Seventh
Lewis Hastings
Contents
By Lewis Hastings
Are you a thriller seeker?
Prologue
I. Part One: Summer 2014
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
Part Two: Summer 2002
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
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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Also by Lewis Hastings
Reader reviews
This edition published in Great Britain in 2020
by Hobeck Books Limited, Unit 14, Sugnall Business Centre, Sugnall, Stafford, Staffordshire, ST21 6NF
www.hobeck.net
Copyright © Lewis Hastings 2014, 2017, 2020
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in this novel are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Lewis Hastings has asserted his right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright holder.
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-913-793-14-2 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-913-793-13-5 (ebook)
Cover design by Jem Butcher
http://www.jembutcherdesign.co.uk
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Seventh logo © Russell Budden
Created with Vellum
By Lewis Hastings
From the Seventh Wave trilogy:
Seventh
Seven Degrees
Seven of Swords
The fourth Jack Cade novel:
The Angel of Whitehall
Autobiography:
Actually, The World Is Enough
Are you a thriller seeker?
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For my dear father Peter – it was during the last few golden days and hours we spent together that you insisted I wrote this and the subsequent series of Jack Cade novels. Your support, passion and pride was endless. I so wish you could have been here to enjoy them – I hope they have a library in heaven, and you are able to get this story out on loan, as I know you would never have paid for it…
This is for you – in loving memory
1934–2014
Step forward now, policeman,
You’ve borne your burdens well.
Come walk a beat on Heaven’s streets,
You’ve done your time in hell.
Anon.
We will that all men know we blame not all the lords, nor all those that are about the king’s person, nor all gentlemen nor yeomen, nor all men of law…but all such as may be found guilty by just and true inquiry and by the law.
Jack Cade
Rebel Leader
England
Prologue
Craiova, Romania, February 2002
She was stood at the double height window, staring onto the street below. Her breath, fast but measured, was steaming up the glass and creating a spectral haze as she exhaled. Seconds later the glass cleared, offering a view back out onto the almost deserted road.
The streets were quieter than normal; there was a threat of snow in the air. A few random solitary flakes fluttered from the sky and into the amber glow emitted from the street lamps. The chilled nocturnal air created a halo around the lamps which stood guarding the approach to the magnificent historic building in which she found herself, trapped.
She forced herself not to shed a tear.
Part of her wished he had slapped her forcibly across the face. At least that way she would be visibly afraid, rather than the current sense of hidden, nauseating terror that absorbed her.
Then, the extreme cold of the deep winter night would soon enhance the bitter sting that would have formed upon her left cheekbone, but she would recover, within an hour it would have dissipated, leaving only another psychological scar.
It always ended like this.
He had pushed her to the edge once more, teasing, playing with her; not dissimilar to a mocking, darting mongoose. A small yet skilful animal, daring, almost challenging the cobra to strike, until slowly he had lured her in, closer, more intensely until she could close her eyes once more and relax, feel his breath upon her face and then his alcohol-soaked tongue licking the side of her neck.
She would once more give way, give in and want him.
This was when the punch would come – literally. This time it was delivered powerfully, up and under her left ribcage with enough force to take her breath away and probably crack the lowest bone, a bone that defied the attacker’s attempt to rupture her spleen.
It was what he did best, combining intense pleasure with cruel and endless punishment, and yet she clung onto the relationship – as so many women do. It had been years now.
She had met him in 1987, almost stereotypically, in a crowded bar. The bar in question was called Byzantin and was in the medical district of Bucharest, which was the place to see and be seen during the late eighties.
He was sinister yet captivating. Like the proverbial moth to the flame she was drawn to the light, ignoring the growing sense of heat and palpable danger.
Having left home in Sofia a few days before, she had crossed into Romania, travelling across the Danube Bridge at Giurgiu without interruption, and once across the border had hitchhiked her way nonchalantly to the Romanian capital.
Her father Yosif forbid it, telling her at great length that it would lead her into the lion’s den. He old her; he pleaded with her, explained at great length how a similar journey had destroyed his life once already.
The repeated threats achieved only a sustained resistance and an enhanced desire to experience everything he had warned her against.
Despite the warnings and despite everything, Petrov left home, saying farewell to a potentially stellar role in the Bureau of Statistics and a motherland which many believed offered a higher degree of safety than her intended destination.
In reality, both nations were emerging from many years of communism, like inquisitive bear cubs finding their respective feet after hibernating through a long and arduous wint
er.
He shook his head solemnly. She was just like her bloody mother.
Her mother was called Simona Petrov and she had died in 2001, the result of post-surgery complications. She was an exquisitely beautiful woman, five foot ten with piercing green eyes and equally dramatic red hair. Her death was neither marked with sorrow nor recognition.
She was an extremely rare commodity in a part of the world that celebrated striking women. It was a pity her husband was as mundane, both in his professional life as a senior government employee, as he was in his personal life.
He gave her everything she could possibly require in an emerging communist state, yet failed to reward her ceaseless quest for affection and so wholly unannounced she walked away from him one spring afternoon.
She was unable to confide in anyone about the fact that she had fallen hopelessly in love with a handsome but low-ranking pharmacist, three years her junior but wiser in so many ways. They had spent the summer months schooling each other in the art of seduction and lovemaking – when and wherever they were able to.
It was the thrill of being caught that drove them to seek out new locations, the more daring the better, when even covert love affairs were heavily frowned upon by society and importantly, the state.
Time would prove that the risks were taken without consideration of the consequences. The local authorities were alerted by a conscientious dog walker who had interrupted them one Sunday afternoon in the Park Borisova Gradina.
The autumn leaves had acted as a natural alarm system, warning the couple of approaching walkers, but this day their passion had overwhelmed them as they sank into the bronze carpet of decaying foliage, lying in the shadows of their magnificent benefactors and giving no thought to the consequence of being caught. They were deep in woodland, yet in the heart of a major city.
It was thrilling beyond belief.
Somehow she had escaped, running through the maze of trees, semi-naked and seeking refuge even deeper in the Beech forest. She waited until eleven, emerged under a moonless sky and blended fully clothed with the foot traffic before heading home and quietly getting into bed.
The next morning, she maintained a state of normality. Her husband kissed her frigidly on the cheek and left for work, oblivious or possibly aware and either unwilling to confront her or, more importantly, unwilling to contend with the price of failure.
She was frantic; unable to enquire about her lover who was now incarcerated, stripped of his position within the Faculty of Chemistry and facing at least a five-year sentence for an act against public decency.
Petrov’s family had learned of the betrayal three days later and forced her husband to cast her out into the world without a support network.
He had no choice, though desperately in love he had to sever all ties with her. As his secretary general had calculatingly reminded him, his career and reputation depended upon it.
The twenty-four-year old now estranged wife of an older and well-respected government official decided that her future lay in bordering Romania – it was not without risk, but she spoke the language and she had nothing left to lose.
She had been told stories of hope and of compassion after gathering some possessions she attempted to say goodbye to her own family. They too rejected her and so the next evening she headed north in the back of an asthmatic van loaded precariously with farm supplies.
She wasn’t alone; a new life was growing rapidly inside her. Contrary to everyone’s preconceived ideas, the child was not the result of one of her many clandestine meetings in a woodland glade but rather the consequence of a brief Sunday morning interlude with her husband, still drunk from the night before and vulnerable to her advances.
Quite what a life her unborn child would have, was as unknown as the timing of her next meal, or for that matter the next compassionate act.
She drew her coat up around her neck, tucked her knees into the foetal position, and eventually slipped into a disturbed sleep as the driver continued north on the two-hundred-kilometre journey. The roads were remote and poorly maintained; as a result, the journey took six hours.
The driver was in his sixties. For a brief glimpse of her naked breasts and twenty-five Levs he was prepared to take her to a safe location where a friend had a boat.
She obliged. It was a currency she was prepared to exchange.
He was more than happy; he hadn’t seen such an exquisite body in forty years and the image of her in the back of his van, her blouse unbuttoned and revealing, had entertained him enough. Thankfully, he wanted no more and ironically appeared to be a man of morals.
At dawn the next day the van stopped. She heard voices outside and strained to hear the conversation. She shivered involuntarily; either the cool morning or fear, or probably both had caused this.
As agreed, the driver banged on the panel that separated them. It was the signal for her to leave. He asked that she didn’t look at him when she departed. Perhaps he was ashamed?
She left a small amount of money on top of a box of carrots. It was the least she could do. She would need more for the next journey, and she was cautious about revealing just how much she had. It was money that she had secreted from her husband and until she could find a new source of income, it was all she had to her name.
The van turned around and headed back towards Montana.
She stood alone at the side of the Danube in a northern provincial town called Kozloduy. In half an hour she would be met by a local fisherman who had agreed to take her across the Danube and along the Jiu River towards Craiova, the largest city in the region and the sixth largest in Romania.
A sum of money changed hands. The fisherman was evidently unaware of the previous ‘business arrangement’ as he didn’t once look at her with licentious eyes. He spoke briefly, offered her bread and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
The small boat navigated across the Danube and then began the long journey, threading its way across the Romanian countryside.
Simona Petrov was eventually and somewhat unexpectedly the recipient of good fortune. Craiova provided her with an opportunity. She met a Bulgarian man whilst buying rudimentary foodstuffs, their eyes locked for a little longer than comfortable, and yet they both knew that there was a degree of chemistry, a raw sense of something primitive that neither could explain.
He was a man who would succeed in making her content. In exchange for the inevitable physical relationship that would follow her childbirth, he supported her, providing her with food and warmth and importantly the love she craved so heavily.
She could ask for no more. And she didn’t. She had at last found happiness with a man who accepted her and incredibly, her unborn child.
They would start to create a life in a country which was bucking the trend of Eastern European nations and one which was forging its own links outside of the Iron Curtain, links with Western Europe and a brighter future.
In 1970 she gave birth to a very healthy daughter. At nearly nine pounds she was quite the heaviest child any female in her family had delivered, but she was tall and slender and her green eyes were like opals, glistening in a sandstone vault. She had a healthy head of hair; chestnut, tinged in places with streaks of natural red.
She would name her after the man who had become her saviour, who had offered her shelter and the base necessities of life; her redeemer was called Niko, and his adopted daughter would be known as Nikolina.
Her mother promised herself she would not expose her daughter’s origins unless pressed; choosing instead to pursue the status quo and portray a background entwined around Romanian genealogy.
Nikolina spent her formative years in Romania, learning the language and maintaining her own mother tongue. She learned Russian too, and English and Serbian. She was a bright girl who soon created a reputation as a bold and rather extrovert young lady.
In 1985, and much to her mother’s shock, Nikolina enquired about her family history. Having studied the nation, its people and its cultur
e at school, she finally asked the decisive question of her mother; would she allow her the opportunity to return to Bulgaria?
At the age of fifteen and against her mother’s better judgement, she travelled back to Sofia and met with her father. Despite the sense of betrayal on both sides of the equation, Nikolina and her natural father became close. He soon found that through her he could recount the happier days with her mother after all, she he looked incredibly like her.
He explained how much he regretted not pursuing their marriage and how, despite common opinion, he still deeply loved her. He also found his daughter’s company to be especially fulfilling.
They sat for hours, talking back and forth in differing languages, interchanging to try to outwit one another and laughing at the schoolboy mistakes that her father made when transitioning from Bulgarian to Russian.
As a challenge and for no other reason, they both learned rudimentary Turkish too. He played chess with her relentlessly until one day she finally allowed him to draw with her.
Seventh (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 1) Page 1