Scott Mariani - The Lost Relic. by Scott Mariani (Ben Hope 6)

Scott Mariani grew up in the historic town of St Andrews, Scotland and now lives in the wilds of Wales. The Lost Relic is the sixth book in The Sunday Times bestselling series featuring ex-SAS hero and former theology scholar Ben Hope, translated into over twenty languages worldwide. Scott is also the author of the Vampire Federation series, which started with the novel Uprising (Avon, June 2010). A sequel, The Cross , is due to be published during autumn 2011. For further information please visit: www.scottmariani.com

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For much of the historical background to this novel I am heavily indebted to my late and sadly-missed friend Contessa M. Manzini, whose spellbinding recollections about her life in 1920s Italy partly inspired me to write The Lost Relic . Thanks also to Tim Boswell for invaluable insider knowledge on SOCA and special police operations; as well as to all those others whose efforts, great or small, have contributed to the creation of this book.

BEN HOPE SERIES

The Alchemists Secret
The Mozart Conspiracy
The Doomsday Prophecy
The Heretics Treasure
The Shadow Project

VAMPIRE FEDERATION SERIES

Uprising

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Western Georgia

250 kilometres from the Russian border

The present day

A warm September breeze rippled softly through the conifers in the mountain ravine. The air was sweet with the scent of pine, and the late morning sunlight twinkled off the faraway snowy peaks. The mother lynx had come padding down from the forest to quench her thirst from a stream, keeping a watchful eye on her cubs as they played and wrestled in the long grass by the bank.

As she bent to lap at the cool water, her body went suddenly rigid, her acute senses alerting her to an alien presence. Her tufted ears pricked up at the unrecognisable sound that was coming out of nowhere and rising alarmingly fast. She quickly drew away from the waters edge while her cubs, sensing their mothers apprehension, grouped together and scampered behind her.

The terrifying noise was on them in moments, blasting, roaring, filling their ears. The cats bolted for the safety of the forest as two huge black shapes streaked violently overhead, shattering the tranquillity of the ravine. Then, as suddenly as theyd come hurtling over, the monsters were gone.

More dangerous predators than big cats were out hunting today.

Four kilometres across the forest, standing alone on a rocky knoll, was a craggy old stone shack. A century ago, maybe two, it might have been the humble home of a peasant farmer or shepherd. But those days were history, and nobody had lived there for a long time. It had been years since anyone had even set foot in there, until that morning.

It was cool and shady inside the windowless building. The only furnishings within its walls, spaced out in a row and crudely but securely nailed down to the floorboards, were three wooden chairs. The three occupants of the chairs sat quietly, breathing softly, tuned into their shared silence. They knew each other well, but it was some time since theyd all run out of things to say and in any case there seemed little point in conversation. Even if theyd been able to free themselves from the ropes that bound each of them tightly to his seat, and remove the hoods that their captors had placed over their heads, they knew that the door was heavily chained. Nobody was going anywhere.

So they just waited, each of them alone with his thoughts, in the stillness that comes with true resignation to an irreversible fate. The same kinds of thoughts were running through each of their minds. Wistful thoughts of wives and girlfriends they wouldnt be seeing again. Memories of good times. Each of them knew that hed had a good run. It tasted bittersweet now, in retrospect, but theyd all known this time would come round eventually, one way or another. Theyd all known who they were dealing with. In the world theyd long ago chosen for themselves, it was just the way things were.

As long as it was over quickly. That was all they could ask for now.

The pair of identical Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark combat helicopters were closing rapidly in on their target. Behind their mirrored visors, the pilots calmly checked their readouts and readied the weapons systems that bristled across the undersides of their aircraft. Two kilometres away, their automatic laser-guided target tracking systems locked in, and a sharp image of the shack appeared simultaneously on the monitors inside each cockpit, enlarged enough to count the links in the chain that was padlocked to the door. The pilots armed their missiles and prepared to fire.

There had been no word from base. That meant the operation was a go.

The pilots hit their triggers, and felt the recoil judder their aircraft as their weapons launched simultaneously. Just under three metres long and weighing forty-five kilos each, the Vikhr anti-tank missiles could travel at six hundred metres a second. The pilots watched them go, hunting down their target with deadly accuracy. Three long seconds as the four white vapour trails snaked and twisted through the blue sky, lancing down towards the trees. They hit in rapid succession, with blinding white flashes as the fragmentation warheads detonated on impact. The shack was instantly blown into pieces of whirling debris.

The pilots closed in on the smashed target and activated their side-mounted 30mm cannons. It was complete overkill, but this was a demonstration and the boss was watching. The boss wanted it to look good, and if the boss said he wanted a show of firepower, hed get a show. The machine cannons raked and strafed the ground with hammering shellfire. Billowing clouds of dust were churned into whirling spirals by the downdraft of the rotors as the choppers roared over the devastated scene. As the clouds slowly settled, the plot that the shack had once stood on now looked like a ploughed field.

Whatever remained of the three men, come nightfall the wild animals would soon claim it.

The man watching from behind the black-tinted, bulletproof windows of his Humvee lowered his binoculars and smiled in satisfaction at the climbing wisp of smoke across the valley. His eyes narrowed against the sun, following the line of the choppers as they banked round to head back to their secret base. Back to where theyd be well hidden from their original owners.

The mans name was Grigori Shikov. They called him the Tsar. He was seventy-four years old, grizzled and tough. For half a century his business ethos had been based on practicality. He liked things kept simple, and he liked loose ends to be tied up. Three of them had just been tied up permanently. That was what happened to men who tried to conflict with Grigori Shikovs interests.