The Shadow Project

  Then she whirled towards him and her boot lashed out in a straight kick that caught him in the pit of the stomach. His breath burst out of his mouth and he staggered back and fell.

  There was a report like a shotgun, and a heavy projectile flew through the air with a low thrumming sound and smacked off a tree trunk next to where the woman was standing. Ben heard Woodcock’s voice yelling ‘Take him down!’ and twisted round in the dirt to see the rest of the bodyguard team approaching through the trees. A ragged series of blasts as the team let off their Flash-Balls. The humming whoosh of rubber bullets flying through the air. One snapped a branch, the rest ploughed harmlessly into the undergrowth.

  The woman’s gaze lingered just a fraction of a second on Ben, and then she took off like a deer. Grabbing a fistful of ivy, she scrabbled up the earth bank and made a dash for the road.

  The van was just twenty yards ahead, waiting, revving. The driver threw it into reverse and floored the pedal. Yells of ‘Come on! Move your arse!’ Hands reached out of the sliding door and hauled her in, then the diesel roared, the exhaust kicked out a black cloud of smoke, and the van sped away, weaving down the road.

  Ben slowly clambered to his feet as the men gathered round him. Spotting the fallen pistol in the leaves, he picked it up and slipped it absently into his belt, under his jacket. Nobody spoke. Burton and Powell appeared, and Ben suddenly wondered who the hell was looking after the principal.

  His question was answered just a moment later when he turned to see Steiner walking towards them through the trees, his chest heaving with exertion. He didn’t look happy. Dorenkamp was a few feet behind, pale and sheepish.

  The billionaire stormed over. His face was a mottled purple-red, eyes almost popping, hair in disarray.

  ‘We all saw what happened,’ Neville said.

  Steiner came right up close, toe to toe, so that Ben could virtually smell his rage.

  ‘That was a very fine display, Major Hope.’ His voice rose to a shout as he went on. ‘Not only did you completely fail to protect me and then point a gun and threaten to kill me – me, your employer, your client – you then allowed that kidnapper to escape.’

  Ben didn’t speak, but Steiner ranted on as if he’d tried to protest.

  ‘If I had not insisted on following, I would never have believed it. But I saw you. You did nothing. You just stood there, staring at him. Have you gone completely out of your mind?’ Steiner virtually screamed the last word. There were flecks of spittle on his lips. He stared in disgusted, trembling fury.

  Ben still didn’t speak. There was nothing he could say, except maybe ‘Don’t spit in my face like that’ – but he didn’t have the energy.

  ‘Don’t even try to answer,’ Steiner yelled. ‘I don’t wish to hear excuses. I have been almost kidnapped, threatened with a gun by my own bodyguard, and I have missed my meeting. What utter, unbelievable incompetence is this?’ He paused, as if searching for more accusations but running out of things to shout in Ben’s face. ‘You’re fired,’ he added simply. Turned to the rest of the team. ‘All of you. Dismissed. You hear? You are all going straight back home where you came from and I will hire a proper team to protect me.’

  Then Maximilian Steiner turned and stormed away, back towards the choppers, his assistant following behind him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The battered white Fiat Ducato van sped down the country lanes, skidding and weaving on the bends. There was chaos inside, bodies crammed together in the back and falling over each other, discarded weapons sliding around on the metal floor. The van was filled with shouting as frayed nerves spilled over into adrenaline-fuelled hysteria.

  Of the van’s eight occupants, just one was silent. The woman with the ripped sleeve sat quietly on the hard rear wheel arch, combat boots braced apart to steady herself against the wild rocking and bouncing of the vehicle. She peeled off her ski mask, let it drop to the floor. Ruffled her cropped blond hair and closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the side wall of the van.

  The shrill arguing and jabbering went on all around her.

  ‘And once again it’s all fucked up,’ the chopper co-pilot was complaining loudly from the passenger seat.

  ‘Yeah, and who let the guy have the gun, Ernst, you stupid bastard?’

  ‘I’m a pilot. I’m not trained to go up against some maniac. Look at my hand. I think he broke my fucking fingers, man.’

  ‘Who the fuck was that guy?’

  The driver glanced at Ernst. ‘What guy are they talking about?’ he yelled.

  ‘The fucking bodyguard guy, Dominik,’ said Thomas in the back. ‘He was threatening to shoot Steiner.’

  ‘He was what?’ Dominik exploded. He took his eyes off the road for a second as he twisted round in his seat, and the van veered a little off course.

  ‘Drive properly, cretin,’ screamed Helmut, the chopper pilot. He was wiping blood off his face from where the pistol butt had slammed into him.

  ‘He had a gun at Steiner’s fucking head and he was going to shoot him,’ Jürgen said. ‘We all saw it, right? The guy was crazy. What were we supposed to do?’

  The woman in the back spoke for the first time. ‘He wasn’t going to shoot anybody. It was a bluff, and you idiots fell for it.’

  ‘Yeah? And how do you figure that?’ Rudi fired from the opposite wheel arch. He ripped off his ski mask in disgust, then almost lost his balance as the van hammered violently over a pothole and the suspension grounded out with a crash.

  ‘Arschloch!’ he shouted at Dominik. ‘You trying to get us killed?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Dominik yelled back at him. ‘Maybe the cops would give you a smoother ride to jail. I hear Swiss prisons are really nice these days.’

  ‘Shut your hole!’

  ‘I just know, that’s all,’ the woman said quietly. Rudi said, ‘What’s that, female intuition?’ She didn’t reply.

  ‘Shut up, Rudi,’ said Franz from where he was kneeling by the back doors.

  ‘Oh, sure, stand up for your girlfriend. This whole thing was her fucked-up idea.’

  Franz raised his arms. ‘Guys. Why don’t we all just calm the fuck down, OK? We’re all in this together. And we just have to accept that it isn’t working.’

  ‘So now what?’ demanded Rudi.

  ‘We need to find a better way,’ Franz said.

  ‘What’re we going to do if Steiner’s got a bodyguard team now?’

  ‘It was only a question of time. Just be thankful none of us got killed back there.’ He turned to the woman and held her hand, laced his fingers through hers and looked in her eyes with concern. ‘You OK, Luna?’

  She nodded. ‘I will be. I got a fright, that’s all.’

  ‘How the hell did you manage to get away from him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly, barely audible over the roar of the van.

  ‘Did he say anything to you?’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t ask me questions.’

  Franz looked at her, puzzled. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just don’t.’

  By then they had reached the end of the rough lane. The van leaned heavily as Dominik took a hard right onto a tarmac road and accelerated away. The arguing subsided into a brooding silence as they all sat with their private thoughts. Rudi was muttering angrily to himself and shaking his head. Up front, Ernst was twiddling with the radio, looking for any breaking news that might concern them.

  Less than ten minutes later, the van pulled off the road, followed another bumpy track for a couple of hundred yards, then came to a halt in a grassy layby next to a field gate.

  The brown Volvo carrying Andreas and Victor was already there waiting for them. Ernst climbed out of the cab, opened the gate and Dominik drove the van over sun-hardened tractor ruts into the field. The Volvo followed, and the two vehicles parked up side by side as Ernst shut the gate behind them.

  Dominik killed the engine, jumped down from the van, opened up the side door with a scree
ch of rusty metal, and everyone piled out. There wasn’t a face that didn’t look weary and miserable after the failed kidnap plan. Luna took a deep breath and scanned the forested horizon. The place was so tranquil. She just wished she was feeling that way inside.

  Andreas had the rear hatch of the Volvo open and was lifting out the roll of sackcloth that contained the rifles the two-man diversion team had used to split up the choppers. Those rifles had taken up the biggest chunk of their limited budget, Luna thought as she watched. What a waste of money. Just like all the training and rehearsals had been a waste, and all the meticulous effort spent to get Helmut and Ernst inside Steiner’s helicopter hangar.

  Failed. Again. She clenched her teeth.

  ‘We need to hurry,’ Franz told the others. ‘In a few minutes this whole area’s going to be crawling with cops.’

  They moved fast and spoke little. Helmut and Ernst unzipped the red jumpsuits they’d stolen from Steiner’s chopper pilots after tying them up in a toilet at the hangar. Velcro fasteners made little tearing sounds as the others stripped off their combat gear. Everyone had T-shirts and jeans under their outer clothing, except Luna. The light cotton jodhpurs she was wearing had been part of the plan.

  The jumpsuits were tossed into the open Fiat, while Thomas and Andreas stuffed the black combat clothes and boots into two big rubble sacks. Victor gathered up the rest of the weapons from the van and shoved them into a zip-up sports bag. Meanwhile, Rudi stepped over to the Volvo and took out the two motorcycle jackets and helmets, the cans of petrol and the riding boots that had been piled in the back. He tossed the boots over to Luna, and she started pulling them on while he donned the bike leathers and helmet.

  Meanwhile, Franz was opening up the plastic jerrycans and, once everyone had what they needed, he started sloshing petrol over the two vehicles and all over the grass around them.

  Luna reached into the pocket of her riding trousers and took out a soft pack of Camels. She lit one up, took a long drag and felt the nicotine rush hit her bloodstream. Then she flicked the cigarette through the Fiat’s open passenger door and stepped back.

  A couple of seconds’ delay, and then there was a roaring, flat whumph as the petrol ignited and a big rolling mushroom of flame engulfed both vehicles. Luna felt the heat on her face, smelled the stink of burning plastic and rubber, and watched the blaze for a second until she felt Franz’s hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Let’s move,’ he said. They picked up their stuff and started walking away from the burning vehicles.

  Fifty yards across the next field, beyond another gate, were an old VW Golf, a Honda 750 motorcycle and a double horse trailer hooked up to a silver Range Rover. The 4×4 wasn’t brand new, but it looked respectable enough to get past the Swiss border officials. A few yards from the open trailer, a plump, ginger-haired woman was standing with a large chestnut gelding. The horse had been grazing contentedly on the lush alpine grass until the fire had started; now it was prancing about nervously, tossing its head and snorting, and the woman was having trouble keeping hold of the lead rope.

  ‘This is all we need,’ Rudi muttered as they walked up to the gate. ‘By the time the cops get here, we’ll still be running around trying to catch your fucking horse.’

  Luna shot him a look. ‘He’ll be fine. He’s calm with me.’ She jumped the gate and ran across, took the rope from the ginger-haired woman and patted the horse gently, talking to him in a low voice. He nuzzled against her, already calming down. She pressed her brow to his big flat bony forehead, felt the warmth of his skin and closed her eyes.

  ‘How did it go?’ the woman asked her.

  ‘Do you see any captive billionaires around here anywhere?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘Well, that’s because we didn’t get him, Steffi.’ Luna handed her back the rope. ‘He’ll be fine now,’ she said, giving the horse a last pat. Then she went over to the Range Rover, opened up the back door. On the seat were a collection of riding trophies and rosettes. She grabbed the bag that was sitting next to them. Inside was a long blond wig and a neatly-pressed silk dressage shirt. She quickly stripped down to her bra, pulled on the shirt and put on the wig. Checked herself in the wing mirror. The transformation from black-clad warrior to middle-class horsewoman was complete. Meanwhile, Franz was putting on a clean blue polo shirt with an equestrian logo on the breast pocket.

  The perfect front. Nobody would ever have guessed who or what they were. More importantly, the guards at the Swiss-German border wouldn’t be likely to stop and search respectable-looking equestrian folks on their way home from a horse show bearing their prizes.

  Which meant nobody would have had any idea of what they were really carrying. Under the straw in the trailer was a false floor, sturdy enough to take the weight of the horse. It had two concealed compartments. One was for their weapons and combat gear and, as Luna and Franz were changing their clothes, the others were stuffing the bags and rolled-up rifles inside and re-covering the floor with a deep layer of straw.

  The second compartment was twice the size, big enough to accommodate a large man. It had been intended for Steiner, to smuggle him back into Germany. He’d have been able to breathe through some holes discreetly punched in the steel panelling. The dope they’d have used to tranquillise him was in the Range Rover’s glove compartment, labelled to look like a veterinary product.

  ‘It was a good plan,’ Luna said wistfully to Franz as she led the horse up the ramp into the trailer with a clatter of hooves.

  He smiled. ‘It was. But don’t worry. We’ll get him.’

  ‘Will we?’ She patted the horse, then skipped back down the ramp, raised it up and made sure everything was secure before she bolted the trailer doors. Her face was grim as she worked.

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it,’ Franz told her. ‘We’ll come up with another plan.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ she said.

  They were ready to go their separate ways. ‘Everyone remember the routes we talked about?’ Luna said as they headed for their vehicles.

  Nods and murmurs from the others.

  ‘OK. See you back in Germany. Be careful.’ She and Franz got into the front of the Range Rover with Steffi in the back. Andreas, Victor, Dominik and Thomas climbed into the VW Golf. Rudi threw a leg over the Honda, fired it up and blipped the throttle as Jürgen got on the pillion and snapped his visor shut.

  The little convoy left the field by an open gate at the far side. Fifty yards up the lane they rejoined the main road, and a little way after that they came to a crossroads. The Range Rover carried on straight ahead, the Golf went left and the Honda went right.

  Behind them, the column of smoke from the burning vehicles was still rising into the clear blue sky.

  Chapter Twenty

  Steiner and Dorenkamp took off back for the château in the lead chopper with the second craft’s pilot at the controls while his co-pilot took his place and flew the bodyguard team behind them.

  Ben sat with the others and felt the hot stares on him like a poultice. He didn’t make eye contact, didn’t speak. A couple of times he thought he heard angry mutters over the blast of the turbine, but he didn’t react.

  They say the return journey is always quicker, but this one seemed to take forty times longer. Ben had the hatch open and was on the ground before the chopper had even settled down on the helipad. Steiner’s personal helicopter was powering back up for take-off. The billionaire and his PA were already gone.

  Ben strode towards the house. Behind him, the rest of the team slouched moodily off in the direction of their quarters, carrying their stun weapons.

  The interior of the château was cool after the baking sun. Ben walked across the main entrance hall, past the mounted knight. A maid carrying a pile of linen stared at the muddied, torn state of him as he went by, but he barely registered her.

  He found Dorenkamp in the corridor not far away.

  ‘I want to speak to Steiner. Where is he
?’

  Dorenkamp’s brows were knitted with worry and embarrassment.

  ‘He won’t see you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not asking him to change his mind about firing me,’ Ben said.

  Dorenkamp’s look of discomfort deepened even more, and he shifted from foot to foot, as though he couldn’t wait to be out of there. ‘That’s good, because I think there’s little chance he would agree.’

  ‘I want to ask him to keep the rest of the team on,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll go, but let them stay. As soon as Shannon’s healed up, he can fly out and join them. Then things are back to the way they would have been, and I’ll be out of the picture for good.’

  Dorenkamp shook his head. ‘I meant what I told you before. Once Herr Steiner has decided on something, he will not go back on it.’

  ‘I personally don’t think much of them as a team,’ Ben said. ‘I would never have hired them, and I think this whole set-up stinks. But what happened back there wasn’t their fault. It was mine.’

  Dorenkamp looked as if he was about to dash off. Then he seemed to change his mind, like someone struggling over whether or not to pass on a burdensome secret. He glanced up and down the empty corridor and spoke in a low voice.

  ‘Listen. I personally believe that what you did was the right course of action. I think that if you hadn’t acted as you did, Herr Steiner would have been taken captive by those people, and you and I would most certainly still be there in the woods with bullets in our heads. And I think that Herr Steiner knows it, too.’

  ‘Then why is he acting like such a stubborn old goat?’

  ‘Because he can’t tolerate the way you humiliated him back there. You held a gun to his head. Nobody does that to him.’

  ‘Maybe he should try getting over himself a little bit. He’d have lost a lot more dignity than that if he’d ended up a kidnap victim.’

  Dorenkamp shrugged.

  Ben turned away. I tried, he thought. And that’s that.