The breakthrough came as always, not with patience, attention to detail and hard work, but by pure chance. Sooner or later there is always a mistake, however small.
Miss Thrope's first mistake was in many ways one of her strongest characteristics. The ability to completely relax and embrace the moment. Not in the meditational sense of empty mind, where the mind is free to be everywhere, but free, in a spontaneous instant to seize the moment, and act powerfully without reservation. When Miss Thrope was in the Zone this was her constant state of being. Miss Thrope's first mistake was that in certain special circumstances, she left the Zone.
Her grandchildren were a joy. She loved her time with them, and this is where she let go. It was a casual by her, but not unnoticed remark about a salon where she had tried on a lovely little dress in Siena the day before. This information was repeated later that day when Arthur, the five-year old, was visiting a friend. Arthur, a rough and tumble boy who survived two volatile elder brothers, had a quiet and deep intelligence and was very observant. Whilst proudly recounting to his best friend the story of Grandma's new dress from Siena, he wasn't to know that the boy's father, delegated to watch the children play, was at that moment reading an agent’s report concerning Miss Thrope's Italian shopping trip.
The CEO only cared about results. He had strip mined and deforested entire planets. The assassin must be eliminated. He was not going to worry about the fate of a few children.
Twenty-Three
Earth - Scotland - Present
Miss Ann Thrope sat reading her book in the garden, overlooking the beautiful Scottish landscape. The cottage was high on a spur with views over a long valley to the crags, and snow-capped peaks beyond.
It was late spring of the same year. She had spent the morning pottering, pulling weeds from the cracks in the stone-paved path, and now she was relaxing, enjoying the evening sun, a superb glass of Malbec, and a good story. What a combination. In the distance she could hear the happy yells of the children playing. Idyllic.
Alberto Stiletto was frustrated. Communication was so easy with the neural net. It was almost like telepathy. Communication by thought. He needed to contact a good friend, and her neural net was disabled. Even he didn't know the secrets of Miss Ann Thrope. He was in Scotland and was pretty sure the team of mercenaries he was following did know. They must be a bunch of macho fools though. Hunting Miss Thrope with four-wheel drives, and guns with bullets, was the equivalent of hunting a tiger in the bush with only a bow and arrow and a switch blade. He felt comfort from the gun of some sort nestled in the passenger seat beside him, and keeping out of sight, both physically and with a cloaking device from the future, put the Bugatti into gear and carefully followed the convoy ahead.
Twenty-Four
Scotland
The glen had become unnaturally silent. Miss Thrope put down her book and looked up. Walking towards her was a giant. Well if seven feet tall was a giant. He was crouching slightly which gave him a rather a hunchbacked gait, and Miss Thrope went cold as she took in the picture. The giant walked towards her holding the hands of her two youngest grandchildren. Little Arthur and Suzanna walked along with faltering steps, unusually quiet, with faces tight, on the edge of tears. The loud clatter of the gun cocking behind her completed the moment. Her grandchildren's suffering forgotten, Miss Thrope entered the Zone.
Twenty-Five
Earth - Vietnam - 1967
She could feel the creatures invading her body. She knew leeches had adhered to her, and were feeding, though they anaesthetised the skin.
The noise of the Vietnam jungle was like musical thunder which meant they were doing okay. Any physical disturbance would create a silence that was deafening. They had been lying still, in waiting for two days. Buried in the undergrowth, concealed, unmoving but ever vigilant.
Next to her, unseen but his presence felt, was her teacher and mentor, Colonel Tim Bleacher.
Their paths had crossed in the sixties when she had briefly done some assignments for the English security forces and Tim had been on temporary assignment from his `regiment.’ He was an expert in jungle warfare, and she had somehow managed to persuade him to both train her, and take her on assignment.
Tim, truth be told, didn't need much persuading. Miss Thrope as she was known even in those distant days, and young as she was, was quite the most efficient and lethal killer he had ever encountered, and over a long career he had trained many. Yet despite her ruthless talent she was thoroughly charming, fresh and cultured, a breath of fresh air.
Miss Thrope breathed in and breathed out. Perfectly still and perfectly ready she watched the approaching Vietcong troop. Like ghosts, these guerrilla fighters moved through the misty evening. Like Apache she thought, totally at one with their environment, and leaving no trace of their passing.
That was her first mission in a three-year stretch. Being in charge of covert ops, Colonel Bleacher didn't find it too difficult to conceal that a member of his team was a woman. With all his years of combat he never felt so safe in the field as when Miss Ann Thrope was covering his back, or so he had once confessed after several bottles of Chivas Regal, in a backstreet bar in Saigon. It was her proudest moment.
Twenty-Six
Scotland
"May I call you Ann?"
The voice was melodious and high, which was odd coming from such an enormous frame. The giant was heavily bearded. A high domed forehead rose over deep set piercing eyes. His nose was just a gash above a mouth of even black teeth. He wore a skimpy costume of shiny metallic fabric, with a bright red chest plate and matching red boots. His arms and legs were covered in pale green fur.
Why does everyone want to be so familiar? Miss Thrope was thinking, but out loud in her confident voice, she said, "You dye that fur, I presume?"
Even though he was holding onto her grandchildren, and she was seemingly unarmed, she could sense the giant's nervousness.
She still didn't know what or who was behind her. With a thought, she activated the neural net. No boot up time with Stiletto's systems, instantly she was on line. The concealed security system showed her images from all about the estate, and far above, the NASA satellite gave an aerial view. It was surprising what an organisation like NASA would do for you with a secret investment in their technical programs and a certain nudge in some developmental areas.
She took in the team of mercenaries and smiled, noting the cleverly concealed Bugatti in the copse by the loch. All this took place within a fraction of a second, and she didn't have time to assess the messages her friend had left her, but thought an instant hello, and sent all the data she had reviewed for his assistance.
Twenty-Seven
Earth - Kyoto - 1604
"Call me Ann."
Miss Ann Thrope was sat comfortably for dinner in the famous restaurant overlooking Central Park in Manhattan.
Her date, or as far as he was concerned, her client, was a nondescript man with plastic spectacles and short tidy hair, wearing an immaculately cut pinstriped worsted suit, from one of the finest tailors on West 57th.
The CEO, brilliant though he was in his field, couldn't manage relationships. He had no family to speak of. He didn't have the warmth and empathy to make a connection. Still, he had needs, and in each major city in the 'Verse there were services that could supply a special kind of escort, sophisticated enough to discuss any range of culture and politics, talented enough to play Mozart or jazz, beautiful enough to please the eye, and artful enough to fulfil his sexual requirements.
Oddly enough, the little anonymous Japanese man who now benefitted from his business connections with the CEO was the ancestor and inheritor of the most famous "Tea House," or pleasure house from Kyoto, Japan.
Miss Thrope's mind has been drifting to similar thoughts. For it was at that very geisha house in Gion that her friend and mentor, Konami, occasionally went to talk and meet with his peers, the great daimyos, feudal lords, and Samurai of seventeenth century Japan.
For
Konami was the greatest sword smith of his generation. Tending the souls of the Samurai.
Long ago, as a young woman, Miss Thrope had sought him out. Of course, she could never appear in public, never mind at a geisha house. Women in medieval Japan, if they circled in the life of a great man like Konami, would either be a dutiful Samurai wife, a servant or a geisha. As a white European she would literally be a giant in a land of midgets, almost as incongruous as Gulliver in Lilliput. There were a few European priests and freebooters in Japan at this time but no women.
The first time she had gone to see him, she had just been waiting, kneeling in a deep bow, wearing a simple peasant’s kimono, in Konami's workshop. She had prepared thoroughly and had consulted Alberto Stiletto, an expert in ancient cultures, starting a lifelong friendship. She had spent several years mastering modern Japanese, and then found a hermit in the mountains who thought her a sorceress, and mastered fluency in the medieval tongue, whilst in the privacy of his remote retreat.
She knew she risked instant death, but gambled on the famous wisdom and deep spiritual love, for which this great Master was reputed. For Konami was a great artisan, philosopher, and Tea Master, and was sought out by the great men of this first Tokugawa Shogunate.
Konami was a master of many things. It was his mastery of the art of Zen that allowed him to exist in a state of no mind. The art Miss Thrope would study and learn from her mentor, leading her to what she thought of as the Zone.
To a true Master there is no on or off, there just is. The old man entered the shuttered room. He could feel the energy. Silent he stood, adjusting to the gloom, taking in the prostrate figure on the tatami. The old man sensed the warrior before him. Unlike that ruffian, Takezo, he felt the calmness, the beautiful spirit, the awareness of death, and yet a tremendous alien nature of this strange giant.
And so, it began. She went to ask for a blade. She found instead, a Father, a mentor, a guide and a friend.
Twenty-Eight
Scotland
Like a flower opening, the blood welled around the hilt of the blade embedded in the giant's throat. Involuntarily, the creature’s great hands released the children, clasping together, as he fell to his knees as if in prayer. Like an explosion spiraling out from the centre of a new born universe, Miss Thrope launched into being.
Twenty-Nine
Kyoto - 1609
She had been lucky in life. To have met and been accepted by great mentors. From Konami she had learnt to master her inner self, to live truly in the moment, both in terms of experiencing the magic but also in the art of true spontaneity. She had studied all the great classics that had survived including the famous treatise from the Zen Master to the Sword Master, both living contemporaries of Konami. However, you can't learn this wisdom from a book. It has always been a direct transmission from Master to student.
In the privacy of his home and workshop she had come to master many ways. With wooden bokken he had taught her Kenjutsu, the art of sword fighting, and with his own katanas, Iaijutsu, the art of the living blade. He was a fine swordsman, although not in the same league as some of his friends and pupils.
Cold winter evenings were spent learning the fine nuances and inflections of the Tea Ceremony.
It was a strange relationship. She never understood how Konami could accept her existence without the need to question her. She never discussed her origins or life with him.
The Japanese art of sword making made the finest blades known in human history, thanks to the sword-smith’s art, of folding the steel many times to create tremendous strength and a blade of unparalleled sharpness. Only surpassed by the future iridium blades, said to be sharp enough to cut the fabric of the universe. Konami was one of the greatest proponents of this art.
One day Miss Thrope brought him an unusual blade, originating from Italy. An assassin's blade, a stiletto. She asked him to make her two pairs. One pair she kept for personal use. The other she presented to her friend, who took his name from the knife, as a birthday present. She always had a wry smile, when she thought of the curator of Japanese Art and Antiquities at the British Museum, and what he would say if one ever came into his hands. An impossibility of time and place.
Thirty
Scotland
The Merk was confident. The whole team of assassins had been briefed. The woman was supposed to be lethal. He had served for thirty years and had fought in many combat zones both here and out there. He saw the old lady sat with her book and couldn't see what all the fuss was about. That was his first mistake.
He had approached silently as the Gojxk came up with the Thrope woman's infant family. As he positioned behind her, he cocked his weapon. Suddenly the whole world went to hell.
Faster than his eye could see, the woman had produced a knife and thrown it straight into the throat of the Gojxk. The Merk felt the surge of adrenaline as his finger began to tighten on the trigger, but before he could apply any more pressure, his world stopped. The last thing he thought was, how beautiful, and yet terrifying, were the two eyes staring into his, and then there was nothing.
Thirty-One
Scotland
Alberto Stiletto felt the sweat sting in his eyes and the midges biting into his skin. That was the problem with Scotland at this time of year. His blue paisley silk waistcoat and bright yellow cravat were hardly camouflage gear, but things had happened all rather rapidly. He had been moving silently through the woodland bordering the east side of the loch. He smiled, remembering the majestic antler spread of the great stag he had silently encountered. He didn't know which of them had been more surprised.
Now, seeing a Merk ahead in the trees, like a Korean henchman in an old spy movie, he removed his bowler hat, and held the rim firmly in his strong fingers. The Merk up ahead had his back to Stiletto, and with casual aim he threw the specially modified hat like a Frisbee. The Merk died without a yell, the razor-sharp rim embedded in the back of his neck. Unfortunately, the man had not been alone and the tree beside Stiletto erupted into a mass of flying chips and splinters as the silenced bullets ripped into it in angry bursts. The silence of the forest was broken by an explosion of wings in the canopy, and the smell of cordite drifted on the evening breeze.
Thirty-Two
Scotland
A part of her awareness, almost in the background, simultaneously heard the exploding beat of wings from the copse by the loch whilst the neural net showed the infrared images of moving bodies under the trees, and firing weapons, relayed from the circling satellite. She had scooped up the screaming Arthur and Suzanna and was running towards the house. She knew there was trouble waiting for her, the system was even supplying names next to the images she was receiving; an advantage of photo recognition software sold to a gullible public in this time to help sort their photo collections, and used by the computer giants and security services as one of their most valuable tools. Stiletto's future time network was incredibly sophisticated, and hacked into secret systems on a million worlds.
Arriving at the house, she pulled open the hinged door on the coal cellar, fortunately clear of Merks, and dropped her two grandchildren into its unlit depths like unwanted sacks of coal.
Thirty-Three
Kyoto - 1614
It was inevitable.
In the land of the black robed assassin, the experts in covert operations in medieval Japan, that at some point, Miss Thrope's special abilities would come up in conversation. It was many years as Konami's student before a slight relaxation in their relationship became possible. Despite the impossibly unusual situation of being a woman, a giant, and a gaijin, in no particular order, Miss Thrope was an able and assiduous student. Still, the Master student relationship was almost a sacred bond. With time there was a slight relaxation in etiquette, and with a long time, friendship. Any student of Japanese history would recognise this as impossible, but achieving the impossible was Miss Thrope's stock in trade.
Silently she waited on the outside of the paper shoji, the sliding s
creen that was all that functioned as inner walls within the safety of the castle. In a land of earthquakes, wood and paper were standard construction materials that allowed rapid repair, although they were a terrible fire risk.
She had negotiated the nightingale floor, that sung it's warning of intruders, with silent skill. It was one of the most difficult entries she had made, and she gave a silent thank you that the security systems of the future didn't engage such simple physical, yet sophisticated measures.
Holding the tanto calmly in her steady hand she slid open the shoji screen, and stepped into the darkness. The samurai within awoke instantly, his hand naturally feeling for his sword. Flowing like liquid darkness Miss Thrope had the chisel-like tip of her blade pressed into his throat, enough to draw blood but not to pierce the taut skin. Quietly in fluent Japanese, her Kyoto dialect perfect, she asked the question prepared for her. Unafraid of death but terrified of betraying his lord the warrior struck out powerfully. Miss Thrope's beautiful and deadly Konami blade pushed deep through the throat, piercing the spinal column between vertebrae, and out of the back of the neck, into the straw tatami, which soaked up the sudden rush of blood.
Assassin: Ann Thrope Series Book 1 Page 4