‘Because I don’t like it,’ Ben said. ‘I left that whole world behind me a long time ago.’ And now it was catching up with him again, like a trailing shadow that he couldn’t shake off.
‘As you wish.’ Saunders pointed again at the tablet phone. ‘You’ve been supplied with a number to call to notify us once the mission is complete, as well as a secure email address to which you’re required to send photographic evidence of the neutralised target, and its location. Needless to say, one of my operatives will be sent to the scene to ascertain personally that the job has been carried out to our satisfaction. Afterwards, you will be free to return to your life, and neither you nor Miss Kirk will hear from us again. You have my word on that, too.’
‘You’re a man of real integrity, Saunders.’
‘Well, I think that more or less concludes this little chat. You and I will not meet again, but it’s been a pleasure talking to you.’
Saunders went to get up, then paused. ‘Oh, just one thing. Before I go, I should point out that there are several of my agents on this aircraft, so I suggest you stay in your seat for the remainder of the flight and don’t make a fuss, or come looking for me or anything silly like that. There will be no reminder regarding Miss Kirk’s situation. Be sensible, do your job, and you needn’t have a thing to worry about.’
Then Saunders stood and walked off down the aisle the way he’d come, and Ben was alone again.
Chapter 4
For what it was worth, the rest of Ben’s journey home went smoothly. He made his connection in Paris, got to Cherbourg exactly on time and sped back to Le Val in his BMW Alpina. The night was warm and still, and the stars were shining bright. Storm, Ben’s favourite of the various canine residents of Le Val, was there to greet him when he got out of the car, wagging his tail and full of happiness at his master’s return. Ben bent down to give the big hairy German shepherd a hug, had his face liberally washed by a sloppy great tongue and then climbed the steps to the front door of the farmhouse.
Home sweet home. Warm, welcoming light spilled from the windows of the farmhouse kitchen into the yard. Ben could see his friends Jeff and Tuesday having dinner in their usual places at the old oak table. The kitchen was the hub of the house, the common room and command centre where the core members of the Le Val team spent most evenings drinking, smoking, relaxing and sharing a laugh after a long day’s work teaching good guys with guns how to better protect and serve the innocent citizens who depended on them. A delegation of cops from the BRI-BRAC anti-terror brigade in Paris had just finished up a two-day Hostage Rescue Team refresher course in which Jeff had put them through their paces in Le Val’s killing house, where the live-fire combat exercises were fast and furious, bad-guy targets lurked behind every doorway and the simulation of a real-life HRT raid was made to be as realistic as possible.
In short, life at the compound was just the same as ever. Stepping back into that comforting, familiar environment, Ben might almost have believed that the episode on board the plane earlier that day had been nothing more than some weird dream that he could just shrug off, forget and move on from.
But it hadn’t been a dream. Ben’s predicament was as real as the threat hanging over Grace Kirk, and he could no more afford to ignore it than he could disregard Saunders’ rules. The first of which was tell no one. And that, Ben knew, was going to be his first tough challenge.
As he stepped inside the house and put his head around the kitchen door he was met with the sound of laughter and the aroma of the big pot of beef stew that sat on the range.
‘Dead on time. Welcome home, lover boy,’ was Jeff’s boisterous greeting. The wine had been flowing that evening, judging by the empty bottles on the dinner table and the flush in Jeff’s cheeks. Jeff was in a happier mood these days, after going through the grinder following the collapse of his relationship with a French woman called Chantal. Some months earlier he’d celebrated his rediscovered bachelor status by throwing himself into learning to fly. Since getting his pilot’s licence just weeks ago, he’d spent a chunk of his hard-earned cash on a 1967 Cessna 172 Skyhawk and could talk of little else. A stack of light aircraft magazines, service manuals and pilot licensing literature lay heaped on the sideboard.
‘How was your trip?’ Tuesday asked, grinning his dazzling trademark grin that could light up all but the darkest of spaces. Jeff grabbed a third glass from the cupboard, set it down for Ben in his usual place at the head of the table, and swilled wine into it. ‘Come and have a drink, mate. Plenty of stew left in the pot, too.’
‘I’m not hungry. Think I’ll go and take a shower.’
Jeff peered at him. ‘You all right?’ For Ben to turn down a drink was a rare event; besides which, there wasn’t much you could hide from Jeff Dekker. He liked to laugh and mess around, but beneath the laddish façade was a highly astute and perspicacious mind. You didn’t get to spend over ten years in the Special Boat Service, half of them in command of your own troop, unless you were a pretty smart and capable guy.
‘I’m fine,’ Ben said, with not much conviction.
‘Sure about that?’
‘I’m fine,’ Ben repeated. Leaving them to it, he headed upstairs to dump his bag in his room. His quarters were small and simple, with a single bed, a plain wardrobe, a mirror on the wall and very little else in the way of decor. The only luxury was his ensuite bathroom. He quickly stripped off his things and hit the shower. Sixty seconds exactly, ice cold, grimly relishing the shock of the frigid water that jolted his system and helped to keep his mind sharp and clear. He towelled himself vigorously, returned to his room with a towel around his waist, changed into fresh clothing and set about repacking his bag for another trip. Where that would lead him, he still had no idea – but from the information that Saunders had supplied him he knew that his starting point would be London. And he could afford to waste no time getting there.
After he’d finished repacking his travel items, he unlocked the small security safe bolted to the wall by his bedside. The contents of the safe were the reason he’d come home, rather than heading straight back to London the instant he’d touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport. Inside were two handguns with multiple loaded magazines, two burner phones, ten thousand euros in cash, and a manila envelope containing three fake passports.
It was primarily the passports that Ben was interested in. He spilled them out of the envelope. They were the work of one Thierry Chevrolet, a master forger whose expertise Ben had enlisted back during his wild, dangerous days of hustling around Europe chasing down kidnappers and rescuing the victims they’d taken for ransom. For several years he’d kept them in a bank deposit box in Paris, the city that had served as his main European base of operations. Since getting out of that game and reverting back – at any rate, trying to revert back – to being a normal citizen, he’d no longer had any use for the deposit box and brought everything across to Le Val. There they’d stayed, locked up, unneeded and mostly forgotten.
Until now. Saunders might have got him by the balls, and there might be no option other than comply with the man’s threat, but Ben was damned if he was going to let these bastards pry into his life for another minute or shadow his movements another mile. The fake passports were in the names of three fictitious individuals named Harris, Connors and Palmer. They were equally well-used and covered with visa stamps that read like a scrapbook of Ben’s adventures all over the world. The Palmer passport had expired but the other two still had some life left. Ben decided that he would travel as Paul Harris, with the Connors identity as a fall back. He tossed his real passport and the Palmer one onto the bed and stuffed the two fakes into his bag.