Free Scion by Murray McDonald Page A

before her adoption and her real parents. They were hard working salt of the earth types who loved their daughter above everything else.
    Ashley tried not to think back to those days as it always upset her. Instead she remembered the day she announced she was quitting Harvard and joining the Navy. It never failed to bring a smile to her face. Her snob of a mother almost feinted, screaming in horror at the thought of her daughter becoming a…a soldier. Ashley had explained that she was joining the naval academy to train as an officer but that did little to re-assure her mother. To be fair to her father, he was just disappointed. He was not in the least embarrassed and if it weren’t for her mother, he might even have admitted he was proud of her. Ashley brought herself back to the present, all that had been a long time ago.
    She had a flight to catch and checked her watch. Not a chance she thought. Her home was forty miles away on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay, just South of the Naval Academy where she had graduated four years earlier. She desperately needed some clothes, all she had that wouldn’t label her a prostitute were the ones she was in and they didn’t exactly smack of first class. What she would have given for her own clothes, Chanel, Prada, D&G. All her lovely clothes just hanging in her wardrobe but she wouldn’t make it. Oh well, she thought to herself, nothing else for it, a bit of shopping on the way to the airport.
    ***
    From the moment he had left New York, Clark had not stopped talking on the phone. First he had called The Unit as he needed some assistance. Not a problem. Two men were at his disposal and would pick him up when he landed. Next was tracking down any info they had on the target, Rosie. Not a lot it seemed but they did know she had worked at The Palace which would be Clark’s first stop when he arrived. Just before he landed, he received a call that changed his plan entirely. Walker had updated him on the disastrous operation in England. As he talked through the implications of this, he formulated an idea and Walker, on hearing it, agreed. He hung up and dialled The Unit. He needed a very particular operative asap.
    As planned , the two Unit members had met him at the helipad and drove immediately to The Palace. Even though a native New Yorker, Clark had heard of The Palace but knew little of its owner Darius. However, the soldiers knew enough to paint the picture of a drug dealing pimp who’d done well. As they pulled up at the front door, Clark thought it must be the wrong building. It looked like just any other apartment block, but he was soon told that the first few floors were normal housing and the top few floors comprised The Palace. As Clark approached the lift, the two soldiers followed.
    “Where are you going?” asked Clark.
    “ To watch your back,” answered one of them.
    “The day I need somebody to watch my back when dealing with a pimp, is the day I retire. Get back in the car ,” he ordered.
    Clark was an average man. Everything about him was average, his height, weight, build, looks. If you had to give him a name you’d call him Mr Smith or as he frequently called himself Mr Johnson. Psychologically however he was anything but average. He was an exceptionally complex individual, with a high IQ and more than one clinical psychologist had advised his previous employers, the Central Intelligence Agency, that he needed help. However, little did the psychologists realise they were merely re-affirming the agency’s belief that he was the perfect man for the job. Intelligent, detached and with little or no empathy. The next five years would be spent as one of the agency’s most accomplished assassins. It was only after meeting William Walker III twenty five years earlier that Clark realised how lucrative his talents were.
    Clark stepped out of the elevator into The Palace’s reception area, it was like no whore house Clark had seen. He preferred his woman rough, they