The Cassandra Sanction

Chapter Thirty-Nine

For the first half hour of the journey, the van’s stop-start motion, bouncing and jolting over potholes and swaying left and right through frequent twists and turns, told Ben they must be cutting through the city. Then their progress smoothed out, the jerking and lurching stopped, and the vehicle maintained a steady speed.

It was cold in the back. Ben and Raul couldn’t talk to one another easily, their voices muffled by their hoods and drowned out by the road and transmission noise that resonated through the bare metal shell. Like hostages and prisoners always do sooner or later, each man lapsed into the silence of his own separate world. Ben could only imagine what Raul must be thinking. He had plenty to ponder himself.

Ben’s head was buzzing with questions, and a lot of them involved Mike McCauley. Was it just a coincidence that the armed men had turned up at the house at that particular moment? Was it safe simply to assume they’d been watching the place, or was there more to this? What if the journalist set a trap for them? Had he known they were going to turn up in London, and if so, how could he have known that? Was he more deeply involved in this thing than he was letting on? These people could have got to him. Or he could have been one of them, from the start. That could explain why they’d let him go. Ben could think of no other reason; and yet none of it seemed to add up.

He was still trying to make sense of the situation when the van finally slowed and braked to a halt. The engine went silent. Everything seemed very still.

‘We’ve stopped,’ said Raul’s indistinct voice, sounding far away.

Ben listened and heard doors opening, and voices, and the sound of footsteps. Boots on concrete. Gusts of wind were buffeting the side of the van.

‘Where are we? What’s happening?’ Raul said. His muffled voice was tinged with panic.

The rear doors squeaked open, and the van’s suspension juddered with the weight of men clambering into the back. Rough hands grabbed Ben’s arms and jerked him upright, hurting his tethered wrists. He didn’t resist them. The sharp night air swirled over him as he was hauled out of the van. Hard ground under his feet. Through the heavy material of the hood, he could make out bright lights and formless shapes. Some kind of building loomed up behind the van, large and square and squat. More light shone out from inside, but he couldn’t tell whether it was a house, or an office block, or an agricultural building.

He’d been wondering why they hadn’t shot him yet. Maybe the time for that was now. He steeled himself for it. Every man had to die some time. It was just a question of why, and how, and when. The truth was, he’d always been ready. But he wouldn’t die alone. That was the silent, grim promise he made to his captors.

But still they didn’t shoot him. He could sense Raul’s presence close by as the two of them were led from the van.

And he could hear something. A distinctive high-pitched whistling whoosh that seemed to grow in volume and drowned out the voices around him and the sound of the wind. It filled his ears and became deafening as he was led closer to it.

It was the noise of jet turbines.

The wide open space Ben and Raul had been delivered to was some kind of private airfield. The building was a hangar.

The blinking nose-, wing- and taillights of the stationary aircraft were visible through Ben’s hood, as well as the interior glow from its single line of windows and open fuselage door. He could see it wasn’t a large plane. A medium-sized business jet, like a Gulfstream G200 or a Learjet 85. And it appeared to be waiting for them.

Ben was held back as the men led Raul ahead of him to the boarding steps. The roar of the engines was building steadily. Evidently, someone was in a hurry to get out of here. Someone grabbed Ben’s hands and he felt something hard and slim pass between his wrists; a quick sawing motion and the knife had sliced through the plastic tie. His hands were free. He rubbed his wrists where the bonds had bitten into the flesh. Then someone shoved him onward, and he gripped the handrail of the boarding steps and climbed up into the warmth of the aircraft. The roar of the engines was muted to a softly vibrating thrum as the fuselage hatch was closed behind him.

‘Sit here, please,’ said a voice.

Please? A few moments earlier, Ben had been getting ready for a bullet in the back of the head. He wondered at the sudden courtesy as he felt his way to the seat he was being guided towards, and lowered himself into it. Next, his hood was removed and he blinked at the sudden dazzle of the plane’s brightly lit interior. The private jet was plushly done out in tan leather and highly figured wood panels. Something of a contrast to the inside of the van. This kidnapping had taken a turn for the stylish.

Gazing around him, Ben recognised the figures of the four men who’d taken them from McCauley’s house. The fifth man who’d been at the wheel of the van seemed to have vanished. As had the guns that had been pointing at Ben and Raul earlier. If the men were still armed, the weapons were concealed under their jackets. Raul was already seated across the narrow aisle, hoodless and blinking in confusion. He and Ben exchanged looks.

‘If this is the magical mystery tour, which one of you is Ringo?’ Ben asked the four men.

‘I apologise for the roughness of your treatment,’ the Greyhound said. ‘Please try to see it from our point of view. I’m afraid it was the only possible way of carrying out our orders.’

‘Who are you people?’ Raul demanded.

‘All will be explained to you, when we land,’ the Greyhound said.

Raul stared at him. ‘Where are we being taken, asshole?’

‘Again, that’s not for me to say. You’ll see for yourselves, a few hours from now. In the meantime, I’m instructed to make your flight a pleasant one. Can I offer you some refreshments?’

Ben laughed at the absurdity of it. None of this was doing much to answer the questions that had been filling his head since leaving McCauley’s house. Something had changed, all right. He was completely without a clue as to what was happening.

‘Go to hell,’ Raul said, still staring.

The Greyhound smiled thinly. ‘Fine. Then can I please ask you to buckle your seatbelts, as we’re due to take off at any moment.’