John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favor for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favor’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
Who hasn’t been on one of these, particularly if you have an older brother or sister, and they have nothing better to do than give you a hard time.
You know what I mean, going on a mission to find or do something, knowing full well that you won’t find it, or complete it because it was a lost cause to start with.
Yes, it goes very well with another saying, a dog chasing its tail.
We’ve seen that, too, watching the poor dog go round and round without ever achieving anything.
Sounds like my day today.
And it doesn’t stop there, the pointless search could also be described as ‘searching for a needle in a haystack’.
That is, to my mind the very definition of a living nightmare.
The origin of the idiom, well that’s a little more complicated because there isn’t just one definition.
The first:
Coined by William Shakespeare, but not necessarily in the sort of language we can read easily – it’s a bit like my ability to translate Spanish to English. It does, however, refer to a ‘wild goose chase’.
The second:
Refers to, of all things 16th Century horseracing, and because I don’t have a time machine I can’t go back to fact-check. However, it refers to the other riders following the leader around the course, in much the same formation as geese flying through the air.
…
My little story to go with it:
…
If you are good at your job, and that is beginning to be noticed, your boss will find one of these ‘wild goose chases’ just for you, in an effort to make you look bad.
It happened to me once: my task was to search the basement, where old records were stored, for a folder that a former employee had thought they had filed it in the wrong storage box, a supposition supported by the fact the folder was now needed to clear up a clerical error and the file wasn’t in the specifically marked storage box.
My job was to search every one of the other 765 boxes stored haphazardly in the basement until I found it.
It was, I was told later, sitting on his desk the whole time, and when I couldn’t find it, was going to swoop in and say he’d found it.
Of course, it went missing before he could, so he got a bollicking for not storing the files properly, and I got the job to clean up the basement. I’m not sure who got the worst punishment.
David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.
Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.
They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?
When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.
When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.
Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.
Yep, another of those interesting little words that mean more than it appears.
Aside from the fact it is the air that we breathe, it can also be used to describe music.
It can be a breath of fresh air, though it’s hard to say where in this ever increasingly polluted atmosphere than we could literally draw one, except on a mountain top, where conversely it would be hard to breathe at all.
Have the air sucked out of us, well, that literally isn’t possible unless some madman comes up with a weird sort of vacuum cleaner, but that might be an episode for the X-Files.
He had an air about him, or her, as the case might be, which might refer to a sort of deference or manner. There again that air might be one of boredom, which is what a lot of students seem to have in class.
Sorry, been a teacher, and know well the expressions on their faces. Had one myself once, and finished up on the end of a chalkboard eraser. Yep, in the good old day’s teachers used to chuck stuff at us recalcitrant students to get our attention, and not undergo a storm of protest from irate parents.
These days those same parents would most likely air their grievance, opinion, or view to the headmaster.
I’m guessing that same headmaster would be wishing those same parents to vanish into thin air, though I’m not sure how that would be possible.
And lastly, television stations air shows.
Weird, eh, how such a simple word can be used in so many contexts.
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…
They reached a point a few kilometers from what was known as Brenner Pass at four in the morning, having navigated their way through patchy snow, icy roads, and bitter cold.
Progress at times was slow and the roads were difficult, the driver, at times, nearly losing control of the car.
The checkpoint appeared almost when they were on top of it, one that hadn’t been marked on the map, so they had not been prepared for it. Too late to turn back, they had to stop.
Once again the soldier that came out of the hut beside the boom was an army Unteroffizier who was more concerned about the cold than those in the car.
The Standartenfuhrer once again explained the nature of their business, and again the sentry went back to his hut and made a call.
While he was there the driver was checking the number of other soldiers were in attendance and had pulled his weapon out from under the seat and had it ready to use.
The Standartenfuhrer had done the same, also having checked the extent of the staffing of the post.
Then the driver said, “This looks like one of several. I think we may have walked into a hornet’s nest. The Brenner Pass is very important to the Germans for supplies from Germany to its soldiers in Italy.”
“You think our luck has finally run out?”
They had both seen the guard change expression, from the languid guard worrying more about the cold than a lone car at night, to a soldier who looked like he was about to attend a Nazi rally.
“I think they’ve finally discovered that our friend Mayer is missing.”
“Which means we’re about to get a small platoon of soldiers down on us. OK. You keep them off as long as you can so Mayer and I can get into the woods.”
The Standartenfuhrer turned to Mayer. “This is it, then end of the line for driving. We’re about to get a lot of unwanted visitors.”
He thrust the folder of plans into Mayer’s hands along with a coat.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?” Mayer was almost panic-stricken. The situation was deteriorating with each passing second. He, like the others, could see six men jogging towards them.
Their only advantage was the lack of illumination.
The driver said, “See you on the other side.”
The Standartenfuhrer leaned over, opened the door, and said, forcefully, “Get out, now.”
Mayer tumbled out almost slipping on the icy surface, and the sudden cold hitting him hard.
The Standartenfuher was right behind him, closing the door, and then literally dragging him off the side of the road and towards the tree line about 50 meters away, just barely visible again the dark sky. Thankfully there was no moon peeking through the clouds. But light snow just began to fall, and it would hide them behind an artificial white wall.
They made it to the edge of the forest just as the soldiers reached the car.
Mayer turned to look and could see the sentry now with a torch, probably checking the car which was now barely visible to them. He had seen three people before, now there was only one.
No time to see the inevitable, the Standartenfuhrer dragged him away with, “We have to go before they bring out the dogs.”
Further into the trees, and moving as quickly as they could through the trees and undergrowth, and at times slipping and sliding on both snow and ice, it was five minutes before they heard six shots in rapid succession, followed by the sound of a machine gun.
“Let’s hope he killed at least six of them before he died.”
The problem was, Mayer thought, there was probably another hundred others waiting to take their place.
Mayer had come totally unprepared for the snow, and the cold. At least he had a coat.
Another problem was that he was hungry and that only added to his discomfort. And now they had no means of transport, it was going to take a lot longer to get to Florence, or anywhere for that matter.
An hour passed as they worked their way steadily through the trees, and cover. The dreaded dogs had not been unleashed on them, but they had to assume that someone at the border checkpoint would raise the alarm that there were fugitives in the area, and probably wait until morning before looking for them,
They could calculate how far they had walked and sent in search teams from there.
Or not.
Four hours after they’d left the car, they stumbled upon a cabin. It was not much, having been abandoned quite some time ago and left for the forest to reclaim, but it was shelter and a place to rest. It was not long before first light, and then they could assess their situation.
It was also time for the Standartenfuhrer to give Mayer all the information he needed once he got to Gaiole because at some point they were going to have to split up and Mayer would have to go alone.
After leaving the hotel in Zhengzhou, what was once one of the eight ancient capitals of China, we are going to Dengfeng city, and the home of China’s most famous martial art – Shaolin Kung Fu.
The Shaolin Temple nearby is the origin of Chinese Zen Buddhism, and the Songyang Academy, called “the Centre of Heaven and Earth” is located 87 Km from Zhengzhou, or, as we were advised, a 2 hour drive. It will be scenic because we are heading towards the mountains.
As one of the four ancient Song Dynasty Academies, Songyang Academy is one of many schools in the province. It is both on a large-scale, is quite spectacular, and is a comprehensive Wushu training base where students are trained to spread the Shaolin Wushu Kung fu style at home and abroad.
There is a 500 seat demonstration hall where you are able to observe 30 minutes of various martial arts in shows starting on the hour.
Outside there is a specific area that generally has about 600 trainees learning kung fu elements during the day, but can hold 5,000 [ep[;e when outdoor performances are required.
The kung fu school
The thing you notice most about the kung fu school is it’s size and then the number of buses which tells you that it is a popular tourist stop.
And with that size comes long distances between the car park and the venues we need to go to, the first of which is about half a km, and that’s just to get to the ticket plaza.
But, it is pleasantly set out and is quite a large number of shops for both souvenirs and food
We pass by some of the students going through their paces
From there it’s another long, long walk to the show arena, where we’re supposed to see various kung fu elements on display. We watched this for a few minutes, then headed off towards the hall for a more intense demonstration of kung fu, and because there is limited seating we have to start lining at the head of the queue to get a seat.
But…
Everyone else has the same idea and we join the throng which then becomes a ride, and true to the Chinese they start finding ways to push in, even using the imaginary friend somewhere ahead in the queue.
The doors open and then it’s open slather, with the hoards pushing from behind and sliding up the side to get in first. We go with the tide, and manage to get in and find a seat though we were separated from three of our group.
It was an interesting show even though not one word of English was spoken, which from our point of view was a disappointment because we had no idea what was going on.
However…
It wasn’t hard to follow
What the performers were doing was relatively self-explanatory, and quite fascinating especially the guy who broke a sword over his head, and the guy who stopped two spears penetrating the neck, both examples of very disciplined men.
Boys gave a demonstration of kung fu moves, and intensity and age increased as this progressed to the end.
Next, we were taken in hand by an instructor in Tai chi or an equivalent, I was not quite sure what it was called, and went through the twelve or maybe more moves that constituted a morning or afternoon exercise session or it could be just for relaxation. I lasted the first session but it was a little difficult to do with my sore limbs and a bad back.
Not that I could remember any of it now other than hands overhead, hands in front, bent knees, and a few gentle kung fu hand moves.
Perhaps when I get home I might seek out someone to show me the moves.
Whilst the others were following their training instructor, I wandered about, finding a large statue
And some smaller statues
Lunch in the Zen Restaurant
After all that exercise it was time to have the lunch purportedly the same food as the king fu masters. It’s in the Zen restaurant, aptly named, and the food when it came, came thick and fast, but some of it wasn’t very nice, meat with bones, tofu, a tasteless soup, but some good dishes like the vegetables and noodles with meat, without bones.
The only problem, nothing to drink except a pot of hot water. No tea, no cold water, and if you wanted a cold drink you had to pay for it. After paying 550 yuan why should we have to pay more for a drink when we have not had to so far.
But no cold water? That was just not on, and when we brought this to that attention of the tour guide she just simply ignored us. We just didn’t get anything.
That basically tainted the whole experience.
After lunch, we had the Shaolin Temple, and the Pogoda Forest to visit.
I’m going over the conversation Olga is having with John now that he is her prisoner.
On the first run through it seemed to make sense, but as we all know, when you read the conversation out loud, often it sounds terrible.
A question of, “Would I say that?”
Whilst snatching John off the street was a rather simple task, made easier by the fact he was not expecting it, Olga is not sure whether it is a big act.
Working with Irina has made her wary of everyone and everything, even more so since Irina had left her charge, but she knows just how much Irina evolved into the Zoe her son tried to keep on a leash, with spectacularly awful results.
Had she been training John to be like her?
Has Sebastian been training John to become a spy, or was he one already? After all, why is someone like John, if he is that reputed computer nerd type, doing with a girl like Irina.
Her preference would have to be someone strong, authoritative, masculine, like Alistair. The problem was she hadn’t driven out all of the emotions in the time she spent with her.
So, sitting opposite each other, John and Olga try to do their individual assessments.
She finally admits that she doesn’t want to kill Irina, just rehabilitate her.
John, of course, is horrified at the thought of them brainwashing her, especially if they send her after him again.
It comes down to a single point. Will he do as she asks, and invite her to come and get him?
What neither of them realizes Irina already knows where they are, and any plans Olga might have will be useless.
…
Today’s writing, with Irina, otherwise know as Zoe, on the way, 1,232 words, for a total of 63,154.
There was an X marked on a star map, a place where someone said was a liveable planet, designated M. None of us knew why it was designated M when on the map it was an X, maybe we’d find out when we got there.
But that was a part of the confusion that surrounded this mission. What kicked it off was an imminent threat of an ELE, otherwise known as an extinction life event, when an approaching meteor was on track to collide with our planet in eighteen months’ time.
Of course, none of these predictions ever came true, but this time someone had pressed the panic button, and the mission, which had been slated for two years’ time, was brought forward.
I was just one of 10 astronauts pressed into service ahead of time, brought together in haste, of different temperaments, attitudes, and ideals. It was not the most cohesive group, but the thinking was, in a crisis we would all pull together.
I had my doubts.
But I wasn’t in charge of anything, just an engineer that essential was there to keep everything running, one of three who were specifically there to keep everything running.
The rest all had designated roles, from mission commander down, but everyone had to know everyone else’s job, just in case. Mission commander or 2IC were the two jobs I never wanted, so long as there was someone in front of me in the pecking order.
And, having the role I had, I was there, every hour of every day, working with the scientists and engineers and constructors, so I could know every nut and bolt on the ship.
Then, our time on earth was up, and we were blasted into space, on our way to the moon base where the spacecraft we were to make the voyage to X, or M, in. It had been built on earth, deconstructed, sent into space, and rebuilt at the moon base, as had others before it, with varying degrees of success.
That record, one out of four a success weighed on our minds heavily. Well, on the record, it didn’t bother me all that much because I’d seen it put back together, and the team had done a brilliant job
We had a final inspection, the moon base commander signed the clear for take-off form, and without any formal acknowledgment or ceremony, we launched.
Successfully.
…
The voyage to M, or X, was to take the better part of five months, and there was no need for all of the crew to be available all the time.
It had been decided that only one crew member was needed at any one time to look after the systems, that were designed to run themselves.
That one person was also assisted by the mission robot, or Android, a very life-like almost person who was for all intents and purposes a human. Except it could hold in storage every schematic, every piece of data about the ship, the mission, if not everything we knew about space and the galaxy.
There had been a debate about whether to build a computer or an Android, and the Android won. Personally, I liked the Android, whose name was official David, reputedly an acronym, but while he and I were alone on the final shift before arriving at the X on the map, I shortened it to Davy
One of David’s principal jobs was to monitor the crew while in stasis, to bring them out, and put them in. Soon he would have to bring them all out, once we arrived. Once there, individual missions were organized, and it would be left to David and me to maintain the main ship, so we could get back home to report on the feasibility of life being preserved elsewhere in the galaxy if we lost earth.
It would be terrible if M was not viable.
How are our sleepyheads,” I asked, the start of the new day’s routine?
“Nominal.”
They could have programmed a dozen different responses than just nominal.
“You could say fine, Davy.”
“My name is David. Do you need me to explain the significance of my name again?”
“No. You’ve already told me. You need to lighten up, Davy. Everything is not about exactness or correctness. There is more than just black and white, there are various shades of grey. Do you know what grey is Davy?”
“A color of paint once used to cover the hulls of sea-going naval ships, hence the term battleship grey. It’s one of many examples. Would you like more?”
“No, Davy. How are the ship’s systems?”
“Nominal.” Then a few seconds later, he added, “except for a power glitch in the stasis room.”
“Is it serious?”
“No. But it could lead to…”
A red light started blinking on the panel in front of me, indicating a problem with the connection of life support to one of the stasis pods, that of the mission commander.
“On my way, Davy. You have the bridge.”
…
The stasis room was at the end of the living quarters and crew recreation and dining area. It was, with no one in it a largely empty, very quiet space.
The ship was designed to have nearly five hundred people on board, the deck below, completely given over to passenger quarters, and it was envisaged that this ship and a dozen or so others would form the first fleet of colonists bound for a new world.
Below that deck was the cargo hold where all the materials to build a space station, or rather, the infrastructure in the new world. It was a huge leap for mankind, like the pilgrims going to America, or the convicts to Australia.
Except, for now, there were ten of us in a large empty cavernous ship. Just imagine if there were five hundred stasis pods.
I crossed quickly to the pod and checked all the systems. On the parent in front, there was no alarm, and nothing other than, as Davy would say system nominal.
That means we had a glitch on the bridge.
I started on my way back, heard a noise, then stopped.
Had the pod just opened and was the Commander awake.
I turned to see a boy, about ten or twelve years of age standing by the pod, peering in. His hand was touching the Perspex window, and the panel was going crazy.
“Who are you,” I asked, somewhere between shock and surprise.
“I come from the planet where your ship is heading towards.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I assure you it is. You see me as a boy, not unlike your people, actually a rendition of the person inside this capsule. This is not my true form. I have been sent to ascertain your intentions.”
“My intention at this moment is to prevent this person from dying. It might help if you didn’t touch the pod. I suspect you are generating some electrical charge…” or he was pure electrical or other energy.
OK, now I was beyond shock and curiosity. It was pure fear.
“You always wanted to travel in space.” A statement, not a question. The exact thought I had at that exact moment.
Oh, God, he could read minds.
“That is rather remarkable sir, how do you create a child version of the commander?”
Davy had come down to check on me, standing orders if we didn’t report back in an emergency.
“A robot. You are indeed more civilized than we expected.”
“You know about us?”
“Of you, not by experience. Your world is about to suffer a catastrophic event, but, then if it wasn’t going to be a meteor, you were managing to destroy it yourselves. You come to see if this was a place you could send people if or when your planet became uninhabitable.”
I had to stop thinking. Too late to ease my way into the conversation.
To the robot, the boy said, “I’m borrowing this person. I assume you can run this ship?”
“Better than the humans can, yes.”
“Then we’ll be back soon.”
With that, one second I was standing on the deck of the ship, hurtling through space, then next I was standing in a field with trees, grass, blue sky, a gentle breeze, and sunshine, and yet none of it felt real.
“It is a world created to make you feel at ease. Now, tell me. What is the real reason you people are coming here?”
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.
I took a moment longer to study the differences in the maps, trying to see what our edge was.
“So, according to this map, Alex would be looking for a stretch of shore with two rivers going inland, which you say are no longer there.”
“I do because they’re not. Well, they’re not visible these days from the seaward side, and not really visible from shore either because I think one of the two might have started where the mini marina is.”
The mini marina wasn’t as marina as such, rather an area of seawater surrounded by a promenade with a bridge over the entrance from the ocean, and a lot of expensive Italian tiles. It was part of the redevelopment of the old marina when the shopping mall had been built.
“Wasn’t that the old marina, which was part of the old navy yard for PT boats?”
Everyone knew the potted history of the town and the navy yard that put it briefly on the map. There had been an inlet where a marina was built in the early days. Then with war looming, the navy was looking for a place to build PT boats, carry out repairs to medium-sized warships, and train PT crews.
“One and the same. There’s very little in the archives about what happened back then, but I did manage to find a document, mentioned in my father’s notebook, about the navy set up a base. Attached to it was a geological report that stated two facts, the first, they would be building over a watercourse which at the time was believed to be underground, and secondly, deep foundations would be required. In the event all of it was ignored, they built the port and it was operational up until the end of the war.”
After which as everyone knew they shut the facility down, put up fences and signs with the words hazardous and dangerous, and trespassers would be shot, and it sat there like a festering eyesore until a plan was mooted to turn the site into a mall.
It was a favorite place for us children to go and play, having the fearless mentality that every child was born with. Yes, there were hazards on the grounds, in for form of rusting metal and hundreds of barrels holding what must have been hazardous material, but best of all, there were two nearly intact boats moored there, and I remembered being captain at least once on a vessel that had taken on everything the enemy had.
“And then they built a mall.”
He nodded. “My father always said that it was doomed to failure. There’s a section in his notebook about an earlier plan to rebuild the marina with facilities to repair those new larger ocean-going yachts that proliferate in Bermuda and places like that, only he couldn’t find anyone to back the project. The Benderby’s at the time didn’t like the idea, and since they basically owned the town nothing was going to happen without their approval.”
The mall, however, was something the Benderby’s could get their hooks into, in the building of it, then a slice of every business that moved in. It would also be good for employment, and people employed mean customers for their other criminal activities. Deals were made with the Cossatino’s and everyone was happy. For a few years anyway.
That’s when a newspaper expose on the mall was published.
Exposes were never plucked out of thin air and presented, there had to be a catalyst. There had been allegations of corruption regarding all aspects of the mall, from planning through the opening day, and especially in the building. Allegations of payoffs to get approvals, substandard materials used, and the worst allegation, that the builder had not properly cleaned up the site before building commenced.
All of this came to a head when, not long after the tenth anniversary of opening, large cracks started to appear in the floors and walls, so bad that nearly half the mall, that part that had been built over the old navy base, had to be closed, and now was in danger of collapse.
The mini marina, the focal point for the mall, had also been closed because the pool had become polluted from the old navy base waste that had been improperly disposed of in the foundations rather than being properly removed and stored in a special dump. But there had also been other problems like excess water continuously flooding the lower level carparks, and flowing into the sea pool making it unusable, and at times, very smelly.
Boggs’s father had discovered at the same time as his research for the treasure maps, that the water came from the underground river that had been mentioned in the geological report made before the naval base had been built. Just because it hadn’t been there at the time, didn’t mean it wasn’t there at all. It just depended on rainfall back up in the hills, and the year the problems started for the mall coincided with the wettest period for the area in more than 50 years.
His father’s notebook was a goldmine of information, Boggs said.
“It appears there was a lake right where the map says it was, about a hundred years ago. Since then an earthquake caused a fault line that drained the lake and makes a river instead. That river ran from the hills to the sea. Until someone decided to build on the old lake, raised the level and piped the river underground, and drawing from it for the towns and sounding areas water supply. That in effect reduced the water flow from the lake to the sea to a trickle, or rather a stream.
“But every now and then when it rains heavily and for a long period, the stream becomes a river, and it backs up until with nowhere else to go, it floods the mall carparks. The lowest level carpark is actually the lowest depth of the river, and it comes out at the sea where the pool now is. Unfortunately, with the old naval waste rotting in those old rusting barrels, it collects that waste and not only stinks up the mall but also the pool area which is why it’s now closed.
“And the bad news is, it can’t be fixed. But that’s got nothing to do with our quest. It’s just an aside to our quest, proving that three of the landmarks on the treasure map actually existed once, and in some form still do. The thing is, neither the Benderby’s or the Cossatino’s will realize that which means we have a clear run at getting past the first hurdle and with any luck we will be able to identify the river from the hills which is the starting point.”
A simple job, no doubt in Boggs’s mind. He never had any trouble coming up with hair-brained schemes, only the logistics to carry them out. This one required proper transport because there was no way we’re going to be able to cycle there and back in a morning, the only time I had free for exploring.
“How do you propose we do this?”
“Rico’s car. It’s sitting in the marina carpark. The keys for it are on his boat.”
A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.
A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Who was this man? Why was she having dinner with him?
A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required. Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.
A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.
After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.
From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 