Too Far Gone
A SAM POPE NOVEL
Robert Enright
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
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Copyright © Robert Enright, 2020
Chapter One
Three months was a long time.
As his feet slammed against the concrete, Sam Pope could feel himself once again reaching his physical peak, having spent the past few months recovering from a brutal attack on the streets of Rome. With the Vatican in his eyeline, he’d emerged from a car wreck, run off the road by a murderous man with bad intentions.
The bullet wound he’d suffered in his shoulder still hummed with every step, jogging through the humid, spring breeze.
The bullet that had ripped through his back and out of his stomach, missing his spinal cord by a matter of millimetres, had left an impact.
Every beat of the pavement sent a shudder up his spine, reminding him of how close he’d been to paralysis.
Or worse.
But in the three months since, in his reclusive recovery on the outskirts of Naples in the south-west of Italy, he’d come to realise that his hunter hadn’t been shooting to kill.
The man had shot to wound, dropping Sam to his knees and helpless against a very clear execution. Every night since, Sam had felt an unnerving sense of familiarity.
As if he knew the shooter.
It felt as if his mind had played tricks on him.
As the man had approached, with Sam on his knees, ready for his fight to finally end, the man had spoken.
‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this.’
The voice.
The Manchurian accent.
Sam shook his head, realising he was allowing the ghosts from his past to haunt his present.
A present containing enough horror to last a lifetime.
It had been just over a year since the bombing of the London Marathon, a traumatic event that not only shook the city of London but had sent Sam on a one-track mission against the criminal underworld. Before that, he’d allowed the grief of losing his son to fuel his desire to fight back.
Using his position working for the Metropolitan Police in their archive division, Sam had sought out criminals who had beaten the system, providing his own brand of questionable justice.
Having spent over a decade as one of the UK’s most decorated snipers, Sam had returned to his loving family after an off-the-book mission had gone wrong.
The memories were hazy.
All he could remember was a dark room inside a stone building before two bullets were sent through his chest and he was left to die in the dark.
He survived.
Sam Pope was built for survival.
It had taken him from the mountainous waste lands of Afghanistan to the deep trenches of the Amazonian jungle.
Mission after mission.
Target after target.
After his decorated career had come to an end, he was prepared for his new life as a loving husband and doting father. Yet the war was not done with him.
Somehow, the cruel hand of fate pulled him back into the firing line by snatching his son from him.
A drunk driver and a broken justice system.
It had sent Sam on a dark spiral, one which his ex-wife, Lucy, could no longer be a part of.
A spiral that spun around the haunting image of his son lying motionless in the middle of the road.
His Jamie.
Gone.
The pain had brought him to the edge where the solace he could find was in the mercy of others. Eventually, the path led him to some of London’s most notorious criminals and their despicable acts upon the innocent. While Sam knew the fight would never bring his son back, the thought of stopping others suffering the same fate at least brought a moment of peace.
It had made him the UK’s most wanted man.
It had made him the underworld’s most feared opponent.
And it had brought him to the brink of death.
Now here he was, running through the streets of Naples, trying his hardest to return to a war he knew he would never escape.
Training to fight back.
Rounding a corner, Sam almost collided with two elderly women, one of them barking at him in a thick, Italian accent. He held his hands up in way of apology, before picking up the pace as he headed onto the street of his temporary abode. The wide streets were already crammed with cars, the slowly rising sun cutting through the grey clouds and bouncing off their windscreens. The streets were lined with tall, stone buildings, all of them filled with a myriad of shops and flats.
The city hummed with life, the cacophony of traffic bouncing off the brick framework of the surrounding buildings.
Sam knew he was far from home.
Away from the fight.
But through all the noise, he could hear it calling.
Reducing his sprint to a gentle jog, Sam came to a stop as he approached the alleyway, taking a few moments to calm his heart rate, and stretched his legs. He had run over ten kilometres and felt a slight stiffness in his shoulder. The bullet wound had healed, but from the friction he felt, he knew the damage was likely to be permanent.
Stretching out his back, he walked towards the metal fire escape that clung to the building like a rusty, metallic arm. The steps were coated in a shiny drizzle and Sam navigated them carefully. As he approached the top, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the key, twisting it sharply in the lock before slamming his shoulder into the stiff door.
The apartment was cheap, and the door was a testament to the price.
But it was all they could afford.
Well, all Alex could afford.
Sam knew he owed Alex Stone his life. As part of the team who had blackmailed him into hunting his own mentor, they’d bonded over their shared hatred for the man in charge.
Trevor Sims.
The man had been a high-ranking official in
