Then one after another, the pillars of every part of her existence had crumbled beneath her.
She felt so confused. She wanted more than anything to smile and be happy, and be joyous about the life that was growing within her, to stand up and scream 'I'm pregnant! I am with child! ' but she knew she couldn't. How could she celebrate the child the doctors were telling her that she must kill?
'We want you to kill your child.'
She thought briefly about the film 'Sophie's Choice' which she had seen whilst growing up. Meryl Streep had been forced to choose between her two children: one would die, one would live. 'Take my little girl! Take my baby!' Streep's words rung in her ears, as she recalled the choice she had made. 'Take my baby!'
And now it was her turn. Fiona's choice.
'Kill my child. Save me!'
Fiona McKenzie sat at the top of the hill as the sun went down. Wrapped in a blanket she watched the moon rise.
She sought answers. Understanding.
She found none.
Instead she found only sadness.
Loneliness.
Confusion.
And anger.
'Campbell, where are you when I need you most? I am carrying your child. Our child. Come and collect me, sweep me up in your arms before it's too late. Take me away, take us away. Save your family. I need you. I love you.'
Drowned out by the wind, she called into the darkness.
No one heard her.
--------------------
Wednesday
Maharashtra
India
Advanced Cyber Team (ACT!)
Indian Office
5.55 p.m. India Standard Time (IST)
Anand Mhasalkar was tired. He'd been working long hours recently, preparing a report for the team leader, Ray Luck, on the most recent advanced cyber threats that he was observing targeting UK businesses.
His remit was wide, but so was his skill set. Since being recruited to join the Indian branch of ACT!, - a team of cyber experts armed with the most advanced cyber tools and backed up by the permission to do whatever it took to defend British and Indian national interests - Anand had proven himself invaluable.
The truth was, however, that he simply loved his job.
For Anand Mhasalkar it was a dream come true.
Until he'd been recruited, he had worried that he would die of boredom in a call centre, but Ray Luck had rescued him and shown him another world that was beyond his wildest imagination.
The world was becoming increasingly reliant on cyber technologies to progress and survive, yet the same technology that promised so much hope, also empowered criminals and other nation states who may be intent on causing harm, committing acts of espionage, or acts of terrorism against others.
Yet, national laws often prevented cyber experts within their own countries from taking effective action against such 'threat actors', or from even monitoring their communications.
Not so, if you were covert, undercover, and operating from abroad. With 'no connection' to the UK, and vice-versa if you were operating from the UK and serving India.
Which is why the British and Indian governments formed ACT! - the Advanced Cyber Team. Empowered to act. To take action. To save lives, and secure their national cyber space. But from territories outside of UK or Indian legislation.
It was an exciting job. And well-paid. But most of all, it was fulfilling.
Which is why Anand worked far harder than was expected of him and put his heart and soul into the job.
He cared about what he did. And he cared about the people he was empowered to protect.
Tonight, his last job was to peruse some of his target pages on the Dark Web. These were pages which could either provide him with valuable intelligence which would help him complete certain of his missions, or which may indicate or detail new threats which may need immediate attention or further investigation.
Each night he tried to go through at least ten pages from his watch list, collecting and gathering valuable data wherever possible.
It was when visiting the third website on tonight's list that he realised he had discovered something very dangerous.
Two separate entries on the HitsForBits 'hitmen-and contracts' website immediately drew his attention.
They were both contracts to kill people in Scotland, a country for which Anand held a great affinity. One was a contract being offered to kill a police officer in the city of Edinburgh, the other a prisoner in a jail. Anand was able to access the next level of detail by using false credentials, which belonged to a made-up persona he had carefully constructed and which suggested he was a deadly assassin for hire.
The first of the contracts had been marked as accepted. It was only by pure luck that he was able to still see it: later that day it would be removed from viewing, and was only continuing to be visible temporarily to inform people who may have been interested in it, that the contract had now been awarded to someone else.
When he read the details, he couldn't believe it.
The target was a DCI Campbell McKenzie, someone with whom Anand had previously been deeply involved, albeit virtually and at a distance. McKenzie had been the target of an attempt to frame him for the murder of a woman, organised by a Scottish crime lord Tommy McNunn.
Anand, whilst not then an employee of ACT, had discovered the attempt, and alerted the authorities in Scotland. It was through that action that Anand had received the job offer for ACT.
Incredulously, as Anand looked at the second contract available, he discovered the target was Tommy McNunn himself!
Was this purely a coincidence, or was there a relationship between the two?
The good news, if there was any to be had, was that the contract offer for Tommy McNunn was still open. No one had yet accepted it.
Anand sat back and thought about what he had discovered. Instinctively he knew that he had to act fast to save the life of DCI McKenzie. He needed to report his intelligence immediately.
Picking up the red phone on his desk, he dialled four digits and waited.
A woman's voice answered.
"Hello, Brighton Laundry Services. How can I help you?"
"It's Anand. I need to speak to Ray Luck. Urgently..."
Chapter 16
Scotland
Loch Ness
Wednesday
12.30 p.m.
Alessandra Moretti awoke to the repetitive but hypnotic tip tap top of rain drops bouncing off the top of her caravan.
Slowly she came to, once again struggling to open her eyelids, which seemed to be stuck down and refusing to obey the signals to open.
The random sequence of raindrops falling onto the roof was beautiful, a symphony of noises which far from annoying, was surprisingly pleasant to listen to.
As she lay on her bed, she looked at her watch, still on her wrist, and realised that for the second day in a row, she had slept through the evening without eating, or rising to use the bathroom.
Shifting slightly in her bed, she became aware of a burning sensation in her finger, and winced as a spasm of abdominal cramp crept across her midriff.
Looking at her finger, she found no sign of a possible cause, and feeling gently with her hand along her chest and waist, prodding lightly, she discovered no obvious sign for her discomfort.
There was a knock on the door of the caravan.
Easing herself gently out of bed, and discovering she was still fully clothed from the night before, she stopped momentarily to examine herself in the mirror on the outside of the cupboard door, but realised there was nothing that could be done in the next few minutes to fix the disaster that was revealed in her reflection.
"Coming," she called en route to the door.
Upon opening it outwards to the world outside, she was not really surprised to find Lisa, who stepped up and pushed past Alessandra into the caravan without waiting to be invited.
"Do you want a cup of tea? I'm parched. I’ve just woken up..."
Alessandra wal
ked back past her, picked up the kettle and filled it underneath the tap.
"What did you do to me last night?" Lisa asked, not answering the question.
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean. What did you do? And how did you do it?"
Alessandra turned and faced her, and then quickly crossed the caravan and sat down on the chairs surrounding the table at its other end. She felt suddenly very tired. The pain in her abdomen was still niggling her, and the finger stung.
Without thinking about it, she rubbed the area around her lower abdomen with her right hand, and winced.
"I don't know if I'm ready for this..." she shook her head, "but for the sake of peace and quiet, what exactly are you referring to?"
Lisa sat down opposite and stared at her.
"You know! You did it!"
Alessandra shook her head.
"Lisa, to be a hundred percent honest with you, the past two days have been a blur. So, to answer your questions, one by one. No, I don't know what I've done. Or how I did it."
"How about this then?" Lisa said, lifting a finger and showing it to her. The forefinger of her left hand. The same finger which was hurting on Alessandra's hand.
Alessandra reached forward and pulled Lisa's hand closer. She rotated the finger close to her face and stroked it gently where the finger had been sliced open, but now was clean and intact. The same place where Alessandra's own finger was now hurting. Strangely though, as Alessandra stroked Lisa's finger, the pain in her own disappeared. Vanished.
"Wow..." Alessandra whistled.
Lisa was studying her intently. Not knowing what to make of Alessandra or her reaction.
"That's just for starters. Not only did you fix my finger, but I'm bleeding heavily. And it's because of you. I'm sure of it!"
"Where? Where are you bleeding? I can't see any blood."
"I'm having a period. For the first time in three years."
"What do you mean?"
"The doctor's told me I couldn't have children. That I'd never be able to get pregnant again... but I woke up last night with cramps, and... now I'm menstruating! I've been to the doctor. She sent me straight to Inverness. I've had a scan. Everything's normal inside again. NORMAL. And I'm having a period. How the hell did you do that?"
"Have you told Sally?"
"No. I came straight to you."
"So, you think you might be able to have kids now?"
"The doctor says it's probable. There's no sign of what was wrong with me before... she even questioned my notes... She thinks there must previously have been some sort of mix-up or mistake, but I told her there wasn't. I know, because I've already seen a thousand doctors, and they all said the same thing. No children. For goodness' sake, the last time I had a period was in South Africa, when I was still with Jeff!"
"Jeff?"
"My husband. We wanted children so much that when we found out we couldn't, it destroyed us. Which is when I started travelling. And why I've been running from myself ever since. Until now. Because of you."
"You can't be sure that this means anything..."
"Alice, don't fuck me around. You know you did something to me last night. We both sensed it. First you fixed my finger, and then, somehow, you reached deep inside me and fixed me. You fixed me!"
Tears were running down her cheeks, and she was sobbing.
Alessandra stood up, walked around the table and put her arms around her from behind.
She rocked her back and forward until the sobbing stopped, and Lisa dried her eyes.
"Tea?" Alessandra asked, backing away towards the kettle which had boiled and switched itself off.
She made two cups and brought them back to the table.
Lisa was staring at her, searching her eyes.
"Who are you? Really? And why are you really here?" she asked, quietly.
"Until a few days ago, until Robert, I thought I was me. And then yesterday I had this overwhelming urge to reach out to you and help you... to help fix you... to make you better... and now I don't know who I am. Or what's happening to me."
"Are you saying you couldn't do this before?"
"What's 'this'?"
"What you did to Robert, and me. You healed us."
Alessandra turned away and looked out of the window. Then she stood up and walked towards the door. Still fully dressed from the day before, she opened it and stepped down outside. Before she closed it, she popped her head back inside.
"Lisa, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what happened to you and Robert, but I can assure you that I'm not a healer. I’m going for a walk. I need to think. Promise me you won't tell anyone about this. Promise me."
Lisa nodded.
"I promise."
--------------------
Her walk took her to the shore, where she sat on a stone and gazed out over the Loch. Her mind was a mess. What the hell was going on? What was happening to her?
She thought of Robert and his leg, then Lisa and her finger. And then the sadness and darkness she had felt within her the night before, only to discover that Lisa now believed that Alessandra had somehow cured her of her infertility.
Maybe Robert was mad, and Lisa was too, ... maybe everyone in the Loch Ness Hilton was mad, including Alessandra! The problem was, though, that Alessandra had seen Robert's broken leg, and the cut in Lisa's finger, with her own eyes. They had been real.
She hadn’t imagined it.
A voice caught her off guard. A soft, quiet voice, inside her own head.
The voice of the monk.
"Bless you," it said, "for you are now blessed."
"FUCK!" Alessandra shouted aloud, into the wind."Blessed? How can I be blessed?"
Just then, as she looked out towards the loch, two humps seemed to emerge from the water. Almost as quickly, they both subsided, and Alessandra immediately saw that they were simply two waves, the sides of which appeared to be dark and could easily be mistaken for the back of a 'monster'.
"It's this place! It's driving me mad!" she shouted aloud again and then realised what she had to do. She had to get out of there as soon as possible. She had to get back to her life. She had to get back to reality. And who she really was.
By the time she got back to the caravan, Lisa had gone.
It took ten minutes for Alessandra to grab all her things and pack up her bags.
Within fifteen, she was in her car.
Driving.
She didn't have a plan. She didn't have a destination.
She just drove.
--------------------
Wednesday
Maharashtra
India
Advanced Cyber Team (ACT!)
ACT Indian Office
7.28 p.m. India Standard Time (IST)
The phone rang on Anand's desk, and he picked it up immediately.
"It's Ray. I've just spoken to Sapphire, and she has directed the following. I will contact DCI McKenzie through internal security channels and make him aware of the threat to his life. However, she has instructed us to take no further action on McNunn."
"But if someone accepts the hit, he'll be killed."
"McNunn is a threat to Scotland, and to the UK. He's been a thorn in the side of the establishment for years and you, more than anyone else, know he is a murderer and perhaps one of the top criminals in the UK. If the underworld want to take care of him permanently, Sapphire believes we should just let them do it. It's one job less for others to worry about."
"I understand."
"Good. Well spotted on McKenzie. I'll call him right now. Have a good evening."
Anand replaced the receiver on the hook.
He was glad action was being taken about McKenzie. He was a good man.
McNunn, on the other hand, would hopefully get everything that was coming to him.
Anand switched off the light and went home.
He'd sleep well this evening.
Chapter 17
Scotland
Wednesday
4.30 p.m.
Alessandra was sitting in her car facing the world famous Eilean Donan Castle, one of the most beautiful and scenic castles in the world. She had passed it several times on her way to and from Plockton, and had recognised it from films she had seen such as Highlander and Entrapment, in which the castle had provided a suitably impressive and mysterious background for the action.
She'd driven all the way from Loch Ness to here in a daze and had only started to become conscious of her surroundings when she'd seen the castle.
She'd turned off the road, into the car park, and found somewhere in the far corner facing the sea and as far away as possible from the rest of the tourists.
No one paid any attention to the woman sitting in her car, staring out across the sea, her mind full of thoughts.
Alessandra wound the windows down and breathed in the sea air. She could taste the salt.
She longed to be back at sea sailing with the wind, without a care in the world, and she realised that was where her subconscious was taking her: back to Plockton.
She needed space to think.
And she needed to plan.
She suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that she had just signed up for another contract, and that half the money was almost definitely already in her account. Not only must she go through the process of moving it to her other accounts as soon as possible, but she had to start planning how she was going to execute the assignment within the timeframes stipulated for the job.
The clock was now ticking.
There was no time to lose.
She had to focus.
No more pathetic, monster- chasing shit.
She smiled to herself.
Now she was away from the Loch Ness Hilton, she was pleased to see that she was already beginning to think more clearly.
"Okay," she thought to herself, "...so here's the plan. I check into a hotel, or rent another cottage in Plockton. I study everything I can find about DCI McKenzie from the web, read and learn everything that was in the McKenzie file I was sent from HitsForBits. I go sailing, spend a day considering options, then head down to Edinburgh to reconnoitre the city, observe the target and tweak or make a final plan..."
The Assassin's Gift Page 15