In the background were assembled various household members. There were a number of maids in uniform, some of them looking extremely young and nervous. To one side stood a brute-faced bloke in a tweed suit whom Ben could easily imagine to be Lord Stamford’s villainous manservant, Burrows. Perhaps at Lady Stamford’s request, even the horses had been brought out to have their picture taken with the group: a pair of handsome hunters, held still by a big guy clutching a halter in each large hand and staring with unnatural rigidity at the camera, as if he’d never seen one before. He probably hadn’t.
Ben peered closely at the man’s grainy image, thinking that this must be Padraig, Elizabeth’s slow-witted but intensely loyal stableboy. If you could still be called a stableboy in your mid-thirties. He looked as strong as an ox, towering over everyone in the photo apart from Lord Stamford himself.
Ben’s eyes narrowed to slits as his mind worked. So this was the famous Padraig McCrory Kristen had been so interested in, whose name Ben had followed in her wake trying to find in the parish records in Glenfell. There was little doubt that Kristen had seen the same photo Ben was looking at now. Somehow, this was the key to the whole thing.
Ben looked from the hulking stableboy to the lord. From the lord back to the stableboy. And in that moment, something flashed inside his mind and he knew.
He knew everything Kristen had known, and more. He knew why Finn McCrory wanted the journals so badly. Why Kristen had had to die for them.
The knowledge felt like a living thing inside him, pulsing, throbbing, stirring him up with excitement and anger. It was incredible, unbelievable … and yet it made perfect sense. He put away his phone. Stood up and clicked off the light and walked back into the other room.
Erin stirred on the bed, lifted her head from the pillow and looked at him. Her eyes were half-shut and her hair was tousled.
‘What’s up?’ she asked, staring at him standing there.
‘Tell me about the cabin,’ he said.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ben had done a lot more thinking by the time he stepped outside into the starry night, leaving Erin softly asleep inside the room. The night was humid, making his shirt stick to his back. It was after one in the morning and most of the other motel windows were dark. He could hear canned laughter from some TV show playing quietly somewhere. A couple of cats were hissing and growling at each other in the shadows behind a row of dumpsters.
Ben was running out of cigarettes. He put one between his lips, lit it up in the flickering halo glow of his Zippo and sucked in the smoke as he watched the lights of an eighteen-wheeler truck streak by on the distant highway, like a night train headed who-knew-where. He felt a little that way himself, every time Brooke entered his thoughts. She entered them often.
He took out his phone and dialled Finn McCrory’s mobile number. It rang until the answer service cut in. Ben ended the call without leaving a message, then dialled the same number again. Same result. He tried once more, and this time he got a reply.
‘Who the hell’s this?’ McCrory’s voice was a raspy whisper. He sounded exactly like a belligerent, impatient VIP who didn’t take kindly to being woken up in the middle of the night by an unexpected phone call.
‘Careful how you talk to me,’ Ben said. ‘I might get offended and hang up. Then I might decide to call your wife’s office in the morning and speak to her instead. She’ll be interested in what I have to tell her about her husband’s activities on the side.’
An opening line like that couldn’t have failed to get McCrory’s attention. There was a heavy silence over the phone. Ben could hear him breathing, waiting for more.
‘Now I’m sure you’d prefer not to wake Mrs McCrory and have to face all those questions,’ Ben said. ‘So what you need to do is get out of bed, nice and quietly. Go downstairs and find a comfortable chair to sit in. You and I are going to have a little chat. Just us, in private. Do it now, McCrory. I’m waiting.’
He heard a grunt and a series of rustling noises as McCrory heaved himself out of bed, followed by a pause of almost a whole minute before the voice came back on the line. It must be a big house, Ben thought. Whichever part of it McCrory had hurried off to in order to talk, the sleeping Angela was well out of earshot, because her husband wasn’t whispering any more.
‘I know who you are, shitbird. I know all about you.’
‘Of course you do,’ Ben said. ‘I’m the stone in your shoe. The guy who keeps getting in the way. Did your pal O’Rourke give you a hard time over the little incident at the shopping mall today? You might have to increase his retainer.’
‘What do you want, Hope?’ McCrory demanded.
‘It’s more a question of what you want, Mr Mayor. More precisely, what you’re willing to give in return.’
‘Oh, you called me up at one in the morning to talk business, asshole?’
‘I’ve heard you’re a pretty sharp operator when it comes to making deals,’ Ben said. ‘I think this is one you’ll be eager to make.’
‘Go on,’ McCrory said warily.
‘I have in my possession some items of interest to you. A set of books. Private journals of historical importance. Need I elaborate?’
‘I know what books you mean.’
‘That’s what I thought. Now, what do I want with a pile of dusty old diaries? They’re of no use to me.’
‘I see. So you’re looking to sell them, is that right?’
‘To the highest bidder. The guide price is five million dollars.’
McCrory gave a snort. ‘You’ve got this all figured out, huh, smartass?’
‘Think about the alternative, Mr Mayor. It won’t be pretty. A lot of people will get hurt. I’m sure we’ve all had enough of violence. Except maybe your psycho buddy Moon.’
‘All right, fuckhead, let’s say we do business. But five million for a bunch of old books? A little more than their auction value, isn’t it?’
Ben took another drag on his cigarette. ‘It’s a seller’s market. You know how that goes.’
‘All the same, you tell me why I’d consider paying even half that much.’
‘Because you stand to lose so much more if they should fall into the wrong hands,’ Ben said. ‘You know what I’m talking about, and you know this is a bargain price I’m offering here. I’m betting Kristen Hall was trying to shake you down for a lot more. Am I right?’
McCrory said nothing.
‘And just to show you how generous I am, I’ll even throw in something extra to sweeten the deal. Five million, and you can have Erin Hayes too. She’s of no use to me either. Nor is the remaining copy of the little home video she made of you, Matt Ritter and Billy Bob Moon murdering one soon-to-be snitch by the name of Kirk Blaylock.’
McCrory remained very silent on the other end. Ben smiled. ‘Hello? Are you there?’
‘I’m here,’ McCrory said in a tight voice.
‘Now, I want the money in cash, and I want it tonight. We make the exchange, then you’ll never hear from me again.’
‘You’re crazy. I don’t have that kind of cash just laying around, you know. It’ll take me at least two days.’
‘Don’t give me that. Your kind of clients pay by cheque, do they? It’s cash, or else wave bye-bye to the journals.’
McCrory thought for a few moments. ‘All right, all right. You have your money. But you mess with me, you’re just another dead scumbag.’
‘You know a good deal when you see one,’ Ben said. ‘Now here are my instructions. Meet me at the lake cabin at three thirty sharp. You come alone, with the money packed in two large holdalls. I’ll be there with the goods. And the woman, too.’
‘How’m I supposed to handle her, if I’m alone? Think I’m going to drive around with some screaming bitch in the back of my nice green Mercedes?’
‘That’s not going to be a problem,’ Ben said. ‘She’ll be heavily sedated. I’ll even help you stick her in the trunk, okay? Then she’s all yours to do what you want with. Let t
he boys play with her a while first. Then grind her up into dog meat, for all I care. Makes no difference to me.’
‘Real piece of work, ain’t you, Hope?’
‘Takes one to know one.’
‘Maybe you should come work for me.’
‘Why would I want to do that, with your five million in my pocket?’ Ben looked at his watch. ‘Best get moving, Mr Mayor. You have just a little over two hours. See you at the cabin.’
Chapter Forty-Eight
It was hot and sultry down by the lakeside, only the slightest of breezes from the north whispering over the water. An owl hooted from somewhere in the dark fringe of trees that hugged the shore. Clouds of moths danced in the glow of the cabin’s veranda lanterns and the warm light that pooled out from its curtained windows. The front door was slightly ajar, as if to welcome the expected visitors. Music was playing softly inside the cabin: Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, Andante, the only thing Ben had liked from the McCrorys’ CD collection. It was good music for waiting to.
At three fifteen, quarter of an hour ahead of schedule, headlights appeared on the single track that led towards the cabin. They weren’t those of Finn McCrory’s Mercedes, but of a van. The lights bobbed and jerked as it came lurching down the track. Another white GMC commercial panel van, just like the other. It drove up close to the cabin and pulled up next to the car that was parked there, with the engine running and the headlamps flooding the entrance on full beam.
As expected, McCrory hadn’t come alone.
He hadn’t come at all.
At the same moment that Matt Ritter and Billy Bob Moon jumped down from the cab, ready for war, the van’s side and rear doors opened and another six of their accomplices clambered out. They all knew the plan. There was no talking, just the clacking of automatic weapons being cocked. They’d come extremely prepared. Every team member was equipped with a brand-new KRISS Vector, and between them these good ol’ boys were carrying enough ammunition to spark off a rematch of the Civil War, one the Union would have lost for sure this time.
The men positioned themselves in a line facing the cabin, casting tall, bent shadows under the glare of the lights. There was a crackle of nervousness in the air. Despite Ritter and Moon’s best efforts to stifle it, a certain amount of talk had been circulating among them about this badass mofo they were going after tonight. How he’d taken three of the gang down like skittles at the mall parking lot shoot-out and blown the crap out of a dozen cars, maybe even more; how he’d cut off Quincy’s arm to take his gun. How sick and twisted was that? The man had even managed to evade Ritter and Moon not twice, but three times: a feat that nobody had ever, ever pulled off before. But if this Hope guy was swiftly becoming a legend, it would be a short-lived one after what was in store tonight.
Still, they were nervous.
Ritter walked a few steps towards the veranda, holding a megaphone that he’d brought from the van. His amplified voice cut through the stillness.
‘All right, Hope. You know what we’ve come for. Toss out the goods. Then come out with the woman. Nice and easy. Hands on your heads where we can see ’em. No tricks. We get what we want, then nobody else gets hurt.’ Nobody else, apart from Erin Hayes. That had been the deal.
There was silence from the cabin. The half-open front door creaked slightly in the breeze. The piano concerto tinkled faintly from inside.
‘Hear me, Hope?’ Ritter said into the megaphone. ‘No messing around. You got five seconds.’
There was still no response from the cabin.
‘What the hell’s he doin’ in there?’ muttered Kurzweil on the far right of the line, nursing his gun.
Another of them, Meagher, laughed uneasily. ‘Guess we caught’m screwin’ the merchandise.’
‘That is one hardcore dude,’ said someone else.
Ritter silenced the chatter with a hard look, then exchanged glances with Moon. ‘I don’t think the sumbitch’s comin’ out,’ Moon whispered.
Ritter gave a shrug. ‘Fine. Wouldn’t’ve done him any good anyway.’ He tossed down the megaphone. He didn’t show it, but he was a little disappointed in the boss’s orders. He’d really wanted to kill this guy face-to-face. Moon was thinking along the same lines, but about the woman. Shame. But you had to do what you had to do. This was the second time they’d been sent to wipe out all trace of Hope and the evidence. Ritter was determined that there wouldn’t be a third.
‘All right, boys,’ Ritter said to the lined-up team, unslinging his KRISS Vector. ‘Let’s rock and roll.’
Safeties were set to FIRE. Weapons were shouldered, fingers twitched on triggers. Then the tranquil night air erupted into a wall of noise, sending a panicked explosion of night birds flapping from the trees. The concentrated mass of firepower hammered into the front of the cabin, the pretty varnished oak planking shredded into splinters as more than a hundred and thirty rounds a second punched and tore through the wood. The porch railing blew apart. Windows shattered and fell in. The traditional-style lanterns Angela McCrory had gone all the way to Houston to buy for the entrance were blasted into a thousand pieces.
The shooters reloaded their guns and kept up a continual fire as they spread out around the cabin, peppering it from a wider angle. Now the outer walls were beginning to disintegrate as over sixty kilos of copper-jacketed lead per minute poured into the building, destroying anything in its path. The music stopped abruptly as a bullet found the CD player. Bits of planking reduced to shredded tatters fell away from the structure. One by one, the interior lights went dark, until the cabin was illuminated only by the headlamps of the van. Nothing inside could possibly survive. Wherever Hope and the woman were desperately trying to take cover right now, they simply stood no chance against such a relentless unleashing of brute force.
Ritter ceased fire and held up his hand for the rest of the men to do the same. In the sudden heavy silence, something was fizzling from inside the shattered wreck in front of them. A bullet-riddled length of guttering swung loose and then dropped down onto the veranda, in the very spot where Kirk Blaylock had died crawling on his knees for mercy. After tonight, there’d be no more killing here. Because there was virtually nothing left of the place to kill anyone in.
Soon, there’d be nothing left at all. It was time to finish the job and go home.
Ritter turned and walked quickly back to the van, where a steel-lined box four feet long by two wide lay in the back. He flipped open the lid and took out one of his latest acquisitions, another toy that came courtesy of his special connections in the military. It was the new lightweight version of the M-32 forty-millimetre rotary grenade launcher, exclusively designed for the US Army Special Ops Command and capable of firing anything from non-lethal riot control rounds to chemical warfare munitions to high-explosive stuff, pumping out six shots in under four seconds. This would be a good opportunity to test it out before the first batch was sold on to their eager clients south of the border.
Ritter worked the trigger as fast as it would go. All six grenades slammed into the ruins of the cabin and detonated together in a fiery blast that lit up the sky and made the ground tremble. The force of the explosion lifted off the roof. Remnants of wooden walls and fragments of furniture and household fittings and wiring and pipes were blown upwards and outwards, raining down in a flaming circle that made several of the men step back; then the disintegrated roof collapsed into the furious blaze.
Ritter didn’t need to reload. The destruction was total, the cabin’s remains almost completely razed to the ground. Building demolition was getting to be a habit.
‘Yeah!’ Moon crowed, punching a gleeful fist in the air and forgetting all about his previous designs on Erin Hayes, now reduced to a smouldering corpse somewhere under all that wreckage, along with a certain Ben Hope who truly wasn’t going to be a problem any more.
‘That oughta do it,’ Ritter said in satisfaction, his straight-faced composure slipping for just a moment. ‘You know what, those trigger-happy beane
rs are sure as shit gonna love this baby.’ Just the thing for taking out entire convoys of DEA agents. Oh, to be properly at war again. His grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared. ‘All right, boys, party’s over. Let’s get out of here.’
A few looks and nods of relief were exchanged as the men gathered by the van, clutching their warm weapons, faces lit by the glow of the fire. Mission accomplished, and not a shot fired at them in return.
‘That was something, huh?’ Meagher said.
‘Hey, where’s Kurzweil?’ someone asked suddenly.
Ritter turned to look around. Kurzweil had been on the end of the firing line and Ritter had last seen him moving around the right-hand flank as they’d all spread out. He scanned the group, counting five excluding himself and Moon. Eight men had got out of the van. Now it was only seven. No Kurzweil.
‘Anyone see him?’
Shaking of heads.
‘He was standing right by me, coupla moments ago,’ said Torres.
‘Well, where’d he go?’
‘Beats me.’
‘Probably takin’ a piss,’ Moon said, peering towards the trees. ‘Yo! Kurzweil!’ he hollered, cupping a hand around his mouth. ‘Get your retarded ass back over here now, you hear?’
Ritter looked hard into the shadows, but all he could see was the flickering outline of branches and leaves in the glow of the flames. ‘Kurzweil!’ he shouted. ‘You wanna be left behind?’
But Kurzweil wasn’t there. He was already several hundred yards away, totally unconscious and being carried off through the darkness of the forest.
The Forgotten Holocaust (Ben Hope, Book 10) Page 27
