The Demon Club

Too late, Wolf spotted the gleam of something smooth and glassy, small and round, pointing down at him from the ivied trunk of a tree.

It was a camera. And he’d been caught right on it.

Chapter 1

Five days later

Somewhere over the south of England en route for France, Ben Hope eased back in his window seat, gazed out at the fluffy clouds drifting by and wondered whether this was the fifth, or the sixth, such trip he’d made in the months since late December. Or maybe it was the seventh. He was losing track, much to the amusement of his associate Jeff Dekker, who never tired of teasing him about his unlikely developing relationship with, of all people, a female police officer from the Scottish Highlands. Ben would have to privately admit that the romance had taken him by surprise, too. Her name was Grace Kirk, and it seemed that he couldn’t get enough of her.

His most recent visit to Grace’s tiny, remote village of Kinlochardaich had lasted three days, which was about as long as Ben felt he could stay away from his home and workplace in northern France before he started to feel he was neglecting his obligations there. The tactical training centre he co-ran with his fellow ex-military associates, called Le Val, was tucked away in a quiet corner of the Normandy countryside and over the years had grown into a thriving little concern whose specialist services were in demand from all over Europe and beyond.

Ben loved the place and wasn’t ready to quit his job, while Grace felt the same way about her own home and career; and so for the moment at least, their relationship would be a long-distance one. It was a convoluted thirteen-hour flight that usually involved stop-offs in London or Manchester, as well as Paris or Lyon or sometimes even Amsterdam. Grace had been still fast asleep when he’d left her at 4.30 a.m. to catch the 6.33 flight from Inverness. He’d called from the airport to let his business partners know he was en route and would be home by that evening.

Now, six hours later, with the time-wasting tedium of Heathrow behind him, his next stop was Paris before he’d finally embark on the final leg of his journey home. He was looking forward to seeing Jeff (who’d be full of the usual piss-taking humour, but Jeff was like that), their colleague Tuesday Fletcher (who owed his colourful first name, as well as his eternally laid-back manner, to his Jamaican heritage), and to enjoying a nice glass or two of his favourite scotch whisky before tucking in for an early night.

Bliss. Ben was in little danger of ever succumbing to the soft life, but the temptation did present itself now and then.

The London-to-Paris flight was unusually empty that day; entire rows of seats across the aisle as well as those behind and in front were vacant. In fact, he virtually had this entire section of the plane to himself. A luxury he’d never encountered before on a commercial flight, but one that suited him fine, allowing him to spread out a little. His old brown leather jacket and military olive-green canvas knapsack occupied the seat next to him, along with the crumpled newspaper he’d been idly leafing through earlier before losing interest. Ben didn’t really care much for following world affairs. He was relaxed into the steady thrum of the plane, still watching the sky drift by and thinking about nothing much in particular when a fellow passenger who was strolling down the aisle from the rear of the plane stopped by Ben’s row, gestured at the unoccupied seat next to him and asked courteously, ‘Please, may I?’

Ben studied him for a moment. He had an excellent memory for faces, but he couldn’t remember having ever seen this man before. The stranger appeared to be in his mid-sixties, though it was hard to tell. He wasn’t tall, wasn’t short, wasn’t fat, wasn’t thin. His grey hair was receding from a high forehead, but was otherwise thick and somewhat unkempt. Sticking-out ears and a large, thread-veined nose with a prominent wart to one side. He wore glasses with a heavy black frame and thick lenses that magnified his eyes like a lemur’s. His suit was dark and his shoes were shiny. Generally respectable-looking and unthreatening in his manner. He seemed to have some particular reason for wanting to talk, though Ben had no idea what it could be.

Experience had taught Ben to be a careful person, sometimes to the point of being cagey and suspicious. But his natural tendency, especially at a moment like this when he was at ease, relatively carefree and fresh from three very pleasant days spent with someone he was extremely fond of, was to be open and friendly. Maybe the fellow had stopped to ask if he could borrow the newspaper. Maybe his watch had stopped and he wanted to know the right time. Maybe all kinds of things.

Ben hesitated a moment longer, then cleared his stuff from the seat, dumped it on the floor at his feet and replied, ‘Be my guest.’

The stranger plucked at his trouser legs the way dapper Englishmen do before sitting down, then settled in the empty seat and peered curiously at Ben through the thick glasses.

‘Enjoying your trip, Mr Hope?’ He spoke softly, but there was no misunderstanding his words.

And now Ben felt the familiar old sense of suspiciousness come flooding back, and he regretted his initial response. He had spent years travelling all over the world under a variety of fake identities, both during and after his time in British Special Forces. Nowadays he was just an ordinary citizen, or as ordinary as a man like him could ever be, and he seldom had cause to travel using any identity other than his own. But he still didn’t like being recognised like this. And whoever the well-dressed stranger was, he obviously hadn’t come to ask the time.

Ben replied tersely, ‘I’m sorry, I think you got the wrong person. I don’t know any Mr Hope.’

The stranger’s face crinkled into a polite smile. But there was a falseness to it, a coldness behind his eyes that made the curl of his lips seem unpleasantly knowing, almost mocking. ‘I do beg your pardon. What I should have said was “Enjoying your trip, Major Hope?” Because, you see, I do happen to know exactly who I’m speaking to. I might add that it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. By all accounts you’re really quite a remarkable fellow.’

Ben stared at the stranger for a very long time. He said, ‘There are plenty of other free seats on this plane. You might want to go and sit in one of those instead.’

The mock-polite smile again. ‘Don’t be coy, Major. A man with your record, which, by the way, makes fascinating reading, should be proud of his achievements. More than a dozen years serving your country in our most elite military force, responsible for countless successful missions in theatres of war all over the world, involving some quite outstanding displays of strategic brilliance and courage. I’m sure I needn’t run through a whole summary of your exemplary career, though.’

The stranger couldn’t be bluffing. He seemed to know too much for that. But if he really had read Ben’s military file, that meant he had access to high-level classified information. Which in turn meant he wasn’t just anybody. He was also talking far too openly about matters that were not meant to be public knowledge.

Ben glanced around him at all the vacant seats, and wondered whether it was just a coincidence that he’d been seated in an almost empty section. Whoever had arranged this cosy meeting could easily have made ghost reservations for half the plane, ensuring that the conversation would not be overheard. And Ben had let himself be caught right in their trap. He felt angry and powerless.

‘All right,’ he said to the stranger. ‘You’ve seen my record, and you know who I am. Which means you’re obviously bothering me for a reason.’

‘You’re quite correct. I thought we could have a little chat before you got home. Easier this way.’

‘You got me,’ Ben said. ‘I’m your captive audience. So is this the part where you cut the crap and tell me what you want?’

‘To retain your services,’ the stranger replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘What else?’

Ben shook his head. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re wasting your time there. I’m self-employed. Meaning that I get to choose who I work for. Me.’

‘Of course. Of course. And I hope you can forgive me for intruding on your privacy like this. But I think perhaps you’ll feel more amenable to speaking to me once you’ve seen what I have to show you.’

‘Show me?’

‘Indeed.’ The stranger reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small, slender tablet phone that he offered to Ben.

‘No, thanks. I’m not interested.’

The stranger didn’t take the tablet away. ‘Please. I insist.’

Ben reluctantly took it. The tablet was black and glossy and looked brand new. The screen was displaying what he immediately realised was a paused video file.

The stranger said, ‘Watch.’

Ben tapped the screen, and the video began to play. For the first few moments it could have been a still photo image, as nothing was moving on the screen. It showed the inside of a dark room. Ben had to peer closely to make anything out. He still had no idea what this was about.

But as he began to make sense of what he was looking at, he felt every muscle in his body tighten with alarm.

Chapter 2

Because the scene in the video clip was a bedroom. A bedroom he recognised and had got to know well over the course of the last three months. The same bedroom he’d last slept in himself, before getting up early to catch the plane from Inverness.

In the dim, grainy image on the screen he could see the curve of Grace’s shape beneath the bed covers, turned on her side, gently rising and falling to the rhythm of her breathing, her black hair spread out across the whiteness of the pillow and both hands clasped under her cheek, the way she often slept. Like she was praying in her dreams. Praying for what, Ben had often mused as he lay there watching her.

The video had not been filmed from a static hidden camera. That would have been bad enough – but the slight tremor and sway of the frame told him that it had been captured on a phone or other device by someone inside Grace’s bedroom. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

‘In case you were wondering,’ the stranger said, ‘this was taken this morning, just minutes after you left. Looks peaceful, doesn’t she? Like Sleeping Beauty.’

Ben said nothing. He couldn’t speak. He just wanted to cram the tablet sideways between the stranger’s teeth and pound it in until it disappeared down his throat. But before he could react either way, a movement on the screen made him tense up even more. Because whoever had slipped unnoticed into Grace’s bedroom to film her hadn’t come alone. The second man who stepped out of the shadows the other side of the bed was clad all in black, head to toe, apart from the three pale ovals of the eye and mouth apertures of his balaclava. His hands were gloved. One of them held a semiautomatic pistol. That was black, too, like the long, tubular sound suppressor fitted to the end of its barrel.

The second man stepped up to the edge of the bed. Raised the muzzle of the silenced handgun a few inches from the back of Grace’s head, almost close enough to brush against her hair. He held it there for a few seconds as she went on sleeping, oblivious, as serene as a dormant child. Then he lowered the weapon, stepped away and melted back into the graininess of the shadows as though he’d never been there. With that, the video clip ended and the screen went black.

Ben knew how this game was played. What he’d just been shown was a classic textbook warning. A display of power. Telling him, See, this is what we can do. We can do it easily. We can do it any time. And nobody will even see us coming.

The stranger said, ‘Needless to say, she had no idea of what was happening. Around the time you were boarding your flight at Inverness, she was getting up and preparing to go off to work. That’s where she is now. Going about her police duties without the faintest clue that her every move is being monitored around the clock by a team of operatives ready to move in on command and execute their orders. Nor does she ever need to know, so long as you play your cards right and cooperate with me and my colleagues. I expect I have your attention now, don’t I?’

The trap had just sprung shut, with Ben neatly snared inside it. He said nothing.

The stranger went on: ‘Oh, you can play it cool if you like. But I’m sure you must be full of questions. For example, you’re probably wondering who I am. For the purposes of this conversation, you can call me Saunders. As to the rest, such as whom I work for and what interests I represent, that’s not your concern. You can simply rest assured that this is not a bluff, and that you need to take what I’m telling you with the utmost seriousness. Am I making myself clear?’

‘I think you’ve made your point,’ Ben said.

There is a special kind of anger that goes beyond all possible limits of normal furious, burning rage. It starts deep in the pit of your stomach and gradually spreads to the extremities of the whole body, turning the blood to ice water, boosting adrenal output and focusing the mind more sharply than a combat fighter pilot’s. The hindbrain becomes hyper-aware, the physical senses are greatly amplified, and time seems to move in slow motion.

That was the kind of anger Ben was experiencing at this moment.

The man calling himself Saunders said, ‘Good. Now, here are the ground rules. You are about to receive a set of mission instructions, which you will follow very carefully and exactly. If you refuse to take the mission or comply with said instructions, the team of men who will be watching over Miss Kirk day and night are under orders to dispatch her. A task they will carry out in the most professional, quick and humane manner, but even so I’m sure you prefer to avoid that outcome. Once your mission is complete, the team will stand down and she will never know they were even there.’

‘Really? I can trust you on that, can I?’

If Saunders detected the sarcasm, he didn’t show it. ‘You have my word.’

Ben said, ‘I’m still waiting for the rules.’

All the mannerisms of phony politeness had left Saunders’ face, and the real man was visible behind his former mask of genteel courtesy. The big lemur eyes behind the magnifying lenses were as hard as glaciers and locked unwaveringly onto Ben’s.

Saunders replied, ‘They’re very simple. Please remember that the surveillance team will be watching every move Miss Kirk makes, and everyone with whom she comes into contact. If someone so much as says hello to her in the street, within seconds we’ll know everything about not just their lives, but those of their entire circle of family and friends. Likewise, all her communications, such as landline and mobile phones, emails and social media, are being closely monitored. Therefore, the slightest attempt on your part to warn her, in any way, will be detected the instant you make it, and will result in her being shot in the head at the first opportunity. There will be no reprieve, no second chance.’

Chapter 3

Ben said, ‘No need to sugar-coat it, Saunders. Tell me it like it is.’

Saunders went on, ‘Likewise, if you try to involve the authorities in this matter, she will be shot in the head. Should you be tempted to enlist any of your talented business associates to intervene in this situation, she will be shot in the head.’

Ben was thinking that if he were to snap this man’s neck like a stale stick of baguette and hurl his dead body out of the aircraft, she’d probably be shot in the head, too. ‘She’ll be expecting me to call when I get home.’

‘We know. You needn’t concern yourself with that. It’ll be done for you, by text message. A simple line or two, to say you got back safely and will be in touch soon. It will appear to have come from your phone, which, incidentally, is also being monitored.’

‘You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’ It was an understatement. It seemed to Ben like they had him pretty well stitched up. As Jeff Dekker would have said, tighter than a camel’s arse in a sandstorm.

‘It’s my job.’

‘All right, Saunders, or whoever you are. I get the message. What is it that you want from me?’

Saunders explained, ‘You’ve been selected from a shortlist of candidates. A very short shortlist, I might add. Made up of names of current or former operatives who share a common expertise in the art of locating, and then neutralising, selected targets.’

‘Human targets,’ Ben said. It wasn’t a question.

‘For a number of particular reasons, you came out top of the list. Head and shoulders above the nearest competition, thanks to your prior experience in this kind of work. Before you went freelance calling yourself a “specialist kidnap and ransom consultant” you excelled at tracking insurgents and terrorist commanders on behalf of HM Government.’

Ben was no longer surprised that this man Saunders seemed to know so much about his past. It wasn’t just his military experience. These people clearly had gathered detailed information on his private hostage rescue career, too, and that bothered him a lot. He’d always worked hard to cover his tracks. The knowledge that these spooks, or whoever they were, seemed able to see straight through his defences made him feel vulnerable, even paranoid.

‘Is that who I’m being recruited by, HM Government?’

Saunders gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘Let’s just say that one of our lambs has strayed from the flock. We need someone with your inimitable talents to find him and teach him the error of his ways.’

So after the brutal candour about the threat hanging over Grace if Ben didn’t play ball, now it was back to the euphemisms. ‘You mean you want him eliminated.’

‘Eliminated, neutralised, terminated, call it what you will.’

‘There’s your problem,’ Ben replied. ‘Because I’m not an assassin.’

Saunders raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, dear. That sounded suspiciously like a refusal to take the mission. Are we forgetting the ground rules already?’

Ben said nothing.

‘Under the circumstances, Major, you’re whoever we want you to be. Let’s not pretend you haven’t done it before. Your particular skillset is well documented. Plus, you’re uniquely qualified for this specific mission. Unlike any of the other potential candidates, you happen to be personally acquainted with the target. Given the nature of the job, we considered that would give you an edge. Not that a man of your expertise is likely to have too much trouble.’

‘Killers come as friends,’ Ben said. ‘That’s how it works in your organisation, I suppose.’

‘I wouldn’t call him a friend, exactly. You haven’t seen him in a long time.’

‘Who is he?’

‘His name is Wolf. Jaden Wolf.’

‘That’s some name for a stray lamb,’ Ben said. But he recognised it immediately, and it was clear to him why he’d been picked for such an assignment. That didn’t make him any happier about it. ‘So what’s Wolf done to deserve this?’

‘The whys and wherefores are not your concern,’ replied Saunders. He pointed at the tablet phone. ‘You can hang onto that. It contains all the information you’ll require, on an encrypted data file that is programmed to self-destruct two minutes after opening, so I suggest you read it carefully and commit it to memory. Shouldn’t be a problem for a clever chap like you.’

‘What’s the decryption key?’

Saunders smiled. ‘We selected one that would be nice and easy for you to remember. The password is “Ruth”.’

Ruth was Ben’s sister and only surviving relation. She lived in Switzerland, and they were in touch from time to time. When Ben was in his teens, Ruth had been kidnapped by Arab human traffickers during a family holiday in Morocco. He’d devoted many years of his life to finding her, and never wanted to lose her again. He understood that the use of her name as a passcode was another not-so-subtle warning of the hurt these people could inflict if he failed to obey them.

He asked, ‘When did this happen?’

‘Five days ago.’

‘That’s a long time for someone like Wolf to be running. I’m presuming you’ve had your own people out looking for him.’

Saunders nodded. ‘We were able to track a few of his movements. His vehicle was found abandoned in a village in Surrey, where a car was reported stolen the same night. The stolen car was discovered the next day in a street in London. It’s all in the file.’

‘And you have no idea where he is now.’

‘If we did, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

‘Which means he’s either still in the country, or he’s travelling on a false ID.’

‘He’s a resourceful sort of chap. Almost as resourceful as you are. You and he had the same teachers, after all.’

‘Then he could be anywhere. Sitting in a cave in outer Mongolia or sailing a fishing boat around the Florida Keys.’

‘Why else would we have seen the need to enlist the very best man for the job of tracking him down? Few people have ever known Jaden Wolf as well as you. I have every faith that you can find him, Major Hope.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t like it,’ Ben said. ‘I left that whole world behind me a long time ago.’ And now it was catching up with him again, like a trailing shadow that he couldn’t shake off.

‘As you wish.’ Saunders pointed again at the tablet phone. ‘You’ve been supplied with a number to call to notify us once the mission is complete, as well as a secure email address to which you’re required to send photographic evidence of the neutralised target, and its location. Needless to say, one of my operatives will be sent to the scene to ascertain personally that the job has been carried out to our satisfaction. Afterwards, you will be free to return to your life, and neither you nor Miss Kirk will hear from us again. You have my word on that, too.’

‘You’re a man of real integrity, Saunders.’

‘Well, I think that more or less concludes this little chat. You and I will not meet again, but it’s been a pleasure talking to you.’

Saunders went to get up, then paused. ‘Oh, just one thing. Before I go, I should point out that there are several of my agents on this aircraft, so I suggest you stay in your seat for the remainder of the flight and don’t make a fuss, or come looking for me or anything silly like that. There will be no reminder regarding Miss Kirk’s situation. Be sensible, do your job, and you needn’t have a thing to worry about.’

Then Saunders stood and walked off down the aisle the way he’d come, and Ben was alone again.

Chapter 4

For what it was worth, the rest of Ben’s journey home went smoothly. He made his connection in Paris, got to Cherbourg exactly on time and sped back to Le Val in his BMW Alpina. The night was warm and still, and the stars were shining bright. Storm, Ben’s favourite of the various canine residents of Le Val, was there to greet him when he got out of the car, wagging his tail and full of happiness at his master’s return. Ben bent down to give the big hairy German shepherd a hug, had his face liberally washed by a sloppy great tongue and then climbed the steps to the front door of the farmhouse.

Home sweet home. Warm, welcoming light spilled from the windows of the farmhouse kitchen into the yard. Ben could see his friends Jeff and Tuesday having dinner in their usual places at the old oak table. The kitchen was the hub of the house, the common room and command centre where the core members of the Le Val team spent most evenings drinking, smoking, relaxing and sharing a laugh after a long day’s work teaching good guys with guns how to better protect and serve the innocent citizens who depended on them. A delegation of cops from the BRI-BRAC anti-terror brigade in Paris had just finished up a two-day Hostage Rescue Team refresher course in which Jeff had put them through their paces in Le Val’s killing house, where the live-fire combat exercises were fast and furious, bad-guy targets lurked behind every doorway and the simulation of a real-life HRT raid was made to be as realistic as possible.