Sacred Sword (Ben Hope 7) (30 page)

The next day, Penrose sneaked out of the house with something long under his arm, wrapped inside a plastic bag. Still aching from the beating, he made his way furtively up the street towards Mrs Woods’ house, half a mile away. The old cockroach lived alone with her beloved cat. The cat was fifteen or sixteen, had only one eye and was named Thomas O’Malley.

Penrose crouched hidden among the evergreens at the edge of her rambling garden. He slipped the plastic bag away to reveal his air rifle. With murder in his heart he quietly cocked the gun and slipped a .22 pellet in the breech. And waited, silently.

After a long time, there was a movement in the long grass. It was Thomas O’Malley. Penrose watched and his heart began to beat harder as the old cat moved slowly and stiffly through the garden.

Very carefully, the boy levelled the rifle. He found the cat in his sights and pulled the trigger. There was a crack as the spring mechanism fired the pellet from the barrel. The cat leaped in the air with a yowl and began thrashing on the grass. He’d got it in the stomach. Penrose jumped up from his hiding place and ran over to the suffering animal, clutching his rifle. ‘Hell rip and roast you!’ He raised the rifle up and brought the butt end of its stock down hard on the cat’s head. There was a crunch, and a lot of blood. He raised the rifle and did the same again.

‘Hell rip and roast you!’

The cat stopped moving, broken and squashed on the bloody grass. Penrose stood staring at it. He felt no remorse for having killed it. A smile spread over his face.

A voice made the boy turn. It was Mrs Woods up by the house, calling the cat’s name. Penrose was frightened she might come looking for it. He slipped away into the bushes.

Penrose faintly registered the knock at his office door and raised his head slowly off his desk. He unglued one gummed-up eye, then the other, and blinked at the light streaming in through the office window. In front of him on the desk’s littered top were his beloved pistol and his bottle of painkillers. He felt woozy from the pills. The surface of the desk seemed to tilt before his eyes.

Rex O’Neill knocked on the door once more, and then walked into the room without waiting for a prompt. ‘How’s the headache?’

‘What do you want?’ Penrose demanded, livid at the interruption.

‘To give you the latest update on Hope.’

Penrose’s face lit up. At last. When the call from Cutter’s man Gant had come in from France some eighteen hours earlier, saying that they’d captured Hope and Arundel, it had been cause for wild celebration and the opening of several cases of vintage Dom Pérignon, many bottles of which had been consumed by the team. Even Penrose had deigned to take a sip or two in the spirit of the moment. O’Neill had, of course, abstained, disapproving as always.

But as the hours had begun stacking up since the call without any further feedback from the team in France, Penrose had been growing increasingly anxious to know what was happening. He’d been convinced for a while now that Hope knew where the sword was. He’d probably had it himself, all along. Why else would Simeon Arundel have brought a man like him on board, if not to entrust the precious cargo to him? Why else would Hope be travelling with Arundel’s son?

Penrose quivered with anticipation. ‘Well? Did we get them? Do we have the sword?’

‘I’m afraid not. It isn’t good news.’

Penrose turned suddenly white.

‘There’s been no further contact from Gant,’ O’Neill went on. ‘And I’ve just received word that Hope and Arundel’s son cleared passport control at Ben Gurion Airport in Jerusalem this afternoon.’

Penrose’s face went from white to puce. ‘But how could that be?’ he exploded. ‘We had them.’

‘Evidently we don’t have them any longer.’

Penrose’s fury knew no bounds. He hurled his heavy leather recliner desk chair against the wall. Overturned the desk itself, sending papers and phones, his computer, his drugs and his pistol crashing to the floor. He shook his clenched fists, raised his face to the ceiling and let out a howl. Hope! The man was a vile scourge. He had to be stopped. ‘What are they doing in Jerusalem?’ he shouted.

‘We don’t know,’ O’Neill replied calmly.

‘Where’s Cutter? Get me Cutter.’

‘I don’t think he’ll be much use to you at the moment. He’s still comatose, along with most of the others. What did you think would happen if you let them loose on so much champagne?’

‘I keep my troops loyal to me,’ Penrose hissed defensively.

With unlimited booze, boatloads of whores and a mountain of cash that doesn’t belong to you. You think they wouldn’t cut your throat in a second if a better deal came along?
O’Neill wanted to say, but had the wisdom not to. He knew that Penrose secretly regarded himself as some kind of emperor – Caligula came to mind – and Cutter’s moronic thugs as his personal Praetorian Guard. The man was slipping deeper into his own little fantasy world.

Penrose would not, could not, accept that his precious plan, so scrupulously and lovingly orchestrated, was slowly beginning to unravel before his eyes and there was not a damned thing he could do about it. He stamped up and down, flailing his arms and issuing orders like sparks flying off a Catherine wheel. ‘Go and wake Cutter up. Force-feed him black coffee or whatever it takes to get him sober. Tell him to gather as many men together as we have available. Get the Cessna ready for takeoff. Call Naples and have the jet put on standby. I want a team heading for Israel within the hour.’

O’Neill stared at him. ‘Have you any idea how hard it’ll be to find Hope in Jerusalem? He could be anywhere.’

‘I don’t care!’ Penrose screamed. ‘I want him found and I want him dead. Do I have to do it myself?’

O’Neill left the office without another word. When he was some distance away, he took out his phone and began to key in a number that, if dialled, could change everything for Penrose Lucas. His finger hovered over the last digit as he suddenly had second thoughts.

This was his job. He was well paid for what he did, and he had the fine home in London and the enormous mortgage hanging around his neck to show for it, as well as his growing family and the impending responsibility of fatherhood to think of. Could he afford to take a gamble on how the Trimble Group would react if he spilled his concerns to them? He knew virtually nothing of their deeper agenda. Who would they most likely favour: an expendable, replaceable mid-ranking operative like Rex O’Neill, or the prize racehorse into whom they’d already invested millions?

O’Neill thought better of making the call. He put the phone away and went to see if he could rouse the drunken Steve Cutter.

Ben and Jude had managed to beat the Christmas rush and snatch the only connecting rooms at the Golden Jerusalem hotel on Jaffa Road. The carpets were wearing thin in places, but Ben didn’t care and his room had a balcony overlooking Zion Square where he could smoke and watch the city. He resisted the mini-bar, convinced he could still feel the after-effects of Jacques Rabier’s moonshine dissolving his innards. After a quiet dinner in the hotel, during which Jude was very morose and reticent, Ben returned to his room, sat on the bed and used his phone to go online and check out the name Wesley Holland.

The simple addition of a surname was all it took to transform a completely obscure lead into a font of information; in fact a bewildering excess of it for Ben’s purposes. Holland was all over the internet, although by all accounts the man himself was notoriously camera-shy and somewhat given to reclusiveness. Of the hundreds of articles Ben came across, nearly all focused on the American’s wealth, with estimates of his personal worth veering between nine hundred million to over a billion and a half.

Wesley Bartholomew Holland had been born in a small town in rural Idaho during the Second World War, the only child of a hardware store manager and a schoolmistress, his mother having instilled in him a passion for history that had stayed with him all his life. His father had been one of so many U.S. Marines slaughtered as they came off the landing craft at Omaha beach, when Wesley was an infant. Raised by his devoted mother, the boy had grown up to be a brilliant young man with an uncanny knack for business, and gone on to make his first fortune in real estate. By the age of thirty, he’d become one of the richest men in America.

Wesley Holland was currently believed to have major business interests in more than sixty countries, in industries ranging from electronics to aviation to publishing and many more besides. He owned silver mines in Mexico and gold mines in Australia, copper mines in Chile, steel foundries in Japan. Pipelines, airlines, factories, private colleges, chain megastores. At one time he’d owned a Major League baseball team, though he had little interest in sport. Married four times, never successfully or for very long. In recent years, Holland’s passion for all things antiquated had inspired him to pour millions into the restoration of crumbling historic buildings, churches and cathedrals across the U.S.A. and Europe.

Ben thought about that. Was it possible Holland’s and Simeon’s paths had crossed with regard to a church restoration?

He read on. Holland had supported the arts, made gigantic donations to galleries and museums, rescued scores of formal gardens from the hands of developers. But most of all he was known for his vast and enormously valuable private collection of antique arms and armour, the fruit of a half-century-long love affair with the weaponry of bygone times, that had made him one of the world’s pre-eminent collectors of ancient swords.

Now Ben began to understand what connected the American to Simeon’s mysterious research. Had the sacred sword, whatever it was, in fact been Holland’s own discovery? That might account for the trips Simeon and Fabrice Lalique had taken to the States. But why had Holland shared it with two clergymen? Moreover, two who were from different branches of the church? How had Lalique become involved? And what about the Israeli connection? Maybe tomorrow’s meeting with Hillel Zada would answer those questions.

Tracking through recent articles on Holland, Ben finally came across the unfolding news story of the recent attack at his home, the Whitworth Mansion near Lake Ontario. He looked at photos of the enormous house and read every scrap he could find about the incident. Three members of Holland’s staff had been shot dead in what was believed to have been an attempted robbery by an armed gang, who had left apparently empty-handed after the billionaire had managed to escape to a panic room and call the police. Holland himself had disappeared shortly after the incident, and sources close to him had expressed great concern at the lack of contact from him since. It was not believed that Holland was under suspicion for the crimes committed at his home.

There had been two possible sightings of the billionaire soon after his disappearance, one from a freight trucker named Maynard Griggs who claimed to have picked up an elderly hitchhiker a few miles from the Massachusetts state line and only recognised him later from the television news; and one from a forty-seven-year-old waitress named Sally-Ann Ryerson who’d served coffee to a lone traveller closely matching Holland’s description at the diner where she worked outside Lunenburg, MA. The man had told her he was heading towards Boston, possibly by bus. No further sightings had been reported. The investigation was continuing.

Ben went on searching for more material.

*

Cutter, Grinnall, Mills and Doyle thundered up the stairs to the floor where the hotel manager had told them the foreigners were staying. The manager was now lying comatose on the floor of the office behind the lobby, bleeding profusely from a pistol-butt blow to the head. The old guy might have had a heart attack, they weren’t sure. He’d collapsed before they’d managed to get all the information out of him.

It was almost midnight. A busy few hours had gone by since the Trimble Group jet had touched down at the private terminal at Ben Gurion Airport. Cutter was under pressure to get results, and he wasn’t messing around. A few heads had been broken before one of the airport shuttle service minibus drivers had finally come up with something. Two foreigners answering Hope and Arundel’s descriptions had got off his bus in Jerusalem centre and been seen hailing a cab. At first the minibus driver couldn’t remember which taxi firm it had been, but it was amazing how a knife to the testicles focused the mind. From there, it had been a straightforward matter of bribing and brutalising as many people as it took until a taxi driver spat out the name of a hotel.

‘This is the floor,’ Cutter said as they emerged at the top of the stairs. He started off in long strides down the corridor. Grinnall walked a step behind, his leather coat swishing. At the rear, Mills and Doyle were deep in debate.

‘He’s fucking nuts, though, ain’t he? See it in his fucking eyes.’

‘That’s not the fucking point, though.’

‘Shut it,’ Cutter threw back over his shoulder, and the conversation ceased. Up ahead, a pretty, plump Israeli girl in a cleaner’s uniform emerged from an empty room carrying a mop and bucket. She was working very late tonight, and looked as weary as she felt. Her polite smile faded when she saw the looks on the four men’s faces. Before she could let out a scream, Grinnall clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Take her in there,’ Cutter said softly, glancing up and down the corridor. They dragged her into the room and shut the door.

Inside the room, Grinnall kept his hand tightly over her mouth, clutching her head to his chest with a pistol at her temple. She squirmed and rolled her eyes in terror at the sight of the gun. He hadn’t had this much fun since plugging the motel reception girl back in America. It made up for the humiliation of losing Holland’s trail and returning empty-handed.

Cutter took out the photo prints he’d shown the manager downstairs. Hope’s was taken from his business website, Arundel’s from college records. ‘You seen these men?’ he asked the girl, flashing the pictures in front of her. She didn’t understand a word of English, but his meaning was very clear. She squinted at the pictures. She’d only seen the foreigners a couple of times since they’d checked in, but she was fairly certain it was them. She nodded.