell you something else. The little girl.’

  ‘Clara?’

  She nodded. ‘They’re going to kill her. Afterwards, by lethal injection.’

  He glared at her. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ he asked. ‘Why wait until now?’

  ‘Because I want to get her out of there,’ she said. ‘They’ve got to be stopped. It’s gone too far.’ Her eyes were earnest, pleading, searching his. She glanced over her shoulder at the door. ‘I’m sick of this whole thing,’ she went on. Her words were a gushing whisper. ‘When he told me about the child, I had to do something. You’ve got to believe me. It was hard for me to turn you over. But I had no choice. They have a hold on me, like they have on you now. That’s what they do, they trap people and then use them.’