Grip

Grip.

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 David Moody 2013 and 2017. 5th ed.

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 and a cat with issues, called Bobby. David Rory O’Neill has written twenty novels and more are bubbling and brewing. http://www.davidrory.com

Art work by: raysheaf

@ http://raysheaf.deviantart.com

Design by Samantha at Ebookcoversgalore.com

Thanks go for editorial help to Miriam Drori.

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 the Indie authors who have overcome self-doubt and embraced readers.

And to the readers who share the vision and have embraced the authors.

David Rory O’Neill. Ireland. 2017

Published books:

The Novella:

Leotie, Flower of the Prairie.

Animal

Rachel’s Walk

Rachel’s War

The Daniel Series:

1 Conflict

2 Challenge

3 Passion

4 Grip

5 Judgement

6 Pyramid

7 Trial

The West Cork Trilogy:

1 Surviving Beauty

2 Beauty’s Price

3 Blue Sky Orphan

4 The West Cork Trilogy Omnibus.

The Prairie Companions

The Butterfly Effect Trilogy:

Bonny The Butterfly Effect.

Lauren The Butterfly Effect.

Chepi The Butterfly Effect.

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

Or visit me on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1myLoRf

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

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

Contents:

Introduction.

Chapter 1. Bonny-Mimosa.

Chapter 2. Excess.

Chapter 3. Don’t Think.

Chapter 4. Reflection.

Chapter 5. Eternal Ring.

Chapter 6. No Escape.

Chapter 7. A Foul Little War.

Chapter 8. A Hard Road.

Chapter 9. Unravelling.

Chapter 10. End Game.

Chapter 11. Upshot.

Chapter 12. Aftershock.

Chapter 13. Exposed.

Chapter 14. Mimosa Again.

Glossary of terms used.

Introduction:

When you spend years living a double life, hiding your true nature and passions from the world, the stress can become unbearable. When revealing those truths may cost you, and those you love, life itself, those stresses become magnified to levels even the most imaginative people can scarce comprehend.

Daniel and Lauren, and to lesser degree Bonny, have been living that life for nearly a decade. Daniel and Lauren have been undercover intelligence officers working in the murky world of paramilitary violence. Several attempts have been made on their lives and many have died in those attempts. Daniel and Lauren withdraw, exhausted and spent. They try to re-build.

Those they threatened have not forgotten them. The knowledge they fear they carry hangs over the conspirators in Belfast and London like the sword of Damocles. They think Daniel Dawes wields that sword. He must die to keep their secrets safe and hidden. As Daniel, Lauren and Bonny take a holiday, a plot to silence Daniel is unfolding. He will be tested like never before. When it’s over, his grip on his sanity and his life will hang in the balance.

Grip. David Rory O’Neill

Chapter 1. Bonny-Mimosa.

Captain Vishra Malley O’Tool was pacing the bridge of the MV Shanavee in a state of near hysterical anxiety. The Shanavee had just emerged from the Suez Canal and had been approached by an Israeli naval vessel. They had sailed alongside for several miles but hadn’t hailed him. Any moment he expected to be boarded and knew that would have been the end. Captain O’Tool’s cargo was bails of Indian cotton destined for Liverpool. In those bails were concealed tons of arms. Rifles, pistols, rocket-propelled grenades, several shoulder-launched air-to-air missiles, Semtex plastic explosive and ammunition of all calibres. These arms had originated in the USA and were supposed to be going via Iran to the Lebanon and the Hezbollah fighters there. The skipper of the MV Shanavee was one of only two on board aware of their deadly cargo. The other was a passenger who stayed in his cabin and was assumed to be a relative of the skipper by the crew. He shared the same name, O’Tool. This O’Tool really was Irish. He was from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland and he was a long serving Provisional IRA volunteer. This arms shipment was part of a massive consignment paid for by the CIA and meant to secure the release of US hostages held by Hezbollah in the Lebanon. The Iranians had diverted a small part to the Provos as a means of disrupting the hated English. Neither of the O’Tool’s knew the convoluted history of this shipment but both breathed easier when the Israeli warship turned away without boarding.

As the Shanavee neared the little French harbour of Menton near the Italian border, she slowed to a stop as a large motor cruiser came alongside. Rope ladders where lowered and two men began the climb aboard. Captain O’Tool knew as soon as he heard one cursing and swearing as he rapped and skinned his knuckles, he was from the same place as his passenger. They sounded the same and both swore profanely and constantly. O’Tool was leaning over the side beside the skipper. He laughed and shouted: Fuckin’ clumsy arse Seamus. Careful or ye’ll be rousing the Frenchies with all that yellin’.

Fuck off, eat shit and die, O’Tool ye twat!

O’Tool heard a jet aircraft overhead and looked up. A large grey aircraft was making a lazy turn overhead. Going in to Nice, he thought. He watched the plane circle and then fly off up the coast. He had no idea that aircraft was an RAF Nimrod maritime patrol. On board, men were taking pictures of the MV Shanavee and speaking to their control and command about the activity they had been monitoring. The RAF were also speaking to French and British naval vessels and two helicopters that were approaching the Shanavee. Soon the three Irish men and Captain O’Tool would get a very nasty surprise. Their violent shock would be the result of an unfortunate coincidence of location and time. When Seamus and his colleague sailed their hired motor-yacht into the pretty little harbour at Menton a few days previously, they were observed by three holiday makers sitting having a beer at the harbour side. These three were also Irish and were staying at their summerhouse nearby at Eze Bord de Mer. That house was called Bonny-Mimosa.

Daniel, Lauren and Bonny Dawes had been coming to the house at Eze near Nice three or four times a year since it was built by Bonny’s wealthy Canadian uncle Raymond and his partner Don. They used the house in the winter months and the Dawes had free use the rest of the year. The house had been named Bonny-Mimosa after Bonny, when it had been built. It had become her second home. They arrived late on the 28th August 1989 intending to stay until Raymond arrived on the 22nd of September.

At seven the next morning, Bonny was standing beside the pool looking down the steep valley to Eze Bord de Mer, the sparkling azure Mediterranean and St. Jean-Cap-Ferrat. The sun was up but was still weak and Bonny’s fine white skin was goose-bumped, as she enjoying the slight breeze wafting up the valley. She could smell the sea, the slightly disinfectant tone of the pool, the faint sent of the wild summer flowers and the herbs surrounding the house.

She turned and looked back up over the lawn terrace to the wide semi-circle of one-way glass that made up the front of the house. No other structure was visible as the roof sloped away from her towards the steep cliff behind. High above she could see a small section of the Grand Corniche running from Nice to Monaco and Italy beyond. She had come down intending to have a swim but discovered the pool was still ice cold. The pool heating had been switched on when they arrived but it needed longer to come up to temperature. Daniel and the tough as nails Lauren, swam in cold water but Bonny didn’t. She padded back up towards the house feeling disappointed. She stopped by the mirror class door that could be slid back to open up their bedroom and regarded her image in the glass. She turned side-on to examine her profile and studied what she saw. She was very pleased with her legs. The calves were hard-muscled and athletic but nicely rounded. She was less sure about her knees because her big thigh muscles bulged over them a bit much for her liking. As if I’m wearing jodhpurs, she thought. The thighs showed each muscle mass very distinctively and she was delighted to see no sign of cellulite or fat beneath the skin. Her bum she thought a little too big, but it was at least tight, high and showed none of the dreaded dimples. She ran a hand over her belly and felt pleased with the effects of all those crunches and sit-ups. They had made it completely flat so when she turned a little, she could see the distinctive hard muscled six-pack she sweated to maintain. Above came the inescapable enormity of her breasts. She looked at the profile again and lifted her chest to push them up a bit more. A bit smaller than last year and a bit more droop but still they are quite a sight. And they were certainly that, Bonny’s breasts were now and always had been her defining physical feature. Her jet black hair was the one thing that had changed hugely since she had last stood here and examined her image. The long flowing waves were gone and now she had a pert bob, a Mary Quant cut, long after that style had gone from fashion. The little flicks that sat below her high cheekbones and the fringe just above her eyes highlighted her smooth white skin, big full lips, and extraordinarily multi-faceted large round eyes. This short cut makes me look younger but it’s still a shock after a life of long hair. Bonny looked about nineteen, but she would be thirty on her next birthday.

On the other side of the glass, Bonny’s husband, Daniel, was standing looking at her and smiling. He watched her study herself. Bonny and Daniel were very unalike looking. He was six three, wiry strong; slim with sandy hair and a face that showed his tendency to squint and frown so he looked older than his thirty-seven years. Unless he was smiling like now. Then he looked boyish. As he watched Bonny he marvelled at how she managed to stay athletic and toned with little apparent effort. She had undoubtedly been greatly influenced by Lauren who was still working as a Physical Training Instructor one or two days a week at Greenwich and Britannia Naval Colleges. He heard Lauren stir in the bed behind him and turned to look at her. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and peered at him. She is such a wee stunner isn’t she? They are a marvel. Why don’t you come back to bed and I’ll make good use of that nice stiffy?

Lauren stretched, threw off the sheet, lay back and writhed seductively. It’s difficult to know where to look now, said Daniel as he admired the remarkable sight before him. Lauren had honed big muscled shapes on her athletic body. She’d spent all her early life in training to fulfil her ambition to represent her country as an Olympic 100-metre sprinter. That ambition was thwarted by a knee injury during the national trials. She then studied PE at university and later worked as instructor in the Royal Navy. All those years of serious working out showed in her remarkable body. She was five foot ten tall with wide hips and shoulders, massive thighs and calves topped by a big round powerful arse. Her biceps bulged and her belly was washboard flat. She could have looked very butch were it not for her huge mane of golden blonde hair, tanned burnished bronze skin, bright pale blue eyes and beautifully proportioned face. She had an exquisitely refined high cheekboned, blond goddess look that turned heads wherever she went. Lauren was two years younger than Daniel but looked ageless because of her superb fitness and ridiculously healthy life style. He smiled as he drank in her radiant beauty and was torn between her invitation to return to bed and his original impulse to join Bonny outside.

In the end the decision was made mute by Bonny opening the window and running past him to the bed. She threw herself on top of Lauren: Cuddles please, I’m frozen. The pool is still brass-monkeys. No swim for me this morning.

She snuggled up close beside Lauren who put an arm down her back, stroked her bum and then pulled the sheet back over them both. Bonny lifted her head from Lauren’s breast and looked at Daniel: Sorry love, I see you are ready for action, coming or going?

Not sure now, I had an invitation but you’ve beaten me to it. I guess I’ll go take the first plunge of the year and risk the balls.

Ejit, it’s much nicer here, said Bonny cuddling back down.

Daniel stepped out, slid the door shut and went to take one of the few kinds of exercise he practised: swimming. Cycling was another but as he walked to the pool he realised he had not ridden much for years. The third exercise type was the most frequent and favourite - vigorous sex. Daniel stood at the pool edge looking at the lovely view for a time, then suddenly felt a surge of sorrow. He grunted and dived in, swimming a length under water, he surfaced shouting away the cold cleansing shock. Unhappy memories flooded back to him as Daniel tried to swim away his thoughts. It had been almost exactly five years since those traumatic times when they had to leave their beloved cottage on the river Dart to find a new home, snipers sent to kill, bent cops and blown cover had forced the change.

He remembered the trauma of Christine’s birth. It had been unplanned and both he and Lauren had been stunned when she had conceived, despite contraception. Lauren had been traumatised by the thought of another child and another Caesarean. They had talked of termination but decided against it in the end. The girl had been named after her father and his physio Kris, who had played an important role in his recovery from his back injury.

The child was Christine Danielle Dawes and she was now in her fifth year. She had her mother’s exquisitely fine beauty but had a slim build - unlike her older sister and mother’s athletic robustness. From her father she had taken good health, hidden strength and fierce intellect. She was tall for her years but her porcelain-doll looks meant all treated her as if she were a fragile little thing to be wrapped and protected. She fought this with stubborn defiance. She would often be found hanging by her heels from a tree or swimming in the Thames. She gave her protective siblings constant grief with her refusal to be babied and treated like a dolly plaything. Chrissie had three siblings. Kathy Ann, six and a half and a mini Bonny in all respects but perhaps a little less impulsive. Dee Josey also six and a half and who insisted on that half when her age was mentioned. Lauren to a tee, careful, protective and in charge – the Alpha child. And the boy who Bonny tried valiantly not to make her favourite and pet, the five-year-old David Daniel. He who strove to be kind to his sisters but rebelled and annoyed them when they tried to dress him or make him be a fairy or a cowboy in their girly games. They all mothered him and he accepted his role as the minor male in an overwhelmingly female world just as his father accepted his as the major male. His father gave him the security he needed to be a boy and not be threatened or confused by all the femininity around him. He looked very like his father except for his hair, for that was jet black like his mother’s. He played with his dad often and they talked as he had his many questions answered. He was a calm, still, happy, watchful boy and content with his lot.

The children accepted their unusual family make up with total equanimity. Each of them had been nursed at the abundant Bonny’s breasts until they decided they had enough and no longer came to her with the words, Titty please. Christine had been the last to give up the comfort suckle and had stopped asking just three weeks before Bonny had to go away to do a term at the Sorbonne in Paris. That had been seven months ago. Lauren had continued feeding for two years, until the pressures of work meant an end. All this natural nourishment meant the children had been absolutely healthy – free of childhood sickness and robust in body and mind. The fact of two mothers and one father didn’t strike them as odd, even when they went to school and saw how most children had only one parent or maybe two if they were lucky. They saw very clearly the love that united their mothers and their father into the pyramid that they found protective and comfortably enveloping. They called Bonny Mammy and Lauren Mama. Daniel was Daddy to Kathy and David and Papa to Dee and Chrissie. There was also Nanny Janny – a professional Nanny who had been with the children for seven months now and was treated as part of their extended family.

The relationship between their parents was very clear to them. Daniel was the head of the family and Lauren was his lady and the boss Mama. Mammy-Bonny was lover to both of them and was the emotional heart and nourisher of the family. She was the one they ran to for food or cuddles and comfort. Mama-Lauren told them how it was, kept them safe, taught them strength and resilience, protected them and ran them ragged and fit. Daddy or Papa was the centre round which all else revolved. He gave them all these things plus something else less obvious. He showed them what maleness was and he radiated protectiveness and certainty. Papa always knew what needed to be done and settled fights and feuds between them and their mothers. When he said No they knew that was the end and didn’t risk defiance. They were happy within the implacable but generous boundaries he set.

Every year they had one month away from their parents. Either their Grandmamma and Granddaddy Greer came to their home and stayed and spoilt them. Or this year, for the first time, they went to stay at the grandparent’s house by the sea in Bangor, Northern Ireland. They flew on a plane by themselves. Dee took charge, supervised them and kept them in good order. She shooed the stewardesses away when they came and tried to coo and fuss over Christine. She’s not a doll actually, she warned sternly. David laughed at that because he knew how Dee liked to doll and fuss over Chrissie. David watched them and the people and he knew that Dee only thought she was the boss but that it was his job to protect and watch over his sisters. He let Dee be boss anyway to keep her happy.

As Daniel washed away his tears with a quick lunge underwater, he felt the slight twinge of guilt he always felt when they had their annual holiday from the children. As he came near the surface, he heard and felt the water movement that told him Lauren had come to join him. Her perfectly executed dive made a distinctive plop rather than the noisy splash Bonny’s exuberant efforts produced. As he surfaced by the side of the infinity pool looking straight down the valley to the sea, he waited for her to appear beside him. She surfaced smoothly with her eyes open and her face looking big and lovely, her hair tucked reluctantly into a bathing cap. She looked into his eyes and knew what he had been sorrowing over. Lauren put her hand on his face, then kissed him before swimming away to do her effortlessly fast thirty lengths.

This was the first day of their big holiday and Daniel berated himself for starting it feeling down. The past few years had in many ways been the happiest he had known, but still when he thought about the reluctant move from their first home, it made him melancholy. They had put their hearts and souls into making the cottage at Dittisham a place of escape and renewal. They had remodelled and spent a lot of money making it comfortable and suited to their life. It had a huge sunken tub that all three could relax in. It had a cellar for Daniel’s wine collection and a great kitchen in which he explored his delight in food and cooking. All this had been spoiled when Lauren and Daniel’s passion had driven them back to work in their troubled homeland of Northern Ireland. They took over and ran the top-secret military intelligence unit called detachment 16. It had been while working as undercover operators for this outfit that Daniel and Lauren had met as workmates and later lovers. It was here too that they met Bonny in tragic circumstances that had brought her so explosively into their lives.

Det16 had been penetrated and Daniel was targeted by extremists who tried twice to kill him at his home. He defeated them but lost that home. Bonny found them the new place as Lauren and Daniel toiled to defeat the terrorists and corrupt police in Belfast. They handed the fight to the rebuilt and stronger det16, then withdrew to take up new less stressful roles in counter-terrorism at CINCFLEET operational headquarters at Northwood. Both had transferred from the short service Supplementary List to the General List and were now long-term career Royal Navy officers. Throughout all this turmoil, Bonny held the family close to her great warm heart. Lauren organised the detail and Daniel did the planning and painted the big picture. They had to move closer to London and Northwood were Daniel and Lauren Dawes (she changed her name from Greer by Deed Poll when Dee was born.) were mainly based. They both also did part-time work at Greenwich Naval College as cover for their covert activities.

Bonny found a great shambling wreck of a house on the banks of the Thames at a place called Mill End, between Henley and Marlow. The house had been extended and rebuilt from its thirteenth century beginnings but had been lying semi-derelict for more than ten years when Bonny sniffed it out. They had done very well on the sale of their much-improved cottage. Bonny negotiated with and charmed the initially disinterested owner of the Mill End house for months before he agreed to sell. They were able to buy outright and with a small loan had enough to rebuild Mill End to their liking. They took a six-month lease on a little flint-faced cottage north of Mill End in the pretty village of Hambleden while the re-construction work went on in their new home. The travelling to and from London was tedious but made more acceptable by the sybaritic comfort of Daniel’s expensive and rare Bristol Brigand. In summer, Lauren liked to use her Bristol instead because her 412 was a cabriolet and she loved to be in the sun. Bonny had a liking for convertibles too and she was heartbroken when her 350SL sports Mercedes had to go because it couldn’t accommodate their growing brood. She took ages to decide on a replacement and eventually settled for a large Mercedes 300 TE estate but insisted on having the very special small wood rimmed Momo steering wheel transferred from her SL. She also kept the County Antrim registration number RIA2020 from that car too. She liked her new car but took every opportunity she could to drive Lauren’s open Bristol.

The work on the Mill End house overran a little, much to Lauren’s fury for she had timetabled all aspects of the job and the move-in. On the day the builders finally were shooed away, they cracked a bottle of bubbly on the front door and put the nameplate on the gates. It read. Saoirse pronounced like ser-sha, which is the Irish word for freedom. They took two weeks off work and left the children in the care of Lauren’s parents, the Greers, at the rented cottage while they decorated the house and sorted the garden, garage and cellar. For three days they had seven burly men to help. Their close friend, Captain Dave Hall, and his squad of SBS naval Special Forces came to stay and help out. They usually came to the aid of the Dawes with guns blazing, but on this occasion they came armed with paint, brushes, spades and lots of beer and laughter.

The house originally had ten separate rooms on two floors and was arranged in a T shape. The top of the T faced and ran parallel to the river, twenty feet across the new-laid lawn. Their efforts produced a fine comfortable home that suited them very well and made up to some extent for the wrench of leaving their beloved Dart cottage.

Lauren joined Daniel sitting on the edge of the pool, staring up at the cliffs and mountains of the Alpes Maritimes. Let’s go for a drive up there to Sospel to that little auberge for lunch shall we? said Daniel as Lauren took off her cap and shook out her long hair.

Yes, that would be fine. You seemed very far away, love. Feeling the melancholy are you?

Yeah I always do the first day or two here. Time to get reflective, I suppose, and this place has certain inescapable memories for me, but I will be fine, darlin’. Come here and let me grope your naked splendour and feast upon your lips.

Lauren came and straddled him, laid her head on his shoulder and nuzzled her face in his neck. As he held her firm bum and caressed her long hair and tightly muscled back, she felt him grow hard and she rose and then sat back and engulfed him. They remained joined, feeling the little twitches and squeezings of him filling her. They didn’t move but sat united and loving. They kissed slow and gentle and held each other embraced utterly and complete until they heard Bonny shouting to be fed. Where does she put all the food she packs away? I think it all goes to her monster tits, like a camel’s hump, storage for the hard times. Mind you, she has fed the kids a prodigious amount of milk over the years and she is always buzzing and fizzing. She must burn up the calories.

Do you need to cum, love? asked Daniel.

No, I’m fine. I’m not feeling rutty, just loving. How about you?

The same love. I can wait and get a milking later, eh?

They ran, hand in hand, back to the house for a hot shower before breakfast. Daniel made them heaps of soft butter scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast. They