Scott Mariani - The Sacred Sword

Ben nodded to himself. It wasn’t a Maserati but it would carry him the two hundred or so miles to the southwesternmost tip of England faster than Le Crock could ever dream of.

He went back inside and started gathering up his things. Simeon’s laptop was going to have to come along. Even if the information inside was inaccessible to him, there was no way he could leave it here at the house in case the raiders decided to come back for it. Deciding that the shotgun was coming too, he folded up the stock and stuffed the shortened weapon into his bag. The dog eyed him suspiciously from a few feet away.

‘I suppose you want to come along as well,’ Ben said. ‘Where else are you going to go?’

He was heading outside with the bag over his shoulder and the dog at his heels when his mobile rang. It was Darcey Kane.

‘How are your bad guys?’ Ben asked her.

‘Shitting in their pants,’ she replied. ‘How are yours?’

‘What makes you think I’m after any?’

‘Hmm. I have a feeling you’re up to something.’

‘I don’t know where you’d get a notion like that. Did you manage to trace that number for me?’

‘Of course. But you won’t be pleased. The registration’s a fake. No record of it exists.’

‘You double-checked?’

‘Quadruple. You know me.’

‘Damn,’ he muttered under his breath. But now he knew for sure.

‘Come on, Hope. Spill it. You’re definitely up to something, aren’t you?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Ben said, leaning inside the car to stash his illegal cargo behind the driver’s seat. It would be five years in prison, minimum, if any cop saw what was inside the bag.

‘Then you’re free for dinner tonight. How about Italian instead? It’ll be just like Rome.’

‘Maybe some other time, Darcey. Thanks for the info.’

‘Bastard.’

According to Rex O’Neill’s information, the Lear had touched down at the airfield in Naples forty-two minutes ago. The single-engined Cessna, one of the selection of light aircraft provided by the Trimble Group for them to shuttle men and material between Capri and the mainland, should be arriving shortly. Two cars sat parked at the side of the private airstrip, a Mercedes limousine and a high-performance Audi, both black. Penrose Lucas insisted on black for his whole fleet of vehicles, and the Trimble Group were happy to indulge him.

Inside the Mercedes, soundproof glass screened the driver off from the elongated passenger compartment in which sat Penrose and Rex O’Neill. Penrose stretched out his legs. He didn’t just sit on the plush limo seat, he lounged on it, sprawled across it. The more contact he made with the cool, soft leather, the more kingly and omnipotent it made him feel.

He’d been buzzing with nervous anticipation all morning since seeing the online news report confirming what he’d known in advance was going to happen: the untimely and tragic demise of the Reverend Simeon Arundel and his beloved wife the previous evening in England. The news had almost completely allayed the extreme displeasure that had spoiled Penrose’s day yesterday, knowing that Wesley Holland had somehow managed to slip through the fingers of the team sent out to America to get him. Never mind. Holland’s escape was a temporary hitch. It wasn’t the end of the world.

And at this moment Penrose was in an even more forgiving mood as he anticipated with relish the arrival of his team from England. He couldn’t wait to see the items retrieved from the target’s home.

First Lalique; Penrose was especially pleased with the way that had gone. Then Arundel. All in all, the plan was moving along beautifully. Before long they’d have Holland too, and all three of them would be out of the way. Penrose would finally get his hands on this damned troublesome sword and would have the pleasure of personally seeing it melted down, eradicated before the world even took notice of it. Then he’d be able to forge ahead with his greater plans. The Trimble Group would not be disappointed.

Rex O’Neill was perched on the edge of the seat opposite, silent and tight-lipped as he observed his nominal boss and ruminated over his unspoken misgivings about the man. O’Neill had been opposed from the start to the way the Lalique situation had been handled, and he was increasingly unhappy about the direction things were taking. Lucas was moving far too fast. O’Neill could say nothing. He had his orders, and his job to do.

There were other worries, too. As part of O’Neill’s role as intermediary between Lucas and the Trimble Group, it had been reported to him that morning that the phone surveillance team had intercepted a long distance phone call from Wesley Holland to the landline at the Little Denton vicarage during the early hours. Somebody had answered the phone there, meaning that the vicarage had not, as they’d previously thought, been empty last night. Somebody was staying there — but who?

‘And how is Megan?’ Penrose asked suddenly, with an unpleasant little smile. It was unusual for him to make any kind of small talk, and even more unusual for him to express interest in his assistant’s home life. O’Neill put it down to his uncharacteristically happy state of mind this morning.

‘She’s fine, thank you. A little nervous as the weeks go by. It’s our first, so…’ O’Neill shrugged.

Penrose felt slightly disgusted, but covered it well. ‘When is the child due?’

‘Not for another three and a half months.’

‘You must be looking forward to it,’ Penrose said.

‘We both are, very much.’ O’Neill smiled, visualising his wife’s face and wondering what she was doing right now. He so wished he could be with her at home in London. It was still hard to believe that such a beautiful and smart young woman could have seen anything in a man like him, fifteen years her senior and obsessively glued to a job he could tell her so little about. The eleven months of their marriage had been the happiest of his life. He was determined to spend more time with her, but knew that his long-overdue leave wouldn’t be granted him for a good while yet.

His thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of the Cessna coming in to land. ‘They’re here,’ he said to Penrose, who sprawled up out of his seat with a jerk, threw open the car door and clambered eagerly out.

The Cessna came down over the trees. It touched down with a yelp of tyres and taxied to a halt a few metres from the waiting vehicles. Beaming, Penrose marched across the runway to meet its occupants. The hatch opened and Steve Cutter emerged, followed by Dave Mills.

Penrose’s face fell when he saw the state of them. Cutter had a thick wad of dressing taped to his forehead and an ugly split and swollen lip. Mills’s cheek was bruised and scuffed from jaw to eye and he was moving stiffly. Neither displayed the body language of men returning victorious from a successful operation. Cutter’s expression confirmed it.

Penrose’s happiness evaporated instantly. A drumming pulse started up in his left temple that he knew would quickly grow into a painful migraine. ‘What happened?’ he blurted in the short moments of numb surprise before the fury took him.

‘We didn’t get the gear,’ Cutter said miserably.

‘So I gathered,’ Penrose growled. The first pang of the headache made his left eye twitch. ‘Where are all the others?’ The plan had been specific. Two men to raid the vicarage, the rest of them to stand guard nearby.

‘Still in position,’ Cutter said.

The Cessna pilot was turning the aircraft round for takeoff, and the rising engine note lanced through Penrose’s head. ‘We’ll talk back at the villa,’ he barked, then turned on his heel and marched back to his limousine, white-faced with anger, as Cutter and Mills climbed painfully into the Audi.