The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  Ben stared at her, his rage mounting. The pain in his shoulder was gone. ‘A recipe book,’ he echoed.

  ‘I wasn’t even sure Cleaver would fall for it,’ she blurted. ‘It was just a crazy idea I had one day on the Turkish dig. I didn’t have to work out the details because I knew I could bluff it. I thought it would be a way to get back at the bastard, shake him up a bit. That stupid book. Who’s he trying to kid?’ She reddened. ‘And why should he get all Augusta’s money? She was my friend first. I should be the one to have it.’

  ‘And this is the truth?’ Ben said. ‘There never was any evidence about St John and Revelation?’

  ‘If there is,’ Zoë sniffed, ‘it’s still buried in the sand somewhere.’

  Ben started shaking as it sank in. He thought of Charlie. In his mind he was replaying the moment when his friend had been blown to pieces. ‘I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I told you about the people whose lives have been destroyed thanks to your little scheme,’ he said. ‘Never mind your family are going crazy with worry. Nikos is dead. Did you know that? Do you even care?’ The pain was returning now, like a piece of molten steel in his flesh.

  Zoë glanced up at him in alarm, then screwed her eyes shut and said nothing.

  ‘Not to mention the victims of a bombing in Corfu that you don’t even know about,’ he said. ‘But which you caused. And the doctor who risked his life to help you, and died trying. And your friend Skid McClusky, hiding in a dingy motel with his legs smashed. All of it thanks to you, you stupid little twit.’ He was getting breathless with pain. He fought the urge to grab a fistful of her hair and smash her face in. ‘I’ve always treated women just the same way as men. But if you were a man, Zoë, I swear this would be your last day. You have no idea what you’ve done.’

  There was a long silence, the only sound Zoë’s quiet sobbing, the rustling of the leaves in the breeze and the call of a buzzard somewhere high overhead.

  Alex was the one to break the silence. ‘So where does this leave us?’

  Nobody replied.

  Nausea came over Ben like fever. He felt something tap his foot, and looked down. His left hand was slick with blood, fingertips dripping fat splodges onto the forest floor. Alex saw it too, and her eyes flashed worry.

  Then came the steady thump of rotor blades in the distance. Ben looked up. The chopper was just a dot on the sky, but it was getting rapidly bigger.

  ‘Company,’ Alex muttered.

  ‘Under cover,’ he said. ‘Now.’ He grabbed Zoë’s arm and hauled her roughly off her feet, sending her tumbling into the bushes. Alex ducked in after her, and Ben squatted close by. He could smell Alex’s hair, her hot skin. Even in his pain, there was a strange tingle from the feeling of closeness.

  The chopper approached, its thudding roar filling the air. Then it swooped over the wooded valley, shaking the trees, and was gone.

  Alex let out a long breath. ‘You think they found the car?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘They’re combing the whole area. That’s what I’d do. Jones must have called on every resource he could muster up.’ He got to his feet, listening to the fading thud of the chopper. ‘Time to move on.’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The long, weary two miles felt like they were Ben’s last. He could feel his strength ebbing away with every step. Alex led the way, carrying his bag, stopping frequently to help him across the difficult terrain. Zoë followed silently, thirty yards behind, her face pale, avoiding Ben’s eye as they threaded their way through the pine trees and down a long rocky slope to a river.

  ‘We have to cross,’ Alex said. ‘The water’s fast-flowing but it’s not deep.’ She took his hand and they waded out. He stumbled and fell, and the impact of the icy water made his body spasm with chills. Alex helped him stagger to his feet. ‘Just a little further,’ she said, and tried to smile reassuringly.

  He gritted his teeth and fought back the dizziness. One step at a time, he made his way across the river and then collapsed on the rocky bank. Zoë caught up after a few minutes, and then he willed himself to keep moving. The ground sloped sharply back up from the river. Then, at the top of the next rise, Alex took the binoculars from the bag and rested on a rock to scan the valley below. ‘There it is,’ she said happily.

  Despite the pain and exhaustion, Ben noticed the spectacular view from up here. Open prairie stretched for miles in front of them, and the early afternoon sun was sparkling off the snow on the distant mountain peaks. Alex handed him the binocs, and he focused on the rambling range of farm buildings a mile away across the waving grassland. The place looked like a typical small hill farm, with assorted barns and horses grazing behind white-painted fences.

  ‘I don’t see anyone about,’ he said. ‘But there’s smoke coming from the chimney.’

  ‘Let’s get down there and take a look,’ Alex replied.

  It took another forty-five minutes of painfully slow progress to reach the farm. They walked inside the gate and followed a dusty path between run-down timber outbuildings towards the house. Ben rested against a fencepost while Zoë hovered uncertainly in the background and Alex approached the farmhouse. One window was boarded over and the porch steps were worm-eaten and supported on bricks.

  She thumped on the door. ‘Hello? Anybody around?’ There was no answer. She stepped back from the house, gazing up at the windows, then shrugged back at Ben.

  The sun was hot and high above them now, and he shielded his eyes from it as he scanned around the farmstead.

  Then he saw the body.

  The old man was lying in the long grass a hundred yards from one of the horse paddocks. Ben and Alex hurried over to him. She kneeled down next to the limp figure in the worn-out jeans and red check shirt and felt for a pulse. ‘He’s alive,’ she said. Ben fetched a pitcher of water from the nearby paddock and splashed some of it on the old man’s face. He groaned, blinked and tried to sit up. His hair and beard were long and white, and his face was tanned to leather. He winced in pain and grabbed his ankle. Ben saw that it was badly swollen.

  ‘Damned colt there pulled me off my feet,’ the old man said, pointing. In the paddock, a young chestnut looked up from his grazing and gazed across at them, trailing his lungeing rope from his halter.

  ‘Don’t try to talk,’ Alex said to the old man. ‘We’ll get you in out of the sun.’

  They helped the old man up the broken-down porch steps and into the farmhouse. The house was cool inside and smelled faintly damp. Through a shady hallway was a sitting room with wallpaper hanging off the walls and a low couch that looked as if it had been there since the fifties. They laid him down. Ben wiped the sweat out of his eyes and gently peeled back the old man’s trouser leg. ‘Looks to be just a bad sprain,’ Alex said, peering down at it.

  ‘Mighty glad you folks turned up,’ the old man said. ‘Don’t get a lot of visitors out here.’ His wrinkled eyes focused on Ben’s bloody shirt, but he said nothing. He extended his hand. ‘Riley Tarson’s the name.’

  ‘Ben Hope. This is Alex.’

  Zoë had wandered into the house, standing idly watching from a distance.

  ‘What about this little lady?’ Riley asked. ‘She got a name?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben said. ‘Trouble.’ He eased off the old man’s boot, then turned to Alex. ‘I think I saw some comfrey growing outside in the yard. You know how to make a decoction? That’ll help ease the swelling.’

  ‘No need,’ Riley said. ‘Ira keeps a jar of some damned Indian potion on the kitchen shelf.’

  ‘Ira?’

  ‘He helps out on the farm. Ain’t here, though. Rode out two days ago to chase up a missing steer. Not been back since.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find the jar,’ Alex said. Zoë trailed after her.

  Riley eyed Ben carefully. ‘You’re a little out of your way, mister. It’s my guess you’re no ordinary travellers.’

  ‘You guessed right,’ Ben said.

  ‘And I guess that chopper ear
lier was out looking for you. Right about that too?’

  Ben said nothing.

  Riley’s old face creased into a grin. ‘I know what them helicopters are. I got no love for no G-men.’

  ‘They’re CIA,’ Ben said quietly. ‘They’re looking for us.’

  ‘I have no problem with that, son. If you was fixing to harm me or rob me, you’d have done it by now. I don’t know your business, and the less I know the less I have to tell. A man’s actions is all I care about.’ Riley grunted. ‘Now, the sonofabitch in the helicopter, he came down low while I was lying there in the dirt. Saw me and just smiled and flew off. If you hadn’t showed up, I wouldn’t have made it through till morning. So you ask me to pick sides, I won’t be picking his and that’s for sure.’

  Alex came back into the room, holding a big jar full of greenish lotion. Ben examined it. ‘That’s comfrey, all right,’ he said. ‘It’ll help.’ He smeared it over the swollen ankle, then immobilised the foot with the cushion, rolling it carefully around and strapping it up with tape. ‘You need to rest up a while,’ he told Riley.

  ‘You don’t look too good yourself,’ the old man said. ‘I seen gunshot wounds before.’

  Ben felt suddenly faint again. The old man’s lips were moving, but all he could hear was a rumbling echo in his ears. The room began to spin, and then he was dimly aware of Alex’s cry as he crashed to the floor.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Consciousness came and went. Like a slow-motion strobe effect, there were periods of blackness where he drifted and floated for what seemed like eternity. In between were bursts of sound and light and activity. He was dimly aware of climbing the stairs, an arm around Alex’s neck as she supported him. Then a room. A bed. The feel of crisp sheets against his skin. Blood on white cotton. Alex bending over him, her face looming large, concern showing in her eyes. He blacked out again.

  When he opened his eyes, the red light of dawn was creeping across the wooden floor of the unfamiliar room. He blinked and tried to lift his head off the pillow. His shoulder was freshly bandaged. There was pain, but it felt different.

  He felt for the ring around his neck. It was gone.

  He looked around him. He was in a large bedroom, simple and traditional. In stark contrast to the downstairs, the room was clean and tidy, as though it was never used. He was in a brass-framed double bed, covered with a patchwork quilt. There was a wash basin in the corner, and on the wooden rocking chair next to his bed were fresh clothes, a blue denim shirt and clean jeans, neatly folded. Carefully placed on top of the clothes was the gold wedding ring with its leather thong.

  Alex was next to him. She was slumped across the bed, her tousled hair across the quilt, one arm draped over his legs. He wondered how long she’d been watching over him before she gave in to sleep.

  She stirred and opened her eyes, looking directly at him. She seemed to have that ability, which he’d only seen in wild animals and trained soldiers, to go from a dead sleep to a state of perfect alertness, with none of the yawning puffy-eyed waking-up stages in between. She smiled and sat up on the bed. She’d changed out of her woolly jumper and was wearing a farmer’s chequered shirt a size too big and knotted at the waist.

  ‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ she said.

  ‘You did it?’

  She nodded. ‘I had to go in deep, but it came out clean. It didn’t hit any bone. It flattened a little but didn’t mushroom. No fragmentation.’ She reached for a tin cup on the bedside table and rattled it. He looked inside at the crumpled bullet rolling around in the bottom. It looked small and innocuous now.

  ‘You saved my life,’ he said. ‘That’s twice now. I have some catching up to do.’

  She took the cup from his hand and pressed cool fingers gently to his brow ‘You’re still burning hot. Get some rest.’

  He lay back against the pillow. ‘We have to get moving.’

  ‘Not for a few days. Riley says we can stay here as long as we need.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Sleeping. He’ll be fine.’ She smiled. ‘He seems to think you and I are an item.’

  ‘Where’s Zoë?’

  ‘She has a room down the hall. She’s tired, Ben. You need to go a little easier on her.’

  ‘I could kill her.’

  ‘She feels bad.’

  ‘She ought to.’

  She stroked his forehead, brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. Outside, the dawn light was brightening. He could hear horses neighing in the distance, and a dog barking. ‘I should go and see to the horses,’ she said. ‘Riley won’t be up for a while yet.’

  ‘Stay a minute.’

  She smiled again. ‘OK.’

  They sat in silence for a few minutes.

  ‘You were dreaming a lot,’ she said. ‘Last night. You were feverish for a while.’

  ‘Was I?’

  She nodded. ‘You were talking in your sleep again.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘You were talking to God.’

  ‘I don’t have a lot to say to him.’

  ‘You asked for his forgiveness, Ben. Like it really mattered to you. What happened? What did you do that you want to be forgiven for?’

  He rolled over away from her.

  ‘I want to help you,’ she said.

  He glanced back at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just do.’ She smiled. ‘I kind of feel I know you now. I undressed you and put you into bed. I’ve been up to my elbows inside your shoulder pulling that bullet out of you. Your blood all over me. I’ve packed your wound and patched you up. Bathed you and sat here half the night mopping sweat off you. So why won’t you let me help you with this? It’s good to talk, right?’

  ‘Bad things have happened,’ he said. ‘Things I don’t want to talk about.’

  ‘Bad things happen to everyone.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘It’s not your fault Charlie died,’ she said. ‘I know you blame yourself, but it’s not fair. You didn’t know what was coming. You were only trying to help your friend.’

  He was about to reply, then shut his mouth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe you should see to the horses now. Just don’t stay out in the open too long. The helicopter might come back.’

  She smiled. ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘About Charlie. Maybe it wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  He closed his eyes.

  ‘Tell me.’

  After a long pause, Ben said quietly, ‘I can’t.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  As the morning rolled by, Ben could feel his strength slowly returning and his impatience mounting. He lay on the rumpled sheets reading his Bible, working through all the facts in his head.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Slater. Who was he? Not an agent. Not a cop. He wasn’t a warrior like Jones. He was a leader, an organiser, a brain. Obviously a man with considerable power at his fingertips. One of the movers and shakers. A politician, maybe, but not a prominent figure – Alex had never heard of him. Perhaps one who preferred to stay in the shadows, working behind the scenes. And one who, for some reason that was still a complete mystery, was politically interested in Clayton Cleaver and, by extension, politically threatened by Zoë’s ostraka discovery.

  Religion and politics. Cleaver was aiming at governorship, but he was still only small potatoes in the larger game. What if someone else, someone far higher up the ladder, someone with much more to gain or lose, had a stake in this too? Votes and power were a big motivator, worth killing for.

  But some inner voice told Ben there was something else to it. Did political ambition alone explain how Slater, or the forces he represented, was apparently able to hijack CIA resources to enable his plans? There was something bigger going on.

  And as Ben leafed through the Bible on the pi
llow next to him, that thought kept returning in his mind and chilling his blood.

  After a while he couldn’t bear the inactivity any longer. Just after midday he got to his feet, feeling a little woozy but much stronger. He was wearing only a pair of shorts. Alex’s dressing was tight around his chest and shoulder.

  He picked up the ring and hung it back around his neck. Walked over to the window and looked out at the farm buildings and paddocks, the sweeping prairie and the mountains in the background.

  Something caught his eye. In one of the barns, among old farm implements and junk, was the rusting hulk of an ancient Ford pickup truck. He gazed at it for a moment, then nodded to himself.

  He went to the wash basin and splashed cold water over his face, then walked back over to the bed and pulled on the jeans that had been left out for him. They fitted well, and he wondered whose they were. Not Riley’s, not with a thirty-two-inch waistband. He remembered the old man had mentioned a helper, Ira. He pulled on the shirt that had been left out too.

  The aroma of coffee was floating up from downstairs, and someone was moving about down below.

  Ben ruffled up his hair in the mirror and made his way down the wide wooden staircase.

  He found Alex down in the big farm kitchen, standing at an old cylinder-fed gas stove, frying strips of bacon in a battered pan. She turned in surprise as he walked in. ‘I was just about to bring you something to eat.’

  ‘What other US political figure uses the Bible as a campaign platform?’ he asked.

  Alex stared at him for a moment. ‘You mean, apart from a President who said God told him to go to war with Iraq?’

  ‘Lower down the scale,’ he said. ‘Someone working hard to make it to the top.’

  ‘There are a thousand evangelical political wannabees out there,’ she answered. ‘Some are bigger than others. But I can’t just pluck one name out of the hat. Why are you asking about this all of a sudden?’