Conspiracy Thriller 4 E-Book Bundle

Ben grabbed the binoculars from the back seat and brought the distant object into focus. It was some kind of tall fixed structure out to sea, built on three massive yellow tripod legs, with a platform like a miniature oil rig and a latticework tower pointing up into the sky. It was hard to tell at this range, but Ben guessed the structure was about a hundred feet high.

‘Let me take a look,’ Jude said, grabbing the binoculars as Ben put them down to study the map. Ben traced his finger along the south side of the island near Gay Head, back towards Aquinnah. Whatever the thing was, it didn’t feature on the map.

‘I know what it is,’ Jude said, focused on it. ‘It’s a coastal observatory tower. Unmanned, used for meteorological analysis. I’ve learned about them at Uni.’

‘Tall enough to be a risk to low-flying aircraft in the dark,’ Ben said.

Jude understood his line of thinking immediately. ‘Which would mean it would be lit up at night, wouldn’t it?’

‘The tower of light shining on the water,’ Ben said. He took the binoculars back from Jude and scanned the landward horizon. Trees. More trees. Grassland. And then – his heart gave a jump.

‘And to think we’d have driven straight past it,’ he said.

The majestic house was nestled among its own grounds close to the beach, overlooking a splendid bay and the observatory tower in the distance.

‘Give them over,’ Jude said, making another grab for the binoculars. He quickly saw what Ben had seen. ‘That’s got to be the place.’ He turned excitedly to Ben. ‘We found it!’

They left the Jeep and waded through long grass and rustling reeds that grew in clumps among the dunes, cutting around the side of the property to approach it from the beach. Ben trained the binoculars on the tall windows that overlooked the sea.

And behind one of them, gazing across the beach towards the whispering ocean, stood a figure of a man. He was short, with white hair and a neat white beard, wearing cords and a cardigan.

Ben was finally looking at the billionaire, Wesley Holland.

Chapter Fifty-Two

In a strange way, Wesley thought in a fleeting moment of relaxation as he contemplated the sea and stroked his beard, his being here, his being safely tucked away where nobody could ever find him or his treasure, was all thanks to Giselle.

Ah, Giselle. They’d lost contact long ago. He knew she was still appearing in movies, but he hadn’t seen any of them.

Looking back, Wesley and his fourth and last wife had been completely mismatched right from the start. She’d been too young for him, too impetuous, too absorbed in a burgeoning acting career that dominated her every move and decision, and, for the three and a half years the marriage had endured, limping on, Wesley’s every move and decision as well. For a man whose natural tendency was to shy away from the hubbub of the world, the constant prying of press hounds had been unbearable. Whenever Wesley opened the door, there was a camera poking into his face trying to steal a snap of the celebrity couple. He couldn’t go to the bathroom or undress for bed without fretting that he was being watched through a long-distance lens. As for trying to go anywhere or eat a quiet meal in a restaurant, forget it.

Giselle had adored the attention, of course, feeding off it like a butterfly on nectar. But to Wesley the intrusion into his hallowed privacy was the death of his very soul. The last straw had been when he’d found his dear wife conducting a guided tour of the Whitworth Mansion for journalists from Persona magazine.

That was when, driven to distraction, Wesley had made a secret bid on a (for him) modestly-sized, yet tolerably luxurious, beach hideaway on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, off Cape Cod. Through the remainder of his marriage to Giselle he’d escaped there whenever humanly possible, always on some flimsy excuse about making a business trip – Giselle had never cared that much where he was, anyway – and after the inevitable divorce had come and gone it had never once occurred to him to sell it. The deeds were held in the name of an obscure trust he’d set up decades earlier and never developed into anything, so that the real owner was quite untraceable.

Wesley so relished the serenity of his island bolt-hole that he’d always been very reticent about telling anyone about it. Not even his longtime lawyer, Bob Mooney, had any idea about the place. Coleman Nash had been in on it, and Wesley had also confided in Simeon Arundel once, after a few glasses of wine. The secret now rested with the dead.

The first thing Wesley had done on reaching the end of his terrifying journey had been to take the precious fibreglass case straight down to his vault. Built for storing artwork and other valuable items when he wasn’t around (there was no crime to speak of on the island, but you could never be too careful), the vault was buried ten feet beneath the foundations of the house within walls of reinforced concrete that could (according to the architects) withstand a nuclear blast. It was unshakeably secure, fire-proof, flood-proof, humidity-proof, fully air-conditioned, and a whole host of other fancy features for which Wesley had shelled out large amounts of cash and then duly pushed to the back of his mind.

Only when the sword had been safely stored away on Wesley’s arrival had he truly been able to relax, helped by a few tots of best Bourbon to restore his shattered nerves after the nightmare trek east. Calm down. You’re alive. Nobody knows you’re here. For a while he’d basked blissfully in the knowledge that he was safe. He had everything he needed, enough supplies and food to live comfortably for months without venturing near a town.

But now the pressure was returning, and so were the worries. Wesley was sporadically haunted by visions of death and carnage. Poor Coleman, and Hubert Clemm, and Abigail, and Kat the receptionist at the motel whose name he couldn’t even remember. All these people who’d been senselessly slaughtered. And the reality was that these ruthless killers were still out there, searching for Wesley while he sat on his ass doing nothing.

Why wasn’t Simeon answering his phone any more? Had something happened to him? In a moment of panicky insecurity, Wesley had taken a heavy cavalry sabre down from one of his wall displays. It had last seen action at Waterloo but the blade was still shaving sharp. The weapon was propped against a chair behind him now as he stood at the window, close to hand, just in case.

It was time to start planning his next move. He walked away from the window, picked up the sabre by its steel scabbard and carried it over to the old-fashioned Bakelite dial telephone. The mechanism whirred as Wesley carefully dialled in the prefix that would block his caller ID, followed by Bob Mooney’s direct line at his offices in Rochester.

The instant the lawyer heard Wesley’s voice, he exploded. ‘Jesus Christ, Wesley. Why haven’t you called? Where in hell are you?’

‘Best you don’t know. Somewhere far away.’

‘What’s going on? Everyone here is frantic with worry. The cops need to talk to you. In case you’d forgotten, there’s a murder investigation going on at your house. You can’t just up and disappear like this.’

‘Am I a suspect?’

‘Not that I’m aware of, but I know the way cops think and it doesn’t help that you run off like a fugitive and don’t tell anyone where you’re going.’

‘I have my reasons, Bob. You’ll find out soon enough. That’s not why I’m calling. There’s something I need you to do for me. Can I count on you for this? It’s important.’

Mooney sounded hurt. ‘Hey, how long have we known each other?’

‘Here’s what I want. Find out who’re the best personal protection team in the country. Whatever they charge, pay them double, triple, just make sure you hire them. I want the meanest, toughest sons of bitches you can dig up. I’ll contact you again in twenty-four hours and you give me the number to call.’

A moment’s appalled silence on the phone. ‘Wesley, if you’re in some kind of trouble here—’

‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘Why do you need protection?’

‘Will you do this for me or not?’

‘Naturally I will. Give me your number there so I can put these people in touch with you.’

‘No, Bob.’

‘I’ll know it anyway.’

‘I withheld it.’

Bob seemed amazed that Wesley should be savvy to such modern trickery. ‘Come on, Wes. You gotta give me something.’

‘When it’s the right time, I’ll tell you where I am.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Once everything’s in place. Then I’ll fill you in as best I can. Until then, I’m keeping my mouth shut.’

Mooney let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Is it serious trouble? Tell me that at least.’

‘Pretty serious.’

‘Does it have to do with what happened at the mansion?’

‘Uh-huh. And more besides.’

‘For Chrissakes, Wes, even I can’t hold back the tide for ever. You’ve got to come forward with this. As your lawyer I have to tell you that the weirder you act, the less you’re gonna look like the chief witness and more like the chief suspect. That’s how the cops, and everyone else, are going to see it.’

‘That can’t be helped for the moment,’ Wesley said. ‘I trust you, Bob. Talk to you tomorrow.’