Scott Mariani - The Armada Legacy

‘I don’t fucking know! Please!’

‘Did you kill her when he was done with her? Did you hurt her?’

‘She’s alive! I swear it!’

‘She’s alive?’ Ben shook him hard from side to side. The material of the black coat began to tear.

‘Aagh! Don’t drop me! Yeah, she alive! I’ve seen her!’

‘Where? Where is she?’

‘At El Capo’s place in Peru! Madre de Dios, don’t drop me!

‘You really believe in God, Armando? Because you know, dirty liars burn in hell for all eternity.’

‘It’s the truth, I fucking promise on my mother’s grave I’m telling the truth!’

‘Then your final act in this world was an honest one,’ Ben said. ‘You can tell that to San Pedro when you meet him in a couple of seconds’ time. Make that five seconds. It’s quite a drop.’

‘No! Please!’

Ben relaxed his grip on the man’s coat collar and the material slipped out of his fist. With a last scream of terror, Gutiérrez dropped from the bell tower and went tumbling and cartwheeling downwards into empty air. He’d vanished into the darkness before Ben heard the muffled crump from far below. He got to his feet, flexing his sore hand. Turned round and saw Nico standing there looking at him.

‘That was pretty fucking harsh, man,’ the Colombian said.

‘What would you have done with him?’ Ben said.

‘What would I have done with him? You don’t want to know.’

‘Then we understand each other.’

Nico gave a pained grin. ‘So we’re partners now, huh?’

‘Till you get yourself killed or I find someone better to team up with,’ Ben said. ‘How’s the arm?’

‘Bleeding’s slowed down some,’ Nico said, looking down at the saturated mess of his sleeve and Ben’s belt.

‘It’s either the local vet for you, or needle and thread back at the house. Think you can handle that?’

‘I’ve been stitched up before,’ Nico said gruffly.

‘That’s fine, because I can’t have you pissing blood and flopping about all over the airport.’

‘Thanks a fucking million, man. So, we catching a plane?’

Ben nodded. ‘How many men did you say Serrato has?’

Nico grunted. ‘Plenty enough.’

‘You don’t have to come all the way. I just need you to point me in the right direction.’

‘You’d go in alone? Even after what I told you about that place?’

Ben said nothing.

‘Like I said, you’re a crazy motherfucker.’ Nico paused, chewed his lip. ‘Guess that makes two of us.’

‘Then let’s get moving,’ Ben said.

Chapter Forty-One

It was late in the morning when Brooke was awoken by the sound of the lock opening and someone coming into her rooms. One of the worst things about captivity was the way she was slowly becoming used to these invasions, accepting that her space wasn’t her own. She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. The night had been a long and almost completely sleepless one. She’d spent most of it trying to forget the awful scene of the previous evening.

And thinking. Thinking very carefully about her options.

The emerald and diamond necklace and bracelet Serrato had given her were lying on the bedside table where she’d dumped them. Remembering that she’d left her special little gold neck chain there too, she reached out to pick it up. It wasn’t there. She climbed out of the bed, thinking it might have fallen onto the floor, but she couldn’t see it anywhere. She was upset about losing it. Right now it was all she had left of her old life. All she had left of Ben.

Brooke could smell the aroma of coffee from beyond the bedroom door. Grabbing a bath towel from the back of a chair to cover the translucent nightdress, for dignity’s sake in case her visitor was one of the guards, she ventured out of the bedroom.

It wasn’t a guard, but a woman Brooke had never seen before, hefty and busty with a hatchet face and a severe haircut like a man’s. On the table was a breakfast tray laden with warm croissants, steaming coffee and fresh orange juice. ‘Isn’t it wonderful to be so well catered for,’ Brooke said to her in a hostile tone. ‘I’ll be sure to recommend this place to all my friends that your boss hasn’t killed.’

The hatchet-faced woman didn’t speak a word, but seemed insistent on watching over her as she picked at the breakfast. Afterwards, she allowed Brooke time alone in the bathroom, but stood like a sentry not far from the door.

After searching again in vain for her gold chain, Brooke took her time in the shower. Afterwards she towelled and brushed her hair in the giant mirror using the cumbersome lapis lazuli hairbrush. She rearranged the bottles of perfume and cans of hairspray on the bathroom shelf, then calmly dressed and emerged wearing the tracksuit bottoms and one of the T-shirts Consuela had brought her. The severe-looking woman was still there, watching her sternly.

Brooke ignored her and wandered back to the bedroom. She lay on the bed and flicked casually through one of the magazines, pretending to read while she went back through her thoughts from overnight.

The plan was coming together in her head now. It was a dangerous game she was undertaking, and what would follow was even more dangerous. It was the only way. She couldn’t stay here much longer.

As lunchtime approached, the bedroom door burst open and the hatchet-faced woman strode in. In her coarse, square hands was a hanger with a white cotton dress.

‘Don’t worry about knocking or anything,’ Brooke said. ‘I take it that’s the latest outfit I’m to be paraded in front of his Lordship in?’

The woman glanced at her, expressionless, removed the dress from the hanger and laid it out carefully on the foot of the bed.

‘You wouldn’t happen to have laid your piggy little eyes on a gold chain, would you?’ Brooke asked her. The woman made no reply. She picked up the green dress that Brooke had left rumpled on the floor, tutted irritably at the creases in it and hung it up in the wardrobe.

Brooke motioned towards the door. ‘Thanks, Ugly Mug. Now maybe you’d like to drag your lardy old arse out of my bedroom while I dress myself up for your psychopathic pervert of an employer.’

The woman left. Some time later, when Brooke had finished putting on the white dress, the guards arrived for her routine escort downstairs. One of them was the cigar smoker she’d last seen from her window puffing away surreptitiously, the other a stockily-built man Brooke hadn’t seen before. She added him to her headcount of Serrato’s thugs. That made twenty-eight now.

As the guards were ushering Brooke down the stairs, she tripped and almost fell. The cigar smoker reached out and caught her. For a moment, his body was pressed tightly against hers and she could smell the cheap, shitty tobacco on him. His strong hands gripped her for slightly longer than necessary; then he grinned at her and let her go.

‘I’m sorry,’ Brooke mumbled. ‘It’s these shoes.’ He didn’t seem to mind at all.

Downstairs, Brooke was shown into an airy room with tall windows that opened onto an outside terrace. Serrato was sitting at a small table in the sunshine. He jumped to his feet to welcome her. ‘Good day to you, Brooke,’ he said with a smile.

Brooke made the biggest effort she’d ever made in her life. She smiled back. ‘Hello, Ramon.’

Serrato appeared delighted. ‘You look exquisite. Did you sleep well?’

Brooke replied that she had, and that the headache which had forced her to leave dinner early the night before had soon passed.

‘Perhaps the wine didn’t agree with you,’ he said, ‘but the cellar is well stocked with many different varieties. We will find one that suits. Would you care for some lunch? I thought we could eat outside.’