This was no theatre show. This was real.
Wolf had witnessed enough. He finally averted his eyes and turned away. But he didn’t turn away fast enough to avoid seeing the final stroke of the High Priest’s dagger that sliced deep into the sacrificial victim’s throat and ended her life. Fire and explosions lit up the whole lake island as the chanting of the crowd reached its climax and became a roar of delight and satisfaction.
Wolf staggered to his feet and stumbled away through the trees, twigs whipping at his face as he beat his retreat. To hell with the job. To hell with the agency, the money, the whole damn thing. He didn’t care any more. He was out of here. Done with all of it, forever. He already knew where he would run to: a special place in which nobody would ever find him.
Too late, Wolf spotted the gleam of something smooth and glassy, small and round, pointing down at him from the ivied trunk of a tree.
It was a camera. And he’d been caught right on it.
Chapter 1
Five days later
Somewhere over the south of England en route for France, Ben Hope eased back in his window seat, gazed out at the fluffy clouds drifting by and wondered whether this was the fifth, or the sixth, such trip he’d made in the months since late December. Or maybe it was the seventh. He was losing track, much to the amusement of his associate Jeff Dekker, who never tired of teasing him about his unlikely developing relationship with, of all people, a female police officer from the Scottish Highlands. Ben would have to privately admit that the romance had taken him by surprise, too. Her name was Grace Kirk, and it seemed that he couldn’t get enough of her.
His most recent visit to Grace’s tiny, remote village of Kinlochardaich had lasted three days, which was about as long as Ben felt he could stay away from his home and workplace in northern France before he started to feel he was neglecting his obligations there. The tactical training centre he co-ran with his fellow ex-military associates, called Le Val, was tucked away in a quiet corner of the Normandy countryside and over the years had grown into a thriving little concern whose specialist services were in demand from all over Europe and beyond.
Ben loved the place and wasn’t ready to quit his job, while Grace felt the same way about her own home and career; and so for the moment at least, their relationship would be a long-distance one. It was a convoluted thirteen-hour flight that usually involved stop-offs in London or Manchester, as well as Paris or Lyon or sometimes even Amsterdam. Grace had been still fast asleep when he’d left her at 4.30 a.m. to catch the 6.33 flight from Inverness. He’d called from the airport to let his business partners know he was en route and would be home by that evening.
Now, six hours later, with the time-wasting tedium of Heathrow behind him, his next stop was Paris before he’d finally embark on the final leg of his journey home. He was looking forward to seeing Jeff (who’d be full of the usual piss-taking humour, but Jeff was like that), their colleague Tuesday Fletcher (who owed his colourful first name, as well as his eternally laid-back manner, to his Jamaican heritage), and to enjoying a nice glass or two of his favourite scotch whisky before tucking in for an early night.
Bliss. Ben was in little danger of ever succumbing to the soft life, but the temptation did present itself now and then.
The London-to-Paris flight was unusually empty that day; entire rows of seats across the aisle as well as those behind and in front were vacant. In fact, he virtually had this entire section of the plane to himself. A luxury he’d never encountered before on a commercial flight, but one that suited him fine, allowing him to spread out a little. His old brown leather jacket and military olive-green canvas knapsack occupied the seat next to him, along with the crumpled newspaper he’d been idly leafing through earlier before losing interest. Ben didn’t really care much for following world affairs. He was relaxed into the steady thrum of the plane, still watching the sky drift by and thinking about nothing much in particular when a fellow passenger who was strolling down the aisle from the rear of the plane stopped by Ben’s row, gestured at the unoccupied seat next to him and asked courteously, ‘Please, may I?’
Ben studied him for a moment. He had an excellent memory for faces, but he couldn’t remember having ever seen this man before. The stranger appeared to be in his mid-sixties, though it was hard to tell. He wasn’t tall, wasn’t short, wasn’t fat, wasn’t thin. His grey hair was receding from a high forehead, but was otherwise thick and somewhat unkempt. Sticking-out ears and a large, thread-veined nose with a prominent wart to one side. He wore glasses with a heavy black frame and thick lenses that magnified his eyes like a lemur’s. His suit was dark and his shoes were shiny. Generally respectable-looking and unthreatening in his manner. He seemed to have some particular reason for wanting to talk, though Ben had no idea what it could be.
Experience had taught Ben to be a careful person, sometimes to the point of being cagey and suspicious. But his natural tendency, especially at a moment like this when he was at ease, relatively carefree and fresh from three very pleasant days spent with someone he was extremely fond of, was to be open and friendly. Maybe the fellow had stopped to ask if he could borrow the newspaper. Maybe his watch had stopped and he wanted to know the right time. Maybe all kinds of things.
Ben hesitated a moment longer, then cleared his stuff from the seat, dumped it on the floor at his feet and replied, ‘Be my guest.’
The stranger plucked at his trouser legs the way dapper Englishmen do before sitting down, then settled in the empty seat and peered curiously at Ben through the thick glasses.
‘Enjoying your trip, Mr Hope?’ He spoke softly, but there was no misunderstanding his words.
And now Ben felt the familiar old sense of suspiciousness come flooding back, and he regretted his initial response. He had spent years travelling all over the world under a variety of fake identities, both during and after his time in British Special Forces. Nowadays he was just an ordinary citizen, or as ordinary as a man like him could ever be, and he seldom had cause to travel using any identity other than his own. But he still didn’t like being recognised like this. And whoever the well-dressed stranger was, he obviously hadn’t come to ask the time.
Ben replied tersely, ‘I’m sorry, I think you got the wrong person. I don’t know any Mr Hope.’
The stranger’s face crinkled into a polite smile. But there was a falseness to it, a coldness behind his eyes that made the curl of his lips seem unpleasantly knowing, almost mocking. ‘I do beg your pardon. What I should have said was “Enjoying your trip, Major Hope?” Because, you see, I do happen to know exactly who I’m speaking to. I might add that it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. By all accounts you’re really quite a remarkable fellow.’
Ben stared at the stranger for a very long time. He said, ‘There are plenty of other free seats on this plane. You might want to go and sit in one of those instead.’
The mock-polite smile again. ‘Don’t be coy, Major. A man with your record, which, by the way, makes fascinating reading, should be proud of his achievements. More than a dozen years serving your country in our most elite military force, responsible for countless successful missions in theatres of war all over the world, involving some quite outstanding displays of strategic brilliance and courage. I’m sure I needn’t run through a whole summary of your exemplary career, though.’