‘It’s not over. I have another for you, and this time you’re going to do it exactly the way I want.’

Ben made no reply.

Paxton smiled. ‘That’s right. You’re going back to Egypt. You’re going to find Morgan’s treasure for me.’ He laughed at the look on Ben’s face. ‘Yes, of course I knew what he was into. Do you really think I sent you all the way to Cairo to avenge my dear son’s death? Maybe I would have, if he’d been my own flesh and blood. But I’m afraid he was just one of Helen’s little dalliances. I don’t like people who betray me.’

The meaning of his words took a second or two to sink into Ben’s mind. ‘You killed her,’ he said quietly. ‘You killed your own wife.’

Paxton smiled a thin smile, and nodded. ‘The same week I found out that all those years, she’d been cheating on me. I made it look like a heart attack. Massive adrenaline overdose. She went out like a light.’ He grinned. ‘And I was going to slaughter her bastard, too. I should have known he was no son of mine. I couldn’t bear to be near him any more. I was just biding my time, waiting for the right moment to rid myself of him. He was all set to have one drink too many on board the yacht and fall into the sea. A tragic accident. But then he told me about this thing he’d stumbled on, something that could be worth a lot of money. That was the only thing that was keeping him alive. You think it hurt me when he was killed? I just didn’t want to lose the treasure.’

‘So you decided to set me up,’ Ben said. ‘If I’d killed those two junkies for you, you were going to try to blackmail me with it, get me to go after the money.’

‘It wasn’t a perfect plan, I admit,’ Paxton replied. ‘When you foiled it by doing things your own way, I quickly realised that I was going to have to find another way to persuade you to work for me. I’m not blind. I could see what was developing between you and my wife. So, thanks to your amorous impulses, you’ve provided me with a perfect solution.’

Ben glanced back at Zara, tried to put reassurance in his eyes. She returned his gaze, but he doubted that she could even see him. She was transfixed with shock and horror. They must have made her watch the slaughter of the three agents. She would have thought she was next.

‘So now, Major, it’s all up to you. You have a mission to complete. If you succeed, you can have her. If you fail, she dies in a very horrible way. You’re on the clock.’

‘You’re making a huge mistake, Harry. There’s still time to back out. Walk away and let her go now, and I won’t come after you.’

‘The mistake would be to underestimate me,’ Paxton said. ‘Any tricks from you, and Berg has a green light to do what he wants with her. Don’t even think about trying to find her. You wouldn’t. She could be on any one of a dozen vessels, anywhere in the world. You come within a mile of any of my fleet, and I’ll know about it.’

Ben stayed silent.

Paxton reached into his jacket pocket and took out a small object. He tossed it in the air, and Ben caught it. He held it in the palm of his hand and examined it. An inch-and-a-half long, brand name embossed in white on pale blue plastic. It was a computer memory stick.

‘Morgan’s research,’ Paxton said. ‘The file you sent me. Still encrypted, of course, but that’s your problem now.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Well, Major, I suggest you’d better get moving. You have seven days, starting now, to find Morgan’s treasure.’

It seemed absurd. ‘Seven days?’

‘You heard me,’ Paxton replied. ‘One week. I’m not a patient man, Benedict. I’ve waited long enough for this. Call it a challenge. You’ve faced challenges before.’

Ben hung his head. ‘You’ve got me. I’ll do everything you want.’ As he said it, he was thinking about the Browning in his overnight bag, just yards outside the front door in the Mini. It was a delicate matter of timing and luck-but if he could somehow get to it, he could end this quickly. Kill Berg first, then Paxton, then get Zara far away from here.

Paxton was watching him keenly. ‘I know you so well, Benedict. You could be my son. I know the way you think. Everything that’s going through your mind. You’re already working out ways to get out of this. You think I’m just going to let you walk out of here now, while I’m still inside?’ He shook his head, chuckling to himself. ‘You must take me for such an idiot.’ Still holding the SIG in his right hand, he reached inside his jacket with his left hand and came out holding a strange long-barrelled pistol.

Ben knew what it was. A CO²-propelled tranquilliser dart gun. His heart sank. No way out.

‘By the time you wake up, the three of us will be far away,’ Paxton said. ‘You’ll find everything you need on the desk. I wish you a very pleasant journey back to Egypt, and all the best of British luck.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll be keeping in touch for progress reports. Bon voyage, Benedict.’

He took his time aiming the dart gun. Ben tensed, waiting for it. He threw a last look at Zara, then the pistol coughed in Paxton’s hand and there was a sharp pain as the dart pierced his neck.

The blackness came quickly. His last sensation was a strange feeling of weightlessness, and his face thudding into the blood-soaked carpet.

It could have been seconds later that he woke up, or it could have been years. He felt himself rise up from the black depths, break the surface and bob up towards consciousness, and flickered his eyes open to a world of blurs and echoes. Nausea hit him like a bad smell, and with it the sick memory of what had happened.

He was still lying on the floor, but somehow it felt different, harder, colder. His left arm was flung out in front of his face. His eyes fixed on the hands of his watch and for a few seconds they meant nothing to him. Then, as the synapses in his brain started firing again, he understood that it was almost midday and he’d been unconscious for nearly two hours.

That thought gave him the burst of energy to jerk himself upright. One elbow on the floor. Then one knee, and he was staggering to his feet, shaking his head to clear the grogginess. He pressed his hand to his neck, feeling the sharp pain where the dart had punctured him.

The room around him was the same, but it had completely changed. He was standing on bare boards, just a few nails and bits of fluff around the edges of the walls to show where the carpet had been taken up. Of all the furniture, only the desk remained, and it had been stripped almost bare. The computer, cameras and surveillance equipment were gone. So was the makeshift table-and the dismembered bodies. There was no sign of what had happened there. Harry Paxton had covered his tracks one more time.

Ben could smell soap on his hands. They’d even sponged the blood from the carpet off him while he’d been unconscious.

The acrid stink of something burning outside drew him over to the window. The blind was drawn all the way down, and he yanked it open and looked out through the dusty glass at the back garden. It was overgrown and weedy, surrounded by a high wall. A big fire was burning itself out in the middle of the patchy grass, black smoke wisping upwards from the charred remnants of the rolled-up carpet and what was left of the furniture.

He turned away from the window and walked across to the desk. It wasn’t quite empty. Lying on its surface were two items.

The first was the computer memory stick that had been in his hand when he’d been knocked out. The second was a drawstring bag, tied at the neck. Ben weighed the bag in his hand, undid the knot and looked inside. There were two stacks of money in there, one larger than the other. He brought each one out in turn. Euros and Egyptian pounds-about a thousand of one and ten thousand of the other. Paxton really had thought of everything.