The Lost Relic

‘Good. Go and assemble four of your best men. I’m thinking of Turchin, Rykov, Petrovich—’

‘And Gourko,’ Anatoly cut in.

Oh no, Maisky thought, his heart going icy. Not Gourko. Anatoly’s closest crony, the scarred bastard who’d been dishonourably drummed out of the Russian army’s Spetsnaz GRU Special Forces unit for beating one of his officers half to death with a rifle butt. The kind of gangster who gave gangsters a bad name, and one of the few other people who frightened Maisky even more than his boss.

‘You have two hours,’ Shikov said. ‘And then you’re on your way to Italy. You’ll rendezvous with our friends on the ground.’

‘How many in the team?’

‘Ten. Eight men inside, two on the outside.’

Anatoly nodded. ‘Hardware?’

‘Everything you need.’

Anatoly smiled. He could trust his father to be thorough on that score.

When Anatoly had left the room a few minutes afterwards, Shikov gathered up the scattered paperwork and slid it into a drawer. It would be burned later. Maisky circled the desk, frowning. His head was full of things he wanted to say. Things like, ‘Are you so sure you can trust Anatoly with this? He’s wild and irresponsible and his friends are all maniacs, especially Spartak Gourko. How can you be so blind, uncle?’ But he had the good sense to say nothing at all.

Yuri Maisky wasn’t the only one keeping his thoughts to himself. As Anatoly walked away from the boathouse, flipping his Ferrari keys in his hand, he was already thinking about how overcomplicated and boring his father’s plan was.

He had other ideas.

Yup, this was going to be fun.

Chapter Five (#ulink_cc298dbf-1736-5bc2-8828-15912af8e63b)

‘A job?’ Boonzie said, raising his eyebrows.

The sun was beginning to dip over the hills, throwing a wash of dramatic reds and purples across the skyline. Ben nodded. Crouching on the ground beside the new greenhouse foundations, he fished out his Zippo lighter and a pack of the same Gauloises cigarettes he always smoked.

‘Those fuckers’ll kill you,’ Boonzie muttered.

‘If something else doesn’t beat them to it. Want one?’

‘Aye, why not. Chuck them across.’ Boonzie kicked over the empty barrow and used it as a seat while he lit up.

‘At the place where I live in France, I run a business,’ Ben explained. ‘We’re out in the countryside; not so different from this place in a lot of ways. But we don’t make pesto sauce. We do K and R training work.’

Boonzie didn’t need Ben to spell out that K and R stood for kidnap and ransom. Ben went on talking, and Boonzie listened carefully.

In the seven years since Ben had quit the army, locating and extracting victims of kidnapping, often children, had become his speciality. He’d called himself a Crisis Response Consultant – a deliberately vague euphemism for someone who went out and solved problems that lay way beyond the reach of normal law enforcement agencies. His work had taken him into a lot of dark corners. His methods hadn’t always been gentle, but he’d got results that few other people in his line of work could have achieved.

The bottom line, always, was helping those in need. After many successes and a few too many scrapes, he’d left the dangers of active field work behind to focus on passing on the skills and knowledge he’d acquired – still helping the innocent victims of ruthless criminals across the globe, but now doing it from behind a desk instead of from behind a gun.

The facility he’d set up, nestled in the Normandy countryside, was called Le Val. It had been growing busier by the month. Police and military units, hostage negotiation specialists, kidnap insurance execs, close-protection services personnel, had all flocked to attend the courses he ran there with his assistant, ex-SBS officer Jeff Dekker, and a couple of other ex-military guys. Dr Brooke Marcel, half French, half English, an expert psychologist based in London, had been his consultant and regular visiting lecturer in hostage psychology until – three months or so ago – their stumbling relationship had developed into something deeper.

In terms of the success of the business, Ben couldn’t have asked for more. Le Val was lucrative, it was filling a very real need, and it was safe.

But there was a problem. It had started as just a grain of discomfort, like a tiny niggling itch he couldn’t scratch. Through the long, hot summer, it had grown until it followed him like a shadow and he couldn’t sleep at night for thinking of it.

Why he felt this way, where the demons that were driving him so crazy with restlessness had come from, he had no idea. All he knew, with a certainty that frightened him, was that the life he’d created in France was one he no longer wanted.

Boonzie McCulloch was the first person he’d chosen to confess his secret to, and even after thinking about little else for days it wasn’t easy to do. When he’d finished outlining the work he and his team did at Le Val, he took a deep breath and came right out with it.

‘Thing is, I’m giving serious thought to leaving it all behind,’ he admitted with a frown. ‘I don’t mean I want to sell up. Just walk away, leave it in Jeff’s hands. He can run the place, no problem, with a little help from the other guys, and Brooke. And you, if you’re interested.’

Boonzie took a draw on his cigarette, said nothing. His eyes were narrowed to slits against the falling sun.

‘You were the best instructor I ever knew,’ Ben said. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have come and take over the number two position.’

‘What about you?’ Boonzie asked. ‘Where are you going?’

Ben was quiet for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what I want. Maybe I need some time to figure that out.’

‘Every man has to settle down sometime, Ben. It comes to us all.’

‘I don’t know if I’m the settling kind. God knows I’ve tried. Just doesn’t seem to work for me.’

‘You never were happy unless your arse was on fire,’ Boonzie chuckled, and then looked serious. ‘What about this Brooke lassie? Sounds like you and she have something going.’

Ben glanced down at his feet. ‘That’s what I thought, too,’ he muttered. ‘Sometimes I’m not so sure. For a while she’s been acting—’ His voice trailed off. He bit his lip.

‘What?’

Ben let out a long sigh. ‘Listen, I don’t want to lay my personal problems on you. What do you think about my offer? Is it something you’d ever consider?’

Boonzie didn’t reply. He thoughtfully stubbed out the butt of his cigarette on the belly of the upturned barrow.

Ben already knew the answer. He’d known it the moment he’d got here, and it had been so obvious and predictable that he almost hadn’t asked the question. So he wasn’t very surprised when after a few more moments’ deliberation, looking genuinely pained, Boonzie shook his head.

‘Flattered you should ask me …’

‘But no?’

‘That’s the way it has to be. I’m sorry, Ben.’

‘Say no more, old friend.’

‘Would you leave this?’

‘Not in my right mind, I wouldn’t.’ Ben stood up and dusted himself off.

‘No hard feelings, then?’ Boonzie said, concern in his eyes.

‘Don’t be daft. I’m happy for you.’

‘You’ll stay for dinner, though, aye? Be our guest for the night?’