Scott Mariani - The Babylon Idol

‘It’s not me. I’m not hurt,’ he explained to the nurses, putting out his bloodstained hands to ward them off him. ‘Jeff Dekker. He was brought here by helicopter. Less than an hour ago. Where is he? Is he—?’

Not dead, was all the information he could glean from any of the tight-lipped nursing personnel. A large matron kept insisting that if he would please settle down and wait, Docteur Lacombe the head surgeon would update him as soon as possible. Ben got the impression that Lacombe was deep in the middle of working on Jeff at that very moment. Which explained why the nurses were being noncommittal about the condition of the patient. Which in turn implied that things were very much in the balance and could go either way.

Ben did what they said and went to a small waiting area with banks of plastic seats and a vending machine. He sat by a window that overlooked the hospital car park and gazed out without seeing anything.

The wait was agonising. He took a few sips of eighteen-year-old single malt scotch from his old steel flask, then stared at it for a moment, thinking back to the time when it had turned a bullet that had been heading for his heart. Perhaps it could have done the same for Jeff. The thought made him want to swallow the whole contents of the flask, but he fought the urge and put it away.

He paced and sat down. Paced and sat down. The snow had stopped falling outside. The sky was leaden, threatening a downpour of rain that would thaw the streets of Cherbourg to a brown slush. Restless and badly in need of something other than alcohol to settle his nerves, he wanted to duck outside for a cigarette but worried that he might miss speaking to this Lacombe guy. After another half-hour he dialled the Le Val office number, and Tuesday snapped up the call before the first ring was over.

‘Well?’ Tuesday sounded breathless with worry.

‘Nobody wants to tell me anything much,’ Ben said. ‘I think they’re operating on him as we speak.’

‘Then there’s a chance,’ Tuesday gasped. ‘Thank Christ. When the phone rang I thought—’

Ben preferred not to dwell on what might all too well turn out to be false hopes. ‘What’s happening there?’ he interrupted.

Tuesday let out a frustrated grunt and replied all in a flurry, ‘Jesus, what isn’t happening here? Now would be a good time to rob a bank, because it seems to me every cop in Normandy’s turned up to get a piece of the action. Not long after you left, four NH-nineties landed in the field, full of guys in black. Then about thirty more vehicles rolled up. They’ve got the whole place surrounded and they’re combing through every square inch like it was the biggest terrorist incident in French history. It’s mayhem. I’ve repeated the whole story so many times I’m beginning to feel like a bloody parrot.’

‘Let them do what they have to do,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe they’ll find something.’

He very much doubted they would. More likely, the guys in black body armour would strut about feeling pumped up and hungry for Muslim extremists to gun down, then they’d eventually get bored and go home to their shoot-’em-up video games.

He asked, ‘Is Vidal still there?’

‘Overseeing his troops like he’s General Patton. There’s something else, Ben.’ Tuesday paused, sounding uncomfortable. ‘I’m really sorry. I had no choice.’

‘What?’

‘They demanded access to the armoury, and I had to let them in. They took the lot. Stripped it totally bare.’

‘What do you mean, took the lot?’

‘Every last scrap, down to the empty spare magazines. They even took the slings and bipods for the rifles. Said it was a precaution in accordance with the new anti-terror legislation. So if I tried to stand in their way, that pretty much made me a terrorist myself. They loaded everything into an armoured van and gave me a slip of paper that says it’s being kept in secure storage at a government facility until further notice. Which basically means we’re out of business for the foreseeable future. I’m sorry, Ben. If you want to fire me now, I’d understand.’

‘No, Tuesday. You did the right thing and I wouldn’t blame you for a minute, and neither will Jeff. Listen, do me a favour. Middle drawer of Jeff’s desk there in the office. There’s a tatty address book. Look under M and give me his mother’s number in Australia.’

‘Got it,’ Tuesday said after a moment, and Ben scribbled the number down on the back of his Gauloises packet. Then he remembered the other call he was going to have to make, a prospect that felt like a cold knife going into his belly. ‘Now look under C.’

‘Chantal,’ Tuesday said with a groan. ‘God, I’d forgotten all about her. The poor woman. Hold on. Yeah, there’s a mobile number.’ He read it out. ‘You want me to—?’

‘I’ll do it,’ Ben said grimly. ‘Thanks, Tuesday. I’ll keep you posted when I know anything.’ He ended the call. Then took a deep breath and made the first of the two other calls he was dreading. As the dial tone was pulsing in his ear he tried desperately to formulate what he had to say. A woman’s voice answered at the fourth ring, ten thousand miles away.

‘May I speak to Mrs Lynne Dekker?’

‘Speaking. Who is this?’

‘Mrs Dekker, you don’t know me. My name’s Ben Hope. I work with Jeff.’

It was one of the worst calls he’d ever had to make. But the next one, to Chantal Mercier, was even harder. First the same stunned silence, then the same cry of anguish, the same gulping sobs. Then, to make Ben even more miserable, followed the rage, the recriminations, the bitter accusations. Chantal was certain that it was as a result of all the awful and dangerous things they did at Le Val that Jeff was hurt. Ben tried to placate her, but could think of little to say.

When it was over, he put the phone away and went back to the slightly lesser ordeal of waiting. He wasn’t counting the minutes. He was counting the seconds.

About nine thousand more of them had ticked by in his head, and the hands on the wall clock in the waiting room had left midday far behind, by the time a door swung open and a figure in a blue doctor’s overall appeared, spotted him and started walking briskly over. Ben stood up on jelly legs, his heart rate suddenly doubled. He stopped breathing.

Here it comes , he thought.

Dr Lacombe was a she, with a mop of streaky blond hair that would probably have reached down past her waist if it hadn’t been scraped back from her face and heaped and plaited into an elaborate French braid. She was probably around thirty-five but looked older, with shadows under her eyes as if she’d been up all night and was ready to drop from stress and exhaustion. Ben could picture how she must have looked just a minute earlier, in a surgical mask and apron and latex gloves, with even more of Jeff’s blood spattered on her than he had.

‘Sandrine Lacombe, head surgeon,’ she said, offering a hand, and Ben could tell from her tone that the news couldn’t be entirely bad. Relief flooded through him like warm honey pouring through his veins. He started breathing again.

The doctor’s grip was firm and dry. She had a clipped, efficient manner that Ben liked instantly as she started briefing him quickly on the situation.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it could have been a lot better. Jeff had lost a tremendous amount of blood, necessitating an emergency transfusion the moment he’d been brought in. Meanwhile the path of the bullet, narrowly missing his heart, had caused massive tissue damage and internal bleeding in the chest cavity and collapsed a lung. They’d almost lost him twice during the three-hour operation. Now moved to the intensive care unit, he seemed to have stabilised. Holding on, but still deep in the woods.