The Predators.

Brian Freemantle.

writing as Harry Asher.

To Valerie and Andrew, with love.

CHAPTER ONE.

None of it should have happened but all of it did and the mounting coincidences and innocent errors fatally confused the initial search for Mary Beth McBride. And by the time that search evolved into anything like a proper investigation it was too late.

Mary was already a victim.

It began with something as ordinary as a puncture, which briefly caused a traffic jam on the rue du Chene along which the emba.s.sy driver, a local Belgian named Claude Luc, was taking a short cut to the school. The US security officer, William Boles, agreed that it was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d even as he was strictly following the well-rehea.r.s.ed routine. Before allowing Luc to change the wheel he telephoned the emba.s.sy from the car phone for a back-up vehicle to collect Mary. And then he called the school to warn of the delay.

The confusion arose when the emba.s.sy duplicated that warning call: misunderstanding the second contact, the school secretary thought that the relief vehicle had already arrived and it was no longer necessary to keep the child on the premises.

The last of the stragglers were just being collected or driven away when Mary Beth McBride emerged on to the rue du Ca.n.a.l and realized there was no car waiting for her. Mary's security briefing was as well rehea.r.s.ed but far simpler than that of William Boles. She should have turned back into the building and asked someone to telephone the emba.s.sy to find out what had happened.

But Mary Beth McBride was a wilfully precocious, brace-toothed ten-year-old who welcomed the chance not only to prove she was quite capable of finding her own way, unescorted, around Brussels, but also to see her usual driver and escort, who she knew didn't like her, take the blame during the later telling-off. It was they who would be punished, not she. No one ever punished her.

To make sure she thoroughly worried everyone Mary decided to take the most roundabout route possible to get home. She would use the Metro, and let her mother find the ticket in her pocket. Mary was absolutely forbidden to use the system had never in her life been on an underground train anywhere in the world but was sure she could work it out from the map at the street entrance. They'd hardly be able to believe it in cla.s.s tomorrow when she told them. She knew all the other girls admired her: she wasn't frightened of doing things, as they all were. That's why she was the leader, the person they all copied. It would cause one of those fights between mom and dad, too.

Mary never reached the Metro, although she could see a station at the next road junction. She frowned sideways at the car that suddenly drew up beside her, irritated at the disruption of her plans and by the shape of the Mercedes, different from the car that normally picked her up. Her escort wasn't normally a woman, either. Mary didn't recognize this one although she knew there were women among the emba.s.sy's security detachment. A car behind them began sounding its horn impatiently.

'Are you from my father?' Mary demanded imperiously. They'd already know they were in trouble for being late.

'Yes,' lied Felicite Galan, speaking in English because the child had. 'Get in.'

'Where's Bill and Claude?' asked Mary, demandingly offering her backpack for the woman to take before sliding into the rear beside Felicite. It was grown-up to address the men who normally came for her by their given names: would let these two know how they had to behave. The car behind hooted again.

'They had to do something else,' improvised Felicite. She was looking intently at the girl, smiling in antic.i.p.ation. To Henri Cool, at the wheel, Felicite said in French: 'She's lovely. We've done well.'

Mary couldn't remember any of her escorts talking French, which she knew well enough to interpret the remark although not understand it. 'You're going to get into trouble for being late.'

'No we're not,' said Felicite. The driver laughed.

Mary knew Brussels sufficiently to identify the Cathedrale de St Michel. She said: 'This isn't the way to the emba.s.sy!'

Momentarily Felicite hesitated, off balance, aware of Cool's startled look in the rearview mirror. She said: 'We're not going to the emba.s.sy.'

'Where then?' demanded the child.

'You're going on an adventure,' promised the woman, prepared for the question.

The driver pressed the central locking system and the b.u.t.tons on all the doors clicked down, even though the rear-door child-locks were already in place, disabling the handles.

'What sort of adventure?' demanded Mary. This woman wasn't as respectful to her as Bill was: she'd tell dad.

'Wait and see.'

'I don't want to.'

'You don't have a choice.'

At that moment the second security man in the backup collection vehicle reported to the American emba.s.sy on the Boulevard du Regent that Mary had vanished. And the panic began in the office suite of the United States' amba.s.sador to Belgium, James McBride.

CHAPTER TWO.

They usually got frightened during a drive as long as this, crying, wetting themselves. Hysterical. But this one didn't. Rather, she was defiantly unafraid arrogantly unafraid and Felicite, a constant seeker for anything new, anything not tried before, was excited. Would the child fight, later? None of the others had ever tried, not seriously. Hysteria gave way to cowed, bewildered acceptance: submissive apathy. Boring. It really would be exciting if this one fought back. Defied them. She was small, maybe no older than eight, although that would have been very young to be walking by herself. The prime requirement, to be as young as possible: young but aware. Hair good, l.u.s.trous hair in plaits. Oscar Wilde's hair: All her bright golden hair tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair fallen to dust. Felicite mouthed the creed, part of her article of faith. This child's hair was golden, tarnished by a suggestion of redness. Pity about all that metal clamped in her mouth. Proof, if it were needed, that Mary Beth McBride was an American. Why did all American children have to have the output of a steel mill in their mouths? Never had an American child before. Have to get rid of the brace.

Felicite reached out, to stroke Mary's cheek, but the girl jerked away although still without fear: it was an impatient, irritated movement. 'Where are we going?'

'I told you, an adventure.'

'I want to go back to Brussels. Now!'

'If you're a naughty girl I'll slap you.' Part of the fun, the control. The best part. She'd make her cry. Plead. But not now. Too soon now. When she chose to. Maybe just the slightest correction.

'No one slaps me!'

'I might. Be careful.' An idea was forming in Felicite's mind, a new fantasy. It would give her the sort of absolute, supreme control she'd never had before. Her very own marionette show: a jumping, contorting cast of dozens, if not hundreds, performing to her will as she pulled the strings.

'I have already told you my name is Mary Beth McBride and that my father is the American amba.s.sador to Belgium!'

'I heard you.' So had Henri Cool. Felicite knew he wasn't excited, as she was, sufficiently aroused for her voice to be fragile. He was scared, very scared, driving erratically out of Brussels until she'd warned him. He was driving erratically again now. 'You're going too fast,' she said sharply. 'What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you!'

He slowed, but only just to within the limit. 'We've made a mistake. We've got to get ... to do something about it.'

'Shut up!' snapped Felicite, wondering how good the American girl's French was.

'Take me back to Brussels immediately!' demanded Mary again, in English, giving the woman no indication of her language comprehension.

Felicite managed to pat Mary's leg, before the child pulled away. 'Don't be a silly girl.'

'You'll get into dreadful trouble, both of you.'

Cool took the Beveren road, better to bypa.s.s Antwerp, but too abruptly. The tyres screeched, the rear of the car sliding slightly. Felicite said: 'Almost there now.' To the man at the wheel, whose eyes were more often in the rearview mirror than on the road in front, she said: 'I told you to slow down!'

'Do something! Get us out of this!' said Cool. His voice was cracked.

'I make the decisions. You do the driving. So drive.'

'What's your name?' Mary demanded of the woman at the opposite end of the seat.

Felicite laughed. 'I know yours but you can't know mine. It's my secret.'

'I know what you are! What you're going to do!' This was an adventure. Much better than riding the Metro.

'Do you?' smiled Felicite, aware of Henri's startled reflection.

'My father will pay. He's very rich.'

The woman's smile widened; the child's remark chimed with the idea that had already occurred to her. 'Of course he'll pay for someone as pretty as you.'

'So you understand?' demanded the child.

'Totally.'

'I meant what I said, about no one slapping me.'

'I'm sure you did.'

'So don't forget!' Abruptly, reading the signpost as they pa.s.sed, she said: 'Antwerp. Is that where we're going?'

'To a big house on the river. You'll like it.'

'I won't.'

'We'll see.'

The child looked away, to stare out of the car. The rain had started almost as soon as they left Brussels and the clouds were thicker, heavier, nearer the coast, ushering in the night-time darkness. Felicite lounged back, as far away on the seat as she could get, studying the girl's mirrored image in the window gla.s.s. It was a good idea: would be an experience she hadn't enjoyed before but had to savour now she'd thought of it, as she had to taste every forbidden fruit. The others probably wouldn't like it they'd be frightened, like Henri but they'd do as they were told, as they always did. She'd have to rearrange things with the estate agent in Namur. And speak to Eindhoven and Lille to tell them everything was postponed. Simple reorganization. She was good at organization. That's why everyone had been so happy relieved for her to take over, after Marcel's death. Yes! Felicite decided. She'd definitely do it.

Cool was forced to slow by the volume of traffic on his back-street negotiation around Antwerp but it wasn't until he was almost clear of the city that he was brought to a positive halt at traffic lights. Felicite didn't move when Mary s.n.a.t.c.hed for the door handle, exaggerating her laugh at the child's helpless yanking on the useless, unconnected lever. The woman did react, though, when Mary opened her mouth to scream. Sure of not being seen from the outside, rain-sodden gloom, she lashed out, hard, before the cry was formed, catching the unsuspecting girl fully in the face to strangle the sound into a whimpering gasp, as much of astonishment as of pain.

'I told you I'd slap you, didn't I?' said Felicite casually, as the flat grey ribbon of the sluggish Schelde river broke occasionally to their left through the vast skeletal forest of cranes and container rigs of the port. 'You've got lessons to learn. Rules to obey.'

Mary glared malevolently across at her, lips tight against any blood leaking from the split inside her lip and cheek.

'You're still not going to cry, are you?' demanded Felicite hopefully.

'No,' Mary allowed herself, tongue against the cut. The blood tasted nasty: metallic.

'I'm going to enjoy you,' said the woman. 'Enjoy you a lot.'

Mary didn't understand the remark and couldn't think of anything to say, although she wanted to, so she tightened her mouth again. She was very proud of not crying, despite the pain in her mouth where the brace had cut. She didn't have anything really to cry about: be frightened of. Dad would pay. And he'd punish them. He had men to do that: men with things like hearing aids in their ears and sometimes little k.n.o.bs pinned to their jacket lapels that they talked into. She'd have to be careful not to miss anything out, when she got back to school. It really would be difficult for the rest of the cla.s.s to believe.

The beach house wasn't really on a beach, although there was a sh.o.r.eline and shingle and a bathing hut collapsing from neglect and the constant battering from North Sea winds. The main building was just short of the Dutch border where the river fanned out into the Westerschelde, isolated by at least two kilometres from its nearest neighbour, a major consideration for its use. Its bas.e.m.e.nt encompa.s.sed and utilized, with specific modifications, the impregnable blockhouse constructed by the n.a.z.is in the Second World War to protect such an essential waterway.

The North Sea gale was driving the rain horizontally by the time the Mercedes reached the three-storey, shutter-protected house in front of which three other cars, all Mercedes, already stood. Henri Cool had to stand against the rear door to hold it open to release Felicite and the child. As she got out, Mary was caught by the force of the wind and became entangled in the straps of her backpack; she would have fallen completely if the woman hadn't grabbed her. Wide-armed and protective, Cool propelled them towards the house.

In its lee the wind was only slightly less fierce, and still more than enough to defeat the sudden dash that Mary had intended. She didn't even try, allowing herself instead to be shepherded through the unlocked door into the vaulted, high-ceilinged entrance hall. The relief was abrupt and disorientating Felicite and Mary staggered afresh without the need to brace themselves against the storm although the wind continued to hammer at the closed shutters as if trying to get at them.

Felicite still clutched Mary, a hand on each of the child's shoulders. She hurried her across the hall, not giving her the chance to recover. Alongside, Cool had the bas.e.m.e.nt door already open. Mary was gasping, finding it difficult to breathe, when they got to the bottom of the stairs.

She stood there, trembling from the cold wetness but still, she told herself, not from fear. She felt, instead, bewilderment and she did her best to hide that too, not wanting the woman who had hit her to misunderstand: not wanting to give her any satisfaction.

It was a huge room extending the length and width of the house, which was in effect a lid put over the entire original German bunker. Its metre-thick concrete, concealed now behind lighter wood panelling than that in the upstairs hall, totally silenced the outside tempest. More important, it contained any sound from what now regularly occurred inside, making its remoteness from neighbours unnecessary. The floor was thickly carpeted, too, except for the very centre where there was a cleared wooden circle, for dancing. The ceiling was entirely gla.s.sed. There were lounging divans around three walls. Dominating the fourth was a huge television or movie screen. On either side there were five separate doors. All were closed. Two were solid, their only break an eye-level sliding metal viewing strip. Both were shuttered. In the furthest corner was an array of music-playing equipment, incongruously surrounded by disco and strobe lights. It was very warm almost too hot and there was a cloying, perfumed smell.

Mary shivered, for the first time positively uncertain. Quickly she said: 'I'm cold. My clothes are wet.'

'It's too warm here for you to be cold. But take your clothes off if they're uncomfortable.' There was harshness in the woman's voice.

'No,' the child said quickly, more through instinct than understanding.

'We've got to talk to the others,' insisted Cool impatiently, at the doorway.

'We don't want her to catch cold, in wet clothes.'

'Come on!' protested the man.

Felicite hesitated before shrugging reluctantly. She grabbed Mary's arm again, holding too tightly, thrusting her towards the blank, peep-holed doors. 'This is the room where we play games ...' she said as they scurried across it. She opened the door to the left, pushing the child through. '... and this is where you're going to live.'

There were five men waiting in the upstairs room they entered minutes later and the excited expectation was palpable.

'We saw you arrive,' said Jean Smet. 'She's pretty.'

'There's a problem,' blurted Cool.

The atmosphere was still palpable but very different from when they had entered. Felicite sprawled in the huge, encompa.s.sing chair she'd adopted as her own her throne when they used this house, not trying to hide her contempt at their instant response to what they had been told.

There were six men in the group that Marcel had brought together, a disparate gathering with only their s.e.xual predilection in common. None, in fact, particularly liked each other. Jean Smet and Michel Blott were lawyers, Smet usefully in the Justice Ministry, Blott in richly rewarding private practice. August Dehane was a senior executive in Belgian state telecommunications, Belgacom, and Henri Cool, who had just identified Mary McBride as an amba.s.sador's daughter, was a deputy headmaster. Gaston Mehre ran an antique gallery in Antwerp and provided a home and protection for his mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded brother, Charles. It was Charles who maintained the beach house when they were using it, a willing slave to them all. He was also the most unpredictably dangerous.

'No. Definitely no,' said Smet, leading the opposition. He was a tall, thin, smooth-skinned man whose receding hair was greased straight back from a long-ago forehead.

'Yes,' insisted Felicite mildly. The side of the lounge to her left, overlooking the river, was gla.s.s and the shutters weren't closed. It was double glazed, keeping out most of the sound, but the waves churned and crashed to the boundary wall, throwing up spray against the outside pane. Idly, with no intention of provoking any of the men with all of whom, except Charles Mehre, she'd had s.e.x Felicite unb.u.t.toned her shirt. She was not wearing a bra and just as casually as she'd unfastened the shirt she began ma.s.saging her nipples.

'She's seen us, you and me,' protested Cool, a burly, disordered man whose clothes never fitted. 'She could identify us. And she was paying attention to how we got here, from Antwerp. I saw her in the mirror.'

'Who said anything about letting her go?' demanded the woman.

'Henri's right,' said Blott, a glandularly fat man whose eyes blinked in constant nervousness behind wire-framed gla.s.ses. 'It was a mistake, easily made. It's no one's fault. But now she should be killed.'

There was no shock from any of them at the easy insistence upon murdering a child, as there hadn't been when Cool and Dehane had made the same demand earlier. A year before a boy they'd s.n.a.t.c.hed had died during a party in the house. Since then they had used child prost.i.tutes, usually brought in from Amsterdam. Perhaps, she conceded, the idea upon which she was by now quite determined stemmed from the excitement she'd got then, knowing she was being hunted but always able to evade suspicion or capture because of how cleverly Smet had inveigled himself. Which he could do again now.