incredulous.
‘I’m with them,’ she said, motioning at the three agents. ‘I’ve been helping them. Harry thinks I’m visiting a sick friend in Rome.’
As Ben gaped at her, his mind was sprinting backwards through all the things that had happened. The time in San Remo, when they’d been followed. Now he understood why Zara had seemed so unconcerned about it. ‘You were in on this the whole time?’
She nodded. ‘It’s true about Harry. He isn’t who you think he is.’
‘And there’s more,’ Valentine said. ‘A lot more. I really think you need to sit down and listen.’
Ben didn’t know what to say. He felt dazed as he walked back to his chair and sat down.
‘Thank you,’ Valentine said. ‘I mean it. I know this is hard for you.’
It was getting dark in the room as evening fell outside the window. Valentine walked over and flipped a light switch. A bare bulb in the middle of the ceiling lit up with a weak glow that made the room seem even gloomier.
‘Let me get this right,’ Ben said. ‘You know all this about Harry, yet he’s a free man. Why isn’t he in jail now?’
‘Like I said, he’s smart,’ Valentine answered. ‘He always stays a step ahead of the game, and nobody’s ever been able to catch him. He uses his yacht charter business as a front, shipping arms consignments all over the world. Any idea how much cargo one of those superyachts can hold?’
‘A lot,’ Harrison said.
A fuck of a lot,’ Wolff added.
‘Interpol have been watching him for a long time,’ Valentine went on. ‘The bastard has been my whole life for two years. But we just couldn’t get anything concrete, and our superiors pulled the plug on the investigation. They said if we pushed it any further, it was going to look like harassment. So, case closed. That was six weeks ago.’ She smiled grimly. ‘His SAS training came in handy, I imagine. He goes in, does the business, gets out and it’s like he was never there. You must know all about that, Major.’
‘First off,’ he said, ‘you can drop the Major bit. I’m Ben. Second, you don’t seem to have a lot of proof. Third, why are three ex-agents pursuing a private investigation of a man with a record as clean as Harry’s when their superiors have already dropped the case? It looks to me like a personal vendetta.’
Valentine nodded. ‘It is.’ Her fingers brushed the back of the photo on the desk. ‘Let me tell you about Linda. She was only twenty-six. She’d been with us on the case just three months. I put her on the team because she was a star linguist, spoke perfect Russian, Spanish and any number of African languages. She was the perfect close surveillance operative. She could get in anywhere.’ Valentine paused, and a look of sadness passed over her face. ‘Algeria, seven weeks ago. I had a report from her. She said she’d finally got the evidence that was going to put Paxton away.’
‘What evidence?’ Ben asked.
‘That’s just it,’ Valentine sighed. ‘I never saw it. Linda didn’t turn up at the RV. Three days later she was found ninety miles away up the coast. It looked like the sharks had got her. You’ve seen the picture.’
‘How do you know the sharks didn’t get her?’
Valentine shook her head vigorously. ‘Because it doesn’t add up. An eyewitness reported that she was dancing and flirting drunkenly with two guys in some strip joint the night before, a mile from where her body was found. The official story is she went off with them. But it’s all wrong.’
‘Maybe she did,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe you just want to believe there’s more to it.’
‘Linda wouldn’t have gone off with two guys she met in a bar,’ Valentine said. ‘They wouldn’t have been her type.’
‘You know that for a fact?’
Valentine looked at him sharply. ‘She was gay. I know that for a fact. A personal fact,’ she added meaningfully. ‘And I know she wasn’t there. Paxton had her butchered and the whole story was concocted to cover his tracks. That’s how he works. And we’re going to get the fucker. For what his trade does to innocent victims everywhere, and for what he did to Linda.’ Valentine’s face was tight with rage. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she brushed it away. ‘We’re going to do whatever it takes to nail him.’
Ben didn’t reply.
‘That’s where you come in,’ Wolff said. ‘We’re on our own here. We desperately need help from someone Paxton trusts.’
‘And you were hoping that, based on no evidence at all, I was going to betray him.’ Ben turned to Zara. ‘How can you listen to these people?’
Zara came over to where he was sitting and crouched down on the floor next to him. She held his hand tightly. ‘You’ve got to believe them, Ben. When I met Harry, I could only see his charm. But that’s not who he is. He’s a monster. A tyrant. He’s the most evil, cruel, dominating man ever born.’
‘We approached Zara four weeks ago,’ Valentine said. ‘We’d been watching them whenever they were on shore together. We could see they were arguing a lot. We took a chance.’
Zara looked deep into Ben’s eyes. ‘Do you remember that day we were together? When I told you I wanted to leave him but couldn’t because of Morgan’s death?’
‘I remember,’ Ben said.
‘It wasn’t because of Morgan. It was because of what Kim, Jimmy and Udo told me. They showed me terrible pictures, of African children whose arms and legs had been shot off with guns that had been bought from Harry. Little bodies covered in horrible burns, faces disfigured. Villages that had just been destroyed, along with everyone in them. That’s what he does, Ben. That’s where all the money comes from. How was I supposed to just walk away?’
‘You’re just taking their word for it.’
‘No. After I agreed to help them, I started trying to look around the Scimitar. Down in one of the cargo holds, I found these crates. Big locked brown metal boxes with white stencilled writing on them. Then I heard voices. Harry and some others. I hid. I couldn’t see them, but they were talking about a shipment. I heard the sound of them opening one of the crates, and a kind of gun sound.’
‘A kind of gun sound?’ Ben said sceptically.
‘A sound like this,’ Harrison said. He took a Colt.45 auto from under his jacket. With his left hand he racked back the slide on the large, stainless steel automatic and released it with a metallic shlack-clack.
‘Just like that,’ Zara said.
‘I think that’s called leading the witness,’ Ben said.
‘Let her speak,’ Valentine cut in.
‘When they left, I sneaked away. When it was safe, I went back down there with a camera. The crates had gone.’
‘That’s what I call real hard evidence,’ Ben said.
Valentine looked uncomfortable. ‘We know. We haven’t got a shred. That’s why we came up with the plan to get me onto the Scimitar. It’s very rare for Paxton to let anyone on board. Zara told us about your meeting. We checked you out. Your military background, your wife’s murder. I had a feeling you’d be the kind of man who would help out a lady in distress.’
‘I was a fool to,’ Ben said.
‘I thought you were a hero,’ Valentine replied. ‘I was sorry we had to trick you. But there was really no other way.’
‘Why trust me now? How do you know I’m not working with Harry?’
‘We thought of that. It didn’t figure.’
‘Maybe I was just too clever for you, the way you claim Harry is.’
‘We thought of that too. But thanks to Zara we have a recording of your talk with Paxton. It’s pretty clear from the conversation that you’re not involved with his business. You went to Cairo for him, but you didn’t kill those men. We know about the citizen’s arrest, too. As far as we’re concerned, you’re clean. Clean, but very interesting.’
Ben glared at Zara.
She squeezed his hand. ‘I’m sorry I spied on you. We had to know.’
‘And I take it you didn’t find anything during your little snooping expedition,’ Ben said, turning back to Valentine. ‘Or you wouldn’t be talking to me now.’
