The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET (28 page)

The long descending stone spiral carried him down into solid rock. As he corkscrewed deeper and deeper into the vertical tunnel, the sound of the storm outside faded away to nothing.

After a while, the staircase ended and met a level passageway that snaked off into the dark. There was only one way to go, and the only sound was his echoing footsteps and the drip of water. The smooth rounded walls of the tunnel were high enough for him to walk upright. It must have taken centuries to dig this out of the mountain terrain. A rough tunnel would have done just as well, yet whoever had created this had been interested in far more than utility. They were chasing perfection. But why? Where was the tunnel leading? He walked on.

Without warning, the tunnel snaked around a sharp bend and for a moment he thought he’d come to a dead end. But then he felt something stirring his hair. A cool breeze, coming from above. He raised the torch. There was a passage to the left, more steps leading upwards. He climbed on and on. It seemed
to him that he was going up much further than he’d come down. That could mean only one thing–that he was now climbing up above ground level. He remembered the cliff next to the house, and realized that he must be
inside
the mountain. Deep inside it, surrounded on all sides by thousands of tons of solid rock.

His torch was getting dimmer. When it faded away to yellow and then to nothing, he stuffed it in his pocket and used his Zippo lighter to see by. It was getting colder, and wind was whistling around him even though the walls of the stairwell were close and tight. His fingers were burning as the metal of the lighter heated up, and he was worried about the flammable fuel inside igniting if it overheated too much. Suddenly his foot missed a step in the darkness, and he slipped and almost fell. He paused for a moment, his heart pounding. He let the scalding hot lighter cool down for a while, then relit it and climbed on.

The stairway soon ended and Ben found himself in a chamber. He clambered to his feet. Holding up his lighter, he blinked in amazement. The chamber seemed to stretch out far and wide on all sides. He came to a stone pillar that seemed to grow out of the floor, all the way to the vaulted archways of the ceiling some six feet above his head. The pillar had been laboriously smoothed and carved, covered in intricate designs depicting religious scenes and icons. A few feet away from it was another similar pillar, and then another.

He swept the lighter-flame around him. Rows of golden crucifixes glinted in the flickering light. A huge altar stood in front of him, sculpted from solid stone and heavily adorned with gold.

He was in a church. A medieval Gothic church carved out inside a mountain.

Ben lit the altar candles. There were scores of them, all held by massive solid gold candlesticks. One candle at a time, the church gradually filled with amber light. He gasped at the size of the carved-out space. The wealth of it was staggering.

Then he saw the stone chests that lined the walls. There were dozens of them, knee high and a metre square. He moved closer. They were filled to the brim with gold. He sifted through one, his fingers raking through solid gold coins and nuggets, rings and amulets. There was enough gold in the church to make its finder the richest man in the world.

Carrying a heavy candlestick to see by, he went over to the towering altar. Carved in smooth stone, two white lions converging into a single head supported a circular stone basin that was some eight feet in diameter. Candlelight glimmered off the dark water inside. Around its smooth edge, carved in flowing letters, were the words:

At the feet of an angelic statue was a gold pedestal, and on it rested a long leather tube. Inside it he found a scroll. He delicately unfurled the cracked, archaic document on the floor and knelt down to study it. It was obviously medieval, though fabulously well-preserved. The writings on it were in a strange form of Latin that he couldn’t understand, mixed with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics.

He blinked as the truth dawned. So was
this
the legendary manuscript that everyone had been looking for? It was clear now that the papers Rheinfeld had stolen from Clément, the copy he’d made in the notebook, had never been more than Fulcanelli’s own notes. They were the alchemist’s record of the clues that had led him to find the manuscript itself. The same clues that would guide the next seeker who followed in his steps.

Now, faced with it at last, he understood the power of this mysterious document and the terrible hold it had had over so many people. There was no telling how much blood had been spilled on its account through the ages, either to protect it or to acquire it. It had the power to inspire evil. Did it also have the power to do good?

Something else had fallen out of the leather tube. It was a folded sheet of paper. Ben opened it. It was a letter, and he’d seen that handwriting before.

Ben looked up at the stone basin at the foot of the altar. The
elixir vitae
was right there in front of him. His search was over. There was no time to lose.

He jumped to his feet, looking around him for some vessel he could use to take the elixir back to Ruth. He remembered his flask, and without a second thought he unscrewed the top and poured out his whisky, the liquor spattering on the stone floor. His heart thumped as he dipped the flask into the water and filled it.
Did he believe?
Could this special substance really cure?

Drops of the precious liquid splashed from the mouth of the filled flask as he raised it up from the stone basin. His curiosity was overwhelming. He put the flask to his lips.

The foul taste of it almost made him vomit. He spat and gagged, wiping his mouth in disgust. Holding
the candle closer he poured more of the water back into the basin. It was full of greenish scum.

Ben fell to his knees, his head hanging. It was over. He was at the end of the road. He’d failed.

The sudden crashing explosion in the chamber was like a knife through his eardrums. One of the white stone lions split apart and collapsed. The basin cracked and fell in two. The stagnant water gushed down over the base of the altar and spilled in a slimy greenish slick across the floor.

He scrabbled to his feet in a panic. Before he could have the Browning out of its holster he was staring down the barrel of a heavy Colt automatic that was advancing towards him out of the shadows.

‘Surprised to see me, English?’ Franco Bozza rasped in his hoarse whisper as he stepped into the flickering light. His face was wild, bloody, a mask of pure hatred. ‘Drop your gun.’

Beneath his bullet-proof vest Bozza’s upper torso was still aching badly from the slamming impact of the three 9mm bullets. The long, twisting fall down the cliff had been broken by a tree. Its branches had ripped his flesh and almost impaled him. Blood seeped from a hundred cuts and his right cheek was torn open from mouth to ear. But he’d hardly felt the pain as he’d scrambled back up the cliff and made his way over the hillside in the raging storm. His mind had been focused on one thing alone–what he was going to do when he caught up again with Ben Hope. Things that even his most wretched victims hadn’t experienced.

And now he had him.

Ben stared at him for a second, then moved his hand across and slid the Browning from its holster. He dropped it on the floor and kicked it away from him, not taking his eyes off Bozza’s.

‘And the Beretta,’ Bozza said. ‘The one you took from me.’

Ben had hoped he’d forgotten that one. He slowly drew the concealed .380 from his waistband and tossed it.

Bozza’s pale, thin lips creased into a twisted grin. ‘Good,’ he whispered. ‘And now here we are together alone at last.’

‘It’s a real pleasure.’

‘The pleasure will be all mine, I assure you,’ Bozza croaked. ‘And when you are dead I will find your little friend Ryder and will have some fun with her.’

Ben shook his head. ‘You’ll never find her.’

‘Oh no?’ Bozza said, with what was almost a laugh in his voice. A black-gloved hand reached into his pocket and waved Roberta’s red address-book. After this I am going on vacation.’ He smiled. ‘To the USA.’

A sickening wave of horror washed over Ben when he saw the book. He’d told her to destroy it. It must have been in her bag when Bozza kidnapped her.

‘She will be the last to die,’ Bozza continued, grinning to himself. Ben could see he was relishing every word. ‘First she will watch as her family are cut slowly to pieces in front of her. Then, before I kill her, I will show her the little trophy I have brought her. Your head. And finally, I will turn my attentions to Dr. Ryder.
For strong is the Lord God who judgeth her
Bozza smiled sadistically and lowered the Colt, aiming down at Ben’s left knee. His finger tightened on the trigger. First he’d blow out one kneecap, then the other. Then one arm, then the other. Then, when his victim was wriggling helpless on the floor, the knife was coming out.

Ben had been trained years before in the techniques of disarming a hostile gunman at close range. It was all a question of distance, though it was a desperate manoeuvre at the best of times. If the opponent was close enough it was relatively less insane to try to take the weapon away from them. If they were standing just one step too far away, it was virtually impossible to move fast enough. All it took was a flick of the finger and you were dead.

As Bozza was talking, Ben had been assessing the distance between them. It was just on the cusp between extreme high risk and recklessly suicidal. He knew he had only a slight reflex advantage, half a second at best. It was crazy, but he had only one life–he had to fight for it.

It took a tenth of a second to make his decision. He was about to fly at Bozza when the gunshot ripped the air.

Bozza’s craggy face froze in a look of surprise, his mouth opening in a soundless ‘O’ as he dropped the gun with a clatter and clawed desperately at the spurting exit hole in his throat.

The figure in the shadows raised the pistol again and fired a second deafening shot that crashed around
the chamber. The top of Bozza’s head was blown away in a spray of blood and brains. For a moment he stood there as though hanging in space, his eyes searching Ben’s as the light faded in them.

Then he collapsed abruptly to the floor. His body gave a couple of arching, twitching spasms as the life left it, and then it lay flat and inert.

Ben stared incredulously at the dark figure, an almost ghostlike apparition, that was slowly advancing towards him from between the shadowy pillars. It was a woman. In the gloom he couldn’t make out her face.

‘Roberta, is that you?’

But as the woman came closer into the light, he saw that it wasn’t. The antiquated C96 Mauser pistol was still trained on Bozza’s corpse, a thin wisp of smoke curling from its long, tapered barrel. The precaution wasn’t needed. Franco Bozza wouldn’t be getting up again this time.

The golden candlelight bathed the woman’s face as she approached. He recognized her with a shock. It was the blind woman.

And she wasn’t blind any more. The dark glasses were gone and she was looking straight at him with hawk-like intensity. An enigmatic little smile curled the corners of her mouth.

‘Who
are
you?’ Ben asked, stupefied.

She was silent. He looked down and saw that she was pointing the Mauser automatic straight at his heart.

‘Put your hands on your head and get down on your knees,’ she ordered. He saw from the look in her eye and the unwavering muzzle of the gun that she meant it. She was much too far away to risk anything. He obeyed. She produced a bright torch and shone the beam in his face.

‘You told me you were interested in old houses,’ she said as he knelt there helplessly, blinking in the strong white light. ‘But it seems that you were also interested in other things.’

‘I’m not here to rob you,’ he said firmly.

‘You break into my house, you bring a gun, you sneak into my private chapel, yet you tell me you’re not here to rob me?’ She motioned the torch beam at Bozza’s body. ‘Who is he? A friend of yours?’

‘Does it look like it?’

She shrugged. ‘Thieves may quarrel. What’s in there?’ She pointed the light at Ben’s bag, which was lying by the altar. ‘Empty it out on the floor. Move slowly so I can see your hands.’

He carefully up-ended the bag and she directed the
torch to look at the contents as they spilled out onto the stone floor. The pool of white light rested on Rheinfeld’s notebook and Fulcanelli’s Journal. ‘Throw those over to me,’ she commanded, tucking the torch under her arm. He picked them up and tossed them to her. Keeping the gun on him, she leafed through them, nodding thoughtfully to herself. After a pause she placed them gently on the floor and lowered the gun to her side. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a softer tone. ‘But I had to be sure.’

‘Who are you?’ he repeated.

‘My name is Antonia Branzanti,’ she said. ‘I am the granddaughter of Fulcanelli.’ She cut off his reply with a gesture. ‘We can talk later. First we must dispose of this filth.’ She pointed at Bozza’s corpse, where the pool of blood was merging with the slick of stagnant green water from the broken altar.

Shining the way ahead, Antonia led him through the columns to a passageway where a huge circular rock, like a six-foot millstone, stood on its edge against the wall. ‘This doorway leads out to the mountainside. Open it.’

Grunting with effort, he rolled it back through a groove cut in the stone floor. As it turned backwards on itself with a grating sound, the cold night air rushed into the chamber. The rock covered the entrance to a short tunnel, some five metres deep, and through the mouth of the cave he could see a craggy-edged semicircle of night sky. The storm was over, and the full moon was shining over the rocky landscape. Below them was a dizzy drop into a deep ravine.

‘Nobody will ever find him down there,’ Antonia said, pointing down. Ben returned to where Bozza’s body lay. He grasped the heavy corpse under the arms and dragged it to the hole, leaving a trail of watery blood across the stone floor. He dropped the body in the windy tunnel, and rolled it with his foot until it slid off the edge. He watched as it tumbled down the sheer cliff, a cartwheeling black shape against the moonlit rock, and disappeared in the dark tree-studded ravine hundreds of metres below.

‘Now we go,’ Antonia said.

Defeat was weighing heavily on him as he followed her back through the tunnel to the house. So the elixir had turned out to be worthless. It was just a legend after all. Now he’d have to return to Fairfax empty-handed, look the old man in the eye and tell him that the child would have to die.

They reached the house. She shut the fireplace behind them and led him to the kitchen, where he washed some of the blood off his hands and face. ‘I’ll be leaving now,’ he said grimly, putting down the towel.

‘You don’t want to ask me anything?’

He sighed. ‘What’s the point? It’s over.’

‘You are the seeker my grandfather said would come here one day. You have followed the hidden path. You have found the treasure.’

‘I didn’t come here for gold,’ he replied, tears burning in his eyes. ‘It’s not about that.’

‘Gold is not the only treasure,’ she said, cocking her head with a curious smile. She walked over to a
cupboard. On a shelf inside were bottles of olive oil and vinegar, jars of dried herbs and preserves, peppercorns and spices. She parted them and took out from behind a small, plain earthenware container which she carefully brought over and set on the table. She lifted the lid. Inside the container was a little glass bottle. She gave it a gentle shake and the clear liquid inside caught the light and shimmered. She turned to Ben. ‘Is this what you were looking for?’

He reached out for it. ‘Is it…?’

‘Careful. It is the only sample my grandfather prepared.’

He slumped in a chair, feeling suddenly as drained and spent as he was relieved. Antonia sat opposite him, rested her hands flat on the table and looked at him keenly.
‘Now
would you like to stay a while and hear my story?’

They talked. Ben told her about his mission and the events that had led him to the House of the Raven. Then it was his turn to listen as she continued the story told in Fulcanelli’s Journal.

‘After Daquin betrayed my grandfather’s trust, things happened quickly. The Nazis raided the house and ransacked the laboratory to find the secrets. My grandmother surprised them, and they shot her.’ Antonia sighed. ‘After that, my grandfather fled from Paris and came here with my mother.’

‘What happened to Daquin?’

‘That boy did so much damage.’ Antonia shook her head sadly. ‘I suppose he thought he was doing good.
But when he began to see what kind of people he had given away my grandfather’s teachings to, he couldn’t live with himself. Just like Judas, he put a rope around his neck.’

‘What was the connection between Fulcanelli and the architect?’ Ben asked. ‘The House of the Raven?’ ‘Corbu and my grandfather had a special bond between them,’ she explained. ‘They were both direct descendants of the Cathars. When Fulcanelli discovered the lost Cathar artefacts, this led him to locate the site of the hidden temple where their treasures were stored. The house was built the year after his discovery, to pay homage to the temple and to guard the treasures inside. Who would have guessed that a house like this marked the entrance to a sacred shrine?’ ‘Fulcanelli lived here with you and your mother?’ ‘My mother was sent to Switzerland to study. My grandfather remained here until 1930, when my mother returned with her new husband. By that time, my grandfather knew that his enemies had lost his trail. My mother then took over the role of guardian of the house and its secret. Fulcanelli went away. He disappeared.’ Antonia smiled wistfully. ‘That’s why I never met him. He was a restless soul, who believed there was always more to learn. I think he may have gone to Egypt, to explore the birthplace of alchemy.’ ‘He must have been ancient by then.’ ‘He was in his mid-eighties, but people took him for a man in his sixties. The portrait you saw was painted soon before he went away. Some time later, in 1940, I was born.’

Ben raised his eyebrows. She looked a good deal younger than her age.

Antonia noticed his look and gave an enigmatic smile. ‘When I grew up I became the guardian of the house,’ she went on. ‘My mother moved to Nice. She is in her late nineties now, and still going strong.’ She paused. ‘As for my grandfather, we never heard from him again. I think he was always afraid that his enemies might catch up with him, and that’s why he never contacted us or revealed his identity to anyone.’

‘So you don’t know when he died?’

Another mysterious little smile lifted the corners of her mouth. ‘What makes you so sure he’s dead? Perhaps he’s still out there, somewhere.’

‘You believe the elixir of life could have kept him alive all these years?’

‘Modern science doesn’t have all the answers, Ben. They still understand only the tiniest fraction of the universe.’ Antonia fixed him with her penetrating gaze. ‘You’ve taken so many risks to find the elixir. Don’t you believe in its power?’

Ben hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I want to believe in it. Perhaps I need to.’ He took Fulcanelli’s Journal, Rheinfeld’s notebook and the dagger-blade-rubbing out of his bag and laid them on the table. ‘Anyway, these are yours now. This is their rightful place.’ He sighed. And so, what happens now?’

Antonia frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Am I free to take the elixir with me? Does the guardian let the seeker take the bottle away? Or is the next round in that Mauser reserved for me?’

Her eyes twinkled with mirth and Ben could see the family resemblance to Fulcanelli’s portrait. She laid her hand on the elegant old pistol in front of her. ‘It was my grandfather’s gun. He left it to my mother, in case our enemies ever found us here. But it’s not meant for you, Ben. My grandfather believed that one day a true initiate would decipher the clues he left behind, and would come and find the secret. Someone pure of heart who would respect its power, never abuse it or publicize it.’

‘That’s a big chance to take on me,’ he said. ‘How can you be certain I’m so pure of heart?’

Antonia looked tenderly at Ben. ‘You are thinking only of the child. I can see that in your eyes.’

Rome

A procession of unmarked police cars wound their way between the lavish gardens of the Renaissance villa and pulled up in an orderly semicircle in the courtyard at the foot of the grand white columns.

From his window, high up in the magnificent dome, Archbishop Massimiliano Usberti watched them get out of their cars, brush by his servants and climb the steps to the house. Their faces were dour and official. He’d been expecting them.

Thanks to one man, Benedict Hope,
Gladius Domini
had been badly damaged. For all his seething hatred, Usberti had to admire the man. He hadn’t believed he could be so easily outdone, but somehow
Hope had done it. Usberti had been bettered, and he was impressed.

The attack had been swift and decisive. First the simultaneous arrest of his top French agent Saul and the disaster in Montpellier. Then the highly coordinated Interpol swoop on his people across Europe. Many of his agents were under questioning. Some, like Fabrizio Severini, had gone into hiding. Others had folded under police interrogation. Like a row of falling dominoes, like a blazing powder-trail of information, the investigation had led with alarming speed all the way to the top, all the way to him.

He could hear voices on the stairs leading up to the dome. They’d be here any minute. They probably thought they had him.

Fools. They had no idea who they were dealing with. A man like Massimiliano Usberti, with the contacts and influence they could never even begin to imagine, wasn’t going to go down easily. He’d find a way out of this mess, and then he’d come back and take his revenge.

The door burst open at the far end of the room, and Usberti calmly turned from the window to meet them.