The Armada Legacy

  ‘No?’ Ben thumbed back the revolver’s hammer. That tiny metallic click-clack of the mechanism cocking and the cylinder snicking round another sixth of a turn was enough to loosen anyone’s tongue.

  ‘It wasn’t me! I swear!’

  ‘Wasn’t me who what?’

  ‘Who cut the English guy’s hands off. Bracca did it!’

  Seized by a surge of rage, Ben tossed down the revolver, grabbed Gutiérrez by the throat and half-dragged, half-threw him through the arch towards the edge of the drop. ‘You’re going down, Armando, and it’s a long way to the bottom.’

  ‘No! Please!’

  ‘Where’s the woman?’ Ben demanded through gritted teeth.

  ‘What woman?’

  Ben grabbed the collar of Gutiérrez’s jacket and shoved him brutally several inches farther over the edge of the drop, dangling the man’s whole upper body in space and wedging his own shoulder tight against the side of the arch to prevent them both from falling to their deaths. The wind whistled around them.

  ‘I’m not talking about the poor woman you left to rot in a derelict barn with her head blown off,’ Ben said. ‘I’m talking about the other one. Her name’s Brooke and you’re going to tell me where she is. Right now, or else I’m letting you go.’

  Armando didn’t want to be let go, even though he was probably bleeding to death from the pumping bullet hole in his thigh. ‘We took her!’ he screamed.

  ‘Took her where?

  ‘El Capo – he wanted her.’

  ‘The boss? You mean Serrato?’

  ‘Yes! Serrato wanted her!’

  ‘So you made sure he got her, did you?’ Ben rasped. He could feel his eyes bulging. The fury was coursing through him so powerfully that it was hard to breathe.

  ‘I did what I was told!’

  ‘Wanted her for what?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘You’ve been eating too many burritos, Armando. I can’t hold you for much longer.’

  ‘I don’t fucking know! Please!’

  ‘Did you kill her when he was done with her? Did you hurt her?’

  ‘She’s alive! I swear it!’

  ‘She’s alive?’ Ben shook him hard from side to side. The material of the black coat began to tear.

  ‘Aagh! Don’t drop me! Yeah, she alive! I’ve seen her!’

  ‘Where? Where is she?’

  ‘At El Capo’s place in Peru! Madre de Dios, don’t drop me!

  ‘You really believe in God, Armando? Because you know, dirty liars burn in hell for all eternity.’

  ‘It’s the truth, I fucking promise on my mother’s grave I’m telling the truth!’

  ‘Then your final act in this world was an honest one,’ Ben said. ‘You can tell that to San Pedro when you meet him in a couple of seconds’ time. Make that five seconds. It’s quite a drop.’

  ‘No! Please!’

  Ben relaxed his grip on the man’s coat collar and the material slipped out of his fist. With a last scream of terror, Gutiérrez dropped from the bell tower and went tumbling and cartwheeling downwards into empty air. He’d vanished into the darkness before Ben heard the muffled crump from far below. He got to his feet, flexing his sore hand. Turned round and saw Nico standing there looking at him.

  ‘That was pretty fucking harsh, man,’ the Colombian said.

  ‘What would you have done with him?’ Ben said.

  ‘What would I have done with him? You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Then we understand each other.’

  Nico gave a pained grin. ‘So we’re partners now, huh?’

  ‘Till you get yourself killed or I find someone better to team up with,’ Ben said. ‘How’s the arm?’

  ‘Bleeding’s slowed down some,’ Nico said, looking down at the saturated mess of his sleeve and Ben’s belt.

  ‘It’s either the local vet for you, or needle and thread back at the house. Think you can handle that?’

  ‘I’ve been stitched up before,’ Nico said gruffly.

  ‘That’s fine, because I can’t have you pissing blood and flopping about all over the airport.’

  ‘Thanks a fucking million, man. So, we catching a plane?’

  Ben nodded. ‘How many men did you say Serrato has?’

  Nico grunted. ‘Plenty enough.’

  ‘You don’t have to come all the way. I just need you to point me in the right direction.’

  ‘You’d go in alone? Even after what I told you about that place?’

  Ben said nothing.

  ‘Like I said, you’re a crazy motherfucker.’ Nico paused, chewed his lip. ‘Guess that makes two of us.’

  ‘Then let’s get moving,’ Ben said.

  Chapter Forty-One

  It was late in the morning when Brooke was awoken by the sound of the lock opening and someone coming into her rooms. One of the worst things about captivity was the way she was slowly becoming used to these invasions, accepting that her space wasn’t her own. She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. The night had been a long and almost completely sleepless one. She’d spent most of it trying to forget the awful scene of the previous evening.

  And thinking. Thinking very carefully about her options.

  The emerald and diamond necklace and bracelet Serrato had given her were lying on the bedside table where she’d dumped them. Remembering that she’d left her special little gold neck chain there too, she reached out to pick it up. It wasn’t there. She climbed out of the bed, thinking it might have fallen onto the floor, but she couldn’t see it anywhere. She was upset about losing it. Right now it was all she had left of her old life. All she had left of Ben.

  Brooke could smell the aroma of coffee from beyond the bedroom door. Grabbing a bath towel from the back of a chair to cover the translucent nightdress, for dignity’s sake in case her visitor was one of the guards, she ventured out of the bedroom.

  It wasn’t a guard, but a woman Brooke had never seen before, hefty and busty with a hatchet face and a severe haircut like a man’s. On the table was a breakfast tray laden with warm croissants, steaming coffee and fresh orange juice. ‘Isn’t it wonderful to be so well catered for,’ Brooke said to her in a hostile tone. ‘I’ll be sure to recommend this place to all my friends that your boss hasn’t killed.’

  The hatchet-faced woman didn’t speak a word, but seemed insistent on watching over her as she picked at the breakfast. Afterwards, she allowed Brooke time alone in the bathroom, but stood like a sentry not far from the door.

  After searching again in vain for her gold chain, Brooke took her time in the shower. Afterwards she towelled and brushed her hair in the giant mirror using the cumbersome lapis lazuli hairbrush. She rearranged the bottles of perfume and cans of hairspray on the bathroom shelf, then calmly dressed and emerged wearing the tracksuit bottoms and one of the T-shirts Consuela had brought her. The severe-looking woman was still there, watching her sternly.

  Brooke ignored her and wandered back to the bedroom. She lay on the bed and flicked casually through one of the magazines, pretending to read while she went back through her thoughts from overnight.

  The plan was coming together in her head now. It was a dangerous game she was undertaking, and what would follow was even more dangerous. It was the only way. She couldn’t stay here much longer.

  As lunchtime approached, the bedroom door burst open and the hatchet-faced woman strode in. In her coarse, square hands was a hanger with a white cotton dress.

  ‘Don’t worry about knocking or anything,’ Brooke said. ‘I take it that’s the latest outfit I’m to be paraded in front of his Lordship in?’

  The woman glanced at her, expressionless, removed the dress from the hanger and laid it out carefully on the foot of the bed.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have laid your piggy little eyes on a gold chain, would you?’ Brooke asked her. The woman made no reply. She picked up the green dress that Brooke had left rumpled on the floor, tutted irritably at the creases in it and hung it up in the ward
robe.

  Brooke motioned towards the door. ‘Thanks, Ugly Mug. Now maybe you’d like to drag your lardy old arse out of my bedroom while I dress myself up for your psychopathic pervert of an employer.’

  The woman left. Some time later, when Brooke had finished putting on the white dress, the guards arrived for her routine escort downstairs. One of them was the cigar smoker she’d last seen from her window puffing away surreptitiously, the other a stockily-built man Brooke hadn’t seen before. She added him to her headcount of Serrato’s thugs. That made twenty-eight now.

  As the guards were ushering Brooke down the stairs, she tripped and almost fell. The cigar smoker reached out and caught her. For a moment, his body was pressed tightly against hers and she could smell the cheap, shitty tobacco on him. His strong hands gripped her for slightly longer than necessary; then he grinned at her and let her go.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Brooke mumbled. ‘It’s these shoes.’ He didn’t seem to mind at all.

  Downstairs, Brooke was shown into an airy room with tall windows that opened onto an outside terrace. Serrato was sitting at a small table in the sunshine. He jumped to his feet to welcome her. ‘Good day to you, Brooke,’ he said with a smile.

  Brooke made the biggest effort she’d ever made in her life. She smiled back. ‘Hello, Ramon.’

  Serrato appeared delighted. ‘You look exquisite. Did you sleep well?’

  Brooke replied that she had, and that the headache which had forced her to leave dinner early the night before had soon passed.

  ‘Perhaps the wine didn’t agree with you,’ he said, ‘but the cellar is well stocked with many different varieties. We will find one that suits. Would you care for some lunch? I thought we could eat outside.’

  ‘I was thinking,’ Brooke said as he led her out onto the terrace, ‘what a beautiful house this is, and how much I’d love to be shown around more of it.’ She’d rehearsed that line a hundred different ways during the night. Saying it now, she was suddenly terrified that it was too obvious; that he’d see through it immediately.

  But Serrato only seemed even more delighted. ‘I designed much of the place myself, you know. Of course it would be my pleasure to show you around. It is your home as much as mine, as I hope you now understand.’

  ‘I do understand,’ she replied softly, then paused. ‘There was something else I was wondering—’

  ‘Yes, my dear?’

  ‘The piano I saw the other day … might I be allowed to play it from time to time?’

  ‘The Steinway? But of course. How you keep your talents hidden from me. I didn’t know you could play.’

  Why the hell would you, she thought. He was talking as though he’d known her for years. And after last night, she was beginning to understand why that might be.

  What had he done to Alicia? The thought chilled her to the core. You sick, sick bastard.

  But she only smiled and replied, ‘Oh, yes, I love music. I had some lessons when I was a little girl and had thought about taking it up again. Maybe you could teach me?’

  ‘Oh, I only tinker a little,’ he said, beaming. ‘I believe it’s important to be immersed in the arts, so I took it up some years ago. Though I would hardly describe myself as anything more than a dilettante.’

  ‘You play beautifully,’ she said.

  Lunch was served at the little table on the terrace: a light salad with crusty French baguette, along with a crisp white wine. Serrato seemed much more relaxed than she had seen him before, and very pleased with himself, sitting back with his legs stretched out in front of him, pouring glass after glass of wine. It was Brooke’s first taste of open air since her kidnapping, and even in the presence of this man she hated so strongly, she savoured every moment; the sun on her face, the warm breeze in her hair. When she’d finished eating she stood up and leaned on the ornate railing, gazing out at the view with her half-empty glass in her hand.

  ‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’ Serrato said, joining her and topping up her wine.

  ‘Spectacular,’ she replied airily. She’d actually been taking careful note of a part of the compound she wasn’t able to see from her rooms.

  ‘You’re looking at my ancestral heritage,’ he laughed, pointing at the distant jungle. ‘A gift from the King of Spain.’

  She looked at him. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’

  ‘Not in the least. In all, nearly half a million acres,’ he said grandly. ‘And one day it will make us two of the richest people in the world.’

  Us. She flinched inwardly, but to show her emotions now would be fatal. ‘Looks to me like you’re already a rich man, Ramon,’ she said.

  He chuckled. ‘I admit, I have not done too badly for a boy from the slums, who grew up fighting for scraps. I was determined to do well in life, and thanks to that determination I have been prosperous. But the wealth you see around you here is nothing in comparison to what we will have once my real plans come to fruition. You see,’ he went on, taking another gulp of wine and mistaking her stony silence for curiosity, ‘growing up I was never able to forget my grandfather’s stories, and his belief that our family had noble Spanish roots. But it was not until seven years ago, when I was already a highly successful businessman at the age of thirty-six, that I finally took it upon myself to travel to Spain to find out more. I spoke to so many scholars: historians, museum curators; I spent countless hours buried in ancient archives, tracing back the name Serrato through the ages.’

  He poured the last of the wine into his glass, talking freely now that the alcohol had loosened his reserve. ‘That was when I made the four greatest discoveries of my life,’ he went on. ‘The first, that my grandfather had been telling the truth. The second, that my noble ancestry comprised not only Spanish, but also English aristocratic blood. The third, that my English ancestor, Sir Christopher Pennick, had been awarded a vast tract of land by Philip II for, shall we say, various services to Spain.’ Serrato smiled. ‘Sadly, it is not until now, five hundred years later, that the King’s gift to my family has finally been legitimised and passed to me, the sole surviving heir.’ He waved his glass over the distant jungle. ‘I drink to Roger Forsyte, who made it all possible. Welcome to my empire. Nobody can stand in my way any longer.’

  Now Brooke understood the connection with Forsyte. That was the key to this whole thing: land. Sam had died for the sake of land. ‘And what was the fourth discovery, Ramon?’ she asked, trying hard not to let the disgust show on her face.

  ‘Black gold,’ he said triumphantly. ‘The largest untapped oil field in Peru. For five hundred years it has been sitting waiting for me. And now it is mine.’

  For the first time in days, Brooke suddenly knew where she was. It seemed surreal to her that she could be in Peru, a country she’d barely ever even thought about.

  Well, I won’t be in Peru much longer, she thought to herself, and gazed across the jungle.

  After lunch Serrato took her to the salon where the piano was. He graciously pulled out the piano stool for her, fussed over getting it to exactly the correct height, then pressed her to play something for him. Brooke sat down, laid her fingers on the keys and desperately tried to remember the notes of a simple little Bach minuet that she’d played as a twelve-year-old. The piece came back to her, but her fingers were clumsy and her performance was stumbling and filled with mistakes.

  Serrato chuckled at the wrong notes. Bending very close over her, he took her hands in his and showed her how to position them on the keyboard. ‘The trick is not to stab the notes. You must caress them with a lover’s touch. There, that’s much better,’ he said as she tried again. She felt his hands rest on her shoulders. ‘You have such beautiful hair,’ he whispered. He bent down even closer and kissed her head. Ran his hands down her arms. She tensed and took her fingers off the keys.

  ‘You are afraid of me,’ he said.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘You have nothing to fear, Brooke.’

  She looked earnestly up at him. ‘You have to
understand. All this has been a bit of a shock to me. But I’ll try. Just give me time.’

  ‘You make me very happy, Brooke.’ He paused. ‘You know, you matter to me very much. I will do anything I can to make you comfortable.’

  Okay, she thought. You’ve softened him up a little and now here’s your chance. ‘Some ventilation would be nice,’ she said.

  ‘Ventilation?’

  ‘In my room. I always used to have the window open at night at my home in London. In my old life, I mean,’ she added.

  ‘The air conditioning displeases you? You would like your windows to open instead?’

  ‘It helps me sleep. And I love to be able to smell the flowers when I wake up in the morning. Can you fix that for me?’

  ‘Anything can be done,’ he said with a casual gesture. ‘But, my dear, you are unused to life here. The mosquitoes will eat you alive while you sleep. They carry malaria.’

  ‘Then maybe I could have a mosquito net over my bed?’ she asked. ‘Please, Ramon?’

  He frowned, then smiled. ‘Bah. What man could refuse such a beguiling lady’s wishes? If that is what you wish, I will have it seen to immediately.’ He summoned a servant and gave very detailed instructions. The man noted everything down, nodded solemnly and left. ‘Now,’ Serrato said, turning to Brooke. ‘You were saying you would like to be shown around?’

  The rest of the long, hot afternoon was spent strolling around the enormous house. Serrato guided her attentively from room to room, opening doors for her and ushering her about in a self-consciously gentlemanlike fashion. He loved to talk proudly about his possessions, and he had a great many to talk about: the antique furniture pieces that had come from such and such a boutique in New York, London or Rome; the history of each painting and its artist; a detailed account of the design of every architectural feature. He was knowledgeable, even passionate, and despite the hatred that intensified with every minute she had to spend in his company, Brooke had to concede that the man had excellent taste. As the guided tour went on, she took feverish note of as many details of the place’s layout as she could cram into her memory. By the time he led her to the stairs to show her the top floor, she knew exactly how to get from her room to the main entrance.