A Legacy Of Butterflies

By David Toft

The whole of mainland Europe is under fundamentalist control. Only Ireland, protected by the military might of America, remains free.

Gordon Aldridge has a mission – To use his potentially murderous powers to help secure the release of American hostages from the heart of fundamentalist England. If he can control and target the butterflies, only his enemies will die; if he can’t, everybody will.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781597054867

Book preview

A Legacy of Butterflies

Right, let’s go through it from the start. You were walking through the forest.

Gordon looked up at her, not wanting to go back there. You’ve never taken notes before.

She laughed. We had recording equipment before. Now, quit stalling.

As Gordon related his descriptions of both the tree trunk and the stream, Hillary smiled. When he got to the cottage and the old man, she looked pensive. When he described the dramatic emergence of the butterflies, her brow creased, then her smile returned. A start at last, she said, clapped her notebook shut, stood up abruptly, and left the room without another word to him.

Gordon remained seated, staring at the door as it swung closed behind her. They’d talked about the butterflies often enough, but he’d never felt them before. He rubbed a hand across his stomach. Everything he’d learned told him one thing. When the butterflies appeared, someone, somewhere, ended up dead.

Table of Contents

A LEGACY OF BUTTERFLIES Title Page

Dedication

Chapters

Meet David Toft

Works from the pen of David Toft

A LEGACY OF BUTTERFLIES

David Toft

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Paranormal Novel

Edited by: Joan Afman

Copy Edited by: Karen Babcock

Senior Editor: Karen Babcock

Executive Editor: Marilyn Kapp

Cover Artist: Richard Stroud

All rights reserved

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

http://www.wings-press.com

Copyright © 2010 by David Toft

ISBN 978-1-59705-486-7

Published by Wings ePress, Inc. at Smashwords

Published In the United States Of America

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS 67114

Dedication

Many thanks to—All the members of The Deansgrange Philosophical Society for their continued help and support. The editorial staff at Wings for taking me on again. Mary, as always, for her patience and tolerance.

One

The two agents watched the front of the cottage from the protective cocoon of their SUV. A gale-force wind lashed the passenger side of the Toyota with horizontal sheets of rain. The blue and white crime-scene tape must once have criss-crossed the cottage door. Now it flapped loose and wild, no longer a barrier, or even a warning. To the right of the cottage an orange-striped patrol car and an unmarked green saloon stood empty.

They should have someone posted, Dan Clifford said, looking across the width of the car at his partner.

They’ll be inside, Becky Forbes replied. Wouldn’t you be in this weather?

I guess. Come on. We could be here forever waiting for it to ease. He stepped out onto the rain-swept gravel and dug his hands deep into his overcoat pockets. On the other side of the vehicle, Becky struggled to open the passenger door against the wind. It looked like the wind was winning. He bent his body into the gale and went to help. Becky stepped free, and the wind snatched the door from her grip and slammed it closed.

Dan watched her head for the cottage, the wind pushing her five-foot-two frame along. Wrapped up against the English weather, her body looked rounded, podgy even. He smiled. Beneath the layers of wool and linen, he knew, lay a completely different story.

She stopped and turned, the wind blowing her blonde bobbed hair into a vertical halo.

His smile broadened. It was for her now, and it told her that she was the most important thing in his world.

She smiled back, her eyes screwed up against the wind.

He caught up with her and bent to her ear, afraid that his words would be swept away unheard. All smiles, remember. The Brits are bound to resent us being here.

Yes, partner.

He lip-read the words that were carried away from his ears by the storm.

She turned away, her hand already reaching for the iron knocker that centred the timber planks of the door.

The small, pine-clad kitchen smelled of death even though the bodies had long since been removed. Their chalk outlines decorated the terracotta floor tiles. Other chalk marks, circles of various sizes, dotted other surfaces of the room: wall, floor, cooker, draining board, all enclosing spatters of dried blood. Larger, rust-coloured stains covered the head of one chalk silhouette and the chest of the second.

As far as we can tell, Detective Chief Superintendent Bill Blake said, "she—he nodded down at one of the chalk outlines—stabbed him." He nodded at the other.

Dan watched the policeman. He’d felt none of the resentment that he’d expected to walk into. Even the uniformed officer who had ushered them in from the storm, and who now hovered somewhere behind them, had been all politeness and smiles. The British authorities, Dan suspected, were party to something about which he knew nothing. He fought away the urge to smile; there was also a lot about which they knew nothing. Another part of the game they all played. One day he’d get bored with it, but for now, as jobs went, it wasn’t the worst.

He pushed her away, Blake continued. There’s two bloody handprints on the front of her blouse. She stumbled and hit her head on the corner of the Aga, there. He pointed.

Any ideas on why she stabbed him? Dan asked, looking down at the larger of the bloodstains.

Not a clue. All the neighbours and villagers describe them as a happy and loving couple. No money problems, quite the opposite in fact, and a new baby they both doted on. Post-natal depression maybe.

Was she being treated for it, on medication?

No.

Well thank you, Chief Superintendent. I guess we’ve seen all we need to.

Blake looked at Dan from beneath raised eyebrows, as if he couldn’t believe that they’d crossed the Atlantic just for that.

You’ll send us copies of the toxicology reports?

The raised eyebrows knitted. I hadn’t planned on requesting any.

You’re not interested in finding out whether one or both of them were on drugs?

Becky coughed.

Sorry, I know it’s your investigation. Dan smiled a reinforcement of his apology. But both of the victims had received treatment at a private clinic in California. The federal drugs boys are concerned that the medication they received there might have triggered this in some way.

Blake visibly relaxed.

Dan stifled a chuckle. Just the chance that Blake might be able to blame the Americans for this mess had made the policeman’s day.

I’ll see to it that full tests are carried out. You’ll have the results as soon as I do.

I’m grateful... Well, we’ll leave you to your work. Come on, Agent Forbes. Dan turned to the door, then quickly back. Oh, and the baby?

In local authority care.

There was no family, no relatives?

No.

That’s sad. Boy or girl?

Boy. Gordon, they called him.

Dan looked at Becky. Her expression told him that she was thinking the same thing he was. They’d named the baby after their friend, the one who’d hanged himself after blowing up his wife. The thought chilled him more than the howling wind that still rattled the cottage’s windows had. He shook his head. Could you tell me where?

The detective’s expression turned defensive again.

We just need to be sure... Experimental drugs, I’m sure you understand.

Yes, yes, of course. Relief again, written large in the Englishman’s expression. Of course. He jotted down an address and handed it to Dan. The constable will go with you. It will make access easier.

The wind had dropped, but only slightly. Dan waited until the marked police car manoeuvred from its parking slot and headed toward the lane, then he pulled away to follow it. He glanced sideways at Becky.

She stared out of the passenger window.

We didn’t kill them, you know, he said.

She turned to look at him, her eyes filled with sad resignation. Didn’t we?

He dropped a hand onto her knee and squeezed it. No we didn’t. He smiled, trying to lift her mood. Come on, let’s go adopt a baby. That’s what we’re here for.

Two

Twenty-one years later

The breakthrough came during his third month of training. Gordon lay on his back on the deep pile carpet, eyes closed; his breathing deep and controlled; the guiding voice of psychologist Hillary Matheson only a distant, dreamlike background.

Hillary’s gentle, New England accent suited its purpose ideally. She walked him mentally along the forest path. He could actually feel the pine needles beneath his feet and smell the fragrance of the trees.

You are entering a clearing. Her voice sounded, both inside his head and from miles away, gentle and reassuring, a guide that he could trust implicitly. In the centre of the clearing is a tree stump. Walk over to it, look at it, walk slowly around it.

The original tree must have been huge, a gigantic deciduous tree in the middle of a coniferous forest. His mind flirted with the thought that this was strange, but then accepted it without further question. The top of what remained of the trunk was flat and smooth; the dark, concentric age rings, a stark contrast to the white of the wood between them. From its massive base, roots spread out in all directions before disappearing into the earth.

Now sit on the stump and look at the forest around you. Feel the wood beneath you. Sink slowly down into it. You are the tree trunk.

An incredible sense of strength and power infused into his body. His arms and legs spread to the side. The warm and comforting earth did not swallow them. Rather, they gripped it, and their grasp was all-powerful, unyielding, and eternal. The trunk he had become was now bigger than the clearing. He looked down on the forest beneath and felt like a god.

You are floating upward and out of the tree trunk. Once again you are sitting on it looking at the forest.

His perspective returned to normal. The trees around him were still. No breeze or birdsong disturbed the peace of his clearing.

Stand up now and walk straight forward into the forest again. See the path in front of you, the trees around you, feel the ground beneath your feet. You are leaving the forest now. Don’t look back, only forward. See the stream in the distance. Walk toward it.

A vast expanse of open land lay in front of him. The sun shone, brightening the still air. Here and there, patches of purple heather broke the monotony of greens and browns. The stream glistened silver in the strong light; it flowed from right to left across the whole field of his vision. He couldn’t hear it at first, but as he approached across the silent landscape, the gurgling of its water slowly encroached on his consciousness, where, being the only sound, it dominated all other sensations.

Step into the stream and sit down in the water. Now lie back into the water—let it flow over you.

He felt no wetness or discomfort when he stepped into the water or when he sat down. It was cool, but refreshingly so. Leaning slowly backward, he felt the level of the water rising across his cheeks. As it closed in over his mouth and nose, he tensed, expecting a surge of panic at the final immersion, a desperate screaming for air. None came. As the seconds passed, he became more and more at ease with his new environment; it refreshed and comforted... so peaceful, and so safe. He realised that his eyes were closed. When he opened them, the clouds and sky above him, viewed through the rippling surface of the stream, shimmered in ever-changing patterns. He could stay there, safe, caressed by the invigorating and yet relaxing water, forever.

Now sit up. Get to your feet and continue your walk.

He almost refused, but the voice continued, interrupting the feelings of well-being and breaking the spell.

You have walked a long, long way. You arrive at a wall. In the wall is a door. Look at the door.

The wall, at least twenty-foot high and constructed from huge, limestone blocks, stretched left and right for as far as he could see. The blocks fit together so well that the cement between them appeared hardly to have been necessary. The door would also have appeared large had not the scale of the wall dwarfed it. It was solid and panelled, probably oak, but a thick, shiny coat of dark green paint obscured the natural colour of the timber.

At your feet is a key. Pick it up.

He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it earlier. It was large, the sort of key that he associated with medieval dungeons. It glistened, brass or maybe even gold. He crouched and wrapped his fingers around it. It weighed enough to be gold. He looked up at the door, and his brow creased. The keyhole hadn’t been there before. He stood. The key fitted snugly into the lock and turned with well-oiled ease. The mechanism clicked, and the door swung inward, needing only the negligible pressure of his fingers against the key to set it in motion.

Now unlock the door and open it.

He’d gotten ahead of his guide.

Walk through the door and toward the cottage.

The overgrown and neglected ground beyond the door had obviously once been a garden. The ruins of an old stone hut stood to his left. He looked around for a cottage, but could see no other building. His guide had not chosen her words over-carefully. Feelings of disquiet nipped at the base of his skull.

Hillary had never been wrong before.

The windows to each side of the hut’s doorway showed no evidence of ever having been framed, much less glazed. A primitive planking door only partially filled the doorway. The top hinge had given way, making the door tilt precariously. This put so much pressure onto the bottom one that it seemed impossible for it to take the strain for much longer.

Inside the cottage is a man. He has a gift for you.

He had to lift the door back to the horizontal before it would allow him to pull it open. Easing it back only ninety degrees, he let the bottom corner rest on the ground and peered into the gloom of the hut’s interior. His sense of unease grew. This place generated no feelings of warmth or welcome, and Hillary had never before asked him to meet another person.

He edged through the doorway; his eyes adjusting to the half-light. A scattering of hay covered the earthen floor. It smelled fresh, easing his sense of foreboding. In the far corner, an old man sat on a tall, wooden stool.

The man smiled, but the expression carried no welcome. His bright eyes, too, threatened more than comforted. He could have been North African, or Middle Eastern. A loose, white robe, his only visible article of clothing, reinforced this impression. Gordon tried to estimate his age. He could be sixty, or six hundred.

The man raised a bony arm and, extending a finger, pointed to a sack, half-hidden in the gloom of the hut’s far corner. A jerking motion of his outstretched hand indicated that Gordon should approach the sack rather than stand looking at it.

He edged toward it sideways, not wanting to let the old man out of his sight.

The man’s smile never wavered. His skeletal frame gave the impression that had he tried to step down from his perch, he would topple over, but something in his eyes suggested power beyond the physical.

When Gordon reached the sack, he was forced to take his eyes from the man as he turned and stooped to study it more carefully. Old and hessian, perhaps half-full, with its mouth folded closed and away from him. Gripping the loose material, he gave it a tug. It didn’t move. He pulled harder—nothing.

He looked over his shoulder.

The old man, his arm, still outstretched, pointed toward the sack and now also directly at Gordon. It must have been a strain for him to continue holding it in that position for so long, but his features carried no hint of discomfort.

Returning his attention to the sack, Gordon pulled open the top and cautiously dipped his hand inside. The lip of the sack passed his elbow. Unless it covered a hole, his hand had passed through the floor. Confused, he glanced over his shoulder.

The man stepped down from his perch and withdrew an ornate, but very deadly looking, dagger from the billowing sleeve of his robe.

Gordon tried to pull his arm free. It wouldn’t move. Nothing gripped it, but he could not extricate it one millimetre. He turned his body until the pressure on his arm threatened to snap bone. The man took another step toward him, seeming more confident now that Gordon was immobile. The knife waved menacingly in his hand. Now, his smile carried emotion; it was pleasure: evil, sadistic pleasure.

The fluttering in Gordon’s stomach felt like nervous stage fright only for a couple of seconds. The churning increased until it was almost painful. Butterflies, Becky had called them. There were thousands of them, building up power and speed, impatient to escape. He lifted his free hand to his midriff. He could feel them rippling the skin. Suddenly he was back in his woodland clearing. He was the massive tree trunk that gripped the very earth itself, which looked down godlike on the mighty pines that alongside it were no more impressive than blades of grass. He lay in the stream, protected, comforted. He felt the vitality of the water swirling over him. The butterflies gave one last, uncontrollable flurry. His mouth opened in a cry of defiance, and they escaped on that cry, a swirling mass of colour and power.

They whirled around the old man’s head and corkscrewed down his body before they picked him up and hurled him backward into the solid wall of the hut. Gordon’s arm became free, and he leaned back, not against the wall, but through it.

Open your eyes, Hillary said, no longer the confident guide. She sounded close to panic. Gordon... Gordon.

He sat up. His stomach felt peculiar. The door burst open, and two white-coated assistants ran into the room.

You okay? Hillary knelt beside him.

Fine, he said, feeling his stomach.

He turned at the unexpected sound of a discharging fire extinguisher. A cloud of white powder enveloped the TV in the corner of the room behind him. The window above it had shattered.

What happened to the window? he asked, looking back at Hillary.

That, she said, shaking her head, is where the voice recorder made its exit. Let’s watch the video playback. See what happened.

Not a hope in hell, the assistant said, giving the TV one last blast from the extinguisher. "You should see the state of the equipment next door. The TV got off lucky; it’s still recognisable.

All had being going predictably smoothly, Hillary explained, once the dust had settled. The watching researchers had almost been dozing off, when Gordon had let out one cry and all hell broke loose. She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. Gordon’s gaze followed the movement.

Do try and pay attention.

Sorry.

She leaned forward to retrieve her notebook from the floor, presenting a tantalising glimpse of cleavage.

Gordon concentrated on the carpet.

Right, let’s go through it from the start. You were walking through the forest.

Gordon looked up at her, not wanting to go back there. You’ve never taken notes before.

She laughed. We had recording equipment before. Now, quit stalling.

As Gordon related his descriptions of both the tree trunk and the stream, Hillary smiled. When he got to the cottage and the old man, she looked pensive. When he described the dramatic emergence of the butterflies, her brow creased, then her smile returned. A start at last, she said, clapped her notebook shut, stood up abruptly, and left the room without another word to him.

Gordon remained seated, staring at the door as it swung closed behind her. They’d talked about the butterflies often enough, but he’d never felt them before. He rubbed a hand across his stomach. Everything he’d learned told him one thing. When the butterflies appeared, someone, somewhere, ended up dead.

Three

Brigitte Dennequin eased her body carefully to one side. The straw that littered the earth floor of her cell irritated her naked back, but she couldn’t escape its torment. A wave of pain washed over her, then receded into numbness. The nylon twine that held her wrist securely to the rusting down-pipe in the corner of the cell wore its way through another fragile layer of skin. Her arm, she knew, was broken, but the pain, a kaleidoscope of reds and yellows, didn’t emanate from there, but from inside her head.

Brigitte was a doctor serving with a Canadian charity. She had been in Afghanistan for only two months when the Taliban government reversed its policy of tolerating foreign aid workers. Western and Christian, she and her colleagues were not considered prisoners; they were not considered human. A gravely voice uttered something unintelligible and, despite the pain that she knew the light would bring, she opened her eyes. He didn’t appear to have moved, still had that moralistic and, at the same time, sadistic, smile. Perched on the tall stool, he would in different circumstances have been a comic figure, old, very old, but not weak, not vulnerable. From the folds of his gown he raised a long, bony arm and pointed down at her. She had only to move her eyes to see the room’s only door. Another uniformed soldier stepped through it and, grinning broadly, strode towards her, his hands unfastening the front of his camouflage trousers as he approached.

~ * ~

The new generation of Cruise missiles was the ultimate in smart weapon technology, satellite-guided and accurate to within a few centimetres over thousands of miles. This formation had been launched from a US carrier group on patrol in the Indian Ocean. The onboard computer of the lead missile registered the contours of the rugged terrain over which it passed, then the buildings on the outskirts of Kabul. Turning ninety degrees above a busy street corner, it locked its sensors onto the one window of the main government administration building at which it had been targeted. From the cobbles below, armed tribesmen fired at it ineffectually. In the sky around it, twelve other deadly projectiles adjusted course automatically, pinpointing their own designated targets. Five minutes flying time behind them, two helicopter gun ships hugged the ground in order to avoid radar detection, their crews and passengers in silent contemplation of the mission ahead.

Inside the lead missile, an inexplicable surge of power burnt out