for Steiner, to smuggle him back into Germany. He’d have been able to breathe through some holes discreetly punched in the steel panelling. The dope they’d have used to tranquillise him was in the Range Rover’s glove compartment, labelled to look like a veterinary product.
‘It was a good plan,’ Luna said wistfully to Franz as she led the horse up the ramp into the trailer with a clatter of hooves.
He smiled. ‘It was. But don’t worry. We’ll get him.’
‘Will we?’ She patted the horse, then skipped back down the ramp, raised it up and made sure everything was secure before she bolted the trailer doors. Her face was grim as she worked.
‘Don’t beat yourself up over it,’ Franz told her. ‘We’ll come up with another plan.’
‘Let’s not talk about it now,’ she said.
They were ready to go their separate ways. ‘Everyone remember the routes we talked about?’ Luna said as they headed for their vehicles.
Nods and murmurs from the others.
‘OK. See you back in Germany. Be careful.’ She and Franz got into the front of the Range Rover with Steffi in the back. Andreas, Victor, Dominik and Thomas climbed into the VW Golf. Rudi threw a leg over the Honda, fired it up and blipped the throttle as Jurgen got on the pillion and snapped his visor shut.
The little convoy left the field by an open gate at the far side. Fifty yards up the lane they rejoined the main road, and a little way after that they came to a crossroads. The Range Rover carried on straight ahead, the Golf went left and the Honda went right.
Behind them, the column of smoke from the burning vehicles was still rising into the clear blue sky.
Steiner and Dorenkamp took off back for the chateau in the lead chopper with the second craft’s pilot at the controls while his co-pilot took his place and flew the bodyguard team behind them.
Ben sat with the others and felt the hot stares on him like a poultice. He didn’t make eye contact, didn’t speak. A couple of times he thought he heard angry mutters over the blast of the turbine, but he didn’t react.
They say the return journey is always quicker, but this one seemed to take forty times longer. Ben had the hatch open and was on the ground before the chopper had even settled down on the helipad. Steiner’s personal helicopter was powering back up for take-off. The billionaire and his PA were already gone.
Ben strode towards the house. Behind him, the rest of the team slouched moodily off in the direction of their quarters, carrying their stun weapons.
The interior of the chateau was cool after the baking sun. Ben walked across the main entrance hall, past the mounted knight. A maid carrying a pile of linen stared at the muddied, torn state of him as he went by, but he barely registered her.
He found Dorenkamp in the corridor not far away.
‘I want to speak to Steiner. Where is he?’
Dorenkamp’s brows were knitted with worry and embarrassment.
‘He won’t see you. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m not asking him to change his mind about firing me,’ Ben said.
Dorenkamp’s look of discomfort deepened even more, and he shifted from foot to foot, as though he couldn’t wait to be out of there. ‘That’s good, because I think there’s little chance he would agree.’
‘I want to ask him to keep the rest of the team on,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll go, but let them stay. As soon as Shannon’s healed up, he can fly out and join them. Then things are back to the way they would have been, and I’ll be out of the picture for good.’
Dorenkamp shook his head. ‘I meant what I told you before. Once Herr Steiner has decided on something, he will not go back on it.’
‘I personally don’t think much of them as a team,’ Ben said. ‘I would never have hired them, and I think this whole set-up stinks. But what happened back there wasn’t their fault. It was mine.’
Dorenkamp looked as if he was about to dash off. Then he seemed to change his mind, like someone struggling over whether or not to pass on a burdensome secret. He glanced up and down the empty corridor and spoke in a low voice.
‘Listen. I personally believe that what you did was the right course of action. I think that if you hadn’t acted as you did, Herr Steiner would have been taken captive by those people, and you and I would most certainly still be there in the woods with bullets in our heads. And I think that Herr Steiner knows it, too.’
‘Then why is he acting like such a stubborn old goat?’
‘Because he can’t tolerate the way you humiliated him back there. You held a
‘Maybe he should try getting over himself a little bit. He’d have lost a lot more dignity than that if he’d ended up a kidnap victim.’
Dorenkamp shrugged.
Ben turned away.
But now he had more important things on his mind. Things that he could hardly believe. He couldn’t shut the image of the woman in the woods out of his head. As he walked back out of the house and headed for the team’s quarters, he was playing the events over again and again.
But maybe some things that were impossible were real.
He walked into the communal living space and met a dead silence from the others. He went to his room and locked the door behind him. In the en-suite bathroom he stripped off his dirty clothes and left them strewn on the tiles as he showered. He turned the water up hot, on full blast so that the force of it stung his skin. His neck and shoulders were aching with pent-up tension, and he rotated them under the pounding water to relax the muscles. It didn’t work.
He stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and dried himself off, then wrapped it around his waist and started making his way into the bedroom. Then he stopped. Looked down. The kidnappers’ pistol was lying among the dirty clothes on the floor. He snatched it up, stared at it for a moment, wondering what to do with it, then carried it through to the bedroom and tossed it on the bed, deciding to drop it into Dorenkamp’s office on his way out. Let them deal with the damn thing.
He changed into his black jeans and black T-shirt, pulled on his shoes and his battered old leather jacket, found his cigarettes and the familiar shape of his Zippo in the jacket pocket and started to feel a bit more like himself again - though not much. Then he stuffed the dirty clothes into a plastic bag, packed up the few things he’d brought with him and headed for the door.
A lot had happened in the last couple of hours. It was just after three in the afternoon. If he hurried, he could be home at Le Val before midnight.
As he came out of his room, there was a reception committee waiting for him. Neville seemed to have assumed control of the group. He was standing there with his arms crossed, feet planted apart, a scowl on his face.
‘Oi, you,’ he said as Ben went by.
Ben kept going, eyes front, aiming for the front door.
‘Oi. Talking to you, you fucking piece of shit.’
Ben stopped with his hand on the door handle. Hung his head. Breathed out through his nose. Turned round to face them.
‘We want words with you,’ Neville said.
Woodcock was standing behind him, staring at Ben over his leader’s shoulder. On the other side of Neville, there was a sneer on Morgan’s face that said, ‘You’re in deep shit now, buddy boy.’
‘You and us, outside,’ Neville said. ‘Now.’
