The Martyr’s Curse (Ben Hope, Book 11)

‘I wasn’t very happy about that. I wanted a GPS chip hidden somewhere in my personal effects, but they wouldn’t take the chance. Phone tracking was out of the question, too. Streicher doesn’t let anyone carry their own phones, in case they could be tainted. He issues everyone with new ones, the numbers all pre-allocated and entered. He’s fanatical about security. You saw how hard it was for me to get away alone tonight. It’s virtually impossible to move without one of them breathing down your neck.’

  Ben took out the phone he’d taken from Dexter’s body and held it out for her to see. ‘Dexter’s phone,’ he said. ‘I called every number. You were the only one who returned the call.’

  ‘The other numbers are the rest of the gang.’

  ‘Then a law-enforcement agency could easily trace them.’

  ‘To what? They’re just ghost numbers. No contracts, no registration, no names, all cash. Streicher can change everyone’s number whenever he wants, and he does, often.’

  Ben laid the phone in a nook in the centre console between them. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Your pal’s not going to stay hidden back there for ever. Someone’s dog will sniff him out sooner or later. When he’s found and you’re still AWOL, it’s not going to do your cover any good. Streicher’s going to get suspicious of you, too.’

  She shrugged, her movement restricted by the tape around her wrists. ‘Too late to worry about it now. I’m out of there. And don’t call him my pal.’

  ‘Let me think about that. You were supposed to come alone. Instead you bring Prince Charming along for the ride, both of you all tooled up and ready to shoot me, stab me, tape me up and kidnap me, or whatever you were planning on. It doesn’t help your credibility much.’

  She sighed. ‘Try to look at it from my point of view, okay? You really had me fooled with your call. Maybe because I wanted to believe Dexter was still alive. I suppose I was flustered and on edge, caught off my guard, less careful than I might have been about slipping away un-noticed. I was just about to take off out of there when he stopped me, asked me where I was going in such a hurry, so late at night. What could I do? I couldn’t afford for them to get suspicious. So I went along with it. Told Breslin about the call. He figured it was a trap. Hence the hardware. I was scared he might run off and report it to Streicher, but I think he wanted to curry favour by handling it himself. Insisted on driving. The arsehole wagon was his, by the way.’

  ‘Makes it sound as if you lived together,’ he said. ‘A cosy little nest.’

  Silvie shook her head, watching the road. ‘Hardly cosy. Streicher keeps his people together like some weird kind of commune.’

  ‘He lives with them?’

  ‘He comes and goes. Turns up now and then, hangs around for a few hours, has these little meetings and discussions, then disappears again. Nobody knows where.’

  ‘So where did you come from tonight that took three hours to drive here?’

  ‘Switzerland. It’s a townhouse in Lausanne. One of Streicher’s safe houses. I don’t know whether he owns it or rents it. All I know is, he’s got no shortage of places to move around. He can afford them. It’s part of his strategy. The guy’s insanely suspicious, even about his closest associates. The inner circle are his A team. Himself, Hannah, and a very small and select number of others. Then there’s the B team, the ones he keeps a little closer, but not too close. Then there’s the C team, the outer circle. That’s as close as I got in four months to the heart of the gang. Dexter did a little better. He managed to get closer, into the middle circle. That’s why Streicher had him on the assault team, along with B-circle guys like Breslin. I was just part of the logistics.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘We came in a convoy,’ she explained. ‘Twelve people in three vehicles, from the base in Lausanne to a meeting point just the other side of the Franco-Swiss border. Streicher provided the vehicles. Identical Range Rovers, black, top of the line, seven-seaters. I was driving one of them. Another of his people, Dominik Baiza, was there waiting for us with an articulated Volvo rig. Where he’d come from in it, I have no idea. It was transporting the attack vehicle. A BearCat. The kind of armoured truck used for SWAT raids on heavily armed drug gangs. It’s fitted with a special ram that can breach any kind of barricade.’

  ‘I know what it is,’ Ben said grimly.

  ‘Streicher and Hannah arrived by chopper soon afterwards. I don’t know where they came from either.’

  ‘Fifteen people in all,’ Ben said. The list was already taking shape inside his head.

  ‘Two of his guys, Chavanne and Cazzitti, took the rotors off the chopper, so it would fit inside the trailer. Baiza stayed behind to mind the lorry while the BearCat joined the rest of the convoy with Streicher at the wheel, and the other fourteen of us headed over the border into France. All lonely, empty mountain roads. No cops. At that point neither Dexter nor I had any idea where we were going, or what was happening. Only that it was a huge deal, some plan that Streicher had been working on for months. We stopped at a second point, off the road, way up in the mountains. We made camp for a few hours there while final preparations were made. There was a lot of activity happening inside the BearCat. Dexter and the rest went inside and didn’t come back out. I suppose they were getting tooled up, checking weapons, having their final pre-operational briefing.’

  ‘The attack happened around four-thirty in the morning,’ Ben said. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Forensic pointers,’ he said. ‘Plus common sense. It’s what any half-decent tactician would have done. They could have hit the place by day, but at this time of year some of the monks might be out working in the fields or tending to the animals. No guarantee they’d get them all, and too big a risk that one or two might be able to slip away and raise the alarm. The time to get them all together in one place, without having to go cell-to-cell rounding them up or sweeping every part of the monastery, was before dawn as they were getting together for morning Mass.’

  Silvie went on. ‘Nobody was saying much. It was very tense. Finally, sometime before four, the assault crew went off in the BearCat.’

  ‘Names,’ Ben said.

  ‘There were eight of them. Streicher and Hannah Gissel, of course. Torben Roth and Wolf Schilling, two of his A-team crew who’ve been with him for ever. Then Breslin, whom you’ve … ah … met. Cazzitti and Chavanne. Lastly, Dexter.’

  Ben ticked off the names on his mental list. ‘Leaving six of you behind.’

  She nodded. ‘Me, a guy called Stefan Ringler who was always hitting on me, then Holger Grubitz. Another creep. Then the nerdy one, Anton Lindquist, kind of a bookish type, thick glasses. I don’t quite know what his involvement is, but he’s definitely no tough guy. Then there’s the Pole, Tomasz Wokalek. A real shit-kicker, that one. Finally, the Dutchman, Rutger Zwart. None of us with much to do but twiddle our thumbs waiting for the others to return.’

  ‘Which was about four hours later,’ Ben said. ‘Correct?’

  She looked surprised that he could know that. ‘More forensic pointers?’

  ‘Three indicators that they hung around the monastery for quite some time,’ he said. ‘Firstly, the bodies of the monks were cold when I found them, but Dexter’s was still reasonably fresh. Suggesting a lengthy interval between the killings. Secondly, the timing of the explosive charges. The initial one was intended to open up a space underneath the monastery. The next was designed to close it again, which it very nearly did with me still inside. It had been set just an hour before I got there. And thirdly, they had a heavy cargo to shift, and a long way to shift it.’

  She glanced sideways at him, as far as she could turn against her restraints. He saw the gleam of her eyes in the darkness. ‘What heavy cargo?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what this is about,’ Ben said. ‘You know it as well as I do. The gold that was under the monastery. Bullion. A ton of it. What other reason could there be?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about any
gold,’ she said.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Hummer barrelled on into the night, its low rumble and the thrum of its heavy-duty tyres filling the cab. Now it was Ben’s turn to take his eyes off the road and glance sideways in puzzlement. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘That this mention of gold bullion is absolutely the first I’ve heard of it,’ Silvie replied.

  ‘Then why else did you think they hit the place, if not to steal something of value?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How can you not know? You were part of the gang.’

  ‘A peripheral part.’

  ‘Whose job it was to infiltrate them, apparently. And gain information.’

  ‘Which I tried very hard to do. So you believe me now?’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘You must have heard something. Or seen something.’

  ‘All I saw were those white containers,’ she said.

  ‘Containers?’

  ‘When they returned from the raid, the BearCat’s doors didn’t open for maybe twenty minutes. Finally, Streicher came out. He looked jumpy. Buzzed. More excited than I’ve ever seen him. He’d changed out of his tactical clothing, but he smelled of cordite, like someone who’d just come off a shooting range. I saw inside the BearCat’s open doors for a moment. That’s where I saw them. Oblong, with rounded-off sides and corners, and locks and handles on. Like a cross between a briefcase and a military ammo can, except a little larger, made out of some kind of shiny white plastic or fibreglass. Plain, unmarked. Maybe six or eight of them, all lined up and securely fastened in an interior load bay. I have no idea what was in them. Maybe it was gold. Nobody said anything about it. All I could gather was that Dexter had been left behind for some reason. I was too afraid to ask questions.’

  Ben listened and drove.

  ‘My role post-operation was to dispose of the kit,’ she went on. ‘All their clothing was sealed up inside these big plastic bags. Or I assume it was their clothing. It felt bulky and soft, like bedding. Sort of crinkly when you jiggled it around. Also boots, judging by the weight. I was told on no account to open the bags, just to burn them. So that’s what I did. There was a hollow in the rocks a little way off. I and a couple of others carried the bags over to it, piled them up, doused them with petrol and torched them.’

  Thorough, Ben thought. But he was less interested in the contents of the bags than in other kinds of contents. ‘And you’re certain there was no mention of what was in the containers? Not even a hint?’

  ‘None. Obviously, I never got the chance to talk to Dexter. Breslin might have known something, but it’s too late for that now, isn’t it? He was much closer to Streicher. Deeply loyal to him. They all are. He seems to have an effect on them. Like he’s a god or something. Like they have an oath of fealty to him, as if he were their liege and they his vassals. It’s weird.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘The convoy split up. Nine of us got into two of the Range Rovers and headed back to Lausanne. I was still on driving duty. When I realised Dexter wasn’t with us any longer, I started to get very worried, but I couldn’t say anything. Torben Roth was right next to me, so I had to look cool. Cazzitti and Chavanne took the third Range Rover and went off in tandem with Streicher and Hannah Gissel in the BearCat. I assume they returned to the rendezvous point where the lorry and trailer were still waiting, then Cazzitti and Chavanne put the rotors back on the chopper, then the BearCat took its place inside the trailer, then the artic went one way and the Range Rover set off for Lausanne, while Streicher and Hannah flew back to wherever they came from.’

  ‘Carrying the white containers.’

  ‘That’s my best guess,’ she said.

  ‘Cazzitti and Chavanne. Ex-air force?’

  ‘Cazzitti did a four-year stint in the Italian Parachute Infantry Brigade. Might have picked up a few aero-mechanic skills there. Nothing on record about Chavanne.’

  ‘Tell me about this Torben Roth.’

  ‘Plenty on him. He was a PMC before he hooked up with Streicher.’

  Ben nodded. Private military contractor. A mercenary. Torben Roth was suddenly his number one choice to be the explosives expert on the team. ‘Is he good?’

  ‘He’s got the look of a killer, that’s all I can tell you. Doesn’t say much. Face was messed up by a bullet.’

  Ben asked, ‘Does he smoke?’

  ‘Not that I’ve ever seen. Why are you asking?’

  ‘What about Streicher?’

  ‘He won’t even let people do it in the safe house.’

  ‘Then you never saw him light up a Russian cigarette. A black Sobranie.’

  She shook her head emphatically. ‘Never.’

  ‘Okay. Just wondered.’

  Ben drove on a while in silence, frowning as he pieced everything together in his mind. The pieces seemed to fit, but the picture they formed didn’t make sense to him.

  ‘I still don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Why are DGSI so worked up about this Streicher? A joint operation like this is the kind of stuff they keep in reserve for the big fish. Major terror suspects. International crime rings. They wouldn’t even bother with the drug syndicates in Marseille. They leave that to the regular police to deal with. So who is he?’

  ‘He is a big fish,’ Silvie said.

  ‘Then fill me in.’

  ‘You’ll be disappointed with how much I actually know.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that.’

  She hesitated. ‘Before I say anything else, I should know a little more about who I’m talking to.’

  ‘I told you who I am,’ Ben said. ‘A concerned individual, nothing more. I was just a guest at the monastery.’

  ‘No ordinary guest, that’s for sure. Since when did monks let someone like you come and live with them?’

  ‘Someone like me?’ he echoed, bristling a little.

  ‘I mean, you’re not exactly gentle Jesus meek and mild, are you?’

  ‘I have a past,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to put it behind me. The monks showed me hospitality. They were good people.’

  ‘How did you know about Jean-Loup l’Hermite?’

  Ben didn’t like being pressured for answers. Silvie Valois might have been the one tethered and captive, but it didn’t seem to make her any less assertive. ‘I met him once,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t have been just a casual acquaintance. You know too much about him.’

  ‘We did some training together,’ Ben admitted after a restless silence. ‘A few years back.’

  ‘What kind of training?’

  ‘The kind you might have benefited from tonight,’ he said.

  She gave a dark kind of laugh. ‘Thanks for that. So this past of yours – would it be in law enforcement?’ She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, you were never a cop. I get the impression you don’t like them much.’

  ‘Most cops I know feel that way too.’

  ‘You’re not the type. You were a soldier.’

  ‘Don’t let the car fool you. It’s borrowed from a friend.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the car. Talking about you. You have the look.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Sure, you do,’ she said. ‘That look that never goes away. The way you handle yourself. The way you move, even the way you talk. It’s indelible. Like a stain. And you’re English, so it’s a no-brainer. British Army, correct?’

  Ben said nothing, just kept driving into the night.

  ‘I knew it. And you were an officer, I’ll bet.’

  He looked at her. ‘Really. You can tell that, can you?’

  ‘Take it as a compliment.’

  ‘Or an insult,’ he said.

  ‘A captain, at the very least. What unit?’

  ‘Drop it,’ Ben said.

  ‘So I’m getting close. Let’s aim for the top and work our way down from there. Special Forces?’

  ‘How would you figure that one out?’

  ‘
Oh, from the way you jumped us tonight. You’re right about the training. I thought I was good, and I am. But you made me feel like a total amateur. So, UKSF it is. Not too many divisions to choose from. SF Support Group? Special Boat Service? You don’t strike me as the navy type. Special Reconnaissance Regiment? That’s a possible. But I’m going to plump for Special Air Service. How am I doing?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘You know something, Silvie Valois, or whoever you are? You’re a little too smart for your own good.’

  She smiled in the darkness. ‘I’m right, though.’

  ‘Right about to get thrown out of a speeding car if you don’t start whistling a different tune.’

  ‘Then you’d have to cut my tapes first,’ she said.

  ‘Or else slap another piece over your mouth.’

  At that moment, the phone on the centre console between them began to vibrate and buzz in its plastic hollow. They both looked down at it.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ she asked.

  The phone gave two more pulses before Ben reached down and picked it up. He thumbed the reply button and pressed it to his ear, saying nothing, waiting for the caller to speak first. He eased off the throttle to quieten the resonance of the Hummer’s engine note inside the cab.

  ‘From one lone wolf to another, hello back,’ said a familiar voice that Ben hadn’t heard in a long time.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ‘It’s been a while, my old friend,’ said the smooth, warm, Gallic voice of Commissioner Luc Simon. ‘Thought you’d dropped off the face of the planet.’

  ‘Still keeping those healthy work hours, I see,’ Ben said.

  ‘Glutton for punishment,’ Luc said. Ben could picture him sitting at his desk in a darkened office on the top floor of the Interpol HQ in Lyon. The expensive suit jacket hung crisply over the back of his chair. Tie loosened, but not too much. The ubiquitous cup of coffee steaming at his elbow, black as pitch and strong enough to stand a spoon up in. Luc Simon’s hard-driving work schedule depended on a diet of heavy fuel.

  ‘I thought about replying in some cryptic form to the rather unconventional communiqué that appeared on my fax machine,’ he said, ‘but I lack your imagination in these kinds of things. And besides, I didn’t know where you were.’