Sacred Sword (Ben Hope 7) by Scott Mariani Page A

sound of Scruffy’s barking and listening hard. Was it the same voice he’d heard a moment ago? Impossible to tell, or to guess how many intruders there might be.
    He advanced as far as the corner, back to the wall, ready with his club. He was within sight of the doorway now. It was a couple of inches ajar, and in the light that streamed out of it, he could see the outline of the splintered frame where the door had been forced open. Careful not to let his shadow play on the opposite wall, he stepped up to the door and peered around its edge into the room behind it.
    Simeon’s study. The walls were lined with bookshelves. A simple computer desk stood in the middle of the room, with a flat-screen monitor and wireless keyboard. In the far corner of the study was a steel safe, like a short gun cabinet, bolted to the wall. The metallic crash Ben had just heard was the sound of it being jemmied open.
    The man who’d broken into the safe was crouching beside it with his back to the doorway. He was wearing a black combat jacket. A black cotton ski mask was pulled down over his face. There was a pistol in a military-style holster at his right hip. As Ben watched, the man grabbed a brown A4-sized envelope from the safe. He stuffed it into the duffel bag at his feet, then reached back inside the safe and came out with a small black laptop, which he bagged as well.
    Just one man. Yet Ben had heard him talking. To himself, maybe, or on the phone. Unless …
    Ben suddenly felt something hard prod him between the shoulder blades. He half-turned and found himself staring into a fat black O nearly three quarters of an inch wide. The muzzle of a pump-action twelve-bore.
    ‘Lose the ornament,’ said the man with the shotgun. His face was hidden in the shadows. The accent was East London. The tone was calm.
    Ben’s fingers loosened and the wooden statuette dropped to the floor.
    ‘Nice one,’ the man with the shotgun said. He advanced into the light. The eyes watching Ben through the slits in the ski mask were the colour of steel, hard and cold. He had the buttstock of the short-barrelled shotgun pulled in tight to his shoulder. That meant several things to Ben. The guy was bracing himself against the recoil, because he had no problem with pulling the trigger if he had to. It meant he was familiar with the weapon and had used it before. It also meant the shotgun’s five-capacity tube magazine was probably filled with hard-kicking solid slug loads that would take Ben’s head clean off his shoulders and paint the wall behind him with his brains.
    All of which added up to the fact that these guys were no ordinary house-breakers, no run-of-the-mill opportunist crooks. They were professionals. And if the man with the shotgun was good enough to creep up on Ben like this, it meant he was very good indeed. Someone trained, like him, in the art of silence.
    Or maybe Ben was just getting slow.
    Ben retreated. The man’s eyes didn’t leave his. The muzzle of the shotgun was rock steady.
    The other side of the wall, the dog was going wild.
    ‘Why are you here?’ Ben asked.
    ‘That’s it. There’s fuck all else in the safe,’ the man with the duffel bag said to his companion. He stood up and slung the strap over his shoulder, then left the study, brushing past Ben. The man with the shotgun waved the weapon ever so slightly towards the open doorway. ‘You. Get your arse in there,’ he told Ben.
    Ben took a step backwards into the room. He saw the gunman’s gloved finger flick half an inch back from the trigger and depress the small round button set into the rear of the trigger guard. Safety off.
    Ben got the picture. The guy wasn’t intending to leave any witnesses behind. Not the kind who still had their heads attached.
    Nothing to lose, then.
    Ben retreated another slow step, raising his arms either side of his head. The guy advanced. Ben watched the muzzle of the gun. A rapid step forward, and Ben’s hands flashed towards the weapon.