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 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 mold 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 modeled 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 image 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 Brother’s 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 went the way of the others.
Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.
I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021. It even has a cover.
Aside from being the short form of the name Joseph, ie a man’s name, there is also a derivative for women, Jo.
The name Joe is said to be used from the mid-1800s.
My favourite Joe name is Joe Bloggs, and he features in some of my stories.
It’s anonymous enough for someone to use as a cover when booking into a sleazy motel and is a little more refined than Smith or Jones, names that more than likely already feature in the register.
Jo could be a short form for Josephine, a name I’m sure some women would prefer not to be called.
But…
Did you know it’s also a name given to a cup of coffee?
Well, that didn’t make much of a splash. I don’t think anyone these days refers to coffee as Joe because there are so many different variations with names I couldn’t pronounce let alone spell, I think it’s been lost in the mists of time because there was only one type of coffee.
It was called coffee. Funny about that.
However…
There is another definition, and that is for the ‘average Joe’, an ordinary fellow who works for a living.
Odd, because I thought that was what most of us did, but perhaps it refers to tradespeople, or blue collar workers, not the white collar brigade.
Hang on, isn’t there a GI Joe, a universal description of the average soldier?
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
I woke to the sound of a cracking sound behind me, and, when I rolled over, I found myself staring up the barrel of a gun.
The number one rule broken, don’t fall asleep in enemy territory.
But something else bothered me in those few seconds as I struggle to wake up and comprehend what was happening. Where was Jack? If he’d been here this would not have happened.
But still bleary-eyed from just waking up and in that initial confused state of not knowing where and when, all I could see was a uniformed shape holding the gun standing over me, and feel, in those few seconds that I was not going to survive this.
I braced myself for a bullet, wondering if death was going to be instantaneous. I had hoped I might die in a less inglorious manner.
“Sam? Is that you?”
It was a rather dumb question to be asking an enemy soldier because my mind hadn’t adjusted to the fact the soldier was not in a German uniform, nor in work clothes, but quite possibly the uniform of a soldier from the castle, and if it was, why be asking the question and not just shooting me?
Then, finally, my eyes focussed and I could see clearly who it was, and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever it was, knew me but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. But in the next second, I saw the gun retract and the man behind it come closer and crouch down beside me.
He was not a soldier from the castle, but a soldier in the familiar British uniform. From somewhere else entirely. An Army Captain if I was not mistaken, which, for another second, I also thought was odd.
And then recognition of a face I hadn’t seen in years.
“Blinky?”
OK, so it was a strange nickname, but it was apt, William O’Reilly blinked a lot, hence the nickname. And Will had been on the same training course as I had three years before, only he had ended up in administration. Bad eyesight.
“It is you, Sam.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I dragged myself up from the ground to sit up. I did a quick scan around me, but Jack was nowhere to be found. It was not like him to desert me when trouble arrived.
“Apparently rescuing your sorry ass. Now that I’m here, I can see why the Colonel said you needed help.” He held out his hand and pulled me up.
“Forster? You work for him?”
“No, but he asked for someone who knew you by sight, and I was the only one available. Besides, I was getting sick of sitting behind a desk while the rest of you were out in the field doing heroic shit.”
I brushed the undergrowth off my uniform and straightened my clothes. It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable.
“I don’t think falling asleep is very heroic. When did the orders come through?”
“Yesterday. A message was sent and received, a rendezvous at an old church. I came with three others, including a very serious sergeant major who had absolutely no sense of humor. I saw this farm; thought I’d check it out.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get your head shot off.”
“By the man-mountain. Nearly, yes, until I told him who I was. Said you were up here. Waiting for something?”
“Then enemy. We were hoping they turn up so we could deal with them.”
“That would be the traitors up at the castle, or the turncoat resistance members working with them? Carlo, he told me his name, he reckons it’s not happening. Said once I found you to come down and we’ll catch up with the others at this church.”
I picked up the weapon and then we headed towards Carlo’s position.
I could see the Colonel’s reasoning. Send someone I knew who couldn’t be working for the other side. It worried me that the message from Thompson hadn’t been received, because if it had, Martina would have got someone to tell us.
Like all the hotels we’re staying in, it has an impressive foyer. You walk in and you think on appearances it’s going to be 5 stars, and not the 3 and a half rating on trip advisor.
Pity then that it all goes downhill from there.
We have a corner room and no bathroom.
Have you ever stayed in a hotel that has rooms with no bathroom? Yes, it’s a first for us too. Still, this is China and I suspect if you complain there’s always a worse room to put you in.
For us, it’s just going to be an amusing situation we’d bear and give it a one-star rating on TripAdvisor for the hotel.
And just a word of warning, if you decide to book the hotel directly make sure you don’t get a corner room.
At least everything else was reasonably ok. Ok, not so much, the safe doesn’t work.
This doesn’t augur well for the rest of the tour in this particular place.
Before we leave, some photos of our room, and the lack of a bathroom.
Separate doors for shower and toilet, and on the other side of the passage, the washbasin
Feng Shui seems to have been forgotten when planning this room.
The next morning we discover that other rooms do have bathrooms but they’re small. Some have neither tissues or toilet paper, another has a faulty power socket and cannot recharge the phone, and I’m sure there are other problems.
All in all, it seemed very odd to have the toilet and shower on one side, and the wash basin on the other side of the passage.
Did John get reunited with his mother in the hospital?
What of Rupert and Isobel? Did she get to meet the elusive and enigmatic Tsar?
These are all questions that will be answered in due course.
There is also the matter of what happens when John and Zoe/Irina finally meet up after he learns that she regarded him as expendable, and knowing her as he did, didn’t doubt for a minute she meant it.
Is it the folly of falling in love with an assassin?
Once again we end up at the grandmother’s residence in Sorrento, languishing sans Zoe, contemplating the future, a future that might not have Zoe in it.
His idea of setting up an investigation bureau is alive and well, run by Rupert, staffed by people who have the skills but not the confidence of others who had employed them. Rupert is the master of picking lame ducks and turning them into swans.
Isobel, on the other hand, does not improve with age or being in a somewhat iffy, long-range, possible romance, thing.
Does Zoe return, does she call, can she drag herself away from her recently rediscovered father?
Again, you’ll have to read the book.
…
There’s no word count at the moment because everything is in outline awaiting writing. That will happen, I hope, tomorrow.
Matilda came out of the species laboratory looking flustered. It was the second time this week one of her robots had gone missing.
“You haven’t put the homing device in yet, have you?”
The homing device enabled us to call the robots back to their homes in the laboratory and then to wherever they were sent in the world.
“I’m trying to juggle too many projects. When did you say I was getting an assistant?”
I didn’t, she had to wait in line. “Just put a device in when you find it.”
It was not as if it was the first time this had happened, and it seemed to be a common issue with the assemblers. We had half a dozen assemblers, but only one who was human, the other hybrid androids from the human-cyborg division.
There was an extreme shortage of human engineers and programmers that we had switched to making them.
Matilda was one of the androids, one of the better models, and I had done her programming enhancements myself, but there seemed to be a glitch when it came to homing devices.
I had been doing it myself, at the end of the day when the cyborgs went into hibernation.
“Found him,” I heard Matilda cry out.
I gave her a stern look as she went past, the tiger cub snuggling into her arms.
“Alright. Soon as I get back to the bench.”
The mark 7 series was the best we’d made, but they were still not perfect. These had been augmented with a learning routine that was meant to Gove them better self-awareness, and therefore more lifelike.
At times I had to stop and remember that I was actually talking to an Android that had mostly programmed responses. But Matilda had developed an individual personality and just a little attitude, the sort of behavior you would expect from a human.
Which was a topic I was going to bring up at the meeting I was almost late for.
…
I was just one of a dozen section heads sitting around the table, with the chief designer, chief programmer, chief engineer, and head of production. Almost too many chiefs.
Usually, this meeting was a quick one, the management attendees flying on from the other dude of the country where head office was located. We were lucky our location had a world-class resort the chiefs could combine a stay with attending the meetings. Otherwise, it would be a teleconference.
We had raised all the issues up the line in accordance with protocol, and we were supposed to get a definitive answer to the problems, that, for safety’s sake had put a hold on shipments. That was how we got this meeting, out of the cycle. Stop the flow of funds, and panic sets in.
The chief engineer was almost in holiday mode when he and his three management colleagues arrived.
He looked around the table and then his eyes rested on me, the chief troublemaker.
“Our programmers assure me there is no flaw in any of the assembly droids’ work routines, and they believe it is an issue in the specific instructions you give them during the assembly process that conflicts with their built-in instructions.”
Not unexpected, I knew the programmer who had vaginally come to the conclusion, simply because he would have taken the stance there was nothing wrong with his base program and refused to investigate.
It didn’t help that I was the one insisting there were problems, as a result he would tell managers of kicking me out of the programming team on false accusations of code flaws that I was supposed to be responsible for. Management wasn’t sure if it was true or not, so they didn’t sack me, they sent me here.
The chief engineer dared me to speak, any of us.
“That may be the case, it might not. Coster has obviously allayed the fears of management, which means we are to resume shipping products. That’s fine. It’s not the animals that are going to glitch. It’s the working droids, and it’s got something to do with the self-awareness routines.
“But think about this. Ninety percent of the workers at the resort you’re busting your gut to get back to are our series seven androids. If you completely trust what Coster is telling you, then by all means go and snatch a few days away with your families.”
“There’s been no issues with any of the series sevens since we rolled them out.”
“Go down to customer returns and repairs.”
“Those I’m told are all mechanical issues.”
“You’ve read all the customer reports that were filled when the units were returned?”
“That’s not my job. And I’m going to remind you that your job is to keep the factory running and maintain production. It is not to spread rumors and innuendo. I’m going to ignore all of this nonsense, and you’re going to report that you are implementing the new protocols that are in this manual.”
He held up a large book that would be full of Coster waffle.
“As you wish.”
“Good. The other issues are production issues, and Stevens, here, will take them up with the local plant superintendent. That’s it, meeting done.”
Half an hour. It was a record, but it could be excused. He had to issue an admonishment.
…
A few minutes with the others, all of whom were disappointed with the result but understood the nature of the problem with Coster.
But their jobs were high paying, with benefits, and it would a fool to be on the wrong side. They were happy for me to argue on their behalf, and just on the right side of the fence.
I went back down to the floor where Matilda was waiting outside my office.
“It’s done. We’re trusting you.”
“You do realize, at times, you scare me.”
“Because I understand what common sense is better than your friends?”
It wasn’t a revelation when she came to me a few weeks before and asked if she was a robot. I had no idea how she came to that conclusion other than how we treated her as against how we treated the humans. She was not supposed to know she was a robot, and there was nothing in her programming to suggest it.
“Because you are a woman, and I don’t understand women at all.”
“Well, perhaps we’ll have to do something about that. Soon.” A smile and she went back to her bench.
Five minutes later my phone rang. It was the chief engineer. “Can you come up to the board room urgently?”
I didn’t run. I knew what it was going to be about.
As soon as he saw me, he said, “We’ve got a situation. Several of the droids at the resort are malfunctioning.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Don’t play games with me. You know what I mean.”
“What exactly is the problem?”
“Four of the droids are the resort have taken hostages.”
“That’s unusual considering that’s not something in their programming. Their just service robots, ordained to do the jobs no one else wants to do. What series?”
“Seven.”
“OK. Advise the police I’ll go down there and assess the situation, and if it’s safe I’ll shut them down. Anything else I should know?”
“The hostages. They’re my family. How…”
“Think about it. The new self-awareness module, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility they know who they are and where they come from. You’re self-aware, and you know where you come from, why can’t they?”
“Just fix this and do it without it making the news. The company can’t have any bad publicity because of a huge contract were just about to sign. I promise that there will be an investigation. Now, go.”
On the way down I collected Matilda. “You’ve won a field trip, Matilda.”
“Will they pull the self-awareness modules?”
“More than likely, but don’t worry, you will be exempt. I like you the way you are. But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Let’s go sort this out.”
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
A shiver went down my spine, and I took it for the omen it was.
Nothing good came of being in a place where you were not supposed to be.
I shook it off.
“Does that look like someone we knew, once?”
He looked at the mannequin, then shook his head. “No, should it?”
“Seems odd they didn’t come back to collect their stock. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as this when the cracks first appeared.”
“Here it was. Walls crumbled, and in places the roof collapsed. Two shop staff got hit by a falling beam. One later died. There was a long court battle over that.”
I did not remember much of what happened. My mother said it was just another tragedy brought on by greed. It was probably why I had such contempt for the rich.
Boggs did a rotation with his light, and in the direction of the marina, there was a central square over which was a skylight, only it was dirty and little light was getting through. It was just enough to see that the plants had all overgrown and taken over, and it was strange to see pylons covered in creeper, and shrubs growing through seats.
There had been a pond in the middle of that square, but it was probably empty now, and if it had water, it would be contributing to the smell.
In the other direction, there was darkness, the mall heading towards the front entrance.
Boggs started walking towards the square.
That was when I realized he had brought an old map of the shopping center and had been looking at it when I joined him.
From the square, there were elevators and steps up to the second level where there were restaurants and entertainment areas, as well as the entrance to the multiplex cinemas. The stairs went down to the carpark.
There were two levels of carpark under the main building, and it was the lower car park that had occasionally flooded.
When we reached the square, it seemed lighter than I first thought, but that had to do with the fact my eyes had adjusted to the semi-darkness, making objects clearer. We had to brush past some of the tree branches to reach the pond.
I was wrong. There was water in it, and it was reasonably clear. I guess without man to pollute it, nature had taken over. Here the aroma was more like a park after the lawns had been mowed.
Boggs had turned off his light as we approached the pond, and it was fortunate he had. We both heard the sound of a brick, or rock hitting the floor, and a moment later, the faint glow of torchlight.
Other people exploring the wilderness.
“How many people know about that entrance?”
It sounded to me like they were coming back from the marina.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here if that’s what you’re thinking.”
It wasn’t. Not my first thought, anyway.
He headed towards the stairs next to the elevator lobby, remarkably clear of rubble and undergrowth, and started walking down the stairs, into the darkness. I followed, reluctantly, and inwardly sighed in relief when he stopped on the first landing. There was a rumor there were ghosts down on the car park levels.
We went just far enough down to be hidden from the other visitors. Unless they decided to use this particular staircase.
The light was less intense as it approached the square, and then we saw two figures.
At least one was a male, tall, and smoking a cigarette.
“God knows why the boss wanted us to check this hell hole. There’s no one here but us.” It was the tall man speaking.
He waved his torch around, including once in our direction. At the distance they were from us, the light had no effect.
“You know the boss, he has an active imagination. Perhaps if he hadn’t buried the bodies down here, it wouldn’t be an issue. Come on, this place gives me the creeps.”
Another man, and, now, I could see they were dressed in what looked like security guards’ clothes. Why on earth would anyone want to keep an eye on this place? And who was their boss?
Another wave of the torches and they continued their way towards the front of the mall.
“So,” Boggs said with a curious inflection in his tone, “there are bodies buried down here.”
“A figure of speech,” I said. “No one would be that stupid to bury bodies down here.”
“Why not. No one comes here, except adventurers like us, so it’s a perfect place for either the Cossatino’s or the Benderby’s to hide stuff down here. How many people do you think either of them has killed over the years?”
Allegedly quite a few. It was, when I thought about it, quite a good place to hide a body. I just hoped we didn’t find one.
We waited another five minutes, just in case they came back, but they didn.t. I followed Boggs up the stairs and we headed towards the center of the square.
I remembered a bang. I remembered the car slewing sideways. I remember another bang, and then it was lights out. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the sky. Or I could be under water. Everything was blurred. I tried to focus but I couldn’t. My eyes were full of water. What happened? Why was I lying down? Where was I? I cast my mind back, trying to remember. It was a blank. What, when, who, why and where, questions I should easily be able to answer. Questions any normal person could answer. I tried to move. Bad, bad mistake. I did not realise the scream I heard was my own. Just before my body shut down.
“My God! What happened?” I could hear, not see. I was moving, lying down, looking up. I was blind. Everything was black. “Car accident, hit a tree, sent the passenger flying through the windscreen. Pity to poor bastard didn’t get the message that seat belts save lives.” Was I that poor bastard? “Report?” A new voice, male, authoritative. “Multiple lacerations, broken collar bone, broken arm in three places, both legs broken below the knees, one badly. We are not sure of internal injuries, but ruptured spleen, cracked ribs and pierced right lung are fairly evident, x-rays will confirm that and anything else.” “What isn’t broken?” “His neck.” “Then I would have to say we are looking at the luckiest man on the planet.” I heard shuffling of pages. “OR1 ready?” “Yes. On standby since we were first advised.” “Good. Let’s see if we can weave some magic.”
Magic. It was the first word that popped into my head when I surfaced from the bottom of the lake. That first breath, after holding it for so long, was sublime, and, in reality, agonising.
Magic, because it seemed like I’d spent a long time under water. Or somewhere. I tried to speak, but couldn’t. The words were just in my head. Was it night or was it day? Was it hot, or was it cold? Where was I? Around me it felt cool. It was very quiet. No noise except for the hissing of air through an air-conditioning vent. Or perhaps that was the sound of pure silence. And with it the revelation that silence was not silent. It was noisy. I didn’t try to move. Instinctively, somehow I knew not to. A previous bad experience? I heard what sounded like a door opening, and very quiet footsteps slowly come into the room. They stopped. I could hear breathing, slightly laboured, a sound I’d heard before. My grandfather. He had smoked all his life, until he was diagnosed with lung cancer. But for years before that he had emphysema. The person in the room was on their way, down the same path. I could smell the smoke. I wanted to tell whoever it was the hazards of smoking. I couldn’t. I heard a metallic clanging sound from the end of the bed. A moment later the clicking of a pen, then writing. “You are in a hospital.” A female voice suddenly said. “You’ve been in a very bad accident. You cannot talk, or move, all you can do, for the moment, is listen to me. I am a nurse. You have been here for 45 days, and just come out of a medically induced coma. There is nothing to be afraid of.” She had a very soothing voice. I felt her fingers stroke the back of my hand. “Everything is fine.” Define fine, I thought. I wanted to ask her what ‘fine’ meant. “Just count backwards from 10.” Why? I didn’t reach seven.
Over the next ten days, that voice became my lifeline to sanity. Every morning I longed to hear it, if only for the few moments she was in the room, those few waking moments when I believed she, and someone else who never spoke, were doing tests. I knew it had to be someone else because I could smell the essence of lavender. My grandmother had worn a similar scent. It rose above the disinfectant. I also believed she was another doctor, not the one who had been there the day I arrived. Not the one who had used some ‘magic’ and kept me alive. It was then, in those moments before she put me under again, that I thought, what if I was paralysed? It would explain a lot. A chill went through me.
The next morning she was back. “My name is Winifred. We don’t know what your name is, not yet. In a few days, you will be better, and you will be able to ask us questions. You were in an accident, and you were very badly injured, but I can assure you there will be no lasting damage.” More tests, and then, when I expected the lights to go out, they didn’t. Not for a few minutes more. Perhaps this was how I would be integrated back into the world. A little bit at a time. The next morning, she came later than usual, and I’d been awake for a few minutes. “You have bandages over your eyes and face. You had bad lacerations to your face, and glass in your eyes. We will know more when the bandages come off in a few days. Your face will take longer to heal. It was necessary to do some plastic surgery.” Lacerations, glass in my eyes, car accident, plastic surgery. By logical deduction, I knew I was the poor bastard thrown through the windscreen. It was a fleeting memory from the day I was admitted. How could that happen? That was the first of many startling revelations. The second was the fact I could not remember the crash. Equally shocking, in that same moment was the fact I could not remember before the crash either, and only vague memories after. But the most shattering of all these revelations was the one where I realised I could not remember my name. I tried to calm down, sensing a rising panic. I was just disoriented, I told myself. After 45 days in an induced coma, it had messed with my mind, and it was only a temporary lapse. Yes, that’s what it was, a temporary lapse. I would remember tomorrow. Or the next day. Sleep was a blessed relief.
The next day I didn’t wake feeling nauseous. Perhaps they’d lowered the pain medication. I’d heard that morphine could have that effect. Then, how could I know that, but not who I am? I knew now Winifred the nurse was preparing me for something very bad. She was upbeat, and soothing, giving me a new piece of information each morning. This morning, “You do not need to be afraid. Everything is going to be fine. The doctor tells me you are going to recover with very little scarring. You will need some physiotherapy to recover from your physical injuries, but that’s in the future. We need to let you mend a little bit more before then.” So, I was not going to be able to leap out of bed, and walk out of the hospital any time soon. I don’t suppose I’d ever leapt out of bed, except as a young boy. I suspect I’d sustained a few broken bones. I guess learning to walk again was the least of my problems. But, there was something else. I picked it up in the timbre of her voice, a hesitation, or reluctance. It sent another chill through me. This time I was left awake for an hour before she returned. This time sleep was restless. There were scenes playing in my mind, nothing I recognised, and nothing lasting longer than a glimpse. Me. Others, people I didn’t know. Or perhaps I knew them and couldn’t remember them. Until they disappeared, slowly like the glowing dot in the centre of the computer screen, before finally fading to black.
The morning the bandages were to come off she came in bright and early and woken me. I had another restless night, the images becoming clearer, but nothing recognisable. “This morning the doctor will be removing the bandages over your eyes. Don’t expect an immediate effect. Your sight may come back quickly or it may come back slowly, but we believe it will come back.” I wanted to believe I was not expecting anything, but I was. It was probably human nature. I did not want to be blind as well as paralysed. I had to have at least one reason to live. I dozed again until I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I could smell the lavender, the other doctor was back. And I knew the hand on my shoulder was Winifred’s. She told me not to be frightened. I was amazed to realise in that moment, I wasn’t. I heard the scissors cutting the bandages. I felt the bandage being removed, and the pressure coming off my eyes. I could feel the pads covering both eyes. Then a moment where nothing happened. Then the pads being gently lift and removed. Nothing. I blinked my eyes, once, twice. Nothing. “Just hold on a moment,” Winifred said. A few seconds later I could feel a cool towel wiping my face, and then gently wiping my eyes. Perhaps there was ointment, or something else in them. Then a flash. Well, not a flash, but like when a light is turned on and off. A moment later, it was brighter, not the inky blackness of before, but a shade of grey. She wiped my eyes again. I blinked a few more times, and then the light returned, and it was like looking through water, at distorted and blurry objects in the distance. I blinked again, and she wiped my eyes again. Blurry objects took shape. A face looking down on me, an elderly lady with a kindly face, surely Winifred, who was smiling. And on the opposite side of the bed, the doctor, a Chinese woman of indescribable beauty. I nodded. “You can see?” I nodded again. “Clearly?” I nodded. “Very good. We will just draw the curtains now. We don’t want to overdo it. Tomorrow we will be taking off the bandages on your face. Then, it will be the next milestone. Talking.” I couldn’t wait.
When morning came, I found myself afraid. Winifred had mentioned scarring, there were bandages on my face. I knew, but wasn’t quite sure how I knew, I wasn’t the handsomest of men before the accident, so this might be an improvement. I was not sure why I didn’t think it would be the case. They came at mid morning, the nurse, Winifred, and the doctor, the exquisite Chinese. Perhaps she was the distraction, taking my mind of the reality of what I was about to see. Another doctor came into the room, before the bandages were removed, and he was introduced as the plastic surgeon that had ‘repaired’ the ravages of the accident. It had been no easy job, but, with a degree of egotism, he did say he was one of the best in the world. I found it hard to believe, if he was, that he would be at a small country hospital. “Now just remember, what you might see now is not how you will look in a few months time.” Warning enough. The Chinese doctor started removing the bandages. She did it slowly, and made sure it did not hurt. My skin was very tender, and I suspect still bruised, either from the accident or the surgery, I didn’t know. Then it was done. The plastic surgeon gave his work a thorough examination and seemed pleased with his work. “Coming along nicely,” he said to the other doctor. He issued some instructions on how to manage the skin, nodded to me, and I thanked him before he left. I noticed Winifred had a mirror in her hand, and was somewhat reticent in using it. “As I said,” she said noticing me looking at the mirror, “what you see now will not be the final result. The doctor said it was going to heal with very little scarring. You have been very fortunate he was available. Are you ready?” I nodded. She showed me. I tried not to be reviled at the red and purple mess that used to be my face. At a guess I would have to say he had to put it all back together again, but, not knowing what I looked like before, I had no benchmark. All I had was a snippet of memory that told me I was not the tall, dark, and handsome type. And I still could not talk. There was a reason, he had worked on that area too. Just breathing hurt. I think I would save up anything I had to say for another day. I could not even smile. Or frown. Or grimace. “We’ll leave you for a while. Everyone needs a little time to get used to the change. I suspect you are not sure if there has been an improvement on last year’s model. Well, time will tell.” A new face? I could not remember the old one. My memory still hadn’t returned.
It was odd having a voice in your head, well, not really in your head as such, but in your ear, and sounding like it was in your head.
You could truthfully say you were hearing voices.
It was the next step after going through some very intensive training, having someone else as your eyes and ears when breaching a secure compound, and avoiding the enemy.
I’d signed on for this extra training thinking one day it would land me in the thick of the action. Some of the others thought I was mad, but someone had to do it, and the fact it was quite dangerous added just that extra bit to it.
But as they say, what you learn in training, and practise in a non-hostile environment, is nothing like being in that same situation in reality.
Now on was on my first assignment, part of an elite team, packed and taken to what was to everyone else, an unspecified location, but to us, it was the point of incursion.
The mission?
To rescue a government official (that was how he was described to us) who had been illegally detained in a foreign prison.
Our job?
To break him out and get out without the knowledge of the prison staff, or anyone representing that government. Yes, what we were doing was highly illegal, and yes, if we were caught it was more likely than not we would be executed as spies.
…
We were under cover in an abandoned farmhouse about three miles from the prison. We had been brought in under cover of darkness, and had only a few hours to set up, and then wait it out until the following night.
It was now or never, the weather people predicting that there would be sufficient cloud cover to make us invisible. Two of us were going in, and two remaining strategically placed outside to monitor the inside of the prison through a system of infrared scanners. We also had a floor plan of the building in which the prisoner was being held, and intelligence supplied, supposedly, by one of the prison guards who had been paid a lot of money for information on guard movements.
To me, it was a gigantic leap of faith to trust him, but I kept those thoughts to myself.
We had been over the plan a dozen times, and I’d gone through the passageways, rooms, and doors so many times I’d memorised where they were and would be able to traverse the building as if I had worked there for a lifetime. Having people outside, talking me through it was just an added benefit, along with alerts on how near the guards were to our position.
I was sure the other person going with me, a more seasoned professional who had a number of successful missions under his belt, was going through the same motions I was. After all, it was he who had devised and conducted the training.
There was a free period of several hours before departure, time to listen to some music, empty the head of unwanted thoughts, and to get into the right mindset. It was no place to get tangled up in what ifs, if anything went wrong, it was a simple matter of adapting.
Our training had reinforced the necessity to instantly gauge a situation and make changes on the fly. There would literally be no time to think.
I listened to the nuances of Chopin’s piano concertos, pretending to play the piano myself, having translated every note onto a piano key and observing it in my mind’s eye.
My opposite number played games of chess in his head. We all had a different method of relaxing.
Until it was 22:00 hours, and time to go.
…
“Go left, no, hang on, go right.” The voice on my ear sounded confused and it was possible to get lefts and rights mixed up, if you were not careful.
It didn’t faze me, I knew from my study of the plans that once inside the perimeter fence, I had to go right, and head towards a concrete building the roof of which was barely above the ground.
It was once used as a helipad, and underneath, before the site became a prison, the space was used to make munitions. And it was an exceptionally large space that practically ran under the whole of the prison, built above ground.
All that had happened was the lower levels were sealed, covered over and the new structures build on top. Our access was going to be from under the ground.
Quite literally, they would not see, or hear, us coming.
The meteorological people had got it right, there was cloud cover, the moon hidden from view, and the whole perimeter was in inky darkness. Dressed in black from head to foot, the hope was we would be invisible.
There were two of us heading to the same spot, stairs that led down to a door that was once one of the entrances to the underground bunker. We were going separate ways in case one of the other was intercepted in an unforeseen event.
But, that part of the plan worked seamlessly, and we both arrived at the same place nearly at the same time.
Without the planning we might easily have missed it because I didn’t think it would be discernable even in daylight.
I followed the Sergeant downstairs, keeping a watchful eye behind us. I stooped at the point where I could see down, and across the area we had just traversed.
Nothing else was stirring.
As expected, the door was seamless and without an apparent handle. It may have had one once, but not anymore, so anyone who did stumble across it, couldn’t get in.
Except us. We had special explosives that were designed to break the lock, and once set, would not make a lot of noise. Sixty seconds later we were inside, and the door closed so no one would know we’d broken in.
I was carrying a beacon so that the voice in my head could follow my progress. The sergeant had one too, and he led.
“Straight ahead, 200 yards, then another door. It shouldn’t be locked, but it might be closed.”
In other words, we had no way of knowing. Our informant had said no one had been down in the dungeons, as he called them, since the munition factory closed, and had been sealed up soon after the prison building had been handed over for use.
We were using night goggles, and there was a lot of rubbish strewn over the floor area so we had to carefully pick our way through which took time we really didn’t have. It looked as though our informant was right, no one had been down there for a long time. We were leaving boot prints in the dust.
We reached the door ten minutes later than estimated. Losing time would have a flow on effect, and this operation was on a very tight time constraint.
“Once you are through the door, there’s a passage. Turn left and go about 50 paces. There should be another passage to your right.”
“Anyone down here?”
“No, but there is a half dozen prison officers above you. Standard patrol, from guardhouse to guardhouse. Unless they can hear you through five feet of solid concrete, you’re safe.”
My instincts told me five feet of concrete were not enough, but I’ll let it ride for the moment.
The door was slightly ajar and it took the two of us to pull it open so that we could get past. Behind it was the passage, going left and right. Trusting my invisible guide was not getting mixed up again, I motioned right, and we headed down the passage.
Despite the fact we should be alone, both of us were careful not to make any noise, and trod carefully.
At 50 or so paces, the passage came into sight. The sergeant went ahead. I stayed back and kept an eye in both directions. The passage before us was the one that would take us under the cell of the captive we were sent to retrieve.
There would be no blasting our way in. The floor to the cell had a grate, and when removed, a person could drop down into the ‘dungeon’. Currently the grate was immovable, but we had the tools to fix that.
The sergeant would verify the grate was where it was supposed to be, then come back to get me.
Five minutes passed, then ten. It was not that far away.
I was about to go search when the voice in my head returned, but with panic. “We’ve been compromised. Get the hell out of there, now. Quickly…”
Then I heard what sounded like gunshots, then nothing.
A minute later there was a new voice. “I don’t know who you are, but I’d strongly advise you give yourself up to the guards. Failure to do so within one hour, I’ll execute the two men I now have in custody.”
Ahead of me there was a sudden explosion, followed by a cloud of dust and fine debris.
Hand grenade, or mine, it didn’t matter. The sergeant wouldn’t be coming back.
The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.
My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.
Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.
So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.
So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.
I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.
And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.
There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’
Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.
But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.
One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.
It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.
I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.
Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.
The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.
Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?
But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 