The Lost Relic

Chapter Sixty-Three

The Mitsubishi’s driver was fast and skilful. Ben sat quietly among his captors with his cuffed hands in his lap as the car sped away from the scene of the hijack and headed for the city’s outskirts. A couple of Carabinieri vehicles flashed by in the opposite direction, but nobody came after them.

Beyond Rome’s outer fringe of suburbs and used car lots, furniture superstores and discount warehouses, the Mitsubishi passed through a dilapidated iron gateway, crossed the weed-strewn concrete forecourt of a dingy industrial building that looked like a disused factory or packing plant, and drove inside. The SUV’s engine boomed in the empty building, then died. The six men climbed down from the vehicle and hauled Ben out at gunpoint.

The abandoned building smelled of urine and decay. The place was scattered with empty bottles and other debris left behind by itinerant homeless people. Rays of sunlight shone in through tall, grimed windows. A pair of pigeons flapped about among the rusty iron roof girders, their wing-beats echoing in the huge, empty space. The only furniture in the building was a cracked plastic office chair that sat alone in the middle of the concrete floor. The scarred man shoved Ben over to it. ‘Sit.’

Ben figured that unless he was going to try and take down six heavily-armed men with his wrists cuffed together, he might as well sit down.

The scarred man motioned to one of his crew, the tall one who’d executed the burning cop earlier. The tall guy approached Ben with a grin and crouched down. He grabbed one of Ben’s feet and yanked off one of his laceless shoes, then the other, and tossed them over to his boss.

‘First place we look,’ the scarred man said in his guttural English. ‘Then we look other places.’ He propped his weapon against a concrete pillar. Holding Ben’s left shoe by its toecap, he smashed the heel hard against the pillar’s edge, two, three, four times, until the shoe’s heel broke apart. He inspected it, then did the same with the other. Ben watched, confused, as the right heel fell off to reveal a hollow compartment inside. The man dug his fingers inside, pulled out a small black device, and the mass of scar tissue crinkled into a mirthless smile.

Ben stared at the thing that had been in his shoe. How long had he been walking around with a GPS tracker attached to him?

‘They are not so smart,’ the scarred man said, tossing it away. ‘We have jammer.’

They, Ben thought. Whoever they were.

The man walked up to him. ‘Nobody can find you here, Mister Ben Hope. Now we have business.’

Ben knew there wasn’t much point in playing the ‘you’ve got the wrong man’ card. Not when he was Italy’s most overexposed celebrity of the moment.

‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You’ve just found out the Goya you and your boys stole is a fake, and you want to know where the real one is.’

The man snorted. ‘We do not care about the Goya. The Goya is shit.’

‘But you still thought it was worth killing for.’

‘You know nothing. You are ignorant man. You know who I am?’

‘Someone who stuck his face in a combine harvester.’

The scarred man slapped Ben hard across the face. ‘My name is Spartak Gourko. Spetsnaz, Russian Special Forces. Now private contractor.’

Ben had a feeling he knew what was coming next. Anatoly Shikov hadn’t bought that Spetsnaz ballistic knife from a mail-order catalogue.

‘And I was friend of someone you kill,’ Gourko said. ‘I know Anatoly for many years. Now he is gone. This makes me very sad.’

Ben’s cheek was burning fiercely from the slap. ‘I’m glad I killed him. He was a piece of shit and he had it coming.’

Gourko’s face hardened, the patchwork of gristle across his jaw pulling tight. ‘For this you must die. You die slow and in lot of pain. I wanted you to know this. But you will not die now. I must let you live.’

‘That’s considerate of you,’ Ben said. ‘You think you are tough guy?’

‘I’ve known tougher.’

‘You will not be so tough when my boss is going to work on you. Grigori Shikov is not gentle man like me.’

‘I take it we’re going on a trip, then,’ Ben said. ‘I’m guessing east.’

Gourko nodded. ‘First there is matter to take care of. You have taken away the son of Grigori Shikov, and for this he will take away your life. But you have also hurt me. You have taken away my friend. And so now I will hurt you.’ He shrugged, as though this were the most straightforward and reasonable thing in the world.

The men were grinning. Ben ran his eye along the row of gun muzzles, wondering if there was some way to disarm five men and shoot them all without getting pumped full of bullets himself. Nothing leaped immediately to mind.

Gourko went on. ‘You will be . . .’ He paused, searching for the right term. ‘Mutilated.’ He seemed to enjoy the sound of it. ‘You understand this word, “mutilated”?’

‘I only have to look at you,’ Ben said.

Gourko pointed at the tall guy who had removed Ben’s shoes. ‘But Maxim will keep you alive for Grigori. Maxim is expert medic. He put my face back together after grenade. Make me pretty again.’ He laughed, then signalled to another of the men. The guy lowered his weapon and walked over to the SUV. Opened the rear hatch, reached inside and came out with a pickaxe.

Ben stared at the axe. It looked like it had just been bought from the local hardware store. The shaft was orange fibre-glass. The blade was painted blue steel. A long, slightly curved spike on one side. A chopping edge on the other. The guy hefted the heavy tool in both fists, slung it across his shoulder, then reached back inside the Mitsubishi. This time he came out with a blowtorch. It was a heavy-duty industrial model, with a long butane canister hooked up to its pistol grip and a blackened heat shield around its flame nozzle.

‘I am not animal,’ Gourko said to Ben. ‘I let you choose.’ He spread his hands. ‘Which you choose?’

Ben said nothing.

‘I put spike through your body,’ Gourko said. ‘I pin you to floor like insect and make you wish for death. Or maybe we do some cooking together. You like make barbecue? I roast your balls, your toes, your hands, your face. I only leave enough so that Grigori recognises man he is killing. Maybe you prefer. What you choose, Mister Ben Hope?’

Ben wasn’t going to give this man the satisfaction of a reply.

‘You cannot choose? Then I choose.’ Gourko grabbed the pickaxe from his colleague. ‘I choose this.’

It took five of the men to pull Ben out of the chair and get him down on the concrete. His cuffed hands were yanked up over his head. His legs were held out apart.

Gourko walked up to him, taking his time, flipping the axe shaft round in his hands. He paused to set the pickaxe down for a moment to take off his jacket, hung it neatly on the back of the plastic chair. Then his eyes glinted, and he raised the tool above his head. The sharp point of the hardened steel spike paused high in the air for a moment, and then Gourko gave a grunt and brought it down with all his strength. Ben saw it descending towards his body. He struggled desperately to twist out of the way, but strong hands were holding him tight.

The heavy spike came down and hit the concrete with a resonating clang just a few inches from Ben’s hip, sending concrete chips flying.

‘I miss,’ Gourko said with a smile. Another theatrical pause to flick a speck of dust off the end of the spike. Then he raised the pickaxe a second time.

This was the one. Ben watched helplessly as it rose up into the air. He had about three-quarters of a second to come up with a pretty damn good plan.