Call to Kill by Billy Billingham

Author:Billy Billingham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

Hereford, England

Outside of Joanna Mason’s bedroom window, the Hereford countryside glistened while the morning rain subsided and the sun finally put in an appearance. Not that she had any interest in going outside that day—her hair was a state, she had a spot on her chin and she was still dressed in her pyjamas. She lay on her bed and checked her phone for the umpteenth time, scrolling down to her father’s name and studying the half-dozen messages that she had sent him. Every one had a single tick next to it. Her dad hadn’t switched his phone on now for nearly six days.

Growing up in Hereford as the daughter of a special forces soldier was not particularly unusual. The barracks were located ten miles outside of town and most serving soldiers’ families lived in camp and sent their kids to local schools. The town itself was also where the majority of SAS men moved to once their active service was over, so the kids you met at school were as often as not just like you; born to fathers who came and went without notice and who never talked about where they’d been or what they’d done.

Joanna had actually been born in Aldershot when Mason was still with the Parachute Regiment. They had lived on the base briefly before the family moved to Hereford when he was selected for the SAS. How different everything was back in those days when the house had been full of laughter and fun. She remembered now how the radio used to always be on and how her mum and dad had danced together in the kitchen. It was years since she’d heard the old radio now. Dad was always away and on the rare occasions when he came back, Mum would go out dancing with Aunty Sheila.

When her father had told her was leaving again, she’d begged him, as she always did, to tell her where he was being posted, but Mason had said nothing more than ‘the Horn of Africa’. She’d been instantly jealous, imagining the huge superyachts that sailed on the warm crystal waters off the coast of Djibouti and Eritrea. Her dream was to one day skipper such a boat, taking wealthy clients on exclusive charters to the most beautiful places on earth, while she pocketed the generous salary on offer. Some of the older kids from the sailing club in Newport who’d gone on to work the circuit talked of tips in the thousands of dollars. What could be better than getting rich while doing the thing you loved most?

And she did love the sea. Every Saturday and Sunday since she was twelve years old, come rain or shine, Joanna made the fifty-mile trip south to the Welsh coast to sail. She had graduated from the small, single-crew Toppers, in which she’d won medals and championships all over the country, to crewing on larger racing yachts. The next step was to get a place at naval college in Devon

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