The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET

by Scott Mariani

  Ben put the reports aside and looked at the photos again. They weren’t pleasant viewing. It must have been terribly hard for Paxton to see the mutilation done to his son’s body. The pathologist’s assessment was that the murder weapon had been some kind of heavy blade, a machete or similar.

  Ben chucked the photos down and looked at his watch. Time was passing and he didn’t want to hang around in Cairo any longer than he had to. He replaced the papers in the folder and slipped it into his bag. Slung the bag over his shoulder. Locked the door behind him and headed back down the stairs into the night air.

  He knew exactly where he was going from here.

  He hailed a battered Mercedes cab and the driver took him east of the river, to where the streets became narrow lanes and crowded tenements jostled for space among the hundreds of ancient mosques. Ben had the taxi driver pull up and wait for him near the slum settlement of Manshiyat Naser, the place known as Garbage City. He got out and walked through the long shadows of the cramped alleys.

  He heard the plod of hooves on tarmac as a donkey cart passed under a faint streetlight. The cart was being driven by a young boy. It was stacked ten feet high with the stinking rubbish that was brought into this part of the city for the locals to sift through for anything they could recycle or sell. A whole industry built on the things people threw away. That was this boy’s future, Ben thought.

  The boy’s eyes met his for a fleeting moment, and the cart passed on into the darkness.

  Three minutes later Ben was walking in a familiar doorway. The place was worse than Morgan’s apartment building, a lot worse. It hadn’t changed much since he was last here. And he was pretty sure his contact wouldn’t have changed much, either.

  Abdou was a guy you went to if you needed something. All kinds of things-as long as they were shady enough. Ben knew a little about his business. He was an entrepreneur with all nine fingers stuck in a lot of dirty little pies across the Cairo underworld. The tenth finger had been the one he’d stuck into the wrong person’s affairs. That someone had snipped it off a long time ago with a pair of bolt croppers-a gentle reminder of his station. Ever since then, Abdou had shied away from dealing in the hotter stuff-the dope, girls and guns-but he still knew all the angles and a lot of people who didn’t always want to be known.

  The crumbling apartment building stank worse than the garbage-laden air outside. A yellow light bulb flickered on and off, and the walls dripped with condensation. Ben took the stairs two at a time and didn’t slow down for the door. It burst in and smashed off the wall as he strode into the dark hallway.

  Abdou came darting out of his office, a pistol cocked and ready in one wizened hand, his finger-stump clawed around the grip. The bald, gaunt old man might have looked wasted and harmless, but Ben knew appearances were deceptive. Hidden in the shadows, he ducked into a doorway as the Egyptian came running down the hall. He stepped out suddenly. Knocked the gun flying from the old man’s hand.

  Abdou swore as he recognised him. Quick as a cobra, his other hand darted inside his jacket and Ben had to twist out of the way as the knife flashed across his ribs. He caught the wrist and spun the old man around into an armlock. The knife dropped to the floorboards.

  ‘You’re slowing down, Abdou,’ Ben said in Arabic.

  Sweat trickled down the old man’s bald skull as Ben held him powerless. ‘Bastard,’ he spat. ‘You promised me you’d never show your face here again.’

  Ben shoved his wiry frame back towards the office and sat him down hard in a chair. The walls were peeling. Fat black flies buzzed around the single naked bulb that hung in the middle of the ceiling. Abdou’s desk was littered with the stuff of his trade-curled-up sheaves of money, photos, blank passports. Behind the desk, a safe was bolted to the wall. Ben didn’t even want to know what was in it.

  Keeping an eye on the angry old man, he scooped the fallen pistol off the floor. The Czech CZ75 9mm semi-auto fitted snugly into his hand. It was an old school kind of weapon, the kind Ben liked. All steel, rugged and solid, high-capacity magazine, clean and oiled, silencer fitted. Useful. He checked the chamber and magazine. It was fully loaded.

  ‘Looks like I lied,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you again, Abdou.’

  ‘I had a hell of a lot of heat on me after the last time,’ the old man grated. And you knew there would be. English bastard.’

  ‘Half Irish,’ Ben said. ‘That’s a hazard of your chosen profession, my friend. If you’re going to inform on kidnappers, you have to expect they might get upset.’

  Abdou was rubbing his wrist. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘This is my last ever job. I want to get it done and go home. So let’s make this easy on both of us. All I want from you is a name or two. Maybe three. Then I’m gone. I was never here. And you’ll be a little richer. Easy money.’

  The gaunt face wrinkled in disgust. ‘That’s all you wanted last time, too. Almost got me killed over it.’

  ‘You still have nine fingers left,’ Ben said. ‘It can’t have been that bad.’

  ‘And I plan on keeping it that way.’

  Ben smiled. ‘Nothing so hot this time, Abdou. I promise. I just want to know where I can buy a watch.’

  ‘That’s it? A watch?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Looks to me like you already have a watch,’ said the old man pointedly, looking at Ben’s Omega.

  ‘But say I wanted something a little more special and I wasn’t inclined to pay the full price. Where could I go?’

  Abdou shrugged. ‘Anywhere in Cairo. Any one of a thousand guys. Take your pick. How should I know?’

  ‘Come on, Abdou. You can do better than that.’ Ben took out a wad of money and held it there under the old man’s hungry gaze. ‘The watch I’m looking for would have hit the market in the last couple of months. A gold Rolex Oyster. Very distinctive. I’m prepared to offer top dollar for it. No messing around.’

  Abdou’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘Let’s just say it’s of personal interest to me. I’d like it back.’

  ‘Nobody gets hurt?’

  ‘Nobody who didn’t bring it on themselves,’ Ben said.

  The old guy thought about it for a moment. Then his old face crinkled. Ben knew what he was thinking. What the hell. I still have nine fingers left.

  ‘I can give you a list of names,’ Abdou said. ‘If your watch is still in Cairo, someone will know.’

  Ten minutes later Ben was back out in the street with the CZ75 pistol in his waistband. In his pocket was a notepad page with five names, five addresses. He walked to the waiting taxi.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Within an hour, five names had dropped to three. Abdou’s list wasn’t turning out as productive as Ben had hoped. The first address he went to, west of the river, was just a sea of rubble with Portacabins and cranes throwing long shadows in the moonlight. A billboard told him the area had been demolished to make way for some new retail development.

  When the second place turned out to be deserted, derelict, Ben was beginning to suspect the old man had tricked him, and began to think about paying him a return visit.

  But then the third address raised his hopes again. Ben got the taxi to drop him off a few hundred yards away and walked the rest. The pawnshop was just as Abdou had described it, tucked away from the street. There were enough furtive-looking guys hanging around in the neighbourhood to make Ben think it was exactly the kind of place a certain type of opportunist thief would go to dispose of an especially hot item. Abdou had said the proprietor, Moussa, was one of the best fences in Cairo. The hanging Fender guitars and digital camcorders in the barred window were just a front. The choice stuff was locked away upstairs in Moussa’s private quarters.

  The place was easy to break into through a side entrance. Ben entered silently, followed the sound of the beeping alarm keypad to the control box and ripped it off the wall. He took a mini Maglite from his bag
and flashed it discreetly around him. The shop was an Aladdin’s cave of bric-a-brac, most of it useless junk. Raking through the place, Ben found a glass cabinet stuffed with watches: Sekonda, Timex, Casio, Citizen. Nothing too prestigious on open display-but he hadn’t expected there to be.

  Through a bead curtain, up a flight of steps, moving silently in the darkness. He drew Abdou’s pistol from his belt. A yellow streak of light under a door, the sound of a TV-canned laughter, some imported comedy show. The volume was turned up high enough to have drowned the beeps of the alarm. Ben smiled in the darkness. Careless.

  The door was flimsy and gave way on the first kick.

  Moussa was alone. The room around him was strewn with fast-food packaging and bachelor debris. He was sitting on a sofa in his underwear facing the TV, a big spoon in one hand and a tub of ice cream in the other. He spun around in panic as the door crashed in, long black hair whipping around and his thick beard parting in a gape of horror. The spoon and the ice cream dropped out of his hands as Ben strode up to him, grabbed his beard and dragged him down off the sofa onto the floor. The pawnbroker sprawled on his back, blinking, too shocked to make a sound.

  Ben was a big believer in simplicity, and the approach he used to get the truth out of people was as simple as he could make it. It was a system that had worked for him many times, in a lot of situations, and when it was the appropriate course of action it never failed. It was the ultimate test of sincerity.

  He planted a foot on Moussa’s chest, pointed the CZ75 in his face and watched his eyes. ‘I have a couple of questions,’ he said softly.

  Five minutes later, Ben’s heart was sinking again. The man knew nothing. He was slumped against the wall, his hair slicked with sweat and tears, mouth hanging open in shock. He’d passed the test. All Ben could do was move on to the next name on the list.

  He laid a couple of banknotes on a table as he walked back to the shattered door. ‘Thanks for your time,’ he said, and left.

  It was after midnight by the time he made it to the fourth place on his list. As the taxi rolled up, Ben did a double-check that the address was right. It was.

  He opened the car door and stepped out into the sultry night air. Not the kind of environment he would have expected to find one of Abdou’s contacts. It was a nice, respectable, middle-class street of neat white houses and trim little gardens. The pavement was lined with trees, and the cars parked along the kerb were relatively new, clean and well cared for. The kind of place a schoolteacher would live. Not rich, not poor, not particularly exciting and completely safe. It might have been the perfect cover for someone in Abdou’s line of work. Or then, Ben thought, it might be a complete wild card.

  He looked up at the house. There was a light on upstairs, shining through a gap in closed drapes. A movement from inside. Someone getting ready for bed, maybe. He hesitated for a moment, creaked open the small wrought-iron gate and walked up a path to the front door. He rang the bell. A minute went by, and then he heard sounds from inside. A woman’s voice speaking Arabic. Footsteps coming down the stairs. A little scrape of metal from the other side of the door told him that someone was sliding aside the cover of the peephole to see who was there. The door opened a crack, pulling the security chain taut.

  A woman’s face appeared in the gap. She was perhaps in her late thirties, but she looked tired and careworn. There were lines on her brow and flecks of grey in her black hair and her eyes narrowed with suspicion as she peered out at him.

  Through the three-inch aperture Ben could see a pair of teenage boys behind their mother in the hallway. Both were dressed in T-shirts and shorts, hair tousled as if they’d climbed out of bed in a hurry to see who the mystery visitor was. One was about thirteen, the other maybe a couple of years older. The elder one was trying hard to look strong and protective. Ben guessed that meant there was no father in the household. Behind the two kids, the hallway was littered with crates and cardboard boxes. It looked as though the family were either in the middle of moving out, or moving in. This wasn’t looking promising. He glanced again at the name on his list.

  ‘Mrs Hassan?’ he said to the woman in Arabic.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘It’s late. What do you want?’

  ‘I need to talk to your husband, Mrs Hassan. Can I come inside?’

  She hesitated, shook her head. ‘My husband’s not here any more.’

  ‘Where can I find him? It’s important.’

  ‘Whatever business you had with him, you’re too late.’

  ‘Where did he go?’ Ben asked. But the look of intense sadness on the woman’s face was already telling him the answer.

  She didn’t reply. Hung her head and wiped an eye. The elder of the two boys stepped up to the door, reached for the security chain and unhooked it from its fastening. He opened the door and stood in the doorway, defiance in his eyes, doing his best to bristle and puff out his narrow chest and shoulders. It was a brave thing to do, Ben thought. A boy standing up and being a man. A turning point in his young life. That took a lot of guts.

  He smiled at the kid. ‘I didn’t mean to upset anyone.’

  ‘My father is dead,’ the boy said. ‘Go away. Leave my mother alone.’

  Ben cast his eye around the hallway. There was a desolate air about the place. What had once been a family home was now just an empty shell full of memories these people wanted to get away from.

  ‘Who are you?’ the woman said again, laying a hand on her son’s shoulder. ‘You are not from the police.’

  ‘No,’ Ben said. ‘I’m looking for something and I thought your husband might be able to help me.’

  ‘He was ill for a very long time,’ she said, beginning to cry. ‘He had diabetes. First they cut off one leg, then the other. Now he’s dead. I don’t care what you were looking for. I want you to go.’

  He watched the tears streaming down her face, and his heart went out to her. There was little point in apologising for disturbing what was left of her family in the middle of the night.

  He turned and left. Heard the door shut behind him as he made his way back down the path to the little gate. The taxi driver was slouching behind the wheel, one arm hanging loosely out of the window. Ben opened the door and climbed in the back seat with a sigh.

  ‘Where now?’ the driver said lazily.

  Ben dug the crumpled list back out of his pocket and unfolded it. Now there was just one name left at the bottom.

  Mahmoud Barada. Nightclub owner and entrepreneur on the side. Buyer and seller of pretty much anything he could turn a dollar with.

  Ben read out the address to the driver and felt the acceleration press him back in his seat as the taxi lurched away.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the warm leather as the car sped into the heart of downtown Cairo. This was the last chance. If it led nowhere, he was going to have to rethink his options.

  His mind drifted until the taxi driver’s voice broke in on his thoughts. ‘We’re there. You want me to hang around?’

  ‘I won’t be long.’ Ben stepped out of the car.

  They were at the end of an unmarked alleyway. Coloured neons flashed on crumbling brickwork and the huddled shapes of people in the shadows. Buying and selling. There was a lot of it going on. As Ben walked up to the nightclub entrance a girl came up to him and offered him a good time. She might have been Somali, and wasn’t more than seventeen. He walked past her and paid some money to the beefy guys at the door. The music was pumping out into the street, a blend of hip-hop and Eastern.

  Ben walked inside. As one o’clock drew closer, it seemed that the party was just beginning to groove. The place must have been a warehouse or storage depot at one time. The air was thick with the heat and smell of a thousand tightly packed bodies, black, white and everything in-between. Through the heavy bass throb of the music he could hear half a dozen different languages as people yelled at each other to be heard.

  There was a long bar at the far end, where at le
ast a hundred people were jostling and shoving to get served. Above it was a scaffold construction with scantily clad dancers, their bodies shining and writhing in the strobing lights. Around the edges of the room were nooks and tables screened by palm leaves. Couples sat close, heads almost touching so that they could talk in the din.

  Ben pushed through the throng that swarmed at the bar.

  ‘You can’t miss him,’ Abdou had said. And Ben didn’t. Barada fitted the old man’s description of him exactly. He was the only person at the bar who wasn’t trying to get a drink. He leaned on his elbows with his back against the shiny counter, surveying his enterprise with a look somewhere between smug satisfaction and cold contempt. His flowery shirt was open halfway to the waist, buttons straining across his belly. He was about forty, greasy thinning hair tied back in a ponytail, his face pitted with old acne scars.

  Ben walked up to him and saw the cold gaze swivel to meet his. Barada gave a curt nod as if to say, What the fuck do you want from me?

  Ben’s eye ran across Barada’s broad chest and down his arm. The left forearm sticking out of the rolled-up shirt sleeve was thick and hairy. Around the wrist, flashing in the swirling lights, was clasped a chunky gold Rolex.

  Ben moved closer, close enough to smell the booze and garlic on the man’s breath and shout in his ear. Barada looked like he was ready to listen.

  ‘I have a business proposal for you,’ Ben said.

  The man’s face was deadpan. He stared for a beat, peeled his heavy frame off the bar and gestured to follow him. Ben watched the wide back muscle its way through the crowd. Barada spilled a girl’s drink out of her hand and didn’t look back. The hand with the Rolex swatted open a door marked ‘PRIVATE’ and Ben followed him through. The door swung shut, damping the thud of the music. On the other side of it was a dark, winding corridor. Barada kept walking, and Ben walked behind a few paces. A few yards along the corridor, light was shining out of a half-open doorway. Barada thumped on the door, shoved it open, kept walking past.