The men were grinning. Ben ran his eye along the row of gun muzzles, wondering if there was some way to disarm five men and shoot them all without getting pumped full of bullets himself. Nothing leaped immediately to mind.
Gourko went on. ‘You will be . . .’ He paused, searching for the right term. ‘Mutilated.’ He seemed to enjoy the sound of it. ‘You understand this word, “mutilated”?’
‘I only have to look at you,’ Ben said.
Gourko pointed at the tall guy who had removed Ben’s shoes. ‘But Maxim will keep you alive for Grigori. Maxim is expert medic. He put my face back together after grenade. Make me pretty again.’ He laughed, then signalled to another of the men. The guy lowered his weapon and walked over to the SUV. Opened the rear hatch, reached inside and came out with a pickaxe.
Ben stared at the axe. It looked like it had just been bought from the local hardware store. The shaft was orange fibre-glass. The blade was painted blue steel. A long, slightly curved spike on one side. A chopping edge on the other. The guy hefted the heavy tool in both fists, slung it across his shoulder, then reached back inside the Mitsubishi. This time he came out with a blowtorch. It was a heavy-duty industrial model, with a long butane canister hooked up to its pistol grip and a blackened heat shield around its flame nozzle.
‘I am not animal,’ Gourko said to Ben. ‘I let you choose.’ He spread his hands. ‘Which you choose?’
Ben said nothing.
‘I put spike through your body,’ Gourko said. ‘I pin you to floor like insect and make you wish for death. Or maybe we do some cooking together. You like make barbecue? I roast your balls, your toes, your hands, your face. I only leave enough so that Grigori recognises man he is killing. Maybe you prefer. What you choose, Mister Ben Hope?’
Ben wasn’t going to give this man the satisfaction of a reply.
‘You cannot choose? Then I choose.’ Gourko grabbed the pickaxe from his colleague. ‘I choose this.’
It took five of the men to pull Ben out of the chair and get him down on the concrete. His cuffed hands were yanked up over his head. His legs were held out apart.
Gourko walked up to him, taking his time, flipping the axe shaft round in his hands. He paused to set the pickaxe down for a moment to take off his jacket, hung it neatly on the back of the plastic chair. Then his eyes glinted, and he raised the tool above his head. The sharp point of the hardened steel spike paused high in the air for a moment, and then Gourko gave a grunt and brought it down with all his strength. Ben saw it descending towards his body. He struggled desperately to twist out of the way, but strong hands were holding him tight.
The heavy spike came down and hit the concrete with a resonating clang just a few inches from Ben’s hip, sending concrete chips flying.
‘I miss,’ Gourko said with a smile. Another theatrical pause to flick a speck of dust off the end of the spike. Then he raised the pickaxe a second time.
This was the one. Ben watched helplessly as it rose up into the air. He had about three-quarters of a second to come up with a pretty damn good plan.
Chapter Sixty-Four
The pickaxe blade was just beginning its downward arc when a spattering halo of red erupted from the side of Spartak Gourko’s head. He twisted away with a scream of pain and rage. The pickaxe dropped from his hands and hit the concrete with a clang that echoed through the empty building.
As Gourko clasped a hand to the fleshy tatters where his right ear had been, another silenced shot caught him in the chest, spun him and slammed him into the concrete pillar. His knees buckled and he collapsed into a heap.
The tall man called Maxim gaped down at his fallen leader, raised his gun and then was sent sprawling down on his back as a third shot punched through his body.
The men holding Ben down scattered. Ben twisted to see where the shots were coming from. He couldn’t see anyone – but the hidden shooter could certainly see them. Switching from single shots to burst fire, the sniper took down another of Gourko’s crew as the man went for his weapon. A triple burst hammered into the front of the parked Mitsubishi and blew out its lights and windscreen. Then another, and the bonnet lid popped open and water and coolant showered the concrete floor.
Gourko’s body lay inert. As his men fled for the exit, one of them spun round, returning fire – then jerked and fell back with a third eye-socket punched through the middle of his forehead.
Ben was up on his feet. Hearing soft footsteps behind him, he whirled around to see the shooter walking towards him across the factory floor, holding a large black assault rifle in gloved hands. The Heckler & Koch G36 rifle was a weapon Ben would have expected to see in a military battle-zone, not in the suburbs of Rome. It had a hundred-round drum magazine, laser sights and a folding bipod. A highly formidable tool – and it was pretty clear from what had just happened that the shooter knew exactly how to handle it.
The shooter approached a few more steps, the gun held tight to his shoulder, sweeping its muzzle cautiously from side to side. He was wearing a black motorcycle jacket, jeans and high-lace combat boots. The visor of his black baseball cap was pulled down low, obscuring his face. Then their eyes met, and the shooter gave a dry smile.
Ben blinked. It wasn’t a he. It was Darcey Kane.
‘Glad I stopped by?’ she said, stepping over Gourko’s body. Ben hid his amazement. ‘I had everything under control.’
‘Oh, I could see you were right on top of things. Sorry for messing up your plans. Now, we’re a little rushed, so if you’d like to come with me—’
‘Where?’ Ben said. ‘Back to jail? No, thanks.’
She pointed the assault rifle at him. Her gloved finger was on the trigger. ‘Let’s move, Major.’
‘You can call me Ben,’ he said, looking down the barrel. ‘That’s nice, but maybe we can have this conversation in the car?’
‘Hold on.’ Ben stepped over to the plastic chair over which Gourko’s jacket was draped. He fished in the side pocket, slowly drew out a phone and held it between forefinger and thumb so she could see it wasn’t a gun or a grenade. He dropped it in the pocket of his blue prison overalls. ‘Seeing as you chased them away before I could find out much.’
‘They’ll be back,’ she said. ‘Move it.’
With the weapon trained closely on him, Darcey led him quickly back across the factory space, past an old delivery lorry and out through a rear entrance. Hidden among a tangle of bushes and nettles at the other side of the building was a battered Ford saloon van. Darcey tossed Ben the keys. ‘You drive. So I can keep an eye on you.’
‘What, in my socks?’
‘Just cope.’
Pistol shots rang out across the overgrown factory fore-court. A bullet whanged off the wall nearby. Gourko’s remaining men had regrouped. They were moving from cover to cover, shooting as they advanced. Ben climbed in behind the wheel of the Ford and fired up the engine. Darcey swung her rifle towards the Russians and drove them into retreat with a long, rattling blast before diving into the back seat.
‘Go!’ she shouted, but Ben was already there. The van’s wheels spun as it took off out of the bushes and went skidding across the cracked concrete. More pistol shots popped in their wake as Ben tore through the gates and sped away.
After a couple of kilometres, Darcey said, ‘You can slow down now. Keep it at the limit.’
Ben glanced in the mirror. She was holding the HK steady. ‘You’re taking a chance,’ he said. ‘I could crash this thing.’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen your driving. Maybe I’ll just have to shoot you.’
‘Funny,’ Ben said. ‘I was just thinking the same about you.’
‘You had your chance. Fluffed it.’
‘There’s always a next time.’
‘Dream on.’
‘Where are we going?’ he asked her.
‘Somewhere we can get you out of those overalls. Anyone would think you were an escaped prisoner.’
She directed him for another few kilometres, t
hen said, ‘OK, turn in here.’
They were out of the city now, and coming into thickly wooded countryside. The track she was taking them onto led to a secluded picnic area, with a small car park and some wooden tables and benches. The place was empty. Ben parked up in the shade of the trees, turned off the engine and slowly got out of the van. Darcey climbed out with the rifle dangling loosely at her side.
‘It’s peaceful here,’ Ben said, looking around him. ‘My kind of place. Somehow I thought you were taking me somewhere with bars in the windows.’
Darcey nodded. ‘I could have. But I thought we should consider other options.’
‘Like what?’
Darcey jerked open the van’s back door, reached inside and hauled out a military black canvas holdall. She tossed it down at his feet, motioned for him to open it.
‘Boonzie sends his regards,’ she said.
He said nothing, just stared at her for a moment; then dropped into a crouch and drew back the holdall’s zipper.
The bag was empty apart from a spare hundred-round drum magazine for Darcey’s G36 rifle and a military holster containing a well-worn, well-maintained and fully loaded 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistol. ‘Take it,’ she said.
Ben looked up at Darcey in confusion. ‘What is this?’ was all he could say.
‘Peace of mind,’ she said simply.
Ben thought back to the afternoon he’d spent with the Scotsman, putting up the greenhouse. It seemed a lifetime ago. I have my peace of mind, if you know what I mean, Boonzie had said. Ben glanced at the assault rifle in Darcey’s hands, and back down at the Browning. Peace of mind, indeed. He wasn’t even going to ask where the Scotsman had got hold of a piece of front-line kit like the G36.
‘Came in handy, didn’t it?’ Darcey said.
Ben picked up the pistol and stuffed it into the pocket of his prison overalls, at a loss for words.
‘Confused?’ She smiled, laid the rifle across the Ford’s scuffed bonnet, leaned against the wing and took off her shooting gloves.
‘Pretty much.’
‘I wasn’t always with SOCA. I used to be in CO19.’
Ben began to get it. ‘That means you did some training in Hereford.’
‘And Boonzie McCulloch was my instructor,’ Darcey said. ‘He was the best. I never forgot him. So imagine my surprise when it turned out he was the reason you were in Italy in the first place. I took a little trip out to his place in Campo Basso yesterday. When I told him I was assigned to bring you in, he nearly blew my head off. But then I told him some other things I’d found out more recently. After that, he couldn’t do enough to help me.’
‘Things like what?’ Ben asked.
‘Like the fact that I know you didn’t shoot Urbano Tassoni.’
Chapter Sixty-Five
Ben looked hard at Darcey Kane, and could see nothing but sincerity in her eyes.
‘I had my suspicions,’ she said. ‘Too many things didn’t add up. Meanwhile, someone was working hard to keep key evidence out of my sight. The way Tassoni’s surveillance DVDs seemed to go walkies, for instance.’
‘They’d been taken right after the killing,’ Ben said. ‘I checked.’
‘And the whole way it was carried out – I just didn’t think you’d have been that sloppy.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. So who killed Tassoni?’
‘The people I used to work for.’
‘SOCA?’
She shook her head, pointed at the sky. ‘The gods. The ones tugging on the puppet strings. The people who tell SOCA what to do, and set me up to catch you just the same way they set you up to take the fall for their dirty work.’
‘Why me?’ Ben asked.
‘Because you killed Anatoly Shikov,’ Darcey said. ‘Son of Grigori Shikov, the world’s most wanted and elusive Russian mobster, and Urbano Tassoni’s buddy in crime. They were trying to work Tassoni to get to him. Thanks to Tassoni, they knew all about the gallery job in advance. When it went wrong, they decided to cut their ties with Tassoni and pin it on you, just so they could grab you and dangle you out there as bait. They knew Shikov would send someone after you for revenge. Once he’d taken you back home and had you tortured to death, they’d have something to charge him with.’
Ben suddenly remembered. ‘There was a GPS tracker in my shoe.’
‘There you go. They’ll have planted it there after they arrested you. That’s how they were planning to catch Shikov in the act. But I wanted to get to you first. I’ve been watching the hospital, waiting until they transferred you to jail. I had a feeling the Russians would make their move then.’
Ben thought long and hard. It all sounded ugly enough to be perfectly plausible. Just one vital piece was missing. ‘How does a field agent become privy to this kind of information?’
‘Three days ago, I met an informant in Paris. A young MI6 agent called Jamie Lister, who decided he still had some integrity left in him. I wasn’t sure I believed him at first, but when someone tries to kill me to stop me finding out the truth, I know I’m onto something.’
‘The informant’s dead?’
‘Along with the guy I was working with, Paolo Buitoni. And that pisses me off too. I don’t like innocent people around me dying.’
‘I can sympathise,’ Ben said. ‘But what do you want from me?’
‘As of three days ago, I’m officially a rogue agent, right there at the top of the hit list. A fugitive, like you.’
‘So?’
‘So, I thought maybe we could help each other.’
‘As in team up together? You and me?’
‘You don’t have to make it sound so terrible.’
‘Haven’t you fallen a little low, Agent Kane?’
She shrugged. ‘You’re somewhat rusty, maybe. Somewhat past your peak. But I’ve seen worse.’
‘Flattery isn’t going to change my mind, Darcey. Why should I trust you?’
‘Because I’m a wonderful and sincere person and I’m completely on the level here. You have nothing to fear from me, I swear.’
‘I’ve heard that line from you before.’
‘Please.’
‘I stayed in Italy so I could take care of certain business,’ Ben said. ‘My business, not yours.’
‘You want payback for what happened at the gallery. You want to go after Grigori Shikov. I know that now.’
Ben nodded. ‘He and Tassoni planned the robbery together. Now Tassoni’s dead. I don’t care who did it. All I know is that Shikov is next. And that’s none of your concern.’
‘Getting Shikov absolutely is my concern,’ she said firmly.
‘You want to catch the big fish? Reckon if you score enough little Brownie points your former employers will let you go back to your old life?’
Darcey’s face tightened. ‘You think I’m just a career girl?’
‘You’ve been doing a good job of it so far, by the looks of things.’
‘Well there might be more to me than you think, Ben Hope.’
‘Surprise me,’ he said. He could see a glow burning in her eyes, like a storm building.
‘You know what the Black Shark is?’ she asked him.
‘The Russian Kamov Ka-50 attack helicopter,’ Ben said. ‘Probably the most sophisticated combat chopper ever built. It can run rings around our Mk1 Apache, and it carries enough weapons payload to destroy a city. But I don’t see the connection.’
‘Imagine those being deployed against our forces in Afghanistan.’
Ben could imagine it. It wasn’t a pretty picture. ‘So?’
‘So maybe I feel I have a moral obligation to stop that from happening,’ she said. ‘And maybe there are things going on behind the scenes here that you don’t know about. Like, for instance, the fact that Grigori Shikov is just about to sign a deal that would put two stolen Black Sharks into the hands of the Taliban. We’ve got to stop that deal from going through.’
Ben stared at her.
‘Jamie Lister was willing t
o put everything on the line for something he believed in,’ Darcey went on. ‘To stop innocent people from dying and bad people from killing. And guess what – I feel I need to do the same. I want to do something good. You don’t know what it feels like, being used as a pawn in someone’s dirty little game. I’d never go back to that again.’
‘Believe me, I know exactly what it feels like,’ Ben said. ‘It’s why I left the army. But I don’t think you came here to listen to my life story.’
‘Will you help me, Ben?’ she asked. He could see from the look in her eyes that she meant every word.
‘And then what?’ he said. ‘When it’s over? They’ll keep coming after you. They won’t stop until you’re dead.’
In the distance, a car was approaching along the main road. They both watched as it neared the entrance to the picnic area, then passed by and carried on out of sight.
‘I know they will,’ Darcey said. ‘And you, too. It’s too late to go back.’
‘You might be right,’ he said.
‘We’re together in this, Ben, whether we choose it or not.’ Darcey’s face relaxed a little. ‘Besides, you need me more than you think you do.’
He smiled. ‘Really? I need you?’
‘Look at you, for Christ’s sake. You won’t make it three kilometres looking like that. You don’t even have any shoes.’
Ben glanced down at himself. The blue overalls were streaked with dirt and torn where he’d been struggling against the Russians. One of Darcey’s bullet hits had left a conspicuous blood spatter across his chest and shoulder. His socks had worn through from running over the rough concrete forecourt earlier, and the grass was prickling his feet through the holes.
‘Think you can find me something to wear without getting caught?’ he said.
‘Says the man who gets himself nicked for bar-room brawling. I’ll manage. So is that a yes?’
‘All right. But we do this my way. And you have to call me Sir.’
She grinned. ‘Go fuck yourself.’