The Babylon Idol

Chapter 5

Dr Lacombe was a she, with a mop of streaky blond hair that would probably have reached down past her waist if it hadn’t been scraped back from her face and heaped and plaited into an elaborate French braid. She was probably around thirty-five but looked older, with shadows under her eyes as if she’d been up all night and was ready to drop from stress and exhaustion. Ben could picture how she must have looked just a minute earlier, in a surgical mask and apron and latex gloves, with even more of Jeff’s blood spattered on her than he had.

‘Sandrine Lacombe, head surgeon,’ she said, offering a hand, and Ben could tell from her tone that the news couldn’t be entirely bad. Relief flooded through him like warm honey pouring through his veins. He started breathing again.

The doctor’s grip was firm and dry. She had a clipped, efficient manner that Ben liked instantly as she started briefing him quickly on the situation.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it could have been a lot better. Jeff had lost a tremendous amount of blood, necessitating an emergency transfusion the moment he’d been brought in. Meanwhile the path of the bullet, narrowly missing his heart, had caused massive tissue damage and internal bleeding in the chest cavity and collapsed a lung. They’d almost lost him twice during the three-hour operation. Now moved to the intensive care unit, he seemed to have stabilised. Holding on, but still deep in the woods.

‘We’ve done all we can,’ Dr Lacombe sighed. ‘I managed to sew up and reinflate the ruptured lung. As for the rest of the damage, now only time will tell if he’s going to pull through.’

‘Thank you,’ was all Ben could reply.

Dr Lacombe puffed her cheeks and gave a little shrug as if to say, don’t thank me too soon. ‘The next twelve hours will be difficult,’ she warned. ‘There’s a high risk of complications. Frankly, given the extent of the trauma I would give him little more than a sixty per cent chance of surviving this. He wouldn’t have made it even this far, if someone hadn’t prevented him from bleeding to death at the scene.’ Her weary but sharp blue eyes flicked up and down, taking in Ben’s bloodied appearance. ‘I take it that someone was you, Monsieur—?’

‘Hope. Ben Hope.’

A flicker of surprise in her eyes, that she wasn’t speaking to a Frenchman. Ben spoke the language without any trace of accent. She went on, ‘It was also you who provided the patient’s blood group. Thank you for that. If we hadn’t known in time, there’s little chance he would still be with us now. It appears you have some medical training?’

‘British Special Forces, a long time ago. They teach you a few basics to keep your people going when they’ve been shot, burned or blown up.’

She nodded pensively. ‘I thought you looked militaire. Anyway, you’ve helped to save his life for the moment, and with any luck he may live to thank you for it. We’ll do everything we can from here. But please don’t get your hopes up.’

‘I appreciate your directness, Doctor. That’s exactly what I need.’

‘May I ask what is your relation to the patient?’

‘Friend and business partner.’

‘This business, it’s in Basse-Normandie?’

‘We’ve been based here for a number of years.’ Ben left out what she didn’t need to know: that he’d spent a good portion of that time flitting from place to place and getting himself into trouble all over the world, and could speak a variety of languages as well as French. Jeff was Mr Stay-at-Home by comparison.

‘I see. What about his family – has Monsieur Dekker any relatives?’

‘A mother who emigrated to Australia. And a fiancée a little closer, in Saint-Acaire. They’ve already both been notified. His mother’s got a long way to travel to the nearest big airport, but I’d imagine she’ll be on her way soon.’

‘It’ll be a while before I’ll allow him to have any visitors.’ Dr Lacombe paused. ‘What about you? You have a contact number?’

‘I’m not going anywhere. Any changes in his condition, I’ll be right here.’

‘Just in case,’ she said, handing him a card, ‘this is my personal cell number, if you need to talk. I don’t give this out to everyone, you understand?’

‘I appreciate your help, Doctor.’

She paused again, fixed him with those sharp eyes, as blue as topaz, and said, ‘You know I have to report this, don’t you? A gunshot wound of this kind—’

‘I understand,’ Ben said, ‘but the police already know all about it. Some of them were already there just after it happened. I’m afraid more of them will be landing on your hospital pretty soon, looking for me.’

She shook her head. ‘What did happen?’

‘He was shot.’

‘I can see that. I mean, what happened?’

‘We were cutting up a fallen tree. Talking about this and that. He’d just told me that he was getting married. It was a happy time. We had no idea that someone was watching us. Someone hidden, quite a distance away, with a rifle. Then they fired. One shot, one hit. You know the rest.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I,’ Ben said. ‘Not yet.’

‘Does your friend have, I don’t know, enemies?’

‘Looks that way,’ Ben said. ‘One with a rifle, and who knows how to use it. Sniper-style, probably set up on a bipod and fitted with a scope. Judging by the ballistics, the gun’s something around a thirty-calibre, like a .270 or a .308. Maybe fitted with a silencer too, which could explain why I heard nothing over the noise of the chainsaw. Those are the only clues I have so far, for what they’re worth.’

‘I don’t know anything about guns, except what they can do to people,’ Dr Lacombe said with a faraway look and a slight shiver, as if she was visualising a whole back-catalogue of horrors she’d personally witnessed in the course of her surgical career. ‘And I don’t like them.’

‘I don’t much like them either,’ Ben said. ‘Except when they’re used for good.’

‘How can a tool of violence and death be used for good?’

‘When it’s deployed against the person who spilled first blood,’ Ben said.

‘You’re talking about justice. That’s a job for the police.’

‘When they can find the guy. If they can find him.’

‘Are you saying you intend to find him?’

‘I’m saying I intend to make this right.’

She looked at him. ‘This is not a war, Monsieur Hope.’

‘Tell that to your patient,’ Ben said.

‘When he recovers,’ she said. ‘If he recovers.’

‘He’s tough as an old boot,’ Ben said. ‘He’s been hurt before and pulled through.’

‘As badly as this? Then I hope for your friend’s sake that he’s as fortunate this time.’

Ben felt suddenly weary and dizzy, as if all his energy had drained out through his feet. He glanced around him for something to lean on. ‘No,’ he admitted quietly. ‘Not as badly as this.’

‘You don’t look good,’ Sandrine Lacombe said, frowning at him. ‘I think we should take a look at you.’

‘I’m not hurt. None of this is my blood. I already told them that.’

‘I know a delayed shock reaction when I see one.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not. Trust me, I’m a doctor.’

Chapter 6

Despite his protests, Sandrine Lacombe dispatched a squad of nurses to attend to Ben while the doctor herself hurried back to the ICU to check on Jeff and see to the rest of her rounds. Ben was taken into an examination room where he did his best to fend off the nurses’ attentions, but gave in when he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and didn’t recognise the wild man looking back at him: the figure of an escaped desperado who had taken refuge in a slaughterhouse. ‘You can’t go around the hospital looking like that,’ said the head nurse. ‘You’ll frighten the patients.’

Once they’d exchanged his bloody rags for a hospital gown and confirmed what he already knew, that none of the blood was his, they started insisting on treating him for shock. Ben drew the line at sedatives. He needed to keep his wits about him. But a hot shower seemed like a good idea, and he gladly followed the head nurse down the corridor to get himself cleaned up.

He stood under the splashing hot water for fifteen long minutes, trying to wash away the tension that locked up his neck and shoulder muscles. Looking down at his feet, he saw the cloudy rust-coloured swirl of Jeff’s blood running off him and circling the drain. He still felt strangely numb. It all seemed somehow surreal, as if he were watching himself from the outside; as if these events were just an awful dream from which he half expected to awake at any second. One instant Jeff had been there at his side, his usual self, cheerful and focused and content with the future; the next there was an empty, desolate space where Jeff used to be. Good old solid Jeff, who was always there when you needed him, whose spirits were so hard to dampen, who had saved Ben’s skin on more than a couple of occasions. Someone like that couldn’t just disappear from your life and not be there any more.

No, it didn’t seem real. But reality would bite soon enough, all right, if Sandrine Lacombe returned to break the news that the patient had slipped away despite all their efforts. Ben had lost enough people close to him to know exactly how he would feel then.

One step at a time, he decided. There was no other way to deal with this.

After his shower Ben towelled himself and put on the clothes that the nurse had left folded on a chair for him. His own, except for his leather jacket, were probably already in the hospital incinerator. What they’d brought him would have fitted a man two inches shorter and forty pounds heavier, but at least he wouldn’t have to meet the cops dressed like an in-patient.

Just as he’d expected, there were six plain-clothes officers waiting for him in the corridor when he emerged from the bathroom. During his years as a kidnap rescue specialist and since, Ben had dealt with a lot of police officers in a lot of countries. A few notable exceptions apart, he’d never been able to form much of an affinity with them. But in this situation, he promised himself, he would try to keep it civil.

It proved to be a hard promise to keep. Even as he walked towards them along the corridor and saw them all turn to stare at him, Ben’s eye had picked out the most officious-looking one and decided he must be in charge. He was right. Inspector Sébastien Tarrare couldn’t have been more puffed-up if he’d been personally appointed by the president as commander-in-chief of French national security.

They waved him into the same small waiting area whose walls Ben had already spent three hours studying. The shortest and fattest of the cops, with a bristly neck and protruding teeth, helped himself to a Coke from the vending machine. Ben gave him a hard look. Tarrare invited Ben to sit. Ben preferred to stand. They’d barely exchanged ten words yet, and already it wasn’t going too well. All six cops looked on edge, shooting him cagey looks as though he was some kind of terror suspect himself. It was a good thing his name was Ben Hope and not Bin Hossain, he thought, or Tarrare and his little posse would have cordoned off a security zone several blocks around the hospital and called in tanks and artillery support by now.

Inspector Tarrare briefly introduced his five colleagues, whose names Ben dismissed from his memory the instant he heard them, and then went on to offer a few insincere-sounding condolences for what had happened.

‘He’s not dead yet,’ Ben said.

‘But I am given to understand he is mortally wounded,’ Tarrare replied, arching an eyebrow.

Ben definitely didn’t like him now.

‘In any case we are obliged to treat this as a matter of the utmost priority. Especially under the circumstances, considering the nature of the target.’

Now it was Ben’s turn to arch an eyebrow. ‘The target?’

‘A terrorist’s dream. Your place of business has more military hardware all stockpiled in a single place than any French Army base.’

Ben said, ‘If that’s true, then the government had better step up its defence spending. We have a small armoury, kept highly secure and subject to regular inspections, every item in it registered and licensed down to the last round of ammunition, with a stack of official paperwork to prove it. Which I know you already know, Inspector, so let’s cut the bullshit. Besides, as far as anyone can prove at this point the target was a man, not a place of business. My friend was shot. I didn’t see a terrorist raiding party storming the compound to blow open the armoury for its contents. Nor did any of the witnesses to the immediate aftermath of the shooting, including several officers of your very own SDAT.’ So put that in your pipe and smoke it, he wanted to add, but didn’t.

‘All the same,’ Tarrare said without missing a beat, ‘this is an extremely serious situation.’

‘No argument there,’ Ben told him. ‘You have an attempted murder to solve and a guy running loose with a rifle. Maybe that should be your priority.’

‘And maybe you should read the papers,’ said the porcine cop with the can of Coke, tipping it towards Ben as he spoke. ‘France is under attack from radical extremists. Any day now, another major incident is expected to happen anywhere in the country. But you don’t seem to think this incident is connected with the current national state of emergency?’

‘By radical extremists, I take it you mean Islamic ones?’

Tarrare pulled a face and grunted, ‘Who else?’

‘Just making that clear,’ Ben said. ‘I mean, for all we know it could have been anyone from the National Liberation Front of Corsica, to the Basque separatists, to the Unité Radicale bunch who tried to shoot your president a few years back. Or maybe those Action Directe guys or the Red Army Brigade are back in business and looking to procure some weaponry for a new wave of terror attacks that will shake things up like nothing Europe has ever seen before. Basically, it could be anyone at all. I’d say you boys have your work cut out for you, for sure.’

Nobody replied. The cops all glared at him.

Ben pointed up at the big clock on the waiting-room wall, which read 2.15 p.m. ‘But you must be hungry, missing lunch over this stuff. Why don’t you do what you do best, head down to the nearest bistro for a nice meal and a bottle of wine and spend an hour or two working out how to become the heroes who saved the republic? Then maybe you’d like to call Commander Roman Vidal and ask him if they’ve found a single scrap of evidence down there at Le Val linking the shooting with the activities of any known or suspected terror group of any kind.’

The cop with the can pulled a nasty sneer. ‘If it wasn’t terrorists, then what? Maybe a hunter let off a stray shot? Thought your friend was a wild boar?’

Ben stared at him coldly and wondered how fast the guy’s smirk would disappear with that Coke can rammed down his throat. ‘Wild boar hunters shoot in groups, with spotters and beaters. They don’t snipe at their quarry from extreme ranges, with no safety backstop except someone’s wire fence. They don’t use silencers and they don’t generally confuse a human with a large hairy pig. Though,’ he added, giving the cop a deliberate up-and-down look, ‘in some cases I can see how that misunderstanding might arise.’

The cop’s eyes narrowed and he flushed scarlet. ‘Then who did this? Enlighten us, as you’re obviously so knowledgeable.’

‘That’s a very good question,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t know who did this, any more than you do. But then, I’m not the police, am I? I’m just a visitor to this hospital, waiting to find out if my friend in there is going to live or die, and having to waste my time answering pointless questions while you guys should be out there searching for the answers. So how about you leave me alone now?’

When the disgruntled cops eventually did leave, Ben called Tuesday again to update him on Jeff’s condition. Moments after he’d put his phone away, Ben heard footsteps and turned to see Dr Lacombe approaching. The look on her face made his heart jerk to a stop for a moment. Even before she opened her mouth to speak, he knew she’d come to deliver bad news.

‘There’s been a complication,’ she said gravely.

‘What kind of complication?’

She sighed. ‘I’m very sorry. I was afraid something like this would happen.’

‘Talk to me. Tell me he’s alive.’

‘He’s alive. But—’ She went into a rapid stream of medical terminology like post-traumatic pulmonary thromboembolism and right ventricular failure and circulatory failure and mechanical ventilation, until Ben stopped her.

‘I don’t understand. What happened?’

‘He had a blood clot in the lung. It caused a severe stroke and he’s no longer able to breathe on his own. We gave him a massive dose of barbiturates to induce deep unconsciousness, so the machine could breathe for him. I have no idea how long we might have to keep him under. Worst case, perhaps indefinitely.’

Ben could only repeat her words dully, as if he’d become stupid. His brain couldn’t compute what she was telling him. ‘Are you saying—?’

‘I’m afraid so, yes. He’s in a coma.’

Chapter 7

‘There’s nothing you can do here,’ she told him. ‘You might as well go home and rest. You look like you need it.’

‘Maybe I’m not the only one,’ Ben said. Sandrine Lacombe looked every bit as wrecked as he felt.

She shrugged. ‘I’ll stay with him as long as I can. I might go home myself for a couple of hours’ sleep, but I’ll have my colleague Dr Sauveterre call me if there’s any change in his condition. I live nearby, so, any developments, I can come straight over.’

Ben was touched by her determination to do whatever she could for Jeff. ‘I’ll go,’ he agreed. ‘There are some matters I need to attend to back at the house. But before I do, can I see him?’

Dr Lacombe frowned and seemed about to say no, then relented. ‘Just for a minute, okay?’

She was about to lead the way when a movement outside caught Ben’s eye and he looked out of the window to see a black Peugeot taxicab come speeding into the hospital car park. It pulled up close to the entrance and a pretty brunette in a tweedy winter coat clambered out, her face red and streaked with tears.

Sandrine Lacombe noticed Ben’s expression. ‘The fiancée?’

He nodded. Chantal Mercier had arrived.

Moments later there was commotion in the reception area. Ben grimly went to meet her, but didn’t have a lot of talking to do as the doctor took charge of the emotional scene and broke the news of the latest negative developments with a level of calm, sympathetic but firm professional control that a lot of top-rank military commanders would have envied.

Chantal sniffed, wiping her eyes. ‘Where is he?’ Her voice was hoarse from crying.

‘You can see him,’ Sandrine Lacombe said gently with a glance at Ben. ‘But only for two minutes.’

Chantal barely looked at Ben as the doctor led them down a series of corridors to the ICU. Jeff had been moved into a room behind a glass partition. His bed was surrounded by so much equipment that he was barely visible. A coloured monitor on a stand showed his heartbeat, slow and steady. More screens and racks of beeping electronics were flashing up streams of data that were meaningless to Ben. A drip bag dangled above his friend. Lying there completely still in the middle of it all, Jeff looked shrunken and frail under the sheet, as if all the vital force had been sucked out of him. The respirator tube was attached to a mask over his mouth and nose. Dozens of smaller pipes and hoses hung off him like snakes. His eyes were shut. He was barely recognisable.

Chantal let out a stifled cry when she saw him, raced to the bedside and clasped Jeff’s hand in both of hers, her face contorted and streaming with tears all over again. ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ she kept murmuring. ‘He feels so cold.’

‘That’s normal,’ Sandrine Lacombe said, but Ben could see the sharp worry lines etched into her face.

Chantal pulled herself as close to Jeff as all the tubes and wires would let her. ‘Mon pauvre amour, est-ce que tu m’entends? Réponds-moi.’

‘He can’t hear you,’ Sandrine Lacombe said softly. ‘He’s far away.’

Chantal looked up, eyes swimming and full of terror. ‘How long will he be like this?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘What does that mean? Are you trying to tell me he could be like this for ever?’

‘I can’t say,’ the doctor repeated, tight-lipped.

‘If he wakes up, will he be … like before?’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t say that either.’

An angry flush of colour came back into Chantal’s cheeks. ‘You’re supposed to be a doctor. How can you not know these things? I want a second opinion. I insist on—’

Ben couldn’t stand it any longer. He stepped around the foot of the bed, gently took Chantal’s arm and said, ‘Dr Lacombe is doing all she can. Let me drive you home. We can come back when it’s okay to visit.’

But Chantal jerked her arm away and shook her head furiously. ‘I want to stay with him.’

‘That’s not an option,’ Sandrine Lacombe said, gentle but firm. Chantal opened her mouth to protest, but all that came out was sobbing.

It was a long and sombre drive back. The cold rain was lashing down, and all that remained of the earlier snow was the dirty roadside slush. Chantal sat with her head bowed and her face in her hands all the way, not speaking. Ben didn’t know what to say to her. He was having a hard time dealing with his own emotions, and in the end he fell into silence too.

The short winter day was darkening by the time they reached Saint-Acaire. When the Alpina pulled up outside her little terraced house on the edge of the village, Chantal got out and ran to her door and disappeared inside without a word. The door slammed.

Ben sat for a moment, lit a Gauloise and then drove on.

When, a few minutes later, he turned off the road onto the innocuous farm track that led to Le Val’s entrance, he found its floodlit security gates partially blocked by a TV crew van and alive with a throng of reporters armed with cameras and microphones and clamouring for details about the shooting. A cop car was in attendance nearby but the gendarmes seemed content just to smoke and watch from a distance as Serge and Adrien, from inside the locked gates, were kept busy holding the noisy crowd at bay, repeating ‘No comment, no comment’ to a thousand insistent questions fired at them like bullets.

Ben slipped the BMW through the chaos, as thankful for the tinted glass shielding him from flashing cameras as he was for the tall fence and barbed wire keeping the zombie horde from invading the private sanctuary inside.

Once he’d made it through the gates and down the track to the heart of the compound, Le Val had never seemed to him so empty and desolate. The fleet of police vehicles had all gone. Jeff’s Ford Ranger was still where Ben had left it. Parked behind the pickup was the old Land Rover, and behind that was a little Renault Clio hatchback he didn’t recognise, but he was too tired and upset to think about it.