by Jack Probyn
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
By The Same Author
Join The Mailing List
Foreword
Meet Jake Tanner
Quote
Previously On: The Conspiracy
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
The Community...
Chapter One
Help! I need you!
Join The Mailing List
Enjoy This?
Also in The CID Case Series
About the Author
—————————————————————————————————
EPISODE 6
By Jack Probyn
Copyright © 2020 Jack Probyn. All rights reserved.
The right of Jack Probyn to be identified as the authors of the Work had been asserted him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by: Cliff Edge Press, Essex.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying form without written permission of the author, Jack Probyn, or the publisher, Cliff Edge Press.
ISBN:
eBook ISBN: 978-1-912628-26-1
First Edition
Visit Jack Probyn’s website at www.jackprobynbooks.com.
For Nana.
By The Same Author
The CID Case Series
The Conspiracy
The Community
The Confession
The Cadre
The Company
The Cabal
The SO15 Files Series
The Wolf (coming 2021)
Dark Christmas (coming 2021)
London Eye (coming 2021)
St Paul’s (coming 2021)
Power Station (coming 2021)
School Attack (coming 2021)
Mile 17 (coming 2021)
Royal Wedding (coming 2021)
Arena (coming 2021)
The Terror Thriller Series
Standstill
Floor 68
The Jake Tanner Terror Thriller Series Boxset 1 (Contains Standstill & Floor 68)
Join the mailing list to receive a handful of exclusive giveaways. You can also keep up to date with everything Jake Tanner. Either click the image or hit the link here: https://meet.jackprobynbooks.com/cid1-ep6
Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Foreword
THE CID CASE SERIES: HOW IT WORKs
This is no ordinary series…
… it’s so much more that.
Before you begin reading The Conspiracy, there’s something you need to understand.
The Conspiracy, and the rest of The CID Case Series, is modelled on television. The story is split into six different episodes, and each episode is intricately plotted, and follows the same storyline right up to the end. Think of your favourite programmes like Line of Duty, Stranger Things, Peaky Blinders, Breaking Bad.
I wanted to bring that experience to your e-reader. One story, but edge-of-your-seat pacing.
Just keep that model in mind as you begin reading. You won’t want to flip the channel.
Episodes are released every Monday from the 8th June 2020.
MEET JAKE TANNER
Born: 28.03.1985
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 190lbs/86kg/13.5 stone
Physical Description: Brown hair, close shaven beard, brown eyes, slim athletic build, scar on his cheek
Education: Upper Second Class Honours in Psychology from the University College London (UCL)
Interests: When Jake isn’t protecting lives and finding those responsible for taking them, Jake enjoys motorsports — particularly F1
Family: Mother, older sister, younger brother. His father died in a car accident when Jake was fifteen
Relationship Status: Currently in a relationship with Elizabeth Tanner, and he doesn’t see that changing, ever
“He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him.” - [Thomas Jefferson, 1785]
PREVIOUSLY ON…
THE CONSPIRACY: EPISODE 5
Michael Cipriano confirms Jake and Bridger’s suspicions regarding Danny Cipriano’s location.
Luke Cipriano is lost, alone and scared. But after a bit of genius and quick-thinking, he manages to convince an elderly gentleman to transport him from Fareham to Southampton.
Danny Cipriano is reunited with his girlfriend, Louise, who, it becomes clear is only using him for the money.
As Danny and Luke are reunited in an IKEA car park, Luke realises that it has been Louise pulling all the strings all along. He ditches his brother and goes it alone for a second time.
Meanwhile, Jake and Bridger arrive at the port with armed officers and uniformed constables behind them. But they’re in the middle of discussing their next plan of action when they spot Luke wandering towards them.
After a commotion, Jake and the team allow him to speak with Candice, who arrives a few minutes later.
Episode 5 ends with a bullet ringing out. But who was the target?
And now, The Conspiracy: Episode 6…
| EPISODE 6 |
CHAPTER ONE
BLACK HOPE
Luke Cipriano’s mouth felt dry. He wanted to vomit. He wanted the ground to swallow him up – the patch of grass where his hands were. Anything. Just so long as he didn’t have to live in this horrifying, paralysing, painful moment. The bullet had torn through his stomach and wrapped itself around his organs, crippling him, and as he tried to clamber himself to his feet, the world span in a carousel of green and blue. A few feet away, Candice was standing in front of him, her body twisting and morphing as he dipped in and out of consciousness.
The pain was immense. A sensation unlike any other he’d experienced. At first, it started in the front as the bullet exploded from his stomach, and then it moved to his back, before eventually consuming his whole body. As the blood rapidly drained from his system, he became deaf to all sounds around him. The sound of engines ticking over. Water lapping against the ferry and sea walls. The screams and shouts from the armed officers for them to remain still. The police sirens bleating in the background. The general hubbub of the city way off in the distance. All of it was replaced by the sound of his heart straining as it gradually weakened and struggled to keep him alive.
Before he was able to move any further, Candice leapt down by his side and rolled him onto his back. She supported his head while her eyes danced between his stomach and his face. She babbled and muttered incoherently to herself. Luke tilted his head forwards and inspected the damage the bullet had caused. A flower of crimson had formed on his stomach and was gushing down the sides of his waist, forming a puddle on the grass. He tried to breathe but it was weak. He coughed and spluttered, the pain rising up and down his body like pistons.
At that moment, he should have been feeling scared, afraid. But he didn’t. Instead, he felt calm. He was safe. He was with Candice. Everything was fine. She was going to look after him. She was go
ing to care for him.
‘M-M-Mum,’ he said, blinking away the pain.
Candice squeezed his hand and looked into his eyes solemnly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, babbling, her voice barely a whisper. ‘I should have… I should have been there… I’m sorry I ever left you.’
Luke’s eyes closed as he danced with death. From somewhere deep within him, he found the strength to open them. There was a job he still needed to do.
‘The key,’ Luke whispered, choking on his own blood between breaths and spitting it onto his collar bone.
Slowly, with as much strength as he could summon, he pointed to his trouser pocket. Without needing to be told twice, Candice rummaged through the contents and retrieved the key, quickly soiling it in his blood. She held it triumphantly in the air.
‘Use it…’ Luke tried. ‘Free… Live…’
He gagged and spluttered as his body convulsed. He didn’t know how long he had left, but he wanted to be able to see her survive. He wanted to be able to watch her remove the collar bomb and use it as a final middle finger aimed towards Danny.
Candice’s hands shook as she held the key. Running her fingers along the base of the metal box of the collar bomb, she found the fourth lock and inserted the key. Luke held his breath as he watched her rotate it. His body froze as the lock snapped into place.
And then there was complete silence. The air around them stopped, and the only thing he could hear was his raspy breathing as he waited for the mechanism on the neck to detach itself.
It didn’t.
Luke and Candice both glanced at the device, willing it to do something, anything. But when nothing happened, Candice screamed. She clawed at it, beat it, yanked it from her neck, punched it until the edges of the solid metal lacerated her skin and she started bleeding. She continued until her knuckles were covered in her own blood.
Luke watched on in horror. It hadn’t worked. Danny had lied to him about the device. He had assured him – he had assured everyone – that the keys would diffuse the bomb. But it had all been a lie. As soon as Danny had put that device around her neck, he had already slammed the final nail into her coffin, while he was readying himself to start his brand-new life with Louise. Tears filled Luke’s eyes and streamed down his face as he lay there on his back. He reached his hand out for Candice to take it. She did. Her hand was moist and covered in blood, but he didn’t care. So long as he got to hold her and be with her in his last few—
The ticking began. At first it was a few beeps: steady, rhythmic. But then within seconds, it intensified.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beepbeep-beepbeep.
Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep.
Luke knew instantly what the noise meant. And so did Candice. But by that point it was too late.
The device detonated. All six blades plunged themselves into Candice’s neck, rupturing and severing her arteries and muscles, breaking her spine and airway. Small jets of blood erupted from the incisions in her throat, raining down on Luke. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed to the floor. She was already dead by the time her head hit the grass.
Just like that, she was gone. It had been over so quickly, so instant.
Gasping, clinging onto what little life he had left, Luke rolled onto his side. They were facing one another. Candice’s eyes were open, distant, yet, to Luke, it seemed like she was still there, like she was staring at him, ready to read him a story as she nurtured him into his permanent sleep. Luke reached out and stroked her face.
As he watched the colour run from her cheeks and the blood trickle across her throat, anger swelled within him. All his life he’d tried to remember who his mother was. How she’d treated them when they were younger. What she’d looked like. How she’d behaved. What she’d done to provide for them. What she’d done with her life. In the few months that he’d been reunited with her, they’d tried to stitch together their relationship, set the foundations in place and build from there. But Luke was never going to get a chance to finish it. And now his final memory of her was tarnished with this image. Dead at the hands of the device. Covered in her own blood.
And it was all one person’s fault. Danny.
His eldest brother. The one who had helped raise him was the one who had put him in this situation. How could he?
Luke tore his weakening mind from thoughts of Danny and consumed it with the memories that he and Candice had tried to build. As he lay there on the grass, staring into her eyes, a smile grew on the face.
And, before the world went black, he was just happy that he’d been fortunate enough to see her come back into his life.
| EPISODE 6 |
CHAPTER TWO
LINE OF DUTY
The tiny explosion sent a shockwave across the street. The image of Candice’s neck rupturing into nothing played and replayed in his mind. And he knew that the images would remain charred there forever.
Jake turned his back on the scene and rushed behind the wheel arch of the nearest car. He vomited. Some of the liquid splashed onto his feet and legs. The acid stung his throat, chest, mouth and nose. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and then rubbed the mess on his trouser leg. The taste lingered in his mouth and made him grimace. Spitting the remnants of the aftertaste onto the grass, he turned to face Luke and Candice’s bodies, now strewn together like a piece of activist art.
By now, a team of paramedics had attended to their bodies and began checking for a pulse on Luke’s neck. Everyone in the area knew their efforts were futile, but Jake held a little hope. He was a human being, just like the rest of them, regardless of who he was and what he’d done. Nobody deserved to suffer a fate like that.
Jake forced himself to focus on something else: being smart. There was still a job to do – a final Cipriano brother to catch – and there was little time to do it.
An idea formed in his head.
He strode towards Riggs, with Bridger in tow.
‘You need to get me on board that boat. Now,’ he ordered.
For a moment, Riggs’ face contorted as he considered what to do. Jake could see from the man’s expression that he didn’t want to be bossed about by someone who had nowhere near as much as experience as he did, but he also knew that Jake was on the right path. The threat to public life was dangerous so long as Danny was still on board the boat. With Jake on board, as well, he could help minimise the risk.
Eventually, Riggs nodded, raised his hand, and within a few seconds, two armed officers were by his side. He ordered them to strip down to their plainclothes, exchange their SIGs for Glock 17s, and then accompany Jake and Bridger.
‘You need to put these on,’ one of the AFOs said, holding up a body vest.
Jake’s face beamed at the sight of it. He’d only ever worn one once, and it invoked in him a certain authority, a sense of power, a sense of invincibility. Stifling the smile away, he donned the vest and readied himself. But first, there was something he needed to do.
With Bridger and the armed officers behind him, he marched towards the paramedics and reached into his pocket. As he approached them, he removed his phone and opened the camera. He bent down closer to the bodies and began to take photographs of their remains, averting his gaze from the images on his screen as he took them.
Five photos later, he was finished.
‘What are you doing?’ Bridger asked, rushing over to his side. ‘Have some respect…’
‘I didn’t want to have to do it.’
‘It’s all in the line of duty, eh?’
Jake ignored Bridger’s remark, turned on the spot and started towards the boat, ducking beneath the overhanging branches of a nearby tree and breaching onto the road that led to the cruise liner.
The ramp that led to the cruise’s deck was steeper than Jake expected, and he found his legs aching and his lungs out of air after a few steps. After the four of them reached the top, they were stopped by one of the stewards working on board the cruise shi
p. The woman in front of them asked to see their tickets. Instead, they flashed their warrant cards.
Jake pulled out his phone and displayed an image of Danny Cipriano’s face. ‘If you see anyone who looks like this, alert us. This man is incredibly dangerous. No one else is allowed on, and no one is allowed off. Do you understand?’
A look of fear struck the woman as she nodded, taking Jake’s phone and committing the mugshot to memory. They thanked her and crossed the threshold into the boat, while the steward locked the gate, disabling access for anyone else.
As they entered the foyer, Jake stopped and turned to his partner, ignoring the lavish decor around him; there was a job to do, and he wasn’t going to be distracted by pretty artwork and furnishings. He touched his hip, searching for his radio, but then he realised where it was: still attached to Luke’s jeans.
‘We’re going to have to do this on mobile,’ he said.
