Ben Hope 05 - The Shadow Project

by Scott Mariani

  ?I know he lives in a caravan or a camper, something like that. But he could be anywhere.?

  ?I really appreciate your help, Vicki. You?re definitely the nicest and strangest Physics Department receptionist who?s ever flirted with me on the phone.?

  That low laugh again. ?I?ll take that as a compliment. Buy me a drink sometime, if you want to thank me.?

  ?The very next time I?m in Manchester.?

  ?Look forward to it, Ben. You know where to find me.?

  Then she hung up. Ben stared at the phone for a moment, smiling and shaking his head.

  Leaning back in the car seat, he revisited the search engine and punched in the web address Vicki had given him. What he found there was no great surprise. The website was a paradise for conspiracy theorists. All the usual suspects were on display. The Diana murder. The real reason for the Iraq invasion. Bin Laden a US Intelligence agent. Area 51 and UFO cover-ups. The CIA observation posts on the far side of the moon.

  Ben sifted through it all quickly, scrolling down the long list until he came to a header that read ?The Kammler Shadow Project: Fact or Fiction??

  Ben stared at it.

  He clicked on it.

  Page temporarily unavailable.

  He sat thinking for a moment, then scrolled over to a tab that said ?Contact?. The page flashed up, and offered no number to call, no obvious email address like ?lenny@someweirdshit.com?. There was just an electronic form to fill in and submit.

  Ben pondered the best way to draw the guy out. No point in coming straight out with ?I want to ask you questions? and then expect a call. He had to make Salt think he was offering something juicy. If Salt had been keen enough to travel to one of Don Jarrett?s lectures, he might be interested enough to call back.

  He wrote:

  ?Message for Lenny Salt. I have important information about Hans Kammler. If you want to know more, let?s talk.?

  He didn?t sign with a name or offer a return email address, just typed in his mobile number and then sent the message.

  He sat in the car a long time. He didn?t know what he was waiting for, or whether Salt would be any use to him, or even where to go from here if it turned out to be a blind alley. Maybe back to Luc Simon for more names. Perhaps it was time to start kicking down doors after all.

  Or maybe Brooke was right. Maybe he just should go home and try to focus his mind on the many troubles awaiting him there.

  But he knew he?d come too far for that now. He couldn?t walk away. He closed his eyes and tried to still his mind. So much to think about, and so little that made any sense.

  It was about half an hour later, when the clock on the Mini dashboard was approaching quarter to four, that the phone buzzed in his lap and he realised he?d drifted off into an uncomfortable doze. His head jerked up at the sound and he was instantly alert.

  ?Who?s this?? said a man?s voice on the other end. The voice was filled with suspicion, deep and gravelly. Ben pictured a man in his sixties. The accent was east London.

  ?Is that Lenny Salt??

  ?Who?s this?? the voice said again.

  ?Just a friend, Lenny. Just want to talk.?

  ?You?ll never track this number.?

  ?Like I said, I?m a friend.?

  There was a long pause. Then: ?Info on Kammler, you say??

  ?That?s right.?

  ?I already have all the info I need on Kammler.?

  ?You just think you do,? Ben said. ?Wait until you hear what I have to tell you. Can we meet??

  Pushing for a meeting with a paranoid like Salt was a dangerous move, because it was all too easy to frighten him away ? and once he was gone, he?d be gone for good. But Ben knew the only way to winkle him out of his shell and keep him there was to pin him down face to face. And if his instinct was right about Salt, all it would take was to arouse his curiosity enough.

  It seemed to be working. The long silence on the phone tasted of wary interest, like a hungry cat struggling between suspicion and temptation over a morsel in a stranger?s hand.

  ?We can meet,? Salt said. ?But strictly on my terms. You come to me.?

  ?No problem at all. Name the place.?

  ?Laugharne.?

  Ben had to think where it was. ?Laugharne in Wales or Larne in Northern Ireland??

  ?Wales.?

  ?That?s where you live, on the Welsh coast??

  ?I didn?t say I lived there,? Salt said cagily. ?I said I?ll meet you there. Tomorrow morning at eleven. Come alone. Wear a red scarf so I know you.?

  A red scarf in the middle of summer, Ben thought. Great.

  ?OK, where exactly??

  ?There?s a castle on the bay. Take the path that runs along the side, towards the Dylan Thomas boathouse. Walk to the first bench and wait.?

  ?I?ll be there.?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  By five o? clock Ben was sipping a scotch on the rocks in the departure lounge at Brussels airport, waiting for a UK-bound flight that would take him as close as possible to his destination. The Mini was in secure long-term parking, and the Smith & Wesson was scattered in pieces across the Belgian countryside.

  Three hours after that, he was behind the wheel of a black rental Audi A5 Turbo Diesel speeding west up the M4 from Bristol airport over the Severn Bridge and into Wales. He hit Carmarthen, then more dual carriageway, then twisty rural roads led him through lush green countryside down towards the coast. By the time he got to Laugharne, the sun was setting. He checked into the first bed and breakfast he saw on the edge of town, spent an hour in a nearby pub over a couple of beers and a plate of ham sandwiches, then headed back to the B&B for an early night.

  The next morning at five to eleven, he was pulling up at his rendezvous point. He slotted the Audi into the car park near the ruined medieval castle overlooking the bay, and got out. The sky was clear and the sun already hot. On the passenger seat was a red woolly scarf he?d bought at the airport in Brussels. He draped it reluctantly around his neck and made his way between the stalls selling local produce, clothing and bric-a-brac to tourists, then headed over a little humpback bridge towards the walkway that skirted the base of the castle. A couple of passers-by shot strange looks at the man wearing the thick scarf on such a warm, sunny June day.

  A sign saying ?Dylan Thomas Boathouse? pointed in the direction of a white stone cottage perched over the shoreline in the distance. Ben walked towards it. People were ambling up and down the pathway with dogs on leads, some tourists were taking photos of the castle towers, and a couple of artists sat in the grass at the foot of its craggy wall sketching the view across the bay.

  Ben scanned the horizon. It was a peaceful place, the kind of place he?d have liked to hang around for a while. The tide was out, and the sand and shingle glittered in the sunlight. He spent a few minutes taking it all in, feeling the sun?s warmth on his face, breathing in the rich tang of the sea and watching the gulls that circled and called to one another overhead. He wished he had the freedom to enjoy moments like this more often.

  There were some wooden benches along the walkway. He went over to the first one as Lenny Salt had instructed, and checked the time. It was after eleven now.

  Looking up and down the walkway, he watched the people going by. He saw portly middle-class tourists with cameras and walking sticks and plastic bags with gift-shop logos on them. He saw arty-looking literary types with open-toed sandals and scruffy hair, clutching volumes of poetry on their pilgrimage to the former home of the famous Welsh poet. He saw an old man bending down to pick up the dogshit that his overweight Labrador had deposited on the path, and dumping it in a bin.

  But he didn?t see anyone who answered to Don Jarrett?s description of Lenny Salt.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was beginning to wonder if he?d come all this way for nothing. Maybe it had been a mistake to trust that a paranoid conspiracy obsessive like Salt would turn up to meet him.

  But Ben had a very well-developed sense of when he was being watched, honed o
ver years of following people and being followed himself. And suddenly he was getting a feeling, like a tickle in his brain, that made him glance back towards the car park a hundred yards away.

  He could see his big muscular Audi sitting there, sunlight reflecting off its windscreen. Three cars along was a vehicle that hadn?t been there when he?d arrived. It was a red Vauxhall estate, a junkyard special with a lopsided number plate and a blue passenger door. Standing a few steps from the Vauxhall was a skinny, hunched, white-haired man wearing khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. In his hand was a chunky black camera with a long lens, and he was staring in Ben?s direction. Even at this distance he looked strangely out of place.

  As Ben watched out of the corner of his eye, pretending to be following the line of a white cruiser that was tracking across the bay, he saw the distant figure raise the camera and he knew he was being photographed. Then the guy lowered the camera and went shuffling round the side of the red Vauxhall, looking jittery and furtive and shooting a final nervous glance Ben?s way as he got in.

  Ben saw a puff of blue smoke from the exhaust as the engine fired up, and heard it rev out as the guy hit the gas too hard in his hurry to get away. The Vauxhall reversed quickly out of its parking space, lurching on tired springs, headed out of the car park and turned right onto the main street through the village.

  As it went, Ben saw the big tow-hitch sticking out from its rear, and he remembered what Vicki had told him about Salt living in a caravan.

  Salt, you bastard.

  Ben ran, dropping the stupid red scarf on the path as he sprinted back towards the car park. By the time he reached his car, the junkyard Vauxhall had disappeared out of sight down the road.

  Chapter Thirty

  As Adam sat slumped on the edge of the bunk in his neon-lit cell, only the hands on his watch gave him any clue that it was mid-morning by the time he heard the tinkle of keys at the door.

  He turned slowly to face the two guards who walked in. One of them stayed by the door, pointing the muzzle of his stubby automatic weapon across the room at Adam?s chest. The other one walked up to him, made a brusque gesture and whistled out of the corner of his mouth. The universal sign language for ?On your feet, asshole.?

  Adam looked at him, then over at the one with the gun, who was clutching the weapon as though the prisoner might suddenly jump them and make a break for it. It seemed absurd.

  ?Who do you people think I am, James frigging Bond??

  If the two guards even understood him, there was no flicker of reaction on either of their faces. Their eyes were stony cold as they marched Adam out of the cell and through the storeroom. He glanced at the swastika banner on the wall. ?So let me guess. You?re Nazis, right??

  No reply. He gave up talking to them as they walked him out across the landing outside, back down the metal stairway and down the twisting stone corridors. The place was a maze, and after a couple of turns he couldn?t remember coming this way the previous day. A doorway led into a dim, dank room containing what looked like some kind of old service lift, a crude platform suspended by cables that vanished off into a dark shaft overhead. The guards walked Adam to the platform, then one of them stabbed an antiquated Bakelite button on a wall panel. A second later there was a grunt of machinery coming to life, and Adam felt the platform jolt under his feet. With a whirring and screeching of cables, the lift was cranked upwards through the hole in the ceiling and into the shaft. Up and up through the darkness for what seemed like forever. Then the machinery clanked to a halt and they stepped out. Another room, more doors, more incomprehensible signs. But the air seemed fresher here, and Adam thought he could detect the slightest hint of a breeze from somewhere.

  One of the guards opened a door, and the other pressed his hand against Adam?s back and shoved him through it.

  He stumbled. ?Watch it, Hitler boy,? Adam muttered over his shoulder. The guard looked at him as though he could happily have shot him dead and left him where he dropped. He shoved Adam again, harder this time. Maybe provocation wasn?t a wise option.

  Then Adam stopped and looked around him at the place he?d just walked inside. His jaw dropped.

  The cavernous space was built with the same stone blocks as the chamber he?d arrived in yesterday, but it was twenty times as large. The ceiling soared up like the roof of a cathedral, great archways overhead connected by a system of metal galleries and ladders. A huge, tattered swastika banner hung against the stonework. Sixty-five years ago, this place must have been swarming with German soldiers.

  As a gust of wind ruffled his hair, Adam realised that the giant hall was open to the elements and bright with the first natural light he?d seen since the alleyway in Graz. He turned to see where it was coming from.

  And found himself staring out over a rocky valley that stretched as far as the eye could see. Eighty yards from where he stood, a vast stone arch opened up to the outside like the mouth of a cave. At first he thought the leafy green veil hanging over the entrance was vegetation, but then it hit him that it was military-style camouflage netting designed to conceal it from prying eyes.

  Now he understood what the place was. He was standing inside a hollowed-out mountain. The sheer scale of it made him dizzy.

  After a long career in science, Adam was no more a history expert than he was a linguist ? but he?d learned enough about World War II from his background reading on Hans Kammler to know that the Nazis had built hundreds of hidden underground bunkers, experimental research stations and factories around occupied Europe, constructed by armies of forced labourers transported from Auschwitz and the other death camps. He?d read that some historians believed not all of those secret facilities had been found. It looked as if they?d been right.

  Adam could barely imagine the construction project for a place like this. It would have been like a scene from ancient times, the building of the pyramids. Tens upon tens of thousands of workers labouring fifteen hours a day for months, even years. A huge mass of human ants driven back and forth by their masters, worked until they dropped dead with their shovel or pickaxe still in hand, while more doomed souls arrived under armed convoy from the camps each day to take their place. How many must have died here, nobody would ever know.

  Between the mouth of the cave and where he stood was an aircraft, its fuselage and wings streaked red with corrosion. He stepped away from the guards and walked underneath one of the rusty wings. He?d seen this type of plane in documentaries. It was the infamous Luftwaffe Me 262 jet fighter, the revolutionary plane that could have won the war for Germany if its development hadn?t come so late. But this one seemed to have some very strange engine modifications visible through its nose canopy ? modifications whose function he could only guess at.

  What had they been doing in here? Adam swallowed. He already knew the answer, but it was too incredible to contemplate.

  The guards interrupted his thoughts, moving him on at gunpoint through more corridors. They stopped at a door and one of them knocked. A voice answered, and they went in.

  Adam was surprised to find himself stepping inside a pleasant office. Classical music tinkled softly in the background. Behind a mahogany desk sat a sandy-haired man in a smart suede jacket. He stood as Adam was shown inside, and walked up to him with a smile. The guards left and shut the door.

  Adam studied the man warily. He wasn?t like the three hardcases who?d brought him from Graz, or the brutish guards. In his early forties or thereabouts, he was handsome in almost a dashing way, with a high forehead and twinkling grey eyes that hinted at high intelligence and a careful, logical mind.

  ?My name is Pelham,? the man said. The accent was English, educated, upper class. Adam?s blood chilled as he recognised the voice. It was the one that had talked to him on the phone the day Rory was taken.

  ?It?s a pleasure to meet you at last, Professor Connor,? Pelham went on. ?Or should I say, Professor O?Connor? You haven?t been the easiest of men to find, changing your name like that.? He motioned to an
open drinks cabinet behind the desk. ?Would you like a drink??

  Adam glared at him. ?I?d like to see my boy, you sonofabitch.?

  Pelham shrugged, reached for a decanter and a glass and poured himself a measure. ?There?s no reason why this should be an unpleasant experience for either of us,? he said. ?But suit yourself. Here, take a seat.?

  Adam remained standing.

  ?My employer regrets that he can?t be here personally to greet you. Unfortunately, his schedule just doesn?t permit it.?

  ?Well, that?s a shame. I?d have liked to meet this guy. Give him my regards. Who is he??

  Pelham smiled. ?Afraid I can?t say.?

  ?No, I didn?t suppose you could. Where?s Rory??

  ?Actually very close by. Closer than you might imagine. You?ll be seeing him soon, I promise. And please rest assured that he?s been very well looked after here.? Pelham smiled. ?Your son?s a fine boy. You should be proud of him.?