The Cassandra Sanction

  Raul froze mid-pace. ‘The same day as Lockhart was killed.’

  Ben nodded. ‘Another coincidence?’

  ‘No way,’ Raul said. ‘This makes it certain.’

  ‘And it tells us that they all knew each other,’ Ben said. ‘Catalina and the other four. They were like some kind of group.’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Or associates,’ Ben said. ‘Two astronomers, two climatologists. That can’t be a coincidence.’ He paused to think for a moment. ‘New Zealand is thirteen hours ahead of the UK. So news of Lockhart’s death on the evening of the tenth could have reached Ellis the same day in Wales. On receiving the news, Ellis immediately suspends his business and goes off the radar indefinitely. At exactly the same time, your sister is putting together her own contingency plans. They were hitting the panic button.’

  ‘Panic over what? What could they have been into?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Ben said.

  ‘Do you think there’s any possibility of contacting this Ellis?’

  ‘I doubt he’s even within fifty miles of home,’ Ben said. ‘That’s if they haven’t already got to him.’

  They were silent for a moment. Both thinking the same thing: that their options were running dangerously thin again.

  ‘Just one name left on the list,’ Raul said. ‘McCauley. Another scientist, you can be sure.’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Ben said, and returned to his phone to start searching.

  There were Mike McCauleys all over the internet. A platinum-selling country and western singer from Tennessee who’d developed Tourette’s Syndrome. The managing director of a Scottish pipe fitting firm based in Inverness. An Australian arsonist who’d attempted to burn down a government building in New South Wales as a protest over shark culling. None of those seemed especially likely candidates. Nor did the fourth, or the fifth, or the sixth Mike McCauley Ben checked out.

  Ben finally scored on the seventh. ‘Got him,’ he said to Raul once he was certain. ‘This is our guy. Lives in London. He has a webpage and the email address is the same as the one Catalina was using.’

  ‘Let me see,’ Raul said, grabbing the phone and scrutinising the screen for a second or two before he looked up at Ben in surprise. If he’d been expecting to find another esteemed professor of astronomy, his expectations had been wildly off the mark.

  ‘He’s a reporter for some independent British newspaper called The Probe.’

  ‘He’s a little more than that,’ Ben said.

  ‘I see it,’ Raul said, reading. ‘Voted by the Press Gazette as the top investigative journalist of 2010 for his work unmasking corporate corruption in the wake of the BP Macando Prospect oil spill disaster. Then again in 2012, for being the first to expose a hundred-and-sixty-billion-dollar money-laundering scam involving four major British banks. It says here, “Heroic and unstoppable, Mike McCauley’s relentless lone crusade as the scourge of greedy capitalist fatcats and rogue bureaucracies everywhere marks a return to the 1970s glory days of investigative journalism and is living proof that not everyone in his profession is fixated by the private lives of media stars and footballers.”’

  ‘Definitely not a fellow scientist, then,’ Ben said.

  Raul blinked. ‘Why would my sister be in contact with a man like this?’

  ‘Not to give him the scoop on the latest celebrity gossip, presumably.’ Ben took the phone back from Raul and glanced at his watch. They’d been at it for two hours. ‘We’re done for tonight. You should get back to your room and catch some sleep, because we’ll have an early start in the morning.’

  ‘Why? Where are we going?’

  ‘First flight we can grab to London,’ Ben said.

  ‘On a plane? With these people following us everywhere we go?’

  ‘Then we’ll have to stay one step ahead of them,’ Ben said.

  ‘They could be a step ahead of us already, like before. I mean, they could already know about this McCauley. They could be waiting for us there. We could be walking right into a trap.’

  ‘Could be,’ Ben said. ‘But this time we won’t be surprised.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Late that night, long after Raul had gone to bed, Ben stood out on the little wooden balcony overlooking the quiet street below, looked across the sleepy rooftops and up at the stars, and spent a while wondering about the depths of space that scholars like Catalina Fuentes devoted their lives to studying. Ben was no astronomer, but even his meagre knowledge of just how vast that big dark sky out there was left him shaking his head.

  There was an awful lot of space out there, that was for certain. No wonder that astronomers had to specialise in just one limited area, or else they’d only end up spending their whole careers skimming the surface.

  He thought about Catalina’s celestial body of preference, that vastly gigantic nuclear blast furnace at the centre of the solar system, and the insignificantly minuscule little planet called Earth that was spinning round and round it. To him, the sun was, had always been, just the sun. To be sure, there had been times when he’d cursed it, often when he’d found himself baking inside the infernal pizza oven of an SAS Land Rover in the roiling heat of a desert somewhere. Just as there had been plenty of other times he’d craved to feel just a tiny touch of its warmth, when he’d been freezing his arse off trudging over some mountain, numb as deadwood inside his boots with the weight of pack and rifle threatening to drag him down into the snow.

  But hate it or love it, it occurred to him how little he really knew about it. Which was strange, when he stopped to consider how vital to life that big old fireball up there in the sky actually was. Its eternal cycle was the hub of all things for every warm-blooded creature that had ever lived, and ever would. And billions of people just took it every bit as much for granted as the blood in their veins and the air in their lungs, while only a minute fraction of the world’s population ever bothered to take the time to try to understand how it worked, what made it keep on ticking, and the future of its relationship with the trillions of life forms under its fiery dominion.

  As Ben’s contemplations slowly descended back to earth, he leaned on the balcony rail and lit up the first of his last four cigarettes to help him think. Raul might be right about walking into a trap. That was a potential worry, but Ben was almost equally worried about the possibility of not finding Mike McCauley in London. Guys in that line of work, especially of the hungry lone-wolf variety such as McCauley obviously was, tended to spend most of their time out in the field chasing down stories. He could be in Papua New Guinea for the next two months, for all Ben knew. Or, like Sinclair and Lockhart and possibly Ellis too, he could already be a dead man.

  The fourth-last cigarette didn’t seem to last long, so Ben lit up the third-last. By the time that one was smoked to its stub, it was after two in the morning and he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep that night. He walked back through the dark room to sit on the bed, and pulled out the phone he’d taken from Raul earlier. Paid for in cash, no traces. He dialled a familiar number and waited. After five rings, a sleepy-sounding voice answered, ‘Hello?’

  It had been a while since they’d spoken. The last time hadn’t been pleasant.

  ‘Hello, sister,’ he said.

  Ruth treasured her privacy almost as much as her elder brother did. Maybe it was a Hope family trait. Her personal mobile number was known to barely four people in the world; Ben reckoned that if the bad guys were tapping her phone, it would be the company line.

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘I know it’s late,’ Ben said.

  ‘My God. Where are you?’

  Ben heard a rustling sound on the line as Ruth propped herself up against the pillow. The sleepiness was quickly disappearing from her voice.

  ‘I was thinking of you the last few days,’ he said. ‘Felt like talking.’

  ‘I was thinking of you, too. I haven’t heard from you for so long. What are you doing now?’

 
‘Now, I’m sitting on a hotel bed waiting for the morning to come.’

  ‘Right. I meant generally.’

  ‘Walking, eating, sleeping. The usual things.’ He decided it was time to change the subject, before she started asking difficult questions. ‘How’s life for you? I heard that Steiner Industries was bidding for a buyout of the Lufthansa Group.’

  She laughed. ‘That’ll be the day. Maybe we’ll start with Swiss Global and work up to it. Shouldn’t take more than about twenty years to clinch the deal.’

  ‘That’s your whole problem,’ Ben said. ‘No ambition.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Brooke?’ Ruth cut in, with typical directness. Good old Ruth. Straight to the point.

  Ben was silent. Here come the difficult questions, he thought. Hearing Brooke’s name spoken out loud brought a wash of uncomfortable emotions.

  ‘I spoke to her a couple of months ago,’ Ruth said. ‘She told me you never call her.’

  ‘Why would I call her?’ he said. He heard the cold detachment in his own voice, and wondered if it sounded as artificial to Ruth as it did to him.

  ‘I think she’d like you to. She misses you.’

  ‘You know what happened between us,’ he said stiffly. ‘There’s nothing left to miss.’

  ‘As a friend, then.’

  Ben said nothing.

  Ruth said, ‘Nobody knows where you are or what you’re doing. You worry people.’

  ‘Did Brooke say she was worried about me?’

  ‘She didn’t have to say. You could be dead, and we wouldn’t even know.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘There are people who care about you, Ben.’ Ruth paused for a few moments and Ben could hear her moving about, plumping up the pillow, sitting up in bed.

  ‘I’m sorry I woke you. Maybe I shouldn’t have called.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m alone anyway.’

  ‘I won’t ask.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do you much good if you did,’ she said. ‘Listen, have you talked to Jude? Your son. Remember him?’

  Ben ignored the sarcasm. ‘Not lately.’

  ‘He and Brooke keep in contact. She said he’s quit university.’

  ‘I thought he might.’

  ‘And how hard did you try to talk him out of it?’

  ‘I can’t force him to do what he doesn’t want to do,’ Ben said. ‘Once his mind’s made up, that’s it.’

  ‘Sounds like someone else I know,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Did she say what he’s doing now?’ She. It hurt him to say Brooke’s name.

  ‘Not much, apparently. Sounds like he’s kind of drifting. He needs direction in his life, Ben. He needs a father to guide him.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m much of that,’ Ben said, then fell silent. He wanted to ask what Brooke was doing now, but didn’t.

  ‘Where are you?’ Ruth asked again.

  ‘I told you. I’m in a hotel. Actually it’s more of an inn.’

  ‘That tells me a lot. You could be anywhere from Albuquerque to Znamensk.’

  ‘Germany. Somewhere near Freiburg, I think.’

  ‘You’re kidding me. Then you’re almost in Switzerland. Just a hop over the border. Why don’t you come and see me here in Zurich? Spend some time?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re busy running your corporate empire.’

  ‘Never too busy for my big brother, you know that.’

  ‘You’ve forgiven me for crashing your plane in that lake in Indonesia?’

  ‘Hey, these things happen. I bought a new one. Don’t change the subject. Are you coming to see me, or what?’

  ‘Some time, I will. I’m in the middle of things at the moment.’

  ‘Business?’

  ‘I’m retired from business.’

  Ruth’s tone grew firm. ‘Ben, are you in trouble again?’

  ‘Somebody is,’ he said, after a beat.

  ‘Somebody’s always in trouble, Ben. You can’t help them all.’

  ‘That’s the only thing I’m afraid of,’ he said.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘Not getting the job done,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think you need to worry about that, brother. You always get the job done.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You be careful.’

  ‘As ever,’ he said.

  ‘And safe.’

  ‘As houses.’

  ‘Call me more often, okay?’

  ‘Soon,’ he said, and put down the phone.

  He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, sorry that the call had ended without him finding the courage to ask after Brooke. Instead he’d let himself sound like a cold-hearted bastard. Maybe he was a cold-hearted bastard. Or if he wasn’t, maybe he should try harder to become one. Cold-hearted bastards didn’t get sleepless nights reliving bad moments over and over, or feel gnawed by guilt and regret over words and actions that couldn’t ever be undone.

  Ben tried to visualise Brooke’s face in his mind, but others kept intruding and clouding his imagination. Roberta Ryder. Silvie Valois.

  He snapped open his eyes and looked at the luminous dial of his watch in the darkness. Still not three o’clock. Dawn was a long way off, but he felt more restless than ever.

  Maybe calling Ruth hadn’t been such a great idea after all.

  Ben closed his eyes again, buried his head in the pillow and tried to shut out the unsettling images and voices in his head.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Welcome to Britain. London was every bit as wet and cold as Hamburg had been.

  The longest part of the journey had been getting from the sleepy Black Forest village to the nearest decent-sized airport, which had been a choice between Strasbourg over the French border to the north, Zurich to the south and Basel to the west. After a bit of calling around, in the end Basel had offered the earliest direct flight to Heathrow, and the cheapest for Raul, who insisted on paying for both one-way tickets. Ben had left the BMW in long-term parking at the airport, where it would be unlikely to be flagged up to the police for days, if not weeks. When the police did eventually find the stolen car, they’d get an extra surprise when they discovered the weapons in the boot. Ben didn’t like leaving them behind, and felt naked the whole time they were sitting in the departure lounge and on the flight, in case they were being followed.

  But he’d spotted nobody suspicious among his fellow travellers, and they’d reached Heathrow without a single shot fired. Once they’d breezed through arrivals and exchanged a few hundred of their euros for pounds sterling to have some walking-around money, they jumped on a Piccadilly Line train direct from their terminal. Just under an hour later, they were experiencing the joys of a rainy afternoon in central London. Huddled crowds moving fast in all directions, noise and traffic fumes and confusion and roadworks and slippery pavements. Even to Ben’s hardened sensibilities, the place was a shock after the rural serenity of the Black Forest village they’d woken up in that morning. It was Raul’s first visit to London, and his verdict as they clambered into a taxicab and sped through the city was, ‘It’s, how would you say? An armpit.’

  Raul was even less impressed with the district where Ben had the taxi driver drop them, in a backstreet off Pretoria Road in the dingy, crime-rotted heart of Tottenham. Even the cabbie seemed cagey about letting them off there. To Ben’s mind, it was the perfect setting for the next stage in his strategy.

  ‘Where have you brought us?’ Raul said, staring around him as he hunched his shoulders against the rain. Graffiti and boarded-up windows, windswept litter and remnants of drunks’ vomit gurgling down the gutters weren’t everyday sights back home in Frigiliana.

  ‘They call this area Little Russia,’ Ben said. ‘It was a ghetto for immigrant refugees after the 1917 revolution and became one of the most notorious dens of iniquity in London. You could hardly walk the streets without getting stabbed or shot. It’s gone downhill since then.’

  ‘Thank you for the history lesson. I’m still uncle
ar as to what we’re doing here.’

  Ben shrugged. ‘There’s so much gang and drug crime in the place, nobody even cares any more. The police just let them get on with it. Which makes it the best place I know of to nick a car.’

  Raul frowned. ‘Nick? You mean steal?’

  Ben looked at him. ‘You have scruples about taking a car? After punching a guy off a roof and breaking his neck?’

  ‘I’m not a murderer,’ Raul said. ‘I’m not a thief, either.’

  ‘If it makes you feel better, around here the chances are it’ll already be stolen,’ Ben said. ‘Anyway, we won’t need it long. We’re just borrowing it, so to speak.’

  Within ten minutes, Ben had found a seven-year-old Renault Laguna estate far enough out of sight of any surveillance cameras to spark his interest. Judging by the damage to the door locks, this wasn’t the first time it had been broken into. The rest was easy. Less than a minute later, they were driving away. There was an empty hole where the radio used to be, and the suspension knocked badly, probably from being joyridden over too many speed humps. But the motor ran smoothly, there was enough fuel in the tank to get them where they needed to go, and the Laguna had no faulty lights or worn tyres that might attract unwanted police attention. Ben tossed his smartphone into Raul’s lap. ‘Now dial up the GPS on that and find me the offices of The Probe.’

  ‘I hope for their sakes they’re based in a nicer part of London than this puta letrina,’ Raul muttered. ‘This car stinks as if someone has pissed in it,’ he added, and wound down the window only to receive a faceful of rainwater spray as Ben went hammering through a puddle.

  ‘I didn’t realise you were so sensitive,’ Ben said.

  Raul stared at him. ‘Besa me culo.’

  The Probe was one of a group of independent publications privately operated under the corporate banner of Trinity Media Ltd, based in Hammersmith a few miles to the southwest. Trinity House turned out to be a converted Georgian three-storey tucked away among a cluster of office buildings near the banks of the Thames, where Ben found a parking spot that allowed them a view of the entrance.