The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Twenty-Seven

He reached for the phone, thinking at first that it was Rollo calling Eriq to find out what was happening and whether it was safe to come crawling back to Club Paradis. But it wasn’t Eriq’s phone that was ringing. It was the one Ben had taken from the dead man at the monastery.

Ben hit the reply button and pressed the phone to his ear, standing still in the pouring rain. This had to be the call he’d been hoping for from Luc Simon at Interpol. It was nearly midnight, but Luc worked crazy hours. He’d sacrificed his marriage for it.

The caller wasn’t Luc Simon.

Instead Ben heard a woman’s voice, speaking English with the typical transatlantic accent of a bilingual European, as if she’d learned most of the language from watching American movies. She sounded anxious and relieved, both at once. Talking low, like someone afraid of being overheard. ‘Dexter? It’s … it’s Michelle. Are you okay? Thank Christ. I was so scared, then when you called … Dexter? Talk to me.’

Ben hesitated, realising that his mystery caller must be one of the contacts he’d tried on the dead man’s phone before, returning the call. His pulse quickened as his mind flashed through the possibilities. It could be someone trying to find out who’d taken the phone. Alternatively, it could be someone who didn’t know the guy was dead. Or it could just be the guy’s wife or girlfriend calling him. But then, what did she have to sound so nervous about?

He thought hard, knowing he had to make some kind of reply. Seconds counted. The name Dexter could be a first name or a surname. Either way, it wasn’t French. It could be British, or American. He cupped his hand over his mouth. Put on a hoarse voice and an accent that was as neutral as he could make it. It was going to be tricky. One slip, and he’d lose her.

‘Yeah, it’s me,’ he said.

There was a long pause on the line. Ben held his breath. Then the woman’s voice said, ‘Where are you? What happened back there? They said you got hit in the crossfire. They said it was an accident.’

Which told Ben very clearly this wasn’t a call from a wife or girlfriend. She was one of them. He had one chance, one tiny fragile candle-flame of a chance, to find out more. He cupped his hand more tightly over his mouth and held the phone a little distance away. ‘I’m okay, Michelle,’ he muttered hoarsely.

‘You sound strange.’

‘I’m hurt,’ he muttered. ‘I got out. But I need help.’

‘Where are you?’

Ben’s mind raced. She seemed to believe he was this Dexter. The fish was tentatively hooked. Now, very gently, he had to try to reel it in. He tried to imagine a wounded man, running and desperate. He’d been that man himself, more than once in his time. How far could he have got from the scene in a few hours? Where might he have run for shelter? He thought about the spot from where he’d tried Michelle’s number the first time. The place he’d abandoned the truck.

He spoke in monosyllabic bursts, covering it with spasms of coughing, like someone would if they’d been shot in the ribs. ‘There’s … kind of a picnic area … Clearing in the woods … Down the mountain, maybe fifteen minutes’ drive, south-east. I … hitched a ride. Got to … get help. Bleeding bad.’

The story was full of holes. Ben couldn’t imagine anyone giving a ride to a guy in bloody tactical clothes with a bullet in him, any more than he could imagine a badly injured man getting his bearings so right. But it was the best he could do. And the woman called Michelle seemed to buy it. ‘Fifteen minutes south-east of the monastery?’ she repeated anxiously. ‘Is that right? Is that where you are?’

‘Yeah,’ he coughed hoarsely. ‘I’m really hurt.’

‘I’ll come for you. I’ll help. Hold tight, okay? Give me … oh, Jesus. It’s a long way. Two hours. No, better make that three. Quick as I can, I’ll be there. I’ll find you. You hear me?’

‘Hurry,’ Ben croaked. ‘I don’t know if I can … urgghhh …’

A young couple scurried past in the rain. The girl gave him a very strange look.

‘Hold on,’ Michelle said on the phone. ‘Hang in there. Three hours. On my way.’ She ended the call.

Ben put the phone away and started walking faster towards where he’d left the Hummer. The call had left him totally baffled. Two things he knew for sure: firstly, he’d been following a complete blind alley with the Russians. People with names like Michelle and Dexter were about as Russian as he was. Forget the cigarette. Forget Rollo. So far he couldn’t have been more wrong. He shouldn’t even be in Marseille. Secondly, he had three hours to get back to the clearing. Less, if he wanted to get there ahead of her in time to lie in wait. It had taken him three hours from Briançon, and the clearing was a good way further. But he could make it. He’d just have to speed like a madman.

She wouldn’t come alone, he knew that. The set-up screamed trap. What she’d said about this Dexter being hurt in the crossfire struck Ben as obvious bullshit. She was trying to trick the man into trusting her. She wasn’t going to help him. She and the others were going to finish the job they’d started, and kill him. Which was fine by Ben. If he could have resurrected the real Dexter for the occasion, he’d have happily watched while they did it. And then the rest of them would be his.

The sudden twist in events was bewildering. But it was infinitely more than Ben had had just a few moments earlier. His fast walk elongated into a slow run, and then he was sprinting down the slick, shiny pavements with the driving rain stinging his face, until he reached the Hummer and unlocked it and threw his bag inside and himself behind the wheel. Fired up the engine with a roar and squealed the tyres on the wet road as he floored the pedal. He twisted the wheel and slewed the massive vehicle around in the road to point the way he’d come. Less than three hours to retrace his steps all the way back to the first stop he’d made after leaving the monastery.

Full circle. But now he had something to show for it.

Ben sped out of Marseille as fast as he dared. Hitting the open road, he was glad of the Hummer’s battery of lights. He let them blaze mercilessly in the face of oncoming traffic. People flashed and honked at him. He was in too big a rush to care. The wipers worked double-time to slap the rain off the screen as his instrument panel glowed like a fighter pilot’s cockpit. His speed crept up to a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, a hundred and sixty, a hundred and seventy on the long empty straights.

Fatigue was creeping up on him, too. It had been a hell of a long day, and he faced a long night. Music was the best way to stay awake on a fast night drive. Omar’s on-board CD collection was mostly Motown stuff: a lot of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, some Jackson Five. Ben hunted through radio stations until he found a late-night concert from the summer jazz festival in Juan-les-Pins. It was jazz the way he liked it: wild and frenetic. He cranked up the volume until the Hummer’s cab was vibrating to the sound of wailing tenor saxes and crashing drums while he kept piling relentlessly through the night with his eyes glued to the road speeding by and his mind set on reaching his destination in time. He’d make it.

And he did. The Hummer’s clock was coming up on 2.45 a.m. as he descended the twisting route beyond Briançon and found the little track leading off-road through the trees. The rain had stopped and the night had cleared, the Milky Way shimmering above the mountains. He killed the lights and engine and let the vehicle coast down the track, peering into the starlit darkness. The clearing was empty, apart from the burned-out wreck of the Belphégor, still sitting there undiscovered since Ben had left it the previous morning. There was no sign of the woman called Michelle.

Ben let the Hummer trundle on through the clearing and deeper into the trees, until he was confident that it couldn’t be spotted. He climbed out and crept back towards the edge of the clearing. A clump of ferns made a hiding place where he could watch and wait, unseen, for whoever might come down the track. He settled down on the damp, rich-smelling forest floor and made himself as comfortable as he could with his back resting against a tree and the FAMAS rifle across his lap. The glowing hands of his watch read 2.51. He closed his eyes and let himself slip into a half-doze while his senses remained on standby. One hand on the pistol grip of the rifle. Finger lightly resting near the trigger.

Three o’clock came, and nobody turned up.

Three-thirty. Still nobody. Nothing but the busy silence of the forest around him. The call of an owl from somewhere in the dark trees. The tiny scuttle of insects among the greenery. The sound of things growing.

Twenty-five to four in the morning. Ben opened his eyes and wondered if anyone was coming at all.

Five minutes later he saw the first flash of vehicle lights glimmering through the trees. Heard the purr of a powerful engine and the creak of suspension, the rumble of big tyres rolling down the rutted track. Slowly, silently, he lowered himself deeper behind the ferns and watched.

The vehicle’s lights swept above his head, across the burned-out shell of the Belphégor, the little toilet block and the empty picnic table. From its silhouette it was some kind of large, dark-coloured SUV. It stopped. The engine and lights died. The handbrake ratcheted on. Doors opened. Torch beams flicked this way and that around the clearing.

Ben had been dead right. The woman hadn’t come alone.