He slipped back around the side of the poultry shed as the front door of the house suddenly opened.
Footsteps walking his way. Then a scrawny young guy in a sleeveless T-shirt, with long hair and a patchy beard, walked within a foot of him, stopped and turned and stared with saucer eyes. His mouth opened to yell in alarm.
Ben didn?t let him make a sound. The guy was quick and easy to subdue; four seconds later he was lying unconscious among the dried-out droppings on the henhouse floor. Ben crouched over him, studying him. No shaven head. No swastikas on the neck or arms. He opened up his bag, took out two plastic cable-ties and bound up the guy?s wrists and ankles. Tore off a five-inch length of silver duct tape and stuck it tightly to his mouth.
Leaving the bag next to the unconscious body he stepped out of the poultry shed and slipped round to the rear of the house. Knocked on the door, three loud raps, then darted quickly back around the corner. After a few seconds? delay, the door opened and another man stepped out onto the cracked patio.
?Hello? Someone there??
Ben peered out from around the corner. This guy looked a few years older than his bearded friend, maybe thirty-two. Good looking, short dark hair, a denim shirt splotched with dried clay. The potter. Ben found himself wondering if this was his sister?s boyfriend. Better than the other one, at least, it occurred to him ? and then he scolded himself for thinking such absurd thoughts at a time like this.
The guy was heading back inside when Ben came up behind him without a sound and took him down with a stranglehold that was just hard and long enough to make him pass out without doing any lasting damage. He glanced round, then dragged him to the poultry shed and dumped him there beside his buddy. Quickly trussed and gagged him, then got to his feet and closed the unconscious bodies inside. Two down.
At that moment, the front door flew open and a third person appeared in the doorway. Someone too quick and too sharp for Ben to duck for cover. But by that point, he didn?t want to hide from her any more.
?Franz, where did you?? She stopped mid-sentence, and stared at him. He stared back.
Face to face with his sister Ruth.
Chapter Forty-Four
Time seemed to pause as they stood there, frozen, eyes locked. They were just five yards away from each other, and it was the first really good view he?d had of her face. Her eyes were exactly the same blue he remembered from so long ago, but sharp now. The soft, round features of childhood were long gone, and had left behind them a certain hardness. The set of her jaw spoke of a strong will and a tough attitude. Another man would have found her attractive, her lean runner?s build, the broad shoulders and trim waist. In all the pictures Ben had of her as a child, her hair was long and thick and lustrous. Cropped the way it was now, it gave her a severe look. But somewhere behind that dangerous, edgy exterior, she was still the Ruth he?d thought about every day for twenty-three years.
For a long second he looked into her eyes. Long enough to pray for a glimmer of recognition in there. He saw none. Then that suspended moment suddenly ended; time seemed to restart. She bolted back into the house.
Ben ran after her and managed to get his foot in the door before it slammed violently shut in his face. He crashed it open, pressed through the doorway, made a lunge for her arm. She darted out of his grasp, whirled around and with a scream she aimed a vicious kick at his groin. If he hadn?t reacted in time and twisted out of the way, he?d have run straight into it and been crippled in agony.
Even in that moment, he couldn?t help but admire her feistiness. Quick as a panther, she grabbed a wooden chair by the rungs of its backrest and jabbed the legs at his face. He ducked the blow, caught one of the spars. The cold part of his mind that had been forged through hard combat and even harder training told him he could ram the chair back at his opponent and smash their teeth in, end the fight there and then. He pushed that thought away, tore the chair out of her grip and dropped it.
She ran through another doorway and into a kitchen. On a wooden surface cluttered with saucepans and jars of utensils was a block of knives. In one fast movement she drew a long carving knife out of its slot and threw it at him. He twitched out of the way, felt the wind of the blade past his cheek, heard the hollow thunk and the judder of the blade as it embedded itself point-first in the doorframe a few inches to the right of his head.
Then she was escaping through the kitchen, bursting through a bead curtain and down a narrow corridor. He sprinted after her and saw her fly into a bedroom, slipping on bare varnished floorboards as she made for a single bed in the middle of the room. She somersaulted across it, dragging half the bedclothes with her as she rolled to the floor on the other side.
No way out of the room. She?d cut off her escape route.
But when she ripped open the bedside table drawer and came up from behind the bed with a pistol in both hands, he understood why she?d made for this bedroom. Fight before flight. Definitely his sister.
The numbing crack of the shot filled the small space. He threw himself down and hit the smooth floor, sliding feet first. Crashed into the bottom edge of the bed and flipped it violently up on its side, shattering the bedstead and jamming her between the mattress and the wall. She let out a muffled cry, and the pistol went tumbling out of her hand.
Ben was up on his feet before she could do anything, and tore the bed aside. She threw a punch at him, but she was disoriented by the impact and he easily slapped it aside.
It was time to finish this.
Every so often in his life, Ben had to do things he hated doing. This was one of the worst. With the heel of his right hand he delivered a short, hard, stunning blow to the side of the neck. She went limp and crumpled, knees buckling under her. He caught her before she could fall to the floor.
?I?m sorry, Ruth.? He laid her down on the broken bed, checked her pulse. When he was sure he hadn?t done her any lasting harm, he picked up the fallen pistol, made it safe and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he grabbed her arms and flipped her body up over his shoulder.
He hadn?t known exactly what his plan was as he followed her home, but now he realised there was only one option open to him if he wanted to get her somewhere quiet and have it out with her. He was going to have to smuggle her back over the border into France and west to Le Val. And he needed to move fast. He was pretty certain there were more than three of the gang living here. Sooner or later, someone was going to return home, and he didn?t want to be there when they did. He might not be so lucky if four or five of them jumped him at once ? especially if they were armed.
He carried his sister out to the poultry shed. Her two friends, the handsome one and the scrawny bearded one, were still out cold. He laid her very carefully down next to them and used more of the cable-ties to bind her wrists and ankles, taking care not to pull them so tight against her flesh. Then he taped her mouth and ran to fetch the car.
A body was a tight fit inside the boot of a Mini. Not the best car in the world for this purpose, he thought as he lowered her gently inside the cramped space, but he guessed that was something the designers hadn?t felt the need to consider. He did his best to position her comfortably for when she woke up, then slammed the lid.
He stared pensively at the back of the car. Sighed, bit his lip, shook his head. No, that wasn?t going to do at all. He had a long drive ahead, and it was a confined space in there with very little ventilation. He?d only just found her. The last thing he wanted was to suffocate her.
?Fuck it,? he said out loud. Opened up the boot, slipped the pistol out of his pocket. Thumbed off the safety, picked the best angle and emptied the rest of the magazine into the inside of the metal panel. The 9mm bullets punched neat round holes through the shiny green bodywork. Fourteen of them. When he closed the boot lid a second time, it looked like a colander ? but at least she?d be able to breathe.
He walked back to the poultry shed, thinking about what he was going to do about the other two. If they?d been the kind of shaved-hea
ded hard-nuts who normally went about wearing swastika badges, he might just have left them to rot where they lay. But these guys were different. Something else was going on.
He trotted over to the house, yanked the carving knife Ruth had thrown at him out of the doorframe, and snatched a black felt pen from the table where the phone was. He used the knife to cut the ties around the handsome one?s wrists, then reached into his bag for another tie and attached the guy?s left hand to the bearded one?s ankle. He tossed the carving knife a few yards across the garden, so that they?d see it when they came to. The good-looking one would be able to use his free hand to cut himself and his friend loose, but not before they?d had to drag themselves several very difficult yards over the ground. That should delay things a bit.
One of the principal advantages of committing crimes against criminals was that they tended not to call the police to complain about it afterwards. But in Ben?s experience you could never be too careful, and that was what the felt pen was for. He rolled the bearded guy over on his back and used it to write on his forehead.
ICH WEISS WER SIE SIND.
I know who you are, in big bold letters from temple to temple. The message ought to get them thinking. Ben smiled grimly at his handiwork, then got to his feet and ran back to the car, mapping out in his mind the best route into France without going through border checkpoints.
Chapter Forty-Five
On the way back to Le Val, Ben?s phone rang. It was Brooke.
?Just wanted to check in and see how things were going.?
?Things are ? interesting,? he said.
?Where are you??
?On my way home. I should be there by midnight.?
?Did you find her?? Brooke asked after a pause.
?Yes. I did.?
?And it?s definitely Ruth??
?It?s definitely Ruth.?
?I don?t know what to say, Ben.?
?You don?t have to say anything,? he replied.
?So what?s happening? Where is she now??
?Here with me.?
?She came with you??
He hesitated. He?d already lied once to Brooke about his sister in the last few days, and he wasn?t about to do it again. ?She?s in the boot,? he said simply.
A moment?s shocked silence on the line. ?What did you just say??
?I said she?s in the boot. But she?ll be all right. She?s tough.?
?Ben, do you realise what you?re telling me? That the sister you lost because someone kidnapped her is now a prisoner in the back of your car because you went and kidnapped her back? This is insane. You can?t go around snatching people.?
?I didn?t kidnap her. I rescued her. That?s what I do. I got her out of there, and now I?m taking her home and she and I are going to have it out.?
Another long silence on the other end. Then Brooke said firmly, ?Right, that?s it. I?m coming over. I?ll be there in the morning.?
?I can deal with it, Brooke. Stay put.?
?No, Ben. I seriously don?t think you can. I think you need help. Maybe more than she does. Have you lost your mind??
?What about Sabrina? You can?t just leave her there on her own.?
?Sabrina will be fine. She can take care of herself.?
?I don?t think??
She cut across him. ?See you at Le Val.? Then, before he could protest, she ended the call.
He drove on into the night, thinking about his cargo in the back and how he was going to handle the situation when he got to the house. He had to admit he was flying blind now. No situation he?d ever found himself in before came remotely close to this.
Just before midnight, he arrived at the Le Val security gate and saw the figure of Raymond come out of the gatehouse. He and his colleagues Claude and Jean-Yves were the three-man local security outfit Ben had hired to man the gates and patrol the perimeter. Ben rolled down the window and greeted him, trying to look as natural as possible without hanging around long enough for the guy to spot the bullet-riddled back end of the car or hear its occupant moving about inside. Raymond didn?t notice anything.
Ben?s heart thumped as he drove on through the gate. This was it. He wasn?t looking forward to the inevitable confrontation.
He parked the Mini inside the Dutch barn, and stepped outside to scan the buildings. What he was about to do didn?t require an audience, not even a close and trusted friend like Jeff Dekker, and Ben was glad that this was happening while he was out of the picture. The whole place seemed deserted, apart from the four German Shepherds, led by Storm, who?d been sleeping in a nest of straw at the back of the barn and now came trotting over to the car to investigate. The dogs quickly picked up the scent of someone in the back.
?Leave,? he commanded them in a low voice, and they instantly backed off and retreated to a distance, watching intently with cocked heads and pricked ears as he opened the boot.
Ruth?s eyes glittered in the moonlight, glaring up at him with rage and hate and fear like those of a cornered wildcat. She kicked and writhed as he bent down and lifted her out of the confined space, carried her over to the house and up the stairs to his private apartment. Once upstairs, he used her feet to shove the door shut, then laid her on the sofa and left her there struggling against her bonds while he went to attend to the windows. The whole house had sturdy wooden shutters that could be locked from the inside. Ben had fortified them with heavy-gauge steel wire, and only a really determined intruder with a sledgehammer would have got through them. He didn?t think she could get out too easily, just in case she tried. He secured each window in turn, dropped the keys in his pocket, then fetched a bottle of mineral water from the cupboard and set it down on the low table by the sofa.
Then he kneeled down beside Ruth, gently peeled the tape away from her mouth and ignored the raging stream of abuse she fired at him as he snapped open his clasp knife and carefully sliced the plastic cable-ties around her wrists and ankles. She immediately tried to jump to her feet, and he shoved her back down. She sat glaring at him, rubbing her wrists.
He offered her the mineral water, and she grabbed it from him, took several long swallows and then dashed the bottle in his face. Her eyes blazed as she yelled at him in German. ?Du Scheisse, warum hast du mich hier gebracht??
Why have you brought me here?
He replied in English, and they were the strangest words he?d ever spoken in his life, a surreal moment that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. ?It?s me. Ben. Your brother. I?ve brought you home.?
She stared at him for a long moment, her face wild and full of suspicion. ?You?re not my brother,? she screamed at him. Just a trace of a German accent. ?What is this, some kind of twisted fucking joke??
Ben?s throat felt very tight. ?You?re Ruth Hope. You couldn?t possibly be anybody else.?
?You?re a fucking liar,? she yelled. ?What have you done with Franz and Rudi??
?Relax. Your little Nazi friends are fine. Probably licking their sores and pacing up and down wondering where you are.?
?Nazis,? she spat. ?We?re not Nazis.?
?I think you?d better start talking to me, right now.?
?Fuck you. He sent you, didn?t he??
?He??
?My fucking father. Where is he?? She looked about her, as if expecting someone to walk into the room and readying herself for the confrontation.
?I don?t know who you?re talking about,? he protested. ?What father??
?I?m Luna Steiner,? she yelled. ?Do I need to spell it out for you, arschloch? My father is Maximilian Steiner. And last time I saw you, you were his bodyguard.?
Chapter Forty-Six
It was as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. Ben found it hard to speak.
?The Steiners don?t have any children,? he said weakly.
Her face reddened. ?Who told you that?? she demanded. ?That lick-spittle Dorenkamp? Or my bastard pig of a father? Of course they?d say that, wouldn?t they? I?m the dark little secret they want to keep quiet. Easier to pretend I don?
t exist.?
Ben reeled with confusion. ?Listen to me. You are my sister. When you were nine years old??
But she didn?t let him finish. Her arm flashed out. On the windowsill behind her was the old naval paraffin lamp he still used sometimes when the storms took out the power. She grabbed it and hurled it at him. It was a heavy lump of brass, and it could have put a dent in his skull if he hadn?t ducked out of the way. It smashed into the chest of drawers behind him, splintering the wood.
?You let me out of here right now!? she shouted.
?Not until we talk and straighten this whole thing out. If you?re Steiner?s daughter, then why were you trying to kidnap him??
?I need to go to the bathroom.?
?After. What about Adam O?Connor and his son??