Previously: Mercenary Leon fails on a mission because of David, better known as the Prince of Wales. Socialite Wallis Spencer is also a spy. MI6 makes them a team. David becomes king. David abdicates and they marry. The Windsors escape oncoming Nazis. Leon shadows their every move. Leon dies. His son Sidney mourns his death.
As Sidney Johnson went back into his house after watching his mother march into the sea to die, he felt a lump rise in his throat. In one day he lost his father and his mother.
Go ahead and cry. No one will see you. No one could blame you. But I never saw my father cry, even when Grandma Dotty died. When he saw his father killed by a shark, what did he do? He looked for a job to feed his family. When I was a small child the other boys made fun of me because I talked like a girl. When I cried they only laughed more. When I hit back they stopped laughing. I will never cry again.
He washed the dishes. His grandmother told him to wash dishes as soon as he finish the meal or else all kinds of disgusting bugs would crawl over them. Housework gave a certain order to life. The lump in his throat went away. He considered wandering up and down the dark beach straining for any sign of his mother’s body wafting on the waves until the sun rose.
But what good would that do? I’d be so tired I couldn’t work for old Jinglepockets tomorrow. I need to catch fish to eat. I must keep my own belly full so I can fill the bellies of my family.
Sidney put the last dish in the cupboard and closed the door.
Except I don’t have a family to feed any more.
That lump returned to his throat. He willed it away.
Mother said always take a shower before I went to bed.
Sidney walked out into the courtyard where a small enclosure held a shower. Rain water flowed when a rope was pulled on a barrel overhead. On a small shelf his mother had already placed soap, a towel for him and a clean shirt and trousers to wear to work the next morning.
She always thought of things like that. I’ll have to remember all the details of daily living on my own now. Concentrating on the details will make the pain go away. No, I mustn’t even admit the pain exists. I’m a man now.
After his shower and he put on his clean clothes, Sidney walked in and extinguished all the kerosene lamps except for one which he carried upstairs. Tonight he would sleep for the first time in his house alone. This was the moment, he thought, that’d make most men might break out it tears. But no tears came. Sidney could not remember the last time he cried. His earliest memories were of looking up to his father as the example of how a man should act. He never saw his father cry. Tears only clouded the mind, and the mind had to stay clear and aware of surroundings if a man wanted to survive.
At the top of the stairs was a long hall, one side with a railing overlooking the living room below. A random thought entered his head. They had never spent time in the living room. It was filled with potted plants, lush carpets, tufted arm chairs and sofas with end tables, each with an elaborate kerosene lamp. His parents never invited anyone over for dinner and an evening of conversation. His grandmother and mother spent hours cleaning it just so they could stand proud if visitors walked in. But no one ever came. Sidney decided it was his father’s choice not to trust anyone to enter his home. He did appreciate it being clean, if only for his eyes.
His parents’ bedroom was at the top of the stairs and had double hand-carved wooden doors. The next bedroom had been for his grandmother and the last at the end of the hall was his. Sidney took a moment to rest his hand on the handle to his parents’ bedroom before opening it. A large bed filled the center of the room. His mother, of course, had smoothed out every wrinkle and arranged several pillows in embroidered cases at the head. A large window opened over the courtyard outside. Bottle shards lined the top of the courtyard wall. He remembered his father holding him up to that window.
“Always look out your bedroom window before you go to sleep. You don’t want to let anyone sneak up on you.”
Against the far wall of the bedroom was a large walk-in closet. He had never been in that room.
“This is where I keep my unmentionables,” his mother told him. “And a gentleman must never enter the room which holds a lady’s unmentionables.”
Now that he was the only person living in the house, he felt he had the right to go into the closet, which he found remarkably vacant. Sidney was not surprised. His parents rarely left Eleuthera, except for his father. His mother preferred simple native attire. Sidney wanted to see his father’s wardrobe. He wondered how many of those white linen suits he owned. He also wanted to see if this was where Leon kept his weapons, the stock-in-trade of his mercenary business.
At first Sidney was disappointed. He only found one white linen suit and no sign of knives or guns. He leaned against a far wall which automatically opened to a small dark room. Sidney held up his lamp to see a long narrow table of all sorts of knives, machetes, stilettos and switch blades; guns, rifles, pistols with silencers and small revolvers masquerading as cigarette lighters and flashlights; and even a small collection of vials filled with yellowish liquids, obviously poison. He discovered disguises, false teeth, wigs, beards and fake rubber bellies.
The most important discovery was a metal box which contained hundreds of bills of almost every currency in the world. Then there was Leon’s bank ledger, listing accounts in institutions around Europe, South America and the United States. He was a wealthy man, Sidney realized, but the realization meant nothing to him. All the money in those bank accounts would not bring his mother or father back alive. He could have bought himself a fancy white linen suit but his father was at his happiest when he was barefoot running on the beach wearing a coarse weave shirt and pants. Sidney could not imagine a finer house than the one in which he had grown up, but it seemed sad and empty now. He decided what would truly make him happy right at this moment was a good night’s sleep so he could work for Jinglepockets tomorrow.
For a brief moment, he considered sleeping in his father’s bed. It looked so comfortable. This had to be the same bed the rich people slept in when his father worked as their bodyguard. Sidney shook his head. He did not deserve it, at least not yet.
Walking down the hall toward his bedroom with his lamp, he looked at the living room below. Through the many windows the moon shone, illuminating the room very well. He searched for items that might be used for weapons. Sidney didn’t understand why such a thought would cross his mind. Then he remembered his father’s advice: “You have good instincts. Never ignore them.”
In his room, he took off his clothes. Like his father he slept naked. He looked out his own window at the thatched-roof garden shed directly below. He knew in it was a rake with pitchfork-hard tines. A machete which he had just put to the grinder yesterday so he knew it was glistening sharp. Also a length of rope which could be used for a whole list of purposes—a garrote, a noose, something to tie together his weapons. Sidney leaned further out the window to check the glass shards on top of courtyard wall which went around three sides of the house and connected to the home in the back. The only way to get to the shed was outside of the front garden gate.
Sidney plopped into the bed and went to sleep straight away. He never let the cares of the day to ruin his deep, trance-like sleep which resuscitated his body for another day of work. He never dreamed. When other people described their bad dreams, Sidney had no idea what they were talking about.
He didn’t know what caused him to sit up in his bed. He had no idea how long it had been since he went to sleep. All he did know was something was not right. He slid from the bed. He didn’t take time to put on his clothes. Each second could mean the difference between life and death. Sidney padded his way to the bedroom door which he cracked open. Sidney heard thumps and muffled voices in the front courtyard.
Through one of the high, wide front living room windows he saw one man, perhaps two hundred pounds and six-foot tall, already in the yard. Coming over the wooden gate was another, also tall but lighter, a very agile man. His father forgot to put shards on top of the wooden gate. Sidney remembered to lock it and the front door to the house earlier in the evening. By now a shorter man had scrambled over the top of the gate. He was broad in the shoulder and had thick arms. Since they were all dark skinned and wore native clothing, Sidney guessed they were Bahamians and likely to know all the self-defense moves he had learned.
The intruders headed to the front entrance. Sidney figured they had a metal gadget to unlock the door. Sidney could not tell if they carried any weapons. Evidently they were told he was a young small man but might not be aware of his abilities. Perhaps they were confident they could overpower him with brute strength and kill him in silence. Such arrogance could be their downfall, Sidney thought.
He calculated he had three or four minutes before they were in the house. At first he considered running down the hall to his father’s bedroom and his cache of weapons. He decided against that option, because the men might see him on the balcony. Running to the window, he opened it and jumped onto the thatched roof. He rolled off it and landed on his feet on the ground by the shed door. He entered and felt around in the darkness until he found the rake, machete and rope. Outside he wrapped the rope around his waist with a loop to attach the machete. With the rake in his hands, he ran around the house. By this time he figured the intruders had gained access to the house. When he reached the front he stuck the sharp end of the rake in the ground and using the leverage flung himself to the top of the gate. From there he leaned over and pulled it from the ground then jumped into the courtyard.
As he suspected, the three assassins left the front door open. Sidney did not see any of them in the living room but he heard someone stumble against the table in the kitchen. Laying the rake aside, he pulled the machete from his waist and held it in striking position as he crept toward the sound. As Sidney reached the door, the short broad-shouldered man appeared. Before the intruder could react, Sidney swung the machete with all his might, and the man’s head flew back onto the kitchen floor. Blood spurted like a fountain from the man’s neck. Sidney felt acrid bile rise in his throat, but he forced it back down. He didn’t have time to puke right now. His father always told him to keep the element of surprise on his side.
Retrieving the rake, he put the machete, slick with blood, back in the rope around his waist and moved upstairs. He noticed only one bedroom door was open. It was his at the end of the hall. Whoever it was had been given information by an insider. The only one who could obtain such private details was Pooka. Sidney vowed to kill her. He held up the rake, with the sharp tines leading the way. Sidney waited outside the door in the shadows for the man to walk out. That was another advantage to being naked. He blended into the night. Coming out of the door was the tall heavy one. Before the intruder even saw him, Sidney rushed toward him, cramming the tines into his belly, pinning him to the wall. Taking no chances the man might shout, Sidney pulled out his machete and with one swift blow beheaded the man. Once again he remember his father’s lesson, act swiftly and without mercy. Sidney’s nose wrinkled at the sulfur smell of the blood. He took a step to turn and his bare foot slipped in a puddle of blood flowing down the man’s leg to the floor. Sidney grabbed the balcony railing to keep from falling.
Below him was the tall lithe man, running from the direction of the servant’s quarters which were below Sidney’s bedroom. Of all the men, this was the one Sidney took most seriously. He could jump from the balcony with the machete but that could put him in danger if the blade fell into the other man’s hands. He didn’t like it, but the only approach he had with his would-be killer was hand-to-hand combat.
When the man was directly under him, Sidney dropped the machete and jumped down on the man, landing on his back, causing the intruder to fall on his face. Sidney took the man’s hair and bashed his head into the tiled floor. When he felt the man stop resisting, Sidney rolled him over, reached out to grab a pillow from the sofa, put it over the man’s face and sat on it. To his side was an end table with a large lamp. He kicked the table over, the glass lamp cover fell and shattered on the tile. Sidney picked up a jagged edge and repeatedly plunged it into the man’s belly. He didn’t stop until the last breath left the assassin’s lungs.
Sidney squatted on the floor and hung his head between his knees. Sweat dripped off the end of his nose and mingled with the blood on the floor. He used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat off his brow leaving a smear of blood across his forehead. He stared at the dead man and knew he could not rest until he got the three assassins out of his house.
Sidney took his rope and tied it around the man’s neck, dragging him out the front door. He went through the gate and around the house to the shore line. He untied the rope and rolled the body into the surf until he felt the tide grab the corpse. Sidney didn’t know how he know instinctively knew what to do; perhaps, his father was speaking to him from beyond the land of the living. He didn’t take time to ponder it.
With the rope he ran back to the kitchen where he tied the short man’s feet together. Tucking the head under his arm Sidney began dragging him out. He was surprised how light the body was. As he headed to the beach, he decided to dump it further away from his house. When he was in an appropriately dark location, he tossed the head as far as he could into the ocean, untied the feet, and rolled the corpse into the surf.
His job was almost done. He looked around and not another soul could be seen. Sidney decided to walk back to the house taking time to catch his breath. He trudged up the stairs. Dragging the big man all the way to the beach might be beyond what his exhausted body could handle. He pulled the rake out from the assassin’s belly. The body plopped to the floor. Sidney looked across his room to the window. He had an idea. Tugging the body to the window, he grunted as he lifted it onto the sill. Sidney aimed it so that the corpse would not go through the thatched roof. The body landed inches to the left of the shed. Then he found the head and tossed it out. With grace he jumped onto the roof. He tied the feet of the large man with the rope and dragged it directly from his house to the shore. At this point he didn’t care if anyone in the neighborhood found it or not. As his final gesture, he threw the head into the dark Atlantic.
Sidney went back into the courtyard and went into the shower. He scrubbed his body down, washing away all the blood and body matter. Lumbering upstairs he stopped by the double doors to his parents’ bedroom. He ached all over. Sidney opened the door and walked in. He thought he heard his father’s voice commend him on a job well done.
He crawled between the sheets of the large bed and fell asleep. For the first time he had a dream. It was of little Sidney asking his father if he could do another job rather than kill people. For the life of him he could not remember his father’s answer. For the first time that night he was afraid. Two Sidneys resided in his body. The first was a quiet timid boy who just wanted to make people happy. The second was the young man who had just killed three men and now had no worries, no regrets. Which one was the real Sidney?

Previously: Mercenary Leon fails on a mission because of David, better known as the Prince of Wales. Socialite Wallis Spencer is also a spy. MI6 makes them a team. David becomes king. David abdicates and they marry. The Windsors escape oncoming Nazis. Leon shadows their every move. Leon dies. His family mourns his death.
The blonde was back at her blackjack table at the Rialto in Nassau, none worse for the wear. The buzz around the casino was the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Freeport where he would take up duties as governor. He and his wife arrived safely because of the work of Leon Johnson, now dead. She thought she should feel some guilt for putting a bullet in his back, but she did not. Her only regret was that she never went to bed with him. From the first moment she saw him saunter into the casino in his white linen suit she thought him so desirable she wanted to throw herself into his arms, but that would not have been professional. And she always thought of herself as a professional.
Her real name was Alina Romanov, perhaps the last of the Russian dynasty still alive, although she had no way of knowing for sure. The name her mother told her to use was Aline Montgomery—a reference they now lived in Montana. Her mother changed her own name from Anatolia Ribbentrop to Toni Montgomery. Her mother said the name Montgomery would give a hint they were of English descent, which, of course, they weren’t. Aline had never had any contact with the Romanovs or Ribbentrops. Her mother Toni told her not to try to make a connection with them or else her life might be endangered. Aline took comfort in the stories her mother told her to while away the evenings in their Butte, Montana, brothel. It didn’t bother her. She slept well every night—hardly any noise at all, unlike most respectable hotels.
Her mother, Toni, never kept the truth from her, no matter how ugly it was. Because of her upbringing, she was able to make it seem not that bad at all. Toni was a member of one of the oldest, most wealthy monarchies in Europe, the Romanovs. As a child, Toni had no idea there was evil in the world and its appearance shocked her very much. She told her daughter she never wanted her to be sheltered from evil. That way she would never be shocked by it. The evil first appeared with the coming of the Bolsheviks who vowed to kill everyone in the royal family, even the cousins. Her parents paid a handsome sum for a member of the Ribbentrops of Germany to marry her and take her away to live in the Bahamas. The Bolsheviks would never find her, her parents told her. But, of course, they did. The Bolsheviks assassins killed her husband and would have killed her if it hadn’t been for a Bahamian bodyguard. He was only sixteen years old, but he dispatched the assassins efficiently.
As Aline grew, her mother added details to the story. Toni made love to the bodyguard, and it was wonderful. A sad romantic husky tone entered her voice, as though that one night was the most fulfilling moment of her life which she would never have again.
“His name was Leon Johnson.” Toni’s voice became husky as she spoke his name. “He was the best lover I ever had.”
Perhaps the earliest emotion Aline experienced was that of deep sorrow for her loving mother. She decided to ask her mother about this man every chance she got. Aline loved the twinkle that entered her mother’s eyes when she said his name.
Leon Johnson. She paused and gazed out the window to the long verandah. What if he was the same man she killed in Lisbon? The same name. The same lethal skills. The same sensuality. What a waste.
“Hey, stop daydreaming!” A man’s rough voice interrupted her thoughts. “I said hit me!”
Aline dealt the card, but she continued thinking about her past. Toni told her she felt safe once she reached the wilds of Montana. No Bolshevik would think of looking for her there. She settled in Butte and with ease found a job at the local whore house. None of the other girls had her looks and refinement. From the beginning she earned top dollar for her skills.
Within a month of her arrival at the brothel, an out-of-shape young man who had not yet developed his paunch stopped over for the night. After his brief encounter with Toni, he stayed on for six months. He was a gold miner named Harry Oakes. He was born in Maine and went to medical college until he heard about the Klondike gold rush. He dropped out of college and mined in the Klondike, California and anywhere else where there was the slightest hint of a gold vein. He was on his way to Kirkland Lake Northern Ontario until he became enamored of the wiles of the wayward cousin of the Romanov family.
“For a brief moment in time,” Toni told her daughter, “I thought I was about to return to a life of opulence to which I had been born when I told Harry I was carrying his child.”
“How do you know it’s mine? After all, you’re a whore,” Harry protested.
“But you paid me to move into your hotel suite six months ago, and we’ve been playing house ever since,” she told him.
She described to her daughter exactly how dejected Harry looked. It was like the recess bell had rung and he had to go back to class.
“Babe, you know I love you, but I got my future to think about. I told you my parents are rich. That’s how I could afford medical school and afford to run around the continent looking for gold. I’ve even got some high falutin’ relatives in England. If I play my cards right, I could end up as a duke or earl or something.” He grimaced. “I’ve even got to get rid of this American accent I’ve picked up along the way. Why, if I go home after striking gold and with a wife from a brothel and a baby, I’d might as well kiss my dreams of high society good-bye.”
Toni shrugged. “Well, I know what it’s like being high society one day and out on my ass the next.” She stuck out her hand. “Been nice knowing you, Mr. Oakes.”
He shook his head. “Oh no, I’m not going to be that way. Hang on here until I hit the mother lode. I promise to send you a healthy check every month for you and the baby. And when the kid is old enough to work, send him to me. I know I can fix him up with something.”
Aline smirked as she dealt out a new hand of cards. Well, he got the gender wrong but at least he was good to his word. He didn’t say he’d fix me up with something respectable, just with something.
“When do you get off work tonight, gorgeous?” one of the men sitting around the table asked.
“Passed your bedtime, gramps.” Aline threw in a snipe about the guy’s age to make him shut up. It always worked.
Gramps, like I ever knew what it was like to have a gramps. I mean a nice old man who loved me and kept his hands to himself.
The man she called gramps stood and walked off in a huff.
“We’re starting a new game, ladies and gentlemen,” she announced in a clear, well-intoned voice. After all, her mother taught her to behave like a lady even if she wasn’t one. She paused hardly a moment before dealing the cards.
I actually loved my mother. She did what she did to stay alive. And she made only two mistakes in her life, and they were both Harry Oakes. I can’t blame her for the first one. At least I’m alive because of it. She couldn’t be held completely accountable for the second one. Mother was on her death bed because of pneumonia in 1925 when the letter came from Harry saying he had a glamorous job lined up for me in the Bahamas. My mother encouraged me to go to the Bahamas, even though I was only twelve years old. I always looked older than my age. That was better than dying a whore in Butte, Montana.
Aline could tell when she walked down the gangplank that Harry—now in his middle-aged full rotundity–didn’t know whether to embrace her with the full sentiment of a father/daughter reunion or to shake hands as a business courtesy to a new employee. Aline made it easy on him by extending her hand to him, which he shook with the efficiency of a stock broker. Harry meant nothing to her.
The past was the past. Hatred just made wrinkles show up on your face sooner with nothing to show for it. Revenge was for suckers.
Harry took her to the Rialto, showed her around the casino and asked her about her poker skills.
“Mother taught me all about poker, among other things,” she replied.
They settled on the terrace where a server took their orders for lunch. Sipping his wine, he gazed out at the ocean. “I hope all the checks I sent your mother arrived every month.”
“What checks?”
“Didn’t she tell you? I sent monthly checks to help raise you.”
Aline shrugged. “All I know is I never went hungry and always had nice clothes to wear.”
Harry nodded. “She got the checks all right.” He kept staring at the shore. “I don’t blame her for not telling you. She was a classy broad.”
“She wasn’t a broad,” she replied in a firm voice.
“You’re right, of course.” His apology was quick. “I’m the guy who spent his life digging in dirt for gold. I ain’t got no class.”
She didn’t say a word but just stared at him.
“Did Toni ever mention anything about the organization?”
“What organization?”
“Good. She had a head on her shoulders.” He took another sip of wine. “How can I explain this? Each country’s government has spies to resolve problems they don’t want splattered across the newspapers. But ordinary wealthy people have problems they don’t want splattered across newspapers either. So who are they going to hire to resolve their problems?”
“I thought that was what the Mafia was for.” So far, Harry wasn’t impressing Aline at all.
“They’re a very clannish group,” he explained. “Besides, they like to be the bosses, and rich people want to run things themselves. They want someone to go in, get the job done, take their money and forget about it.”
“Mercenaries.” Aline rolled her eyes. “They’re called mercenaries, Harry.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s a good name for them.”
“Are you telling me my mother was a member of this group of scumbags?”
“No, no. She was one of the poor ordinary rich people who hired the scumbags.”
“So you’re one of the scumbags.” Aline enjoyed nettling her father.
“Well.” He smiled rakishly. “I didn’t get all my money mining gold.”
“So, you think I’d agree to be one of these scumbags?”
“They pay very well. And you’ll be groomed before the first mission. Right now all you have to do is pass messages to our top agents.”
She finished her drink. “Well, if my mother thought well of this organization, then who am I to say no?”
“Glad to hear it.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now we can eat.”
The server put plates in front of each of them.
“Your first assignment is tonight. You will pass a note to a Bahamian man who will be wearing a white linen suit.”
Aline remembered her first meal at the Rialto as the best meal she ever had. Ever since then she’d never had any regrets, until Lisbon.
“Baby, if you don’t get your head out of the clouds, I’m leaving.”
When she focused on the present of 1940, she saw gramps had returned. “You promise?”
The other men around the table laughed. Aline looked over the shoulder of the old man and saw Pooka standing in the casino door.
“The table’s closed.” Aline walked straight to the old woman, took her by the elbow and escorted out to the beach. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Won’t that mess up your pretty shoes?” Pooka asked.
“I don’t give a damn about the shoes. Walk.”
It didn’t take them long to be at water’s edge and out of the lights of the Rialto.
“I told you never to come here.”
“But I thought you’d want to know Jessamine is dead. As soon as she heard about Leon she walked into the ocean.”
“And the boy?”
“You wanted him dead too?” Pooka’s eyes widened. “He’s so strong. Like his papa. I know I can control him for you.”
“You know very well the orders from the commander was that the entire Johnson family was to die.” Aline twisted Pooka’s arm.
“Are you sure?” the old woman asked.
Aline took off her left shoe and pressed a button on the heel. A sharp, slender knife shot out. She slammed it repeatedly into Pooka’s neck. The old woman crumbled to the sand. Aline looked down at her and noticed how wrinkled she was. She kicked her over and over until the body entered the surf.
She must have been eighty or ninety years old. It was time for her to die.