The Cassandra Sanction

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Maxwell Grant had the box taken away by the same guard who’d brought it. ‘Now you understand,’ he told Catalina. ‘You really are completely on your own.’

She was still shuddering from the horror of what she’d seen, and her stomach was cramping so badly she had to clutch at it. It was all she could do not to vomit. ‘I should have killed you,’ she whispered.

‘Life is full of missed opportunities,’ Grant replied with a smile. ‘You had your chance. Fluffed it.’

‘Don’t start feeling too safe. If I don’t come back, my brother won’t rest until you get what’s coming.’

‘I’m well aware of Raul’s fiery temperament,’ Grant said. ‘It seems to run in the family, doesn’t it? It would have been so much easier for him if he’d simply accepted that his sister had committed suicide, as your parents and everyone else did. He could just have gone on living the same simple schoolteacher’s life in that peaceful little town. Married a nice girl and raised a family, and lived to a ripe old age.’

Catalina stared at him with a boiling hatred she’d never thought herself capable of.

‘You look at me as if I were the villain here,’ Grant said, spreading his hands in earnestness. ‘If we believed for a second your brother could be reasoned with, don’t you think we’d do anything we possibly could to avert further grief to your family? Reckless behaviour like his just forces our hand. He’s brought it all on himself. For heaven’s sake, I’m running a business here. I can’t have a wild man running loose and bringing on board mercenaries to decimate my employees.’

It took Catalina a moment to realise who Grant was referring to. ‘Ben isn’t a mercenary. He’s Raul’s friend.’

‘Then God help Raul. Men like this Hope don’t have friends. They’re loyal only to the highest bidder. All it would take to turn him against your beloved brother would be a pocketful of money. And money’s something we have no shortage of.’

‘You don’t know him,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

‘Actually, I think we have a rather better idea than you do. We know all there is to know about your Major Benedict Hope. And if you knew even half of the bloody little exploits he was involved in during his time on the dark side of Special Forces, things so ugly that the records don’t even officially exist, then believe me, you’d be more afraid of him than you are of us. He’s the kind of killer who gives killers a bad name.’

‘Then you should be afraid too,’ she said.

‘Though, strangely, I’m not,’ Grant replied. He looked at his watch. ‘Now, as much as I’m enjoying your company, I have some calls to make before our visitor arrives. He’ll be here in less than an hour. In the meantime, my men will show you to a guest room, where you can freshen up and prepare yourself for your journey later.’

The nonchalant way he said it chilled her through. ‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked.

He smiled. ‘It’s a surprise.’

The guards escorted Catalina through the sumptuous villa and up a marble staircase to a first-floor bedroom, where they pushed her inside and locked the door. Peeping through the keyhole, she could see one of them standing sentry outside. Moments later, a second stationed himself below the window, armed with a black rifle-like weapon and cutting off any chance she might have had of climbing down the ivied wall and escaping over the lawns.

Feeling hollow and too utterly exhausted even to cry, Catalina went into the adjoining ensuite bathroom and washed the blood from her wounded hand. A first aid kit had been left out for her, with the bandages pre-cut into strips and the scissors removed. She could see nothing else that might work as an improvised weapon. Not unless she smashed the mirror and turned a piece of broken glass into a knife. In which case, the best thing to do with it might just be to cut her own throat.

Catalina stood for a long time and stared at the mirror, and seriously thought about it.

No. Whatever happened, whatever awful thing they had in store for her, she had to preserve her dignity to the last.

She went back into the bedroom and slumped on the bed. ‘I’m so sorry, Raul,’ she said out loud. ‘I tried. I really did.’

At that moment, the Lamborghini was hurtling along the autostrada like a bright yellow rocket fired from a launcher. Ben was frantically overtaking everything in front of him, his reflexes working right on the edge of sensory overload as the speedometer flirted with heights of over three hundred kilometres an hour. At that howling, screaming mad speed he couldn’t snatch his eyes off the road to glance in the rearview mirror for more than a tiny fraction of a second. When he did, he kept expecting to see distant blue lights flashing in his wake. He must have triggered a thousand speed traps already, and it was just a question of time before the Polizia Stradale decided to hook and reel him in. Let them even try.

Speeding west from Brindisi, he’d sliced diagonally across the heel of Italy from coast to coast. Now he was curving southwards and skirting the Gulf of Táranto, which meant he was almost halfway to where he needed to be, and still not going fast enough, not even in a road-going missile that he’d learned from practical experience could accelerate from a standstill to two hundred kilometres an hour in under seven and a half seconds.

Two big articulated long-haul freight trucks were up ahead, coming up so quickly that they could have been standing still, or even reversing towards him. He swore as one of them pulled out lazily into the overtaking lane to lumber past the other, taking its time. Two abreast, they filled the road right in Ben’s path, and he had neither the luxury nor the intention of slowing down for them.

A racing downshift of the six-speed box, and the all-wheel drive bit down even harder on the road and the mid-mounted V12 engine howled behind him as he stamped down on the pedal and aimed the nose of the car right for the gap. It felt like diving a fighter jet into a canyon tight enough to scrape his wingtips on both sides. For a terrifying moment, the looming sides of the trucks were like huge walls closing in on him and he didn’t think he was going to make it. He gritted his teeth and kept his foot down hard, and then he was through and screaming out the other side and leaving them behind like two children’s toys shrinking in his mirror.

Another life gone. It was a good way to keep the heart in shape.

The first rule of strategic planning was to have some kind of plan. Ben had none. None at all. He didn’t know what he was going into. He didn’t know what he was going to find when he got there. He didn’t even know if he was going to get there in time. All he knew was that he had to keep moving like a rifle bullet. Nothing could be allowed to stop him. They could put up a roadblock, and it wouldn’t even slow him down. They could call in an air strike, a tank division or a long-range massed artillery barrage to blow up the damn road under his wheels. And even then, he’d keep going.

‘Hold on, Catalina,’ he muttered. But the howl of the engine and the blast of the wind ripped the words out of his mouth.

He was going to find her again. And when he did find her, dead or alive, then somebody was going to have a very, very bad day.