Days Gone By (Sam Pope Series Book 11), page 23
‘I can’t feel my leg.’ He moaned.
The sound of footsteps crept up on Corbin, and she spun, gun drawn and then lowered it with a smile.
Sam approached.
Lashed by the rain, the man was a walking tapestry of pain, with blood staining any exposed skin, and a limp that told her he was on his last legs. She stepped towards him, wrapped her arms him and hugged him.
‘It’s over.’ She said.
‘Not yet.’
Sam took the gun from her hand, and despite her desperate remonstrations, he shuffled towards Eva, who was beginning to stir. As she pushed herself to a seating position, she looked up and directly down the barrel of the gun that Sam pointed at her.
‘Don’t do it, Sam.’ Corbin begged. ‘She’s finished.’
‘She killed my team.’ Sam barked, his arm shaking with fury and his eyes watering. ‘Good people.’
Corbin shook her head, disgusted by the truth of the words that were about to come out of her mouth.
‘She was just following orders.’ She stepped beside Sam, placed her hand over the gun and pushed it downwards. ‘Killing her won’t bring them back.’
Sam shook his head, furious that Corbin was speaking the truth. He looked down at Eva once more, their eyes locking, and he didn’t detect one modicum of regret in her eyes. But Corbin was right, and Sam finally lowered the gun, knowing that hers and Ducard’s capture was justice enough.
Corbin gently rubbed the base of Sam’s spine to comfort him, when a gurgling noise punctuated the moment.
‘Please, just kill me.’
Ducard was staring up at the sky, unable to move. Tears were flowing down his broken face, and Corbin stood over him with the gun.
‘Pierre Ducard, you are under arrest for the murders of Olivier Chavet, Didier Chavet, Simone Rabiot and of DGSE Agent Martin Agard.’ She stepped forward and looked over at the man’s fallen, broken body. ‘I hope you rot in hell for the rest of your life.’
As Ducard wept at the idea of his future, Corbin called it in, requesting the full force of the Parisian police service, as well as several ambulances for the body count. Then she turned to Sam.
‘Before I contact my boss, you’d better get out of here.’
She gave Sam an address, and the two of them nodded their thanks to each other.
A spark ignited the petrol that had been flowing from the engine of the destroyed vehicle, and what remained of it exploded, lifting the entire frame off the ground a few inches before it crashed back down on the stone, ablaze with a mighty fire. Sam and Corbin had turned to shield themselves from the blast, but when they returned their gaze to the flames, their eyes widened in horror.
Eva was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It was all Morgana Daily could do but smile when her co-workers made their comments.
‘Wow. You really fucked up France.’
‘That news story really blew up.’
‘Nobody will take an interview with you now.’
It would all be harmlessly passed off as workplace banter, and while it probably did come from a good place, she had often found herself where she was right now.
In a bathroom stall, wiping away tears.
It had been ten days since her interview with Olivier Chavet had hit the airwaves, her first foray into live broadcasting and for all intents and purposes, it had been a smash hit. The viewing figures, not just on the day, but on social media sites since, had been the highest that British News Network had ever received, and every story that spun off from that fateful morning would link back to the video.
Morgana herself had become a sensation, with her social media profiles more than quadrupling in followers, most of whom made lewd comments about her appearance.
Her bosses were keen to get her front and centre, seeing her as a potential rival to BBC’s Lynsey Beckett, a woman that Morgana fiercely respected. They said she was the right side of pretty to not be intimidating, and had the cachet with the younger viewers to draw them in. Never had she felt like a commodity in the world of journalism, but that was the reality since Chavet’s death.
Nobody actually wondered if she felt any guilt.
She did. It was overwhelming.
If you peeled back all of the bells and whistles, and the dramatic flair that Olivier had seasoned his story with, there was a travesty behind it. The man had lost his father, and had been relentless in his quest for justice. By giving him the platform to tell his story, Morgana had been more interested in the impact it would have on her career. She hadn’t realised she was putting the man in the firing line.
Now, with the man being killed a day later, she had found sleep difficult in the week since and her love and passion for journalism had taken a hit.
But it had set off a chain reaction that had seen the man ultimately responsible, Pierre Ducard, who had seemed certain to become one of the most powerful men in the world, brought to justice.
Not just for Chavet’s assassination, but for the executions of Didier Chavet and Simone Rabiot. There were countless other crimes, and after a discussion with their French correspondent, Ducard was facing the full force of the law back home.
It was a small comfort, and one she clung to as she wiped away her tears and composed herself.
The world was a messed up place. That much was obvious and the further she went down the journalistic rabbit hole, the more true that would likely ring. But without her intervention, there was a good chance that nothing would have come to light, and a murderous dictator would have assumed power.
Silver linings were rare in life, and she knew she needed to cling to one when she found it.
With a deep breath, she stood, left the stall and reapplied her eyeliner in the mirror. The last thing she wanted was for her colleagues to see her suffering. It would raise eyebrows on whether or not she had the stomach to become a lynchpin at BNN.
With one last re-affirming nod to her reflection, Morgana stepped back out of the restroom and headed back to her office, ready to tackle the next story.
Hoping to make a difference.
‘Is that it, then?’
Leanne McEwen looked to her husband with a comforting smile. One filled with love that had only grown in the decades which they had spent together. She sat on the garden decking, overlooking the freshly mowed lawn and the neat, obsessively-tended flower beds. She held a glass of ice-cold water in her hand, and nodded to the pitcher on the table beside her. Bruce McEwen strode across the decking, his long legs half covered by his shorts and he kissed her on the top of the head before he sat down on the seat opposite and helped himself to the jug.
‘Yup,’ he said firmly. The spring sun was a warm and welcoming feeling after such a bitter winter, and McEwen lifted his face to it. He could feel the stress melting from his mind.
‘Well, it’s about time, if you ask me,’ Leanne said. ‘You were too good for them, Bruce. Way too good.’
‘I at least tried, didn’t I?’
‘Tried?’ Leanne’s immaculate eyebrows raised in anger. ‘You gave that force everything you had. Sure, you missed time with our boys, but they understood. But now, you have all the time to make it up to them. Especially as…’
‘As?’ McEwen turned to his wife with intrigue, and he could tell she was bursting with excitement.
‘Jenny’s pregnant.’
McEwen fell back in his chair, his mouth open with shock. Glee trembled through his body like an earthquake. Jenny had been their son Max’s high school sweetheart, and after they had finished university, they had reconnected, fallen in love and now lived an hour away in Sutton. Now that Max had reached his thirties and was holding down a senior position in a law firm, Bruce and Leanne had been predicting when the baby was coming.
Even if he had tried, McEwen couldn’t peel the smile from his face.
‘Well how about that?’ He finally said.
‘I know. You’re going to be a Gramps. Or a Grumps.’
‘Fuck off.’ McEwen joked, and he and his wife chuckled. As the fun died down, a silence crept in. McEwen gazed out over his garden, contemplating how much he had sacrificed for the life that was now waiting for him. The investigation had been quick, and clearly corrupt, especially as he was offered a golden handshake to step down as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, as well as his generous pension.
It felt like a major chapter in his life had come to an end, and he wasn’t sure how to write the rest of it.
‘I’m proud of you.’ Leanne’s voice cut through the thought process. As ever, she knew where his mind was. It must have been written across his face and he turned to her, reached across the table and gripped her hand. His thumb ran across her wedding ring.
‘I couldn’t have done any of it without you.’
‘Oh, I know that.’ She joked. ‘Now, you get to do the rest with me.’
‘Sounds good.’
McEwen sat back in his chair and smiled once more. He knew he had given the country his all, had tried to make a difference and had tried to do it the right way. There had been bumps along the way, and brick walls he had run into, but he had never lost himself.
Never lost his reason.
It was ironic that the most wanted man in the country had inspired him to stick to his convictions, and even though they had resulted in him making the enemies who had forced him out, he had left with his head held high.
Bruce McEwen was no longer an officer of the law.
But he would still remain a good man.
As he sipped his ice-cold water, a wave of satisfaction passed over him. His predecessor, the now Sir Michael Stout, had given him one warning.
‘Prepare yourself for a myriad of shit.’
McEwen placed his glass down on the table, and peered out at the sun that was glistening above the trees and imagined his grandchild playing in the garden.
It was someone else’s myriad now.
What should have been a proud day for Agent Renée Corbin was shrouded in regret. The presentation of her bravery award was at the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure headquarters, codenamed CAT, in the centre of Paris. The government building was a magnificent structure, made up of three buildings that looped round like a crescent. The space between was a man-made garden of well-kept trees and grass, with picnic benches scattered irregularly under the branches. The entrance was heavily guarded, and all those who were in attendance for her award would have had to go through multiple metal detectors and bag searches.
But the reason for them being there wasn’t one that she wanted to celebrate.
Pierre Ducard had been charged with over twenty counts of conspiracy to commit murder, with his name visibly on the sign-off sheet for a number of killings made over the years, both international and domestic. The DGSI had been involved, and once one of Ducard’s men, Francois Lascelles, had negotiated immunity in exchange for his co-operation, the hammer fell on Ducard from the greatest of heights. The young man, who was no more a soldier than he was an acrobat, spoke of being physically bullied by Ducard’s security staff and that resentment had led him to back up the files that the former presidential candidate had ordered destroyed. There were gigabytes of evidence that proved Ducard’s shady dealings over the years, along with the clear link to General Ervin Wallace, who had been outed as a global terrorist three years before.
The deaths of Olivier and Didier Chavet, along with Simone Rabiot were laid squarely at the feet of the man.
As was the death of Martin Agard.
That was why a dark cloud hung over the day’s ceremony, and when Corbin took to the podium to accept the award that Director Vivier proudly handed her way, she dedicated it to her fallen comrade. In the crowd was Jeanette Agard, along with her sons, Louis and Marc, to accept the tribute to her departed husband.
He was buried a kilometre north of where they were in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
He had died a hero, and Corbin had ensured he had been buried as one.
After the presentation, and the small talk surrounding the visual injuries that were fading on her face, Corbin had spent the half hour celebration with Jeanette and her boys, treating the boys to stories of their father’s bravery. She promised Jeanette that she would be on hand to help with anything she ever needed, and that she owed her life to Martin giving up his own.
The two parted ways with tears in their eyes.
Vivier took her to one side, rolling out the potential promotion to a more senior position and giving Corbin her own department to investigate the elite players in France. She said she’d consider it and then left, driving glumly through the streets of the capital with her award stuffed somewhere in the boot of her car.
It was never about the glory.
It was about justice.
And with Ducard detained behind bars, his murderous henchman in the ground and the deaths of the innocent now accounted for, she felt that she had at least managed that.
Closure would come at some point, but until she was ready, she would grieve not only for Martin Agard and his family, but also for the damage that had been done to her country. The presidential election had been suspended, with the serving president accepting the need to stay on for another six months.
Her phone was buzzing with an international number once again, and she had already been grilled by the UK’s Foreign Secretary about the whereabouts of Sam Pope. The desperation in the women’s voice was clear, especially as she had hitched her wagon to the ‘Ducard Charm Offensive’ and now found her credibility and career circling the drain.
But Corbin had refused to answer then, and now refused to even pick up the call.
Her house was situated in a quiet, residential street a forty-minute drive from town, and as she pulled into the driveway, she left the car without taking her award in with her. As she stepped into her house, she made her way to the kitchen and smiled.
‘You’re up.’
Sam turned and looked at her, his face still a dull shade of purple from the bruising and the scars now a dark, rusty red. They littered his face and forearms, and the stitching job she had done on the slash that ran the width of his cheek had begun to close fully. It would leave a brutal scar, but at least it would hold.
Sam smiled back, winced at the pain and nodded.
‘How was it?’
‘Rough.’ She said as she opened the fridge. She pulled out a beer, offered one to Sam, and then closed the door when he politely declined. ‘But it’s done now.’
‘On to the next one.’
Corbin twisted off the cap, scoffed at his comment, and then emptied half the bottle in one gulp.
‘What about you?’ She asked as she took a seat. ‘Any thoughts?’
Sam shrugged. There had always been a fight, even if it meant he needed to go looking for one. But this one had hit harder than others. Perhaps it was the reminder of the pain and horror of being in that rainforest all those years ago, and watching his friends die for no reason.
When he had saved the likes of Jasmine Hill or Hayley Baker, he knew that had been the right thing to do.
This one had been personal, and while he had been haunted for years by the ghost of his son and the promise of a life he could never have, the ghosts of those who had fallen lingered in the background.
Sergeant Javier Vargas.
Corporal Laurel Connell.
Corporal Jason Bennett.
Their deaths had been laid to rest. Acknowledged for their bravery and respected for giving their lives.
Sam hadn’t saved them. But he had honoured them at least.
Finally, he met Corbin’s gaze with clarity.
‘I’m going to get better,’ he said firmly. ‘And then I’m going to keep fighting.’
EPILOGUE
The spring was morphing into the summer, and in the month that had passed since Ducard’s arrest, life had been a whirlwind for Renée Corbin. Her promotion was in the works, the final details regarding her remit were being ironed out, but the paperwork and salary had already been confirmed. The bruising on her face had disappeared, although a neat little scar sliced through her eyebrow as a reminder of her battle with the now absent Bolivian.
There had been no trace of the woman since she disappeared after the car exploded, a fact that had niggled at Sam ever since.
He’d been staying with her ever since the battle at Ducard’s estate, and the superficial injuries had healed up. Most of the cuts had disappeared without much of a trace, but a scar now dominated his cheek, as well as the top of his back. When he had removed his shirt for her to inspect the stitches, she was shocked at how it just felt like another one to add to his collection. The man was a walking memorial to war, and his body was littered with reminders of how close he had been to death.
Drunkenly, one night, she had made a pass at him, their bond and friendship had given her the incorrect notion that something more could be shared between them. In his sober state, Sam had politely declined and told her he wasn’t what she was looking for, and despite his protests that she shouldn’t be, she was mortified by her actions.
He explained it was just her grief for her friend that had made her seek comfort, and while the two of them would have made a beautiful couple, their bond was forged in blood, not lust.
Sam had made it clear he would be leaving tomorrow, and Corbin had made her way to the local market to source some fresh ingredients for a farewell meal. She wasn’t much of a cook, but Sam had joked that it was in her French blood to be able to construct a delicious meal.
As she foraged through the stalls of the marketplace and collected her ingredients, she glanced up a few times, clocking the well groomed man that was clearly following her.
