The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Fifty-Six

Silvie peeled off her mask and shook her hair free. ‘I can’t believe we did it.’

Ben had already removed his and tossed it into the back seat of the stolen Mercedes, where the claw hammer and the toy Airsoft Colt .45 replica lay. When all you had was a plastic gun, you needed to make a bit of a show by smashing things up with a good strong hammer. The intimidation factor was surprisingly effective. ‘You don’t spend years taking down kidnappers without learning a few tricks from them,’ he said, driving fast.

‘Now we’re in deep shit,’ she said.

Ben shook his head. ‘No, Miki Donath’s the one in deep shit. Besides, right now we could abduct the UN Secretary General and nobody would even slap our wrists.’

‘I don’t think the Swiss authorities will see it that way.’

‘Not my business,’ Ben said. A set of junctions flashed up. He piled through them, left, right, left again, tyres screeching. Horns wailed in protest. He didn’t blink or glance back. ‘My business is what we’re carrying in the boot of this car.’

‘What are we going to do with him?’ she asked.

‘Threaten him that he’ll get nothing from Santa this year if he doesn’t tell us where Streicher’s hiding out.’

‘You really think he knows?’

‘He knows more about it than we do,’ Ben said. ‘I’m sure of it. I saw it in his eyes.’

‘How could you see that in his eyes?’

‘Mirrors of the soul,’ Ben said. ‘You should pay more attention to those things.’

‘Donath’s a psychotic child rapist and arms dealer. He doesn’t have a soul.’

‘Then they’re the mirrors of whatever other evil shit he’s got stashed away in there. I guarantee that whatever we get from him will advance our knowledge. And that’s good enough for me.’

‘Meanwhile, we’re driving a stolen car.’

‘A stolen car with plates borrowed from a T-boned wreck of a BMW in a scrapyard in Altdorf,’ he reminded her. ‘Not one that’s going to come up on the radar any time soon.’

‘These methods don’t bother you?’

‘You mean stealing cars? I don’t generally make a habit of it.’

‘I noticed.’

‘Anyway, that’s what insurance is for. And whoever owns this thing can afford taxis.’

‘We should leave the owner a note,’ she said.

‘Saying “thank you for doing your part for national security”?’ he said. ‘We’ll ditch it as soon as we get to Emmen Air Base and pick up the Hummer. After that, we need to keep our eyes peeled for lonely farm buildings, derelict factories or disused warehouses.’

‘You have this all worked out,’ she said. ‘But have you given any serious thought to how you’re going to extract information from a former KSK special forces hard case?’

‘Don’t need to,’ Ben said. ‘I’m a former special forces hard case myself. And my unit could have wiped the floor with those KSK boys, any day of the week, with our arms tied behind our backs and bags over our heads.’

Silvie looked doubtful.

‘He’ll talk,’ Ben said.

Silvie said nothing.

Altdorf to Lucerne was a forty-kilometre drive, mostly by motorway. From Lucerne, the town of Emmen was only a short distance, and Militärflugplatz Emmen lay close by. They reached it just before two o’clock that afternoon. It was almost exclusively a military airbase, with limited commercial or civilian use, not the kind of place the public could just show up unannounced and expect to be let into. But Interpol’s magic ticket worked once again, the gates buzzed open without questions being asked, and they found the H1 Hummer waiting for them inside a green prefab building, the key in the ignition, freshly rolled off a French military Airbus transport plane that had come in late that morning.

Luc Simon had come through for them, even better than his word. Two heavy-duty NATO-issue kitbags sitting side-by-side in the back contained more stuff than Ben had requested. Inside one was a Ziploc plastic pouch full of walking-around money, a thick bundle of mixed euros and Swiss francs. New phones and radios. An SOG tactical knife with a rubber handle and razor-sharp blackened blade, and a pair of strong aluminium police handcuffs, perhaps included just as a reminder to Ben to bring Streicher in alive. The second bag was heavier, containing a shiny, oiled pair of latest-generation FAMAS rifles and enough fresh ammunition to furnish a platoon, along with Ben’s requested Browning pistol, minus GPS tracker. Five spare magazines, thirteen rounds apiece, all fully loaded with shiny new nine-millimetre full-metal jackets. Perhaps Luc Simon didn’t care about Streicher being brought in alive after all.

Ben cocked and locked the handgun and shoved it into its usual nestling place behind his right hip, where he was convinced he had a natural hollow from all the years of carrying one. Then all he had to do was sign a release form and Omar’s gunmetal-grey monster and all its contents were his. He jumped up behind the controls and fired it up. The powerful engine burst into life with a roar at the first twist of the key. The fuel tank was full to the brim. Ben drove it out of the airbase with Silvie following in the Mercedes.

A kilometre up the road, by the side of the base’s wire-mesh fence, they stopped again. Ben jumped down from the Hummer and they opened the boot of the stolen car. Any illusions Miki Donath might have been entertaining that the dramatic hijacking of his prison van was a rescue mission were, by now, completely dispelled. ‘You’re a dead man,’ he growled as Ben cuffed his hands behind his back and then dragged him out of the Mercedes to frogmarch him to the Hummer. ‘You should just blow your own brains out right now. You’re fucked for this. You hear me?’

‘And you’re not in your little pink cell any more,’ Ben said. Before Donath could reply, he whacked him sharply over the back of the head with the Browning. Donath went as limp as a wet towel and collapsed face down in the back of the Hummer. Ben used the same roll of duct tape left over from before to bind up his ankles and his torso, round and round until he looked like a giant cocooned insect. He slapped another four-inch length over his mouth. Then they emptied out the Mercedes, wiped down the interior surfaces, shut it up and abandoned it.

Silvie clambered into the passenger seat of the Hummer. ‘Where it all began,’ she said with a lopsided grin.

‘I still have plenty of tape left,’ he said. ‘So don’t you give me any trouble.’

‘Careful. I might have to arrest you again.’

‘Now for the hard part,’ Ben said as they took off.

‘He won’t talk,’ she said, shaking her head and looking serious.

‘Hard for him,’ Ben said. ‘Not for us.’

‘He won’t talk,’ Silvie said again.