Rachel's Might

Rachel’s Might.

David Rory O’Neill.

Published by davidrory publishing at Smashwords.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Copyright © 2018 by David Moody.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in Belfast until troubles and tribal violence drove him away, David grew to be a non-conformist and independent soul clinging to his counter-culture ideals. He found peace and his true calling as a storyteller in the literary Irish tradition. He now lives in a lovely restored old art and book-filled house in the lee of the Silvermine Mountains, Tipperary, Ireland. He shares his life there with beloved Brigitte. David Rory O’Neill has written twenty novels and more are bubbling and brewing. http://www.davidrory.com

Dedications:

For Brigitte who showed me what love can be.

For Ria who is my beloved legacy and who in June 2016, gave me a grandson: Art Leonis Parker Eliott.

For Brigitte who showed me what love can be.

For Christopher for inspiration.

David Rory O’Neill. Ireland. 2019

Also by David Rory O'Neill: Available as paperback or eBook.

Rachel’s Walk. Novella (eBook)

Rachel’s War. Novella (eBook)

Rachel’s Might. Novella (eBook)

The Rachel Stories. Paperback omnibus edition.

The Butterfly Effect Trilogy:

Bonny, the Butterfly Effect.

Lauren, the Butterfly Effect.

Chepi, the Butterfly Effect.

The Prairie Companions.

Beloved Warrior. (Out late 2019)

Always Leoti.

The West Cork Trilogy:

1 Surviving Beauty. 2 Beauty’s Price. 3 Blue Sky Orphan.

4 The West Cork Trilogy. Omnibus (eBook)

The Daniel Series:

1 Conflict. 2 Challenge. 3 Passion. 4 Grip.

5 Judgement. 6 Pyramid. 7 Trial.

The Daniel Series box set: The Adventures of Daniel, Lauren and Bonny. (eBook)

Other Novellas:

Animal. Novella (eBook)

Skellig Testament. Novella (eBook)

I welcome contact with my readers. Information on published and future work can be found on my website: http://www.davidrory.com/

If you enjoyed this novel please leave a review on your suppliers website – reviews are the lifeblood of the modern author.

UK English is used in this work so you will find grey not gray and colour not color– these are not mistakes. (Sorry Noel Webster)

Rachel’s Might.

Her immense quad muscles bulged and showed every serration. Her calves twitched and swelled in a wide W shape as the exertion and pressing made the tendons pop. Her skin grew taut, burnished chestnut brown, and beaded with perspiration. Her hands came down and grasped the quads by the knees, pressing to add further power. His eyes bulged and the mouth gaped open fighting for breath that would not come. Then suddenly there was a loud crack and it was over, his head jerked back and his body began to twitch in the convulsions of death. She uncrossed her ankles and with her top leg, she pushed him off her lower leg. She knelt over the now still body and checked it was over. Yes, death was certain.

Rachel Robello jerked awake to the sound of grinding neck vertebrae as they twisted and broke. Her mind filled with the images that accompanied those terrible sounds. Death filled dreams; and it was she dishing that terrible death. She took a few seconds to identify where and when she was. She ripped the eye mask from her face and blinked at the dulled lights overhead. The sounds and the sights brought her to now, now in an Executive Pod bed of a Canada Air Boeing 777 en-route to London Heathrow.

Why this dream now? It’s been years since I was involved in that… that violence. Why has it come to haunt my dreams now? Oh, who are you kidding? You know damn well why. Bored out of your skull with the admin and NATO desk jockey stuff. The move back to CINCFLEET Defence Intelligence next week is what’s got you wound up. There might be action and danger and that’s exactly what you hunger for. Motherhood didn’t change me the way I expected it to.

Rachel raised her seat and pulled off her blanket. She yawned expansively and that brought a flight attendant to her pod asking if she needed anything. Thank you. A fizzy water would be nice, followed by a strong tea.

Rachel stood and did a few toe raises as she massaged her thighs. She was wearing tight grey yoga pants and a big loose tee-shirt. She slipped on her moccasins waiting on the floor and walked to the toilets. Most were still asleep but a few noted her passing. Even dressed conservatively, Rachel’s extreme athleticism and beauty were very evident. In recent years she had reduced the quantity and ferocity of her weight work and had lost a good deal of her muscular bulk. Her quads, calves and glutes were now simply huge rather than outrageously massive. She had maintained a strict workout regime, so she remained taut, hard and immensely fit. As she returned to her seat and the waiting water and tea, she noted all those who watched her. As always, her spooks situational awareness remained sharply omnipresent.

She downed the chilled water quickly and regretted it as she suffered brain-freeze followed by a few loud burps. Sorry, she whispered to the woman across the aisle, who lifted her head and looked as Rachel burped. The woman nodded and grinned.

This tea is OK but I miss the strong Punjana that Dave Hall and Bonny introduced me too. I wonder is that an Assam blend? Chris is not so keen on my builder’s brew. Christopher, I do miss him when I am away more than ever. I suppose it’s because we have been together more this past few years than ever before. The mukki saw to that. Mukki? I guess I picked that up from being with Bonny-Ann and Saul at Marquis. I thought about names for my mukki so long in the end I was happy to let Chris decide. Martin- Christopher. Martin was one I was playing with… for Marty Smith - a man who saved my life more than once. Finally, my promotion has come through. I guess not having Lauren pushing for me slowed the thing down. But Captain at my age is fine, I suppose. I think my new role at Det16 and Cobra is the reason for that. I will miss visiting Lauren down on the Cote de Azure among the millionaires. Getting too rich and too crowded she says. Back to Picardy and Montreuil Sur Mer where she and Millie started. She tried so hard to get their old house back but the owner wouldn’t shift despite the huge offer. They got millions for that Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat villa, she didn’t mention the number but I reckon it was upwards of five-mill. Bonny-Ann said Lauren asked her to take most of that but she refused. Just like with the Brussels apartment she gave me – wouldn’t hear of me giving her any of that back. €980,000. What an absurd price for an apartment. No more use for NATO as far as the Brits are concerned. Oh, don’t think about Brexit, it will just upset you. I wonder have I any more sleep in me?

The flight attendant asking if she would like breakfast interrupted Rachel’s musings. Why not. Smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, white toast more tea, oh and two tea-bags please, I like it strong. Thank you.

They can’t do scrambled eggs well on a plane. They need a pan and lots of butter. Bonny spoiled me for microwaved eggs with her slow-cooked swilling-in-butter creamy delight. I miss not making love with her any more, but I guess it was inevitable given the distance and us both being mothers now. Me a mother? After that miscarriage I really had given up on that. I do feel a lot of guilt about not being there more. I’m not really maternal material, if I’m honest. God, the NATO work was sooo boring. I think I must get serious with the weights again. I feel too small now. Chris would love me to get massive again.

As she walked to the long-term carpark, Rachel was her usual careful self and she therefore didn’t go directly to her car. Instead she went by lift two floors up and then trotted quickly down to the level she’d parked on. There, she lingered in the stairwell checking she was not being followed. This tradecraft might have seemed no longer required for an officer who had been sailing a desk for four years but such care had been ingrained and re-enforced by Lauren Greer when she ran things. The many failed attempts on Lauren’s life and a few on Rachel’s had made this routine second nature to her. As she knelt and inspected under the car with a small torch, she reflected on the loss of her last and much loved car.

I do miss the old Bristol. That served me so well and Lauren, Bonny-Ann and Daniel before that. I guess I owe my life to the old fashioned but forward thinking design strength of that car. I think if I’d been in something less substantial that truck would have wiped me out. Accident they said, Pole asleep at the wheel after fourteen hours illegal driving. The Gendarmes said he’d never drive again, lost both legs and me walked away with a few glass cuts. But the 411 was a write off. Ah well, I guess I could have looked out for another but this is more sensible, even if it does attract those sodding congestion charges every time I come through the central area. Get a Toyota Prius, said Chris. Screw that. Bloody hybrids are a total con, all that lithium and other rare earth metals in the batteries – fuck all green about any of them.

Rachel climbed aboard her year old Range Rover, started the engine, and then let it warm