The Babylon Idol. Scott Mariani

he would have been lying if he’d said that the recent African escapade hadn’t taken a lot out of him, physically and emotionally.

      The same went for Jeff, who’d been right there at Ben’s side in what had to be the deadliest, most complex and disturbing rescue mission either man had ever experienced, either during their time in British Special Forces and in the years since. Likewise for Tuesday Fletcher, the young ex-trooper who had not long since joined their small staff at the Le Val Tactical Training Centre in rural Normandy but already proved himself ten times over to be a stalwart asset to the team and forged bonds of comradeship with Ben and Jeff that could never be broken.

      Less than a fortnight had passed since they’d all returned to Le Val, to find a mountain of mail waiting for them. The business was growing by the month, attracting so many bookings from military, law enforcement and private close-protection agencies worldwide looking to refine and extend their tactical skillset that it was hard to keep up with demand. Now that the operation had received a substantial cash injection in the wake of the Africa mission, they were set to grow still further.

      But all of that had been set aside for a week, as an official Le Val holiday was declared.

      Ben had spent that time recuperating. For most people, ‘recuperating’ might have meant lying in bed, or sitting around idle, licking their wounds and feeling sorry for themselves. For Ben it meant getting back into the punishing exercise routines he’d followed for most of his life. Working back up to a thousand push-ups a day, lifting weights, honing his marksmanship skills on Le Val’s pistol and rifle ranges, scaling cliffs and sea-kayaking off the Normandy coast, and going for long runs through the wintry countryside with Storm, his favourite of the pack of German Shepherds that patrolled the compound. The harder Ben trained, the more he emptied his mind and the further he left the horrors of Africa behind him.

      Jeff Dekker was no slouch either, but he’d used his recuperation period differently. His romance with Chantal Mercier, who taught at the École Primaire in the nearby village of Saint-Acaire, had grown more serious over the last months, and he’d spent his time off with her. In all the years Ben had known Jeff, throughout the never-ending sequence of on-off, part-time, short-term girlfriends whose names were too many to remember, he’d never seen him so committed to a relationship. He was happy for his friend, and Jeff seemed happy too. Even Jeff’s French had improved.

      Meanwhile, Tuesday Fletcher had taken advantage of the week’s holiday to fly home to London to see his parents, Rosco and Shekeia, second-generation immigrants from Jamaica. Tuesday was still recovering from a gunshot wound to the arm, sustained during their flight from the Congo. Ben had no doubt that he’d come up with some white lie to conceal from his parents just how close he’d come to being killed. If anyone could make light of a bullet in the arm, it was the ever-cheerful Tuesday.

      The second week since their return, the three of them had started easing themselves back into business-as-usual mode and begun working their way through the backlog of emails, letters, accounts, orders, bookings and the process of hiring new staff to cope with the expanding Le Val operation, and a hundred other matters that had accumulated during their absence.

      That was where Ben found himself at this moment, sitting alone in the prefabricated office building across the yard from the old stone farmhouse. It was an early December morning, and the icy rain that had been drumming on the office roof since dawn was threatening to turn snowy. The fan heater was blasting waves of warm air that engulfed Ben as he sat at the desk sipping from a steaming mug of black coffee. Storm and two more of the guard dogs, Mauser and Luger, appeared to have given themselves the morning off and were curled contentedly at his feet, like a huge hairy black-and-tan rug spread over the floor. Ben didn’t have the heart to kick them out into the cold.

      From where he sat, through the window he could see the parked minibus that had brought the current crop of trainees to Le Val: eight agents from the French SDAT anti-terror unit anxious to up their game in expectation of more of the troubles that had been rocking Paris in recent times. Tuesday was currently out with them on the six-hundred-yard range, the group probably all freezing their balls off as he took them through their sniper paces. Trembling hands and numb fingers were no great boon to long-range accuracy. Poor sods. Ben was scheduled to teach a two-hour session that afternoon in the plywood-and-car-tyre walled construction they called the ‘killing house’, covering elements of advanced live-fire CQB, or close-quarter-battle, training that they were unlikely to learn anywhere else. At least they’d be indoors out of the wet. Two more members of the Le Val team who’d be happy to huddle indoors with mugs of coffee were Serge and Adrien, the two ex-French Army guys who manned the new gatehouse – the latest addition to the complex – and controlled people coming in and out.

      As for Jeff Dekker, Ben wasn’t quite sure where he was at that moment. He’d said something about checking the perimeter fence for wind damage; the region had been buffeted by one winter gale after another that week. With the kind of arsenal that Le Val kept locked up in its special armoury vault, and the sort of work that went on within the various sections of the compound, government bureaucracy insisted on the property being ultra-secure. Not that Ben had lately noticed any gangs of jihadist terrorists roaming the Normandy countryside in search of military hardware. But rules were rules.

      Ben reached for his Gauloises and Zippo lighter, flicked a cigarette from the familiar blue pack, clanged open the lighter and lit up in a cloud of smoke. It suddenly felt even better to be home. Puffing happily away, he reached across the desk for the stack of mail he’d been sifting through. So far it had all been bills, bills, and more bills.

      But this letter looked different.

       Chapter 2

      The letter certainly was unusual. More than the Italian postmark, Ben was surprised to see the ink-stamped legend ISTITUTO PENITENZIARO BOLLATI on the envelope. He’d heard of the Bollati medium-security prison in Milan, but never been there, could think of no connections the place could have to him, and wouldn’t have expected to receive a letter from anyone there.

      Yet there was no denying his name and address neatly handwritten on the front of the envelope. Above them, the date on the postmark showed that the letter had left Milan while Ben was struggling to survive somewhere in the middle of the Congo jungle.

      ‘Hm,’ he said.

      At his feet, Storm cocked an ear and glanced up as though to see what the fuss was about, then lost interest and went back to sleep.

      Ben took another slurp of scalding coffee and another drag on the Gauloise, then put down his mug, rested the cigarette in the ashtray and picked up the old M4 bayonet that served as a letter-opener in the Le Val office. He carefully slit one end of the envelope, reached inside and was about to draw out the single folded sheet of paper when his phone suddenly came to life and started buzzing on the desk like an upturned bee.

      ‘Got a problem in Sector Nine.’ Jeff’s voice was barely audible over the crackle of the wind distorting his phone’s mic. Sector Nine was what they called part of the east perimeter fence. ‘That sodding apple tree Marie-Claire wouldn’t ever let me cut down? Well, we won’t need to now. Sorry to drag you out here, mate, but I need your help.’

      Ben could imagine what had happened. He’d read the letter later. He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of his chair and slipped it on.

      ‘You want to come?’ he said to Storm, who instantly sprang to his feet as though it were feeding time. Life was simple if you were a dog.

      Outside in the biting wind, the sleet was turning snowier by the minute. Ben pulled up the collar of his jacket and crossed the yard, past the minibus and over to the ancient Land Rover. It was a tool box on wheels, filled with all kinds of junk including a greasy old chainsaw. Storm hopped in the back and found a space for himself while Ben got behind the wheel, and they set off across the yard and down the rutted track that ran between the buildings parallel with the rifle range and led across the fields towards Sector Nine. He heard the muffled boom of a rifle coming from the range, the ear-splitting