SCOTT MARIANI
The Babylon Idol
Copyright
Published by Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017
Copyright © Scott Mariani 2017
Cover Design © Henry Steadman 2017
Scott Mariani asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007486229
Ebook Edition © May 2017 ISBN: 9780007486410
Version: 2019-12-07
Join the army of fans who LOVE Scott Marianis Ben Hope series
Deadly conspiracies, bone-crunching action and a tormented hero with a heart Scott Mariani packs a real punch
Andy McDermott, bestselling author of The Revelation Code
Slick, serpentine, sharp, and very very entertaining. If youve got a pulse, youll love Scott Mariani; if you havent, then maybe you crossed Ben Hope
Simon Toyne, bestselling author of the Sanctus series
Scott Marianis latest page-turning rollercoaster of a thriller takes the sort of conspiracy theory that made Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code an international hit, and gives it an injection of steroids [Mariani] is a master of edge-of-the-seat suspense. A genuinely gripping thriller that holds the attention of its readers from the first page to the last
Shots Magazine
You know you are rooting for the guy when he does something so cool you do a mental fist punch in the air and have to bite the inside of your mouth not to shout out YES! in case you get arrested on the train. Awesome thrilling stuff
My Favourite Books
If you like Dan Brown you will like all of Scott Marianis work but you will like it better. This guy knows exactly how to bait his hook, cast his line and reel you in, nice and slow. The heart-stopping pace and clever, cunning, joyfully serpentine tale will have you frantic to reach the end, but reluctant to finish such a blindingly good read
The Bookbag
[The Cassandra Sanction] is a wonderful action-loaded thriller with a witty and lovely lead in Ben Hope I am well and truly hooked!
Northern Crime Reviews
Mariani is tipped for the top
The Bookseller
Authentic settings, non-stop action, backstabbing villains and rough justice this book delivers. Its a romp of a read, each page like a tasty treat. Enjoy!
Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author
I love the adrenalin rush that you get when reading a Ben Hope story The Martyrs Curse is an action-packed read, relentless in its pace. Scott Mariani goes from strength to strength!
Book Addict Shaun
Scott Mariani seems to be like a fine red wine that gets better with maturity!
Bestselling Crime Thrillers.com
Marianis novels have consistently delivered on fast-paced action and The Armada Legacy is no different. Short chapters and never-ending twists mean that you cant put the book down, and the high stakes of the plot make it as brilliant to read as all the previous novels in the series
Female First
Scott Mariani is an awesome writer
Chris Kuzneski, bestselling author of The Hunters
O King, we will not serve your gods, nor worship the image of gold you have set up.
The Book of Daniel 3:1518
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Join the Army of Fans Who Love Scott Marianis Ben Hope Series
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Epilogue
The Ben Hope series
Keep Reading
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
For all of his sixty-three years Gennaro Tucci had lived in the same small cottage on the edge of the same rural village in Umbria. He had been a carpenter much of his working career, but now spent most of his time pottering about his house and garden, keeping himself to himself with little need for much in the way of a social life, apart from a cat. He was a simple, gentle, kindly man with few needs and no regrets in life, whom it took little to make happy. Every Friday morning, Gennaro would amble up the road to the tiny village church, which was usually empty, sit in the same pew within its craggy whitewashed walls and bow his head and offer a few simple prayers. Then he would amble home again, feed his cat and while away the rest of the morning until lunchtime.
One particular Friday morning, in the summer of what would turn out to be Gennaros final year, he arrived in the church to find that it wasnt empty though he took little notice of the well-dressed stranger sitting in one of the pews across the aisle, a man of the same approximate age as he was, with grey hair turning white, and a broad, deeply lined face with penetrating eyes, who had looked at Gennaro fixedly as he came in.
Gennaro never asked himself who the stranger was, whether a newcomer to the village or someone just passing through. He smiled, nodded politely and got on with his habitual prayers, oblivious of the way the stranger kept staring at him. He remained in his pew the same length of time he always did, then left the church and began walking home under the warm sunshine, sniffing flowers and feeling happy at the beauty of the day.
Had Gennaro Tuccis mind not been fully taken up with such pleasant thoughts, he might have noticed that the mysterious stranger had left the church at the same time, and was following him at a distance, staring at his back with an expression Gennaro might have found unsettling.
And, once hed reached his little cottage on the edge of the village, had Gennaro happened to look out of the window hed have noticed the stranger standing there by the front gate, watching as though unable to tear his gaze away.
But Gennaro saw nothing, and after a few minutes the stranger disappeared. The next day came and went, as peacefully as ever; then the next.
The following evening, they came.
Gennaro was upstairs, getting ready for bed, when the lights shone through his windows and he heard the thump of someone crashing through his front door. Frightened, he padded down the stairs, calling, Chi è là?
When he saw the three intruders, masked and armed, Gennaro almost died of fright. At first hed thought the men had come to rob him, but that was unthinkable he had nothing to steal, which was why hed never locked his door in all these years. But they hadnt come for valuables. It was him they wanted.
Gennaro struggled and cried out as they grabbed him. One of the men jabbed a hypodermic syringe into his arm, and after that things began to go hazy for the sixty-three-year-old. They dragged his half-unconscious body outside and bundled him into a black van, shut him up in the back and sped off into the night.
Many hours later, some four hundred kilometres north of the home Gennaro would never see again, the van finally stopped and his captors dragged him out. By then the drugs had begun to wear off. Gennaro blinked in the strong sunlight and gaped at his new surroundings, too terrified to ask what was happening to him and why hed been kidnapped. He was in the grounds of some magnificent house by a lake. Poor Gennaro had never left rural Umbria, and had no recognition of where hed been brought. But he did faintly recognise the man who stood before him as the three thugs shoved and dragged him inside the big house, then threw him down on his knees on the hard marble floor. The man smiled down at him with an expression that was almost benevolent. Gennaro blinked up at him and struggled to remember where hed seen him before.
The stranger from the church.
Now that Gennaro saw him more closely, he was even more confused. It was like looking into a mirror. They could have been identical twins.
What is your name? the man asked.
G-Gennaro T-Tucci, Gennaro managed to quaver.
Gennaro, the man said with a broad smile, you are a gift from God.
Chapter 1
So many times in the past, Ben Hope had vowed and declared that his crazy days of running from one adventure to another were over, and that he was going to stay put at home for the foreseeable future. And every time hed said it, before long some new crisis had come barrelling into his life and whisked him off again the latest in a sorry, never-ending series of broken promises, to himself, and to others, which had sometimes made him wonder if he was cursed by fate.
This time, though, he was determined to be true to his word. This was it. Mayhem, violence, war, intrigue, chasing around the world he was done with the lot of it, once and for all.
It wasnt so much that, as his longtime friend and business partner Jeff Dekker sometimes joked, Were getting too old for this shit. In his early forties, Ben had plenty of life left in him and could still outrun, out-train and, if necessary, outfight guys half his age. But he would have been lying if hed said that the recent African escapade hadnt taken a lot out of him, physically and emotionally.
The same went for Jeff, whod been right there at Bens side in what had to be the deadliest, most complex and disturbing rescue mission either man had ever experienced, either during their time in British Special Forces and in the years since. Likewise for Tuesday Fletcher, the young ex-trooper who had not long since joined their small staff at the Le Val Tactical Training Centre in rural Normandy but already proved himself ten times over to be a stalwart asset to the team and forged bonds of comradeship with Ben and Jeff that could never be broken.