year. That wasn’t the only physical change Ben noticed in the man. His right ear was badly scarred, the lobe gone, looking like melted wax.
As Ben stared at that ear, connections flew together in his dazed brain. The video-clip. Clara Kinski’s abductor.
‘What are you doing here, Hope?’ Glass sneered. ‘Come to check up on your girlfriend’s dead brother? He’s dead all right. Trust me, I know.’ He drew back his fist and slammed it hard into Ben’s side.
This time, Ben was ready. He tensed his muscles harder and twisted a little to catch the blow in the middle of his stomach instead of the kidney. But it still hurt, badly. The pain exploded, driving the air back out of him. He wheezed and saw stars.
Glass stepped back, rubbing his fist. ‘You don’t have to answer,’ he said. ‘This isn’t an interrogation. You know what that means.’ He tapped the CD case through the fabric of his pocket. ‘I’ve got everything I need from you. I don’t need you alive, you understand?’
A thought came into Ben’s mind, and it worried him.
Glass reached over to the table and picked up something dull and metallic. It was a heavy steel knuckle- duster. He held it in his left hand, fanned out his right fingers and slipped the knuckle-duster over them. He clenched it in his big fist, looked Ben in the eye and smiled. ‘I’m going to take my time with you,’ he said. ‘Nice and slow. First I’m going to soften you up. Then—’ He paused and looked round at the other men with a smirk. ‘Well, hey, why don’t I show you?’ He gestured to one of the guards, the short fat one with the grey hair scraped back in an oily ponytail. The guy lowered his MP-5, slung it behind his back, and stepped over to a holdall that was on the floor. He zipped it open.
There was a chainsaw inside. The fat guy primed it with a squirt of petrol in the tiny carburettor. He hooked his fingers around the end of the start cord and jerked it. The chainsaw buzzed angrily into life in the echoey hangar. The guy gunned the throttle.
Glass nodded to him to kill the saw’s motor. The hangar went quiet again. The guard laid the chainsaw down on the table.
Glass turned back to Ben. ‘Like I said, this isn’t an interrogation. So now here comes the fun part.’ He grinned. ‘I’m going to take you apart one bit at a time, and I’m going to enjoy it.’ Glass pressed his face up close to Ben’s. His skin was pallid and sweaty. ‘Just like I enjoyed killing your friend Llewellyn. That’s right. He was easy too.’
Ben blazed at the words. Glass had just marked himself for death.
If he could get out of this. Right now, it wasn’t looking very certain.
He jerked on the chain. It was solid. The ring of guns was centred steadily on his head. No way out.
He looked past Glass at the chainsaw, imagined the blade coming closer, whirring, gnashing. It would only have to touch him lightly to cause irreversible damage. Where would they cut him first? Not the shoulder or the abdomen-major trauma to a vital organ would kill him too quickly. They wanted sport. A leg, maybe. But not too high up. The blade would come at him sideways, below the knee. The first soft pressure would tear through clothing and split the flesh. More pressure and the saw would bite hard into the bone. It would slice through like nothing.
First one leg, then the other. His limbs would drop off him like fruit off a tree. Irreversible, whatever happened afterwards. He’d be swinging from the chain, spinning round and round, screaming, stumps thrashing, blood jetting out all over the concrete. He’d see them laughing at him.
That wasn’t going to happen to him. No way.
He jerked the chain again.
The knuckle-duster caught the light of the overhead neons. Glass swung his fist a couple of times theatrically, grunting. He paused, grinned, then drew it back, eyes scanning Ben’s face for his best mark.
Hanging from the chain, Ben kept his eyes on the steel-clad fist and resigned himself to the brutal blow that was going to break his nose and smash his teeth into his throat. There’d be worse to come. He started to close himself down in readiness.
But you could never be ready for this.
The sharp command halted Glass’s fist before it could make contact. Ben let out his breath and his muscles slackened.
Glass lowered his arm and turned as a small man in his sixties walked into the hangar. Ben watched him approach, flanked by four guards carrying MP-5s. He was well groomed, immaculately dressed in a dark suit, sober tie and long tweed overcoat. The black patent-leather shoes clicked on the concrete floor. His face was long and pale, with a hooked nose and unblinking eyes that gave him the penetrating look of a bird of prey.
‘Change of plan,’ he said curtly to Glass. ‘Bring him into the office.’ His accent was German, his English perfect.
Glass looked sullen and disappointed as he barked orders at the guards. He slipped off his knuckle-duster. Two men stepped forward and released Ben from the cuffs. He wasn’t going to fall on the floor, not in front of them. He stayed on his feet, swaying a little, trying hard to focus.
A gun jabbed him in the back and they walked him across the hangar. Through a steel door at the far end was a dark corridor. Glass led the way and opened another door to a sparsely furnished office. The desk was bare, save for a computer hooked up to a pair of screens facing in opposite directions.
The guards threw Ben down into a tubular steel chair facing the desk. He fought the pain and the dizziness, blinking to keep his mind clear.
The smartly dressed old man walked calmly around the desk and sat in the swivel chair opposite Ben. He spoke softly and deliberately. ‘My name is Werner Kroll,’ he said.
Ben knew who he was. The current Count von Adler.
Kroll watched Ben for a minute. His eyes were sharp and intelligent and Ben could only guess what he was thinking. His wizened face had a look of detached curiosity, and a glimmer in his eyes that could have been taken for mild amusement. He dismissed the guards with a small gesture. They responded like well-trained dogs and filed out without a word. They all knew better than to hesitate when Kroll gave them an order.
Glass took the CD-ROM case from his pocket and handed it to Kroll. ‘He was carrying this on him, sir.’
The old man took out the disc and turned it over in his hands. His fingers were long and thin. He popped open the CD-drive of the computer on his desk and inserted the disc. There was silence in the room as the CD loaded up. The old man leaned back pensively in his chair and watched the video-clip without a word. Ben could see the flickering images reflected in the lenses of his spectacles.
Then Kroll calmly ejected the disc. He turned it over in his hands again, looked coolly at Ben and snapped it in half. ‘Thank you for bringing that to me,’ he said. He scattered the broken shards on the desk in front of him.
Then he picked up the cardboard tube containing the Mozart letter. He reached a finger inside and took out the rolled-up paper. ‘Interesting,’ he said as his eyes darted across it. ‘Very interesting. I begin to understand what this is all about. Mr Llewellyn’s research.’ He sighed and folded the letter in half, then again in quarters. He held the yellowed paper between his slim fingers and ripped it suddenly in two. He kept on ripping until Richard Llewellyn’s prize was lying in tiny tatters across the desk. He reached for a waste-paper basket and carefully swept the pieces into it. Ben sat still and didn’t speak a word.
Glass stood behind Kroll’s chair, with his arms folded behind his back. There was a twisted half-smile on his face. He’d been looking forward to killing Ben Hope. Maybe he still would, if the old man let him. SAS. He could eat SAS for breakfast.
Kroll reached calmly into a briefcase and took out a file. ‘I believe you two gentlemen have a long acquaintance,’ he said conversationally. ‘It must be nice to meet again after so many years.’
‘Paul Connors,’ Kroll cut in. ‘Yes, we know what your papers say. My compliments to your forger. Very convincing. I wonder why you didn’t use your Harris or Palmer identity this time?’
‘You’ve got the wrong man. I’m a journalist.’
