When he walked back into the bedroom he found her dressed and sitting on the bed. Her hair was brushed and hanging loose down her back. ‘Hey, look at you,’ she said. ‘You don’t clean up too badly.’
He grunted. ‘Your phone call didn’t last long.’
‘It certainly didn’t,’ she said. ‘I used my credentials to get through to the head curator of the archives. Had him look up the chronicles of Jehan de Roucyboeuf, asked if they were available to view in their entirety. He was very helpful and efficient.’
‘And?’
She sighed. ‘And then he told me I couldn’t view them. Simply not possible.’
‘Too old?’ he asked. ‘Too fragile to expose to the air? Too valuable to handle?’
‘They’re missing,’ she said. ‘Listed as stolen during a break-in last April. Two nightwatchmen had shotguns stuck in their faces and were tied up and hooded while a gang of raiders ransacked a section of the archives. And guess what? Nothing else was taken. It was a targeted robbery. The cops have nothing. No clues, no suspects.’
‘Looks like someone else was interested in the same thing we were,’ Ben said.
‘Streicher,’ Silvie said. ‘Got to be. I told you, there’s something about all this. The chronicle forms part of his plans. I just wish I knew what, and how.’
‘If it does,’ Ben said, ‘we’ve hit a wall. There’s nothing more we can learn for the moment. Let’s get out of here. You’re going to take me to the Lausanne safe house.’
‘All the way to Switzerland in a stolen car?’ she said.
‘We have enough cash to buy another.’
She shook her head. ‘Not from a legitimate dealer, not without a paper trail. We’ll have to go searching for some backstreet chop-shop that’ll take your cash in exchange for a hunk of unroadworthy shit that’s liable to break down on the motorway and draw all kinds of the wrong attention.’
‘All right, partner,’ he said. ‘What do you suggest instead?’
‘I say we play to our strengths here,’ Silvie said. ‘Nobody expects a kidnapper and their hostage to walk about in the open. They expect us to move furtively, unseen, probably by night and in stolen cars or vans, with me trussed up out of sight in the back.’
‘And our strengths are?’
‘Like I said before, that we’re just a regular couple going about their business. We’re closer to Grenoble than we are to Briançon. We could get a train from there and be in Lausanne in a couple of hours.’
‘Tactically unwise to be seen in public,’ Ben said. ‘It’s taking a risk.’
She smiled. ‘And that’s something you would never do?’
For the second time that day Silvie worked her charms on the motel receptionist, who was persuaded to drag herself away from the TV to call up the local taxi service. As they waited for the cab, Ben moved the Toyota pickup and left it discreetly half-hidden right around the back of the motel, next to a row of garbage bins where it didn’t look at all out of place. The taxi driver turned up moments later, a cheery guy with a big overhanging gut, who loaded their luggage in the back of his Mercedes, commenting on the weight of the holdall and perfectly oblivious to what it contained. Ben returned the room key and settled the bill with Rollo’s cash. Then they took off in the direction of Grenoble.
Five minutes after they’d gone, the motel receptionist was bored with the comedy show she was watching. She idly reached for the remote control and surfed from channel to channel in search of something more exciting. Click. A romantic movie, two dead film stars kissing. Click. A Japanese cartoon about giant monsters battling it out. Click. A cereal advert featuring a toothy kid with a spoon in his mouth. Click. A newsflash, some big deal going on with a senior police officer looking serious and faces of wanted fugitives popping up on-screen. Click. A prehistoric Starsky & Hutch rerun, with pistols popping and big barge-like American cars screeching around the littered streets of Bay City, California.
Then she stopped, and frowned, and clicked back a step to catch the tail end of that newsflash, and frowned again, and her eyes opened wide.
‘Merde,’ she said out loud.
The couple from room twenty were on TV.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When they reached the railway station in Grenoble, Ben paid and generously tipped the driver with more of Rollo’s useful cash. Then he and Silvie made their way to the platforms. The only train going in the right direction was due to depart at 3.45 that afternoon. Its destination fell sixty kilometres short of theirs, terminating in Geneva. Lausanne was just a short bus trip beyond, nestled between the shores of Lake Geneva and the Swiss Alps.
Ben paid cash for two tickets. Right on time, the long train rumbled and clattered up to the platform and halted with a hiss of airbrakes. They boarded the fourth carriage from the front, grabbing a pair of facing window seats with a table, and Ben stashed the heavy holdall and the green bag in the rack overhead. The train began to fill up around them. Most of the passengers were tourists, huffing and straining red-faced as they dragged their bulky cases and rucksacks down the aisle, manhandling them into the luggage racks, checking their reservations, fussing over seat numbers, arguing about who got to sit by the window, fiddling with their electronic gadgets the instant they were seated as if unable to resist the siren song of technology for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Ben saw a guard stride down the platform. Heard the old-fashioned whistle signalling that the automatic doors were about to close. Then the carriage vibrated gently underfoot as the engines powered up, he felt the familiar heave and stretch of the couplings as they took up the strain, and the train began to pull out of the station.
Silvie sat on the edge of her seat with her elbows on the table and her loose chestnut-coloured hair framing her face, gazing out of the window at the sunny white-capped mountains as they left Grenoble behind, rocking gently to the muted clatter of wheels on tracks. Ben ignored the picturesque view. He was thinking more about what they could expect to find at the end of the line.
‘Fifteen of you met up at the rendezvous before the raid,’ he said, keeping his voice low so that only she could hear him over the noise of the train. ‘Twelve in the cars, plus Streicher and his girlfriend, plus the artic driver. Correct?’
She nodded. ‘So,’ Ben said, ‘minus two dead men, Breslin and Dexter, makes thirteen. Minus you makes twelve.’
‘Streicher, Hannah Gissel and ten of the loyal,’ she said. ‘But he’s got the money to take on all the help he wants, whenever it suits him. There could be more, I can’t possibly say.’ She gave Ben a look. ‘And they’re all going to be armed to the teeth. Told you it’d be dangerous. Are you having second thoughts?’
‘I’m not worried about myself,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about you.’
‘Thank you, but don’t be.’
‘Nobody’s making you do this. You’re free to get off at the next stop. Run back to DGSI. Tell Interpol you gave me the slip.’
‘Like that guy Simon would believe me.’ She smiled briefly, then looked serious again. ‘Anyway, I thought we already had this discussion.’
‘We did,’ Ben said. ‘But in my experience it’s a discussion you can’t have often enough. There are potential negative outcomes here that should be carefully considered.’
She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Meaning one of us might not make it out.’
‘Two against twelve or more. It’s a possibility. As is neither of us making it out. Either is more likely to happen than coming away with a zero casualty rate against big odds like that. So, I’m just saying. The door is open. You can get out before it’s too late, go back to your job, home, boyfriend, whatever’s back there waiting for you.’
‘I broke with him before I went undercover,’ she said. ‘He was an asshole anyway.’
Ben smiled. ‘Fair enough.’
A moment of warmth passed between them. ‘You have a nice smile,’ she said. ‘Should use it more often.’
‘When this is over,’ he said. ‘Wh
en Streicher’s in the ground. I’ll be smiling then.’
‘Then what? Do you have someone to go back to? It’s strange, I feel like I know you, but I hardly know anything about you.’
‘I did have someone. That’s all done with now.’ After he’d said it, the truth of his words hit him like a punch. It really was over. He went quiet for a moment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
Ben snapped out of his reverie and looked at her. ‘What for? It’s not your fault.’
‘You want to talk about it?’
‘Not really.’
‘Okay, fine.’
He breathed out through his nose. ‘We were going to get married last year. It almost happened, too. But then, my life has a way of setting obstacles in my path.’
‘Doesn’t everyone’s?’ she said. ‘It’s like war. They say no strategic plan ever survives the first exchange of fire.’
‘That’s true enough,’ he said. ‘I should know.’
‘I suppose you should,’ she said. She paused, then asked, ‘So, do you have any family?’
‘My parents died a long time ago,’ he replied. ‘I have a younger sister, Ruth, and a son, Jude. He’s nearly twenty-one.’
‘Then you were married before?’
He shook his head. ‘Long, long story.’
‘What does he do, your son?’
‘He’s back in England. Sort of in between things at the moment.’
‘You say that as if you’re worried about him,’ Silvie said.
‘I do worry about him. I’m scared he might end up like me.’
‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ she said.
‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew me better. But thanks anyway.’ Thinking about his troubles had made Ben’s mouth go dry. He reached in his pocket. Took out the bottle that Père Antoine had given him. There was still a little of the tonic left. He uncapped it and sipped some. The taste took him straight back to his time at the monastery.
‘What is that?’ Silvie asked.
‘Kind of an elixir that one of the monks gave me. It’s supposed to keep you healthy.’
‘Does it?’
‘It didn’t do him much good,’ Ben said.
‘May I?’ She took the bottle from his hand and uncapped it, sniffed and sipped. ‘Tastes metallic,’ she said.
‘I think it’s herbal,’ he said. ‘Not really sure.’
‘Whatever.’ She handed it back to him.
They lapsed into silence. The train rattled onwards, fields and the occasional village flashing by. Ben’s mind had drifted a long way by the time he left his seat half an hour later and made his way towards the buffet car, lusting after coffee. Getting as bad as Luc Simon, he thought absently as he headed towards the front of the train. They were speeding at full pelt through the French countryside, still forty-five minutes from the Swiss border. He swayed along the aisle, using the headrests of the seats on each side to steady himself.
The buffet car was three carriages to the front, a long metal counter running down the right side and a small kitchen behind, a couple of bar-style stools and a window looking out on the left side of the train. A whole different proposition from British railway catering, offering real food, coffee freshly made from actual coffee beans, and wine that wasn’t better employed for stripping paint.
Ben ordered cheese and ham baguettes and a couple of tall cups of coffee. Black for him, cream and sugar for Silvie. As he was paying, he noticed the train slow down, suddenly and quite dramatically. The sharp deceleration made him lurch and forced him to reach out to steady himself against the counter. The buffet car attendant had to do the same and muttered, ‘Whoa. Easy there, fellas,’ as items swayed and clinked on his shelves.
‘Are we coming to a station?’ Ben asked him.
The attendant shook his head. ‘No, must be something on the line. Some cows got loose on this stretch, couple of months ago. Or could be maintenance works, maybe.’
Ben got his change, picked up his tray. The coffee smelled good. The train slowed down even more, until it ground to a complete halt.
‘Weird,’ the attendant said. Ben turned and looked out of the window, craning his neck so that he could see the curvature of the train’s left flank stretching in a long tail behind. There was no sign of a station, not even of a tiny rural stop. Beyond a few metres of gravelled run-off along the edge of the tracks was a low barrier, and the other side of it a minor road curving parallel with the railway line.
Ben’s eyes narrowed and a small voice of alarm inside his head began to grow in volume as he saw the two cars.
Looked as if he wasn’t going to get to drink that coffee, after all.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The cars had pulled up at the edge of the road, one close behind the other, parked facing in the same direction as the stationary train. The car in front was a black Citroën C5 sedan, the one behind a blue Subaru Impreza WRX STI, the high-performance model with the wing on the back to aid rear-end downforce at speed. Both cars were filmed with road dirt. As Ben watched, the doors opened and three men got out of each vehicle. Six men who might as well have had the word COP branded in big letters on their foreheads. Plainclothes detectives, riding in unmarked cars. The Subaru was some kind of high-speed interceptor. The Citroën was probably souped up well above standard specs, too. The men were dressed casually, in jeans and light summer jackets that didn’t quite do enough to hide the bulges of concealed weapons. They looked serious. They hadn’t stopped for a chat or a cigarette or a quick roadside piss. They were walking straight towards the train, and the train manager had got out and walked down the length of the carriages to meet them. The cops flashed badges at him. There was a lot of talking and pointing. It was clear that the train had been officially ordered to a halt via radio, as a matter of urgency.
And Ben knew why.
The little voice was screaming inside his head now. He abandoned the tray on the counter and hurried back the way he’d come. Through the next carriage and the next one after that, able to move faster now that the train was standing still. Passengers were looking around them, wondering what was happening. Through the windows Ben saw the six cops split up into three pairs. Two men headed for the centre of the train, two went running towards the back and the third pair ran towards the front. The doors opened, the whole length of the train. Ben was hustling quickly from the third carriage to the fourth as the two men at the front end of the train boarded the third carriage in his wake. He had a short head start on them but knew they’d immediately start sweeping back towards him, while four more of them were combing the carriages from the opposite direction. It was a pincer movement from which Ben and Silvie could escape only if they moved very fast.
‘I think this is our stop,’ he said as he reached their seats. Silvie was already on her feet, realising that something was wrong. He mouthed, ‘We’ve got company.’ Reached up above the seat and hauled down their bags.
‘How did—?’ she began.
‘No time to worry about that now,’ Ben said. What Silvie had said before about no battle plan ever surviving the first exchange of fire had been right on the money. But at this moment Ben hadn’t even the most sketchy plan in mind, other than the pressing need to get off the train. Where to from there, he had no idea.
Two men in front of them, four behind. Best way to go was forward. He led the way, jostling down the aisle with the heavy bags. At the end of the fourth carriage the connecting door slid open with a hydraulic whoosh to let them through to the open outer door on the left side of the train. At the same moment, Ben saw the two detectives who’d boarded at the front. They were halfway down the third carriage, just metres away through the glass of the connecting door. Their eyes met. A grim look of recognition appeared on the cops’ faces. The lead man whipped out a small radio handset. They moved faster. Heads turned. Cries of fear from some of the passengers as it became obvious that a serious situation was developing.
Ben pushed Silvie
out through the open exit. It was further to the ground than when the train was pulled up at a platform. She jumped down with a grunt. Ben tossed the bags out after her, followed, hit the ground running and scooped the bags up again.
They ran, but there was nowhere to run to. They were out in the open, totally exposed and visible from the entire length of the train. The gravel run-off was rough and uneven underfoot. Beyond the siding barrier and the road parallel to it were nothing but a thousand metres of open pastureland, stretching to an upward sweep of pine forest and then to the mountains standing tall in the far distance. There wasn’t a building, hiding place or scrap of cover in sight.
Behind them, the two cops burst out of the train and started racing in their direction, the lead man talking urgently on his radio. Thirty metres further down the train’s length appeared the second pair of cops, apparently responding to the radio call. Guns drawn, they jumped to the ground and dashed to the lead car, the black Citroën. They piled inside. The car roared into life and took off, speeding up the length of the train. At the same moment, the third pair of cops emerged from one of the rearward carriages and ran for the blue Subaru. It fired up with a throaty exhaust blast, wheels spinning as the driver punched the gas.
The black Citroën overtook the running detectives and screeched to a halt diagonally in the road, just a few metres behind Ben and Silvie on the other side of the barrier.
Ben stopped running. Escape wasn’t an option. Not on foot, heavily laden, with two fast cars in pursuit. He turned. Tore open the zipper on the holdall, pulled out the FAMAS rifle and let both bags fall to the ground. ‘Get behind me,’ he told Silvie. ‘Try to look like a hostage.’
‘Ben,’ she said urgently. ‘Don’t hurt anyone. You’re not a criminal.’
The Martyr’s Curse (Ben Hope, Book 11) Page 22
