The Babylon Idol

Chapter 49

He’d found his way down the slope unseen, and had come up behind her. He had jerked her upright, dragged her out from the shelter of the boulder behind which she’d been hiding and was clutching her tightly in front of him, one hand clamped over her mouth, the other holding a pistol against her head. Her eyes were rolling and she was struggling in his grip, but he was too strong for her. It was a replay of Olympia, except this time Ben was unarmed and helpless to do anything about it.

Anything except a strategy that had worked well for him in the past, and saved his life a couple of times. Pure brazen bluff.

Ben wasn’t thinking about the sniper as he walked towards Bozza and Anna. Let the bastard shoot, he thought. If he allowed this woman to be killed on his watch, it was what he deserved anyway. He pointed the rifle at Bozza and worked the bolt one last time, ejecting the fifth and last spent case and making a big show of slamming a non-existent sixth into the empty chamber.

‘Put it down, Bozza,’ he said as calmly as he could make his voice work. He saw the tiniest narrowing of the man’s eyes at the mention of the name.

‘It is Bozza, isn’t it? Franco was what, your elder brother?’

The man gave a slow nod. His expression didn’t change. The eyes stayed narrowed, piercing into Ben’s with a blaze of hatred.

Ben took another step closer. ‘Tell me, are you trying to uphold some kind of family tradition?’ he said. ‘Dying in the line of duty, to serve a nutcase like Usberti? Or did you just take this job to get back at me?’

The man said nothing. He screwed the gun muzzle harder against Anna’s head. A muffled whimper of pain squeaked through his black-gloved fingers. She tried to bite him, but he just gripped her more tightly.

Ben took another step closer, holding the rifle steady. He said, ‘I’ll bet you always wondered how Franco died. I was there, so I’ll tell you. He was shot with a small-calibre pistol. Not much more than an antique one, at that. Once in the throat and once in the head. The second shot damn near took the whole top of his skull off. You should have seen it. But that was nothing next to what this rifle will do. At this range it’ll peel you like a banana. The question I’d be asking myself in your position is: is she worth it? And then I’d let her go, right sharpish. I’d advise you to do the same.’

Bozza still didn’t speak. The cold burning light in his eyes flickered downwards for a few moments and he looked at the rifle in Ben’s hands. Running up and down its length, taking in the detail of form and dimension as if he was digitally scanning it with his brain. Then his eyes flicked back up to lock Ben’s once more, and a ghost of a knowing smile twitched one corner of his lips. He took his left hand away from Anna’s mouth. Ignoring the torrent of furious Italian that poured out of it, he kept his eyes on Ben. He held up his left thumb, then his forefinger, then the other three. Counting, one, two, three, four, five. Then he pointed at the rifle and the smile spread into a twisted kind of smirk that said, ‘I can count, my friend. You fired five, that’s a 98k you’re holding there, and you’re clean out of ammo.’

‘Shoot him, Ben!’ Anna yelled.

But Ben knew what Bozza knew: that if he was going to use the rifle, he’d have to cover the remaining distance between them faster than the pull of a trigger, and beat his enemy’s brains out with it. That steel butt plate was good for all kinds of uses. If it had been just him and Bozza, he might have chanced it, even if it risked taking a bullet. But the added element in this equation was Anna. One move, and Bozza would kill her before Ben was even halfway there. Ben could read that clearly in his eyes.

Ben looked at Anna. He shook his head and saw the despair flood through her face. Then he looked back at Bozza. ‘Some other time, then,’ he said. He let the rifle drop from his hand. It clattered to the ground at his feet.

He might have expected his victorious enemy to offer some kind of comment at a time like this. But Bozza said not a word. His eyes darted up the canyon. Waiting for his buddies to arrive, the ones Ben hadn’t killed. Ben gave Anna a reassuring wink. Like saying, ‘This is just a temporary setback, we’ll be fine.’ He wished he could be so sure of that himself.

One by one, the others showed themselves. First came the one Ben had missed with his last shot. He slithered and scrambled down the rocky slope to join Bozza, keeping his submachine gun carefully pointed at Ben the whole time. He was a heavy-set guy with greying hair and bulging eyes like an exophthalmic fish. If he’d been one of the assault team back in Ankara, Ben didn’t recognise him without his gas mask.

‘You’re the luckiest man alive,’ Ben said. ‘Better enjoy it while it lasts.’

Popeye held his gun one-handed while he fetched a small walkie-talkie handset out from his jacket, turned it on with a squawk of static and said into it, ‘Mission accomplished, boss. We’re one man down. Iacono didn’t make it, thanks to this piece of scum. Be with you shortly.’

‘Same old Usberti,’ Ben said. ‘Leading from the rear. Letting the expendable grunts do the dying for him.’

‘Stai zitto, bastardo inglese.’

‘That would be “bastardo metà irlandese”,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s get this right.’

‘One more word,’ Popeye warned him, ‘and I’ll shoot you in the balls.’ He put the radio away and then used his free hand to take a set of steel handcuffs from another pocket. Stepped behind Ben, pressed the muzzle of the gun against the back of his neck. Grabbed one arm and jerked it behind Ben’s back, then the other. Ben could have broken his spine in two effortless moves, three at most. But Bozza’s pistol was still trained on Anna. Ben felt the bite of cold steel bracelets on his wrists and knew that his window of opportunity had just closed. For the moment.

The third guy to appear was the sniper. He emerged from a fissure between two big rocks on the canyon slope and ambled towards them with his scoped precision rifle slung casually over one shoulder, a bandolier of ammunition draped around the other, as though he’d come prepared to fight off a battalion. Like Bozza and Popeye, he was wearing a black quilted cold-weather jacket, black high-leg combat boots, black gloves and a black beanie hat. As he reached the assembled group he flashed a lurid grin at Anna. ‘Aldo Groppione, al tuo servizio.’ He ran his tongue over his lips.

‘Vai a morire ammazzatto,’ she fired back at him. Italian for: ‘Go and die murdered.’

‘Maledetta puttana,’ Groppione sneered in disgust, then turned a cocky grin on Ben. He pointed at the Mauser lying on the ground. ‘Not bad shooting, from an antique musket.’

‘Not so bad yourself,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll bet you could hit an unarmed man in the chest from a kilometre away in high wind and snow. Taken any trips to Normandy recently?’

Groppione chuckled. ‘That was me, all right. Most fun I ever had with my trousers on.’

‘Shame you got the wrong guy,’ Ben said.

‘Yeah, well, you Brit pricks all look alike. Stupid shit never knew what hit him.’

‘I meant shame for you,’ Ben said. ‘There are consequences for that kind of mistake.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as, first chance I get, I’m going to stretch your neck like a chicken.’

Groppione stared at him. ‘Like a chicken?’

‘That’s what I said,’ Ben told him. ‘You’d better believe it.’

Groppione laughed loudly. ‘You got some coglioni on you, man. I’ll give you that. It’s almost gonna be a shame to have to plug you.’ Turning to Popeye he said, ‘I say we do him here. What do you reckon, Starace?’

Fish-eyed Starace shook his head. ‘You know the boss said to bring both of them in alive if we could.’

‘Yeah, well, what if we didn’t? Accidents happen, right?’

‘You want to piss him off? Nor me. Let’s go.’

Groppione pointed at Anna. ‘You going to cuff her too?’

‘What’s the matter, Groppione? You afraid of a woman?’

‘I like a bitch tied up, know what I mean?’

Prisoners now, Ben and Anna were marched at gunpoint up the canyon, then up a winding path through the rocks that took them past the nook where Groppione had set himself up. It was a well-chosen spot, Ben had to admit. The ground was littered with empty cases and screwed-up Power bar wrappers. A busy assassin’s working lunch.

A little way further on, the slope peaked and then dropped away into a barren plateau where the cold wind whipped up little dust devils and rustled the few hardy shrubs that could find a place to grow. Snaking across the plateau’s outer edge was a rough, unmade single-track road, the kind that needed passing places every few hundred yards so that on the rare occasions two vehicles met, they could squeeze by one another.

The nearest passing place was a short walk up the road. Filling its entire length was a stationary vehicle that was an incongruous sight out here in this empty wilderness. It wasn’t a van, or even a lorry. It was an American-made six-wheeled RV the size of a touring coach. Its acres of colourful paintwork were streaked with whorls of dust and dirt from a lot of road miles. It looked as though it must have been parked there for some time, long enough for whoever was inside to make themselves comfortable. Hydraulic slide-out sections were extended on both sides. A haze of warm air was streaming from a heating exhaust vent at the rear. Pull-down blinds screened the inside of every window.

‘Cosy,’ Ben said. ‘A mobile command centre fit for a king. Or maybe just a dead former archbishop. You boys have a hot tub in there as well?’

‘Shut your mouth,’ Popeye said, and prodded him in the back with his submachine gun barrel.

Bozza led the way up to a side door and stepped up an extending metal gangway. The door opened with a whoosh of hydraulics. Ben and Anna were prodded and shoved after him. ‘Welcome aboard, girls,’ Groppione said with a leer.

Warm air and the soft strains of a Bach choral cantata wafted from the RV’s interior as Ben climbed the steps, Anna behind. The inside of the huge motor coach seemed even more cavernous than it looked from the outside. It smelled of leather and new carpeting. Walnut cabinets and faux marble tops reflected the light from clusters of LED ceiling spotlamps. At the very front, the driving cab looked like the bridge of a starship. Between it and the side entrance, a massive swivel armchair upholstered in tan cowhide was turned with its back to Ben and Anna. The chair slowly rotated around to face them.

‘Major Benedict Hope,’ said the familiar voice of the chair’s occupant. ‘Professoressa Manzini. How happy it makes me to welcome you both to my humble domain.’