Sacred Sword

  ‘Rewards,’ Brown said. ‘That’s the key. The children of the new world aren’t interested in moral rectitude, or thought, or philosophy. It’s too much hard work. Give them what they really desire, and the faithful will rally and be repaid.’ He shrugged. ‘Granted, in reality they may be no less enslaved to the state than the oppressed citizens of Hitler or Stalin, but they’ll be willing, happy slaves, believing in a bright future.’

  ‘And that’s your Utopian vision?’ Ben said.

  Brown held out his hands. ‘Look around you. We’re already halfway there. The Christian faith is dying. Once the fading embers have been stamped out, we’ll move on to the Islamics. That’ll be a bigger job, admittedly, given that their faith is so much stronger. But the first steps are already in place. One by one, we’ll knock down the hardline pockets in the Middle East, remove the ruling powers there and institute our own, under the banner of what we call democracy. Once we have full control, the old order will be eroded away little by little until there’s nothing left.’

  Brown smiled. ‘We’re winning this war, Mr Hope. But as you know very well, in war one can never be too careful. That’s why we’re always looking out for special individuals to recruit to our cause. And this is where we come to the part that involves you.’

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Brown clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the French window, gazing out across the snowy garden as he went on. ‘Earlier this year, the Trimble Group recruited a new agent. A university professor who has made a career out of attacking and undermining Christian belief, something he’s proved rather good at. He’s extremely educated, intelligent, and above all, committed. His name is Penrose Lucas.’

  Ben’s mind flashed back to the videotaped TV programme he’d watched briefly at the vicarage the night after the crash. Professor Penrose Lucas had been Simeon’s opponent in the debate on religion.

  ‘Publicly, Professor Lucas is known as an author and militant atheist activist with a growing following,’ Brown continued. ‘Privately, he’s been actively pursuing an agenda to discredit the Christian clergy. Every new allegation of corruption, whether financial or sexual – sexual misdemeanours strike the most scandalous note with the public, as you can imagine – serves to alienate society at large further from the church. War by attrition. Professor Lucas understood the concept very well, and even on a very limited budget he was getting impressive results.’

  ‘And so you decided to give him a helping hand,’ Ben said.

  ‘My colleagues and I considered that Lucas could become a very valuable asset to us indeed. We offered him a generous deal, to which he readily agreed. He’d be working for us, assisted by a Trimble Group liaison officer but with more or less complete independence to go on doing what he’d been doing before, except on a more ambitious scale. He was given free rein to pick his own targets, draw on our resources to set up phone taps and surveillance, hire whatever investigators or administrative staff he might require. Virtually anything he wanted, even his own personal jet. Lucas settled into his new headquarters on Capri and got down to work. Almost immediately, he announced his intention to target one Reverend Simeon Arundel.’

  Ben was beginning to understand where this was leading, and his muscles were tensing with cold rage.

  ‘Naturally, we trusted Lucas’s instinct,’ Brown continued. ‘We weren’t unaware that he might have had some personal motive for choosing Arundel so specifically out of all the thousands of potential targets he might have picked, but we gave him a free hand nonetheless. It was clear that Arundel was the kind of go-ahead, popularist clergyman who might be capable of generating new interest in the church. He was a threat.’

  Personal motive, Ben was thinking. He hadn’t forgotten the way that Simeon had trounced Penrose Lucas in the TV debate. He was pretty sure Lucas hadn’t forgotten the humiliation, either. It was all beginning to come together now.

  ‘A phone tapping and surveillance operation was therefore mounted on Reverend Arundel,’ Brown said, as though these things were done every day – which, Ben realised, they probably were. ‘Shortly afterwards, conversations were monitored between Arundel and one Father Fabrice Lalique, proving Professor Lucas’ instincts spectacularly correct.’

  The sword, Ben thought.

  Brown seemed to read his mind. He nodded. ‘Up to that point, they had managed to keep their little project secret. The question now was what should be done about it. There was concern among the group that the alleged sword of Christ could cause something of a stir among the religious community, especially among the hardline fundamentalist movements in America where it could potentially become regarded as a powerful emblem. Whether genuine or not, this damned sword could be a major setback for us.’

  Brown paused and turned away from the window, fixing his pale watery gaze on Ben. ‘Now, you have to understand that the Trimble Group had given Professor Lucas a great deal of leeway to run his own operation. As I mentioned, we liaised with him via our operative – let’s call him Mr Green – who fielded whatever intelligence data was gleaned from our side and passed it directly to Lucas to do with as he saw fit. When Lucas uncovered the sacred sword project, we assumed that his response would be simply to discredit it, using the same kind of smear tactics against Simeon Arundel and Fabrice Lalique that he’d been directing against other clergymen before them.’

  ‘You mean destroying their personal and professional reputations with a pack of lies,’ Ben said.

  ‘Something like that,’ Brown replied. ‘As a result of which, the credibility of the project would have fallen apart. They’d have been spurned in the media, no publisher would have touched Arundel’s book, nobody would have had anything to do with them. Another victory, after which Lucas would have moved on to another target.’ Brown paused. ‘As I say, that’s what we assumed. We had no idea what Lucas was really doing, using our funds to employ professional thugs, mercenaries, to help him carry out his own personal vendetta. And to commit murder. Lalique’s faked suicide, the car crash that killed the Arundels, the attacks on Wesley Holland in which several people were killed – it was Lucas, and Lucas alone, who engineered them all.’

  ‘I see now,’ Ben said. ‘You’re the good guys.’

  ‘I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, Mr Hope,’ Brown replied. ‘Though I do fully acknowledge our part in this mess. Basically, we backed the wrong horse. We should have screened our candidate more carefully, but instead we rushed in too fast. It was a mistake. But how could we have known that our star asset would turn out to be mentally deranged, possibly even psychopathic?’

  ‘That’s a neat way to disclaim responsibility for the deaths of my friends,’ Ben said. ‘You really expect me to believe you had no idea what was going on?’

  ‘The Trimble Group can’t be concerning itself with the minutiae of every operation,’ Brown said with a note of irritation. ‘Only with the larger picture. Why else would we delegate the job to someone else?’

  ‘Sounds to me as if your “Mr Green” knew exactly what Lucas was doing.’

  ‘Our man was tasked with assisting Lucas in whatever way necessary. As we now know, he was unhappy almost from the start with the direction Lucas was taking. In retrospect, I think he was afraid that to report his growing concerns back to us would have been seen as insubordination, or a lack of confidence in the Group’s decisions. By the time he finally informed us that Lucas had gone rogue, it was too late. I regret now that we put him in such a difficult position.’ Brown shook his head sadly. ‘In fact I regret it very much indeed. When Lucas discovered the betrayal, he had our man murdered. Him and his wife, at their home in London. It was … it was more than brutal. I can’t tell you how shocked I was.’

  ‘And after all, you’re a man of such moral scruple,’ Ben said.

  Brown shot him a reptilian look, then went on. ‘We decided at that point to put a stop to the whole operation. Lucas’s assets have been frozen and he’s been stripped of his power, even as we speak.
He is now quite isolated in the little stronghold he’s built for himself on the island of Capri. In the meantime, our surveillance teams intercepted a phone call to Wesley Holland’s lawyer and traced its origin to Martha’s Vineyard. Our response was to dispatch a team to put an end to this whole business. I didn’t expect that we would find you there. At first I wasn’t sure what we should do with you. But it then it struck me how neatly we could serve each other’s purposes.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘You must surely have realised by now that the purpose of this meeting was to make you a proposal. I’ve revealed to you the truth about who murdered your friends and tried to kill you. In return, I’d like you to eliminate him for me.’

  Ben laughed, despite his anger. ‘I find it a little hard to believe that you people haven’t got your own ways and means of making your enemies vanish.’

  ‘That we do. But I’ve no interest in letting the Trimble Group become any more deeply embroiled in this situation than we already are. We’re walking away.’

  ‘I’m not a gun for hire,’ Ben said. ‘Some trigger-man you can just enlist.’

  ‘Not at all. You’re a man of peace, a regular saint. As is patently clear from the trail of dead bodies you leave in your wake wherever you go.’

  ‘You created this mess. You clean it up. Now I’ve had enough of listening to you, and I want to leave.’

  ‘Oh, you can leave,’ Brown said. ‘Nobody will stop you. Just remember this conversation never happened. And I’d advise you not to entertain any foolish heroic notions about trying to come after the Trimble Group. You wouldn’t be able to find us, but we’ll always be able to find you.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Ben said. He headed towards the door.

  ‘Not even a goodbye?’

  Ben flipped his middle finger up over his shoulder. ‘Here’s my goodbye.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to me,’ Brown said. ‘I thought you might like a last word with young Jude before you go.’

  Ben turned slowly round to stare at Brown. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He’s here. I’m sure he’s anxious to see you, if only for a few final moments.’

  Ben felt his face go numb with shock. ‘You’re bluffing. Jude wasn’t with me on the island.’

  ‘Then we must have picked up another Jude Arundel on the beach,’ Brown said. ‘A spirited young chap, isn’t he? And I must say the family resemblance is obvious, once you’ve read the letter.’

  Ben said nothing.

  ‘He was clutching it in his hand when they found him. Don’t worry, he’s been very well looked after until now. Though I can’t say what will happen if you persist in being difficult.’

  Ben stared. ‘Let me see him.’

  ‘That’s not possible, I’m afraid. But why don’t you say hello?’ Brown took a phone from his pocket, speed-dialled a number and said, ‘Pass the boy on.’ He handed Ben the phone.

  ‘Jude? It’s me. Are you all right?’

  ‘Ben? I’m—’ It was Jude’s voice, but before he could say any more, the line went dead.

  ‘Satisfied?’ Brown asked.

  Ben tossed away the phone. He wanted to rip the glow of triumph off the man’s face. In two long strides he was on him, shooting out a hand and grabbing his tie. Brown’s eyes bulged as Ben wheeled him violently away from the window, out of sight of the snipers in the trees.

  Radios would be bursting into full alert. He had about two seconds before the door burst open. He slammed Brown hard against the wall, tightening his tie like a noose around his throat. ‘You harm him and I’ll kill you. Understand?’

  The door crashed open and the guards from earlier came storming into the room, pistols drawn.

  ‘Tell them to back off,’ Ben said. ‘Or else you die first.’

  ‘Stand down! Lower your weapons!’ Brown shouted. The guards hesitantly obeyed.

  ‘That was the wise thing to do,’ Ben said. ‘I’d have taken your head off.’ He let go of Brown’s tie and stepped away in disgust. The guards hovered uncertainly in the background.

  Brown slackened the knot of his tie and straightened his jacket collar. He was breathing heavily but the glow of victory hadn’t left his face. ‘I know you would, Major Hope,’ he said. ‘That’s what makes you the perfect choice for us.’

  Ben paced in a tight circle. His head was suddenly throbbing and his heart was beating in his throat. ‘All right, Brown. What’s the deal?’

  ‘The terms are simple. You’ll be provided with everything you require to take care of the Trimble Group’s unfinished business. Jude will then be released and returned to you, unharmed. There will be no repercussions of any kind. That will be the end of it. The two of you walk away free men. However, if you refuse to cooperate, you’ll never see Jude again.’ Brown smiled. ‘We know how much he loves the water. The grieving son, driven to distraction after the tragic car crash that claimed his parents. Boats, drugs and alcohol don’t mix. You understand me, I’m sure.’

  Ben was silent.

  ‘As for you, Mr Hope, you’ll spend the rest of your life as a hunted criminal, pursued by every law-enforcement agency on the planet for the murder of a dozen or more government agents. Walk out of that door now, and I guarantee you’ll be entering a very different world from the one you left.’

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Penrose Lucas looked up in agitation from his desk as the three loud thumps shook the office door. He stopped his frenzied scribbling, laid down his pen and tore himself away from the rapidly building mountain of paper that was the manuscript-in-progress of his latest future bestseller, Murdering for God.

  The antique clock on the sideboard read a quarter to one in the morning. He’d lost all track of time as he’d sat there writing. For the last five straight hours his pen hadn’t stopped scratching, ripping the paper sometimes, the words pouring out of him so urgently that pages of it were illegible, even to him. He was breathless with hate.

  Penrose suddenly realised what day it was. December 25th. He ground his teeth together at the thought of all those idiots celebrating the birth of some bearded twit two thousand years ago who’d done nothing but create a lot of harm and confusion.

  Thump. Thump. The banging on the door wouldn’t stop.

  ‘What!?’ Penrose stormed over to the door in his bare feet, his open dressing gown billowing behind him as he walked. He slid back the six bolts that secured it, turned the deadlock and opened the door a crack.

  Staring in through the gap was the sombre-looking face of Steve Cutter. Behind him stood his remaining men, Terry Grinnall in that leather coat he never seemed to take off, Dave Mills, Suggs, Doyle and Prosser.

  ‘Ugh, it’s you.’ Penrose said. ‘What do you want, at this time of night?’

  Cutter shoved the door open without a word, making Penrose stagger back a step as it swung wide. Entering the room, he could see that Penrose was wearing only a pair of underpants under his monogrammed gown, which was getting grimy and wrinkled, russety spots of dried blood flecked across the gold PL on the breast. His torso looked thin and wasted, as if he hadn’t been bothering to eat.

  The office smelled of body odour and gun oil. Cutter spotted Penrose’s gleaming Coonan .357 lying on the desk, next to the teetering pile of pages covered in furious scrawls. More loose pages lay haphazardly over the floor, along with several pens, heavily chewed, some of them snapped in half.

  ‘How dare you barge into my office?’ Penrose yelled. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy working on my book?’

  ‘Came to tell you we’re quitting,’ Cutter said. Just looking around him at the state of the study was confirmation that the job had fallen apart. The team members who weren’t dead or missing as a result of the whole fiasco had nothing to do but kick their heels in the villa’s annexe quarters. The booze supply had dried up. The whores had stopped coming. So had any decent cooked meals. They didn’t much fancy the local restaurants, and the nearest McDonalds was in fucking Naples.

&nbs
p; Worst of all, they hadn’t been paid for the last ten days. The six men had spent that evening grumbling their discontentment around the table in the rec room, and decided enough was enough.

  Penrose’s rage dwindled rapidly away. ‘But you can’t leave. I need my Praetorian Guard around me,’ he said in a small voice.

  ‘Listen to this prick,’ Grinnall sneered.

  ‘Tough shit,’ Cutter said. ‘We’re done, and we want paying off.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘We had a fucking deal with you, Lucas. Don’t piss me off, all right?’

  Penrose stared at him with a trembling jaw. ‘Fine,’ he said in an injured tone. ‘If that’s the way you want it. Come with me, and I will recompense you.’

  Cutter followed as Penrose led the way through from the office to the adjoining bedroom. The air was stale and foul, and discarded clothing littered the floor around the rumpled king-size bed. But what drew Cutter’s notice more than anything was the long, wide streak of dried blood leading from the middle of the floor towards the balcony that overlooked the cliff’s edge. It looked, and smelled, as if something dead had been dragged across the bedroom and dumped over the side of the balcony. He said nothing, but his expression darkened a little more.

  ‘In here,’ Penrose said curtly, sliding open a mirrored panel to reveal the vast walk-in wardrobe behind it, its own little room all decked out in antique oak. He swept through the racks of finery that he’d ordered from top Italian designers, barely any of it ever worn. The back of the wardrobe was filled with shelving units where Penrose stored his many pairs of brand-new shoes; more compartments overhead were filled with boxes and bags. Lower down was a column of drawers for keeping jewellery and sundry items.

  Cutter stood by impatiently as Penrose wrenched open one drawer, rummaged around inside, slammed it shut, tore open another. ‘Here we are,’ he said, taking out a glittering gold watch and holding it out to Cutter. ‘Take it. It’s a Rolex. Isn’t it beautiful? Here, look, I have half a dozen more. All brand new. Hand them out among the men.’