ASSASSIN

Richard Weale

LAUNCH TEAM EDITION

Contents

Prologue

1. Parallel Universe - Present

2. Space

3. Earth - Bristol - Present Day

4. Space - Alpha Centauri

5. Earth - Portugal - Present

6. Earth - London - Present Day

7. Space - The Crystal City

8. Space - The Station

9. The Station

10. Horse Head Nebula - Sunshine

11. London

12. Earth - Paris - Present Day

13. Sunshine

14. The Crystal City

15. Space

16. Sunshine

17. Earth - Surrey - Present Day

18. London - The Savoy

19. Earth - Amsterdam - 2059

20. Space

21. Space

22. Space

23. Earth - Scotland - Present

24. Scotland

25. Earth - Vietnam - 1967

26. Scotland

27. Earth - Kyoto - 1604

28. Scotland

29. Kyoto - 1609

30. Scotland

31. Scotland

32. Scotland

33. Kyoto - 1614

34. Scotland

35. Earth - New York - Present

In The Ann Thrope Series

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Prologue

The sound of the explosion was deafening. A head that reminded her of red jelly appeared for a brief second, then vanished into scarlet mist. Miss Ann Thrope gently squeezed her trigger and another Mercenary evaporated. She never really understood the technical function of the futuristic weapons her friend from the future provided, just that they worked.

Whipping around with a lightning speed that belied her appearance, she casually erased three more. That’s how she saw this space pistol, or ray gun as she told it to her grandchildren at their bedtime stories, like an eraser, rubbing out a smudge on her beautiful pencil drawings.

Racing ahead at breakneck speed she dived low under the incoming fire, and into a roll as her Eraser led before her, sending a volley of precision shots into the concealed hard-bitten Mercenaries trying to pin her down with their targeted bursts.

Silently Miss Thrope edged her way down the dimly lit metallic corridor. In this future age, in a distant galaxy, security was controlled by the Station, which was almost sentient. In this distant future every surface, space, temperature gradient, any physical parameter was controlled and monitored by the Station.

The only possible way to be covert was with the use of very special counter technology; physical hacking. She walked down the corridor with complete confidence of, in essence, being an invisible, undetectable, physical virus.

That was her first mistake.

The creature that sank its huge claws into her shoulder pulled her backwards. Also sentient, it paused just a little too long before sinking its scything jaws into its victim.

Having dropped her blaster, Miss Thrope was surviving purely on instinct. The long-bladed stiletto from her wrist sheath appeared in her hand, and she thrust it behind her, through the soft flesh below the monster’s jaw, aiming for its tongue. With a roar of pain, the great leviathan reared back, opening up her shoulder wound, and nearly tearing her other arm out of its socket.

The smell of rotting flesh from the creature’s open maw nearly overpowered her. Its teeth were as long as her arm, and its slitted yellow eyes radiated venom. Ignoring the terrible pain in both shoulders she took an incendiary grenade from her harness, then activated it with her neural net. Her friend’s grenades were very sophisticated. She picked `bang,’ on a scale from one to ten, of two. With the beast’s next roar, she casually threw it down its throat.

Should have picked one, she thought as she limped down the metal passageway, completely deafened, and covered in ribbons of stinking flesh.

One

Parallel Universe - Present

Miss Ann Thrope had found an edge of the universe. A parallel universe. It wasn’t readily apparent because it looked the same. The street in front of her, the seedy bar like any seedy bar on 21st century Earth, seemed continuous. That’s why it looked the same. Anything fast couldn’t cross the gap, like bullets or a speeding car, but if one was to casually saunter, one might not even be aware that the gap had been crossed.

Covertly she entered the bar. Looking about, she was aware that there was more of a difference than in time.

The barman polished a glass and watched the woman sitting alone at a table in the corner sipping her drink. She stood out like a sore thumb, not because of her garish outfit, black and purple silk string dress, orange combat boots, small silver skulls on a chain around her neck. After all this bar did cater to an unusual clientele, but her skin colour, it was pink. All the rest of his customers had flesh that was shades of green.

She sat at the table enjoying her drink and pretending to read the newspaper. Sensing a change, a ripple of tension in the room, she knew the Mark had arrived. There seemed to be a quiet oasis of calm around her, although the bar itself was heaving. The noise level was off the scale, raucous music, shouting, laughter, conversation, video screens. Near her a group of old men were playing a game that looked like nine spot dominoes. The Mark had joined the table and was being dealt into the game. Behind him towered two guards; hard men with subtle bulges in the right places in their jackets.

Getting up from her table, she placed the newspaper down, and wandered towards the exit, taking a path that would pass by the game.

The Mark, Harold Brickman, warlord, watched the strange lady with the skull necklace cross the room.

As she made her way through the heaving bar, she walked in clear sight. She knew the Mark was aware of her. His eyes were looking straight at her, and she gave him her most winning smile. The Mark returned her smile. Technology was all very well but simplicity was best. She noticed the two guards behind him hadn’t focused on her in the same way, knowing that would be to her advantage. They were a type she recognized. Smart haircuts, clean shaven, designer suits, dead eyes. As she drew level with the table, she caused the dealer to drop the tile he was passing to the Mark. Just a manipulation of the space-time continuum trick she had learnt from her friend, Lord Stiletto, when they had visited the famous casinos in the Julian Constellation.

As the Mark reached forward to pick up the tile, she reached a hand into her corset, and removed the thin blade concealed amongst its ribs. Then casually leaning over, she slid it un-noticed into the neck of the Mark. Carrying on past, she was a step beyond before his head smashed into the table top, scattering tiles in all directions.

Cat-like, the two guards whirled to face her, drawing their guns. The quicker of the two, although bulkier than his partner, already had his barrel pointing at the strange woman when his pupils dilated in surprise at the gun of some sorts in her steady hand. A narrow beam of light went through his pupil, and before he could sense that the eye was blind, the energy expanded within his brain and he no longer sensed anything.

His friend was lucky. Despite years of training and combat experience, the sudden explosion of his buddy’s head right next to him distracted him for a brief second, and when he turned back to the assassin, she had gone.

Two

Space

“When we played our charade…”

The words of the song hung in the air. “When we played our charade.” It was all tumbling down around his shoulders. Tied to the beautiful glass table, Charlie Smith, conman and chancer, ruminated on the vagaries of life. The caper had been a good one. Complicated, it was true, but that had been the beauty of it. Picking The Man, as their victim, that had been their first mistake.

Many years ago, he had received good advice. Wisdom, from a cell mate on a prison asteroid. Not that he realised it at the time. “Don’t mess with a force of nature. Not unless you are determined and able to deal with everything that comes, with the utmost conviction.”

Well, The Man, and his empire, that hung around him like smoke clouds around a volcano, was a force of nature.

How quickly it had all gone wrong. Now he had been left to contemplate. In a way, that was the start of the torture. The imagination, the little drop of fear and terror running around in his brain.

Utter darkness, and then, there was light, and then it began….

The Man rinsed his hands in the ebony sink, washing away the blood and the lingering distaste. Goddamn punks. Trying to scam Him. Would they never learn? Still he had to make an example, or they would all be trying it.

A message awoke in his ear, “Boss, trouble at table three.”

He nodded to the maid. She was very efficient. He knew on his return the corpse would be gone, and his dining table left spotless.

A mature lady, impeccably dressed, seemed to be a little flustered as she conversed with the croupier.

“Well young man,” she spoke in her strange off world accent. “I placed my chip on the red, my ball came in, where are my winnings?”

The croupier tried to explain the rules of the house. The lady was obviously getting upset and there was a crowd drawing around and murmuring. No one wanted to see an elegant lady of a certain age treated badly.

The Man, himself a masterclass in elegance and couture, gave a little bow and asked the lady if there was anything he could do to help.

“It’s all been too much.” She sighed and, taking a beautiful delicate handkerchief from her sleeve and wiping away a tear, “never in all my travels…”

The unfinished sentence hung in the air as The Man considerately picked up her dropped handkerchief.

That was his first mistake.

Three

Earth - Bristol - Present Day

Two new contracts successfully completed. Miss Ann Thrope was feeling more than a little pleased with herself, sipping her glass of Sauvignon Blanc with a sigh of satisfaction. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon, and she was enjoying the English sunshine. She loved this time of year, and there were some darling boutiques in Clifton Village she might stroll to later. She was sitting on the terrace of a hotel on the rim of the wonderful Avon Gorge. The river sparkled far below, and Brunel’s great iron bridge spanned the expanse.

Her diary enabled her to keep track of her engagements in her own time on Earth. Being a Master of the space-time continuum, she was able to go anywhere in time and space, but it required a high degree of organisation. Checking it now, she saw that she was free for a while and contemplated a tour of the rings of Saturn. It was so marvellous to be able to nip off to the future and experience the wonders of the universe. She deserved a rest; after all, life wasn’t all work and no play.

As careful as she was, she was unaware that she was under surveillance.

It was easy for Ferret to hack into the primitive Earth spy satellites to use them to monitor her. For the last week they had been following her all over the planet. Weasel glanced at Ferret as he uploaded the report. He looked at Miss Thrope on the sun filled terrace, thinking, Yes, enjoy your wine, whilst you can.

Four

Space - Alpha Centauri

Stoat was the muscle.

He made up the team of three. Two hundred kilos and well honed. He was shabby in an elegant way. His suit was quality but ill cared for and so he stood out. He could have been good. He was kind to kittens and his old gran, but all things considered, Stoat was not very nice.

The three of them were drinking slammers in a dingy bar on one of the slave moons near Alpha Centauri. Huddled in an alcove away from the noise and the product. This was the kind of bar where credits could satisfy the most perverted of tastes.

“Get anything useful?”

“Plenty about shoes. I’m thinking of going into the fashion business.”

“Taking the piss?”

“Yes. She pops up, on the radar, so to speak. Lunches, shops, goes to galleries. Cities and towns all over the planet. Always cute places.”

“What ya mean, cute?” cut in Ferret.

Weasle hesitated, picked up the bottle, then poured another round of drinks. “You know. Old buildings, postcard landscapes, you know, cute.”

Five

Earth - Portugal - Present

Miss Thrope gazed across the bay as the little boats glinted on the water. She loved the Amalfi coast in the fall. She had just enjoyed a delicious luncheon of small fresh fish delicately cooked with local vegetables, accompanied by a wonderful glass of Soave, the dry white Italian wine exciting her refined palate. Life was definitely full of magic. She felt the Mediterranean sun on her skin and luxuriated in its warmth.

It wasn’t just the shadow that took away her warmth, it was the unusual smell. Not otherworldly, but not of this world. Springing upwards like an exploding vortex, she casually took a fine china plate, smashed it on the table edge, then holding it firmly in her elegant hand, glided it through the crease of the throat just above where you’d expect to find an Adam’s apple. Blood erupted in a spray that quite ruined her beautiful new dove grey dress, covering her face in a fine patina of red mist.

All around her diners screamed as tables, chairs and fine china crashed in the ensuing panic. Making sure she had her bag, Miss Thrope ran to the edge of the quay and dived into the tranquil water.

A small child, forgotten by his panicked mother, watched the surface where the funny lady had dived in, waiting for her to pop back up like a seagull, but the water stayed mirror calm, and hearing the frantic sobs above him, he went to put a comforting hand on his mother’s knee.

Six

Earth - London - Present Day

Miss Ann Thrope stood back to admire the picture. One of the most amazing musical artists of the last half century had died recently and the family had put his private art collection up for sale at Sotheby’s, one of the Earth’s great auction houses.

A particular painting had caught her fire. A beautiful oil positioned on its own in the corner. A bold modern canvas with strong primary colours that spoke to her deeper self. This show was just the preview for the auction. A short showing of a selection of the musician’s paintings, sculptures and furniture. He had a very eclectic choice she thought. The full show was in three months, followed by the auction. She would return and bid for the picture, after all, what was one to do with all those fees, if not to enjoy and taste a little beauty?

Then lunch at a lovely little bistro on the edge of Mayfair and Soho, a quick spin around Liberty, just for fun, then a very enjoyable evening at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho. A wonderful quartet. Their playing seemed to capture the very rhythms of the universe.

“Can I assist you Madam?”

She was standing alone by the curb of the Soho street. There was no traffic at this late hour. Turning her head slowly, she looked up into the cold eyes of the clumsily dressed giant beside her, met his gaze, and in her silken voice, told him, “I’m afraid you are making a serious mistake.” The man, a brutal but subtle character, looked into the beautiful eyes, delicately wrinkled at the corners, and felt a cold ball of sweat trickle down his spine.

Still, a cool fellow, he maintained his composure, only a slight whitening of his cheeks, and a shortness of breath betraying his fear, as he apologised and quickly retraced his steps down Frith Street.

Miss Thrope smiled as she felt his presence fade into the night, and with a spring in her step was on her way.

Seven

Space - The Crystal City

The Crystal City was one of the wonders of the universe. No one really understood how old it was or who had made it. Even now in the records of the ‘Verse, it was tens of thousands of years old. About the size of the moon that orbited the Earth, it was a feat of three-dimensional architecture that amazed all who beheld it. Not quite spherical, it was like a translucent honey comb of silken threads that transmitted light to every single part within its matrix. No matter where one was within its substance, there was a feeling of space and light and a oneness with the incredible beauty of the universe surrounding it.

Approaching the Crystal City physically from Space, the ancient way, was simply breath taking. In the same way that the great Earth cities of Hong Kong, New York, Cork Town, were best approached by sea. Like the original immigrants passing the Statue of Liberty through the fogs of the Hudson, the approach to the Crystal City was truly staggering.

Miss Ann Thrope sat on the viewing deck, sipping her Hendricks and tonic and soaking in the incredible view. A small part of her marveled at all the thousands of beings below locked into their alternate reality consoles whilst the real thing was here and now. The Crystal City glittered like a great chandelier suspended in the giant ballroom of space. No wonder it had become a major tourist site, although only for the extremely wealthy.

Fifty-four thousand Earth years on from the great days of ocean cruising, the Earth no longer existed, never mind Hendricks gin. However, she always carried her own supply, and she had an arrangement with the Maître d’ who brought it at just the right temperature in one of her own Waterford crystal glasses.

The room in the hotel was truly unique. When she came to the Crystal City she always stayed at Jammie’s. The original Jammie family, legend had it, was from the first rogue ship that found the deserted city and colonised it. Now it was the premier luxury hotel in the civilized, ‘Verse and the views from her suite, of the adjacent star systems, were awe inspiring.

Still it was simply furnished in quiet good taste with silken fabrics and, unheard of in this sector of the ‘Verse, exquisitely made wooden furniture. Just one of the wooden chairs in this room would repay the planetary debt of a minor backwater world. Miss Thrope was a reasonably frequent guest at Jammie’s, and this suite was reserved for her exclusive use.

Tonight, she was hosting a dinner with old friends, including Alberto Stiletto, a complex and interesting man with his own space station, Sunshine, whose library had a magnificent view of the adjacent Horse Head Nebula. There would be eight altogether, which she found just right. She had a lovely round dining table that had been a present from Claude when she stayed with him at Giverny. Everyone facing each other, so much better for conversation. The food was local and as such indescribable. If you were on Earth how could you describe the taste of oysters or sashimi to a Bedouin prince living in a tent in the middle of the Sahara Desert? Needless to say, the hotel provided the finest cooks, and her luggage did contain a case of very fine French wine she had bought recently at her favourite little caviste at Annecy, where she had a lovely home overlooking the turquoise waters of the French town’s beautiful lake.

“And what happened to our rodent friends?” asked Stiletto over a sip of Monbazillac.

“Oh, in the end it was just too much,” replied Miss Thrope. “It all unravelled in Rome, in that lovely little boutique near the Trevi Fountain?”

Stiletto smiled politely, as if he had any kind of clue, which particular little boutique his friend was referring to. Obviously encouraged, Miss Thrope continued with her tale. “Just materialised right next to me whilst I was trying on a lovely cerise creation.”

“How rude,” observed her friend, dryly.

“Yes, so I relieved him of his rude sensibilities, right there on the spot. Clean you understand, wouldn’t want to splash on Chiara’s drapes. Then I followed his energy line back to the other two and invited them to savour the après vie.”

“And did you ever find who they were working for?”

“No.”

There was a short delay as Miss Thrope unwrapped a mint and nibbled at it thoughtfully. “In that respect they were very good.”

Stiletto poured port for them all from his fabled supply and a collective sigh went around the table.

“Friends.”

Later they were sat in comfortable chairs and sofas in Ann’s drawing room, enjoying more of the bottles of port Stiletto had brought. The rumour was that he had been given a wagon full of cases by a grateful Napoleon after his help at the battle of Smolensk.

“That reminds me of a time years ago,” said Stiletto, “when my friend Haydrift lost his hand in a museum in Cambridge during a mission that went wrong.”

“What happened Alberto?” asked Beetle, the owner of Jammies, and one of Ann’s oldest friends. He was universally known as a tremendous gossip, although Ann had discovered very early on that he exhibited a fierce loyalty and discretion, which had led him to be one of her most trusted advisors.

“Haydrift, Gregory and I, were involved with protecting and delivering a mysterious package. We never did discover what it contained. “

“Gregory Cobblestone, your friend who died?”

“Yes.”

“You still miss him.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I do, but this is supposed to be a funny story.”

“I’m sorry Alberto, please continue.”

“It was all mixed up with a girl with red hair that Gregory and I kept running into. She appeared suddenly, and was talking to Haydrift, who clearly didn’t know she was playing for the other team.”

“Where were you when all this was going on?”

“Hiding behind a curtain.”

“Sounds very dramatic.”

“So, what happened next,” asked Beetle.

“There was a grunt and a thud. I come out from hiding to find Gregory lying in a pool of blood. Haydrift finally pulled his attention away from the girl, who then whipped out an iridium wire, looped it over his hand, and with a single tug, cut it off at the wrist.”

“They are so sharp,” interjected Miss Thrope, “I use one myself.”

“What did you do?” asked Beetle.

“Shot the girl, grabbed Haydrift’s hand from the floor, and between us we picked up Gregory and took him through the continuum to Sunshine.”

“Your space station by the Horse Head Nebulae.”

“Yes, my technicians gave Haydrift a new hand, almost identical to the original.”

“Almost identical?”

“Yes, well it did have a few modifications. He found he could open up doorways in the space-time continuum with it, and other useful tricks.”

“But what was so funny?” asked Ann, remembering this was supposed to be an amusing anecdote.

“His face,” laughed Stiletto. “The surprised look on his face as his hand dropped off. The wire was so sharp, he didn’t even feel any pain.”

“Alberto you have a very strange sense of humour.”

Eight

Space - The Station

It was one of her most elegant solutions.

Boris, king of the Zaaaartiktik, was here for an interstellar conference with the other war and drug lords. His was an interesting existence, coming from a fluid world of great gravities and pressures. A special tank of dense mercurial fluid had been constructed, and here Boris held court in the depths of the Station.

Getting onto the Station had been straightforward, although the welcoming committee had been unexpected. Still, she had to get into the heart of the station, to get to the heart of Boris.

Miss Thrope’s solution was simplicity itself, but very dangerous to her own existence. Now concealed in the control centre, she had connected her own neural net into the mind net of the Station, again using a little code worm created by the technicians of her good friend, Alberto Stiletto. Then it was just a matter of drag and drop, as she grabbed the physical co-ordinates occupied by Boris in his tank, dragged them into the vacuum of open space, then just let go. In fact, as the Station was orbiting a rather large and wild planet, all the drop had to do was just hold the mass still for eleven seconds, for the Station was truly immense, and then just let it go. Tough as poor Boris was, the emptiness of the void was an unforgiving place.

For a thousandth of a second infinite pain flashed through every nerve ending in her body. The System had detected her and sent a counter attack. Fortunately, the human mind’s awareness of its own nervous system couldn’t respond so quickly, and thanks to the speed and sophistication of Stiletto’s neural net, it cut the connection and all Miss Thrope felt was a rather disorienting dizziness, which at the moment, couldn’t begin to compete with the agony in both her shoulders.

Nine

The Station

The flower was an anomaly. In an environment that was essentially sterile, metallic and controlled, the room that held the flower was particularly unique.

The room on the Station was completely sealed and regulated. Temperature, light, humidity, all perfectly synchronised. A fine mist containing a precisely blended concentration of nutrients kept the flower in perfect health.

Although the security of this special garden room was exceptionally tight, Miss Thrope leant over, and delicately inhaled its subtle aroma. Rather disappointed, she took a pair of nail scissors from one of her many pockets, and with a quick snip placed the bloom in her button hole, then continued on her way.

“No, the flower wasn’t the hit,” Miss Thrope spluttered, struggling not to spill her wine as she tried to choke back laughter.

Stiletto maintained his calm, leaning forward to top up her glass and with a raised eyebrow, invited her to continue her story.

Ten

Horse Head Nebula - Sunshine

The old man with the long white beard had a distinctive and unusual dress style. He was portly, with a twinkle in his eye, and wore a striking red suit with white buttons. When it was made, in Saville Row, London, it had fitted him like a glove. The material was an intelligent elasticated fibre supplied by a good friend of his, and auto adjusted with time to remain a good fit. Time had been kind to the old man, although like the fibres of his suit, his figure had become somewhat elastic.

This was a busy time for him. There was a myth on certain worlds that at this time of great celebration and festivity, he somehow managed to visit every home, all within one rotation of the planet. The notion of a man in a red suit and white beard whizzing round the world on apparently, a small open craft, yet big enough to contain billions of parcels, and pulled by quadruped animals with large antlers growing out of their heads, was quite fantastic by any standards of infinite possibility.

“So, what do you do,” asked his friend, as they sat together in comfortable chairs by the huge windows of his library, with the magnificent view of the Horse Head nebula, “bend the space time continuum?”

“Basically, yes,” replied the old man in the red suit, sipping his port.

“Why do you bother?”

The old man was silent for a while, enjoying his drink. His eyes seemed to sparkle, not just with a deep joy, but literally with tiny lights around the irises.

“To maintain and bring a little love into the universe,” he finally replied.

Eleven

London

The Hrym sat on his planet in his vast fortress of waste and negativity. His bland and forgettable suit, like his facial features, was a pale and sickly green. His world, or the many worlds he held sway over, stood for all that was insipid and mediocre in the universe. The Hrym’s very essence sucked the joy out of existence. If there was one thing in all of creation that he hated, it was the old man in the red suit.

That is why he had paid the exorbitant fee for the contract.

Little Billy Brambling had been a good boy. Mummy was sick. The illness inside her had been eating her away, and despite the latest medical technology she suffered greatly. Each night little Billy lay in bed aware of the whimpers and agonies of his dearest mother.

In a world of instant gratification, of trainers and handheld computer games, in a world of constant communication through chat rooms of the inane, young Billy was alone. A child with no friends but with a deep love and devotion to his dying mother.

Billy lived in a country vast in wealth. Like most of the universe, ninety nine percent of the resources was held by one percent of the population. On the frontier worlds that Billy read about in his comic books, run by robber barons and warlords, the injustices of `intelligent civilisation’ were obvious. On his own world they were hidden in plain view by the news, entertainment and social media that informed and distracted its lucky citizens.

Billy wasn’t feeling lucky. He was hungry and cold but most of all he was sad. He wanted to help the suffering of his mum. Every day before school, he got up with the sun and made breakfast for the agonised shell of humanity that was his mother. He did his utmost to keep the small garret flat warm, a camping stove from the charity shop, newspapers for blankets. He comforted her the best he could, reading her stories from his few precious comics. There is only so much you can do when you are nine.

Today was the start of a special holiday. There had been no school for several days and Billy had been able to look after his mother all day. Now she was drifting in and out of a troubled sleep, quietly moaning. He was sat in the main room of the small flat. The screen of the video display was dark and silent. Even the poorest members of society had a television. It was considered an essential right of every home. There were hundreds of channels feeding a constant diet of banality and mediocrity, interspersed with the ads, the content messages to consume more and more of those things that Billy instinctively knew they could never afford.

Occasionally there were a few programmes Billy would watch. Factual programmes about the wonderful world he was supposed to live on with beautiful wildlife and waterfalls, rainbows and snow-capped mountain ranges. He enjoyed some movies and series about adventurers and space and cowboys, loving their possibilities, unaware that they were true, yet as remote to his experience as the soaring eagles and painted elephants of his own world.

The assassin had a sense of humour. Time, fate, and destiny aren’t fixed. With time travel, multiple parallel universes, the bending, alteration, and riding of space time, there was a degree of potentiality to events. In some advanced parts of the universe, prediction of events was a little more sophisticated than reading tiny leaves in the bottom of a tea cup, or the lines on the palm of a hand. The man in the red suit was set with a 99.34% chance of visiting little Billy on 24th December, and the assassin was in place and ready.

Billy, unlike his mother, had had a good day. For the past week he had been practicing his songs. He had made his mother’s room as pretty as he could, decorating it with lights and ornaments that he had been getting over time from the pound shop. After a special fish and chip supper, he had stood at the foot of his mother’s bed, proudly and unselfconsciously singing carols in his clear melodious voice. The tears of love in her eyes, replacing the tears of pain, were all the gift he required.

As the old man in the red suit approached the roof of the block of flats where Billy and his mother lived, he could sense the violence to come. He was philosophical. He had lived an extraordinary life and seen many wonders in a universe of infinite possibilities. Still, Billy had been a good boy, and love, with its all-embracing marionette, seemed to be pulling the strings of the universe.

The assassin was silent. Legendary throughout galaxies for ingenuity and attention to detail. Standing perfectly still as the old man in the red suit placed the parcel at the bottom of Billy’s bed. The contract was just for the old man, not the boy. Too much of a professional to be emotionally involved, the assassin still anticipated the satisfaction of a job well done, and the consequences for the world.

The room was full of smiles. The man in the red suit smiled as he looked at the sleeping boy, and gently put his gift by his bed. Little Billy smiled in his sleep, dreaming happy thoughts, riding the wave of the moment. The assassin smiled as his finger closed the pressure on the trigger, and Miss Ann Thrope smiled as the cold steel of her silken blade entered into the soft depression at the base of the assassin’s neck, then angled powerfully upwards into his unsuspecting brain.

The sun crept over the horizon and filled the small room with beautiful winter light. Billy opened his eyes, his strange dream fading from memory. Thinking straight away of his mother, he climbed out of bed, his breath clouding in the cold air, and saw the package brightly wrapped at the end of the bed. A simply hand-written card, “To Billy with love, Happy Christmas."

Twelve

Earth - Paris - Present Day

“Voilà,” said Stiletto as if he had pulled the Sacré Cœur out of his hat, which in a way, he had.

It had all started in the morning when Miss Ann Thrope went down in the antique lift that descended through the centre of the beautiful building where she had her Paris apartment. It was the charred doorway in the lobby that had raised the hairs on the back of her elegant neck. The varnish was blistered and peeling, the wood cracked and splintered.

She forgot about the door as she spent the morning delighting in the wonderful little shops and boutiques that nestled near her Marais apartment. Whichever century that she visited Paris, Marais was always her favourite district, like her own beautiful village within a beautiful city. Soon she was walking up to Montmartre where she was meeting Stiletto for coffee.

She might pop over to Luigi’s, a charming little trattoria in a hidden part of Venice, for lunch. She had a hankering for his little pasta parcels, but she had to be back this evening as she was having dinner with Pierre and Maxine at the Jules Verne restaurant near the top of the Eiffel Tower.

She entered Café Le Progrés on Rue Tardieu in Montmartre, noticing Stiletto straight away. He was hard to miss with his bright silk waistcoat under his elegant jacket. The whole ensemble crowned with a magnificent purple top hat. Paris was an exciting place, full of bohemians and eccentrics, and although he drew some odd glances from tourists, about to make the climb to Sacré Cœur, he blended in very well. Rising to hug his friend, kissing both cheeks in the French way, he pulled back a chair for her, and they both sat down. As if by magic a waiter appeared with a tray of delicate pastries and coffees.

“Why are you here?” she asked between sips of coffee.

“Last night I had dinner with Bonaparte at his apartment, so just nipped forward a few hundred years. Actually, it’s just around the corner.”

“I wonder who lives there now?”

“Oh, some magistrate and his family, I think. I wonder if they even know.”

“And how is Nappy?”

“Oh, you know, generous, funny, slightly megalomaniacal. Good conversation. I don’t think he likes you calling him Nappy though.”

“But he’s such a charmer. Perhaps you should invite him to Sunshine.” Sunshine was Lord Stiletto’s home. A space station on the edge of the Horse Head nebula.

“Somehow I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Having finished their coffees, the two friends got up to leave. The waiter brought them their overcoats to guard against the late December air. It was a short though steep walk up to the beautiful church, and the views over Paris, were breathtaking.

It would be unexpected if it became general knowledge, that Miss Ann Thrope didn’t care for heights. This was unfortunate as she was currently suspended from an upper gantry of the Eiffel Tower. The taloned grip holding on to her left wrist was strong, and the eyes that held her attention were somewhat disturbing, being red, smoking, and with slit like pupils that seemed to sear in to her soul.

The New Year fireworks added to the sense of occasion, but any tourist looking up from the Avenue Pierre Loti far below, would have needed binoculars to witness this wonder of Parisian theatre. Miss Thrope met the malevolent stare of an entity, from who knows where. Unblinking she held its gaze whilst the wrist knife appeared like magic in her other hand. Striking simultaneously upwards and sideways, she buried the knife to the hilt in the thick sinewy wrist of the monster. Screaming in rage and agony it opened its claws, releasing the captured hand, which within an instant, had driven a second knife into the alien’s forearm. The creature pulled up and back reeling with the pain, lifting an unruffled Miss Thrope, who gratefully returned to the stability of the ironwork balcony.

Thirteen

Sunshine

Nobody else noticed. Miss Ann Thrope had excused herself for a few minutes, at a dinner party on Sunshine, to visit the bathroom and came back to the table with a decided limp.

Stiletto glanced with concern from his seat at the head of the table, noting the lines of pain etched into her face. Calmly Miss Thrope made her way to her seat, taking a quick sip of wine, before resuming the conversation as if nothing had happened.

Although Miss Thrope had only been missing from dinner for a few minutes, in relative time she had been away for several hours. The ability to make use of bends in the space-time continuum was useful for creating the illusion of an alibi. Not that Miss Thrope would ever have need of one, or would have subjected her friends to the scrutiny.

She hadn’t had to change. Known for her unusual style, Miss Thrope was always dressed impeccably. Shopping was a favourite pastime, and although she had her preferred little boutiques and fashion houses in Milan, Paris and Rome, she also had access to designers and fabrics in many places and times, not usually accessible to the well-dressed dinner guest.

The other dinner she attended was in honour of the Silekian Ambassador, and was held on the bridge of the Silekian Admiral’s flagship. It was always a mystery to Miss Thrope that wherever she went in the universe, military tradition with its elite corps of officers and their dinner rituals, created a pattern that was repeated again and again. It was something she had pondered over her years of activity as an assassin, but she never really got to the bottom of it.

The client was very specific about her requirements. Anyone who could afford Miss Thrope’s massive fee was usually of a kind that knew exactly what they wanted, and was used to having the power, influence, or funds, to achieve it.

Commissions, as Miss Thrope liked to think of them, for were they not truly works of art, fell into two main camps. Those secret, covert assassinations where the victim simply died, apparently of natural causes, or some fluke accident, where no one was any the wiser, or a full in-the-face assassination where the target was publicly eviscerated, or blown up, to the general spectacle of, or making a political statement to, a news-entertainment hungry world.

These second category entanglements were often more difficult in that they required a degree of social theatre whilst at the same time maintaining Miss Thrope’s anonymity. After all, even in the immensity of the ‘Verse, there was only a very small group of individuals who would have knowledge of Miss Thrope’s specialist services, and even fewer, on how to access them.

Miss Thrope always liked to apply the personal touch. If one was simply to leave a small bomb to blow a target up, how would that be distinguished from the act of a gangster. One job she fondly remembered. She had had a pair of false teeth, made to fit perfectly, to replace the target’s own, and switched them in the glass of water in the victim’s bathroom. Miss Thrope had been in the audience at the press conference the following day, when at the appropriate time of his speech, the prime minister’s head had unfortunately exploded on camera.

Miss Thrope awoke from her reverie, glancing down the table at the ambassador. She knew that in a few minutes time, the females would be required to leave the room, whilst the dominant males, would proceed with their rituals of drinking and talking.

The admiral’s bridge, like the officer’s mess, was held to be sacrosanct, although the security was more imagined than actual. Still, there were armed marines positioned around the perimeter. It was an alert marine, who with lightning reflexes, shot Miss Thrope in the leg, seconds after she had taken her long shot down the length of the table.

The pistol had been concealed within the pudding on the table, in front of her. It’s not the sort of thing one can conceal within the folds of a fine silken gown. Breathing calmly, she had leant forward, and pushed her hand firmly into the large mousse before her. Her nearby dining companions gasped with her spontaneous, and insane action, then their pupils dilated, and faces blanched as the beautiful manicured hand withdrew, holding a dangerous looking pudding-smeared pistol. Miss Thrope, in one smooth action, pulled the pistol and shot the ambassador through his left eye.

She hadn’t allowed for the speed and alertness of the marine, and collapsed to the floor, and rolled under the table. The response was rapid, but when the dinner table was pulled back, the dessert slimed pistol was alone, and the elegant lady was gone.

Fourteen

The Crystal City

Miss Ann Thrope woke up feeling the discord in the air. She reached under her pillow, withdrawing a gun of some sorts, gently rolled over as if in her sleep, and shot the intruder through the quilt.

She had been sleeping in her suite at Jammie’s, and no one entered her inner sanctum until her security system was disabled. She made a call to Beetle Jammie, the current owner and General Manager of Jammie’s, informing him of her breakfast requirements, and arranging for some of his people to take out the trash.

By the time breakfast arrived in her charming dining room overlooking the magical Crystal City and its nebula backdrop, the smoking corpse had been removed, the beautiful carpet looked as if it had just been shipped from Persia, and fresh cotton bedding was in place on the bed. Closing the door of the bedroom she glided over to her wonderful antique table, set for one, and poured coffee into a bone china cup.

Her meeting was scheduled for later. Time and place for her was a somewhat fluid concept, being in the enviable position to travel backwards and forwards in time, and even within and without, parallel universes. Whilst maintaining particular advantages in her specialised line of work, still there were many hidden pitfalls. For the sake of her own temporal stability, and also her sanity, she had to keep a firm grasp on her own sense of time, hence the incredible importance of breakfast. With the many worlds and star systems that she visited with their many differing time structures, her internal clock kept to the standard earth twenty-four-hour time, and to be really precise, Greenwich Mean time. She smiled to herself. As she had archly recounted once at one of Stiletto’s dinners, actually, she didn’t think it was mean at all.

Her appointment was on a small moon in the Dikdak system in the iridium mine where the finest ore, used for the most sought-after iridium blades, was found.

She arrived early using Stiletto’s spatial virus to avoid detection whilst she made a physical check of the location. It was her amazing attention to detail, and thorough state of preparation, even in the smallest eventuality, that enabled her to pull off the most difficult of engagements. But even with all her preparation, something inevitably, and spontaneously, went wrong.

That was the thought repeating through her head. The nerves in her arms screamed in pain where the cable ties had bitten into the delicate flesh of her wrists, where they held her to the chair. That in itself was worrying. Where in hell, or who in hell, was using simple nylon cable ties?

Cold water soaked her hair and dripped in frozen rivulets down her strained face. Whoever had her, had disabled her neural net with a wet towel, which had been secured to her head with duct tape, wrapped round and round. Her heart beat rapidly as she surveyed her situation. She half expected to see an old car battery, jump leads, pliers, and a Stanley knife, but she didn’t want to lose her grip on reality.

Fifteen

Space

"Can I call you Ann?"

"No, you may not."

The interrogator sighed. It was going to be another one of those days.

She was thinking of that film she liked. The Irish actor in Paris, rescuing his daughter. There is a point where he's chained to a pipe over his head, surrounded by bad guys, at which point Miss Thrope thought, he was screwed.

It felt a bit like that. She breathed in and breathed out. There would be a way.

Sixteen

Sunshine

"So, what happened?"

Miss Thrope was sat in the library sipping a gin and tonic.

"Well, it was the meeting. It turned out the interrogator was the client."

"How ever did he get the drop on you?" asked Stiletto.

"The whole zone was booby trapped with a harmless but fast acting nerve toxin. Undetectable."

"A bit embarrassing though," chided her old friend, "what are you going to do?"

"Well, dear, I've accepted his contract. Then, when I've been paid, I'm giving him an unexpected bonus."

"Ah," guessed Stiletto. "You are going to do the client for free."

"Exactly," smiled Miss Thrope, and arched a brow to draw Stiletto's attention to her empty glass.

Seventeen

Earth - Surrey - Present Day

Miss Thrope silently lifted the latch on the cottage door. She was assaulted with a musty smell and waited while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Slipping inside, she was surprised to see the silent man sitting on the old sofa with the moonlight from the window reflecting on his spectacle lenses.

"Hello Tim," she said quietly, no sign of her surprise displayed, as if every day at three am, she covertly entered old people's homes, to find them fully dressed and waiting for her. She reached the window with a single step, drawing the curtains, and turned back to switch the light on.

Tim had seen better days. He was in his nineties and still had a good head of white hair. His spectacles were very strong, and his intense magnified eyes watched her calmly as she searched for a clean spot to sit down. There wasn't one. The sofa, once a beautiful red chesterfield, was grey and filthy. Miss Thrope leant over, placed a kiss on his recently shaved cheek, and sat down on the rancid cushion beside him.

Tim was smartly dressed, with a nicely knotted tie which Miss Thrope admired, but his shirt was stained and the tie ancient. A military uniform with medals hung on a hanger from the open door behind, and photographs of a dead princess lined the walls.

"So, Tim," enquired Miss Thrope, "what on earth is going on?"

"You're on a job aren't you," he replied.

"Yes," she admitted, slightly embarrassed. "Why didn't you call?"

"Look at me," he said.

She held the hand of the old warrior looking all the while into his steady eyes. "I'll return the fee," she said, a single tear appearing on her cheek.

"I'd rather you didn't" he said, marginally increasing the strength of his weak grip in her hand as she slid the blade into place. His eyes closed and his old hand went cold in hers.

Eighteen

London - The Savoy

"Did you ever break a contract?"

"Only once. The friend in your amusing anecdote. He was the target."

Stiletto blanched, despite their friendship. Still he maintained his customary sangfroid. “Gregory?” he said in a whisper.

"It was a last-minute job, just helping an old friend, Caroline.”

“The girl with the red hair,” he interrupted. “She saved my life on more than one occasion. In the end she was my friend too.”

“It was there at the museum in Cambridge. We had had supper together the night before. She had got mixed up with some very bad company, and they were going to relieve someone of the package you mentioned. Caroline asked me to remove one of the players. I was concealed until the last moment. Imagine my surprise when I saw you were involved. I'm afraid it probably cost your friend a kidney."

"Thank you, that was kind of you. You know he almost died?"

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic. You obviously had the situation under control."

"They got him in the end though. Bad business," said Stiletto putting his empty pipe between his teeth.

Miss Thrope calmly held his gaze as she raised her glass, "Absent friends."

Nineteen

Earth - Amsterdam - 2059

The problem with the future was computed predicted outcomes or CPO's. Everything was predicted, including social and group behaviour.

Social background, schooling, even junk food and musical tastes were monitored by The Corp, as the ruling elite had come to be known. It had all begun at the beginning of the 21st century when the whole world started giving itself to social information gathering programmes.

Initially, outcomes were used by the profilers of the secrets and the ads, but with time they were developed to predict how individuals and groups would evolve. That's how The Corp knew about the Fivxj group. They monitored their social traffic and their algorithm recognised trouble. Incendiary trouble.

It all started at a concert at the Amsterdam Jazz and Blues festival back in 2017. That's when the touch paper was lit, the actors came to the stage, the chemistry began.

There was the old chestnut about the German dictator. If you knew in advance how he would turn out, would you remove him from history and potentially save millions?

Now in the age of The Corp, most ambiguity had been removed. But rather than a problem, the Fivxj group was seen as a resource, a saviour.

Fortunately, the art of CPO's wasn't restricted to The Corp. There were rebel groups, sophisticated operators, who developed their own cutting-edge technology and weren't afraid to use it.

Miss Thrope's brief was clear. Go back to that March evening in 2017 and eliminate the threat to future generations.

“Like removing a few rogue cells before the tumour develops,” explained the client.

The Axel club was packed. There were a surprising mix of age groups, mostly young, but plenty of more mature concert goers, so Miss Thrope blended in perfectly. There were several hundred people crammed into the small space. A stage at the end of the room and a long bar down the side. She remembered last time she had been here, in Amsterdam to see one of her favourite Jazz musicians, she had called in to the club after the gig. That was before the smoking bans. She remembered the heavy choking air filling the dense club with its misty haze. So much better now, but the clarity wouldn’t assist her task. She paid no attention to the band on the stage. The Fivxj group didn’t exist yet, she was here for anonymous unconnected individuals. There were nineteen in all, mostly in their early twenties. It was quite a challenge.

Next day the tabloids had a field day. Banner headlines,

Club Tragedy.

Dangerous Recreational Drugs.

Rogue Batch.

There were even questions in Parliament, and a city mourned. Somewhere in the upper echelons of The Corp a response was formulated, and an order given.

Twenty

Space

The CEO of the Corp didn't even have a name. Long ago it became a given truth that power was everything, and true power lay hidden like the slime clinging on the underbelly of an ancient rock.

The assassin had taken away their future. The CEO made a call.

Twenty-One

Space

The failure of the Weasel and his team, whilst disappointing, had created quite a degree of intelligence about Miss Thrope and her habits. They had followed her around the planet, hacking into the primitive 21st century satellite systems to aid their surveillance. She popped up in favourite restaurants and boutiques, always in what would be considered to be beautiful places.

The CEO had seen her type before. Living as he did in a world of control and profit, he misunderstood ambience for decadence, and quality for extravagance. Unfortunately for Miss Thrope, his own blinkered and prejudiced viewpoint was tempered by the wisdom to retain trusted advisors, who understood Miss Thrope a whole lot better. Still, he ruminated, the Rodents had never managed to locate any kind of home base, before they became careless and were eliminated.

Twenty-Two

Space

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 screen 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.

Wiping the blade on her victim's silk sleeping kimono she replaced it in the folds of her obi, and returned through the castle corridors as silently as she had entered.

Thirty-Four

Scotland

Stepping silently down the corridor of her Scottish home, Miss Thrope could have had her eyes closed. It was like playing a computer game, knowing in advance, where the traps and the monsters were. Don't get complacent she told herself. One mistake and it was all over.

The first one was concealed in the cupboard under the stairs. She shot him through the door, with barely a glance, and noted the change in his thermal signature on the neural net.

Three were upstairs waiting in her large and sunny studio where she painted her oils and water colours. She hoped they hadn't done any damage. The one saving grace was that they were professionals. Here to do a job. No emotion, no malice, just cold and calculated results, just like her, she realised.

There were concealed weapons hidden everywhere. A mad sense of equality had made her leave her gun of some sort downstairs, it's range of futuristic ballistics set aside. In her hand was a comforting silenced pistol from the old days. She was up against machine pistols and pump action shotguns, with just plain ordinary bullets and shot.

She came through the open door low, fast and ready. Landing in a roll she came out with the gun poised, and double tapped the one in her armchair who was nursing a shotgun. Head and heart. Still in one fluid motion, she shot the one raising his Magnum through each eye. A detached part of her mind scolded herself for showing off, but enjoying herself immensely, a seventeenth century blade appeared in her other hand. She threw it almost casually, but with enough force, to embed itself to the hilt in the third assailant's heart. Or it would have been if he hadn't been wearing a Kevlar vest. Too late Miss Thrope realised her last mistake. Too late to bring her pistol to bear, she stared into the barrel of the automatic weapon.

The sound was wrong. Three rapid phuts. Not the expected explosive sound of automatic fire. The hand holding the carbine let go as its owner's head exploded with the force of the three shots. For once at a loss from the expectation of certain death, Miss Thrope turned to the door where silhouetted, bloody-brimmed bowler firmly on head, was her friend with the loud waistcoats, eyes fierce, lips stretched in a grim smile of greeting over the familiar and completely reliable gun of some sort.

Thirty-Five

Earth - New York - Present

Miss Thrope had suffered as much of this man's inane conversation as she knew was required. Politely she excused herself to visit the restaurant’s powder room.

The CEO was pleased. The Jap had really come up trumps. The best restaurant in Manhattan, booked just for his sole use. His date was fantastic, and he eagerly anticipated the night to come. He waited patiently for her to return. What would he have thought if he had known that she had once performed a contract for his Jap's venerable ancestor just over four hundred years before.

He looked up, noticing his beautiful and charming escort, in a perfectly cut evening dress, gliding through the restaurant back to their table. There was something different though. Her demeanour had subtly changed and her eyes that had sparkled all night seemed to burn.

It was when he saw what she was holding in her left hand that his eyes truly widened in surprise, but accepting his fate he remained calm, and even managed a polite nod of his head.

Standing serene and still before him she spoke in her soft melodious voice.

"You threatened my family," she said, and with a fluid single motion drew the ancient blade, and dispassionately removed his perfectly groomed head from his immaculately suited shoulders.

Wiping the blood from her blade on the spotless white table cloth, she thought she might pop over to Capri, after all, didn’t she deserve a holiday?

THE END

* * *

What’s next?

Follow Miss Thrope’s continuing adventures in the next book in the Ann Thrope series, Apprentice, as she takes on young orphan Billy Brambling as her ward and apprentice.

Acknowledgments

A big thank you to Lynn and Linda for proof reading the manuscript, and my editor Lou for all her support and amazing attention to detail. All the L’s.

Dan Couzens, thank you for my fantastic new website.

And thanks for buying my book, much appreciated.

Richard 2020

About the Author

In his spare time, Richard is a practitioner of Japanese martial arts, travels, and plays tenor saxophone in a rock band. He lives with his partner in Gloucestershire...

Copyright © 2017 © 2020 Richard Weale

The right of Richard Weale to be identified as the author of the Work has been asserted him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book was originally published as

The Adventures Of Miss Ann Thrope

under the pen name, Jhedron Luckspar