And not regret it.
Death at her hands. Then feeling no remorse.
She was sure that was the problem.
And working hard on the hills seemed to expunge some of the intense sorrow that was stalking her like a cackle of hyenas.
Walking up big hills was her version of rehabilitation. It worked for her.
It had to.
The catch-up conversation with Jane was running its course. The sun was three-quarters high in the sky and its warmth splashed in through Bertie’s windscreen.
‘Have you spoken to Wolfgang recently?’ Jane asked.
Sam flicked the question over in her head. She didn’t want to think about Wolfgang. It just added to the pain. The first thing she’d done when she’d escaped the hospital was to get on a plane to Munich. Wolfgang was still in hospital. He’d had multiple skin grafts and almost lost a leg. His lungs were healing, but it was all a slow process. Their meeting had been awkward. He hadn’t had much to say. He just sat in a chair in a very swish private room and spent most of the time with his eyes closed. Sam knew that Inge’s death would have broken his already fractured heart. She was surprised that he had the energy to get out of bed.
She’d asked about the house.
‘It’s just a house.’ Sam sensed a touch of venom in his voice. She probably deserved it.
She stayed at a local hotel and visited him the following day where the atmosphere hadn’t improved. She understood. She really did. She had suffered trauma. And she had been badly hurt - a number of times. It did things to your head.
‘I’ve spoken to him twice since my initial visit.’ Sam replied to Jane. ‘I really must go and see him again.’ She quickly changed the subject. ‘How’s Austin?’
‘He’s fine. Thanks to you. His leg is making a good recovery. Apparently the DD is getting the Federal government to issue him with an award. One of the reasons I’m here is to let you know that they want you to go to the ceremony. Next month. On the 12th. In Washington. They’ll pay.’
That was another flick-flack question.
Sam should go. She’d love to see him. But that would mean talking about what had happened. Reliving the horror. Ralph Bell’s eyes out on stalks. The shots into the man’s crotch as he came to check her pulse by the metal ladder.
The double tap into Bell’s thug-mate’s chest. Bang. Bang. You’re dead. No feeling. No regret. Nothing.
She was sweating. Her breathing was shallow. This is how it was. Thinking. Reliving. And sweating. She really should leave it out. Move away. Move along. Move to Lapland. Newfoundland. Somewhere away from the horror.
But she couldn’t. And she hadn’t.
‘Is it all done now? You know, The Church.’ Sam hated herself as soon as she asked the question. She had promised that it was something she wouldn’t ask. It was unanswerable. No one would ever know. They wouldn’t. Jane would give some SIS platitudes; some ‘need-to-know’ rubbish. And Sam would be left with the open scar.
‘Pretty much …’ Jane looked at her with that sisterly look that only she could manage. ‘Are you OK, Sam?’
‘Yes, fine.’ Her response was a bit too sharp.
‘Well. We had all of Wolfgang’s database - which was excellent. And all of the known names across the world have been interrogated by the various countries’ own versions of MI5 and Special Branch - and there have been multiple arrests.’
Jane paused. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
Sam had taken her handkerchief out and was mopping her brow.
‘It’s the heat from the windscreen. I’m fine. Thanks.’ She moved it all along. ‘Have we got all of them? What about the Croatian end?’
‘Well, you were in the hospital when I briefed you on the monastery operation. It was a success - as you probably remember. They found Paul and Victoria Mitchell Both shot dead. And 17 monks. Suicide. And a Croat, who we think put the original phone message on your answer machine. He was found trussed in a sack in a shed at the bottom of the walled garden.’
‘And Freddie. Does he exist?’
Jane had her cup in one hand. Her other hand was resting on her knee. She brought it up to her chin and scratched at an invisible female beard.
‘Not seen. He could have been one of the monks, but we don’t think that’s the case. The Croats found a large, well-equipped single room that had been quickly, but expertly cleansed. The monks’ rooms were all spartan, but lived-in. The view is that the room had been very recently occupied; probably by a non-monk. Could be Freddie? It is possible that he’s out there somewhere.’
Sam closed her eyes. She’d not met the elusive Freddie. He was, as she remembered Wolfgang’s wall (after she had moved things about in her head), at the centre of this. Could he still be on the run?
Was he out there somewhere?
Would she be constantly looking over her shoulder for him as she had been for Bell? Would he start to replace Bell in her dreams? An unknown. A faceless kingpin. She’d never know if he was watching her - because she had never seen his face. He could be in the UK, now. In Bristol. Tracking her down.
She needed a pee. She needed Jane to go. And she then needed to climb some mountains.
Jane had put her cup down on the side.
‘You know I can’t ask you back?’
It was a surprise comment from Jane. Sam hadn’t considered going back. But for SIS to have even thought about her re-employment, and then formally written her off, still hurt.
She looked at Jane. Her friend. They had disagreed at times. But she was as close to the woman who had brought her yellow roses as she’d ever been to anyone - other than her mum.
‘That’s fine Jane. I don’t think I’ll ever be right enough again up here,’ Sam pointed to her head, ‘for SIS to consider me a safe pair of hands. I wouldn’t employ Sam Green to pack bags at Sainsbury’s. And I know her well.’
Jane smiled; a half, but sincere smile.
‘How are you off for money?’ Jane nodded at the untouched Aldi cake and the neat line of chocolate fingers that she had momentarily messed up when she’d picked one to eat. Sam had quickly made them look like soldiers again.
Sam smiled. Bless her.
‘I’m fine, thanks, Jane. Something will come up. It generally does. Now, do you mind if you give me some space? I need a pee - and I must sort my kit out for tomorrow’s hike.’
If Jane was surprised by Sam’s brusqueness, she didn’t show it. She nodded, jumped out of the van and made her way to her car.
‘You’ll keep in touch? And let me know as soon as you need anything? You know about the service’s charity that can provide funds for ex-staff who need help?’ Jane asked.
Sam smiled. Yes, she knew. And she’d have no problem asking for help should she need it.
First, though, she needed a pee. And then she had some adrenalin to burn.
Sam Green books by Roland Ladley:
Unsuspecting Hero
Sam Green’s life is in danger of imploding. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after horrific injuries and personal tragedy in Afghanistan, she escapes to the Isle of Mull hoping to convalesce. A chance find on the island’s shores interrupts her rehabilitation and launches her on a journey to West Africa and on a collision course with forces and adversaries she cannot begin to comprehend.
Meanwhile in London, SIS/MI6 is facing down a biological threat that could kill thousands and inflame an already smouldering religious war. Time is not on anyone’s side and Sam’s determination to face her past and control her future, regardless of the risks, looks likely to end in disaster. Fate conspires to bring Sam into the centre of an international conspiracy where she alone has the power to influence world-changing events. Blind to her new-found role, is her military training and complete disregard for her own safety enough to prevent the imminent devastation?
Fuelling the Fire
Why are so many passenger planes falling from the sky? Why are two ex-CIA agents training terrorists in the Yemeni
desert? Why is a religious cult transferring millions of dollars to unattributable bank accounts around the world? Are these events connected? If they are, is this the mother of all conspiracies?
MI6 analyst, Sam Green, desperately wants to establish why her only surviving relative died in the latest plane crash. But can she put aside her grief and make sense of it all? Or is the clock ticking just too quickly, even for her?
The Innocence of Trust
Sam Green’s been promoted. She’s now working out of Moscow as an SIS ‘case officer’ and hates it. She loathes her boss, feels out-of-place among SIS’s elite and loses her only Russian informant to a bomb that also had her name on it.
On the verge of jacking it all in, Sam promises a beautiful stranger that she will find her boyfriend’s murderer. That promise propels her into a web of top-level industrial crime and savage international terrorism. With reliable friends and colleagues in very short supply, Sam starts something she cannot stop. And this time, she’s going to need more than an expert analyst’s eye and a complete disregard for her own safety to prevent the most lethal terror plot since 9/11.
Book 5 (untitled)
Already planned for the summer of 2019.
+++++
Find Roland Ladley’s books here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roland-Ladley/e/B010MAOZOE
Follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rolandtheauthor/
And keep in touch via his blog here: https://thewanderlings2013.wordpress.com/
* * *
[RJ1]Exasperation (only a situation can be exacerbated)
[RJ2]Camper-vans or camper vans
[RJ3]22 strokes-per-minute
[RJ4]Delete
[RJ5]Camper-van or camper van
[RJ6]Need to check timescales
[RJ7]Need to check timescales
[RJ8] This sentence bothers me because it is in the familiar form of ‘you’ and doubt Elisabeth would use it. It also has other inaccuracies that my elementary German cannot meet. Being spoken by a native, do you think it should be accurate or doesn’t it matter?
[RJ9]Uh
[RJ10]Need comma after
[RJ11]Delete comma after
[RJ12]Changed
[RJ13]Have a
[RJ14]Suggest: Fluent in English with a first in economics.
[RJ15]Does this sentence make contextual sense?!
[RJ16]Manila
[RJ17]Place comma after ‘whilst’ not before
[RJ18]Bank-loads
[RJ19]Take care with use of ‘which’ – it occurs again at start of next sentence
[RJ20]Satnavs
[RJ21]Rethink: drop the hyphen?
[RJ22]Check with above: should this be altered to ‘positioning’ or leave as is?
[RJ23]Change of course
[RJ24]Sounds stinky (!) but amusing if that’s the intention. Suggest ‘the leather seats smelt expensive’
[RJ25]Es ist Sam, geh schlafen.
[RJ26]Suggest: ill-fated. ‘Fated’ does not stand alone.
[RJ27]Suggest ‘were’. ‘If’ takes subjunctive when the outcome is indefinite.
[RJ28]Navy (upper case ‘N’)
[RJ29]Suggest it would read better: she was the perfect rich man’s ex-wife
[RJ30]Suggest ‘workout’
[RJ31]No: to effect
[RJ32]Not hyphenated but one word: postmortem
[RJ33]?Suggest following ‘discipline’ to add ‘and integrity’
[RJ34]How about italics to indicate volume followed by an exclamation mark?
[RJ35]Hyphen: terrorist-related
[RJ36]Hyphen: terrorist-related
[RJ37]Insert ‘as’ after ‘just’
[RJ38]Insert comma after ‘finger’
[RJ39]High Street
[RJ40]“in”
[RJ41]Perhaps would read better: off which his son’s room was located,
[RJ42]Substitute ‘in’
[RJ43]Invert to read: locking the door behind them with a key.
[RJ44]Should be: ‘imagined’
[RJ45]Suggest: walking through a set of half-glass double doors out into a courtyard.
[RJ46]Delete because next sentence begins with ‘And’
[RJ47]Sense?
[RJ48]You ‘renamed’ him ‘Hannibal’?
[RJ49]Alter sentence to remove ‘that’: she had an uncanny knack for detail. (The reason for this is there is another ‘that’ in the following sentence)
[RJ50]Hi Beth to top next page
[RJ51]‘pick up’
[RJ52] caught the hint?
[RJ53]satnav
[RJ54]a distinctive
[RJ55]evasive-driving course
[RJ56]from her
[RJ57]a chance
[RJ58]practising (verb has an ‘s’)
[RJ59]Consistency: you used ‘synch’ earlier. Either is OK but adopt one or other
For Good Men to Do Nothing Page 39