The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  Ben. It was a trap. She wanted to reach out to him, warn him, do something. But it was probably too late. They wouldn’t have taken any chances with him. They’d have killed him. She felt her eyes well up.

  ‘Alex?’ Zoë whispered from the shadows. ‘They must have gone by now. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Don’t be funny.’

  ‘I’m not. Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Zoë, we’re trapped. We can’t get out of here.’

  But as Alex was staring at the shadows, she saw the little screen light up and her heart jumped. She shone the torch. ‘Where in hell did you get a phone from?’

  ‘I took it from the Neanderthal sitting next to me in the car. He never noticed.’

  Alex laughed in amazement. ‘Smart move.’

  ‘I was a useful little pickpocket when I was fifteen,’ Zoë said. ‘Some things you never forget. And guess what – I’ve just recorded everything those bastards said. Thought it might come in handy.’

  ‘Let’s make a call,’ Alex said.

  Zoë jumped up to her feet, moving about the cellar. ‘Reception is really weak. Wait. I’m getting one bar. What’s the number for police here, 911?’

  ‘Don’t call the cops. Give it to me.’ Alex ran over and grabbed the phone from her. The reception was dicey. The single bar flickered off, then on again. She tried desperately to remember the number Ben had given her. It came back to her in a rush. She prodded the keys as fast as she could.

  Dial tone. She listened tensely. It kept ringing and ringing.

  ‘Oh God. I think they got him.’

  Halfway across the world, Ben staggered to his feet and looked down at the corpse of his attacker. Half the man’s face was blown away, blood and flesh and bits of skull and jawbone strewn across the floor from the point-blank gunshot.

  Ben was breathing hard, shaking with adrenalin. The blood on his face was a mixture of his own and that of the three men lying dead in the smashed-up apartment.

  The phone was still buzzing in his pocket. Should he answer it?

  He fished it out with bloody fingers and stared at it for a moment. Then he pressed the reply key and held it to his ear.

  ‘Ben? Is that you?’

  ‘Alex?’ He was startled by the sound of her voice. From her tone he knew instantly that something was wrong.

  ‘You’re all right. Thank God.’

  ‘He didn’t help much.’

  ‘Callaghan is one of them,’ she said.

  ‘I just found that out myself, the hard way. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m with Zoë. We’re shut in Callaghan’s basement.’ She quickly told him everything – how she’d followed Callaghan’s car, how Slater had caught her. What he’d told her about the Christian US Senator. ‘But Richmond doesn’t know what’s going on,’ she said, her words spilling out in a rush. ‘They’re just using him as some kind of figurehead.’

  ‘All right, listen,’ Ben said, thinking fast. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t call the police. Can your vet friend Frank be trusted?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Then call him. Retrace your steps with him, so he can find you.’

  ‘I think I know more or less where we are.’

  ‘Good. There’s got to be some way he can get you out of there. Make up whatever story you want, but he has to keep his mouth shut about this. Then you and Zoë need to lie low and stay safe. I’ll contact you.’

  ‘There’s more,’ she said. ‘I know what they’re going to do. There’s an important Islamic prayer sermon taking place at a mosque in Jerusalem. The president and four members of the Supreme Muslim Council will be there. They’re going to blow it up.’

  Ben’s heart leapt into his mouth. ‘Which mosque?’

  ‘It’s at the Temple Mount,’ Alex said.

  ‘When is this happening?’

  ‘Seven o’ clock, Israeli time.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘But that’s only twenty minutes from now.’

  ‘Go, Ben. You have to stop it.’ Then Alex ended the call and he was staring at a dead phone.

  It was as though the air had been sucked out of the room. A thousand thoughts rushed through his mind at once.

  The enormity of it almost knocked the breath out of him. How stupid he’d been, how completely blind, not to have seen this coming. In its own terrible, horrible way it was a strategic decision of the most perfect kind.

  The Temple Mount in the heart of the Old City was one of the most bitterly disputed sites in religious and political history. For Christians it was the spot where God had created the earth, and the seat of his Final Judgement; Islamic lore named it the Noble Sanctuary, where the Prophet Mohammed had ascended to Heaven. It had once been the home of the greatest and holiest Jewish temple of all times, until the Romans had destroyed it in AD 70.

  Built on the ruins of the great temple was the most sacred site of the Islamic world after Mecca and Medina. The Qubbat al-Sakhra. The Dome of the Rock, a huge and magnificent octagonal mosque crowned with a golden dome that could be seen far and wide across the city. It was the epicentre of two millennia of Jerusalem’s bloody religious past, fought over by dozens of nations in its time and now, since the Israeli Government had reluctantly handed over stewardship of the temple to the Muslims in 1967, the ultimate symbol of the struggle between Judaism and Islam.

  And to destroy the Dome of the Rock, to desecrate such a holy shrine as this, and place blame on the Jews for the atrocity, would be to light a quick-burning fuse that would see the apocalyptic prophecy of the Bible fulfilled. Israel and the Muslim world would be at war. The USA would inevitably get involved, standing with Israel. The call to arms would sound across the entire Islamic word. The great Jihad that fundamentalist Muslims had been waiting for would finally have dawned. Global conflict.

  In a world tearing itself apart in blood and chaos, tens of millions of evangelical Christians would flock to the only leaders they felt they could trust. Meanwhile, events like 9/11 would become a daily occurrence. And worse, much worse. Ben remembered Clayton Cleaver’s prediction of nuclear war, and an icy tingle ran down his back.

  It was a Doomsday scenario, and the clock was ticking faster than he could think.

  Now it had to be stopped – and it was completely down to him.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Ben thundered down the stairs, burst out into the hot sun and sprinted up the street. Passers-by saw him coming, a wild man covered in blood, running like the wind, and threw themselves out of his way. His running footsteps pounded in the narrow streets.

  As he ran he snatched a glimpse at his watch. Six forty-two.

  Eighteen minutes.

  On he sprinted, his breath rasping as he traced a winding path north through cobbled streets and alleys, scattering people aside as he went. He rounded a corner, glancing about him to get his bearings. Up ahead the street was filled with market stalls and shops and crowds of locals and visitors. Taxis and cars were honking their horns as they crawled through the bustle. A motorcyclist on a tall BMW trail bike revved his engine impatiently as he waited for a bunch of tourists to get out of his way.

  Ben ran up behind the bike. The rider was wearing a backpack with shoulder straps. Ben grabbed a strap and hauled the motorcyclist off his machine, sending him tumbling to the ground. Before the BMW could fall on its side he grasped the handlebars, threw a leg over the saddle, stamped into gear and opened the throttle. The BMW surged forward with an aggressive roar, and the crowd quickly dispersed to let him through. He raced up the winding market street, throwing the machine left and right, skidding between stalls and scattering startled pedestrians.

  In his head he was counting seconds and measuring distances. The Old City was a small area of Jerusalem, its four quarters crammed into a space only two kilometres across at its widest point. The Dome of Rock was situated only five hundred yards or so from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where he’d been standing earlier.

  Ben ra
ced on, riding wildly through markets and traffic, rattling over cobbles. Suddenly there was the howl of a police siren behind him. Flashing lights in his mirrors. There was a low wall edging the street to his right. A gap in the wall. A steep flight of stone steps leading upwards between craggy ancient houses. He threw the machine into a skid, twisting the bars. The front tyre hit the steps with a juddering bang that almost spilled him off. The tortured engine screamed as he hammered the bike up the steps.

  The police car had disappeared in his mirror, but already he could hear the sirens in the distance, at least two or three, converging on his position.

  A sign flashed by for Batei Mahasse Street. He was heading the right way. But then he looked back in the mirror and saw more flashing lights. Two police cars, gaining fast.

  Suddenly a bunch of children burst out of a doorway and ran out in front of him. He swerved to avoid them, lost control and the BMW smashed into a shop front. He sprawled to the ground. The police cars skidded to a halt. Cops burst out, running towards him. He staggered to his feet, punched the nearest one and knocked him down. A second grabbed at his arm. Ben kicked him in the groin. Before the guy even started screaming, Ben was running.

  Six forty-nine.

  Eleven minutes.

  But he was getting close now. Up ahead he could see the entrance to the huge esplanade leading to the Wailing Wall on the edge of the Jewish Quarter. The spectacular Dome of the Rock rose up beyond, the sun glittering off its gold roof.

  Voices were yelling behind him, sirens wailing. He threw a glance behind him as he ran. More police were giving chase. He reached the Wailing Wall and sprinted along its side, scattering a crowd of robed clergymen.

  Up ahead was the Moor’s Gate, the only way for non-Muslims to get into the Temple Mount complex. Ben ran through, past the ticket kiosk, barging through crowds of tourists. People yelled at him, then shrank away when they saw the blood on his clothes. Now he was sprinting across the vast paved esplanade of the Temple Mount, towards the Dome of the Rock itself. His lungs were burning and he felt as though his legs were about to give out any second. He willed himself to keep moving.

  The huge building loomed up above him, its octagonal walls faced with blue marble and magnificent Koranic inscriptions and artwork. Crowds of Muslim worshippers were congregating outside the vast mosque, a buzz of excited veneration in the air.

  Behind him, Ben could hear the shouts of the police as they battled through the crowd. He stole away, moving deeper in amongst the jostling throng. His mind was racing, heart thudding fast. The crowd of worshippers was filtering inside the building. Things were about to begin. The Muslim dignitaries were inside.

  Four minutes.

  He whirled round, glancing wildly in all directions. The bomb could be anywhere. It could be strapped to the body of any one of a thousand people all around him. It could have been planted weeks ago, waiting for a remote signal to set it off.

  He imagined the magnificent building suddenly split apart by high explosive. Its noble golden dome spewing flame and debris as everything inside was torn to pieces. The fireball rolling into the blue sky above Jerusalem. The tower of black smoke signalling for miles around that something cataclysmic had just occurred.

  Three minutes.

  There was no chance of stopping it now.

  That was the moment when he spotted the face in the crowd. It belonged to a Westerner, a small man in a light jacket and casual trousers. A leather bag hung from a strap over his shoulder. He could have been any one of a million tourists.

  But Ben never forgot a face, and this one had been branded on his memory since Corfu.

  His mind flashed back in a blur. The man with the laptop at the café terrace. The same sharp features. The same empty, impassive eyes. It was him. The bomber. Charlie’s killer.

  Ben shoved his way through the crowd towards him. The police were just twenty yards behind. He broke into a run. A woman screamed.

  The bomber saw him. His eyes narrowed for an instant, and then he was gone, dashing away through the heaving throngs of people.

  Two minutes.

  Ben was running like he’d never run in his life, past smaller domes and ancient buildings. Down a flight of smooth, uneven stone steps that led to a labyrinth of massive pillars and arches. Ahead of him, the bomber was a flitting figure, darting through arches and cloistered alleyways, turning left and then right, people diving out of his path as he ran.

  But Ben was slowly gaining on him. The clap of their racing footsteps echoed off the ancient stonework.

  One minute.

  Then he saw the man was reaching into the leather bag. Something in his hand. A small black rectangular shape. Remote detonator. He was punching the keys as he ran.

  Entering a numerical code.

  Ben’s blood froze in his veins. He reached behind the hip of his jeans, and from under the bloodied shirt he drew out the bearded assassin’s pistol. He fired. The bomber ducked low. The shot sang off a pitted stone wall. People screamed and yelled in alarm.

  Then the bomber was darting down another alley, archways leading off in all directions. Ben was keeping him in sight, but only just. He couldn’t lose him, not for an instant, or he could finish entering the code. Then he only had to hit a SEND key and it was over.

  Hundreds would die, maybe thousands. Then more, a lot more.

  It was exactly 7 p.m.

  Far away, Irving Slater sat in the back seat of a speeding limo and watched the hand on the gold watch count down the last few seconds to glory. He leaned back against the leather and smiled.

  ‘Show time,’ he said aloud.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The bomber dived through a crumbling stone arch, running flat out, the device in his hand.

  Then suddenly he was cartwheeling through the air with a loud grunt of pain and surprise as the moped coming the other way knocked him off his feet.

  Ben came skidding out of the archway just in time to see the bomber go sprawling across the narrow street in a tangle of arms and legs. The scooter crashed down on its side and slithered in a shower of sparks. The rider tumbled and rolled. The black detonation device went bouncing across the paving stones.

  There was blood on the bomber’s face. His teeth were bared in pain and concentration as he went crawling after the fallen device. Ben watched in horror from ten yards away as his trembling hand reached out for the tiny keypad. Then his fingers were closing around the device, dragging it towards him.

  Ben dived at him and punched him hard in the head. He punched him again. The man’s head lolled, spitting blood. Ben grabbed for his fingers, wrestling the thing out of his grasp.

  There was a sharp yell from behind. Ben turned. A young cop was standing three yards away, panting hard, pistol wavering, sweat on his face. He motioned with the gun. Ben could see in his eyes that he was scared. Scared, but serious. He screamed a command in Hebrew.

  Ben raised his hands, slowly rising to his feet.

  The young cop flicked the gun towards the bomber.

  But the bomber just smiled. He sat up in the dust and cocked his thumb over the SEND key.

  The sequence was complete. One key-stroke and the world was going to change irrevocably.

  Ben moved faster than he’d ever moved before. His elbow hit the young cop’s face at the same time that he was already grabbing for the pistol. The shot was completely instinctive. He didn’t aim.

  The bullet hit the bomber’s hand in a mist of red, blowing off half his fingers. The shattered detonator dropped to the ground.

  The bomber kneeled there, nursing his damaged hand, staring up at Ben open-mouthed. ‘Who are you?’ he croaked.

  ‘Nobody,’ Ben said. Then he shot him in the head.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  ‘Then it’s over,’ said Murdoch. ‘You honoured your end of the deal.’

  Ben was sitting on the edge of his bed in the Jerusalem hotel, feeling for a part of his body that didn’t hurt. ‘And now you’l
l honour yours,’ he said. He didn’t want to mention Callaghan and Slater to Murdoch. He had his own plans for them.

  ‘I always keep my word,’ Murdoch said. ‘We’ll take care of everything. As for you, you’re a free man. You were never here. I never even heard your name.’

  The next call to make was to Alex. Ben used the number she’d called him from at Callaghan’s house. He prayed she’d answer. That she was all right.

  After a dozen rings, he started at the sound of her voice.

  When she heard his, she burst out crying.

  ‘I’m coming back,’ he told her. ‘Meet me at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC tomorrow afternoon, one o’clock.’

  * * *

  He stood for a long time under a hot shower, washing away the blood and the dirt and the memories of the day. Then he grabbed his things and checked out. He made the airport in forty minutes, and within a couple of hours he was boarding a flight for Washington.

  It wasn’t over yet.

  Washington DC

  The nineteenth day

  He was back on US soil at midday. He made his way to the heart of DC and sat on the warm stone steps at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. Sunlight danced on the clear surface of the ornamental lake that stretched out in front of him. Beyond that stood the obelisk of the Washington Memorial, and beyond that, all in a straight line, the Capitol dome and seat of the US Senate.

  There was no sign of Alex yet. He took out his phone, thinking about the two calls he had to make. The first was to Augusta Vale.

  She sounded happy to hear from him.

  ‘Sorry I had to disappear like that,’ he said. ‘Something came up.’

  ‘I still have reporters calling me, wanting to know about the mystery shooter who stole the prize and vanished.’

  ‘I just wanted to thank you for your hospitality.’