The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET. Scott Mariani

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       Chapter Two

       Southern Turkey

       Eleven months later

      The two men playing cards at the kitchen table heard the sudden roar of an engine and looked up just in time to see the pickup truck looming in the patio windows.

      Then it hit. Glass shards, splinters of timber and shattered brickwork exploded into the room. The truck lurched to a halt with its front wheels and its rust-pitted, plaster-covered bonnet protruding through the ragged hole in the wall.

      The men dived for cover, scattering beer bottles, but they were too slow. The truck door flew open. The man who stepped out from behind the dusty windscreen was dressed all in black. Black combat jacket, black ski-mask, black gloves. He watched for a moment as the card players backed away across the room. Then he drew the silenced 9mm Browning from its holster and shot them both twice in the chest, rapid-fire. The bodies slumped to the floor. A spent case tinkled across the tiles. He walked over to the nearest body and put a bullet in its head. Then the other.

      The man in black had been observing the secluded house for three days, taking his time, well concealed in the trees beyond the fence. He knew the routine. He knew that round the back of the house was a garage block that housed a rusted Ford pickup with the keys left in it, and that he could slip over the wall and reach it without being seen from the rear windows where the guys usually sat, playing cards and drinking beer.

      He also knew where the girl was.

      The dust was beginning to settle in the wrecked kitchen. When he’d made sure the two men were permanently down, the intruder replaced the warm Browning in its holster and made his way through the house. He looked at his watch. Less than two minutes since he’d come over the wall. Things were going according to plan.

      The girl’s door was flimsy and buckled off its hinges at the third kick. By then, he could hear her screaming inside the room. He burst in. She was curled up at the far end of the bed, sheets drawn over her, terror in her eyes. He knew that she had just turned thirteen.

      The man walked over to her and paused at the edge of the bed. She screamed harder. He wondered whether he would have to give her one of the tranquillizers he always carried with him. He took off the ski-mask, revealing his lean, tanned face and thick blond hair. He put out his hand to her. ‘Come with me,’ he said softly.

      She stopped screaming and looked up at him hesitantly. The other men had hard eyes. This man was different.

      He reached into his jacket and showed her the photo of him together with her parents. She hadn’t seen them for a long time. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘My name’s Ben, and I’m here to help you. Your family sent me, Catherine. They’re waiting. I’ll take you to them.’

      Her cheeks were moist with tears. ‘Are you a policeman?’ she asked in a low voice.

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just a friend.’

      He reached his hand out further, gently, and she let him take her arm to guide her to her feet. Her arm felt wasted under the grubby blouse she was wearing. She didn’t protest as he led her out of the room, and she didn’t react at the sight of the two dead men lying on the kitchen floor.

      Back outside, she blinked at the sunlight. It had been a while since she’d last left the confines of the house. She was unsteady on her feet, and Ben carried her to the Land Rover he’d left parked fifty yards from the house, hidden in a clump of bushes. He opened the passenger door and put the girl into the seat. She was shivering. There was a blanket in the back and he covered her with it.

      He checked his watch again. Five minutes before the other three men would be back, if they kept to their routine. ‘Let’s go,’ he muttered, and walked round to the driver’s side.

      The girl said something in reply, but her voice was weak.

      ‘What?’ he said.

      ‘What about Maria?’ she repeated, looking up at him.

      His eyes narrowed. ‘Maria?’

      Catherine pointed back at the house. ‘She’s still in there.’

      ‘Is Maria a girl like you? They’re holding her?’

      Catherine nodded solemnly.

      He made a decision. ‘OK, I need you to stay put for a minute. Can I trust you?’

      She nodded again.

      ‘Where is she?’

      In three minutes he’d found where they were keeping Maria. To get there he had to walk through a dingy room where some cameras were set up on tripods around a rumpled single bed, with cheap lighting equipment dumped in a corner and a TV and video sitting on a squat table. The VCR had been left running, the sound off. He paused and looked at the images, then realized what he was seeing. He recognized one of the men he’d shot earlier. The naked, writhing girl in the crudely shot film was no more than eleven or twelve.

      Rage flashed through him and he kicked the TV off the table. It hit the floor and imploded in a shower of sparks.

      Maria’s door wasn’t locked, and when he went into the squalid room his first thought was that she was dead.

      She was the girl in the video. She was still breathing, but heavily doped. A grimy vest and knickers were all that covered her thin body. He lifted her carefully from the bed and carried her back through the house and out to the Land Rover. He gently laid her on the back seat, took off his jacket and placed it over her. Catherine reached out for her hand and looked up at Ben with questioning eyes.

      ‘She’ll СКАЧАТЬ