The Nemesis Program
‘You pull that trigger, you die,’ he said.
The man’s grizzled features broke into a grin. ‘Better say a prayer.’
His grin evaporated into a look of surprise as Roberta gave a sudden heave that ripped her free of his grasp. With practised speed she raked the heel of her shoe down his shin and onto his foot in a hard stamping kick and simultaneously twisted his gun arm away from her in a painful lock that made him cry out.
The gun went off. The bullet went wide of her body and ricocheted with a howl off the wall behind the scaffold. As Roberta was about to knee him in the groin, still grasping his gun-arm, he head-butted her savagely and she sprawled down to the planking, almost falling through the gap below the safety barrier. With bared teeth the man thrust the gun down at her to shoot point-blank into her face.
But by then Ben had raced along the scaffolding and was on him. He drove the man’s arm violently against the safety barrier, knocking the gun out of his hand. Before it had splashed into the wet concrete thirty feet below, Ben delivered a vicious elbow strike to the man’s throat, then another. The man reeled, but he was tough, and within seconds the two of them were grappling violently against the railing. Roberta was trying to scramble to her feet, but the blow to her face had dazed her.
A powerful fist caught Ben in the ribs. A flash of pain ripped through him, then the greying stubble of the man’s crown was coming hard and fast at his face.
Ben dodged the head-butt and used its momentum to steer the guy’s skull full-force into a scaffold pole with a resonant clang and an impact that made the whole structure judder under their feet. Ben grabbed the man’s beefy head by both ears and smashed it off the pipe again, leaving a smear of blood on the metal, then with all his strength piled a knee into the muscular paunch of his stomach.
The man staggered backwards into the safety railing. The wire mesh buckled. A joint gave way and a whole section of the barrier swung loose from the scaffolding. Ben punched him in the mouth and felt teeth cut into his knuckles.
Streaming blood, arms flailing for balance, the man wobbled on the edge of the planks for an instant and then fell backwards with a cry. But as he went, his grasping hands gripped hold of both of Ben’s sleeves.
Ben felt himself being pulled over the edge. The wet concrete seemed to rush up towards him. Then a violent jarring pain all the way up his right arm to his shoulder as his fist closed on a scaffold pipe, arresting his fall. His legs kicked in empty space as he dangled precariously from one hand, reaching desperately with the other for a grip on something solid. He heard Roberta scream out his name.
The squat man turned a somersault and belly-flopped into the wet concrete. The smooth, gleaming surface erupted in a sludgy grey explosion. For a moment he lay there, stirring weakly as if on a soft bed; then the glutinous morass began to draw him down, legs first. He began screaming and thrashing in panic, reaching for the edge but finding nothing to hold onto as he quickly sank. The concrete sucked at his chest, then at his chin. Then his upturned face disappeared under the surface and his scream died as his mouth filled with concrete. The last thing to go down was the agonised claw of his hand.
‘Ben!’ Roberta screamed again. She scrabbled to the edge of the planking and looked down in horror. Seeing him dangling there by one arm, she reached hers out for him to grab, but it was too far to reach. ‘Ben!’
For an instant, Ben thought his grip on the slippery steel pipe was going to fail. His fingers were at breaking point. He dug deep into his last reserves of strength and groped wildly around with his other hand.
Suddenly he had a grip on a hanging section of the safety railing. With a grunt of pain and effort he hauled himself higher until he was able to kick a leg up to the scaffold and hook a knee over the edge of the planking. Roberta seized his arm and helped him, dragging him away from the edge. They were both breathing hard.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, sitting up. Her left cheek and jaw were inflamed from where the man had butted her, and his gun muzzle had left an angry red circle on her neck.
‘Sure,’ she said, gingerly touching her face and inspecting her fingertips for blood. ‘It’s just like old times.’
‘Don’t joke about it. Whoever you’ve managed to piss off this time, they’re not kidding around.’
‘That’s what I have you for,’ she said with a bitter smile. ‘Reverend.’
Ben ignored the jibe and got to his feet. His left leg was stiffening up from the bullet impact and there was a lancing pain in his right side from the punch he’d taken in the ribs.
‘Don’t think we’ll be seeing him again,’ Roberta muttered, peering down over the edge. There was no trace of sympathy in her eyes as she watched the surface of the wet concrete smooth itself out, with hardly a ripple left to show for the man’s body under it.
‘Not for a few centuries,’ Ben said. ‘But maybe his friend can tell us what the hell’s going on here.’
Chapter Nine
Ben and Roberta made their way down from the scaffold. The gun he’d tipped over the edge was scuffed from its impact against the ground, but weapons of war could take the odd knock or two. He dusted it off and kept it ready, just in case, as they headed back towards the building where they’d left the younger man lying unconscious.
When they reached the spot, Ben saw with a sinking heart that the worry that had been growing inside him was proved right: the house was empty. All that remained of the gunman was a thin trail of blood where he’d picked himself up and managed to escape. Where he was now was anybody’s guess.
‘It’s my fault he got away,’ Ben muttered in self-reproach as they left the construction site behind and hurried back across the field towards the park. ‘I didn’t hit him hard enough.’
‘Hey, any harder, you’d have killed him,’ Roberta said, then added glumly, ‘Either way, we’d still be back to square one. So what happens next?’
‘You got what you came for,’ Ben said. ‘Me. And I want to know more about all this physics research stuff.’
‘I told you just about all I know.’
‘Then we’ll have to figure it out the hard way,’ he said. ‘Bit by bit, one piece at a time. How’s the ankle?’
‘Hardly hurts anymore.’
‘Good, because we’ve got some travelling to do.’
Reaching the edge of the park, they climbed back over the wall, passed the bullet-riddled bench and walked along the footpath towards the car park. Ben had the MX4 wrapped up in an old cement bag he’d picked up from the building site. The last thing he needed now was ‘MACHINE GUN PHONEY VICAR IN POLICE CHASE’. He already had more to deal with than he even wanted to contemplate.
As they approached the car park, Ben saw the black Audi S6 performance saloon sitting empty next to Roberta’s rental Vauxhall. He reached in his trouser pocket and, gingerly against his bruised thigh, drew out the Audi ignition key he’d taken from the shooter he’d knocked out. He pressed the key’s remote button and wasn’t surprised when its central locking system clunked open with a bleep and a flash of indicators. The gunmen were as well equipped for travel as for killing.
‘Better get your stuff out of there,’ he said, pointing at the back window of the rental, to where Roberta’s small travel bag was sitting on the rear seat. ‘We have to ditch your Vauxhall.’
She frowned. ‘You figure that’s how they tracked me all the way out here?’
‘Did you stop for fuel on the way? Pay by credit card?’ he asked her.
‘I was running on fumes by the time I reached Oxfordshire. Had to stop at the filling station just before the village. Didn’t have any UK currency on me. How was I supposed to know they could follow my movements?’
Ben didn’t reply. The implications were as deeply worrying as they were far-reaching. They were sinking in for Roberta too. ‘What you’re saying, it’d mean—’
He nodded, and finished the sentence for her. ‘That whoever these new friends of yours are, they’re considerably more organised and deeper inside the system than the charming bunch who were trying to kill you before. You certainly pick them.’
‘I didn’t pick anyone. I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘Someone seems to think otherwise.’
‘But who? Who?’
‘They,’ he said. ‘You said it yourself, they don’t want anyone to know who they are. All I know is, this is going to make last time look like a cakewalk.’
‘You always did have that reassuring way about you,’ she muttered as she unlocked the Vauxhall to get her travel bag.
‘Leave the key in it,’ he told her.
Reluctantly, she tossed the key on the front seat and slammed the door. ‘The rental company will totally blacklist me, not that it matters right now.’
‘Join the club,’ Ben said. He’d long ago stopped keeping count of the number of hire cars that had been crashed, burned or shot to pieces while in his charge. Theologians shouldn’t have these problems. ‘Now, give me your phone, please.’
‘My phone?’ she said guardedly. ‘What do you want it for?’
‘Just give it here,’ he said, holding out a hand. She hesitated, then slipped a BlackBerry out of her pocket and passed it over. Without a word, he dropped it on the concrete at his feet, dashed it to pieces with the heel of his shoe and kicked the plastic fragments into the bushes.
‘You sonofabitch, that’s the second time you’ve done that to me. Now I’ve got no phone!’
‘And now there’s one way fewer of tracking your movements,’ he said.
‘Bullshit. Nobody can track a cellphone without an official warrant.’
‘Ho, ho. You say I’m talking bullshit?’ He walked up to the Audi and yanked open the driver’s door. He wasn’t expecting to find any clues inside the vehicle as to the gunmen’s identities or who they worked for, but the car itself would do to get out of here before whoever they were sent in reinforcements to finish the job. He tossed the wrapped-up gun on the back seat. ‘Let’s move.’
It was almost two o’clock when Ben turned the powerful car in through the vicarage gates and rasped to a halt on the gravel. Roberta had gone very quiet. ‘You all right?’ he said, laying a hand on her arm. Her muscles felt hard and tense. She gave a quick nod. Pointed at the dusty Suzuki four-wheel drive that was parked in front of the vicarage. ‘Someone’s here.’
Ben had already noticed it. The Grand Vitara’s rear hatch was open a foot and tied down with a strap. A huge rolled-up Persian rug was protruding a yard from the gap.
Brooke’s car. Normally the sight of it, and the anticipation of seeing her again, would have made him break into a smile. Now it was different. Now he had to try to figure out what he was going to say to her, and it wasn’t going to be easy for either of them. He swallowed, gripped the steering wheel for a moment, then murmured ‘Fuck it’ and swung open the Audi’s driver’s door.
‘You want me to stay out?’ Roberta asked, seeing the troubled look on his face.
‘I’m not leaving you on your own.’
They crossed the yard to the front door and Ben let them inside. The sound of intense jazz fusion and cheerful conversation were wafting down the hallway from the half-open kitchen doorway, together with the smell of fresh coffee. The track playing was ‘Miles Runs the Voodoo Down’, Jude’s favourite from the Bitches Brew album Ben had introduced him to. The voices were Jude’s and Brooke’s. Ben couldn’t make out what they were talking about.
‘I’ll hang back here,’ Roberta whispered in the hallway, nudging him.
Ben took a deep breath, walked to the kitchen door and stepped silently through it. Neither of the room’s occupants sensed him come in.
Brooke was standing with her back to the door and her auburn hair lit up by the sunshine from the window. She was wearing faded jeans and a light cotton top and holding a mug of coffee in her hand.
‘I didn’t have the heart to tell Amal that a rug that size is never going to fit in the house in Jericho,’ she was saying. ‘It’s large enough for a palace. So sweet of him to get it for us, though.’
‘Those things cost a bomb,’ Jude said. ‘I thought Amal was this struggling writer whose plays nobody wants to see.’
‘He is,’ Brooke laughed. ‘Where all the money comes from is anyone’s—’
She broke off mid-sentence as Ben walked further into the room, and turned towards him with a beaming smile.
‘Ben! I was just telling Jude about the amazing rug that Amal’s bought for us …’ She suddenly interrupted herself. ‘Why are you dressed like that?’
Ben walked over to the CD player on the kitchen surface and turned off the music, plunging the room into sudden silence. ‘Brooke,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’
She set her mug down on the table and took a step towards him, alarmed by the gravity of his expression. ‘What? Ben – what’s up? You’re scaring me.’
‘Things may have to be put off for a while,’ he told her.
‘Things?’ She groaned. ‘Oh, no. Don’t tell me there’s a problem with your course.’
‘I’m not talking about the course,’ he said.
‘Then what?’ Her eyes suddenly widened. ‘The wedding rehearsal? The booking’s fallen through?’
‘Nothing’s fallen through,’ Ben said. ‘But we have to call it off. And …’
‘What?!’ Jude exploded.
Brooke looked as if she’d been punched. ‘And?’ was all she could blurt out.
Ben said nothing. Hoped that the look in his eyes would tell her what he couldn’t bring himself to come out with.
Her face paled. ‘Surely you don’t mean … you don’t mean the wedding too?’ she said in a low, trembling voice. ‘Call off the wedding?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said. ‘I have to leave. I can’t say when I’ll be back.’
‘What are you on about?’ Jude burst out. ‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘Back from where?’ Brooke asked. She sounded stunned, breathless.
‘I don’t know yet, not exactly,’ he said. ‘I just know I can’t stay here.’
‘But why?’ she pleaded.
Jude had stepped closer to stand at Brooke’s elbow, staring at Ben in dismay with his arms folded.
‘Jude, would you excuse us for a moment?’ Ben said.
‘Excuse you?’ Jude answered.
‘I’d like to be alone with her,’ Ben said. ‘So get out.’
Brooke held up a hand. ‘No. I want Jude to hear this too.’
‘Fuck, yeah,’ Jude said. ‘I’m staying right here. This is my house, remember.’
‘Fine,’ Ben said, trying to stay calm. ‘Let’s all talk.’
‘What’s this about, Ben?’ Brooke asked coldly.
‘I don’t even know what it’s about,’ Ben said. ‘All I know is that something’s cropped up and I have to leave right away. There’s no choice.’
Brooke had her hands on her hips and her face was flushed. ‘No choice!’ she yelled. ‘Ben! Have you gone mad? You made a choice! You chose to marry me – now you’re saying you want to run off again without a word of explanation? What am I going to say to everyone? “Oh, Ben just decided to go off for a few days?”.’
Ben was about to answer when he heard a light, hesitant tap on the kitchen door behind him.
‘Who else is here?’ Brooke said, looking past his shoulder with a frown. Her face went dark as Roberta walked into the kitchen. ‘Ah. Now I think I know what “cropped up”,’ she seethed at Ben, pointing at Roberta. ‘Her. Am I right?’
‘You must be Brooke,’ Roberta said, approaching her with an uncertain smile. ‘I’m Roberta Ryder. Listen, I don’t want to be the cause of any dispute between—’
‘I know who you are,’ Brooke interrupted. ‘Ben doesn’t like to talk about you. Now I’m wondering why.’
‘Roberta needs my help,’ Ben said.
‘And where the hell did she come from all of a sudden?’ Brooke demanded.’
‘Canada,’ Roberta said. ‘By way of Paris. I—’
Brooke rounded on her. ‘Do you mind shutting up for a moment while I speak to my fiancé?’ Then, turning back to face Ben: ‘And so you’re just walking out on me?’
‘It’s not as if I want to.’
‘But you’re going to all the same.’
‘Ben,’ Roberta said, touching his shoulder. ‘It’s okay. I understand. You don’t have to do this.’
‘I’m involved now,’ Ben said, keeping his eyes on Brooke. ‘I can’t just back out.’
Jude was shaking his head in consternation, staring at Ben as if to say ‘what is the matter with you?’.
‘Maybe I was dreaming,’ Brooke said, tight-lipped, ‘Or maybe I was delirious from fever. But I remember very clearly how, that day in the middle of the jungle when you asked me to marry you, you swore to me that there’d be no more of this running off on these insane adventures and scaring the shit out of me all the time, not knowing if you’re going to come back in one piece.’ Her tone began to rise. ‘Didn’t you make that promise to me, Ben? All about how you were going to change your ways? Telling me all you wanted was to be at home with me?’
‘You didn’t dream it,’ he replied. ‘You weren’t delirious either. I did say those things. And I meant every word.’
‘You mean you meant them then. But you don’t mean them now.’
‘Try to understand,’ he reasoned. ‘Roberta’s in danger. Look at me. Look at her. She needs my help.’
‘Well, I’m sorry if Roberta’s in trouble,’ Brooke burst out. ‘We all have our problems. Why does this have to become mine? Why does it have to be you? Is there no other man in the world who can help her?’ She turned furiously to Roberta. ‘What are you doing, you stupid bloody bitch?’ she yelled in a voice close to breaking. ‘Why can’t you stay out of our lives?’
Roberta looked down at the floor and didn’t reply.
‘It’s not her fault,’ Ben said. ‘She’s got mixed up in this thing, and now I’m mixed up in it too. Brooke, please listen to me.’ He looked to Jude for support. ‘Come on, back me up here. Talk to her.’
Jude scowled at him. ‘Hey, Dad, it’s your problem.’
Chapter Ten
There was a long, palpable silence in the room. Brooke and Roberta both stared at Jude, then at Ben.
‘Oh, shit,’ Jude murmured, turning a few shades paler as he realised what he’d let slip.
‘What – did – you – just – say?’ Brooke asked him slowly.
‘Nothing,’ Jude stammered.
Ben’s blood had frozen into ice crystals. He’d forgotten to breathe.
‘Yes, you did, Jude,’ Brooke insisted. ‘You said “Dad”.’
Jude looked as if he wanted to run to the window and jump out. ‘It’s just, you know. A figure of speech. Like “daddyo”. The way he’s dressed. Er, or something.’ At that point Jude decided to clamp his mouth shut.
Brooke turned to Ben. ‘Why did he call you that? Why?’
The ice in Ben’s veins turned into molten lava and he felt his face flush. He took a deep breath and said, ‘He’s my son, Brooke.’
‘I thought there was something,’ Roberta murmured, glancing wryly back and forth at the two men.
Brooke seemed to sag as if the air had been sucked out of her. She moved across to a stool by the breakfast bar and sat down heavily on it. She couldn’t speak.
‘Sorry, guys. It just slipped out,’ Jude mumbled. ‘We only found out about it at Christmas,’ he added for Brooke’s benefit, as if that would help.
It took a few moments before Brooke had got her breath back. ‘Would you mind leaving us alone now, please?’ she said softly, looking up at Roberta. ‘Jude? Ben and I need to talk alone.’
‘That’s what I wanted in the first place,’ Ben muttered, shooting an angry look at Jude. Ashen-faced, the young man left the room without a word. Roberta glanced nervously at Ben, then followed Jude out of the door and closed it softly behind her.
Then Ben and Brooke were alone in the silence of the kitchen. She sank deep into agitated thought, wringing her hands. Her long, slim fingers were shaking.
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ she asked him at last, just above a whisper.
‘I was trying to find the right moment,’ Ben said. ‘It never seemed to come. This wasn’t it either.’
‘Don’t you trust me? Have you no idea how hurtful this is? To be told something like that, in front of a stranger? You must have had a million opportunities—’
‘I didn’t know how you’d take it,’ Ben said. ‘I’m still trying to come to terms with it myself. I should have told you. I was wrong to hold it back for so long. What can I say? I’m deeply sorry.’
‘Oh, Ben,’ she said, looking at him through teary eyes. She seemed about to burst out weeping again, but then she wiped the tears away and her face tightened. He could see a million thoughts racing through her mind. When she spoke again, the cold, simmering rage had returned to her voice. ‘Let me get this right. First there’s this old girlfriend of yours who suddenly turns up virtually on the eve of our wedding and seems to have the power to mesmerise you away, just like that …’
Ben wanted to protest, but he kept grimly quiet.
‘Now I find out that you had a grown-up son you never told me about,’ she went on. ‘Tell me, Ben. What other secrets do I get to find out about the man I was about to marry?’
‘That’s all there is, I promise.’
‘Huh,’ she snorted. ‘There we go. Another promise waiting to be broken. Are you even going to tell me where you’re going, or is that a secret too?’
‘I haven’t had time to think about that.’
‘Enough time to decide to break off the wedding, though! Didn’t take much to make your mind up about that, did it? I’m sure that part was easy for you.’
‘I’m not breaking off anything, goddamn it,’ he said, feeling frustration and anger welling up inside him. He didn’t want to shout. All he wanted was to hold her. He took a step closer to her, reaching out his arms. ‘Brooke—’
‘Don’t you come near me. Don’t touch me.’
He pulled back. His arms dropped helplessly by his sides. ‘You have to understand,’ he urged her. ‘You have to let me deal with this in my own way. Trust me, Roberta is in danger. Someone’s trying to kill her. They almost managed.’
‘And so you’re going to go off and get yourself killed along with her?’ Brooke burst out. ‘I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. But I don’t even know this woman.’
‘You want me to go and tell her she’s on her own?’ Ben hissed, stabbing a pointing finger towards the closed door. ‘You want me to just leave her to the wolves after she came to me for help? I can’t do that, Brooke. I couldn’t live with myself.’ He paused, trying desperately to calm himself. ‘Listen. I’ll come back to you. You know I will. Soon, before you know it. Then we’ll just pick up where we left off, and things will go back to the way they—’
‘Until the next time you go off again,’ she interrupted. ‘And then the next time after that, and the next, until one day you won’t come back, because you’ll be lying dead somewhere.’ Tears were streaming down her face. ‘You’ve cheated me, Ben. You’ve lied to me.’
‘No. I never lied to you.’
‘You’re lying to yourself too,’ she sobbed angrily. ‘This whole thing, you going back to your Theology, all the future plans you talked about, this whole new life that you say you want so much and want me to share with you. It’s nothing but bullshit. This is who you are, this running off and getting into trouble. Risk, danger. You draw it to you like a magnet; you thrive on it. Can’t you see? You love it, deep down. More than you could ever love me. Or your newfound son, for that matter.’
‘You’re wrong about me,’ he said.
‘Then show me I’m wrong. Prove it to me by dropping this whole awful idea, and staying here with me like you promised.’
He shook his head firmly. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry, but that’s final.’
Brooke took a moment to digest his words. She swallowed, then nodded. ‘Fine,’ she whispered. ‘Go. Go and help your friend. Do whatever you think you have to do. But when it’s done, don’t bother coming back. Because I won’t be here waiting for you.’