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Authors: Greg Coppin

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Luc: A Spy Thriller

BOOK: Luc: A Spy Thriller
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Contents

Copyright Page

Author's Note

Title

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Afterword

Also by the Author

About the Author

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2016 Greg Coppin

 

Published by Runway & Jetty

 

All Rights Reserved.

 

Ebook Cover Design by
ebooklaunch.com

 

Visit the author’s website at:
gregcoppin.com

 

 

Author’s Note

 

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, events and organizations portrayed are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

 

 

 

 

Luc

 

A Spy Thriller

 

Greg Coppin

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

Crooked Tree is not known for its dead bodies.

It’s known for an impressive array of exotic birds, thrilling boat trips along the river and the cashew.

But I wasn’t here for any of the last three.

I strode inside the Barracuda Eye.

It was not a large bar and its wooden walls were painted a light green.

The ceiling fan whirred lazily, offering not much in the way of coolness to the room. Luckily the bar wasn’t busy at the moment or I imagined the place could be stifling. Unless they had a provision for that. If they had, use it now, my advice. I got into a conversation with the barman.

‘Two days ago,’ I said. ‘He was found dumped outside.’

‘Look, like I say, I hears about this but I never see nothing.’

He had an oval face, dark skin, with a straggly salt and pepper beard. He was lightly dancing to some brukdown music that was coming from a portable stereo on a wooden shelf behind him.

‘A dead body is dumped behind your bar and neither you, your staff or any of your customers see anything?’ My shirt was sticking to my back. My face must’ve had a bit of a sheen but I didn’t wipe it, I just stared at him.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Nothing.’ His hands were rhythmically pistoning by his chest, his hips were lightly snaking. ‘Maybe because it was
behind
the bar. We don’t tend to have eyes in the back of our heads round here.’

I looked at him. ‘Are you scared?’

‘Scared?’ he asked. ‘Scared of what?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

He grinned a wide engaging grin. ‘I no scared, man. I no scared of nothing.’

I nodded.

A young woman with mocha skin, wearing a green blouse and black cutaway jeans was spraying some liquid onto the round wooden tables and wiping them with a cloth.

‘Excuse me,’ I said to her. She looked up at me through her dark curls. ‘Did you hear about the dead body outside?’

‘What is this, man?’ the barman said, ceasing the dancing and arching his back. ‘Who are you, coming in here asking all these questions? We’ve spoken to the police. And you is not the police.’

I turned back to the barman. ‘Sorry, what’s your name?’ I asked him.

‘Me name’s Augustin. The girl here’s Hayley. And the good Lord is Wilfred Peters.’

‘Right. Well, it’s like this, Augustin.’ I pointed at the far wall. ‘That man? He was a friend. And he was murdered. And he was dumped by the roadside. And I’m trying to find out some
reasons
.’

Augustin held out his hands and smiled.

I looked back at the woman. She had stopped cleaning, and was standing up, holding the blue cloth, and looking between me and her boss.

‘Hayley. You heard about the body outside?’ I asked her.

‘Yes.’ She spoke quietly.

‘Did you see anything?’

She shrugged. ‘Like what?’ The curl of black hair she moved away from her eyes had red streaks in it.

‘Like the body being dumped outside,’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Did you see anything, hear anything, that might be of interest?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

I looked between the two of them. The barman had now gone over to the shelf behind him and he took a peach out of a wicker bowl. He resumed his laid back dancing. The shelf had coloured lights snaking in and out of various trinkets.

‘Interest you?’ the barman asked, strolling rhythmically back. He was pointing at a charity box sitting on the left of the bar top.

‘What is it?’

‘Like it says,’ he said. He took a bite out of the peach and flicked juice off his bright red T-shirt.

I looked closer at the box. There was a white label stuck on it with a handwritten message: Jaspars Fridge Money.

‘Jaspar Toms. Wants a new fridge.’

‘Right.’

‘Runs the fruit stall two miles down the road.’

‘I see. How much has he got?’

‘No idea.’

‘If I give to Jaspar’s fridge fund will you tell me what I want to know?’

‘Could do,’ he said.

I pulled ten Belizean dollars from my wallet, folded it twice and slipped it into the slot. I then looked up at the barman.

‘What?’ he said. He took another bite out of the peach and wiped his beard.

‘What do you know about the man being dumped outside?’ I asked. But I think I already knew his answer.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Told you.’

I smiled. Nodded.

‘You want beer, man?’ the barman asked.

‘Thanks for your time.’

I began striding towards the entrance, my shoes echoing on the wooden floor. I looked back. ‘If either of you remember anything, or any of your customers remember anything, you can contact me at the Ramble Down Hotel,’ I said. ‘Belize City. Leave a message for Philip Luc.’

Augustin shook his head. ‘Rush, rush,’ he said, the peach halting at his lips. ‘Not good for your constitution.’

The melody he got out of the word ‘constitution’ was nothing short of extraordinary.

I strode towards the light.

The coloured ribbons fluttered around me as I walked back out into the baking heat. The lake in front shimmered and a small orange and black bird hopped along the wooden jetty and I rounded the bar to the back. I passed the telephone pole with the paper sign nailed to it, and continued until I got to the roadside ditch. Even from a distance away you could still see some of the blood that had pooled on the earth.

I wiped some of the sweat off my forehead and crouched down.

This was where Wilson had been dumped. A road ran next to the ditch with scrub land opposite. In the distance there was the cawing of a lot of birds.

I looked back at the dried blood. A lizard scampered down the ditch, stopped motionless, and then continued up the other side and disappeared under a spiky bush.

I frowned, and then crawled on my hands and knees over the earth. ‘Ow,’ I said flatly, as my knee landed on a pebble.

Something had caught my eye. A glint in the sun. I peered closer and found, nestling in the grass, under the bush, a small sparkling object. It was a silver button.

There were blood stains on the button. And pressed into the blood stains there was, what looked very much like, a fingerprint.

***

Ten minutes later, the rented Suzuki Jimny 4x4 was making easy work of the journey, although I occasionally missed seeing a speed bump and almost wrote off the vehicle in the process.

I was making my way along the main Philip Goldson Highway, a pleasant drive south from Crooked Tree to Belize City. The sweet jacaranda and bougainvillea vied with the roadside food stalls, the mixed aroma was intoxicating.

I was going to see a man named Niek Steenhoek.

Possibly the last person to see Wilson alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

The rain lashed down on the Suzuki’s roof. There was a continuous roar echoing inside, drumming away. The water poured down the windows, down the windscreen. I could hardly see outside, everything was obscured, made blobby by the million raindrops. At the moment, Mr Niek Steenhoek’s pad looked like it was inside the hall of mirrors.

I had been sat here for about two hours now. I was across the road and half a street down from his house. I had bought a pork tamale and a lime juice from one of the roadside food stalls. I’d finished them both off about an hour ago and hadn’t had much to do since, except sit in the driver’s seat and perspire. There were no vehicles in the drive of Steenhoek’s place, so it was reasonable to presume he wasn’t there at the moment.

Wilson’s assignment in Belize was to obtain specific information that Steenhoek was selling. To our knowledge Wilson didn’t get this information. He did though get murdered. We patently needed to know why.

A short while later my mobile rang.

‘Mr Luc, it’s Beverley Milo from the City coronary.’

‘Hello. Thanks for ringing back.’

‘Am I saying that right - Luke not Luck?’

‘You have it right.’

‘Then, Mr Luc, your request has been accepted. Would you like to come in, or…’

‘Thank you. You can email me the contents for now.’

I gave her my email address and she said she’d do it straight away.

A minute later my phone vibrated. I opened the new email and read the coroner’s findings on the body of Wilson.

It didn’t make happy reading. As well as being shot in the stomach there was blunt trauma around the head and ribs and they’d obviously put electrodes on his privates.

They’d tortured him.

It must’ve been pretty intensive. Wilson would not have given in lightly, and we knew he eventually gave in because whoever had logged into his cloud account and wiped everything had used the proper address and password. First time.

Wilson was no girl’s blouse. They must’ve gone to town on him.

When Steenhoek’s black and beige Range Rover swung through his electronic gates and up his drive I was not at all in a happy mood.

 

 

 

 

 

BOOK: Luc: A Spy Thriller
2.44Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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