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In a word: Incline

When you first think of this word, it is with a slippery slope in mind.

I’ve been on a few of those in my time.

And while we’re on the subject, those inclines measured in degrees are very important if you want a train to get up and down the side of a mountain.

For the train, that’s an incline plane, the point where traction alone won’t get the iron horse up the hill.

Did I say ‘Iron Horse’?  Sorry, regressed there, back to the mid-1800s in the American West for a moment.

It’s not that important when it comes to trucks and cars, and less so if you like four-wheel driving; getting up near-vertical mountainsides often present a welcome challenge to the true enthusiast

But for the rest of us, not so much if you find yourself sliding in reverse uncontrollably into the bay.  I’m sure it’s happened more than once.

Then…

Are you inclined to go?

A very different sort of incline, ie to be disposed towards an attitude or desire.

An inclination, maybe, not to go four-wheel driving?

There is another, probably more obscure use of the word incline, and that relates to an elevated geological formation.  Not the sort of reference that crops up in everyday conversation at the coffee shop.

But, you never know.  Try it next time you have coffee and see what happens.

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Writing about writing a book – Day 2

Hang about.  Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?

I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!

Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.

I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?

Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.

Right now.

 

I pick up the pen.

 

Character number one:

Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing.  Still me, but with a twist.  Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance.  Yes, I like that.

We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.

He had a wife, which brings us to,

Character number two:

Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons.  It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated.  There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.

Character number three:

The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.

Oops, too much, that is my old boss.  He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him.  Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him.  Last name Benton.  He will play a small role in the story.

Character number four:

Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.

More on her later as the story unfolds.

So far so good.

What’s the plot?

Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers?  No, that’s been done to death.

Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world.  Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people.  That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people!  There will be guns, and there will be dead people.

There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around.  That’s better.

Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.

All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.

Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work.  He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks.  The phone rings.  Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down.  He’s needed.  A few terse words, but he relents.

Pen in hand I begin to write.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

A 2am rant: Is that a light at the end of the tunnel?

It’s a long-standing joke that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an express train coming right at you.

Metaphorically speaking, this is quite often true if you are a pessimist, but since I’ve converted to being an optimist, a bit like changing religions, I believe I’ve seen the ‘light’.  It’s a lot like coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, breaking the surface and taking that first long gulp of air.

Along with that elated feeling that you’re not going to drown.

What’s this got to do with anything, you ask?

Perhaps nothing.

As an allegory, it represents, to me, a time when I finally got over a period of self-doubt, a period where a series of events started to make me question why I wanted to be a writer.

I mean, why put yourself through rejections, sometimes scathing criticism, and then have the people whom you thought were your friends suddenly start questioning your choices after initially wholeheartedly supporting them?

Are we only successful or supportable if we are earning a sufficient wage?  Or better still, a New York Times No. 1 bestselling author?  Or, even better, having sold a million copies?

Is this why so many people don’t give up their day job and then find themselves plying the ‘other’ trade into the dark hours of the night, only to find themselves being criticised for other but no less disparaging reasons?

It seems like a no-win situation, the times when your mettle is tested severely.  But, in the end, it is worth it when the book is finished and published, even if it is only on Amazon.

You can sit back and say with pride, I did that.

That metaphorical light, you may ask.

When somebody buys that first copy!

What I learned about writing – Just why are we doing this thing called writing?

It’s a long-standing joke that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an express train coming right at you.

Metaphorically speaking, this is quite often true if you are a pessimist, but since I’ve converted to being an optimist, a bit like changing religions, I think I’ve seen the ‘light’.

It’s a lot like coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, breaking the surface and taking that first long gulp of air.

Along with that elated feeling that you’re not going to drown.

What’s this got to do with anything, you ask?

Perhaps nothing.

As an allegory, it represents, to me, a time when I finally got over a period of self-doubt, a period where a series of events started to make me question why I wanted to be a writer.

I mean, why put yourself through rejections, sometimes scathing criticism, and then have the people whom you thought were your friends suddenly start questioning your choices after initially wholeheartedly supporting them?

Are we only successful or supportable if we are earning a sufficient wage?

Or sold a million copies?

Is this why so many people don’t give up their day job and then find themselves plying the ‘other’ trade into the dark hours of the night, only to find themselves being criticised for other but no less disparaging reasons?

It seems like a no-win situation, but these are the times when your mettle is tested severely.  But, in the end, it is worth it when the book is finished and published, even if it is only on Amazon.

You can sit back and say with pride, I did that.

That metaphorical light, you may ask…

When you get that first ‘we’re publishing your story’ letter!

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 115/116

Day 115 and 116 – Writing Evercise

…

It was my second-to-last test before the final results of my year of in-field training were aggregated into a posting or an ignominious exit.

The last effort had been, as far as I was concerned, sabotaged by a colleague whose efforts were less than stellar, but had been schmoozing the test panel.

But, as someone else said, we cannot allow ourselves to believe the test panel would be so naive.

We should not have known who was on the test panel, but maybe that was also part of the test.  In the field, there were no panel members there to listen to your whining. You were on your own, or dead.

I sat alone that morning, not knowing who to trust.  Breakfast was a decent spread, worthy of a five-star hotel, but I had little appetite.  Two cups of strong black coffee and a scan of the morning newspaper.

The world was, as usual, still going to hell in a handbasket.  Page eight had a small piece about a missing scientist, one of several I’d read about over the last three months.

Patterns.

All seemed to have visited a nightclub, Ryker’s, in the seedier part of Boise, Idaho. 

Coincidence, maybe, but three of us had been given instructions to hole up in three separate three-star hotels that someone wanting to remain anonymous would stay at.

I had made the decision to have breakfast at an upmarket hotel and observe another class of people, just for a surveillance exercise.  I’d dressed up so that I’d fit in, channelling the lawyer/accountant vibe.

My cell phone was sitting nearby, waiting for the call.  It could be any time, or not for days.  We had to be able to deal with boredom and still stay honed.

It wasn’t easy.

The dining room was quite full.  For half an hour, guests and friends arrived and departed.  It was quite full, and wait staff were continuously threading their way, pouring coffee, taking orders, and being abused.

My waitress was amiable, even effervescent.  She smiled, filled the cup, and moved on.

As I watched her leave, I heard a scuffle nearby, and a body slid into the seat to my left.

A girl, mid-thirties, dyed blonde with dark roots, a recent change.  She wore a red blouse and a dark blue pantsuit.  Professional?

She turned to see me looking at her.  Usually, people ask before sitting down.

“Sorry.”  Breathless like she had been running.  I hadn’t seen her arrive.

She hadn’t brought anything with her.

Perhaps I should ask the question.  “Are you alright?”

She was scanning the entrance to the room, then stiffened.

I saw two men, one short, one medium, in cheap suits.  They were not police, perhaps private security.  They scanned the room, stopped at my table and without appearing to, moved quickly towards me.

“Oh, God.”  She looked as if she had seen the devil himself.

“Who are they?” I asked casually, keeping an eye on their progress.

“Trouble.”

“Do you need help?”

“You can’t…”

I shrugged.  As they approached, I stood.  I motioned for her to stay seated and raised a hand to my coffee waitress to come over.

The two men and the waitress arrived at the same time.  They took up positions that cut off the girl’s exit.  The look on my breakfast companion’s face was stark terror.

The waitress asked, “Coffee?”

“No.  Call the police.  The two men behind you are fugitives from a kidnapping my team have bren trackeing using this young lady as a decoy.”

I showed my FBI badge and showed it to the shorter man. “You don’t want to do this, especially with the CCTV cameras focused on you.”

“Walk away,” the short one said.

People were starting to notice, and a ripple was going through the room.  Police appeared at the entrance.  The waitress headed towards them quickly.  I had expected the two men to impede her progress.

The two men ran.  They headed for the nearest exit away from the policemen and disappeared from sight.  I put the ID away and sat.

The girl spoke to them and pointed in my direction, then in the direction the men had taken, and they followed them.  The waitress disappeared.

The girl did not look relieved in the slightest.  I said, “The police can deal with them.”

Another waiter stopped and filled our cups with black coffee and moved on.  It was as if nothing had happened, except there were a few looking and guessing at what had happened. I said, “Exactly how did you end up here?”

“Are you really FBI?”

“In a manner of speaking.”  I noticed then a purple mark on her wrist.  “What is that in your arm?”

She hid it.  “Nothing.”

“It’s something that might save you. What is it?”

“A pass-out stamp from a nightclub.”

“Ryker’s?”

She sucked in her breath and went on the defensive.  “It’s nothing to do with this?”

“Are you a scientist?”

“Who are you?”  She stood.  “I’ve got to go.”

I stood.  “Fine.  But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong?”

“No.  I can’t.” 

She took two steps, then stopped.  I think we both had the same thought.  Those men had not left; they were waiting for her to leave.  Somewhere outside the building.

She said quietly, “Not here.”

…

We left in the opposite direction from the two men.  I walked slightly in front of her, protecting her as I had been shown to do in similar situations.

The thought crossed my mind that this was a simulation, and I was surrounded by some of the best actors I’d seen, too good for our usual simulations.  They were second-year graduates honing their skills.

I had a gun, a license to carry, and instructions never to use it in plain sight.  I nearly broke that rule.

At the doorway, I checked and rechecked the perimeter and considered the possible four locations where they could be.  I didn’t think they’d attack inside the building, not the way they left in a hurry, their cover blown.

And on CCTV.  That was bad enough.  I was on it too.  But, here’s the thing.  How often do you find yourself in a situation that is so random, it’s unexplainable?

No unusual movement and no heads peeking from behind walls.  If it were me, I’d call for reinforcements and stake out every entrance and exit.

Movement, just in the corner of my eye.  Or not. 

Batten down the nerves and go back to basics.

Don’t stand still, keep moving, steady but not fast enough to attract attention.  Look purposeful, like you have somewhere to be, and above all, look like you know where you’re going.

But…

New city, no time to check the necessary information about it, the hotel, the exits, how to leave without being seen.  That was going to be my after-breakfast task.

I should have done it yesterday when I arrived.

Then a thought: basement.  All hotels had a basement.

Towards the back, stairs.  Down.  Through the lobby.  Damn.  I shook my head.

“We have to go down.  Via the lobby.”

“They’ll be waiting.”

She was right.  We needed a diversion.

I said a small prayer, crossed the passage and broke the fire alarm, setting it off.  Then we headed through the lobby.

She was right.  But they had not expected us to cross from front to back, but from back to front.  They got caught on the exodus heading for the front door, after we got through to the stairs.

And down, down a corridor and into the kitchen, through to the rear entrance left ajar so the smokers could get in and out.

It was where we would leave the building.

Just as bullets pinged off the wall above our heads as we exited.  I dove to the right behind a dumpster, dragging her with me, hearing her groan as we hit the ground, as more bullets pinged off the metal bin.

I pulled out my gun and fired several random shots in their direction, and the volley ended.

From the frying pan into the fire…

The door opened behind me, and several bullets hit the wall. Someone returned fire, then the alley went quiet.

Then, “You can come out now.”

The waitress.

We both got up off the ground and came out to see the waitress, who was no longer a waitress.  She showed us a State Police department badge.  “Detective Somers, who the hell are you two?”

“Agent Alex Pettigrew, FBI.  I think I’ve stumbled into something I don’t want to know about.”

The girl, “Professor Jane Blanch, neither of you has clearance high enough to ask any more questions.”

“And those two men?”

“You don’t want to know,” Jane said. She looked at Somers.  “Are they dead?”

“I hope not.  They have a thousand questions to answer.  Look,” she said to me.  “Just wrap yourself up and leave, and don’t come back.  This is not your jurisdiction.”

“As right as that might sound in your head as the right thing to say, it is not.  Whatever just happened is symptomatic of something much, much larger and is not going away.  It has something to do with Ryker’s Nightclub, science, and research.  Jane is not the first scientist to disappear from that cohort.”

“Pack it up and walk away, FBI man.  This is not your rodeo.”

“You going to save this woman?  There’ll be more where those two came from.”

“That’s my job.  You can leave it with me.  Miss.”  She had her hand in the Professor’s arm.”

The Professor looked at me.  “Thanks.”

“You feel safe with the Detective?”

“Of course.  Thank you again.”

…

Convenient.

When something doesn’t feel right, it generally isn’t.

As I watched them head down the alley, I had a bad thought.  What if what I saw was just a show?  This was the trouble distinguishing between what was real and what was training.

More than once, I’d say, in the post mission review after a training session and have my ass handed to me in a sling.

Do not trust anything or anyone.  The enemy will come to you dressed in any disguise, as your friend, as someone you can trust.  And thirty seconds later, they end up with a bullet between the eyes.

You rarely saw the bullet that had your name on it.

I waited until they were out of sight and followed discreetly.  I noted they did not go back into the hotel.

Jurisdictional issues were common.  County and State police pulled jurisdiction on what they called their patch.  We were not supposed to pull rank and were obliged to advise local authorities if we were working their patch.

Sometimes we didn’t have time.

I should be expecting a phone call if a different sort after breaking cover.  If the detective decided to call it, or if the detective was a detective.

I reached the end of the alleyway and stopped.  Should I have a weapon ready or just poke my head around the corner? 

This could go wrong in so many ways.

Ideally, there would be no one there.  The remote chance, the two men, the bogus detective and the girl were waiting.

I peered around the corner.

Two police cars, four officers, the detective and the girl standing by one of the cars.  No flashing lights, so not an active situation.

The detective was on her cell phone.

Not my problem.

But…

Where were the people who were shooting at us?  If there were police at the end of the alley, the fact that there were shooters in an urban environment would have led to lights and perpetrators under arrest.

There were no shooters anywhere, and they certainly had time to get away.

I leaned against the wall.  It had to be a simulation, and I failed because I had let the girl go into what was potentially a life-threatening situation.

My cell phone vibrated.  Yes, I’d learned the lesson about having an active or loud ringtone, exposing my presence.

No one else knew this number.  It was the bad news.

“Yes?”

“You have passed the final test and are being assigned under your FBI cover name.  We received a call from Somers, a detective with ISP investigations, to verify your identity.  You identified a possible kidnap victim, one of several in the past six months, and prevented a possible situation.”

“It was several notices in various newspapers.  I had no idea it was going to happen or if it meant anything.  She just sat at my table.”

“Not in your hotel.”

“Boring breakfast, sir.”

“A coincidence that just got you into the service.  Now you need to prove you belong there.  She’s waiting around the corner.  Good to see you didn’t trust that she was who she said she was, but I’m not going to ask what you intended to do if there was a problem.”

“Neither did I.  Good thing you called.”

Silence.  Perhaps flippancy wasn’t the way to go.

“Report through the usual channels.  We will update your cell with your support teams.  Good luck.”

I sighed, more in relief than anything else.  Then I pocketed the phone and walked around the corner.

She was expecting me.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Searching for locations: Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

Some interesting facts before we get out of the bus…

Tiananmen Square or Tian’anmen Square is in the centre of Beijing name after the Gate of Heavenly Peace, a gate that one separated the square from the Forbidden City.

The Square contains,

   the Monument to the People’s Heroes
   the Great Hall of the People
   the National Museum of China
   the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.

The square is about 109 acres and was designed and built in 1651, and since then been enlarged four times since, the most recent upgrade in the 1950s.

The Monument to the People’s Heroes

This is a ten-story obelisk built to commemorate the matters of the revolutions.  It was built between August 1952 and May 1958.  On the pedestal are reliefs depicting the eight major revolutionary episodes.

The Great Hall of the People

This was opened in September 1959, and covers 171809 square meters.  The Great Hall is the largest auditorium in China and can seat up to 10,000 people.  The State Banquet Hall can seat up to 5,000 diners.

The National Museum of China

This is one of the largest museums in the world and the second most visited museum in the world after the Louvre in Paris.   It was completed in 1959, and sits on 65 hectares, and rises four floors.  It has a permanent collection of over 1,000,000 items.

The Mauseloum of Mao Zedong

This was built shortly after his death, and completed on May 24th, 1977.  The embalmed body of the Chairman is preserved and on display in the center hall.

My own observations
This is huge; one of the largest public squares in the world, and if you’re going to walk it, like we did, make sure you’ve been exercising before you go.  It covers 44 hectares, borders on the Forbidden City, and has a memorial to Chairman Mao in the center of it.  But you cannot go near it, it’s fenced off, and it is guarded.

That’s both the statue and the square as there are random guards marching in random directions all the while watching us to see that we don’t misbehave.No one wants to find out what would happen if you jumped the fence around the statue, but I’m guessing you’ll have a few years to contemplate the stupidity of your actions with some very unhappy government officials.

Around the edges of the square are huge buildings, on one side is the museum 

and on the other is the Chinese equivalent of parliament.

Around the sides are also large gardens

At one end, where the Forbidden City borders on the square, there’s a huge flag pole flying the Chinese flag, and this too like the monument is fenced off, and guarded by members of all of their armed services.  No tanks rolled out during our visit much to our disappointment.  There is no entrance to the Forbidden City from the square

At the other end is the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, which was closed the day we were there, as was the museum. 

There are four sculptural groups installed outside the mausoleum.

Other than that, it’s just another square, albeit probably one of the largest in the world.  It can, we were told, hold about a million people.

In a word: Might

We might have to use some might to beat the mite.  Confused?

Might is force, so expending might be much the same as what Thor does with his hammer.

We might expend some force; this might be a maybe.  You’re never quite sure when someone uses the word might, whether or not they will actually do it.

I might do a lot of things, but somehow, I never seem to get around to actually doing them,

Of and just for the record, it’s the past tense of the word may.  You know, you may do something, or you might not.

You might also use the word might when being polite, which seems to be a rarity these days because everyone is terse, tense, and in a hurry.

So might I go to the movie will always get a resounding no if it means you get home late at night.   And you’re only 10 years old.

I might be interested, but I don’t think so.  Let me think about it.  Which also means no.

Of course, if you’re slack in doing homework, you might want to try a little harder next time.

What might have been if only you tried harder?

Then there’s that little pest called a mite, though it goes by a lot of other names, one of which is everywhere, a termite.

Or a dust mite.

It also could be used slangily for a child in distress, that is, look at that poor little mite, he looks so tired.

Or another word for slightly, for example, the girl seemed a mite embarrassed.

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much of an idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mould of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brothers’ Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then it went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and I am at the editor for the last reading.

I have high hopes of publishing it mid 2026.  It even has a cover.

PIWalthJones1

Searching for locations: The Golden Mask Dynasty Show, Beijing, China

The Golden Mask Dynasty Show was located at the OCT Theatre in Beijing’s Happy Valley. 

The theatre was quite full and the seats we had were directly behind the VIP area; as our guide told us, we had the best seats in the house. 

The play has 20 different dance scenes that depict war, royal banquets, and romance.  There are eight chapters and over 200 actors, and throughout the performance we were entertained by dancers, acrobats, costumes, lighting, and acoustics.

The story:

It is of romantic legend and historical memories, the Golden Mask Queen leads her army in defeating the invading Blue Mask King’s army, and afterwards the lands return to a leisurely pastoral life until the Queen forges a ‘mysterious tree’.  When the tree has grown, the Queen has a grand celebration, and releases the captured Blue soldiers, much to the admiration of the Blue Mask King.
This is followed by monstrous floods, and to save her people, and on the advice from the ‘mysterious tree’, the Queen sacrifices herself to save her people.  The Queen then turns into a golden sunbird flying in the sky blessing the people and that of the dynasty.

Billed as the best live show in China, described as a large scale dramatic musical, “The Golden Mask Dynasty” it lived up to its reputation and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

It was not just singing dancing and acrobatics, it had a story and it was told so that language and cultural issues aside, it worked.  There was a narration of the story running beside the stage, but it was hard to divide attention between what was happening, and what was being related.

Then came the peacock dance, with live peacocks

And this was followed by a waterfall, well, I don’t think anyone in that audience could believe what they were seeing.

I know I was both astonished and in awe of the performance.

What a way to finish off our first day in Beijing.

Oh, sorry, that high was dented slightly when we had to go back to our room.

An excerpt from “The Devil You Don’t”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

By the time I returned to the Savoie, the rain had finally stopped, and there was a streak of blue sky to offer some hope the day would improve.

The ship was not crowded, the possibility of bad weather perhaps holding back potential passengers.  Of those I saw, a number of them would be aboard for the lunch by Phillippe Chevrier.  I thought about it, but the Concierge had told me about several restaurants in Yvoire and had given me a hand-drawn map of the village.  I think he came from the area because he spoke with the pride and knowledge of a resident.

I was looking down from the upper deck observing the last of the boarding passengers when I saw a woman, notable for her red coat and matching shoes, making a last-minute dash to get on board just before the gangway was removed.  In fact, her ungainly manner of boarding had also captured a few of the other passenger’s attention.  Now they would have something else to talk about, other than the possibility of further rain.

I saw her smile at the deckhand, but he did not smile back.  He was not impressed with her bravado, perhaps because of possible injury.  He looked at her ticket then nodded dismissively, and went back to his duties in getting the ship underway.  I was going to check the departure time, but I, like the other passengers, had my attention diverted to the woman in red.

From what I could see there was something about her.  It struck me when the light caught her as she turned to look down the deck, giving me a perfect profile.  I was going to say she looked foreign, but here, as in almost anywhere in Europe, that described just about everyone.  Perhaps I was just comparing her to Phillipa, so definitively British, whereas this woman was very definitely not.

She was perhaps in her 30’s, slim or perhaps the word I’d use was lissom, and had the look and manner of a model.  I say that because Phillipa had dragged me to most of the showings, whether in Milan, Rome, New York, London, or Paris.  The clothes were familiar, and in the back of my mind, I had a feeling I’d seen her before.

Or perhaps, to me, all models looked the same.

She looked up in my direction, and before I could divert my eyes, she locked on.  I could feel her gaze boring into me, and then it was gone as if she had been looking straight through me.  I remained out on deck as the ship got underway, watching her disappear inside the cabin.  My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to keep an eye out for her.

I could feel the coolness of the air as the ship picked up speed, not that it was going to be very fast.  With stops, the trip would take nearly two hours to get to my destination.  It would turn back almost immediately, but I was going to stay until the evening when it returned at about half eight.  It would give me enough time to sample the local fare, and take a tour of the medieval village.

Few other passengers ventured out on the deck, most staying inside or going to lunch.  After a short time, I came back down to the main deck and headed forward.  I wanted to clear my head by concentrating on the movement of the vessel through the water, breathing in the crisp, clean air, and let the peacefulness of the surroundings envelope me.

It didn’t work.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started thinking about why things hadn’t worked, and what part I played in it.  And the usual question that came to mind when something didn’t work out.  What was wrong with me?

I usually blamed it on my upbringing.

I had one of those so-called privileged lives, a nanny till I was old enough to go to boarding school, then sent to the best schools in the land.  There I learned everything I needed to be the son of a Duke, or, as my father called it in one of his lighter moments, nobility in waiting.

Had this been five or six hundred years ago, I would need to have sword and jousting skills, or if it had been a few hundred years later a keen military mind.  If nothing else I could ride a horse, and go on hunts, or did until they became not the thing to do.

I learned six languages, and everything I needed to become a diplomat in the far-flung British Empire, except the Empire had become the Commonwealth, and then, when no-one was looking, Britain’s influence in the world finally disappeared.  I was a man without a cause, without a vocation, and no place to go.

Computers were the new vogue and I had an aptitude for programming.  I guess that went hand in hand with mathematics, which although I hated the subject, I excelled in.  Both I and another noble outcast used to toss ideas around in school, but when it came to the end of our education, he chose to enter the public service, and I took a few of those ideas we had mulled over and turned them into a company.

About a year ago, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse.  There were so many zeroes on the end of it I just said yes, put the money into a very grateful bank, and was still trying to come to terms with it.

Sadly, I still had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.  My parents had asked me to come back home and help manage the estate, and I did for a few weeks.  It was as long as it took for my parents to drive me insane.

Back in the city, I spent a few months looking for a mundane job, but there were very few that suited the qualifications I had, and the rest, I think I intimidated the interviewer simply because of who I was.  In that time I’d also featured on the cover of the Economist, and through my well-meaning accountant, started involving myself with various charities, earning the title ‘philanthropist’.

And despite all of this exposure, even making one of those ubiquitous ‘eligible bachelor’ lists, I still could not find ‘the one’, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  Phillipa seemed to fit the bill, but in time she proved to be a troubled soul with ‘Daddy’ issues.  I knew that in building a relationship compromise was necessary, but with her, in the end, everything was a compromise and what had happened was always going to be the end result.

It was perhaps a by-product of the whole nobility thing.  There was a certain expectation I had to fulfill, to my peers, contemporaries, parents and family, and those who either liked or hated what it represented.  The problem was, I didn’t feel like I belonged.  Not like my friend from schooldays, and now obscure acquaintance, Sebastian.  He had been elevated to his Dukedom early when his father died when he was in his twenties.  He had managed to fade from the limelight and was rarely mentioned either in the papers or the gossip columns.  He was one of the lucky ones.

I had managed to keep a similarly low profile until I met Phillipa.  From that moment, my obscurity disappeared.  It was, I could see now, part of a plan put in place by Phillipa’s father, a man who hogged the limelight with his daughter, to raise the profile of the family name and through it their businesses.  He was nothing if not the consummate self-advertisement.

Perhaps I was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle, the attachment to the establishment, that link with a class of people he would not normally get in the front door.  There was nothing refined about him or his family, and more than once I’d noticed my contemporaries cringe at the mention of his name, or any reference of my association with him.

Yet could I truthfully say I really wanted to go back to the obscurity I had before Phillipa?  For all her faults, there were times when she had been fun to be with, particularly when I first met her when she had a certain air of unpredictability.  That had slowly disappeared as she became part of her father’s plan for the future.  She just failed to see how much he was using her.

Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.

I thought about calling her.  It was one of those moments of weakness when I felt alone, more alone than usual.

I diverted my attention back to my surroundings and the shoreline.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman in the red coat, making a move.  The red coat was like a beacon, a sort of fire engine red.  It was not the sort of coat most of the women I knew would wear, but on her, it looked terrific.  In fact, her sublime beauty was the one other attribute that was distinctly noticeable, along with the fact her hair was short, rather than long, and jet black.

I had to wrench my attention away from her.

A few minutes later several other passengers came out of the cabin for a walk around the deck, perhaps to get some exercise, perhaps checking up on me, or perhaps I was being paranoid.  I waited till they passed on their way forward, and I turned and headed aft.

I watched the wake sluicing out from under the stern for a few minutes, before retracing my steps to the front of the ship and there I stood against the railing, watching the bow carve its way through the water.  It was almost mesmerizing.  There, I emptied my mind of thoughts about Phillipa, and thoughts about the woman in the red coat.

Until a female voice behind me said, “Having a bad day?”

I started, caught by surprise, and slowly turned.  The woman in the red coat had somehow got very close me without my realizing it.  How did she do that?  I was so surprised I couldn’t answer immediately.

“I do hope you are not contemplating jumping.  I hear the water is very cold.”

Closer up, I could see what I’d missed when I saw her on the main deck.  There was a slight hint of Chinese, or Oriental, in her particularly around the eyes, and of her hair which was jet black.  An ancestor twice or more removed had left their mark, not in a dominant way, but more subtle, and easily missed except from a very short distance away, like now.

Other than that, she was quite possibly Eastern European, perhaps Russian, though that covered a lot of territory.  The incongruity of it was that she spoke with an American accent, and fluent enough for me to believe English was her first language.

Usually, I could ‘read’ people, but she was a clean slate.  Her expression was one of amusement, but with cold eyes.  My first thought, then, was to be careful.

“No.  Not yet.”  I coughed to clear my throat because I could hardly speak.  And blushed, because that was what I did when confronted by a woman, beautiful or otherwise.

The amusement gave way to a hint of a smile that brightened her demeanor as a little warmth reached her eyes.  “So that’s a maybe.  Should I change into my lifesaving gear, just in case?”

It conjured up a rather interesting image in my mind until I reluctantly dismissed it.

“Perhaps I should move away from the edge,” I said, moving sideways until I was back on the main deck, a few feet further away.  Her eyes had followed me, and when I stopped she turned to face me again.  She did not move closer.

I realized then she had removed her beret and it was in her left side coat pocket.  “Thanks for your concern …?”

“Zoe.”

“Thanks for your concern, Zoe.  By the way, my name is John.”

She smiled again, perhaps in an attempt to put me at ease.  “I saw you earlier, you looked so sad, I thought …”

“I might throw myself overboard?”

“An idiotic notion I admit, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”

Then she tilted her head to one side then the other, looking intently at me.  “You seem to be familiar.  Do I know you?”

I tried to think of where I may have seen her before, but all I could remember was what I’d thought earlier when I first saw her; she was a model and had been at one of the showings.  If she was, it would be more likely she would remember Phillipa, not me.  Phillipa always had to sit in the front row.

“Probably not.”  I also didn’t mention the fact she may have seen my picture in the society pages of several tabloid newspapers because she didn’t look the sort of woman who needed a daily dose of the comings and goings, and, more often than not, scandal associated with so-called celebrities.

She gave me a look, one that told me she had just realized who I was.  “Yes, I remember now.  You made the front cover of the Economist.  You sold your company for a small fortune.”

Of course.  She was not the first who had recognized me from that cover.  It had raised my profile considerably, but not the Sternhaven’s.  That article had not mentioned Phillipa or her family.  I suspect Grandmother had something to do with that, and it was, now I thought about it, another nail in the coffin that was my relationship with Phillipa.

“I wouldn’t say it was a fortune, small or otherwise, just fortunate.”  Each time, I found myself playing down the wealth aspect of the business deal.

“Perhaps then, as the journalist wrote, you were lucky.  It is not, I think, a good time for internet-based companies.”

The latter statement was an interesting fact, one she read in the Financial Times which had made that exact comment recently.

“But I am boring you.”  She smiled again.  “I should be minding my own business and leaving you to your thoughts.  I am sorry.”

She turned to leave and took a few steps towards the main cabin.

“You’re not boring me,” I said, thinking I was letting my paranoia get the better of me.  It had been Sebastian on learning of my good fortune, who had warned me against ‘a certain element here and abroad’ whose sole aim would be to separate me from my money.  He was not very subtle when he described their methods.

But I knew he was right.  I should have let her walk away.

She stopped and turned around.  “You seem nothing like the man I read about in the Economist.”

A sudden and awful thought popped into my head.  Those words were part of a very familiar opening gambit.  “Are you a reporter?”

I was not sure if she looked surprised, or amused.  “Do I look like one?”

I silently cursed myself for speaking before thinking, and then immediately ignored my own admonishment.  “People rarely look like what they are.”

I saw the subtle shake of the head and expected her to take her leave.  Instead she astonished me.

“I fear we have got off on the wrong foot.  To be honest, I’m not usually this forward, but you seemed like you needed cheering up when probably the opposite is true.  Aside from the fact this excursion was probably a bad idea.  And,” she added with a little shrug, “perhaps I talk too much.”

I was not sure what I thought of her after that extraordinary admission. It was not something I would do, but it was an interesting way to approach someone and have them ignoring their natural instinct.  I would let Sebastian whisper in my ear for a little longer and see where this was going.

“Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.  I was supposed to be traveling with my prospective bride.  I think you can imagine how that turned out.”

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

“She’s in the cabin?”  Her eyes strayed in that direction for a moment then came back to me.  She seemed surprised I might be traveling with someone.

“No.  She is back in England, and the wedding is off.  So is the relationship.  She dumped me by text.”

OK, why was I sharing this humiliating piece of information with her?  I still couldn’t be sure she was not a reporter.

She motioned to an empty seat, back from the edge.  No walking the plank today.  She moved towards it and sat down.  She showed no signs of being cold, nor interested in the breeze upsetting her hair.  Phillipa would be having a tantrum about now, being kept outside, and freaking out over what the breeze might be doing to her appearance.

I wondered, if only for a few seconds if she used this approach with anyone else.  I guess I was a little different, a seemingly rich businessman alone on a ferry on Lake Geneva, contemplating the way his life had gone so completely off track.

She watched as I sat at the other end of the bench, leaving about a yard between us.  After I leaned back and made myself as comfortable as I could, she said, “I have also experienced something similar, though not by text message.  It is difficult, the first few days.”

“I saw it coming.”

“I did not.”  She frowned, a sort of lifeless expression taking over, perhaps brought on by the memory of what had happened to her.  “But it is done, and I moved on.  Was she the love of your life?”

OK, that was unexpected.

When I didn’t answer, she said, “I am sorry.  Sometimes I ask personal questions without realizing what I’m doing.  It is none of my business.”  She shivered.  “Perhaps we should go back inside.”

She stood, and held out her hand.  Should I take it and be drawn into her web?  I thought of Sebastian.  What would he do in this situation?

I took her hand in mine and let her pull me gently to my feet.  “Wise choice,” she said, looking up at the sky.

It just started to rain.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2023

newdevilcvr6

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 115/116

Day 115 and 116 – Writing Evercise

…

It was my second-to-last test before the final results of my year of in-field training were aggregated into a posting or an ignominious exit.

The last effort had been, as far as I was concerned, sabotaged by a colleague whose efforts were less than stellar, but had been schmoozing the test panel.

But, as someone else said, we cannot allow ourselves to believe the test panel would be so naive.

We should not have known who was on the test panel, but maybe that was also part of the test.  In the field, there were no panel members there to listen to your whining. You were on your own, or dead.

I sat alone that morning, not knowing who to trust.  Breakfast was a decent spread, worthy of a five-star hotel, but I had little appetite.  Two cups of strong black coffee and a scan of the morning newspaper.

The world was, as usual, still going to hell in a handbasket.  Page eight had a small piece about a missing scientist, one of several I’d read about over the last three months.

Patterns.

All seemed to have visited a nightclub, Ryker’s, in the seedier part of Boise, Idaho. 

Coincidence, maybe, but three of us had been given instructions to hole up in three separate three-star hotels that someone wanting to remain anonymous would stay at.

I had made the decision to have breakfast at an upmarket hotel and observe another class of people, just for a surveillance exercise.  I’d dressed up so that I’d fit in, channelling the lawyer/accountant vibe.

My cell phone was sitting nearby, waiting for the call.  It could be any time, or not for days.  We had to be able to deal with boredom and still stay honed.

It wasn’t easy.

The dining room was quite full.  For half an hour, guests and friends arrived and departed.  It was quite full, and wait staff were continuously threading their way, pouring coffee, taking orders, and being abused.

My waitress was amiable, even effervescent.  She smiled, filled the cup, and moved on.

As I watched her leave, I heard a scuffle nearby, and a body slid into the seat to my left.

A girl, mid-thirties, dyed blonde with dark roots, a recent change.  She wore a red blouse and a dark blue pantsuit.  Professional?

She turned to see me looking at her.  Usually, people ask before sitting down.

“Sorry.”  Breathless like she had been running.  I hadn’t seen her arrive.

She hadn’t brought anything with her.

Perhaps I should ask the question.  “Are you alright?”

She was scanning the entrance to the room, then stiffened.

I saw two men, one short, one medium, in cheap suits.  They were not police, perhaps private security.  They scanned the room, stopped at my table and without appearing to, moved quickly towards me.

“Oh, God.”  She looked as if she had seen the devil himself.

“Who are they?” I asked casually, keeping an eye on their progress.

“Trouble.”

“Do you need help?”

“You can’t…”

I shrugged.  As they approached, I stood.  I motioned for her to stay seated and raised a hand to my coffee waitress to come over.

The two men and the waitress arrived at the same time.  They took up positions that cut off the girl’s exit.  The look on my breakfast companion’s face was stark terror.

The waitress asked, “Coffee?”

“No.  Call the police.  The two men behind you are fugitives from a kidnapping my team have bren trackeing using this young lady as a decoy.”

I showed my FBI badge and showed it to the shorter man. “You don’t want to do this, especially with the CCTV cameras focused on you.”

“Walk away,” the short one said.

People were starting to notice, and a ripple was going through the room.  Police appeared at the entrance.  The waitress headed towards them quickly.  I had expected the two men to impede her progress.

The two men ran.  They headed for the nearest exit away from the policemen and disappeared from sight.  I put the ID away and sat.

The girl spoke to them and pointed in my direction, then in the direction the men had taken, and they followed them.  The waitress disappeared.

The girl did not look relieved in the slightest.  I said, “The police can deal with them.”

Another waiter stopped and filled our cups with black coffee and moved on.  It was as if nothing had happened, except there were a few looking and guessing at what had happened. I said, “Exactly how did you end up here?”

“Are you really FBI?”

“In a manner of speaking.”  I noticed then a purple mark on her wrist.  “What is that in your arm?”

She hid it.  “Nothing.”

“It’s something that might save you. What is it?”

“A pass-out stamp from a nightclub.”

“Ryker’s?”

She sucked in her breath and went on the defensive.  “It’s nothing to do with this?”

“Are you a scientist?”

“Who are you?”  She stood.  “I’ve got to go.”

I stood.  “Fine.  But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong?”

“No.  I can’t.” 

She took two steps, then stopped.  I think we both had the same thought.  Those men had not left; they were waiting for her to leave.  Somewhere outside the building.

She said quietly, “Not here.”

…

We left in the opposite direction from the two men.  I walked slightly in front of her, protecting her as I had been shown to do in similar situations.

The thought crossed my mind that this was a simulation, and I was surrounded by some of the best actors I’d seen, too good for our usual simulations.  They were second-year graduates honing their skills.

I had a gun, a license to carry, and instructions never to use it in plain sight.  I nearly broke that rule.

At the doorway, I checked and rechecked the perimeter and considered the possible four locations where they could be.  I didn’t think they’d attack inside the building, not the way they left in a hurry, their cover blown.

And on CCTV.  That was bad enough.  I was on it too.  But, here’s the thing.  How often do you find yourself in a situation that is so random, it’s unexplainable?

No unusual movement and no heads peeking from behind walls.  If it were me, I’d call for reinforcements and stake out every entrance and exit.

Movement, just in the corner of my eye.  Or not. 

Batten down the nerves and go back to basics.

Don’t stand still, keep moving, steady but not fast enough to attract attention.  Look purposeful, like you have somewhere to be, and above all, look like you know where you’re going.

But…

New city, no time to check the necessary information about it, the hotel, the exits, how to leave without being seen.  That was going to be my after-breakfast task.

I should have done it yesterday when I arrived.

Then a thought: basement.  All hotels had a basement.

Towards the back, stairs.  Down.  Through the lobby.  Damn.  I shook my head.

“We have to go down.  Via the lobby.”

“They’ll be waiting.”

She was right.  We needed a diversion.

I said a small prayer, crossed the passage and broke the fire alarm, setting it off.  Then we headed through the lobby.

She was right.  But they had not expected us to cross from front to back, but from back to front.  They got caught on the exodus heading for the front door, after we got through to the stairs.

And down, down a corridor and into the kitchen, through to the rear entrance left ajar so the smokers could get in and out.

It was where we would leave the building.

Just as bullets pinged off the wall above our heads as we exited.  I dove to the right behind a dumpster, dragging her with me, hearing her groan as we hit the ground, as more bullets pinged off the metal bin.

I pulled out my gun and fired several random shots in their direction, and the volley ended.

From the frying pan into the fire…

The door opened behind me, and several bullets hit the wall. Someone returned fire, then the alley went quiet.

Then, “You can come out now.”

The waitress.

We both got up off the ground and came out to see the waitress, who was no longer a waitress.  She showed us a State Police department badge.  “Detective Somers, who the hell are you two?”

“Agent Alex Pettigrew, FBI.  I think I’ve stumbled into something I don’t want to know about.”

The girl, “Professor Jane Blanch, neither of you has clearance high enough to ask any more questions.”

“And those two men?”

“You don’t want to know,” Jane said. She looked at Somers.  “Are they dead?”

“I hope not.  They have a thousand questions to answer.  Look,” she said to me.  “Just wrap yourself up and leave, and don’t come back.  This is not your jurisdiction.”

“As right as that might sound in your head as the right thing to say, it is not.  Whatever just happened is symptomatic of something much, much larger and is not going away.  It has something to do with Ryker’s Nightclub, science, and research.  Jane is not the first scientist to disappear from that cohort.”

“Pack it up and walk away, FBI man.  This is not your rodeo.”

“You going to save this woman?  There’ll be more where those two came from.”

“That’s my job.  You can leave it with me.  Miss.”  She had her hand in the Professor’s arm.”

The Professor looked at me.  “Thanks.”

“You feel safe with the Detective?”

“Of course.  Thank you again.”

…

Convenient.

When something doesn’t feel right, it generally isn’t.

As I watched them head down the alley, I had a bad thought.  What if what I saw was just a show?  This was the trouble distinguishing between what was real and what was training.

More than once, I’d say, in the post mission review after a training session and have my ass handed to me in a sling.

Do not trust anything or anyone.  The enemy will come to you dressed in any disguise, as your friend, as someone you can trust.  And thirty seconds later, they end up with a bullet between the eyes.

You rarely saw the bullet that had your name on it.

I waited until they were out of sight and followed discreetly.  I noted they did not go back into the hotel.

Jurisdictional issues were common.  County and State police pulled jurisdiction on what they called their patch.  We were not supposed to pull rank and were obliged to advise local authorities if we were working their patch.

Sometimes we didn’t have time.

I should be expecting a phone call if a different sort after breaking cover.  If the detective decided to call it, or if the detective was a detective.

I reached the end of the alleyway and stopped.  Should I have a weapon ready or just poke my head around the corner? 

This could go wrong in so many ways.

Ideally, there would be no one there.  The remote chance, the two men, the bogus detective and the girl were waiting.

I peered around the corner.

Two police cars, four officers, the detective and the girl standing by one of the cars.  No flashing lights, so not an active situation.

The detective was on her cell phone.

Not my problem.

But…

Where were the people who were shooting at us?  If there were police at the end of the alley, the fact that there were shooters in an urban environment would have led to lights and perpetrators under arrest.

There were no shooters anywhere, and they certainly had time to get away.

I leaned against the wall.  It had to be a simulation, and I failed because I had let the girl go into what was potentially a life-threatening situation.

My cell phone vibrated.  Yes, I’d learned the lesson about having an active or loud ringtone, exposing my presence.

No one else knew this number.  It was the bad news.

“Yes?”

“You have passed the final test and are being assigned under your FBI cover name.  We received a call from Somers, a detective with ISP investigations, to verify your identity.  You identified a possible kidnap victim, one of several in the past six months, and prevented a possible situation.”

“It was several notices in various newspapers.  I had no idea it was going to happen or if it meant anything.  She just sat at my table.”

“Not in your hotel.”

“Boring breakfast, sir.”

“A coincidence that just got you into the service.  Now you need to prove you belong there.  She’s waiting around the corner.  Good to see you didn’t trust that she was who she said she was, but I’m not going to ask what you intended to do if there was a problem.”

“Neither did I.  Good thing you called.”

Silence.  Perhaps flippancy wasn’t the way to go.

“Report through the usual channels.  We will update your cell with your support teams.  Good luck.”

I sighed, more in relief than anything else.  Then I pocketed the phone and walked around the corner.

She was expecting me.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

An excerpt from “What Sets Us Apart”, a mystery with a twist

See the excerpt from the story below, just a taste of what’s in store…

http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

whatsetscover

McCallister was old school, a man who would most likely fit in perfectly campaigning on the battlefields of Europe during the Second World War. He’d been like a fish out of water in the army, post-Falklands, and while he retired a hero, he still felt he’d more to give.

He’d applied and was accepted as head of a SWAT team, and, watching him now as he and his men disembarked from the truck in almost military precision, a look passed between Annette, the police liaison officer, and I that said she’d seen it all before. I know I had.

There was a one in four chance his team would be selected for this operation, and she had been hoping it would be one of the other three. While waiting for them to arrive she filled me in on the various teams. His was the least co-operative, and the more likely to make ad-hoc decisions rather than adhere to the plan, or any orders that may come from the officer in charge.

This, she said quite bluntly, was going to end badly.

I still had no idea why Prendergast instructed me to attend the scene of what looked to be a normal domestic operation, but as the nominated expert in the field in these types of situations, it was fairly clear he wasn’t taking any chances. It was always a matter of opinion between us, and generally I lost.

In this case, it was an anonymous report identifying what the authorities believed were explosives in one of the dockside sheds where explosives were not supposed to be.

The only reason why the report was given any credence was the man, while not identifying himself by name, said he’d been an explosive expert once and recognized the boxes. That could mean anything, but the Chief Constable was a cautious man.

With his men settled and preparing their weapons, McCallister came over to the command post, not much more than the SUV my liaison and I arrived in, with weapons, bulletproof vests, and rolls of tape to cordon off the area afterward. We both had coffee, steaming in the cold early morning air. Dawn was slowly approaching and although rain had been forecast it had yet to arrive.

A man by the name of Benson was in charge. He too had groaned when he saw McCallister.

“A fine morning for it.” McCallister was the only enthusiastic one here.

He didn’t say what ‘it’ was, but I thought it might eventually be mayhem.

“Let’s hope the rain stays away. It’s going to be difficult enough without it,” Benson said, rubbing his hands together. We had been waiting for the SWAT team to arrive, and another team to take up their position under the wharf, and who was in the final stages of securing their position.

While we were waiting we drew up the plan. I’d go in first to check on what we were dealing with, and what type of explosives. The SWAT team, in the meantime, were to ensure all the exits to the shed were covered. When I gave the signal, they were to enter and secure the building. We were not expecting anyone inside or out, and no movement had been detected in the last hour since our arrival and deployment.

“What’s the current situation?”

“I’ve got eyes on the building, and a team coming in from the waterside, underneath. Its slow progress, but they’re nearly there. Once they’re in place, we’re sending McKenzie in.”

He looked in my direction.

“With due respect sir, shouldn’t it be one of us?” McCallister glared at me with the contempt that only a decorated military officer could.

“No. I have orders from above, much higher than I care to argue with, so, McCallister, no gung-ho heroics for the moment. Just be ready to move on my command, and make sure you have three teams at the exit points, ready to secure the building.”

McCallister opened his mouth, no doubt to question those orders, but instead closed it again. “Yes sir,” he muttered and turned away heading back to his men.

“You’re not going to have much time before he storms the battlements,” Benson quietly said to me, a hint of exasperation in his tone. “I’m dreading the paperwork.”

It was exactly what my liaison officer said when she saw McCallister arriving.

The water team sent their ‘in position’ signal, and we were ready to go.

In the hour or so we’d been on site nothing had stirred, no arrivals, no departures, and no sign anyone was inside, but that didn’t mean we were alone. Nor did it mean I was going to walk in and see immediately what was going on. If it was a cache of explosives then it was possible the building was booby-trapped in any number of ways, there could be sentries or guards, and they had eyes on us, or it might be a false alarm.

I was hoping for the latter.

I put on the bulletproof vest, thinking it was a poor substitute for full battle armor against an exploding bomb, but we were still treating this as a ‘suspected’ case. I noticed my liaison officer was pulling on her bulletproof vest too.

“You don’t have to go. This is my party, not yours,” I said.

“The Chief Constable told me to stick to you like glue, sir.”

I looked at Benson. “Talk some sense into her please, this is not a kindergarten outing.”

He shrugged. Seeing McCallister had taken all the fight out of him. “Orders are orders. If that’s what the Chief Constable requested …”

Madness. I glared at her, and she gave me a wan smile. “Stay behind me then, and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Believe me, I won’t be.” She pulled out and checked her weapon, chambering the first round. It made a reassuring sound.

Suited up, weapons readied, a last sip of the coffee in a stomach that was already churning from nerves and tension, I looked at the target, one hundred yards distant and thought it was going to be the longest hundred yards I’d ever traversed. At least for this week.

A swirling mist rolled in and caused a slight change in plans.

Because the front of the buildings was constantly illuminated by large overhead arc lamps, my intention had been to approach the building from the rear where there was less light and more cover. Despite the lack of movement, if there were explosives in that building, there’d be ‘enemy’ surveillance somewhere, and, after making that assumption, I believed it was going to be easier and less noticeable to use the darkness as a cover.

It was a result of the consultation, and studying the plans of the warehouse, plans that showed three entrances, the main front hangar type doors, a side entrance for truck entry and exit and a small door in the rear, at the end of an internal passage leading to several offices. I also assumed it was the exit used when smokers needed a break. Our entry would be by the rear door or failing that, the side entrance where a door was built into the larger sliding doors. In both cases, the locks would not present a problem.

The change in the weather made the approach shorter, and given the density of the mist now turning into a fog, we were able to approach by the front, hugging the walls, and moving quickly while there was cover. I could feel the dampness of the mist and shivered more than once.

It was nerves more than the cold.

I could also feel rather than see the presence of Annette behind me, and once felt her breath on my neck when we stopped for a quick reconnaissance.

It was the same for McCallister’s men. I could feel them following us, quickly and quietly, and expected, if I turned around, to see him breathing down my neck too.

It added to the tension.

My plan was still to enter by the back door.

We slipped up the alley between the two sheds to the rear corner and stopped. I heard a noise coming from the rear of the building, and the light tap on the shoulder told me Annette had heard it too. I put my hand up to signal her to wait, and as a swirl of mist rolled in, I slipped around the corner heading towards where I’d last seen the glow of a cigarette.

The mist cleared, and we saw each other at the same time. He was a bearded man in battle fatigues, not the average dockside security guard.

He was quick, but my slight element of surprise was his undoing, and he was down and unconscious in less than a few seconds with barely a sound beyond the body hitting the ground. Zip ties secured his hands and legs, and tape his mouth. Annette joined me a minute after securing him.

A glance at the body then me, “I can see why they, whoever they are, sent you.”

She’d asked who I worked for, and I didn’t answer. It was best she didn’t know.

“Stay behind me,” I said, more urgency in my tone. If there was one, there’d be another.

Luck was with us so far. A man outside smoking meant no booby traps on the back door, and quite possibly there’d be none inside. But it indicated there were more men inside, and if so, it appeared they were very well trained. If that were the case, they would be formidable opponents.

The fear factor increased exponentially.

I slowly opened the door and looked in. A pale light shone from within the warehouse itself, one that was not bright enough to be detected from outside. None of the offices had lights on, so it was possible they were vacant. I realized then they had blacked out the windows. Why hadn’t someone checked this?

Once inside, the door closed behind us, progress was slow and careful. She remained directly behind me, gun ready to shoot anything that moved. I had a momentary thought for McCallister and his men, securing the perimeter.

At the end of the corridor, the extent of the warehouse stretched before us. The pale lighting made it seem like a vast empty cavern, except for a long trestle table along one side, and, behind it, stacks of wooden crates, some opened. It looked like a production line.

To get to the table from where we were was a ten-yard walk in the open. There was no cover. If we stuck to the walls, there was equally no cover and a longer walk.

We needed a distraction.

As if on cue, the two main entrances disintegrated into flying shrapnel accompanied by a deafening explosion that momentarily disoriented both Annette and I. Through the smoke and dust kicked up I saw three men appear from behind the wooden crates, each with what looked like machine guns, spraying bullets in the direction of the incoming SWAT members.

They never had a chance, cut down before they made ten steps into the building.

By the time I’d recovered, my head heavy, eyes watering and ears still ringing, I took several steps towards them, managing to take down two of the gunmen but not the third.

I heard a voice, Annette’s I think, yell out, “Oh, God, he’s got a trigger,” just before another explosion, though all I remember in that split second was a bright flash, the intense heat, something very heavy smashing into my chest knocking the wind out of me, and then the sensation of flying, just before I hit the wall.

I spent four weeks in an induced coma, three months being stitched back together and another six learning to do all those basic actions everyone took for granted. It was twelve months almost to the day when I was released from the hospital, physically, except for a few alterations required after being hit by shrapnel, looking the same as I always had.

But mentally? The document I’d signed on release said it all, ‘not fit for active duty; discharged’.

It was in the name of David Cheney. For all intents and purposes, Alistair McKenzie was killed in that warehouse, and for the first time ever, an agent left the Department, the first to retire alive.

I was not sure I liked the idea of making history.

© Charles Heath 2016-2020