‘Really. You know that, do you?’
‘He was born in 1822. That still makes him a very old man when his only son was conceived, but then, your family are a long-lived bunch. His real name was Edgar Stamford.’
Finn cracked another smile and shook his head. ‘I’m impressed, Hope. Truly, I am. You get the cigar. That’s right. Who’d have thought that my granddaddy was a blue-blooded lord?’
‘That’s not all he was, is it?’ Ben said. ‘He was a bully and a coward who enjoyed having people beaten and hanged, who abused his servants and tormented his wife. Then he murdered the real Padraig McCrory and stole his identity, so that he could fake his own death and escape to America before the things he’d done would catch up with him. That’s what you’re descended from. Funny how your genetics will catch up with you.’
Finn’s smile didn’t waver. ‘Got me all sussed out, don’t you? That’s what the family legend says, all right. My daddy didn’t know it himself until 1937. My grandmother Charlotte waited sixteen years, ’til he was twenty-one, before she told him what ol’ “Padraig” had told her on his deathbed. His final confession. Or did you know that as well, you limey smartass?’
‘Does the family legend mention what your granddaddy Stamford had been cooking up in his lab with his crony Heneage Fitzwilliam?’ Ben asked. ‘The disease agent that Elizabeth Stamford discovered by accident and wrote about in her journal? Phytophthora infestans. They engineered it. Cultivated it. Contaminated the potato crop with it.’
Finn nodded slowly. ‘Oh, sure. That is part of the family legend. I don’t mind telling you, seeing as I’m gonna kill you pretty soon anyway. The old bastard spilled the whole story out when he was rat-ass drunk one day. Told me everything. I must’ve been twenty-six, twenty-seven.’
‘It must have come as quite a shock to discover that your grandfather was a cold-blooded mass murderer responsible for implementing a deliberate plan of genocide against the Irish people and causing up to two million deaths,’ Ben said. ‘And that he was a British government spook.’
‘There’s no goddamn proof of that part,’ Finn said, flushing.
‘Wrong,’ Ben said. ‘Kristen hadn’t figured that part out yet. But I did. After Elizabeth Stamford got back on her feet in England, in 1851 she went to consult a London lawyer called Abraham Barnstable. A real high-flyer. I think it was to tell him what her former husband had been involved in, and that she intended to spill the beans. That was her big mistake. She didn’t know that Barnstable was connected with government intelligence. All the way to the top of the pyramid. The only people who could have known that Stamford and Fitzwilliam were secret agents on a mission to wipe out half of Ireland’s population so the English could move in on their land.’
Finn’s eyes had narrowed to slits. He clenched his jaw. ‘You just keep talking, Hope. I’m not in a hurry to blow your goddamn head off.’
‘When they knew what she knew, they didn’t waste any time in orchestrating her murder, which got pinned on some innocent teacher. Three days after Elizabeth was killed, Heneage Fitzwilliam was shot dead in his room in Cambridge. He must’ve managed to warn Stamford before his death, maybe that someone had been following him and they were in danger. Knowing what was coming, Stamford set his plan. He needed a corpse, a big one that could double as his own. The stable hand Padraig McCrory fitted the bill very nicely. Stamford murdered him, dressed him in his clothes and put a family ring on his finger that would identify him. Then he burned down the mansion with the dead man inside, and fled to America with all the money he could carry. He discovered that keeping up the Irish image was good for him in the New World. Or maybe he was just too scared to drop the pretence in case someone cottoned on to who he really was, and the British intelligence guys decided to come knocking on his door to cut the last connection between them and what had happened in Ireland in 1847. Whatever the reason, he kept up the lie until almost the very end of his twisted life.’
‘Smart. Very smart. Finished now?’
‘You were just continuing a family tradition, you and your father before you. After all, the McCrory reputation was built on your phoney Irish heritage. It was too good a thing to let go of, especially for a man of your political ambitions. You had too much to gain from the whole deception, and too much to lose if your future electors found out that their poster boy was not only about as Irish as the Queen of England, but that his ancestor was the guy the British government paid to lay waste to their country and murder millions of their people. Can’t see that going down too well with the Irish-American voters. You said you had no choice but to murder Kristen Hall. You know what, McCrory? I believe you.’
The whole time Ben had been talking, he’d been moving towards McCrory, maintaining eye contact to distract the man with the gun from the barely perceptible shifting of his feet. The desk was between them. Ben was now almost close enough to make a grab for the rifle.
But Ben never had the chance.
Chapter Sixty-Four
If Ben had been keeping his ears open instead of focusing every shred of attention on the rifle that was pointing at him, he might have heard the laboured noises of a mortally injured man crawling up the stairs, inch by blood-smeared inch. The staggering footsteps making their way towards the study door—
There was a sudden crash. Big Joe McCrory filled the doorway. His face was streaked with pain and rage and blood and his teeth were bared like an animal’s. His breathing was a tormented rasp as he lurched into the room with the last of his strength, eyes wide and fixed on the man who had taken his life. His own son.
‘I’m going to kill you, boy,’ came the croaking wheeze. Blood bubbled from the old man’s lips as he spoke. He was dying on his feet, and yet the force of the willpower that had driven him all his life kept him moving.
Big Joe raised a bloody fist. In it was clenched one of the old six-guns he’d kept on the wall downstairs. The hammer was cocked. The trembling barrel pointed straight at his son.
Finn McCrory looked stricken, beyond horror. He turned the Winchester he’d been pointing at Ben towards his father.
The two gunshots filled the room in a single ragged crashing explosion. The express bullet from the Winchester caught the old man in the chest, blowing out his heart and killing him instantly. The .45-calibre soft lead slug from the old six-gun caught Finn right in the centre of his brow. It didn’t have the energy to blast an exit wound through the back of his skull. It ricocheted and rattled around like an angry bee inside his head, carving wound channels in so many directions that his brain was churned to jelly before his knees even gave way under him and the rifle slipped from his lifeless hands.
Father and son hit the floor almost simultaneously, both stone dead.
Ben stood looking from one to the other. The chronicle of blood and deceit that was the Stamford line had ended forever, tonight, in front of his eyes.
He left the study and went back for Erin.
Outside, the night had grown sultrier, and the clouds that had gathered to blot out the stars were pregnant with rain. The Dodge Ram sat deep in shadow under the trees. Ben took the key from his pocket and was going to clunk the central locking when he realised that the back door was hanging open.
Erin was gone.
She might have opened the door from the inside. Might have gone to hide in the house, or wandered off among the ranch buildings to look for him. Or someone else might have popped the central locking from outside and taken her. There was no way to tell. Ben scanned the grounds, but saw nothing, no trace. He was berating himself for having disabled the alarm system. Either way had been taking a risk, but he understood now that this risk had been worse. It was too late now. He just had to find her.
‘Erin!’
Nothing.
He felt the first fat plop of rain hit his face. Then another tapped his shoulder. Then the clouds let go, as if they couldn’t hold the weight of the deluge any longer. The water soaked his hair and drummed on the roofs of the c
ars. Within seconds it was spouting from the gutter pipes of the ranch house and running in rivers across the ground.
‘Erin!’ he called again, louder.
‘Right here,’ said a voice that wasn’t Erin’s.
Ben turned.
Ritter limped out of the trees. He had Erin clutched to his chest, her body in front of his like a shield. One hand was clamped over her mouth and the other held a pistol against the side of her neck. Ritter’s face was pale. Ben could see that the gun was shaking slightly and that Ritter was swaying on his feet.
It had been him on the stairs. He was badly wounded from at least two shotgun blasts, and must have lost a great deal of blood. He was frightened, and more dangerous than ever before.
They faced each other through a curtain of rain. Erin was struggling in Ritter’s grip, but he had her tight and helpless. Her eyes were locked on Ben’s and full of terror.
Ben laid down Moon’s rifle.
‘You don’t give up,’ he said.
‘Neither do you.’ Ritter’s voice was unsteady and racked with pain.
‘Let her go, Ritter. Everyone’s dead.’
Ritter blinked rain from his eyes. ‘Not everyone.’
‘Let her go,’ Ben repeated, ‘and we’re done. You can walk away from this.’
Ritter dug the gun harder into the side of Erin’s neck and his eyes flashed.
‘It’s not her you want,’ Ben said.
Ritter gritted his teeth and said, ‘No.’ He took the gun away from Erin and pointed it at Ben. ‘On your knees. Fingers laced on top of your head.’
Slowly, Ben raised his hands in plain view. He spread his fingers and interlocked them against his wet hair. He kneeled on the ground, head bowed, peering up at the man with the gun. The rain streamed from his hair and down his face. He could feel the cold wetness soaking into his trousers where he knelt.
Ritter’s face was hard and expressionless. The gun wavered in his hand. He blinked again. Then let go of Erin and shoved her hard. She stumbled and fell.
Then Ritter fired.
Ben keeled over backwards into the dirt.
Erin screamed.
Ritter stepped closer. Smiling now.
Ben rolled on the wet ground. The pain in his chest was blinding. He tried to focus.
Ritter aimed the gun down at Ben. Now he’d finish him. He was in no hurry. Then he’d kill the woman. Then they were done.
‘Say goodbye, asshole.’
‘Goodbye, asshole,’ Ben said. He pulled McCrory’s .44 Magnum from the back of his belt. It had two rounds left.
He fired them both into Ritter’s head.
Ritter crashed backwards as if he’d been hit by a truck. The pistol cartwheeled out of his hand and he went straight down and landed spreadeagled on his back on the wet ground.
‘Ben!’ Erin picked herself up and ran to where he lay. ‘Oh, God! Ben! No!’
The pain was blinding. Ben flung away the revolver. He propped himself up on one elbow as she reached him and fell to her knees beside him. With his other hand, he unzipped his jacket.
Erin stared at the vest that Ben had taken from O’Rourke. The bullet was a flattened lead disc circled by splayed-out petals of copper jacketing. It slid down the front of the Kevlar and disappeared in the wet grass.
‘You’re not shot,’ she said, stunned.
‘Might have cracked a rib.’ He held out his hand and let her help him clamber to his feet.
‘You took a bullet just to get him away from me,’ she said. She brushed her dripping hair away from her face, looking up at him with big wondering eyes.
Ben shrugged. ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’ He looked down at Ritter. The rain was washing his blood into the dirt.
Ben took the dead man’s phone from his pocket. There was one last call to make before this was over. First, he took out a set of car keys and tossed them to Erin.
‘The Plymouth.’ She’d never thought she’d see it in one piece again.
‘Not a scratch on it,’ he said. ‘It isn’t far away.’
She nodded. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You’re going home.’
As they walked back to the car, Ben used Ritter’s phone to call 911. He told them they’d find the mayor dead at the scene of a shooting at Arrowhead Ranch, along with several detectives from the Tulsa PD including the police chief. He told them to call FBI Special Agent Dobbs. They might also like to send some officers to Adonis and check out the remains of Big Bear Farm. That was going to keep them busy for a while. Ben said all he needed to say, then threw the phone into the bushes.
By the time the flashing lights lit up the sky and the fleet of police descended on the ranch, the Plymouth was already long gone.
‘You won’t be staying, will you?’ she asked as they drove back towards the city. The wipers were beating fast, lashing away the rainwater.
He shook his head. ‘The FBI won’t waste time turning up at your door. I don’t intend to be there when they do.’
‘Aren’t you even going to come back to my place tonight?’
He looked at her. ‘You can drop me off on the edge of town.’
‘You mean you’re just going to disappear into the night.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Where will you go?
Ben kept his eyes on the road ahead and said nothing.
‘I wish you didn’t have to leave,’ she said softly.
He reached across and clasped her hand. Squeezed it for a moment, and then let it go.
On the outskirts of Tulsa, he told her where to drop him off. He watched the car disappear into the night, then turned and walked off to make his own way.
Like he always would.
Read on for an exclusive extract from the new Ben Hope adventure by Scott Mariani
Prologue
France
January 1346
The crowd looked on in awed silence as the pall of smoke drifted densely upwards to meet the falling sleet.
Four attempts to light the pyre had finally resulted in a dismal, crackling flame that slowly caught a hold on the pile of damp hay and twigs stacked up around the wooden stake at its centre. So thick was the smoke, the people of the mountain village who’d huddled round in the cold to witness the burning could barely even make out the figure of the man lashed to the stake. But they could clearly hear his frantic cries of protest as he writhed and fought against his bonds.
His struggles were of no use. Iron chains, not ropes, held him tightly to the thick wooden post. Rope would only burn away, and the authorities overseeing the execution wanted to make sure the job was properly carried out – that the corrupted soul of this evil man was well and truly purified in the cleansing flames.
He was a man of around forty, thin, gaunt and known locally as Salvator l’Aveugle – ‘Blind Salvator’ – because he had only a right eye, the left a black, empty socket. The robed and hooded traveller had first turned up in the village in late November. He’d declared himself to be a Franciscan priest on a lone pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where almost for the first time since its fall to the Muslim army of Salah al-Din in 1187, Christianity was re-establishing a lasting foothold. Salvator’s mission was to join his fellow Frenchman and Franciscan, Roger Guérin of Aquitaine, who had managed to purchase from the current Mamluk rulers parts of the ancient city, including the hallowed Cenacle on Mount Zion, and was in the process of building a monastery there.
But Salvator’s long journey hadn’t started well. He’d scarcely covered eighty miles from his home in Burgundy before a gang of brigands had beset him on the road, taking his nag and the purse containing what little money he had. Bruised and battered, he’d plodded on his way on foot for a month or more, totally dependent on the goodwill of his fellow men for shelter and sustenance. Finally, fatigue and hunger combined with the growing winter cold and the unrelenting rain had brought on a fever that had nearly ended his pilgrimage before it had properly begun. Some children had
come across him lying half dead by the side of the path that wound up through the mountain pass a mile or so from their village. Seeing from the dirty tatters of his humble robe that he was a holy man, they’d run to fetch help and Salvator had soon been rescued. Men from the village had carried him back on a wagon, he’d been fed and tended to, and fresh straw bedding had been laid down for him in an empty stable that he shared with some chickens.
During the weeks that followed, the priest’s fever had passed and his strength had gradually returned. By then, though, winter was closing in, and he’d decided to delay resuming his journey until the spring. To begin with, most of the villagers hadn’t objected to his remaining with them two or three more months. It was an extra mouth to feed, true; but then, an extra pair of hands was always useful at this hard time of year. During his stay, Salvator had helped clear snow, repair storm damage to the protective wall that circled the village, and tend to the pigs. In his free time, he’d also begun to draw a crowd with his impromptu public sermons, which had grown in frequency and soon become more and more impassioned.
Needless to say, there were those who were unhappy with his presence, and this became more noticeable as time went on. It was a somewhat closed community, somewhat insular, easily given to suspicion and especially where strangers were concerned – even when those strangers were men of God. And most especially when those strangers frightened some people with their odd ways.
The first rumours had begun to circulate about a month after Salvator’s recovery. Just a few passing whispers to begin with, quickly growing to a widespread consensus that the presence of this itinerant priest was cause for deep concern. Increasingly, villagers complained that the content of his sermons was scandalous. He railed against core doctrines of the church, even attacked the views of the Pope, which he declared to be ignoble and ungodly. But that wasn’t the worst of it. What really worried people were the seizures.