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THREE DAYS LATER
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“GOOD MORNING, MR CALDWELL,” Lejour greeted his visitor in a neutral voice, showing no pleasure at seeing Luke Caldwell, despite it being he who had arranged the meeting. “Please have a seat.” He indicated the chair across the desk from him.
“Deputy Director Lejour,” Luke returned the greeting in a similar tone.
“How are you?” Lejour asked. He hadn’t missed the brief flash of pain that had crossed Caldwell’s face as he sat, and his eyes went to the heavy bandage on his guest’s left arm.
“All things considered, I’m doing good,” Luke said. “You didn’t ask me to come in and see you just so you can see how I’m doing, did you. I’m sure it’s enough for you to know that I’m alive, and I doubt you’re all that concerned about that. So, why did you ask me to come in?”
Lejour nodded briefly. “You’re right, that isn’t why I asked you here. I asked you to come in because of your friend, Agent Bright, Ben.”
“Where is he?” Luke asked. “Is he alright? I expected to see him after the operation, but he hasn’t even called.”
“No, he’s not alright. He’s dead.”
“How? When? Where?” The news shocked Luke. He had suspected that something had happened, which was why he hadn’t heard from Ben, but dead hadn’t occurred to him.
“We don’t have all the answers,” Lejour admitted. “And it’s possible we’ll never have them. What we do know is that Bright was on his way here to Paris with another agent to take part in the operation when he disappeared. He never made it to the flight he was booked on, but the agent with him did. That agent later turned up at Noir’s vineyard immediately before you were shot and Noir and his cousin made their escape. We believe that she was in Noir’s pay and killed Bright after being told about the operation against Noir that you were involved in, and she then came to Paris to warn Noir. Unfortunately, this is all supposition; since she was found dead outside Noir’s office when the vineyard was raided we can’t ask her what happened.”
“So, how do you know Ben’s dead?” It wasn’t that he doubted Lejour, Luke was sure he wouldn’t have said Ben was dead if they didn’t know for certain, he just wanted to know how they knew.
“Because we found his body yesterday morning. When the agent turned up at the vineyard and there was no sign of Bright, we knew something had to be up. We had more pressing matters to worry about at the time, though, so it wasn’t until the operation was concluded and we had Noir and Renault in custody that we were able to do anything about Bright’s disappearance. We finally found him through the GPS on his phone. His body was off a service path on the outskirts of Barcelona airport. It looks as though he was shot with his own gun.
“She must have surprised and disarmed him after being told about the operation, and then used his gun to kill him.” Lejour was surprised by how calmly Caldwell was taking the news that his friend had been killed by a corrupt agent, he had expected an angry outburst at the least, that was how he had wanted to react when he learned what had happened to Bright, but outside of his initial reaction Caldwell was talking as though they were discussing the weather. “I’m sure you can understand that we want to keep this as quiet as possible, at least until we can be more certain what happened. I thought you deserved to know about Bright’s death, though, especially since it was your friendship with him that led to you helping us to bring down Noir.”
“Thank you.” Luke appreciated the consideration, especially when he knew Lejour would rather have seen him in jail than accepted his help. “So, what happens now? You’ve got Noir and Renault, and I assume you have enough to prosecute them.”
“We do,” Lejour said with a satisfied nod. “We may not be able to get them on anything drug related at the moment, but we can definitely get them both on multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. There’s no chance they’re going to walk away from this, nor are they going to get out of jail this side of the grave.”
“That’s good, but it doesn’t answer my question. What happens now? Am I going to be needed to testify?”
“I don’t think so, no. We’ve got everything we’re likely to need to secure convictions against Noir and Renault, and it will only create confusion during the trial to have someone like you testifying. We have no idea how much information Renault was given about you, but anything he has could be used during the trial to cause problems.”
“And you want to avoid that,” Luke said. He was okay with the idea of not having to testify. Doing so was likely to cause him problems he would rather avoid, and he had brought enough problems on himself through helping his friend and Interpol.
Lejour nodded.
“In that case, I think we’re done. Unless there’s something else you’d like my help with.”
“I think we can manage without your help in the future,” Lejour said. He had no intention of involving Luke Caldwell in any other investigations, especially when he was sure that any future help would come with a price attached to it.
“I’m sure you can.” Luke smiled at what Lejour hadn’t said, but which was obvious to him. “I’ll be off then. Thanks for letting me know about Ben, I appreciate it.”
Lejour waited for more than a minute after Caldwell left his office, accompanied by the officer who had escorted him there, and then he picked up the phone on his desk. His call was answered almost immediately. “He’s on his way out of the building,” he told Ney. “Make sure your men don’t lose him like they did Dubois.”
“They won’t,” Ney said. “We’ll tail him wherever he goes.”
**
LUKE COULDN’T HELP smiling to himself as he walked down the road and away from the Interpol building. He was sure the surveillance team in their blue Citroen and dirty white Vauxhall van, supposedly belonging to a window repair company, thought they were being discreet, but he had spotted them almost straight away.
He had suspected the moment he was asked to meet with Lejour that it was nothing more than an excuse to get him somewhere they could begin a surveillance operation on him. He would have been surprised if they had just let him walk away without some attempt to keep an eye on him, despite the help he had provided them.
He was more amused than annoyed by the deception, having anticipated it. Interpol, and others, had been doing their best to keep track of him for years, so it was nothing new. It could be irritating when he had a job, but when he didn’t he found it entertaining to lead surveillance teams all over the place before giving them the slip.
Thinking of the fun he was going to have while he healed, he strolled down the road.