Seamus nodded thoughtfully then smashed his fist into Ben’s face. “We’ll see, mate. By the time this night is over, we’ll know all about you and who you work for.”
Good luck with that, Ben thought. He hadn’t reckoned with Tim waking up, his terrified expression, and the almost paternal feelings it raised in his own gut. Seamus saw the emotion that passed between them, nodded at his brother, and switched his attentions to Tim. After five minutes, Tim’s face wasn’t so appealing. It was a vicious beating, but as he wasn’t the real target, nothing he said or did stopped the brothers. For all Ben’s anguish, he couldn’t let this break him, so the Maffertys were at something of an impasse. They switched their attentions back to Ben when Tim slumped over, unconscious. Unfortunately, they picked his bad knee to start on. He cried out when Sean hit it with a plank of wood. “Who the fuck are you?”
When the pain lessened to a dull ache, Ben spat out, “Let the professor go, and I’ll tell you what I know.” Tim didn’t raise his head to protest. The brothers conferred for a moment then Seamus hit Ben again. Sean went over to a pile of farm machinery at one side of the shed and came back with a pair of pliers. Ben gave him a look. “You have got to be kidding.” Seamus took Ben’s little finger in the pliers and began to apply pressure. “Real name.”
“You’ve got the wrong—” The top of his finger was crushed. He couldn’t speak through the pain. He felt the world greying out then suddenly the pressure lessened. He heard the whirring, thumping sound of a helicopter. A voice over a loudspeaker penetrated the shed, indistinct in actual words but clear in intent. Sean ran to the doors. “Shit. The police. It’s the fucking police.”
Ben, taking advantage of their distraction, shoved hard with his feet, toppling the chair and falling backward. As he’d hoped, one arm of the old chair broke, and he then had a free arm with a piece of wood strapped to it. He rolled and hit at the legs of the chair, breaking one of those as well. It took only a matter of seconds to scramble to his feet, pieces of wood strapped to him—but weapons now, not restraints.
Seamus turned, and in the glare of a spotlight piercing the broken rafters of the roof, screamed, “Give me the fucking gun!” Ben charged but before he’d taken two steps, his knee gave out, and he fell heavily and awkwardly onto one of the pieces of wood. He felt an intense stab of pain in his ribs but dragged himself back up to his feet. A shot rang out. He felt nothing so reckoned they’d missed. A figure barrelled into him, taking him back down to the unforgiving concrete. His head bounced; the world went grey once more. He wrestled with the figure, straddled him, brought both hands around one of the chair arms and rammed it into the man’s eye socket as far as he could push it until his strength gave out. There was another shot. He heard cars in the yard and saw figures in black pouring into the shed, flattening to the sides and dispersing. He rolled to his side, pinned by the chair arm to the man’s skull. In the strobe lights of the police cars, he saw Tim’s slumped figure still in the chair. To his horror, Seamus Mafferty was standing over the unconscious man with a gun. He raised it to Tim’s face, but then something exploded out of the back of the Irishman’s head, followed by more explosions from his back, and then the sound of suppressed gunfire caught up with the sight.
Ben watched all the action from the floor as he was being separated from Sean Mafferty. Dark figures removed the other Irishman’s body. When Tim was the only one left in the shed, the police were given clearance to enter. By this time, two more of his own department were helping Ben across the yard. One of them said calmly, “Boss is in the house. Wants to see you.” Ben nodded, stood straighter to indicate he could manage alone, and they faded back toward the helicopter.
By the time Ben reached the old farmhouse, his knee was so swollen he could feel the material of his jeans restricting the blood flow. He found Nikolas illuminated by a strong flashlight, in what had once been the kitchen. He hadn’t realised how bad he must look until he saw the expression that shot over the other man’s face. You’d have to be very quick to see it though, and when he spoke his voice was its usual neutral tone. “Benjamin.”
“Sir.”
Nikolas seemed deep in thought, staring at the wall. Ben wasn’t sure what was going through the man’s mind. He never did, even when they were joined, their bodies flooding with orgasm, even then he had no idea at all what Nikolas was thinking.
Finally, the other man turned and sat down at the table. “Good work. There’s enough forensic evidence here to link the Maffertys to all the cull threats.”
“How did they make me?”
“You have to stop upsetting people, Benjamin. You made an enemy on the course, apparently.”
“Bloody hell, that fucker Jock.”
“I believe you told him you’d peel his balls and eat them like grapes if he fucked with the protesters again.”
“Yeah, well.”
“He suspected you were not who you claimed to be and was very vocal at the pub one night.”
“Bugger. How did you find me?”
Nikolas gave him a look, shook his head despairingly, and murmured, “Do you actually know this is the twenty-first century?”
Ben eased himself into a chair opposite. “Tim Watson had nothing to do with—”
Nik waved away the rest of this. “I know. He was collateral damage. I’m told he may not make it. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time with misguided ideals.” He saw Ben’s expression and added grudgingly, “At least he had ideals.” He leant forward slightly. “And you, Benjamin. How are you?” He hesitated but then reached into a pocket and pulled out an immaculate handkerchief. Ben took it with a laugh of exhaustion and pain, unable to think what to do with it. He dabbed uselessly at the blood on his face until, with a sigh of exasperation, Nikolas rose and took it from him. Ben closed his eyes. His legs opened slightly, and Nikolas stood between them, cradling Ben’s broken face in the palm of one hand while he gently worked over the cuts. “Tip your head back.”
“This part of your job description, sir?”
“I wrote my own job description. Looking after my operatives is definitely on it.” He cleaned Ben’s face gently but effectively. He could do nothing about the broken nose or swollen eye.
“What now, sir?”
“Now? Now you fade back into the darkness, Benjamin, until you are needed again. A job well done.”
There was silence for a while. Nikolas eventually appeared to decide that he could do no more to return Ben’s face to the way he preferred it and sat back down opposite him, contemplating the blood-soaked cloth.
“I didn’t fuck him, by the way. Just in case you were interested.”
Nikolas stopped staring at the blood and raised his eyes to Ben’s. “Why not?”
Ben swore softly. “You damn well know why not.”
Nikolas looked back down and after a while commented quietly, “People like us cannot afford love, Benjamin. Even affection is dangerous. You should know this, and if you do not, then you will have to learn. We have to stay alone or be destroyed.”
“Bollocks! What about you? You’re not alone, you’re married.”
Nikolas’s hands stilled, and he said distinctly, “Metaphorically alone works just as well.”
Ben sank his head onto his chest. “Oh.”
After a moment, he brought his hand up to wipe ineffectually at his eyes, and Nikolas hissed, “Good God, Benjamin, your finger.” He took Ben’s hand gently in his and wrapped it in the bloody handkerchief. “Go to the clinic. I will alert them you are coming.”
“I’m okay. I don’t—”
“Be quiet! Do as you are told for once.” Ben nodded, resigned. He couldn’t stand unaided so his protests sounded lame even to him.
With Nikolas’s assistance, he limped to the front door and saw a black Range Rover awaiting him. “And after they fix me up?”
“Then you rest until you are fit. It is stand down, even for me now.”
“Stand down?”
Nikolas
gave him a look. “You are a heathen. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. It is a season of goodwill—apparently.”
“Will you be…?”
“Of course. As you so amusingly put it to me—my shadow dance must continue to play on. There will no doubt be charades and carols around the tree. Fortunately, I have my horse and an empty beach.”
“No one to ride with though.”
“No. No one to ride with.”
There seemed to be nothing more to say. Ben nodded in the direction of the yard. “My bike…?”
“I will have it taken to the hotel I have booked for your recuperation.”
Ben put his good hand on Nikolas’s arm. “I—”
“Don’t.” It was too dark in the hallway to see his expression, but Nikolas’s tone said it all. Ben pulled away and limped on his own to the vehicle waiting to drive him to the private clinic—only the best for the department’s personnel, after all.
CHAPTER TEN
Suicide rates double at Christmas. Alone in his gorgeous suite of rooms all through the holiday, knee elevated, finger aching, bruises healing, Ben understood why. He started to have unlikely memories of Christmas as a kid—snow and red train sets, special food, and aunties getting drunk. He couldn’t for the life of him say whether he was remembering his own life or a movie he’d once seen. The hotel had a pool and a gym, sauna and steam room; and he spent most days swimming endless laps, and then sweating out his misery with almost unbearable heat. In a few days, he was running again, only short distances on the flat London streets, but it was good to feel the pain of stiff muscles working once more. As his bad leg hit the pavement, he repeated the encouraging words written above the gym at Sandhurst: Pain Is Our Pleasure, Agony Our Dream. What a sad fuck, he mused, living his subsequent life to such a harsh truth.
On New Year’s Eve, his phone buzzed. He was tempted to answer it and say fuck off, but that meant he had to answer it first.
“Ben?”
Ben frowned, momentarily distracted, so instead of his planned greeting, he asked hesitantly, “Sir?”
“Yes, it’s me. How are you, Ben?”
“I’m good. What’s…? Are you…?”
“I’m inviting you down for the New Year, Ben. Philipa would love to see you. There will be quite a good shooting party tomorrow if you can make it by lunchtime, Ben.”
“Err…”
“Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“Please come.”
The phone was clicked off.
In two minutes, Ben went from being self-indulgent and theatrically miserable to the hard professional he actually was—the man who had thrived in Special Forces and then been personally headhunted for the department. His guns and other equipment were in the armoury at work. It was two hours to Nikolas’s house, even on the bike. He could be there tonight.
Ben!
“You’d have to put a gun to my head, first, I abhor nicknames…”
Nikolas couldn’t have made it any clearer that something bad was happening—something he couldn’t call the department for. Ben felt a surge of emotion, primal and very, very good, wash through his body. He was back in the game.
By early evening, he was on the bike heading to Devon at 120 miles per hour in the outer lane of the M4. It had been dark since three and was bitterly cold, a light snow starting to fall as he hit the M5 junction. At Exeter, he left the motorway and began the familiar wind through country lanes toward Barton Combe, the nearest village to the house. Instead of turning into the gatehouse, he took the alternate route to the river and left the bike secluded at the edge of the woods. In black, well armed, he made his way on foot toward the house, coming at it from the grounds. At a suitable distance, he took cover and aimed his night-vision scope across the darkened façade of the building. There were a number of expensive cars parked on the gravel in front of the house. Something was lying by the front door. He held still and let his mind form the pattern to make sense of it. It was a body, but not a man. Not him. It was a dog. He scanned each window in turn and could detect a faint trace of light from the hallway. He retreated back into the trees and began to move around the house toward the back. He’d only gone a few hundred yards when he heard the unmistakable click of a lighter and saw the glow of a cigarette illuminating a face and top half of a man. He had a rifle slung over one shoulder. Ben didn’t recognise him. He waited for a moment and was rewarded by the man’s phone ringing and a conversation in rapid Arabic. “No, no sign of him yet. I can see the whole house from here.”
Ben then knew what this was about. It was about him. Ibrahim Allouni had missed him at the cottage and had killed an innocent man instead, but now he was back. Unable to find him, he’d found Nikolas. Ben cursed himself silently for being so distracted he’d not followed through his suspicion that his assassination of Allouni’s son had been a compromised operation. Someone in the department had betrayed him and now Nikolas. Ben filed it away. He had other concerns just now. He gathered himself into the right frame of mind, approached the smoking man, and silently cut his throat, noting with utter detachment how the smoke rose from the throat for a moment before dissipating in the cold December air. He dragged the body into the bushes and took the phone, checking the weapon to see if it was worth keeping. It was vastly inferior to anything he carried, so he left it with the body. Mindful of the possibility of other sentries, he continued on his way to the back of the house and took up position where he could see in through the large windows to the kitchen.
Nikolas was sitting at the table, looking directly at him. Ben assumed he was just staring into the dark, but it was uncanny, nevertheless. Behind Nikolas at the counter were three men: Allouni, his brother Usama, and another man with a rifle held loosely across his arms. Nikolas said something; Usama came over and punched him in the side of the head. His brother pulled him back. Nikolas ran his fingers through his hair to tidy it and once more stared out of the window. Ben saw a slight smirk on his face, which made him immensely relieved.
By the number of cars, Ben reckoned there must be at least Philipa’s usual number of weekend guests, which meant possibly two guards left with them. Allowing for miscalculation, there were at least five to kill. Ben felt a surge of hope for the first time that night. As he watched, Ibrahim and Usama left the room. The remaining thug brought his gun up to the ready, its sights fixed on Nikolas’s head. The odds were falling in Ben’s favour. He couldn’t approach the kitchen from the gardens at the back because there was an automatic intruder light, something that had often woken him when a stray fox or cat crossed the lawn. He retreated to the offices, checked them through one by one, and then took the back stairs to the first floor landing. From there, he eased silently down the servants’ stairs to the rear passage. He could hear voices in the drawing room but ignored them and slipped into the kitchen. Silent and fast, he broke the neck of the man watching Nikolas. He hefted the body into his arms, noted that Nikolas was immediately up and following him, and they went up the stairs to the very top of the house and into what had once been an old nursery. He dropped the body behind a bed, pulling off his balaclava.
“You took your time.”
“You’ve had new fucking codes installed on the armoury. I had to break in. New Year’s Eve? Hello?”
Nikolas smiled. “Do not swear at me, Benjamin. It is good to see you, though.”
“What’s the situation?”
Nikolas was relieving the guard of his weapon and checking it over. Ben handed him a handgun and a knife as well, slightly surprised at how professionally Nikolas was handling the rifle. “They have everyone in the drawing room. Philipa and eight guests. Ibrahim Allouni, his brother, and they have four men with them that I have seen.”
“Two now.”
Nik smiled. “Good. They will know I am gone very soon and realise that you are here. I do not think they were convinced by my call to you.”
“Yeah, well, you said please. Totally suspicious.” Ben turned to the door. “Why do
n’t we give them what they want?”
Nikolas froze. “You?”
“Go down and offer me for all the hostages. You drive them out, and I celebrate the New Year by finishing off the rest of the Allouni family.”
“No.”
“It’s what you’ve trained us—”
“I said no.”
“Sir, it’s standard operating—”
“I do not care about standard operating procedures, Benjamin. This is you. Come, I have an idea.”
“But—”
Nikolas came right up to him. “Shut the fuck up for once, and do as I say.”
Ben shut up.
Nikolas led the way cautiously back to the second floor and toward the oldest part of the house. He moved like a cat, silent and graceful. Ben couldn’t help an inappropriate surge of desire, or his thoughts spiralling to how he would like to explore that innate grace. They entered a bedroom, working as a silent, effective team. Ben’s eyes swept the room, and he knew immediately despite the dark that it was Nikolas’s. It was austere but intensely personal at the same time, like the man. The furniture was minimalist, bleached woods and white coverings, one wall covered in black-and-white photographs of, as far as Ben could see, empty, windswept beaches. “Stop gawping and help me, Benjamin.”
Love is a Stranger Page 6
