Scott Mariani - The Babylon Idol

‘We’ve done all we can,’ Dr Lacombe sighed. ‘I managed to sew up and reinflate the ruptured lung. As for the rest of the damage, now only time will tell if he’s going to pull through.’

‘Thank you,’ was all Ben could reply.

Dr Lacombe puffed her cheeks and gave a little shrug as if to say, don’t thank me too soon. ‘The next twelve hours will be difficult,’ she warned. ‘There’s a high risk of complications. Frankly, given the extent of the trauma I would give him little more than a sixty per cent chance of surviving this. He wouldn’t have made it even this far, if someone hadn’t prevented him from bleeding to death at the scene.’ Her weary but sharp blue eyes flicked up and down, taking in Ben’s bloodied appearance. ‘I take it that someone was you, Monsieur—?’

‘Hope. Ben Hope.’

A flicker of surprise in her eyes, that she wasn’t speaking to a Frenchman. Ben spoke the language without any trace of accent. She went on, ‘It was also you who provided the patient’s blood group. Thank you for that. If we hadn’t known in time, there’s little chance he would still be with us now. It appears you have some medical training?’

‘British Special Forces, a long time ago. They teach you a few basics to keep your people going when they’ve been shot, burned or blown up.’

She nodded pensively. ‘I thought you looked militaire . Anyway, you’ve helped to save his life for the moment, and with any luck he may live to thank you for it. We’ll do everything we can from here. But please don’t get your hopes up.’

‘I appreciate your directness, Doctor. That’s exactly what I need.’

‘May I ask what is your relation to the patient?’

‘Friend and business partner.’

‘This business, it’s in Basse-Normandie?’

‘We’ve been based here for a number of years.’ Ben left out what she didn’t need to know: that he’d spent a good portion of that time flitting from place to place and getting himself into trouble all over the world, and could speak a variety of languages as well as French. Jeff was Mr Stay-at-Home by comparison.

‘I see. What about his family – has Monsieur Dekker any relatives?’

‘A mother who emigrated to Australia. And a fiancée a little closer, in Saint-Acaire. They’ve already both been notified. His mother’s got a long way to travel to the nearest big airport, but I’d imagine she’ll be on her way soon.’

‘It’ll be a while before I’ll allow him to have any visitors.’ Dr Lacombe paused. ‘What about you? You have a contact number?’

‘I’m not going anywhere. Any changes in his condition, I’ll be right here.’

‘Just in case,’ she said, handing him a card, ‘this is my personal cell number, if you need to talk. I don’t give this out to everyone, you understand?’

‘I appreciate your help, Doctor.’

She paused again, fixed him with those sharp eyes, as blue as topaz, and said, ‘You know I have to report this, don’t you? A gunshot wound of this kind—’

‘I understand,’ Ben said, ‘but the police already know all about it. Some of them were already there just after it happened. I’m afraid more of them will be landing on your hospital pretty soon, looking for me.’

She shook her head. ‘What did happen?’

‘He was shot.’

‘I can see that. I mean, what happened ?’

‘We were cutting up a fallen tree. Talking about this and that. He’d just told me that he was getting married. It was a happy time. We had no idea that someone was watching us. Someone hidden, quite a distance away, with a rifle. Then they fired. One shot, one hit. You know the rest.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Neither do I,’ Ben said. ‘Not yet.’

‘Does your friend have, I don’t know, enemies?’

‘Looks that way,’ Ben said. ‘One with a rifle, and who knows how to use it. Sniper-style, probably set up on a bipod and fitted with a scope. Judging by the ballistics, the gun’s something around a thirty-calibre, like a .270 or a .308. Maybe fitted with a silencer too, which could explain why I heard nothing over the noise of the chainsaw. Those are the only clues I have so far, for what they’re worth.’

‘I don’t know anything about guns, except what they can do to people,’ Dr Lacombe said with a faraway look and a slight shiver, as if she was visualising a whole back-catalogue of horrors she’d personally witnessed in the course of her surgical career. ‘And I don’t like them.’

‘I don’t much like them either,’ Ben said. ‘Except when they’re used for good.’

‘How can a tool of violence and death be used for good?’

‘When it’s deployed against the person who spilled first blood,’ Ben said.

‘You’re talking about justice. That’s a job for the police.’

‘When they can find the guy. If they can find him.’

‘Are you saying you intend to find him?’

‘I’m saying I intend to make this right.’

She looked at him. ‘This is not a war, Monsieur Hope.’

‘Tell that to your patient,’ Ben said.

‘When he recovers,’ she said. ‘ If he recovers.’

‘He’s tough as an old boot,’ Ben said. ‘He’s been hurt before and pulled through.’

‘As badly as this? Then I hope for your friend’s sake that he’s as fortunate this time.’

Ben felt suddenly weary and dizzy, as if all his energy had drained out through his feet. He glanced around him for something to lean on. ‘No,’ he admitted quietly. ‘Not as badly as this.’

‘You don’t look good,’ Sandrine Lacombe said, frowning at him. ‘I think we should take a look at you.’

‘I’m not hurt. None of this is my blood. I already told them that.’

‘I know a delayed shock reaction when I see one.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not. Trust me, I’m a doctor.’

Despite his protests, Sandrine Lacombe dispatched a squad of nurses to attend to Ben while the doctor herself hurried back to the ICU to check on Jeff and see to the rest of her rounds. Ben was taken into an examination room where he did his best to fend off the nurses’ attentions, but gave in when he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and didn’t recognise the wild man looking back at him: the figure of an escaped desperado who had taken refuge in a slaughterhouse. ‘You can’t go around the hospital looking like that,’ said the head nurse. ‘You’ll frighten the patients.’

Once they’d exchanged his bloody rags for a hospital gown and confirmed what he already knew, that none of the blood was his, they started insisting on treating him for shock. Ben drew the line at sedatives. He needed to keep his wits about him. But a hot shower seemed like a good idea, and he gladly followed the head nurse down the corridor to get himself cleaned up.

He stood under the splashing hot water for fifteen long minutes, trying to wash away the tension that locked up his neck and shoulder muscles. Looking down at his feet, he saw the cloudy rust-coloured swirl of Jeff’s blood running off him and circling the drain. He still felt strangely numb. It all seemed somehow surreal, as if he were watching himself from the outside; as if these events were just an awful dream from which he half expected to awake at any second. One instant Jeff had been there at his side, his usual self, cheerful and focused and content with the future; the next there was an empty, desolate space where Jeff used to be. Good old solid Jeff, who was always there when you needed him, whose spirits were so hard to dampen, who had saved Ben’s skin on more than a couple of occasions. Someone like that couldn’t just disappear from your life and not be there any more.