The Nemesis Program. Scott Mariani

ignition key he’d taken from the shooter he’d knocked out. He pressed the key’s remote button and wasn’t surprised when its central locking system clunked open with a bleep and a flash of indicators. The gunmen were as well equipped for travel as for killing.

      ‘Better get your stuff out of there,’ he said, pointing at the back window of the rental, to where Roberta’s small travel bag was sitting on the rear seat. ‘We have to ditch your Vauxhall.’

      She frowned. ‘You figure that’s how they tracked me all the way out here?’

      ‘Did you stop for fuel on the way? Pay by credit card?’ he asked her.

      ‘I was running on fumes by the time I reached Oxfordshire. Had to stop at the filling station just before the village. Didn’t have any UK currency on me. How was I supposed to know they could follow my movements?’

      Ben didn’t reply. The implications were as deeply worrying as they were far-reaching. They were sinking in for Roberta too. ‘What you’re saying, it’d mean—’

      He nodded, and finished the sentence for her. ‘That whoever these new friends of yours are, they’re considerably more organised and deeper inside the system than the charming bunch who were trying to kill you before. You certainly pick them.’

      ‘I didn’t pick anyone. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

      ‘Someone seems to think otherwise.’

      ‘But who? Who?’

      ‘They,’ he said. ‘You said it yourself, they don’t want anyone to know who they are. All I know is, this is going to make last time look like a cakewalk.’

      ‘You always did have that reassuring way about you,’ she muttered as she unlocked the Vauxhall to get her travel bag.

      ‘Leave the key in it,’ he told her.

      Reluctantly, she tossed the key on the front seat and slammed the door. ‘The rental company will totally blacklist me, not that it matters right now.’

      ‘Join the club,’ Ben said. He’d long ago stopped keeping count of the number of hire cars that had been crashed, burned or shot to pieces while in his charge. Theologians shouldn’t have these problems. ‘Now, give me your phone, please.’

      ‘My phone?’ she said guardedly. ‘What do you want it for?’

      ‘Just give it here,’ he said, holding out a hand. She hesitated, then slipped a BlackBerry out of her pocket and passed it over. Without a word, he dropped it on the concrete at his feet, dashed it to pieces with the heel of his shoe and kicked the plastic fragments into the bushes.

      ‘You sonofabitch, that’s the second time you’ve done that to me. Now I’ve got no phone!’

      ‘And now there’s one way fewer of tracking your movements,’ he said.

      ‘Bullshit. Nobody can track a cellphone without an official warrant.’

      ‘Ho, ho. You say I’m talking bullshit?’ He walked up to the Audi and yanked open the driver’s door. He wasn’t expecting to find any clues inside the vehicle as to the gunmen’s identities or who they worked for, but the car itself would do to get out of here before whoever they were sent in reinforcements to finish the job. He tossed the wrapped-up gun on the back seat. ‘Let’s move.’

      It was almost two o’clock when Ben turned the powerful car in through the vicarage gates and rasped to a halt on the gravel. Roberta had gone very quiet. ‘You all right?’ he said, laying a hand on her arm. Her muscles felt hard and tense. She gave a quick nod. Pointed at the dusty Suzuki four-wheel drive that was parked in front of the vicarage. ‘Someone’s here.’

      Ben had already noticed it. The Grand Vitara’s rear hatch was open a foot and tied down with a strap. A huge rolled-up Persian rug was protruding a yard from the gap.

      Brooke’s car. Normally the sight of it, and the anticipation of seeing her again, would have made him break into a smile. Now it was different. Now he had to try to figure out what he was going to say to her, and it wasn’t going to be easy for either of them. He swallowed, gripped the steering wheel for a moment, then murmured ‘Fuck it’ and swung open the Audi’s driver’s door.

      ‘You want me to stay out?’ Roberta asked, seeing the troubled look on his face.

      ‘I’m not leaving you on your own.’

      They crossed the yard to the front door and Ben let them inside. The sound of intense jazz fusion and cheerful conversation were wafting down the hallway from the half-open kitchen doorway, together with the smell of fresh coffee. The track playing was ‘Miles Runs the Voodoo Down’, Jude’s favourite from the Bitches Brew album Ben had introduced him to. The voices were Jude’s and Brooke’s. Ben couldn’t make out what they were talking about.

      ‘I’ll hang back here,’ Roberta whispered in the hallway, nudging him.

      Ben took a deep breath, walked to the kitchen door and stepped silently through it. Neither of the room’s occupants sensed him come in.

      Brooke was standing with her back to the door and her auburn hair lit up by the sunshine from the window. She was wearing faded jeans and a light cotton top and holding a mug of coffee in her hand.

      ‘I didn’t have the heart to tell Amal that a rug that size is never going to fit in the house in Jericho,’ she was saying. ‘It’s large enough for a palace. So sweet of him to get it for us, though.’

      ‘Those things cost a bomb,’ Jude said. ‘I thought Amal was this struggling writer whose plays nobody wants to see.’

      ‘He is,’ Brooke laughed. ‘Where all the money comes from is anyone’s—’

      She broke off mid-sentence as Ben walked further into the room, and turned towards him with a beaming smile.

      ‘Ben! I was just telling Jude about the amazing rug that Amal’s bought for us …’ She suddenly interrupted herself. ‘Why are you dressed like that?’

      Ben walked over to the CD player on the kitchen surface and turned off the music, plunging the room into sudden silence. ‘Brooke,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’

      She set her mug down on the table and took a step towards him, alarmed by the gravity of his expression. ‘What? Ben – what’s up? You’re scaring me.’

      ‘Things may have to be put off for a while,’ he told her.

      ‘Things?’ She groaned. ‘Oh, no. Don’t tell me there’s a problem with your course.’

      ‘I’m not talking about the course,’ he said.

      ‘Then what?’ Her eyes suddenly widened. ‘The wedding rehearsal? The booking’s fallen through?’

      ‘Nothing’s fallen through,’ Ben said. ‘But we have to call it off. And …’

      ‘What?!’ Jude exploded.

      Brooke looked as if she’d been punched. ‘And?’ was all she could blurt out.

      Ben said nothing. Hoped that the look in his eyes would tell her what he couldn’t bring himself to come out with.

      Her face paled. ‘Surely you don’t mean … you don’t mean the wedding too?’ she said in a low, trembling voice. ‘Call off the wedding?’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said. ‘I have to leave. I can’t say when I’ll be back.’

      ‘What are you on about?’ Jude burst out. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

      ‘Back from where?’ Brooke asked. She sounded stunned, breathless.

      ‘I don’t know yet, not exactly,’ he said. ‘I just know I can’t stay here.’

      ‘But why?’ she pleaded.

      Jude