Jim and Mary retired a little while ago. They live in the Moorish styled bungalow, built especially for them in the grounds of ‘Tranquillity’. One of my God-daughters has taken over the main house, along with her husband and young daughter, whose chronic asthma has much improved in the dry warm air of Andalucia. My other God-daughter, and her young sons, have taken over the ‘Beach’ House, in Southern Devon.
I must point out that neither of my God-daughters have any involvement or have any knowledge of ‘Family’ business – they just think of me as a kind benevolent ‘Uncle’ to them both. But, I digress – mustn’t forget our American Cousins.
Burl and Merl, who I met back in Vietnam, operate out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Burl is our pilot, and Merl takes care of ground transportation – they both also ‘take care’ of other things, when required. Robin and Jennifer, former agents with the Special Activities Division of the CIA, work out of the Bay View Apartment Penthouse, in San Francisco. Even though, for appearances sake, they had both kept their relationship with each other discreet – they had still been ’cashiered’ from the SAD Division of the CIA. Still, their loss – the CIA’s loss that is – was to be our gain, when Phil N…Jnr had approached me and had asked if I could find suitable ‘work’ for them both – which I most certainly did.
Mentioning Phil N…Jnr brings me on to our vast network of associates. My own personal list of associates and contacts is vast: from General Aaron D…to General Dmitri K…; from His Royal Highness Prince H…to Salvatore ‘Sal’ G…; the ensuing decades have expanded a complete and comprehensive network of associates and contacts – all of whom I class as dear friends. The same can be said of other members of the Family. Patrick has associates in Australia and New Zealand, Washington DC and Capitol Hill. Jean-Luke has associates in both France and Canada – and so on and so forth. Each Family member has their own associates and contacts – each adding to the total global network of associates and contacts accessible to the Family, as a whole.
***
And what part does my beautiful wife Anne have to play in all this – none!
Anne – my most beloved dearest wife. My closest friend…my lover – my soul mate. For five short years, we had the most blissful of lives together. We had laughter. We had fun. We had happiness. Then, one dark and dismal day, at approximately twenty minutes past three, on the afternoon of the Friday 18th January 1974, a drunk in a 4x4 Land Rover killed her and our unborn son, while she had sat patiently in her car waiting at traffic lights.
Some might think that it had been this traumatic tragedy that had turned me into the monster that I am – but they would be quite wrong. No – I was born a monster. I had been born into that state of Devine Innocence and Grace – as are all infants. Not hampered or hindered at birth with that cumbersome and wearisome burden of good and evil – right or wrong. It is our formative years that mould our character, define our personality and fashion the structure of our morals and conscience. It is just that my formative years were substantially different from the average child…the average adolescent.
Like all infants, I was born into that state of Devine Innocence and Grace, not knowing good from evil – it was my formative years that made me the latter.
THE END
If not – read on….
Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family Page 44