Cut for Life

by Lucinda E Clarke

  Both of them gasped; the waiter ignored as if in a frozen tableau.

  “It ... it is you! I knew it was you. Amie! Amie ...” The words died on her mother’s lips as she stared at her daughter. Mary tried to rise but her legs would no longer support her and she collapsed back into her chair.

  The waiter looked first at Amie then back at the elderly couple and tactfully withdrew, his question unanswered.

  Raymond Reynolds stared at his supposedly-dead daughter. He blinked a couple of times, his mouth open, as if the apparition might melt away and disappear through the plate glass window.

  His wife had no such illusions. She gathered herself together, rose from her chair on wobbly feet and half ran across the room sinking into the empty seat at Amie’s table.

  “You are Amie, aren’t you? You are my daughter. I know you are. Admit it.”

  Amie’s eyes filled with tears as she nodded. Fate had taken a hand so now she could acknowledge the truth with a clear conscience. “Mum,” she sobbed and rising from the table, fell into her mother’s arms. “Yes, yes, I am. I’m Amie.”

  Raymond marched over. He gripped his wife’s arm pulling her to her feet, then grabbed Amie’s hand jerking her towards him.

  “Upstairs! Both of you. Now!” His voice cracked as he herded them like sheep out of the restaurant pausing only to tell the staff to bill room 1903.

  The mystery man frowned as he watched them leave. Strange, he knew her as Felicity. He ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, glanced briefly at his watch and sighed. He’d go and loiter in the lobby so he could follow her when she left the hotel.

  Amie had dreamed so many times about being re-united with her family, even though she knew it wasn’t permitted. Never had it been like this, not in the middle of a hotel restaurant. In her mind, they had wept and hugged, the words falling over themselves as she tried to explain what had happened; her parents and Sam firing questions at her faster than she could answer them. The reality was very different. They rode the lift two floors up in silence, staring at the lights, the closed doors, the ceiling, anywhere but at each other. Numb.

  Once Raymond had closed the bedroom door the dam broke.

  Mary turned to her daughter and gripped both her arms. “I am right, aren’t I? You are my Amie?”

  There was a slight uncertainty in her voice and for a fleeting moment Amie was tempted to deny it. No, I’m Felicity Mansell. I’m not who you think I am. But the temptation was too great and she nodded again before bursting into tears and falling into her mother’s arms. To hell with the people who’d abducted her, forced her to work for them, denied her everything she held dear. Fate had intervened and who was she to fight fate?

  “Yes, I’m me,” she said, clutching the woman who’d given birth to her. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The floods of tears she’d held back for years flowed freely. Raymond passed her a tissue from the box on the bedside table.

  “But bloody hell, Amie, why? What happened?” Her father was holding back his anger and his own tears. “Have you any idea what your mother and I have been through? The horror, the grief? Did you know we even had a memorial service for you? The church was packed and all the while you were alive and well? How could you do this to us?”

  “I, I can’t explain. Well, I can actually but you’re never going to believe it. Please, please understand, I never meant to hurt anybody.”

  2 LAST NIGHT IN DURBAN

  Two weeks earlier

  “Amie, it’s time for you to leave.”

  Simon had dropped his bombshell while clearing away their dinner plates one evening, and he’d squinted at her sideways to check her reaction.

  Amie had started. It had come without warning; life had been so normal for the previous few months and she hadn’t wanted it to end. She’d behaved like any other thirty-year-old single woman, dating – Simon mostly – shopping, more shopping, taking coffee breaks with colleagues from work, trips to the game parks on long weekends and braais on the field next to the rugby pitch at King’s Park. It had been wonderful; a normal life.

  Now, all that would come to a stop when they sent her who knows where to do who knows what? She’d relaxed, enjoyed being herself, apart from having to put up with a different name, and had almost forgotten she had no control over her life. But they hadn’t forgotten.

  “Where to this time?” she’d said, looking out of the window in Simon’s office the next day, fingering the package he’d just given her.

  “I’ve no idea. I was told you’d be leaving soon, that’s all. They’re sending a replacement from London next week. You’re to go up to Jo’burg and wait till they contact you.” He’d smiled, a sad little smile she thought, but maybe she was just imagining it.

  “And you? Are you coming with me?” Amie had grown to love the blond, British Consul with his smiling blue eyes. How could they send her away from him, again!

  “I don’t know. There was no mention ...”

  Amie shrugged and made for the door. “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” she announced, slamming it behind her. She was seething. She’d been delusional if she’d thought they would just forget her, leave her to get on with her life? Not a chance. They’d taken the time to train her, had been furious, yet begrudgingly pleased, when she’d uncovered a spy working in their own service on her first assignment, and terminated him; albeit accidently. She’d proven herself worthy, proven herself capable, and now here they were again, ready to throw her to the wolves once more. She was fed up.

  She slid behind the wheel of her Kia Rio in the car park, aware that she’d walked out of the consulate without saying goodbye to anyone, and rammed the key into the ignition. She floored the accelerator and backed out of the parking space, tyres squealing in protest as she wrenched the wheel left and right. She was forced to pause while the gate was opened for her, then raced up the road making for the beach.

  She flew up the N2 until she reached Westbrook where she sat for a moment before grabbing the envelope. She ripped it open, scanned the top sheet and cursed. The once polite, sweet, gentle little housewife from the London suburbs now had a whole raft of expletives she could use in situations like this, and right then she wanted to use them all!

  She flung open the car door, clicked the lock and ran down the sand dunes to the edge of the ocean. For a minute she watched the beer-froth waves skittering in and out over the glistening sand. She wanted to howl at the moon, curse the gods of the British Government but instead she burst into tears. How she hated feeling so helpless, no longer in control of her own life. If only she could enjoy what they expected her to do, but she hated guns, she wasn’t an adrenalin junky and she’d never craved danger and excitement or even adventure. No, she was Amie Fish, no longer a housewife but a widow called Felicity bloody Mansell, who had ended up as a trained spy at the beck and call of MI6. Those faceless grey men sitting on their backsides in nice, over-heated offices in Whitehall or wherever, racking up their pension credits, waiting to retire so they could use their silver pounds to take cruises round the world. In the meantime, they used people like Amie, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and shuffled them about like pawns on a secret chessboard.

  She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, set off along the shoreline and broke into a jog at first, then she put her head back and ran faster and faster until she was gasping for breath, her lungs fighting for air, her chest heaving, the sweat pouring down her face. But still she ran on and on until she finally collapsed on the hot sand.

  She lay on her back glaring at the bright, blue African sky and weighed up her options. She had money, she had a passport, she could run. Where? Did it matter? As long as she could lead her own life, do what she wanted to do. There was a problem, of course, there was always a problem. A quick glance at the contents of the envelope now scattered over her car seats, had presented her with the problem: they’d given her a South African passport. As far as she knew, unlike her old British passport, there were few place
s in the world she could run to that didn’t require a visa. It didn’t even give her diplomatic status; once again, her handlers had thrown her a curved ball. They’ll never trust me, she thought, struggling to her feet to begin the trek back to her car.

  And then there was Simon. Was she really in love with him? She supposed so. Her relationship with him had blossomed into something very different to the one she’d had with Jonathon, her husband now very dead in a cemetery in Togodo. Simon, with his blond hair, sparkling blue eyes and dark eyelashes, was fun. He made her laugh, pleased her like no one else ever had in the bedroom and in her daydreams they’d get married, have children and behave like most ordinary everyday people. Huh! Some hope! Amie and Simon were far from ordinary; would never be ordinary. They were spies! She still didn’t know to what extent he worked for the Secret Intelligence Services outside his role as the British Consul in Durban, but she was a fully-fledged, trained-to-kill spy. They’d put her through rigorous training in the highlands of Scotland, then let her loose in Africa. She had no idea what they would do if she simply refused to obey them, but she was certain they would never let her go willingly. Duty, dishonour, death? Hmm. That sounded about right. If she took off and resumed her identity as Amie Fish, how could she suddenly reappear after being dead for almost two years? They couldn’t risk her telling the world that her own government had lied about her, causing unimaginable grief to family and friends and then blackmailing her into accepting their terms. No, they would not be made fools of; she wouldn’t live long enough to tell the tale.

  Her car was only a dot on the horizon; she hadn’t realised how far she’d run. She picked up her pace, aware the sun was casting long shadows on the beach. There were people gathered around her Kia; at least three of them.

  “Oi,” she shouted as she approached, but they didn’t run off. One youth was attempting to wrench the lock off the driver’s door, while another was fiddling with the boot. Not professionals, she noted as she closed in on them.

  “That’s my car!” she yelled, increasing her pace. “Leave it alone!”

  They looked up at her, unconcerned. The third youth sneered. “Get lost, we found it. It’s our car now.” He turned his back on her and flung a command in Zulu to one of the others. The shorter, greasy-looking guy in the bright yellow T-shirt continued to hack at the door handle.

  Amie saw red. She lunged at the leader, wound her forearm around his neck pressing hard on his windpipe then rammed her knee into his spine forcing him backwards. Twisting him to one side, she used her free hand to grab his testicles, squeezing as hard as she could.

  “Tell your goons to leave my car alone, or I’ll break your fucking neck,” she hissed.

  The youth struggled but Amie held on. She may have lived a sedentary life for the last few months, but she hadn’t forgotten her training. The more he squirmed, the more pressure she applied until his eyes began to bulge and his face turned red. He waved his arms wildly in the air and seeing his plight his comrades took one look at Amie’s face and took off.

  Amie gave one final twist with her forearm and dropped the gasping man to the ground like a sack of dirty washing.

  She gave him a sneer, unlocked the car door on the passenger side, slid across her new South African passport to the driver’s seat and drove back to town.

  As she joined the queue to get on to the highway, she rubbed her arm, registering the beginnings of a bruise. She grinned. That’s one way to get rid of pent up anger; hardly worth getting the lock mended though, if I’m leaving.

  Back in her flat she jumped under the shower and let the steaming water wash away the sand and sweat. She flexed her arms and legs, pleased she’d got the better of three young thugs, although she didn’t like to think what might have happened if they’d been armed, or if they’d had the courage to tackle her all at the same time. Today, she’d been lucky, another occasion might be different. Crime was everywhere in this paradise and you had to be on your guard every minute of the day.

  She wrapped herself in a bath sheet and combed out her hair before pouring herself a large glass of wine and powering up her laptop. She logged on to her emails and there was the expected message from Maddy, the faceless contact whom she suspected was in London, but took on the guise of her long-time friend who was backpacking all over the world and living it up with a series of wild encounters with numerous young men who fed and housed her for an unspecified return. She’s probably some junior clerk who commutes from Battersea every day on the tube, living out her fantasy world as she passes on instructions to me, the lucky, glamorous person working out in the field. Well, she could think again, it was anything but.

  Amie skimmed through the message that bordered on soft porn. Maddy described her amorous encounters with glee. Possibly the best cover in the world, who would ever think Her Majesty’s Government could be responsible for such graphic ramblings?

  With a copy of War and Peace in her hand, Amie set to transcribing the message hidden amongst the innocuous words on the screen. The tome slipped off her lap and landed on her toes. “Ouch! That’s it!” she shouted to the empty room. “That’s the last time we use this. Have you any idea, you stupid people how heavy this book is? How many times I’ve had to cart it around stuffed in an ordinary handbag?”

  She grumbled and rubbed her sore toes. With a mighty sigh, she retrieved the book and began to write down her instructions. Felicity, how she hated that name, was to fly to Johannesburg the following day. Simon would give her the tickets then she was to make her way to a bed and breakfast in the suburb of Sandton and await further instructions. Simon would also replace her laptop with a smaller version, which could log on to satellites and not be dependent on local internet services.

  Amie’s fingers flew over the keyboard, announcing she would be buying a paperback copy of Animal Farm in the morning and she would be using that as her code book from now on. Once she’d pressed the send key she chuckled, wondering how they’d react to that. She’d never sent more than a few lines back to Maddy, usually admiring her sexual exploits and acknowledging she’d read the message. She’d love to see their faces when they read her demand.

  She had another thought and began to code another question across the ether to London. ‘Why?’ she wrote, ‘in this modern day and age are we using old fashioned methods left over from the dark ages? Surely by now you have ways of sending encryption across the electronic ether, so all she had to do was type in a direct message?’

  Maddy replied almost immediately and the tone was decidedly sarcastic. ‘Hadn’t Amie read about hackers? If ten-year-olds could break into the Pentagon computers in their sleep, then Her Majesty’s Government was not taking unnecessary chances of spilling their precious secrets to the whole world. Wiki Leaks had put the wind up everyone. Using random page and line numbers in books was perfectly secure and practically unbreakable, so Felicity would have to abide by their decision.’

  Amie groaned as she painfully and slowly decoded the message, flipping from one page to another in her well-thumbed copy of Leo Tolstoy’s literary masterpiece.

  Another ping on her laptop announced a second incoming message. ‘If you must change your schedule,’ Maddy complained, ‘then you could at least have given me some notice.’ For once the message was not coded, but Amie knew that schedule referred to the codebook. ‘I’ll have to make extra arrangements, but keep to the timetable as we agreed before I left on my trip.’

  “Huh,” Amie muttered. “You went on your trip? Oh no, it’s the other way round. I’m the one on the trip, you’re the one behind a comfortable desk with a Starbucks just round the corner.” Still, it was good news about the new laptop, and being able to hook up anywhere was a bonus. Probably, within the next decade or so, everyone would be able to do the same, get on line from anywhere in the world, released from routers and modems and landlines. All communications would be free, paid for by those irritating adverts which popped up all over the screen.

  Her musings were i
nterrupted by the jarring ring of her cell phone. It was Simon.

  “Hi,” he sounded sheepish.

  “What.” Amie snapped. She knew it was unfair to take it out on him, but who else could she shout at? Maybe she should go and beat up a few more loitering thieves downtown. The thought made her giggle.

  “Amie? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so, just generally fed up with having to move on.”

  “I don’t want you to leave, you know that.”

  “Yeah, but the last little escapade was just a sabbatical for you, just a one-off from your normal job.”

  “Nothing seems quite normal these days.” There was a short pause. “Escapade? Is that how you would describe it?”

  “Good a word as any, I guess,” Amie hitched up the towel that was losing its fight with gravity.

  “Can I come round? Maybe go out for a bite to eat?”

  “Hah! You know better than to ask me to cook for you, right?”

  “I’m sure there are other people in the world who are also culinarily challenged,” he quipped.

  Amie smiled. That was the buzz word these days, challenged. People were physically challenged, height challenged, mentally challenged, socially and economically challenged. Whatever was happening to the English language? The mental pictures of the descriptions remained exactly the same.

  “Anyhow,” Simon continued, “I have to see you to hand over some leaving presents.”

  Of course, thought Amie, the airline tickets and the electronic toys. “OK. See you at 7.30 then,” she said, before pressing the disconnect button.

  Almost immediately, the front door bell rang and peeking at the intercom screen, Amie could see that Simon had already arrived. He must have phoned her from outside. With a sigh, she pressed the button and was waiting for him as he stepped out of the lift. It was pointless racing around throwing on clothes, she was sure he would rip them off her the moment he stepped into the apartment.