Conspiracy Thriller 4 E-Book Bundle

‘You’ve all lied to me,’ Jude muttered. The letter was fluttering slightly in his hands.

‘I know it looks bad. But they thought it was for the best.’

‘For the best! To believe in a lie, for all these years?

‘It’s been a shock for me too,’ Ben said. ‘I didn’t read it until we were in France. I had no idea until then. You have to believe me, Jude.’

‘You and my mum—’

‘It was a long time ago. We were young. These things happen.’

‘And he knew about it all along?’ Jude said, seething with anger.

‘Simeon?’

‘What kind of man would do that? Pretend to be the father of another man’s kid?’

‘The best kind,’ Ben said. ‘He loved you. You couldn’t have asked for a better father.’

‘Except he wasn’t, was he?’ Jude said bitterly. ‘He was a liar and a fraud. So much for the good upstanding vicar, the great Christian with all his high-and-mighty fucking morals.’

Ben stepped forward. ‘Jude—’

‘Get the fuck away from me. You’re not my father. I’ll never see you that way.’

‘I don’t expect you to. I don’t even know how to be a father.’

Jude leaped up from the bed, red-faced. He scrunched the letter into a tight ball and clenched it in his fist. ‘This is bullshit!’ he yelled. Grabbing his rucksack off the floor, he slung it violently over his shoulder and started pushing his way past Ben towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘As far away from you as possible.’

‘You’re on an island,’ Ben said. ‘You can’t go anywhere.’

‘I’ll swim home if I have to. What do you care, anyway?’

‘Hey. Come on. Don’t act this way. We can talk about it.’

‘Fuck you, Dad.’

‘I’m not your dad,’ Ben said, trying to restrain his rising temper. ‘Simeon Arundel was, is, your dad, and you should be proud to say so. The rest counts for nothing. Jude! Come back!’

But Jude wasn’t listening. He stormed out onto the landing and started running down the stairs. Ben raced out after him. He stopped at the top of the stairs, gripping the banister rail. ‘Oh, shit,’ he groaned to himself, scarcely able to believe this was happening. It was all his fault. He should never have let Jude see the letter.

But recriminations and self-blame could wait for now. After a moment’s hesitation, he plunged down the stairs after Jude. As he reached the bottom, the front door was swinging on its hinges. He flicked on a side-lamp in the entrance hall, burst outside onto the terrace and saw Jude dashing away up the beach, a rapidly disappearing running figure silhouetted against the dark sand.

Ben was about to give chase, just as he’d done back on Bodmin Moor. But then he held himself back and gave it more thought. Was it a mistake to let Jude run off like this? Or would it be an even bigger mistake to follow him and try to work things through together? Should he give him space, or rein him in?

Jude was gone now, vanished into the darkness.

Ben suddenly realised what he was dealing with. It was a parenting problem. Most parents were faced with choices and dilemmas every day bringing up their kids, and only by learning from their mistakes could they have any chance of making the right decisions. Sometimes they did, sometimes not, but after eighteen or twenty years they had at least some kind of experience to guide them through the ever-changing minefield.

Ben had none at all. He’d been thrown into the deep end with no idea of how to swim. He simply didn’t know how to deal with such a situation.

But then it hit him that he knew someone who was very well equipped to deal with it. Brooke hadn’t yet experienced motherhood herself, but she was wise in these things and her background in psychology was about as extensive as you could get. It was what had earned her her PhD., Ben figured, so she must be able to help him here.

Besides, he felt so alone and isolated that he’d have wanted to talk to her anyway. He knew that, deep down.

Remembering the card she’d given him with her new number on, he quickly dug out his wallet and found it. His phone was in his jeans pocket. As he dialled the number, he counted back the gap between the time zones. It’d be early morning in London. Brooke would still be in bed.

He imagined her lying there in her bedroom in Richmond, her hair spread out on the pillow. Maybe she’d be wearing those faded yellow pyjamas she liked, with a picture of Snoopy across the top and a dialogue bubble that said ‘I love you’. It would be good to hear her voice, even at a moment like this.

But then he had another thought as the dial tone sounded in his ear, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. What if Brooke wasn’t alone? What if she had company – male company – the kind Ben didn’t want to think about? How would she react to her ex calling out of the blue at this time?

Ben almost aborted the call, but then hung on in nervous anticipation. He turned back towards the house as the dial tone went on ringing. Stepped inside the hallway, trying to marshal his thoughts and figure out where to begin.

A second later, Brooke replied. ‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded sleepy. It sounded nice. ‘Who is it? Hello?’

But Ben didn’t reply. He could hear her voice coming from the receiver, but he said nothing and slowly lowered the phone to his side. With his thumb he pressed the button to end the call.

Because the hallway was suddenly filled with masked men in black. Six of them. Six automatic weapons pointed right at him.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Wesley Holland’s island refuge hadn’t been safe at all. The enemy had wasted very little time in catching up with them, and now Ben was in real trouble.

The six gunmen were almost certainly a pair of three-man teams who’d approached the house by stealth from different angles and entered by different routes to converge in the middle. Ben didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say, no point asking ‘Who are you?’ or ‘What do you want?’ He let the phone drop from his hand and raised his arms shoulder-high as he backed away a step.

His mind was trained to work fast in these situations, and he already had a plan. The lamp he’d turned on a moment earlier was the only light in the hallway. The sideboard on which it stood was just two steps to his right. One swift movement, and he could smash the lamp to the floor, plunging the hallway into darkness. The couple of seconds’ confusion might buy him enough time to disarm one of the team and let loose four or five rounds before tumbling out of the door onto the terrace. He’d have to move fast, but if he didn’t take a bullet in the process it was just about feasible.

But even some of the best plans didn’t survive long in a real-life confrontation. The men immediately circled Ben as he backed away, two of them slipping around his right flank to block off his access to the lamp. The eyes in the ski masks all watched him intently, as if the men all knew exactly who he was and had been instructed to take no chances. Fingers were on triggers, safeties set to ‘FIRE’. Ben was pretty certain that if he made a single abrupt move, they’d gun him down where he stood.

‘Grab him and cuff him,’ said one. Every team had a leader. He was it. Two men stepped closer, one from the left, one from the right, still keeping their pistols trained on him.

The team leader spoke into a tiny radio mike on his collar. ‘Target acquired. Move in.’ Almost instantly, Ben heard the thump of a helicopter approaching.

The man on Ben’s left produced a thick plastic cable tie, the kind that police and military forces used to secure prisoners’ wrists behind their backs. He pressed the muzzle of his pistol against Ben’s head and took a hold of Ben’s arm. His movements were slick and practised. The operation was being executed with perfect efficiency and control.