The Lost Relic

Chapter Seven

Normally, nobody would have known or cared where the van was going. It was an ordinary Mercedes commercial vehicle, dirty white, battered and rattly with SERVIZI GIARDINIERI ROSSI in faded letters on its flanks. One of a million vans that came and went every day and attracted no attention. There was nothing remarkable or unusual about the driver and the two guys sitting up front with him in the cab, either. Their names were Beppe, Mauro and Carmine and they all worked for the small firm based outside Ánzio that sold garden supplies and landscaping materials. Their last job today was hauling a load of ornamental slabs and edging stones to the Academia Giordani, the art school place out in the sticks where they’d been delivering a lot of stuff lately.

At just after four in the afternoon they were heading down a narrow country road that was deserted apart from a black Audi Q7 behind them. It had been sticking with them for a few kilometres, and every so often Beppe glanced in his wing mirror and scowled at the way the big SUV was hanging so close up his arse. Mauro was smoking a cigarette and content-edly enjoying the peace before he’d have to pull on his work gloves and get down to unloading the heavy stuff in the back. In the window seat, Carmine was brooding as usual.

Without warning, a pickup truck lurched out of a side road thirty metres ahead and Beppe’s attention was snatched away from the irritating Audi behind them. He braked sharply. Mauro was caught unawares and spilled forwards in his seat, his cigarette falling into his lap.

‘Son of a—’

The pickup rolled out across the road and then, inexplicably, it stopped. There was no way to drive around it. It was a chunky four-wheel-drive Nissan Warrior, five guys inside. Beppe honked his horn angrily for them to get out of the way, but the only response was a flat stare from the driver. His window was rolled down and a forearm thicker than a baseball bat was draped casually along the sill. This was a guy with at least a decade of serious toil invested in the weights room. The width of his jaw hinted at steroid use. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored wraparound shades, but he appeared to be gazing calmly right at the van.

‘What the fuck are they doing?’ Mauro said.

‘Out the way, moron!’ Beppe shook his fist, fired some abuse out of the open window, and when that didn’t elicit any further response he threw open his door and jumped down from the cab. Carmine and Mauro exchanged glances and then got out and followed. The pickup truck doors opened slowly and the two guys in front stepped out and began to walk over. The driver towered head and shoulders over his passenger. Mauro swallowed as they got closer.

‘Hey, fuckhead. Can’t you see you’re blocking the road?’ Beppe shouted at them. Carmine and Mauro prepared to back him up as the pickup guys kept on approaching. Road rage, Italian style. This wasn’t the first time for them. But it wasn’t just the size of the big guy that was unsettling. It was the way all the pickup guys looked so completely calm. The three still inside the vehicle hadn’t moved a muscle, seemingly unperturbed by what was happening. Beppe’s stride faltered just a little as he drew closer. ‘So you going to move that truck out the way or what?’ Maybe negotiation was better than outright aggression.

The big guy just smiled, and then quite casually came out with a string of obscenities so appalling and confrontational that Beppe reeled as if he’d been slapped. That was when the argument kicked off in earnest, insults flying back and forth as Beppe and his companions squared up to the pickup guys, toe to toe in the middle of the road.

The three were so taken up with yelling and threatening, prodding and shoving that they’d forgotten all about the black Audi Q7 that had been following them. Too preoccupied to notice that, like the Nissan pickup, it had two men up front and three sitting calmly in the back. And none of them noticed when the Audi’s front doors opened quietly.

The driver of the Audi was Spartak Gourko. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat was Anatoly Shikov. Gourko’s hair was freshly razed to his scalp in a severe buzz-cut. While Anatoly liked to look stylish, Gourko didn’t make the effort. There was little point, not with the disfigurement of the mass of scar tissue that extended down the left side of his face from temple to jaw. An old fragmentation grenade wound from the first Chechen War, it twisted his mouth and brow into a permanent scowl that made him look even more pissed off than he nearly always was.

Anatoly was pleased with his little scheme so far. It was a lot more inventive than his father’s. The idea of getting one of their Italian associates to call up pretending to order more materials for the art gallery grounds had occurred to him on the flight. Naturally, the Italians were under the impression that the whole thing was his father’s idea, so nobody questioned anything.

And this way was going to be so much more fun.

OK, so the old man might be a little pissed off at him for altering one or two minor details of the plan – but as long as he got what he wanted in the end, what did it really matter? Ends and means, and all that. Wasn’t like his father hadn’t done some crazy shit himself, back in the day when he was coming up. Anatoly was well versed in the legend of the hardest son of a bitch who’d ever walked the earth. He only wanted to measure up, that was all. And have fun doing it.

Anatoly smiled quietly to himself as he climbed out of the car and he and Gourko walked unnoticed up behind the arguing Italians. He nodded to the pickup driver. The big guy’s name was Rocco Massi, and he was one of their main contacts over here. Anatoly wasn’t exactly sure, but he thought Massi’s boss was a friend of his old man’s. The rest of the Italian crew were called Bellomo, Garrone, Scagnetti and Caracciolo. Anatoly couldn’t remember which was which. He trusted them well enough, though not as much as his own guys. Gourko of course, then Rykov, Petrovich, Turchin. Only Petrovich knew much Italian. Rykov seemed not to speak anything at all. But Anatoly hadn’t picked them for their communication skills. They were the hardest, meanest, nastiest bunch of motherfuckers you could find anywhere in Russia. Apart from the old man, naturally.

Anatoly’s hand darted inside his jacket and came out with an automatic pistol fitted with a long sound suppressor. Without pausing a beat, he raised the gun at arm’s length and blew off the back of Beppe’s head at point-blank range.

In the open air, the sound of the silenced gunshot was like a muffled handclap.

Beppe went straight down on his face.

Before Mauro and Carmine could react, Spartak Gourko had reached for the pistol holstered under his jacket and Rocco Massi had produced an identical weapon from behind the hip of his jeans. Gourko’s bullet took Carmine between the eyes; Mauro got one in the chest. Carmine was dead instantly and his body slumped across Beppe’s, their blood intermingling on the road.

Mauro didn’t die right away. Groaning in agony, he tried to crawl back towards the Mercedes, as if somehow there was some hope of getting in and escaping. Rocco Massi was about to finish off Mauro with another bullet when Anatoly shook his head and made a sharp gesture. ‘I do it.’ His Italian was primitive, but the warning tone in his voice was clear.

He stepped over to the dying man. Flipped him over with the toe of his expensive alligator boot and stared down at him for a moment as he lay there helplessly on his back, gasping, blood welling from the bullet hole in his chest. Then Anatoly raised his right foot, smiled and stamped the heel down on Mauro’s throat. It crushed his trachea as if squashing a roach. Mauro gurgled up gouts of blood, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he was dead.

The road was still deserted. The three passengers from each ambush vehicle got out and quickly cleaned up the scene. Few words were exchanged between the Italians and the Russians, but they worked together quickly and efficiently. The bodies were dragged over to the pickup, where zip-up coroner’s bodybags were waiting for them. Earth was sprinkled over the blood pools on the road. In less than two minutes, every last trace of the killings was erased.

Four bulging holdalls were transferred from the Audi to the van. Anatoly and Gourko clambered into the back of the Mercedes together with Rykov, Turchin and Scagnetti. Rocco Massi switched over to take the van’s wheel and was joined up front by Bellomo and Garrone. Carraciolo and Petrovich took their places in the Nissan and the Audi. Doors slammed in the still, hot air. The convoy took off.

Exactly seven minutes after the van had been intercepted, it was back en route to its destination. They’d stop on the way for their final briefing, to make sure everyone knew exactly what they were doing, and to wait until the time was right.

Then it was game on.

Chapter Eight

Ben Hope loved beaches. Not the heaving nightmare of scorched flab and sun tan lotion it was so hard to avoid all up and down the coasts of Europe from May through September, but the secluded kind of place where you could sit and watch the tide hiss in over the sand and be alone with your thoughts for a while. After his lunch he’d taken a long stroll down by the shore, carrying his shoes in his hand and letting the cool water wash over his bare feet. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he’d looked out across the Gulf of Gaeta. Due west, the nearest land was Sardinia.

Then he’d retraced his steps back to the car, wiped the sand from his feet and started making his way further up the coastal road.

It was getting on for six in the afternoon, and the sun was beginning to dip lower in the sky by the time he entered a colourful-looking village a few kilometres from the town of Aprilia. He felt tired of driving. Maybe it was time to think about stopping, parking up somewhere and exploring the place for a nice, quiet hotel. It felt a little decadent to be taking things this easy, but the last thing he wanted was to hit Rome too early and have to deal with the oppressive heat and noise of the place with nothing else to do but sit around waiting for his flight tomorrow afternoon, fretting about Brooke and what the hell he wanted to do with his life.

Those were the thoughts in Ben’s mind when a black cat suddenly streaked out of a concealed entrance behind a hedge and darted across the road in front of him.

Followed closely by a running child.

Ben slammed his foot urgently on the brake pedal. He felt the percussive kickback of the ABS system against the sole of his shoe as the Shogun’s tyres bit hard into the dusty tarmac and brought the car to a skidding halt barely a couple of metres from the kid.

The young boy was maybe nine or ten years old. He stood rooted in the middle of the road, staring wide-eyed with shock at the big square front of the Mitsubishi. Ben flung open the car door, jumped out and stormed up to him.

On the other side of the road, the black cat paused to stare a moment, then slunk away into the bushes.

‘Didn’t your mother teach you to look where you’re going?’ Ben raged at the kid in Italian. ‘You could have got yourself killed.’

The boy hung his head and stared down at his feet. His hair was longish and sandy, his eyes blue and his face a lot paler than it had been just a moment ago. He looked genuinely sorry, and more than a little shaken. Softening, Ben crouched down in front of him so that he wouldn’t seem like a huge big angry adult towering over him. ‘What’s your name?’ he said in a gentler tone.

The kid didn’t reply for a moment, then glanced up nervously from his feet and muttered, ‘Gianni.’

‘Was that your pet cat you were chasing after, Gianni?’

A shake of the head.

‘Do you live around here?’ He was too neatly dressed to have come far, and Ben could see he wasn’t some kind of street urchin running wild about the place.

Gianni pointed through the trees at the side of the road.

‘Are your parents at home?’

Gianni didn’t reply. He could obviously see where this was leading, and was scared of getting into trouble. His eyes began to mist up, and he sniffed, and then again. There was a trace of a quiver in his lower lip.

‘Nobody’s going to yell at you,’ Ben said. ‘I promise.’ He stood up and looked around him. There was no sign of anyone around. They were on the village outskirts. The kid’s home must be the other side of the woods. ‘I think we need to find your mother,’ he said, guiding the boy to the verge. ‘Now stay there and don’t move.’ He quickly jumped back into the car and pulled it into the side of the road. It was too warm to wear his leather jacket. He left it on the passenger seat. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, taking the kid’s arm gently but firmly, bleeping the car locks as they set off on foot.

It wasn’t until they’d walked down the side of the road for some hundred metres that Ben spotted the large, imposing mansion through the trees in the distance, nestled within what looked like its own piece of parkland behind a stone wall. Jutting out from behind the old part of the building was an ultra-modern extension, an enormous steel and glass construction that looked as if it had only recently been completed, judging by the unfinished grounds.

There were no other homes in sight.

‘Is that your house?’ Ben said to Gianni.

No reply.

‘You don’t say a lot, do you?’ Ben asked, and when there was still no response he smiled and added, ‘That’s OK. You don’t have to.’

They walked on, and a few metres further down the road came to a bend and then a gap in the wall. The iron gates were open and a winding private lane led up through the trees towards the isolated house.

From the number of cars parked outside the building, and the two guys in suits hanging around near the trimmed hedge who seemed to be there in some kind of official capacity, Ben realised it wasn’t a residential property. It looked as if some kind of function or gathering was happening inside.

‘Are we in the right place?’ he asked the boy. Gianni gave a slight nod, resigned by now to the terrible punishment that was in store for him.

Ben led the boy towards the building. As they approached, he could see people milling around inside the main entrance, smiling, greeting one another, hands being shaken and a great deal of excited chatter. There were no signs anywhere, nothing to indicate what the event was. Ben was nearing the door, still holding Gianni’s arm, when one of the official-looking guys in suits peeled himself away from the hedge and stepped up. Close-cropped hair, crocodile features, expressionless button eyes, arms crossed over his belly, the suit cheap and wrinkled: typical security goon. Ben had dealt with a million of them.

‘May I see your invitation, sir?’

‘I don’t have an invitation,’ Ben said, meeting his stony gaze. ‘I found this boy out on the road and I think his family are inside.’

‘This is a private exhibition, not open to the public. Nobody can enter without an invitation,’ the guy replied as if programmed.

‘I’m not interested in the exhibition.’ Ben didn’t try to hide the irritation in his voice. ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? I need to return this boy to his parents, and I’m not leaving until I do. So either let me in or go find them. I don’t care which.’

The security guard’s moustached colleague walked over. ‘Can I be of assistance?’

Ben glanced him up and down. He didn’t seem quite as much of a specimen as the other, but Ben figured he could do better than this. ‘Who’s the manager here?’

‘Signor Corsini.’

‘Then I’d like to speak with Signor Corsini, please.’

‘He’s inside. He’s busy.’

Ben was ready with a tough reply when a female voice cried out through the buzz of chatter inside the building. The crowd parted and a woman squeezed through in a hurry. She was maybe twenty-nine, thirty, dressed in a bright yellow frock, a fashionable handbag on a gold strap across her shoulder. Ben saw the resemblance to Gianni right away, the same blue eyes and sandy hair worn in a bob. She came running out, arms wide. ‘I was so worried! Where did you disappear off to?’ Her gaze switched across to Ben. ‘Signore, did you find him?’

‘Yes, and if I’d found him half a second later he’d have been plastered across the front of my car,’ Ben said.

She glared at her son, hands on hips. ‘Gianni, is this true?’

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘What did I tell you about crossing the road?’

‘I know, Mama.’

‘Wait till I tell your father,’ she scolded, and the boy’s shoulders sagged further as though his worst fears had been confirmed. He was for it. But Ben could see from the light in the young mother’s eyes that she was more relieved than angry. She turned to him, overflowing with gratitude, pleading that he absolutely must come inside for a glass of wine. ‘I beg you, it’s the least I can do.’

Ben thanked her, made eye contact with the first security goon who was still standing there and said pointedly, ‘It seems I don’t have an invitation.’

‘Nonsense,’ she protested. Turning to the security guys, she took a slip of paper from her handbag and thrust it at them. ‘My husband’s invitation. He’s allowed two guests. I’m one, and this gentleman is the other.’

Ben hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. What the hell, he thought. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go right now. Plus, a glass of wine sounded like a decent idea at this moment. It wasn’t every day he almost flattened a kid, and the after-effects of the shock were still jangling through his system.

‘Well, if you insist,’ he said with a smile, and shouldered past the goons as she led him inside.

Chapter Nine

Richmond, London

The grass prickled Brooke’s knees as she leaned over her flower bed, reached out with the can and sprinkled water on the amaranthus, careful not to drown it. She loved the cascading red flowers of the plant she’d nurtured from a seedling, but it needed a lot of care and wasn’t completely suited to the soil of her tiny garden in Richmond.

Saturday, even a beautiful early autumn afternoon like this one, wasn’t normally a day of leisure for Brooke. She had a thousand other things to attend to that she knew she was neglecting, including repainting the kitchen of her ground-floor apartment in the converted Victorian red-brick house – but spending time in the garden relaxed her and that was something she needed badly right now.

As she stood up, brushing bits of grass from her bare knees and gazing at the colourful borders, she couldn’t help but let her mind drift back, as it had been doing obsessively of late, to the event a month earlier that was the cause of all her troubles.

Phoebe’s invitation to the fifth wedding anniversary party had seemed a wonderful opportunity to catch up with the sister Brooke was so close to but didn’t get to see often enough. Their schedules seldom allowed it: Brooke was either too busy with her London clients or off in France; or else Phoebe and her husband Marshall were away on one of the frequent exotic vacations with which an investment banker and a Pilates instructor to the celebs could indulge themselves. Skiing in Aspen, snorkelling off Bermuda, high-rolling in whichever of the world’s best hotels and restaurants were currently fashionable with the Serious Money Club. The couple had only recently moved into their latest acquisition, an insanely expensive eight-bedroom mock-Tudor house in Hampstead that Brooke hadn’t seen until the night of the party.

And what a party. The huge house was milling. A trad jazz band were playing in the corner of one palatial room, people were dancing, champagne was flowing. If anyone there hadn’t been a stockbroker or a top barrister, a billionaire banker or a PR guru, Brooke must have missed it. All she’d really wanted was to get some time alone with her sister, but Phoebe was taken up with playing the hostess and they’d barely been able to snatch more than a few words by the time the champagne was going to Brooke’s head and she’d headed for the kitchen to get herself a drink of water.

Not surprisingly, the kitchen was gigantic. Miles of exotic hardwood worktop and every conceivable cooking gadget known to man – despite the fact that Phoebe and Marshall ate out almost every night – but finding something as simple as a water glass wasn’t so easy. As Brooke was searching yet another cupboard, she heard the kitchen door open and turned to see Marshall come into the room, smiling at her. He clicked the door shut behind him, closing out the noise of the band and the party buzz. He’d walked up to her and leaned against the worktop, watching her. Standing a little close, she’d thought – but made nothing of it at the time.

‘I was just looking for a glass.’

He pointed. ‘In there. Oh, there’s Evian in the fridge,’ he added as she picked out a tumbler and went to fill it at the sink.

‘Great party,’ she’d said, opening the fridge and helping herself to the chilled water. She took a sip, and when she looked back at Marshall he’d moved a little closer. Was that a little odd, or was she just imagining things?

‘I’m so glad you were able to make it,’ he said. ‘It seems so long since we last saw you, Brooke. Keeping busy? Still going over to France to teach at that place – what’s it called?’

‘Le Val.’ She nodded. ‘More often than ever.’

Marshall’s smile had wavered a little then. ‘I suppose you’re still seeing that soldier fellow?’

‘Ben’s not exactly a soldier.’

‘Anyway, it’s good to see you again, Brooke,’ he’d said. ‘Tonight wouldn’t have been the same without you.’

‘Don’t be silly. Tonight is all about you and Phoebe. I’m really happy for you both.’