The Cassandra Sanction

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ben looped the BMW around in the yard and they headed back down the track. As they left the observatory behind, Raul cast a last wistful glance out of the window. Reaching the bend, Ben slowed and steered to the left a little with two wheels on the grass so that he could edge around the side of the blue Opel and the black Fiat van. When he was past them, he hit the gas and the BMW’s tyres bit down hard into the dirt as they sped away down the track about twice as quickly as they’d come.

Seven minutes later, they reached the road and Ben steered left, picking up the route they would have followed earlier if they hadn’t turned into the track. As to where they were going, he had no clear idea yet, only three basic objectives.

One, because the BMW was most likely hot, he wanted to stay away from major roads and traffic cameras that might automatically flag the registration to a central computer. Two, and for much the same reason, he generally wanted to avoid any kind of police entanglements. He and law enforcement officials tended not to mix well. He’d never really understood why. Something to do with his consistent inability to remain, for any length of time, the kind of peaceful, passive, docile civilian they liked being able to control. He considered that to be their problem, as long as it didn’t become his. When the cops did eventually turn up at the scene, as well as all the bodies to bag up there was going to be a wealth of forensic evidence lying around all over the property for them to get their teeth into. Some of which could potentially lead them to Raul and himself — but there was nothing Ben could do about that.

His third and most important objective was to put as much space between themselves and the scene of the attack as possible, as quickly as possible. They had work to do, and Ben wanted to do it somewhere he could be assured nobody, either cops or anyone else, could find them.

He drove fast, too concentrated on the road to speak to Raul. They met with no screeching convoys of response vehicles, which meant that nobody had heard or reported any distant gunfire. And they met with no reinforcements of bad guys, which meant that whomever the six had been communicating with by phone either didn’t know what had happened to them, or hadn’t had time to organise themselves. Alternatively, it could mean that the half dozen corpses scattered around the observatory represented the enemy’s total force, now spent. Ben would have liked to believe that, but hard experience had taught him to veer towards the pessimistic side of cautious. Hope for the best, expect the worst and be ready for something worse still.

They skirted westwards, contouring the German side of Lake Constance along twisty and half-empty roads that lost themselves in thick woodland for long periods, then emerged into the open to offer flashes of the great lake and the little towns clustered around its shores. After a dozen kilometres, Ben spotted a layby flashing up on the right, and he braked and pulled in.

Raul woke from the brown study he’d lapsed into, looked out of the window and saw there was nothing around them except grass and shrubs and trees and the empty stretch of road running by, then turned to Ben with his eyebrows raised. ‘Why are we stopping?’

Ben cut the engine. His trouser pockets were bulging. Three phones in the left, another three in the right. He fished out all six and laid them in a row along the top of his thigh. ‘If they could track the car, they can easily track these phones. I want to check them over, but I’m not doing it wherever we hole up for the night. We don’t want any unexpected visitors.’

All six phones were identical in make, model, colour and condition, which was shiny and virtually brand new, apart from the small ricochet dent in the one Ben had taken from the sniper. He activated each in turn, scrolled through its menus and call records, and found exactly the same thing in all six cases. The phones were devoid of any records whatsoever, except for a list of calls made over the last few days, all to the same sole number, at the same times and for the same duration.

Whoever they’d been calling was the boss man. One rank down and immediately answerable to him would be the team leader, and Ben was fairly sure the sniper had been it. Back in the day, Ben had been the kind of team leader who led from the front, right there in the thick of it with his men and first in line to take a bullet. There was also the kind who preferred to hang back from the action and send the others in first while they watched from a safe position. Evidently, the sniper had been one of those. Not that it had done the man much good, in the end.

Ben picked up the sniper’s phone and redialled the number. He relaxed back in the driver’s seat with the phone to his ear as the dial tone rang twice, three times.

The man picked up on the fourth ring.

‘I’ve been wondering why you didn’t call me sooner, Cook. Update me.’

A deep voice, rich and sonorous. He was English, like his crew, but where Ben had heard them talking in rougher, more working-class London accents, this man spoke with what Ben had heard termed the RP accent. Received Pronunciation, the formalised dialect of the cultivated, the privately educated, the moneyed, the prestigious. He sounded cold, remote and fully in control. He sounded unquestionably like the boss. Someone who coordinated strategies and outcomes from afar, and wasn’t happy when he wasn’t kept abreast of all developments. Someone who expected results, and had most certainly paid a lot of money to obtain them.

Ben could play this in two basic ways. He could take a gamble and pretend to be one of the dead gunmen, copying their way of speaking, and hope he could fake the man out long enough to get him to reveal useful information. His name, his location, ideally both. Depending on whom Ben was dealing with, that could have been the right strategy. But not with this one. Ben sensed from the man’s tone that trickery wouldn’t get him far. He knew nothing about his enemy, except that he was far too clever to fall for such an obvious ploy.

So Ben decided on the straight approach.

He said, ‘I’m afraid Cook isn’t available. Not any more. Not unless you’re a spirit medium and can communicate with the other side.’

There was a silence on the phone. Ben said nothing and rode it out.

After ten long seconds the voice said, ‘I see. Then to whom am I speaking?’ Cool, unruffled, unfazed.

‘I’m the guy who made him unavailable,’ Ben said. ‘His friends too. You won’t be hearing from any of them again. Which puts you six men down and at something of a disadvantage. The element of surprise is a valuable thing. Lose it, and you stand to lose entirely.’

‘I know who you are,’ said the voice after another pause.

‘I know you do. That’s why you know to take very seriously what I’m about to say.’

The silence on the other end of the line seemed to intensify. Ben could feel the man listening intently, still composed but tensing up. Gripping the phone tightly, pressing it hard against his ear and his clenched jaw. The strategic mind hard at work.

‘I’m calling to make you a deal,’ Ben said. ‘And to give you a chance. You gave it your best today, and you came away with nothing. Less than nothing. You failed badly. If you try again, you’ll fail worse. Now it’s time to back off and leave these people alone. If you do that, you might live a long and happy life and never hear from me again. If you don’t, this is going to end very badly for you. That’s a promise. A guarantee. I will come for you. If you know who I am, you know what that means.’

‘Are you finished?’ the voice said. Calm and smooth as a millpond on a lazy summer’s afternoon.

‘I haven’t even begun,’ Ben replied.

‘I appreciate your offer,’ the voice said. ‘Regrettably, I must decline. That is to say, regrettably for you, Major Hope. It’s you who needs to back off and walk away, while you still can. Forget these people. You have no idea what you have become involved in.’

‘I never walk away,’ Ben said.

‘Then too bad for you if you get under my feet,’ said the voice. And the man hung up.