Sacred Sword (Ben Hope 7) (41 page)

He tried the handle of the French window. It wasn’t locked. There was nobody in sight, and apparently nothing stopping him from walking right out of here. But that was what worried him.

Ben heard the door open behind him and turned to see a man walk in. He was in his sixties or early seventies, large and imposing with a strong presence that seemed to fill the room. He wore small wire-framed glasses and a dark suit that looked expensively tailored to hide his bulk. His hair was grey, thin oiled strands carefully combed across his scalp. His eyes were pale and watery, and fixed on Ben as he shut the door softly behind him.

Ben wondered who he was. The gravity of his demeanour gave the impression of an elder statesman, someone used to giving orders and making important decisions.

The man crossed the room towards him.

‘Benedict Hope.’ His voice was deep and resonant. His accent was that of an upper-class Englishman who’d spent a lot of time in Europe, with traces of German, or maybe Swiss. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. He proffered his hand. ‘You can call me Mr Brown.’

Ben just looked at the hand. ‘Brown,’ he said. ‘The colour of bullshit.’

The man didn’t seem offended. ‘You understand that I can’t reveal my real identity.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me where I am, either.’

‘A friend’s house,’ Brown replied casually, withdrawing his hand. ‘It’s just his holiday place. He was happy to let me use it for the occasion. I’ve flown in from Europe this morning specially to meet you.’

‘You needn’t have troubled yourself,’ Ben said.

Brown crossed the rug to a large antique globe on a stand, that slid open to reveal a drinks cabinet. He lifted out a bottle, peered at it over his glasses, and nodded approvingly. ‘Care for a drink? I always take a glass of pale sherry before lunch. It helps the digestion.’

‘Thanks for the offer,’ Ben said. ‘But I don’t drink with murderers, as a rule.’

‘I was afraid you might be under that misconception,’ Brown said as he poured himself his sherry. He took a sip and smacked his lips with pleasure.

Ben was wondering how many blows it would take to ram the sherry bottle down the guy’s throat. Maybe later. First he wanted to know the truth behind all that had happened. ‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘My friends were killed in a car crash that was caused by one of your agents, a man called Vincent Napier. Your people threw the priest Fabrice Lalique off a bridge and made it look like suicide. I’ve been chased halfway around the world by professional gunmen trying to kill me. I saw your thugs shoot Wesley Holland and burn down his house. And you’re telling me that’s all a misconception.’

‘What happened to Mr Holland was highly regrettable,’ Brown said. ‘And, I might add, purely accidental. We might have had some difficulty persuading him to keep his mouth shut under the circumstances, but rest assured we had no intention of letting him come to harm.’

He paused for another small sip of sherry, then set the glass down. ‘That’s enough for me. Get heartburn if I overdo it. As for the rest,’ he went on, ‘I’m afraid you’re quite wrong. Vincent Napier wasn’t working for us, at least not directly. We didn’t arrange fake suicides or car accidents, and we have never purposely deployed a single one of our agents against you. In fact your presence on Martha’s Vineyard came as a complete surprise.’

Ben said nothing. He was thinking how easy it would be to grab the thin, delicate sherry glass, break it and use it to slice this lying bastard’s throat wide open.

‘I understand you must be feeling very upset,’ Brown said, eyeing him closely. ‘You consider me to be the architect of some grand conspiracy scheme hell-bent on obtaining an ancient relic, killing anyone who stands in the way.’ He grunted with amusement. ‘I’m afraid that’s a rather far-fetched notion, Mr Hope. In truth, I don’t give a damn whether Holland’s trinket is the genuine article or not. It’s just a piece of old iron as far as I’m concerned.’

Ben narrowed his eyes and stayed silent.

‘You’d like an explanation,’ Brown said. ‘I certainly owe you one, and I’ll be as open and honest with you as my position allows me. I head an organisation that very few people have ever heard of, for the simple reason that its existence was never intended for public knowledge. This organisation goes by the name of the Trimble Group. It was founded many years ago by some very influential men whose names I’m sure you’d recognise, though you’d find no mention of it on any official record. Needless to say, there never was a Trimble either.’

‘Let me take a wild guess,’ Ben said. ‘We’re talking about a secret government agency?’

Brown made a casual gesture. ‘We’re all chess pieces on the same board, cogs in the same machine, and all of that. Although the Trimble Group is far more autonomous than most similar organisations. It’s enough for you to know that we operate behind the scenes and are involved in many planning and decision-making processes that shape our world. Ordinarily, of course, I would never be revealing our existence to an outsider, not even one with such a distinguished record of service to your country. I trust I’ll be able to count on your discretion.’

‘Do you really.’

‘Yes,’ Brown said with knowing emphasis. ‘I do. Just as I can count on the fact that you wouldn’t do anything foolish as we stand here talking. There are expert marksmen in those trees observing you at this very moment, with orders to shoot if you make any false move. Another four very well-trained guards on the other side of that door, and more personnel watching us on camera. I might add that they are not privy to our conversation. The information I’m about to reveal to you is highly classified.’

‘I can’t wait to hear it,’ Ben said.

‘Then I’ll get right to the point.’ Brown paced the rug as he went on. ‘The Trimble Group exists to help create a new world, Mr Hope. A world of stability and peace, in which nations and the communities of citizens within them can co-exist harmoniously, comfortably, productively. A homogenised world, by necessity, discarding many of the things that have made people unhappy and created social division and disorder in the past. Class. Tradition. History. Things we no longer need. Things we have to eliminate in order to achieve our vision.’ Brown made a flapping motion with his hand, as if whisking unseen obstacles out of his way.

‘A new world order,’ Ben said.

‘That makes it sound much more sinister than it really is,’ Brown said, wryly amused. ‘There’s nothing new about rulers of nations aspiring to create a happy world. Believe me, it’d be a lot easier to run than the old one. But it’s only now, in the modern age, that we really have a chance to make it happen. Forget the old. Tear down the crumbling relics, the outdated institutions, the churches and cathedrals. They only remind us of a dark and distant past that’s no longer relevant to modern life. Let’s look to the future.’

‘So your Trimble Group’s aim is to dismantle religion,’ Ben said.

‘That’s correct.’

‘You don’t think it’s been tried before? Mao. Stalin. A whole procession of past dictators who wanted to impose an atheist state, and all failed in the end. Religion doesn’t go away. For better or worse, it’s part of who we are.’

‘They failed because they tried to create change by force,’ Brown said. ‘Open dictatorship is crude, unsophisticated, ineffective. The way you create change is to make the people
want
it, or to think they do. But you’re right about one thing. There’s something about the human spirit that seems irrevocably driven to revere a greater power. We can cater for that, however. We have new gods and idols for them to worship. Ones that we can control and manipulate.’

Ben remembered what Michaela had said that night in the restaurant about churches turning into McDonalds drive-throughs. ‘Consumerism is the new faith, is that it?’ he said. ‘Your god is one that hands out glittering little toys and gadgets to the children like Santa Claus.’

‘Rewards,’ Brown said. ‘That’s the key. The children of the new world aren’t interested in moral rectitude, or thought, or philosophy. It’s too much hard work. Give them what they really desire, and the faithful will rally and be repaid.’ He shrugged. ‘Granted, in reality they may be no less enslaved to the state than the oppressed citizens of Hitler or Stalin, but they’ll be willing, happy slaves, believing in a bright future.’

‘And that’s your Utopian vision?’ Ben said.

Brown held out his hands. ‘Look around you. We’re already halfway there. The Christian faith is dying. Once the fading embers have been stamped out, we’ll move on to the Islamics. That’ll be a bigger job, admittedly, given that their faith is so much stronger. But the first steps are already in place. One by one, we’ll knock down the hardline pockets in the Middle East, remove the ruling powers there and institute our own, under the banner of what we call democracy. Once we have full control, the old order will be eroded away little by little until there’s nothing left.’

Brown smiled. ‘We’re winning this war, Mr Hope. But as you know very well, in war one can never be too careful. That’s why we’re always looking out for special individuals to recruit to our cause. And this is where we come to the part that involves you.’

Brown clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the French window, gazing out across the snowy garden as he went on. ‘Earlier this year, the Trimble Group recruited a new agent. A university professor who has made a career out of attacking and undermining Christian belief, something he’s proved rather good at. He’s extremely educated, intelligent, and above all, committed. His name is Penrose Lucas.’

Ben’s mind flashed back to the videotaped TV programme he’d watched briefly at the vicarage the night after the crash. Professor Penrose Lucas had been Simeon’s opponent in the debate on religion.

‘Publicly, Professor Lucas is known as an author and militant atheist activist with a growing following,’ Brown continued. ‘Privately, he’s been actively pursuing an agenda to discredit the Christian clergy. Every new allegation of corruption, whether financial or sexual – sexual misdemeanours strike the most scandalous note with the public, as you can imagine – serves to alienate society at large further from the church. War by attrition. Professor Lucas understood the concept very well, and even on a very limited budget he was getting impressive results.’

‘And so you decided to give him a helping hand,’ Ben said.

‘My colleagues and I considered that Lucas could become a very valuable asset to us indeed. We offered him a generous deal, to which he readily agreed. He’d be working for us, assisted by a Trimble Group liaison officer but with more or less complete independence to go on doing what he’d been doing before, except on a more ambitious scale. He was given free rein to pick his own targets, draw on our resources to set up phone taps and surveillance, hire whatever investigators or administrative staff he might require. Virtually anything he wanted, even his own personal jet. Lucas settled into his new headquarters on Capri and got down to work. Almost immediately, he announced his intention to target one Reverend Simeon Arundel.’

Ben was beginning to understand where this was leading, and his muscles were tensing with cold rage.

‘Naturally, we trusted Lucas’s instinct,’ Brown continued. ‘We weren’t unaware that he might have had some personal motive for choosing Arundel so specifically out of all the thousands of potential targets he might have picked, but we gave him a free hand nonetheless. It was clear that Arundel was the kind of go-ahead, popularist clergyman who might be capable of generating new interest in the church. He was a threat.’

Personal motive
, Ben was thinking. He hadn’t forgotten the way that Simeon had trounced Penrose Lucas in the TV debate. He was pretty sure Lucas hadn’t forgotten the humiliation, either. It was all beginning to come together now.

‘A phone tapping and surveillance operation was therefore mounted on Reverend Arundel,’ Brown said, as though these things were done every day – which, Ben realised, they probably were. ‘Shortly afterwards, conversations were monitored between Arundel and one Father Fabrice Lalique, proving Professor Lucas’ instincts spectacularly correct.’

The sword, Ben thought.

Brown seemed to read his mind. He nodded. ‘Up to that point, they had managed to keep their little project secret. The question now was what should be done about it. There was concern among the group that the alleged sword of Christ could cause something of a stir among the religious community, especially among the hardline fundamentalist movements in America where it could potentially become regarded as a powerful emblem. Whether genuine or not, this damned sword could be a major setback for us.’

Brown paused and turned away from the window, fixing his pale watery gaze on Ben. ‘Now, you have to understand that the Trimble Group had given Professor Lucas a great deal of leeway to run his own operation. As I mentioned, we liaised with him via our operative – let’s call him Mr Green – who fielded whatever intelligence data was gleaned from our side and passed it directly to Lucas to do with as he saw fit. When Lucas uncovered the sacred sword project, we assumed that his response would be simply to discredit it, using the same kind of smear tactics against Simeon Arundel and Fabrice Lalique that he’d been directing against other clergymen before them.’

‘You mean destroying their personal and professional reputations with a pack of lies,’ Ben said.

‘Something like that,’ Brown replied. ‘As a result of which, the credibility of the project would have fallen apart. They’d have been spurned in the media, no publisher would have touched Arundel’s book, nobody would have had anything to do with them. Another victory, after which Lucas would have moved on to another target.’ Brown paused. ‘As I say, that’s what we assumed. We had no idea what Lucas was really doing, using our funds to employ professional thugs, mercenaries, to help him carry out his own personal vendetta. And to commit murder. Lalique’s faked suicide, the car crash that killed the Arundels, the attacks on Wesley Holland in which several people were killed – it was Lucas, and Lucas alone, who engineered them all.’