Chapter 29
2:20 p.m.
Hertfordshire, England
Mason’s face broke into a grin as he sipped a glass of whiskey on the rocks. He liked his astute plan. He set the cold glass on a coaster by the video-conferencing system and pressed down the start button that powered the unit. “Are you there, Milan?” he asked.
The left screen lit up, displaying a head shot of a silver-haired, heavyset Italian. “Here.”
“Let’s check for Sydney,” Mason said.
The second screen lit up. “Sydney is on the line,” said a woman’s voice.
One by one the screens lit up until five monitors representing five time zones were online, Milan, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Johannesburg and San Francisco.
Mason greeted the conference participants and loaded a file onto the system as each participant followed the presentation on their individual monitors.
“Good afternoon from London, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see from the first slide, we’re right on track. Each one of these influential figures was chosen carefully.” He observed each glaring associate individually before proceeding. “Once the hosts are within their targeted positions they’ll proceed with the following orders. Unknown to the organizations we’ve chosen the hosts, or hackers should I say, will infiltrate the US government computer systems and the world’s largest corporations starting with the aforementioned firms, Riche Enterprises and The Kumar Oil Corporation. The hacking viruses will find a home in the RC2 Cloud systems of these institutions.”
Tel Aviv eyed his plan with awe and distaste all at the same time. “How does it work?” he asked.
Mason leered at him, detesting the presumptuous idiot. “The hackers steal access to these organizations. They’ll penetrate the infrastructures by first embedding into a website hosted on each individual server and then covertly install a command and control infrastructure. Quite simple really. Once these organizations are hacked it will give us access to eighty percent of the world’s technology infrastructure.”
“Excellent,” beamed Sydney.
Pride dripped off Mason’s lips as he spoke. “Once the system is in place it's a hundred percent undetectable by the organizations’ substructures. They’ll never be able to trace our hackers’ activity. The companies will undergo failures, outages and transactions they’ve not approved but will never know how to stop the havoc. I have handpicked each one of the three thousand hosts myself.”
“That must have taken a while. Will they just follow orders?” Johannesburg asked.
Mason circled the room. “They’ll not even know they are hackers.”
3:00 p.m.
Blackmore, Essex
England
Calla pounded her fist on the freshly painted blue door of the two-story cottage. She knit her eyebrows as she stood on the narrow entrance porch of the secluded farmhouse.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Calla peered through the open window to the right of the door. Inside, the light in the front room hung swinging without a lampshade.
She rang the doorbell once more of what used to be the Girls’ Village Home of Blackmore. Thirty miles west out of Central London, Blackmore was fifty minutes’ drive away. A village once termed in the Middle Ages as ‘Black Marsh’ or ‘Black Swamp.’ The house was one of three stone-built properties on a converted farm, set in the picturesque countryside in the heart of Blackmore.
She gazed down at a printed-paper in her trembling hand. There in her grip, the local tourist information indicated that the home shut its doors in 1991. The Home had opened in 1876 as a large complex for disadvantaged girls. In 1945 it was converted, accommodating boys as well.
Calla’s Internet search had also produced the name of the last director who had run the home. Rosetta Black. According to her intelligence sources, Rosetta still lived here. She hammered once more on the sturdy cedar. She stepped back and considered the plaque on the wall.
Girls’ Village Home Blackmore
Even after more than two decades of closure it still hung visibly suspended above the entrance. Calla drew away from the veranda and took a few paces back. She blinked as the sun peered through the heavy clouds, causing her to squint as she glared up. Most of the shutters were closed except for those on the second story.
She scanned the driveway. A dated white Peugeot 403 stood in the overgrown parking space. Calla scrutinized the old brochure of the Home that she’d kept in her stash of research from the age of ten, a fragment of her past that made no sense to her. Mama Cress had given her the brochure one summer during half term when she kept questioning them about her real parents.
She turned to the back page and studied the information again.
The girls who are received at Blackmore Village Home range from infancy onward. Most of our girls stay with us until they reach the age of seventeen, provided a suitable home is not found.
From 1876 until 1939 thousands of girls called Blackmore Village Home. Many received excellent training in various professions, and there was always a great demand for Dr. Sterling’s well-trained girls. Today our hope is to place girls in proper schools through sponsorship or homes through adoption.
Calla would have been five years old when she left the orphanage in 1987. She remembered little of her life here except for the cottage and the little wooden swing that used to stand beside the driveway, where she would spend several hours.
Alone.
The swing was gone, probably removed to make room for the new driveway. She rang the doorbell one last time.
Nothing.
Shrugging, she turned to leave.
“Yes?”
A gray-haired, woman slowly pulled the door open, wearing what appeared to be an oversized kitchen apron. She leaned on a copper-colored walking stick and eyed Calla intensely with her hooded brown eyes. It was clear she didn’t receive many visitors.
Calla gave her a heartfelt smile, turning toward the door. “Hello. I…I’m Calla Cress. I wonder if you can help me.”
The woman cautiously slid the door open and peered through the inch crack. “What is it you want?”
“Have you lived at this address long? You see, I was brought here as an orphan. I’m looking for any information on what happened to the orphanage and the orphans—”
Calla stopped mid-sentence, feeling an enormous weight on her mind. The woman’s stare remained frigid and she dragged the door to close it. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”
Calla had come too far. She’d avoided knocking on this door for months. The answers had to be here. Determined not to be warded off Calla set a firm hand in the door crack. “Please help me.” A wrench of misery surfaced to her throat. “I’m dying—” she whispered.
The woman’s look stiffened. A tear emerged in Calla’s left eye and dropped to her elbow as her hand remained steady on the door. “Please help me. I have a genetic disorder and I need to talk to you.”
An invisible weight lifted from Calla’s shoulders. She’d finally acknowledged the full extent of her fraught existence. “Won’t you help me, please?”
The frown lines in the old woman’s face eased. She attempted a weak smile. “I’m sorry. I’ve lived here since I was a girl but, I don’t see how I can help you.”
Calla pulled out a wrapped object from her denim pockets, a laminated photograph. “Perhaps this can help? This is the only memory I have from this place. Do you recognize it and why it was filed with my adoption papers?”
The woman’s glare dropped to Calla’s hands and without a word, her feeble hand eased the photograph from Calla’s grip. Once she’d surveyed the black and white image she lifted her gaze to study Calla’s intent. “Where did you get this?”
“I’ve had it since I was baby, I think. You see, it’s a photograph of a birthmark. I’ve had it as long as I can remember. My adoptive parents, Mama and Papa Cress said it was the only personal belonging they took from this orphanage.”
Calla raised the right leg of her denim jeans. “Here. Take a look at this. It looks like a tattoo.”
The woman’s eyes widened even further as they fell on the impressive birthmark. She drew the door wide open. “Come in.”
Calla closed the door behind her as the gentle woman led her inside the humble cottage. She moved at the woman’s slow pace as they trailed past the cloakroom that led one into an inviting living space. Calla studied the arched windows and the rustic Inglenook fireplace, which still emitted a distinct burned odor reminding her of the quiet, winter evenings she spent listening to Papa Cress’ stories by the fire. They paced past the room, settling in a retro, orange and brown tiled kitchen with its sixties decor.
The mature woman took a seat at a round kitchen table. “For years I wondered what had happened to you, Calla. We didn’t call you Calla then.”
Calla pulled a seat across from her and slowly dipped into its synthetic frame, not once taking her gaze off the tender, yet wrinkling face. “What did you call me?”
“Baby. Just, Baby Cress. You were the youngest baby we had in the home at that time.”
“You know this photo?”
“Would you like some tea?” the woman asked ignoring the question.
Calla nodded out of respect for the woman’s hospitality. “Just milk, no sugar, please.”
The woman doddered at a shaky pace toward the sink by the window overlooking the driveway. April showers began a steady descent in the courtyard as the sun disappeared behind the graying clouds.
The woman closed the windows and soon the whistling kettle broke the serene silence. She brewed two cups of Earl Gray and took her place at the table.
Her voice shook with strain as she spoke. “You were the one we were most careful to place in the right home. That’s why you stayed with us longer than most.”
She wouldn’t interrupt even though everything in her wanted to know why.
The woman slurped audibly from her steaming, tea mug. “I remember the night well. We had been told for months that a baby girl was to come to our home. She needed special attention and delicate care.”
Calla tasted the weak tea and set her cup on the table, as the beverage warmed her hands more than her throat. “Why?”
“I remember the couple well. They were well groomed from head to toe. The woman was so stylish. For a village girl like myself I thought she was royalty.” She let out a small laugh. “The man was tall and strong. Everything about him pronounced his authority. But what gentle eyes he had. Especially when he looked at you, Calla, all bundled up with your tiny face in that sweet white bonnet. Your hair, my dear, is as dark as it was then.”
The woman reached over and raked her feeble hands through Calla’s dark mane. “Still silky like a raven’s coat.”
Calla listened intently as the woman’s narrative sparked her imagination, picturing the man and woman in her mind. These must have been her parents. “What were they like?”
“They seemed reluctant to leave you but they both signed and agreed that it was for the best. They only had one legal condition, that this birthmark never be removed. That is why we took a photo of it and kept it with your file. The contract stipulated that they would pay your adoptive parents for all your expenses into adulthood. And I remember they said a trust fund was left in your name with a beneficiary.”
“Was there a name?”
Any name would do. Please God!
“I don’t remember.”
Calla now understood. That’s how Mama and Papa Cress had afforded her education. They’d always claimed it was a fund they’d inherited. They lied to me.
The woman took another noisy draft of her tea. The rain had stopped and sun rays sparkled off her spotless kitchen sink.
Calla investigated further. Perchance this time she would get a response. “What’s so special about this birthmark? It’s very unusual.”
The woman cradled the photograph in her bony hands. “Dear child, they didn’t explain anything. The adoptive papers were in order. I distinctly remember they were in a tremendous hurry. I was just the office assistant then, told to administer everything with the new office computers. In the eighties that was a novelty.”
“Did they say where they were going and the reason for my adoption? Where can I find those files?”
“I don’t know. The home closed when it ran out of funds. I’m not sure what happened to the files. Destroyed maybe.”
“They just walked away?”
Calla’s host nodded slowly. “I just took you in my arms and watched as the woman was pulled away from you. Oh, did she cry! We heard her weeping all the way to the waiting car that night.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t even know if they were your parents. The papers didn’t have any information about your birth. If I remember correctly it listed them as your guardians.”
“What were their names?”
“Oh, if only I had the files. I don’t remember.” She glanced at Calla’s eager face. “As soon as they placed you in my arms, they left. You were such an angelic child. And at five your new parents came to take you.”
A tear strained out of Calla’s right eye however hard she tried to control it. Her throat lost all moisture.
The aging woman took Calla’s hand into hers. “I’m so sorry, Calla. I wish I could tell you more. That information was legally classified to protect both parties. They were very specific about that. In fact, I think I remember we were to destroy your files once you left the orphanage.”
“Why?”
“I remember asking myself the same question.”
Calla took one hand back and wiped her damp eyes. “In all the time I was here did I ever visit a doctor? Is there anywhere I can find out more about my medical history?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed and she leaned in closer. “That’s all I know.”
Calla’s cheeks burned, rejection and despair immersing her mind. Her voice clogged with emotion. “It’s almost as if they paid the Home and my adoptive parents to take me. Why? What was so wrong with me?”
The woman’s disheartened eyes turned from Calla’s solemn face as her own sorrow echoed Calla’s grief. “I hope that’s not true.”
Knowing it was the only comfort she could offer the gentle woman drew her in her warm embrace.
Calla rested her head against the comforting heart of the compassionate stranger. Why did these people just leave me? They must’ve known I had an abnormality. That’s why they gave me away and asked for special treatment for me.
Calla’s unsteady voice broke through the sobs. “I was a burden to them…a weakling and therefore undesirable.”
Everything she’d feared.
My changing state can’t be attributed to the carbonados. Jack and Nash aren’t affected.
The senior woman wiped Calla’s tears with a thin index finger. What had been a twenty minute cry in the woman’s consoling arms felt like it had lasted all afternoon. Calla lifted her throbbing head and bloodshot eyes from the woman’s arms. She wiped moist eyes with her sleeve and sat upright as the darkening cloud cover told her it was getting late. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Let me check.”
“I need to go.” She fixed intent eyes on the woman’s face. “Thank you. I have the closure I need.”
The woman cupped Calla’s face in her hands. “I don’t like the resolve in your voice, dear. Calla Cress, you’re your own person. Live your life to the fullest. Just because your parents didn’t want you doesn’t mean that no one does. You may have been an accident to them but your life isn’t accidental.”
The woman’s words were still ringing in Calla’s head as she headed back to her car. Nothing matters now. The stones, the manuscript.
Life…
Rosetta watched Calla hurtle to the Maserati as she glimpsed outside the rain-stained, kitchen window. She regretted the amount of information she’d revealed, convinced that she’d caused more harm than good.
Then again she hadn’t given Calla the most vital piece of information. However, that was the one thing the couple had asked her never to tell Calla.
5:58 p.m.
A12 Highway to London
Would they have kept me, if I wasn’t a freak? The thought hung in the air as Calla hauled her heavy feet into a run toward her Maserati. She flung herself into the front seat, a piercing pain attacking her chest. Her face mirrored the thunderous discharge that continued to assault most of Essex. I’ll never know family, belonging…
A bolt of lightning lit the sky, followed by a crack of thunder. I’m incapable of loving because I’ve never been loved. That’s why I run…every time.
From Nash…
Another explosion of lightning.
Terrified at giving affection to the one person who care for her with a fondness so visible Calla was incapacitated. The pelting streams blinded the driveway ahead as she revved up the Maserati’s engine and accelerated toward the A12 highway en route to Central London.
With the road submerging under voluble streams, brought on by the incessant downpour, the sports car sliced through forming puddles, threatening to curve her off the road.
What would anyone care if I ended it all now?
Surely that’s better than mutating into God knows what!
Nash’s image formed in her mind, threatening to alter her resolution. She brushed it away.
Nash. It would have been…
Drunk with disgust at herself, her world, her parents, whomever, she stepped on the gas.
Darkness threatened to steer her into oblivion as her vision marred, at best with a brew of tears and precipitation. Not a single car loomed in sight. Armed with a bruised heart and a tortured mind Calla made a decision.
I won’t take anyone with me. It only takes a second. Maybe two…
The engine chortled, raucous as it navigated through gushes and thunder. Calla focused straight ahead, her eyes blinded by desperate windshield wipers. She spotted an overpass bridge about a mile a head. The concrete structure would deliver the demolition she required.
Will it hurt? She swerved into fifth gear, rocketing just under the hundred-and-sixty miles per hour mark, her eyes fastened onto the dense structure.
Now or never!
Nash…I’m so sorry…
With no clear cautioning, an arresting light surfaced from under the flyover. Her gate to extinction. As if to ward her off the dazzling headlights flickered with the ferocity of a panicked lioness. Where did you come from?
This isn’t what she wanted. She wanted to go alone. She slammed the brakes and shut her eyes. The Maserati failed to conform to will and flew forward toward obscurity.