Private Monaco

Chapter 31

If you’ve ever experienced trauma, you will understand the way time slips away from you. The world shifts in and out of focus. One moment you’re in the cab of a pickup truck, being driven by a French farmer called Marcel, the next you’re in a police interview room, giving an account of your extreme experiences, and later you’re on a busy boardwalk overlooking a crowded marina, holding the hand of the most important person in the world, wondering how you got there and whether you’ve just awoken from a nightmare.

And with the slips in time, like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake, comes an unpredictable trajectory of emotion. Raw, volatile rage, spinning into relief, knocking you off balance into guilt, anxiety, fear, your body flushing hot and cold, heart pounding for no apparent reason, then easing only to start racing again.

This was my afternoon and early evening, jumping through conflicting emotions, buffeted by the aftermath of events, recounting what had happened to Valerie Chevalier and her colleagues, urging them to start a manhunt for Justine’s abductors. The inspector had informed me the gang had abandoned their base and seemingly scattered to the wind before the police arrived.

Roman’s words played on my mind. He didn’t need me anymore, if he ever had. Today he’d been intent on killing Justine and me because he had a backup plan to help him achieve his wider objective. The person he had wanted me to murder in exchange for her life was still out there, and their continued existence was on the line. His words suggested someone else would kill them if I didn’t. I needed to know who the intended target was.

Reconnecting with Mo-bot, Sci and Duval outside police headquarters had given me a feeling of transient jubilation, which was amplified by all the congratulatory messages we received when we notified the entire Private organization that we’d recovered Justine, or more accurately that she’d escaped and found us. The contents of our bulletin passed me by — Mo-bot drafted it, and in my disorientated, unsettled state I had to trust she knew what to say.

There had been a drink at Duval’s insistence, a cognac to settle our nerves, but I wanted to be alone with Justine and so I made our excuses and we went for a walk along the broad promenade by the Hercules Marina. The sun had fallen over the horizon, but there was still a pink glow in the sky. Reflected port lights danced on the water around the flotilla of boats moored in the harbor. Prefabricated buildings truncated the wide boardwalk here and there, all decorated with the advertising hoardings and team insignias of the Grand Prix.

I held Justine’s hand and we strolled wordlessly, finding our center as the heat of the day dissipated on the evening breeze. The hubbub of distant bars, the lick and splash of magnificent boats bobbing on the tide, and the hum of traffic flowing through the city formed a bed of sound that soothed and reassured me as I eased back into reality.

“I love you,” I said, stopping to embrace her. “I was afraid I’d lost you.”

“You’ll never lose me,” she replied. “I’ll always fight for you and me.”

We kissed.

“I love you too,” she said.

When we parted, I saw Mo-bot and Sci approaching from the bar we’d left.

“I used a fake Airbnb account to get us a last-minute deal,” Mo-bot informed us. She’d got us alternative accommodation because we couldn’t risk Roman and his gang turning up at the hotel. “It’s an apartment on the Boulevard de Belgique, about twenty minutes’ walk from here.”

“What about our stuff?” Sci asked.

“We go back to the hotel in the early hours,” I replied. “In and out quickly, take only what we can easily carry.”

“We don’t need much,” Justine remarked. “Just enough to get home.”

I exchanged glances with Mo-bot and Sci.

“Tell me we’re leaving,” Justine said. “Jack? Tell me we’re getting the first flight home tomorrow.”

“They wanted me to kill someone,” I replied. “This wasn’t random. They were using you to coerce me and they chose us for a reason.”

“You’ve told the cops, right?” she countered.

I nodded.

“Then we can go home,” she said desperately. “We can leave this place and go somewhere we’ll be safe.”

“This was personal, Justine,” I responded, sliding my arms around her. “I have to find out why and stop whatever they have planned.”

She pushed me away. “No, you don’t. You can leave it to the cops, and we can go and be safe. We don’t have to chase danger, Jack. Danger finds us. Please don’t go looking for it.”

She looked to Mo-bot and Sci for backup, but they didn’t give her any. They knew that if we didn’t find answers this would remain an unresolved threat.

“There’s no guarantee Roman and his people wouldn’t come to Los Angeles,” I told Justine. “This is personal. He wanted us dead on that mountain when he realized he couldn’t coerce us anymore. There was hate in his eyes. We need to know why. It’s the only way we’ll ever truly be safe.”

Justine hesitated and tears filled her eyes. I knew she was afraid, but she was also a professional and she recognized the truth of my words.

Finally, she nodded. “Okay. We find out why they came for us, and if we get the chance to hit them, we hit them hard.”