The Heretic’s Treasure. Scott Mariani

the trees. The heat and the blood and the pumping terror. More of them coming. Always more of them.

       Then the man walking towards him out of the killing frenzy, his body silhouetted black against the roaring flames. The eyes, wild and livid with hate. The fist clenching the gun. The big wide black ‘O’ of the muzzle, like the mouth of a tunnel leading to oblivion.

       Then the searing, reverberating blast of the gunshot that filled his head, and the world exploding into white light.

      Ben sat bolt upright in the darkness, the sweat cooling on his face. For a moment he was disorientated, and his pulse raced as he struggled to understand where he was. Then he remembered he was here. Home. Safe. Far away, where the horror could never touch him.

       It’s nothing. Just a dream. The same dream from long ago.

      He reached out for the bedside light, but in his daze he felt his arm knock the lamp off the table. It fell to the floorboards with a crash.

      Brooke was leaning back in bed in the next room, going over her lecture notes for the next day, listening to the wind in the trees through her open window and enjoying the lazy tranquillity of the place after the hubbub of London.

      The sudden noise next door startled her. She jumped up, scattering papers, pulled on her dressing gown and went out into the dark hallway. She could hear Ben muttering and cursing through the door. She knocked, paused and went into his room.

      He was sitting up in bed, naked down to the waist, setting a fallen reading lamp back upright on his bedside table. He looked up as she walked into the room. ‘Sorry if I woke you,’ he said. ‘I knocked the lamp over.’

      ‘I wasn’t asleep. All right if I come in?’ She moved over to the bed and sat down on the edge. ‘You OK? You look a little pale. What happened?’

      He rubbed his face. ‘Bad dream.’

      ‘Want to talk about it?’

      ‘You sound like a psychologist.’

      ‘I am a psychologist, remember?’ She laid a hand on his. ‘So tell me. What were you dreaming about?’

      He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ she asked gently.

      ‘I’m sure. It was just a stupid nightmare from years ago. I get it sometimes.’

      ‘You should listen to your dreams.’ She paused. ‘I bet it had something to do with the phone call. Am I right?’

      He didn’t reply.

      She smiled. ‘Thought so. The way you changed. Like a switch. You seemed so happy before, then the minute you got that call you started acting troubled, not saying much, drinking.’

      ‘Sounds like a good idea. Want a drink?’

      ‘Sure, I’ll go down and fetch the bottle.’

      ‘No need.’ He kicked his legs off the bed, stood up, and went over to the wardrobe dressed only in a pair of black boxer shorts. She watched him cross the room. He opened the wardrobe door, reached up to the top shelf and brought down a bottle of whisky and a glass. ‘Only one glass,’ he said, carrying them back to the bed.

      ‘I don’t mind sharing. You go first. You look like you need it more than I do.’

      He didn’t argue with her. Sitting back down on the bed, he filled the glass halfway and took a long gulp before handing it across to her.

      ‘Cheers.’ She drank and passed it back to him. ‘Nice. I like a man who keeps a bottle of good malt in his wardrobe.’

      He knocked back more whisky.

      ‘You going to be OK now?’ she asked him.

      He chuckled. ‘I’m not a kid, you know.’

      She touched his arm lightly. ‘I can see something’s wrong.’

      ‘I’ll be OK.’

      She nodded, stood up hesitantly, stepped towards the door and paused with her hand on the handle. ‘Sure?’

      ‘Sure. Thanks, Brooke.’

      ‘See you in the morning, then.’

      Ben shook his head. ‘I’ll be gone before you wake up. I have to be somewhere.’

      She frowned. ‘I thought you were going to be here tomorrow.’

      ‘Not any more. Jeff will look after you.’

      ‘It’s the phone call, isn’t it? Something’s up.’

      He nodded, but didn’t elaborate.

      ‘So where on earth are you disappearing off to all of a sudden?’

      ‘Italy.’

      She looked surprised. ‘What’s in Italy?’

      ‘Colonel Harry Paxton.’

      ‘Colonel Harry Paxton,’ she echoed. ‘I’m guessing that’s the person who called earlier?’

      Ben nodded.

      ‘And? What am I supposed to do, guess the rest?’

      ‘And he’s got a problem. He needs me to go to him, and that’s what I’m going to do.’

      ‘What kind of problem?’

      ‘He didn’t say.’

      And he expects you to drop everything and go all the way to Italy? He couldn’t just have told you on the phone? Just who is this guy?’

      Ben finished the whisky and was quiet for a moment.

      Then he said, ‘He’s the man who saved my life.’

       Chapter Five

       San Remo, Italian Riviera Next morning

      By 9 a.m. Ben’s plane had touched down at the Côte d’Azur International Airport outside Nice. He threw his worn old green military canvas bag into the back of the first taxi he saw, and less than an hour later the driver was dropping him off in the middle of the coastal town of San Remo, just across the Italian border.

      He quickly found a hotel off a bustling square in La Pigna, the old part of the town, and booked a room for a single night. He guessed that would be long enough.

      The hotel was pleasantly cool inside, with marble floors that echoed every footstep. Any other day, he might have stopped to appreciate the simple beauty of the old building, or taken in the spectacular view across the rooftops of the rambling city, the clusters of church spires, the hazy Alpine skyline on one horizon and the glittering blue Mediterranean seascape on the other.

      But today his mind was elsewhere. He dumped his bag on the bed and headed downstairs, back through the lobby and out into the busy piazza. The sun was warm in the clear blue sky, and even the lightweight cotton jacket he was wearing was too heavy. He took it off and carried it over his arm.

      The rendezvous point Paxton had given him was Porto Vecchio, one of San Remo’s two ports. The colonel had been precise. A motor launch was to pick Ben up at the westernmost jetty at 12 p.m., and would take him out to sea for the meeting on board Paxton’s yacht.

      That part hadn’t come as a great surprise to Ben. He could remember how his old colonel had always talked a lot about sailing. In his downtime he would invariably be heading for some sunny port. Had he owned a yacht back then? Ben didn’t recall, and it suddenly struck him that he’d no idea what Paxton had been doing in the ten years since quitting the army.

      It had been soon after his bravery award, when an already glittering military career had