The Cassandra Sanction

Chapter Thirty-Three

Late that night, long after Raul had gone to bed, Ben stood out on the little wooden balcony overlooking the quiet street below, looked across the sleepy rooftops and up at the stars, and spent a while wondering about the depths of space that scholars like Catalina Fuentes devoted their lives to studying. Ben was no astronomer, but even his meagre knowledge of just how vast that big dark sky out there was left him shaking his head.

There was an awful lot of space out there, that was for certain. No wonder that astronomers had to specialise in just one limited area, or else they’d only end up spending their whole careers skimming the surface.

He thought about Catalina’s celestial body of preference, that vastly gigantic nuclear blast furnace at the centre of the solar system, and the insignificantly minuscule little planet called Earth that was spinning round and round it. To him, the sun was, had always been, just the sun. To be sure, there had been times when he’d cursed it, often when he’d found himself baking inside the infernal pizza oven of an SAS Land Rover in the roiling heat of a desert somewhere. Just as there had been plenty of other times he’d craved to feel just a tiny touch of its warmth, when he’d been freezing his arse off trudging over some mountain, numb as deadwood inside his boots with the weight of pack and rifle threatening to drag him down into the snow.

But hate it or love it, it occurred to him how little he really knew about it. Which was strange, when he stopped to consider how vital to life that big old fireball up there in the sky actually was. Its eternal cycle was the hub of all things for every warm-blooded creature that had ever lived, and ever would. And billions of people just took it every bit as much for granted as the blood in their veins and the air in their lungs, while only a minute fraction of the world’s population ever bothered to take the time to try to understand how it worked, what made it keep on ticking, and the future of its relationship with the trillions of life forms under its fiery dominion.

As Ben’s contemplations slowly descended back to earth, he leaned on the balcony rail and lit up the first of his last four cigarettes to help him think. Raul might be right about walking into a trap. That was a potential worry, but Ben was almost equally worried about the possibility of not finding Mike McCauley in London. Guys in that line of work, especially of the hungry lone-wolf variety such as McCauley obviously was, tended to spend most of their time out in the field chasing down stories. He could be in Papua New Guinea for the next two months, for all Ben knew. Or, like Sinclair and Lockhart and possibly Ellis too, he could already be a dead man.

The fourth-last cigarette didn’t seem to last long, so Ben lit up the third-last. By the time that one was smoked to its stub, it was after two in the morning and he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep that night. He walked back through the dark room to sit on the bed, and pulled out the phone he’d taken from Raul earlier. Paid for in cash, no traces. He dialled a familiar number and waited. After five rings, a sleepy-sounding voice answered, ‘Hello?’

It had been a while since they’d spoken. The last time hadn’t been pleasant.

‘Hello, sister,’ he said.

Ruth treasured her privacy almost as much as her elder brother did. Maybe it was a Hope family trait. Her personal mobile number was known to barely four people in the world; Ben reckoned that if the bad guys were tapping her phone, it would be the company line.

‘Ben?’

‘I know it’s late,’ Ben said.

‘My God. Where are you?’

Ben heard a rustling sound on the line as Ruth propped herself up against the pillow. The sleepiness was quickly disappearing from her voice.

‘I was thinking of you the last few days,’ he said. ‘Felt like talking.’

‘I was thinking of you, too. I haven’t heard from you for so long. What are you doing now?’

‘Now, I’m sitting on a hotel bed waiting for the morning to come.’

‘Right. I meant generally.’

‘Walking, eating, sleeping. The usual things.’ He decided it was time to change the subject, before she started asking difficult questions. ‘How’s life for you? I heard that Steiner Industries was bidding for a buyout of the Lufthansa Group.’

She laughed. ‘That’ll be the day. Maybe we’ll start with Swiss Global and work up to it. Shouldn’t take more than about twenty years to clinch the deal.’

‘That’s your whole problem,’ Ben said. ‘No ambition.’

‘Have you spoken to Brooke?’ Ruth cut in, with typical directness. Good old Ruth. Straight to the point.

Ben was silent. Here come the difficult questions, he thought. Hearing Brooke’s name spoken out loud brought a wash of uncomfortable emotions.

‘I spoke to her a couple of months ago,’ Ruth said. ‘She told me you never call her.’

‘Why would I call her?’ he said. He heard the cold detachment in his own voice, and wondered if it sounded as artificial to Ruth as it did to him.

‘I think she’d like you to. She misses you.’

‘You know what happened between us,’ he said stiffly. ‘There’s nothing left to miss.’

‘As a friend, then.’

Ben said nothing.

Ruth said, ‘Nobody knows where you are or what you’re doing. You worry people.’

‘Did Brooke say she was worried about me?’

‘She didn’t have to say. You could be dead, and we wouldn’t even know.’

‘We?’

‘There are people who care about you, Ben.’ Ruth paused for a few moments and Ben could hear her moving about, plumping up the pillow, sitting up in bed.

‘I’m sorry I woke you. Maybe I shouldn’t have called.’

‘It’s okay, I’m alone anyway.’

‘I won’t ask.’

‘It wouldn’t do you much good if you did,’ she said. ‘Listen, have you talked to Jude? Your son. Remember him?’

Ben ignored the sarcasm. ‘Not lately.’

‘He and Brooke keep in contact. She said he’s quit university.’

‘I thought he might.’

‘And how hard did you try to talk him out of it?’

‘I can’t force him to do what he doesn’t want to do,’ Ben said. ‘Once his mind’s made up, that’s it.’

‘Sounds like someone else I know,’ Ruth said.

‘Did she say what he’s doing now?’ She. It hurt him to say Brooke’s name.

‘Not much, apparently. Sounds like he’s kind of drifting. He needs direction in his life, Ben. He needs a father to guide him.’

‘I don’t think I’m much of that,’ Ben said, then fell silent. He wanted to ask what Brooke was doing now, but didn’t.

‘Where are you?’ Ruth asked again.

‘I told you. I’m in a hotel. Actually it’s more of an inn.’

‘That tells me a lot. You could be anywhere from Albuquerque to Znamensk.’

‘Germany. Somewhere near Freiburg, I think.’

‘You’re kidding me. Then you’re almost in Switzerland. Just a hop over the border. Why don’t you come and see me here in Zurich? Spend some time?’

‘I’m sure you’re busy running your corporate empire.’

‘Never too busy for my big brother, you know that.’

‘You’ve forgiven me for crashing your plane in that lake in Indonesia?’

‘Hey, these things happen. I bought a new one. Don’t change the subject. Are you coming to see me, or what?’

‘Some time, I will. I’m in the middle of things at the moment.’

‘Business?’

‘I’m retired from business.’

Ruth’s tone grew firm. ‘Ben, are you in trouble again?’

‘Somebody is,’ he said, after a beat.

‘Somebody’s always in trouble, Ben. You can’t help them all.’

‘That’s the only thing I’m afraid of,’ he said.

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘Not getting the job done,’ he said.

‘I don’t think you need to worry about that, brother. You always get the job done.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You be careful.’

‘As ever,’ he said.

‘And safe.’

‘As houses.’

‘Call me more often, okay?’

‘Soon,’ he said, and put down the phone.

He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, sorry that the call had ended without him finding the courage to ask after Brooke. Instead he’d let himself sound like a cold-hearted bastard. Maybe he was a cold-hearted bastard. Or if he wasn’t, maybe he should try harder to become one. Cold-hearted bastards didn’t get sleepless nights reliving bad moments over and over, or feel gnawed by guilt and regret over words and actions that couldn’t ever be undone.

Ben tried to visualise Brooke’s face in his mind, but others kept intruding and clouding his imagination. Roberta Ryder. Silvie Valois.

He snapped open his eyes and looked at the luminous dial of his watch in the darkness. Still not three o’clock. Dawn was a long way off, but he felt more restless than ever.

Maybe calling Ruth hadn’t been such a great idea after all.

Ben closed his eyes again, buried his head in the pillow and tried to shut out the unsettling images and voices in his head.