The Mozart Conspiracy

Chapter Fifty-Two

‘Who the hell are you?’ Aragon said in a daze. He lay back in the armchair, his chest heaving fast with panic and shock. The intruder had marched him into the house and made him sit. His first thought had been that the man was an assassin come to kill him. Why hadn’t he? The gun was back in its holster. The intruder reached up a black-gloved hand and pulled off the ski-mask. Aragon winced at the pain in his neck, and rubbed his shoulder. Why was the man letting him see his face?

Ben sat opposite him in a matching armchair. Between them, a polished pine coffee table shone in the dim light. ‘Someone who needs your help,’ he said.

Aragon was taken aback. ‘You break into my house and point a gun at me, then you say you need my help?’

‘That’s how it is.’

‘People usually approach my office for that kind of thing,’ Aragon said.

Ben smiled. Aragon had guts. He liked him. ‘When you hear what I have to say, you’ll understand why I couldn’t see you the normal way.’

Aragon’s brow creased. ‘I don’t know if I want to hear it.’

‘I don’t know if you have a choice,’ Ben said.

‘You won’t get away with this. There are security cameras watching this room right now.’

‘No, there aren’t,’ Ben said. ‘This apartment is the only bit of private space you have left. You relish it. You wouldn’t let them put cameras in here.’

‘How the hell did you get past the guards?’

‘Never mind that,’ Ben said. ‘Just listen to me. If you help me, I’ll help you in return.’

Aragon laughed. ‘You’ll help me? By doing what?’

‘By giving you the people who murdered Bazin.’

Aragon stopped laughing and went pale. ‘Roger?’

Ben nodded. ‘Your mentor. Your friend.’

Aragon was quiet for a few seconds. He gulped.

‘Roger wasn’t murdered,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He died in a car accident.’

‘Politicians are usually good liars. You’re not.’

‘I had it investigated,’ Aragon said. ‘They didn’t find anything. It was an accident.’

‘I don’t think you believe that,’ Ben said. ‘I know about the chalet explosion. Was that an accident too?’

‘How the hell do you know all this?’

‘I always research my targets,’ Ben said.

Aragon was sweating. He bit his tongue. ‘So what is it you want to tell me?’

Across the room was a drinks cabinet. Ben stood up and went over to it. The soles of his black combat boots were silent on the wooden floor. ‘You want a drink?’ he asked. ‘Something stronger than that cocoa you were drinking before.’

Aragon thought about running.

‘Don’t try,’ Ben said. ‘You wouldn’t get halfway to the door.’

Aragon sighed and leaned back in the armchair. ‘Get me a glass of Armagnac.’

Ben took out two bottles and two cut-crystal glasses. He poured a double shot of brandy in one, and a triple shot of Aragon’s eighteen-year-old Islay malt in the other. He handed Aragon the brandy and sat down again. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said. ‘I’m going to start from the beginning.’ He sipped the Scotch. Opposite him, some of the colour had returned to the politician’s face. His glass was on the coffee table in front of him. He sat with his arms folded, his brow creased with doubt.

‘Last January a friend of mine witnessed something by chance,’ Ben said. ‘Something he shouldn’t have. He was murdered for it, but the evidence fell into someone else’s hands. His sister. You might have heard of her. Leigh Llewellyn, the opera singer.’

Aragon nodded. ‘I know who Leigh Llewellyn is.’

Ben went on. He told the whole thing in detail. It took a long time. Aragon listened carefully. ‘They killed her?’ he said quietly.

Ben nodded.

‘I haven’t heard anything in the news.’

‘You will,’ Ben said. ‘There’ll be another staged accident, or a disappearance.’

Aragon thought for a few moments. ‘If what you’re saying is true,’ he said, ‘I’m very sorry to hear it. But you haven’t given me a shred of proof, and you still haven’t told me about Roger.’

‘I was coming to that. It was your friend’s murder that Oliver witnessed.’

‘You mentioned evidence.’

Ben nodded. ‘Oliver filmed the whole thing. It was recorded on a disc.’

‘And where is the disc?’

‘Destroyed,’ Ben said.

‘So you can’t show it to me? That’s very convenient.’

Ben pointed at the study door. ‘Can I use your computer?’

‘What for, if you’ve nothing to show me?’

Ben led Aragon into the dark study. The laptop on the desk fired up in seconds. ‘What are you doing?’ Aragon asked.

‘Checking my email,’ Ben said.

‘Your email. This is ridiculous.’

Ben ignored him. There was just one message in his webmail inbox. He didn’t have to read it-it was a message he’d sent to himself from Christa Flaig’s cyber-café.

At the time, it had been an afterthought, an insurance policy. He almost hadn’t bothered. Now he knew he couldn’t have done a better thing.

There was an attachment with the message. A big one. He clicked on it. The laptop was brand-new, fast and powerful, and it downloaded the file in under five seconds.

‘What’s this?’ Aragon asked.

‘Just watch.’

Aragon sat. Ben nudged the glass of brandy across the desk towards him. ‘Drink this. You’re going to need it.’ He moved away from the desk and sat on a chair in the corner, sipping his Scotch.

By the time the clip was over, Aragon’s glass was dry and his head was on the desk. Suddenly he lurched to his feet. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ he muttered. He staggered out of the study into a bathroom. Ben heard him retching into the toilet.

A minute later, Philippe Aragon emerged from the bathroom. His face was grey and his hair was plastered across his forehead. He wiped his chin with his sleeve. His fingers were trembling. ‘They killed him,’ he murmured. ‘They killed him, and then they rigged the car accident.’ His voice sounded weak and shaky.

‘I didn’t know who he was until today,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t recognize him before. I don’t follow politics. It’s bullshit.’ He paused. ‘But like I said, I always research my targets.’

‘You kidnap a lot of people, then?’

Ben smiled. ‘I’m on the other team. But the reconnaissance is the same whatever side you’re on. With you, it was easy. You’re all over the media. Before I left Vienna I paid a visit to the university library. There’s enough material on you in their political science section to write ten books. There was a picture of you with your family on a tennis court. Bazin was there. That’s when I recognized his face from the video-clip. There was a caption saying who he was.’

‘That was taken two years ago at Roger’s place in Geneva,’ Aragon said sadly.

‘Then there was another photo of you at his funeral,’ Ben said. ‘Europolitician pays last respects to his political mentor’

‘He was like a father to me,’ Aragon said. He sat heavily in a chair. ‘He tried to warn me that time.’

‘Cortina?’

Aragon nodded. ‘He phoned me just before it happened. I don’t know how he knew about it. I don’t know what he was mixed up in. I just know that if it hadn’t been for him, my family would be dead.’

Ben remembered what Kroll had said. Men who cannot keep their tongues from wagging have them removed.

‘He was my best friend,’ Aragon continued. ‘And they murdered him as punishment for warning me.’

‘Join the club,’ Ben said. ‘They murdered mine the same day, because he saw them do it.’

Aragon looked up at him. ‘And now his sister,’ he said. He could see the expression on Ben’s face. ‘You loved her?’

Ben didn’t reply.

‘You know who did it?’

Ben nodded. ‘Who they are and where they are.’

‘I’ll have them arrested. One call.’

Ben shook his head. ‘There isn’t enough proof.’ He pointed at the computer. ‘You can’t make out the faces. And I want to get them all together in one place, round them up and catch them in the act. There’s only one way to do that.’

‘How?’

‘That’s where you come in,’ Ben said. ‘You’re going to have to trust me. You’ll have to do everything I say.’

Aragon paused, wavering, then let out a sigh. ‘I must be crazy. But all right. I trust you. What do you need me to do?’

‘There isn’t much time,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll have to make some long-distance calls.’

‘No problem.’

‘We’ll need to move immediately. You’ll have to drop everything you’re doing, right this moment.’

‘I can do that,’ Aragon said.

‘And it’s going to cost money. Maybe quite a bit.’

‘That’s easy,’ Aragon said. ‘Whatever it takes.’

‘How fast can you scramble a private jet?’

‘Fast,’ Aragon said.

‘It’s going to be dangerous,’ Ben said. ‘Very high risk. I can’t guarantee your safety.’

‘He was my friend,’ Aragon replied without hesitation.

‘Good,’ Ben said. ‘Then let’s get on with it.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to kidnap you.’