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…
By the time they reached the outskirts of Munich, what the Standartenfuhrer considered their biggest hurdle, it was quite dark and almost impossible to see where they were going.
The whole city seemed to have disappeared so effectively was the blackout.
But there was one benefit, there was little or no traffic on the roads, which lessened the chance of running into another car or truck.
And it was time to refill the tank with two more petrol cans, leaving two remaining. Filling up now, the Standartenfuhrer said, would get them to Innsbruck.
He sounded confident, but Mayer got the distinct impression it was mostly that he was putting on a brave face. There had been one instance, the checkpoint before Munich where he nearly lost his nerve. For the first time, there had been SS guards at the checkpoint, and which had been entirely unexpected.
An SS officer of the same rank had been summoned and he had requested their written orders. They had paperwork, but Mayer wasn’t sure if it related to their current situation, further confirming his belief this had been a very carefully planned operation to get him out of Germany, and that there was a more pressing reason why. It definitely had something to do with the V2’s, but had their intelligence services found out about something else, something he didn’t know about?
Given the level of risk to the two men with him, and that at every turn there was a possibility of capture or death, given the level of planning and the run so far, one he would have never thought of trying on his own, he didn’t have a very high level of confidence that they would get away with it.
Those in the SS were not fools, trusted no one, believed nothing they were told, and disregarded anything written on paper. Check, double-check, then check again. Take nothing as read. The document he’d been given on what made a first-class SS officer in the eyes of the Reich, was fundamentally not him, nor most of the German population.
The officer at this checkpoint reminded him of the one who had shot the shooting in the hotel, and for at least ten tense minutes, during which time the other two had conferred quietly in English, one suggestion they cut and run.
That would have invited a hail of machine-gun fire that none of them would survive.
Both looked visibly relieved when he returned, having obviously called the name of the officer who had signed the order. The only explanation he had for this was that the level of discontent among officers Military of SS must be greater than he thought.
They managed to cross over into Austria without any problems, the route they had taken, a series of back roads and tracks which had been given to them. Once again, Mayer was surprised that so many people could be working against their own country, but, of what he’d seen, conditions were harsh no matter which part of Germany they were in.
The war was not going the way the German people were being told, and it was hard to see any resolution of the conflict any time soon.
Perhaps everyone in the high command was hoping the new V2 rockets were going to change the country’s fortunes in the war. If they were, they were going to be bitterly disappointed. What they needed was the jet-propelled fighters and bombers, something that remarkably had not been implemented years earlier, and would have given them air superiority.
He’d worked on those early jet engines and they were remarkable, and faster than anything the British or the Americans had. It was hard to comprehend why high command had not pushed forward the new jet-propelled planes that Belin had finally decided to implement.
And just when the trio had agreed that everything would work out about 100 kilometers from Innsbruck, on the road to the Italian border crossing, they took the wrong route. It was a mistake brought on by tiredness, and a momentary lapse in concentration.
We walked another umpteen miles from the exhibition to a Chinese restaurant that is going to serve us Chinese food again with a beer and a rather potent pomegranate wine that has a real kick. It was definitely value for money at 60 yuan per person.
But perhaps the biggest thrill, if it could be called that, was discovering downstairs, the man who discovered the original pieces of a terracotta soldier when digging a well. He was signing books bought in the souvenir store, but not those that had been bought elsewhere.
Some of is even got photographed with him. Fifteen minutes of fame moment? Maybe.
After lunch, it was off to the station for another high-speed train ride, this time for about two and a half hours, from X’ian to Zhangzhou dong.
It’s the standard high-speed train ride and the usual seat switching because of weird allocation issues, so a little confusion reigns until the train departs at 5:59.
Once we were underway it didn’t take long before we hit the maximum speed
Twenty minutes before arrival, and knowing we only have three minutes to get off everyone is heading for the exit clogging up the passageway. It wasn’t panic but with the three-minute limit, perhaps organized panic would be a better description.
As it turned out, with all the cases near the door, the moment to door opened one of our group got off, and the other just started putting cases on the platform, and in doing so we were all off in 42 seconds with time to spare.
And this was despite the fact there were about twenty passengers just about up against the door trying to get in. I don’t think they expected to have cases flying off the train in their direction.
We find our way to the exit and our tour guide Dannie. It was another long walk to the bus, somewhat shabbier from the previous day, no leg room, no pocket, no USB charging point like the day before. Disappointing.
On the way from the station to the hotel, the tour guide usually gives us a short spiel on the next day’s activities, but instead, I think we got her life history and a song, delivered in high pitched and rapid Chinglish that was hard to understand.
Not at this hour of the night to an almost exhausted busload of people who’d had enough from the train. Oh, did I forgot the singing, no, it was an interesting rendition of ‘you are my sunshine’.
The drive was interesting in that it mostly in the dark. There was no street lighting and in comparison to X’ian which was very bright and cheerful, this was dark and gloomy.
Then close to the hotel our guide said that if we had any problems with the room, she would be in the lobby for half an hour.
That spoke volumes about the hotel they put us in.
In all of the goings-on, with Zoe chasing down old acquaintances in Bucharest, then moving on to Yuri, then Olga, we forget that Isobel and Rupert are on her trail, with Sebastian in tow.
It’s not so much Sebastian in charge anymore, not after going rogue and shooting his boss and John’s mother, an act that Rupert witnesses after following Sebastian on the hunch that he was up to something.
Rupert realizes that Worthington still presents a major problem, and on the basis that Worthington was going to realize it’s not Zoe shooting at him, Worthington had to be taken off the chessboard.
Unfortunately, he has to enlist Sebastian to get a crew together to kidnap him and take him to a safe house.
Meanwhile, Isobel, with a computer in hand, takes up vigil at the hospital with John’s mother, pretending she is her daughter. There she tracks Zoe via her cell phone to an address in Zurich.
Then, miraculously John’s cell phone reappears and is active long enough for her to get a location, and see that a 96-second phone call is made to a phone in Zurich, Zoe’s.
Then it disappears again.
Isobel then calls Zoe and gives her the address. It’s a short call.
Calls to Sebastian and Rupert mobilize them, and everyone is on their way to John’s location.
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 2,011 words, for a total of 61,922.
I didn’t get to meet her handler and that was not a surprise, she was very careful in how she managed her last days with me, at a remote site which, when she requested it, should have set off an alarm bell. If I was suffering from terminal cancer, I would want to be as near to medical help as I could, not as far away as possible.
OK, I have to admit, after she told me her sob story about having cancer, I was a little sneaky and made some ‘inquiries’. Yes, she did have a cancerous growth, but it had been removed and classified benign. It was, I discovered, not too dissimilar to a problem she had when she was fifteen, but the resolution back then basically sterilized her.
Not wanting to have children, and not being able to have children were two entirely different issues, and it was going to be one of our talking points at the cabin.
So, on the basis that this whole exercise was for some other reason than spending her last days with me, I decided to run with her story, and not be too demanding. Kyle was right about me when it came to Janine. My heart ruled my head, and common sense didn’t apply to any decisions I made about her. Perhaps she knew that.
The one interesting take was that assumption there was a credible threat against her. I’ve seen TV shows, where heading into the forest seems a good idea, but remote locations like the cabin only make for a better hunting ground for the hunters, not the prey.
I knew that only too well, because hunting was built into our DNA by my father who, if he had a choice would have preferred to live back in the early 1800s. It’s why we had this cabin and the 400 acres that surrounded it.
That she remembered we had it was interesting because she had only been to it once, and hated it. Too far away from the glitter and glamour of the city.
When I told Kyle of her visit, the reasons, and the request, he simply snorted. In the day I had to think about it, I had basically come to the same conclusion he had, that this was another of her games, only this time I was involved, and for him, that was unforgivable.
“I’m coming with, Dan. You won’t be doing this alone.”
“But…”
“I’ll set the place up, put in some perimeter security, as best we can, and make sure her bodyguard doesn’t get too close. If there is a credible threat, then it won’t get within a hundred yards of the cabin. You have my word. I’m about to send word to the hunting part. They’re going to meet me there. We’ll stay at the old Rogers place.”
“Haven’t you got a life?”
“Not when my little brother is in trouble. This girl, I’m not going to say I told you so, but they don’t change their spots, no matter how long she lived with you before reverting. You can’t even be sure she wasn’t playing around during those years, Dan. But I accept that you love her, but it’s really wasted on her, despite what she says. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I don’t. Not anymore. But hopefully, she will trip up and I will find the reasons to finally step away.”
“You’re too forgiving, Dan, but one of us has to be. Your sister and I, well, we had to grow up before our time, and it’s not hard to become cynical about everyone and everything. Just stay the way you are. I’ll take care of everything else.”
…
The arrangement was I would collect Janine from the hotel where she was staying.
She had called earlier and asked if I would stay with her, have dinner, and see where it went. I was not sure how I felt about staying with her, after all this time, and what I knew about her, but it was not the time to make her suspicious.
I arrived late, and she was waiting at the bar in the dining room. She had an evening gown on that would turn heads, and as it always did when she looks so incredibly beautiful, my heart did somersaults. Perhaps she knew that too.
I tried to relax, but there were so many thoughts running through my head that it was like white noise, and I couldn’t hear anything else.
My distraction was not exactly annoying her, but she was not happy.
“It’s Kyle, isn’t it?”
“Actually, no. When I told him what we were planning, I expected him to go ballistic. He did not. He actually said that if it was true, then that gesture on your part, to try and give back a lot of what we lost, before it was too late, well, that moved him.”
I’d been practicing that speech in front of a mirror until I could deliver it without the cynicism, or condescension it deserved.
“That doesn’t sound like him.”
“No. It doesn’t. But you have to remember, it was left to Kyle and my sister to look after me, and I wasn’t the best of children. He has a right to be overly protective, so from this point, you will not say anything disparaging about him. In fact, he doesn’t need to be one of our topics of conversation.”
“OK.”
Champagne arrived, and not the cheap stuff. She still had expensive tastes, and I had to wonder if this little sojourn was on my tab. I smiled and drank. It was nothing to me if it cost a hundred dollars or ten. I was a beer man, like my Dad.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“About what?”
“Being ill, dying. After all, I’ve offered no proof, and you’ve asked me for none.”
“Call me stupid, but I thought if we were going to make things work that a little trust, on both sides, wouldn’t go amiss.”
I knew she wasn’t stupid enough to think that I would fall for the death story, especially when I related it to Kyle. I suspect proof, of a sort, would be back in the room, in an envelope that I would not open.
“You can trust me.”
Entrée arrived, some sort of fish concoction she had ordered and told me was to die for. I was not a fine dining person, she was. I had to hope the next course was steak.
I let that ‘you can trust me’ statement pass without comment. Not until I finished the fish, or at least I think it was fish.
“The first time you came to London. You were talking about going to Tuscany, a villa to rebuild.”
“I meant what I said.”
“As you did, I’m guessing when you were talking about me to what I now know was your handler outside. Did you for one minute ask yourself why I would throw away the phone and ghost you? I was going Togo with you. You had me, again. Trust has to be earned, and once lost, is very hard to get back. You of all people should understand that. Don’t play me for a fool.”
“I thought Kyle had got to you. It was my handler’s idea, I had to get away again, an occupational hazard it seems, and I wanted to spend some time with you. It would have been just us, I promise.”
“But with an expiry date. It was always about the job, not us. It’s never been about us. In fact, if I spend too much time thinking about it, the idea of marrying me was yours, planned and executed with precision, always with a view of going back to work. In fact, I’m willing to bet it never stopped.”
“That was not how it was. I was everything you wanted me to be.”
“Yes. But was it all a grand performance?”
“No. I loved you. You know that. We both were destined for each other from that first day in Elementary school. with everything since, nothing had ever matched that feeling I have when I’m with you. And I miss it terribly.“
The girl in the red dress, the prom queen that had a line of boys beating the path to her door, and yet she chose me, the least likely boy in the school. There had to be some element of truth in her words, but right then, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe it.
The man who was her handler just tried to sneak in the front door.
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.
“How long have you been working on this?”
“A week. Lying in bed is boring, so I decided to look at everything I’ve got again, and then again. There were some old maps of the coastline stored with the treasure maps, so I think my father was trying to find the actual location his treasure maps were based on and came up against the same problem. Physical landmarks on the treasure maps are no longer there, and if you didn’t know any better, I would think you were looking in the wrong place.”
“So, in actual fact, what you’re saying now is that your father had no idea where the treasure was buried, that he was just producing maps for the Cossatino’s’ to sell.”
That, of course, could be looked at from a different angle, one that I wasn’t going to suggest right then because Boggs was not ready to hear it. I think the real maps Boggs had found with eh treasure maps were the basis for the treasure maps, that is, his father had to give them real-life elements to keep the punters interested.
“No, not necessarily. I think he knew it was somewhere along this coastline give or take a hundred miles, because of its proximity to the Spanish Maine, but essentially you’re right. He probably had no idea.”
So, he hadn’t come to the same conclusion I had. Yet.
And if I could come to that conclusion, surely Cossatino also would, after all, he was the one who got Boggs senior to make the maps. Why all of a sudden did he think that there was a real treasure map. It couldn’t be simply because Boggs had said there was one. He’d have to know that anything Boggs junior found was an invention commissioned by him,
Or hadn’t Vince told his father what he was doing? Surely the father would have told the son about the treasure map scam.
As for Benderby, senior could base his assumption of the fact that he’d found some old coins off the coast nearby that could be part of the trove. Alex then may have decided to usurp his father’s search with one of his own, conveniently forgetting the treasure maps were an invention of the Cossatino’s. IT was a tangled web of lies deceit and one-upmanship, one that was going to leave a trail of human wreckage in its wake.
Boggs and I were two of the first three. We had lived to tell about it, Frobisher was the first casualty.
But what I suppose was more despairing was how taken Boggs was with the notion that the treasure was real, hidden out there somewhere, and that his father had ‘the’ map. I was loath to label him delusional, but his pathological desire to prove his father’s so-called legacy was going to not end well, especially when we found nothing.
And, yet, I had to admire the lengths he had gone to, to prove his case. Even now, looking at the overlaid maps, there was no guarantee we’d find anything, but at first look, the evidence was compelling.
Except I had a feeling Boggs had something up his sleeve. I had to ask the question. “Where did you get the idea of matching the treasure map to the real map?”
“My father’s journal. It was tossed in the bottom of a box of his other stuff. There are about ten boxes stacked in the shed, stuff my mother just couldn’t be bothered sorting through after he disappeared. Again, boredom pushed me into going through everything over and over just in case I missed something.”
He reached in under the mattress of his bed and pulled out an old leather-bound notebook. It had a strap that bound it together, and by the look of it had extra papers inserted or glued to pages, as well as papers at the start and back of the volume, making it look about twice the original size.
He handed it to me. The leather was old, cracked, and had that distinctive aroma of the hide. I loosened the strap and the top cover opened. The first page was a newspaper cutting, a small piece about some old coins being found about a hundred yards offshore by some surfers. Were these the same coins that Benderby had claimed were part to the trove?
“Benderby was getting that antiquarian that was murdered to identify some coins,” I said after a quick glance through the article.
“I spoke to one of the surfers the other day,” Boggs said. “He told me he came off his board on a big wave and as he was going down saw something glinting on the seabed. He managed to pull up three coins. There were more but he had to come up for air. When he went down again, he realized he’d been dragged away by the current.”
Tides and currents along this part of the coast were particularly bad, and the undertow, at times could get surfers and swimmers alike into a lot of trouble. I’d been caught out once in a dinghy myself, finishing up ten miles further down the coast that I expected to be.
“Then, I take it he can’t remember the exact spot so he could go back.”
“He tried, but alas no. Said he sold the coins to old man Benderby for a hundred apiece and told him approximately where he thought the others were, but nothing’s been found since.”
Not that Benderby would tell anyone if he did. But it explained where the coins came from that he gave to Frobisher.
“Except we can assume that it’s off our coastline somewhere, right?”
“Five miles of coastline to be precise. He and his mate always had a few reefers before they went out, made the ride more interesting he said. He could have been off the coast of Peru for all he knew.”
Surfers, drugs and a colorful story.
“It explains why Benderby and a team of divers have been out in his new boat,” Boggs added, “probably trying to either find the location or line up landmarks on his map from the seaward side at the same time. But he doesn’t know what we know.”
What did we know? I leafed through a few more pages of the diary, but the scrawled notes were almost illegible. I picked up various words, like a marina, underground river, dry lakebed, but none of it made any sense.
“Which map did we give to Alex?”
Boggs went over to a drawer in the wardrobe and leafed through the papers in it and pulled out one and gave it to me. Like the rest it showed the shore, the hills, the lake, and two what looked to be rivers flowing into the sea. Each of the maps had those same features but in different places.
I didn’t want to say it, but it seemed to me we were playing a very dangerous game. The maps might look different in some respects, but the chances were, if Alex was smart enough to hire an expert, that we might run across him out there, and, to be honest, he would be the last person I’d want to see.
“You do realize our paths are going to cross at some point.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
A shiver went down my spine, an omen I thought. Boggs has something up his sleeve, and I really didn’t want to know.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
Probably the sagest piece of advice I had ever been given, just before I headed out onto that highway called the rest of your life, was from an aunt who died not long after she delivered it. She was old and cranky, which I thought had been because my mother was such a pain in the neck to her, but it was more because she was simply old and tired.
Always look to the intentions of people who ask you to do things for them. People can be lying, cheating, deceitful creatures who dress up their motives in sugar-coating, so you don’t realize what their true motives are.
It hadn’t happened to me yet, and yes, we had been taught to take people at face value, but I suspect she had seen a bit more of life from all angles than both my parents. But at the time, when she delivered it, along with a lot more advice on what I should do with my life, I didn’t take much notice.
What grandchild did?
…
We are taught to take people at face value, that we should respect them until they prove otherwise. It worked most of the time because we all have that sixth sense that tells us if something is too good to be true, it generally is.
It can equally apply to goods as it does to people, though with people there are some who know how to confuse even the most trusting of souls. They just take a little longer before they reveal themselves.
Me, I had a few bad experiences that led to a degree of cynicism. Relationships that had failed, and jobs that didn’t end up quite as described. That’s why when I found my current role, and the fact I’d been asked for personally, made it all that more satisfying.
Of course, there was an element of flattery involved, but after so much disappointment, maybe I lowered the blinkers just slightly. But all things withstanding, it had turned out to be rewarding as well.
A few awards, some paid vacation days for meeting milestones, I thought I was going well.
Then, as the latest reward I’d been sent do a conference on the other side of the country, the equivalent to and all expenses paid junket, the sort only senior management went on.
It was an eye-opening experience, with team building exercises that supposedly only senior management went on. There were people from all over the country, from a variety of companies.
On the first day we were put into teams of four, two women and two men. The idea was that we were all equally responsible for each other, removing the gender stereotyping.
For me, it was what I understood out company was undertaking. For the other male member, he was not so gender neutral, though he spoke the words, his actions were quite different away from the women. It was wrong, but I ignored it because it was only for a few days.
On day two, at the end of the day’s exercises, I ran into him at the bar downstairs. He was more sociable than I, and was the sort who was the life of the party, only u think others had realised his shortcomings, possibly from the night before, and was nursing a drink at the bar on his own.
I was going to go somewhere else, but he saw me before I could escape, so I crossed the room and sat on the next bar stool. There was a familiar scent in the air, and it might have belonged to one of the two women. He had said earlier that he fancied the blonde, and it was clear what his motives were.
It was probably why he was alone.
“What have you got on for tonight?”
I’d barely got on the seat and caught my breath. A replacement drink arrived in front of him, a large cocktail that looked lethal.
I asked the bar tender for a club side with lots of ice.
“You’re not going to have much fun with that,” he said after the bar tender left.
“Not much of a drinker, I’m afraid.”
“Bit hard to let your hair down then?”
Like all drunks, he believed a good time could not be had unless soaked in alcohol. I’d had arguments with friends no more on exactly that subject.
“Perhaps not, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“Didn’t your boss tell you it was just a junket. There’s no working just playing. Do the stuff they throw at you for a few hours so you can get the attendance certificate that no one fails, then move on.
And I thought I was cynical.
“Where did you say you worked again?”
I told him.
“Do you know a chap called Jerry Blowfell?”
“My boss as it happens.”
“Is it now? I used to work for him at a different place, on the east coast.”
“What was he like then?’
“A mongrel. Used everyone to raise his profile in the company, taking promotions that others should have got by stealing the credit for their work.”
“Doesn’t sound like the same man.”
Short chap, likes turtleneck sweaters, black hair with a white streak.”
That was Blowfell. But it didn’t sound like him.
“He does have a white streak.”
“Got it when he was struck by lightning, or so he said. It was really caused by using the wrong sort of hair shampoo.”
It was clear from his manner that he didn’t like him.
“Tell you what, call him back at the office, mention my name and see what result you get.”
It sounded like it might be like a red rag to a bull situation. I said I’d think about it, had another drink, then left.
…
His words had made an impression. I had thought at first there was no way he was right, that it was just the words of a spiteful drunk.
Then I stewed over it for no real reason because there was no suggestion of impropriety.
But I would call him and see what he had to say about Jerry. It was going to no doubt confirm Jerry’s sour grapes after being fired, because very few people left of their own accord in the current economic climate.
So, when the time differences allowed, I called the office and asked to be put through. It ended with an unfamiliar girl’s voice.
“Do you know where he is,” I asked, after she told me he was not in the office.”
“Paris taking a well-deserved reward for his hard work on the Johnson contract. The board were delighted with the result.”
“Oh,” I muttered, then hung up.
He had done nothing towards the Johnson contract, other than to hand the file to me. Our last conversation, the day before I left for this conference was to confirm the details of the settlement.
And yet he was the one in Paris. My first thought, that should be me.
My second thought, Jerry was right.
But the question was, how did he manage it?
It wasn’t hard to work out. Taking people with low expectations, he had dazzled me with this conference, firstly to get me out of the office, then secondly to go away, perhaps over the exact same period, and in normal circumstances I might never discover what happened.
Such was his skill at compartmentalising, none of us in his tear ever knew what the others were doing spread out as we were around the country. The fact was, I only discovered what had happened from someone outside the country.
I took breakfast on my room, livid. But as angry as I might be, I didn’t want Jerry to know he was right.
Instead, I came up with endless scenarios of tackling him about it, but knew, if he’d been doing for this long, he would have the bases covered, and my complaints would fall on deaf ears.
If he was going to get caught out, I would have to come up with an elaborate scheme to trap him.
…
Fast forward three months
I got over my anger, went back to work, and pretended like nothing had happened. My boss had got back from Paris the day before I returned from the conference and was there to greet me when I returned.
It was a strange feeling to cast eyes upon someone in such a different light. I figured that if I tried to find out what else he had perpetrated on the back of other team members, he’d find out, and asking anyone who could tell me, could be potential conspirators. Doing what did did could not be done on his own, so there had to be others.
But, one by one, when the opportunity arose from a work perspective, I spoke to each of the other people in the team, and all had been sent to the same conference I had. Only one voiced an opinion, one I had not asked for, and that was to say they thought they’d seen him at the conference but must have been mistaken.
But it got me thinking, and I looked up the venue and the online presence of the program. It was well received and awarded by chambers of commerce and industry associations alike.
There was a history of how it came into being, theme changes that had been made in response to changing times and new industry regulations, and a profile of the man who brought it into being.
My boss’s brother. There was a picture of him, and there was no mistaking the family likeness. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that my boss may have leaned on his brother to grant places on his courses, paid for the company. It wasn’t wrong, but if he could steal credit where it wasn’t due, maybe he arranged kickbacks for places.
It was all that I could assumed because there was no proof of his deeds anywhere and that might have been part of a non-disclosure agreement made with anyone who discovered his secret.
It was nothing I could take to the board. I would have to find another way. That presented itself some weeks after I returned when he dropped a new file on my desk.
Our specially was to analyse companies or organisations that were teetering on the edge of disaster and set them up in such a way that larger companies could step in and take them over for a mutually beneficial deal.
The last, what we call settlements, was that which my boss had taken the credit for, involved a sole trader who had a great product but hadn’t been able to manage the financial aspects of the business, and with the downturn, which caused him to close the doors.
This case was something similar in that the owner had taken his idea and made it into a successful business, then tried to turn it into a franchise. The only problem was, with a pandemic induced downturn that heavily relied on people presenting themselves, the sudden loss of those people threw everything into disarray.
He needed a buyer, someone with a lot of financial backing to tide the business over until the market returned to normal.
When I did my investigation, I discovered that one of the casualties of the imminent collapse was none other than the boss’s brother, and the man who ran the conference I had recently gone to. He was one of about a dozen around the country who were, through no fault of their own, in trouble.
It was most likely a call from him that resulted in the file that I now had sitting in front of me.
It led to the creation of two solutions, one of which I would give the boss and he would run with as his own, and the other I would keep in the filing cabinet to pull out and save the day. It would no doubt cause considerable consternation for his brother for a short period, but it was going to solve the problem we analysts had.
And something else that I hadn’t realised was the MSN who was in charge of us was not sufficient versed in the processes that drove our solutions, just very savvy in his ability to pick people who were. It meant that he would not be able told discern the solution provided would not necessarily solve the problem with the best outcome. Only those who vetted it before it was implemented would.
And once I’d completed the two analyses, I set the plan in motion.
It was two weeks before a person I’d never seen before, but whose name was familiar gave me a call.
He introduced himself as one of those who acted on the information we supplied, to whom the boss would have sent the file I had supplied him.
“So, here’s the problem. After we looked at the file he supplied, it showed some critical errors, which is a first for his work, and when we asked him to explain how he’d reached his conclusions, he said some of it was obtained externally, and when pressed gave us your name and number. What can you tell me?”
I was not sure what I was expecting as an outcome to my subterfuge but perhaps this was the only chance I was going to get to plead my case.
“That none of it was his work, and that he has been taking the credit when it was not due.”
Then I explained what I’d done, and then emailed the correct version of the file, and after he had read the relevant sections I ended with the damming phrase, “if he had the necessary experience and accounting knowledge, he would have seen though it fairly quickly like you had.”
When he had he would look into the allegations I’d presented, I suddenly though I may have overstated my case, particularly when I didn’t hear anything back. The only saving grace was that I hadn’t been fired which if he had a strategy in place in case someone like me tried to burn him would have happened reasonably quickly.
Then one morning I got a phone call from one of the other analysts.
“Have you ready your email this morning?”
I hadn’t. Not feeling well, I hadn’t gone into the office and decided I would work from home if anything came up. We had recently been set up to work remotely because of the pandemic and subsequent shutdowns.
I went online and opened the mailbox. At the top of the inbox was an email advising that the company had accepted the resignation of our former boss who had cited personal reasons for leaving.
In other words, he had jumped before he had been pushed.
Below it was another email from HE advising they were recruiting his replacement from within and were looking for applications.
And there was one more, almost hidden by the white noise of spam, one that specifically thanked me for my contribution to the recent file, with an invitation to meet the people who implement our plans.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
The Fairmont at Lake Louise, in Canada, is noted for its ice castle in winter. This has been created by the ice sculptor, Lee Ross since 2007, using about 150 blocks of ice, each weighing roughly 300 pounds.
When I first saw it, from a distance, looked like it was made out of plastic It’s not. Venturing out into the very, very cold, a close inspection showed it was made of ice.
And, it’s not likely to melt in a hurry given the temperature when I went down to look at it was hovering around minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
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’.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 