CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ben had only ever worked on the periphery of the technological espionage world. The department had other operatives for that. But he knew enough not to use his phone and to suspect that the vehicle was probably being tracked. He stopped at the first motorway services and made a call on a payphone. At Taunton, a convenient town, he pulled off the motorway and left the vehicle in the bus station car park, hefting the bags, taking the dog, and just walking away.
He spotted the Lada in the place where they’d arranged to meet. Tim was standing nervously alongside the car. Ben hadn’t seen him for some weeks. Tim didn’t owe him, as Ben had told him many times, but that hadn’t stopped the man from agreeing to help. He watched Ben approach, seeming to sense a hug or kiss wouldn’t be appropriate. If he saw the blood on Ben’s clothes, he didn’t mention it.
“John is coming to get me.” He handed over his keys. “When whatever this is, is over, will you come and tell me about it?”
Ben held his gaze. “I’m not sure that will be possible, Tim. When it’s over, it will probably be… over. But if I can, I will. Thank you for the car.” He loaded everything on board and set back off toward London to the self-storage park where he kept most of his possessions, having only needed a few clothes while he’d lived with Nikolas—but now was not the time to think about the months he’d lived with Aleksey, thinking he was a diplomat called Nikolas. He clenched his jaw on those thoughts and concentrated on driving. Radulf appeared to be concentrating as well, but Ben reckoned he was just trying to pretend he wasn’t now a passenger in a Lada.
At the self-storage park, he spent some time going through all his kit, working out what he would need: backpack, sleeping bag, stove, rations for two, first-aid kit, all his survival gear, and, of course, his weapons. He ran his hands lovingly over the private collection he’d amassed over the years, and chose a few guns and all his knives. He selected some of his camouflage pants and shirts, and with a pair of boots he reckoned he was ready. He had well over a hundred pounds of kit now, and it was going to be a very long few days.
He drove to Okehampton Camp, called in some favours and left the car securely. He didn’t want to abandon it and have it reported and on the grid. When they found the Range Rover, there would be no trail for them to follow after that. He packed his kit into the backpack, stowed his guns and let Radulf off his lead—if he chased sheep, well, then they’d just have to run faster. He knew this part of the moors only too well. He’d trained here as a junior solider, done junior leader’s camp here, come here as a trained infantry solider, and then returned many times in the SAS to run other units’ exercises or act as the enemy. He headed due south. When he got to a secluded place, he pulled out his map and studied it. At one time, he’d almost talked himself into believing the house didn’t exist in this plane of reality, a theory he had not shared with N—Aleksey, for obvious reasons. Now he wondered whether his belief in things that were not real had prepared him for this—discovering everything he had known, had taken for granted, was a lie. After all, what was reality? He had given up his whole life for Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen, only to find that the man had died many years ago with no connection to him at all. He found what he believed was the tor he’d named Nik’s Knob. Marked below it was a definite dwelling. A stream ran, as he remembered, from the back of the house and out across a lane, which was, indeed, marked as a ford. Life wasn’t that strange after all. He fed Radulf some sandwiches, ate one himself, shared some water and then hefted his pack up once more. He’d carried more weight once or twice—he’d shouldered an injured colleague for two days—but he hadn’t been suffering from an injury then. His knee often bothered him, but with an additional hundred and thirty pounds on it, it was complaining loudly. He ignored it, clicked his fingers for the dog, and walked on. When he was warmed up again, he began a slow, rhythmic jog. The paras he’d worked with called it yomping. He just called it shitty running, but it did the job.
By nightfall, he was in the very centre of the moors on the edge of the bogs. He tucked under some rocks in his bag, pulled the dog in with him for warmth, and fell instantly asleep. No point worrying about what he couldn’t affect just yet. He was up before first light, made a quick brew and cooked some of the fresh food he’d brought, a huge meal of steak and eggs, which he shared with Radulf. Now that Radulf had gotten over the shock of the Lada, which he seemed to take more personally than being shot at by Russian operatives, he appeared to be enjoying the adventure. Ben had yet to discover why the dog had been termed a sticky—unable to be rehomed—but it was going to be interesting finding out. He cleaned out his mess tin, boiled some water, shaved and washed carefully. When he was satisfied, daylight had begun to creep over the horizon, and he could see well enough to keep his footing. He didn’t run until he was well warmed up but then set a fast pace until lunchtime.
By early evening, he was on top of their tor, which was actually named Horse Tor—which was okay; his name was hardly appropriate now anyway. He lay there for an hour, studying the house. There was no sign of life at all. He hadn’t expected Aleksey to be here yet anyway. He would be forced to take an even more circuitous route, had no one he could call on for assistance, and was wounded. For all Ben knew, he was on completely the wrong track anyway. Aleksey was probably on a plane to the Caymans on a false passport with his millions stashed away under assumed names. It actually seemed like quite a good idea to Ben, once he’d thought of it.
He made his way down through the gorse and bracken, crossed the stream and went into the house. He set up camp in one of the bedrooms, then began to stash his weapons around where he could find them if needed. He investigated the fireplace and decided it was the ideal place for setting up his stove—he’d caused two houses fires in less than a year, one more would just be ridiculous. He began to filter some water to boil up for a brew to give himself something to do. Radulf lay at his feet, alert, and Ben was never so glad to have the dog than he was that night in the large, dark, empty house. He’d have been alone with his thoughts otherwise, and that wasn’t good at all. His thoughts were definitely not pleasant that night. When it was full dark, which wasn’t until gone ten o’clock, he climbed into his sleeping bag, letting Radulf settle on his legs. He didn’t anticipate falling asleep as quickly as he did, but the next thing he knew, he was coming instantly awake to a low vibration from Radulf. Not a growl, he was completely silent, but a definite rumble of warning.
Ben opened his eyes and saw a figure leaning in the window bay, outlined in the dawn light. He appeared to have been there a long time—watching him. “Hello, Benjamin.”
It almost broke him—that familiar greeting which used to mean so much between them, far more than the simple words would convey to anyone listening. He didn’t let the surge of anguish break him though. He sat up. “How did you get here?”
“The same way you did, apparently. I crossed during the night.”
Ben couldn’t think of a single thing to say. There was so much; how could he work out where to start? Instead of even trying, he climbed out of the sleeping bag and pulled on his jeans. “I’ll make some tea.”
Aleksey’s eyes followed him as he crossed the room. Eventually, pouring the boiling water over a couple of bags, Ben heard him slowly descending the stairs. By now, there was enough light to see each other by. Aleksey lowered himself very carefully to the floor, his back to a wall and nodded thanks when Ben handed him a mug. “Sorry. No milk.”
“There’s some in my pack…if you’ll get it.” He waved toward one of the ground floor rooms.
Ben found a Soviet-issue Special Forces pack leaning up against one wall. He picked it up and reckoned it weighed well over a hundred and fifty pounds. How Aleksey had come across the moor at night with this, injured no less, was beyond him. He carried the pack back into the kitchen and found the powdered milk. It looked disgusting added into the hot tea, but it was something to do while he tried to work out what question he wanted answered first. The first one had been playing on his mind, so he asked it right off. “You never intended to set up a private Black Ops team, did you? That case was just a game to you. You wanted to gather people around you who you thought you could use in case this happened—who would be useful to you.”
Aleksey didn’t contradict him. “When I lost the department, I knew I’d be exposed eventually. It was inevitable. I didn’t anticipate the divorce, however; and losing that cover at the same time precipitated events even more than I could’ve foreseen.”
Aleksey pushed up from the wall with some difficulty and went to his pack. Ben eyed him warily. Aleksey huffed. “I’m not going to kill you, Benjamin. If I’d wanted to do that, I’ve had far better opportunities.” He pulled out a first-aid box, eyed the lack of light in the room and began to limp toward the door.
Ben took the box from him as he passed, and Aleksey let him.
He sat on a stone bench in the morning light, one leg stretched out in front of him. He was shockingly pale, almost blue white. Ben saw dark patches on the material of his denims and more appearing. He knelt down and began to lay out some of the supplies from the box. He could sense Aleksey watching him very carefully. It appeared he had no idea at all how to read Ben’s mood. Clearly, he’d expected a slightly different reception.
Ben took out his knife to slice away the military-issue denims. “These yours?”
Aleksey raised an eyebrow. “No, I found a Soviet Special Forces operative on Dartmoor last night and murdered him for his trousers. Now stop asking stupid questions, Benjamin; there are a lot of sensible ones I expect you want to ask.”
“Well, okay then, fucker. How about this for a sensible question, what should I call you?”
Aleksey pursed his lips. “I’d suggest not fucker, but other than that I’ve no idea, and that’s the truth.”
Ben nodded. “Then I’ll call you Nikolas, because that’s my truth.”
Aleksey’s expression didn’t change, but he said evenly, “You’re not staying, Benjamin. Don’t think that you are. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you. You’ve been useful to me for a number of years, for a number of reasons—some very pleasurable—but I’ve no further use for you.”
Ben chuckled. “Good try.” He ripped the trouser leg open and paled. “Fuck. How many times were you hit?”
“I’m not sure. They were only trying to stop me, not kill me, so they kept hitting this leg.” Ben had to fetch the hot water and cut off layers of blood-soaked bandages and wash the blood away before he could assess the damage. Two shots had taken chunks out of the thigh, but one had gone right through, missing the femoral artery by a whisker. And other things, come to that.
“You were lucky.”
“Hmm, lucky was just how I was feeling all night.”
“Okay…” Ben went to work. He knew a lot of practical field medicine, and the first aid-kit was extremely well stocked. It even had a morphine pump. “You want?”
Nikolas, as Ben now allowed him to be again in his mind, came back from some place very far away and frowned, saw what he was holding up and seemed tempted for a moment, but then shook his head. Ben put it back and handed him a handful of painkillers with some water. “We’ll give it a while, and then I’ll stitch you up. Did they hit you anywhere else?”
Nikolas shook his head but pulled his shirt out of his ammo belt. “Did you know that the wall at the back of our house had glass embedded in it? For security, I suppose. I always wondered why that cat walked across it so carefully.” His chest was crisscrossed with glass cuts. Some had reopened and were bleeding. Ben cleaned them up and handed him some antibiotics, which he swallowed down with some more water. He looked tired now, hollowed out.
“You want some clean clothes?”
Nikolas nodded and lay back on the stone bench with a sigh. His leg was bleeding again.
Ben left Nikolas lying in the early morning sun and went back in to check out his pack. It was Soviet issue, but the good kind they gave Spetsnaz. Some of the kit inside was American, some British, but most was Russian: weapons, sleeping bag, rations, and some clothes. He took only the clothes, sorted out a clean set of everything, and took them back out.
Nikolas was asleep.