The Babylon Idol

Chapter 17

The ambulance headed back towards Florence with its blue lights flashing. Ben had expected it to lead him to some modern hospital on the outskirts of the city, but instead it led him deep into the historic centre, to the Piazza di Santa Maria Nuova where it pulled up outside the portico of an ancient hospital building by the same name. Ben tucked the Alpina into a parking space off the square a short distance away, and watched from behind the wheel as the paramedics and a team of hospital staff unloaded Gianni and hustled him quickly inside out of the cold.

Ben waited an hour in the car, during which time he got back on the phone. Still no email response from Anna. Frustrated, he dialled Sandrine Lacombe’s number. She sounded anxious. There had been no change in Jeff’s condition and she had little to report, except that his mother had arrived from Australia and had to be sedated after the shock of seeing him. Sandrine seemed totally unaware of the armed guard Ben had posted on her hospital. But something in her tone made him suspect she wasn’t telling him everything.

Next, he called Le Val for an update on things there. Tuesday told him that McGuire, Fry and Blackwood had arrived early that morning. Between them, they were watching the perimeter day and night and if anyone was lurking nearby, they’d know about it. ‘Have you seen the news?’ Tuesday added in a dark undertone.

When Ben checked the online media channels immediately after ending the call, he fast discovered what Sandrine Lacombe hadn’t wanted to tell him. ‘Shit,’ he muttered.

It had to have happened sooner or later — and it had, while he was heading towards Italy. The BBC, Euronews.com and the other channels had all broken the story more or less identically:

‘The victim of the recent suspected terrorist incident in Normandy has been named by French police as Jeff Dekker, a British ex-serviceman and director of the Le Val Tactical Training Centre near Valognes, a shooting gallery used by law enforcement and the military, as well as civilians. Mr Dekker is currently being treated for gunshot wounds at Louis Pasteur Hospital in Cherbourg, where he remains in a critical condition. Le Val co-director, Benjamin Hope, was unavailable for comment. France’s Secretary General for National Defence, Henri Couillon, yesterday expressed grave concerns over the security risk posed by private firms such as Le Val, where large arsenals of deadly assault weapons are vulnerable to easy theft by extremist groups…’

Ordinarily, Ben would have been irritated by the ‘Benjamin’ part, as well as the article’s misleading sensationalism and description of Le Val as a ‘shooting gallery’. But right now, what concerned him was the fact that his enemies, whoever they were, knew that they’d got the wrong man. They wouldn’t have to be geniuses to figure out that their intended target was still out there, and gunning for them.

In other words, his element of surprise had just vaporised.

Ben quelled his annoyance with a couple of cigarettes. As his thoughts calmed, he realised that the leak also meant that Jeff was no longer at risk in Cherbourg — not from sneak assassins, at any rate. He made a quick call to Boonzie to instruct him to pull the two guys off their post in Cherbourg and send them down to Le Val to fortify the defences there.

Once that was done, Ben looked at his watch and decided that Gianni Garrone’s doctors had had plenty enough time to do whatever they needed to do to patch up their patient. He left the car and wandered inside the old hospital building, keeping an eye out for cops but, so far, spotting none. At the front desk, he flashed the police ID and asked to see the patient. He was ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble, but the real Detective Bellomo obviously hadn’t yet sounded the alarm over his stolen badge, and the hospital staff were happily taken in by the impostor — weird accent or not. The nurses tried to insist that he should come back later as Signor Garrone was in no fit state to receive visitors yet. Ben sweet-talked them into letting him have ten minutes alone with the patient. This kind of work was so much easier when you could open doors with a wave of your badge. He wished he could be a cop more often.

The hospital wasn’t much more modern inside than it was outside. A nurse led him to a curtained-off corner of a ward, where he found Garrone propped up in bed, heavily bandaged and even more heavily drugged.

Ben pulled up a chair. When the nurse had gone, he said, ‘I’m Detective Bellomo. You had a lucky escape tonight, Gianni. I know you’re hurting, so this won’t take long. I need to know where Anna is. I don’t have time to explain, but she’s in serious danger.’

Garrone couldn’t turn his head. His bloodshot eyes rolled sideways to peer at Ben in surprise at the mention of Anna. He was pumped full of so many painkillers that his lips barely moved as he croaked, ‘Is… she… okay?’

‘I hope so, Gianni, and I mean to keep her that way. But I need your help.’

‘Left… three days ago… research trip… ’ The patient winced as though every breath was causing him terrible pain, which Ben didn’t doubt it was. ‘Really big… Important,’ he added.

‘I don’t care what she’s researching, Gianni. That’s not what I need to know. Just tell me where she went.’

Garrone’s eyes drifted shut, and for a moment Ben thought he’d passed out. He had to lean close to hear the murmured word, ‘Olympia.’

Ben didn’t think he meant the capital of the state of Washington, USA. Or the exhibition centre in London. ‘She’s in Greece?’

Almost inaudibly, Gianni whispered, ‘She went… to meet a man… Theo Kambasis.’

‘Kambasis,’ Ben repeated, writing it down.

Gianni nodded. The drugs were rapidly carrying him under.

‘Stay with me, Gianni. One more question. The man who attacked you. He was after her, wasn’t he? He hurt you so you’d tell him where she’d gone. That’s why he had the sound recorder.’

Another barely perceptible nod. Gianni’s breathing had slowed down to the merest sigh.

‘Did you tell him, Gianni? Do they know where Anna is?’

But by then, Gianni Garrone was far away in a chemical haze from which he might not emerge for hours. Ben had got all he was going to get, and it was time for him to leave.

He just had to hope he could find her before the killers did.