Month: July 2022

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 27

This is the staircase down to the bedroom level of a two-story holiday apartment at the Rosebud Country Club on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria Australia.

It was the first time we stayed there for a long time.

However…

Innocuous stairs leading downwards to a black hole suggest a great many other things, especially if you left your imagination run wild.

For instance:

What if you are an only child being dropped off by your parents at your creepy grandparent’s place in the middle of the woods. Imagine driving up on a cold, wintry, windy, cloudless dark night, and when you get there, this old rambling mansion looks like the coven for witches.

What if when you get to the door this creepy old man who looks more dead than alive answers the door, and when you step over the threshold you hear what seems to be a high-pitched scream coming from outside the house.

What if, when you are being taken up the staircase, every single wooden step creaks or groans, that at the top of the stairs, every painting you pass, the eyes seem to follow you.

What if, when you explore, against the express wishes of your grandfather, you come across a door that leads down into a basement. There has to be some interesting stuff down there, a torture chamber, a medical laboratory with a half-finished Frankenstein, a workshop with coffins stacked in a corner.

The possibilities are endless

I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 27

Now, about those aliens…

…

Of course the first action I took was to call on security to disperse people across all decks and departments to make sure no one boarded our ship unnoticed.

We needed to find a way of detecting such boardings without having to deploy people, a matter I’d bring up at the first departmental heads meeting.

If there was ever going to be a time for it.

“Mallory to the Captain, can we meet urgently?”

Mallory was one of the three men in the shuttle that brought me to the ship, and he was, if I remember rightly, one of the scientists, his field being scanners. Just the man to ask about detecting alien presences.

“Come up the the bridge. We’ll talk in the day room.”

I handed over the bridge to number one, and met Mallory at the elevator. He took a few moments to take in the bridge, the screen, now showing both Uranus, and several of its moons.

“Great view “

“Sometimes it’s better not knowing what’s out there,” I said.

His expression told me that comment might have been a little too flippant in the circumstances.

“Come this way.” I led him to the day room, opened the door and followed him in.

“I assume,” I said after waiting till the door was closed, “that it’s not a matter you wanted to share with the rest of the bridge.”

“That’s for you to determine. But it’s about the ship that was just here.”

“We believe it’s alien.”

“It’s not.”

OK. That was a revelation, but how could he tell the difference? My immediate guess, they had no previous alien profile to run it against.

“How so?”

“We have scanners, and we have scanners.”

Confusing to say the least, but I think I knew what he was trying to say. We had a military presence, but until I became captain, I didn’t realise we also had military hardware.

What else did we have?

“We have the ability to scan other vessels, and in certain circumstances, check for lifesigns inside. But we only had earth created ships to use as a subject for testing, simply because we know the compounds used in our vessel’s structure, including this one.”

“So anything made by us can be scanned?”

“Yes, and that ship just standing off us, we could scan it and what and who was inside, which means it’s not an alien vessel.”

That was perfectly good reasoning, except as far as I was aware, this ship was not completely earth technology.

“There might be only one way to create the outer skins and superstructure, in any ship.”

“That’s possible, yes. But we anticipated that we might eventually run into something we couldn’t penetrate until we could work out what the ship was made of and then work out how to penetrate it. That so called alien ship, we could see inside.”

“It could still be an alien ship. After all, I assume you adjusted the scanners to work through the material this ship is made of, and I doubt you’re going to argue the metal used was the result of an accidental discovery.”

He looked uncomfortable, and for a moment I thought he was going to try, but just sighed. “It’s possible, but unlikely.”

“OK then, does it fit the profile of any earth vessels?”

I knew of about 200 different types of ship out here in space, not all as well as some, and the computer recognition system had hundreds more variations, so if we ran into another ship, we could identify it.

“One or two, but it’s been modified. Also, there’s only six people on board, and from our scan, it seems all were recently in custody at a Mars penitentiary outpost. They were given a so called vaccination which put nanites in their system so they could be recognised if or when they decided to rebel.”

“Are they escaped prisoners?”

“Given the discussion I just had with security, that seems to be the case. But to verify those assumptions I got onto the Mars station, and it seems they are unaware of any missing prisoners or ships, but have sent someone over to check “

“Don’t they guard prisoners anymore?”

“They do, but with robots, and due to the remoteness, infrequent fly bys. They were coming up for one.”

“How infrequent?”

“I was told a few months, but I suspect it’s been longer. As for getting a ship, a well organised gang could have rescued some space junk and brought it back to life. It’s possible. And space still is a bit like the wild west.”

A recent problem, now that there was an ever increasing demand for travel and freight across our particular galaxy. Venus, Mars had galactic hotels, Saturn a space station and fly bys, and mining on various of the planets.

It was disappointing to realise our first contact wasn’t a first contact with a new world, just criminals expanding their horizons.

“Do they have weapons?”

“If we do, they do. We think the two smaller ships are modified troop carriers, the larger vessel, a freighter, but they have tinkered with the exterior to make people think they’re something or someone else.”

“They move pretty fast, much faster that anything we’ve got.”

“Except for this ship which may have surprised them, as well as some of us.”

“Anything else I need to know about?”

“About the other ships no. The military boys will want to join in the discussion of our next move. Something else you might want to know is that we were checking the logs and indemnified where those so called aliens came aboard, and to safely transport from one point to another, you need markers at each end.”

“And you found them?”

“In two places, and immediately removed so there will be no more unwanted boardings.”

“It raises the question…”

“A traitor on board? I don’t believe so, because they looked like they’d been installed as part of the decking. The traitors are back at the space station where the vessel was built.”

“OK. We’d better get everyone in the conference room and work out what we’re going to do next. Don’t go too far.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 77

Here’s the thing…

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.

…

Boggs is not a happy man

…

I could feel the waves of hate emanating from Boggs as he was staring at Nadia, who was doing her best to ignore him.

The previous evening when I made the suggestion to her that we should do whatever we could to aid in his search, on the Cossatino’s beach head without involving the Cossatinos, and in an attempt to have a backup plan if they caught up with us, met the same stony silence as it had when I told Boggs.

Her response was a stony, ‘don’t expect me to go up against my father and Vince, I’m not that brave.”

All Cossatino’s were tarred with the same brush, he said, just short of telling me he was convinced she was working with them, trying to find out what he knew via me.  He didn’t believe me when I told him she had done anything but interrogate me.

I wanted to believe she was not on their side, but just in case he might be right, my idea was to keep the enemy, if she was playing me, close.  Certainly, if the family turned up to thwart us, then I’d be convinced she was against us.

But, at least we’d then know, and it would make little difference in the end.  What Boggs was planning, with or without me, was basically suicide.

And she had voiced exactly the arguments that I’d already expected, although stopping short of saying she would not be part of it.

What had surprised me, Boggs had actually come, knowing Nadia would be there.

I let the silence reign for a minute or so, then dived in.

“Right.”

Both heads turned towards me, and I could feel the temperature rise about 10 degrees.

“I had imagined this would go so much better when I planned it in my head, but I can see quite plainly there are trust issues on either side.  The point is, Boggs, you can’t do this on your own.  You tried once and failed.  You might get lucky a second time, but I suspect the Cossatinos know now what you’re trying to do, and will be waiting.”

“They tried to kill me,” he muttered.

That might be putting it a bit strongly, because he had said as much to the sheriff, and the Cossatino’s denied it, as expected, but the evidence was quite clear, Boggs’s rope had been severed with a knife, located when the sheriff had visited the site and found the rope still attached to the top of the cliff.

The Cossatinos had been sloppy in covering their tracks, and the excuse they had been rock climbing hadn’t been taken seriously since no equipment had been found at the house, and none of them could provide any details of doing so elsewhere.

Evidence or not, no charges had been laid yet, nor had the Cossatinos proceeded with a trespass charge, perhaps fearing a more detailed investigation might be too intrusive or prove Boggs’s case.  In turn,  Boggs had been forced to agree not to go back, but simple words on the paper he signed, meant nothing.

“Deter you, I’d say,” Nadia said, “because killing you would bring unwanted attention to their activities.” 

Nadia was probably right because Boggs’s quest was too well known, as was the theory that the treasure was still on The Grove.  Already, the story was on the front page of the local paper, and Lenny was trying to get interviews.

And it was attracting attention from other media.  If anything, the Cossatinos would want to hose it down, not throw fuel on the fire.

“Well, you’re not dead,” I said, “fortuitously we found you, and now if you are going to persist with this quest, there has to be a plan, and Nadia has to be part of it.”

“I’ve already told you I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“OK.  Then I’ll start my own quest, with Nadia’s help, and we’ll see who gets to the treasure first.  I told you I believe I know where it is, and I think you believe you know too.  Your problem will be getting back there, whereas, I have no such problem.  So,” I pointed to the door, “you can leave any time, but don’t call me again.  We’re done.”

I glared back at him, and while not exactly squirming in his seat, he appeared to be mulling over the ultimatum.  I hadn’t planned to give him one, but he was pushing all the wrong buttons.

It also elicited an interesting look from Nadia, because it was the first time she was hearing that I knew where the treasure was.  It was a calculated risk telling her, but I’d know soon enough whose side she was on.

“If you sign a document forfeiting any rights over the treasure you have a deal.  Both of you.”

So, it came down to the money, pure and simple.  I thought I’d made it clear long ago that I wasn’t interested in anything to do with the treasure because it was cursed.  “No problem.”

I looked at Nadia.

“God no, I want nothing to do with it.  I’ve seen what the obsession with wealth can do to people, and families, and it’s why I left.  I’m happy to sign anything you want.”

He pulled what looked to be sheets of folded paper from his pocket, unfolded them, and gave one to each of us.

“Call me when they’re notarized.”  With a final glare, he left.

That left Nadia looking at me with a curious expression.  “You know where the treasure is?”

“Maybe.  I just wanted to put the wind up him because I think he does.  There are clues that Boggs doesn’t know about, and I haven’t told him about.  I believe according to some of the information I’ve found, that he was in the right place when we found him.”

“I didn’t see any caves or tunnels, or any sort of hiding place, just rocks.”

“There are a few factors involved that make that area a likely spot and the reasons that spot was chosen.  One is that there doesn’t seem to be apparent access by land, other than the way we came, across the rocks, but at the time the pirates might not have had the time or the know-how to get there by anything other than the sea.”

“So, you’re saying they came by sea.  How did they get past the reefs?  And how the hell could they see a cave or tunnel in that rockface?”

“It’s been a couple of hundred years, and I think back then that shoreline would have been a lot different.  I’m not a geologist but that cliff face shows signs of rockfalls and slippage, so it’s possible it’s now concealed.  From what I’ve read, just in the newspaper archives alone, there’s been seismic activity occurring for the last seventy-odd years and maybe even during the last few centuries, just look at the fact there used to be a lake further inland.  Then, I suspect they came ashore by an abnormally high tide.  For an experienced seafarer, it has the pluses, and precise navigation through the reef, and it’s the hardest to get to spot on the Grove’s coastline.  An ideal spot that is to everyone other than a master mariner, an unlikely place to get to.

She looked like she was weighing up the pros and cons of what I’d told her.

“I’m surprised you’re telling me this.”

“The chances of the treasure still being there or that I’m right about the location is quite remote, so it doesn’t really matter.  Anyway, up to now, you haven’t given me a reason not to trust you, so if there’s anything you want to tell me, now would be the time.”

So, she had considered how it might look to me, the family name and reputation she had inherited.

“I’ve told you what my situation is.  To be honest, I don’t think there’s any treasure to be found either.  I once heard a discussion between family members, when I was very young and didn’t understand what they were talking about, involving putting a story out there that there was a treasure, and if they sold it well enough, people would pay plenty for maps.  In my opinion, the treasure story is a Cossatino special money-making scheme built off Ormiston’s and layer, Boggs’s obsession.  The myth has been perpetuated by articles in papers, and new maps surfacing from time to time.  I’d be surprised if you did find anything, but for Boggs’s sake, it’s better he learn the truth than hang on to false hope.”

“So you know it’s all a hoax?”

“On the face of it, you would think so, but Vince, not the sharpest of people, bought into it, especially when Boggs’s father came on board to draw the maps.  He was a cartographer you know, and worked for the county authorities in mapping the area.  I’m guessing that’s how he got started on this treasure thing.  That was another story my father liked to tell us, how Boggs had found a cave that was a pirates lair, only to see it destroyed not long after in one of the recent earthquakes.  That discovery turned him into a true believer and was happy to help the Cossatino’s so he could muddy the water while he searched for it.  There have always been rumors of treasure along this coastline.  It might be possible there was treasure somewhere, but don’t you think it’d be found by now?”

“Logic dictates that it would be, but anything’s possible.  Why did you take me on that coin-seeking exercise?”

“The truth Sam?  I heard Vince talking about Boggs snooping around, and I was hoping we’d find nothing.  Vince can be an ass most of the time, and I want to believe he wouldn’t do anything to seriously hurt Boggs, just put the wind up him.  Thankfully nothing happened, and it’s the best I could do in the circumstances.  I’m sorry.”

Was she by definition somewhere between a rock and a hard place?

“This time we were lucky.  Next time it might be a very different story.  I’ll understand if you want to quit now, because you may have to pick a side.”

“Let’s hope then it doesn’t come to that.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

Coming soon – “Strangers We’ve Become”, the sequel to “What Sets Us Apart”

Stranger’s We’ve Become, a sequel to What Sets Us Apart.

The blurb:

Is she or isn’t she, that is the question!

Susan has returned to David, but he is having difficulty dealing with the changes. Her time in captivity has changed her markedly, so much so that David decides to give her some time and space to re-adjust back into normal life.

But doubts about whether he chose the real Susan remain.

In the meantime, David has to deal with Susan’s new security chief, the discovery of her rebuilding a palace in Russia, evidence of an affair, and several attempts on his life. And, once again, David is drawn into another of Predergast’s games, one that could ultimately prove fatal.

From being reunited with the enigmatic Alisha, a strange visit to Susan’s country estate, to Russia and back, to a rescue mission in Nigeria, David soon discovers those whom he thought he could trust each has their own agenda, one that apparently doesn’t include him.

The Cover:

strangerscover9

Coming soon

 

Writing about writing a book – Day 9

Blogging, Social  Media, and other stuff.

 

Aren’t there more important things to do like writing?

I think reading the 101 things to do to establish your author brand is finally getting to me.  I leave this to read the last thing before I go to bed and it’s beginning to give me nightmares.

So, for starters, I’ve created a twitter page but I’m not sure what to do with it.  Yet.

Then I created a Facebook page but there is one for authors and I think l have created the wrong one.  It’s very confusing.

And reading 10 things an author shouldn’t do, one of them was not to use Facebook.  Who to believe?

Now I’m lingering at WordPress after googling writer blogs and got a choice of so many, some free, others quite expensive, and I’m not sure what half the stuff is they’re offering.

There’s also Site blog, and there’s collaborative blogging.  Perhaps it’s time to get back to the easy stuff like plotting and writing my book!

That might have been easy if a little voice in my head wasn’t screaming ‘you need a website’.

Once again I’m googling my fingers to the bone trying to decide if I want a free one or pay.  At least if I pay there might not be ghastly ads for porn sites.  That’s one criticism I read that can be a problem.

I decided to pay a nominal amount but now I strike a new problem, I need to get a domain name such as ‘authorname.com’.

I put in my name and it is taken already so in order not to pay the person who snapped it up in the hope of making a million dollars, or perhaps because he has the same name as me and thought of it first, I have to accept one of the variations.

It then gives me the opportunity to buy right now that particular name because it is free, and I found myself working with a hyphen.  It could be worse, I suppose.

It also offers a few extra web domains with different endings such as .com,.info, etc.

What the hell it’s only a few extra dollars and I’ll worry about what to do with them in two years’ time except for the .com which I’ll use now.

The website started and a month paid for, got a .com to link it to, and now all I have to do something with it.  No, I’m not a web designer even after I picked a template that looked author like.

It can wait.

Social media investigated but looks like its going to suck up a lot of my time.

Better get back to the book and write my page, or 1000 words, or 2000 words for the day.

 

I look over at the rubbish bin and it is overflowing.  It looks like a scene out of a bad movie, where the writer pretends he’s a pro basketball player who can’t shoot.

It’s just not flowing.  I’m beginning to hate Bill as a name.  Perhaps I’ll change it to Tarquin.  No, that’s not quite a name that suits the character.  It leads to a mental debate about what is an appropriate name for a character and sends me off into Google land again to see what various names mean.

The name is Bill until I find something better.

I guess that leads to some introspection on how I see, or what I want, the character to be.  So far he’s been married, and divorced, not been much of a husband to his wife, or children, maybe because of what happened to him when he was in the army, something he knows about in a peripheral sense but is about to learn a whole lot more.

Being shot, ending up in a hospital, sparks a memory, in a dream, brought on by a particular type of painkiller, and he is about to remember who and what he was, stuff that he has previously not realized, or knew about.  Those last traumatic events in the war zone caused his memory to be wiped.

It’s not the sort of memories certain people want to be brought into the open.

OK, finally something to work with.

I need to work on the dream or nightmare sequence.

Pen in hand, I start writing…

 

© Charles Heath 2018-2020

‘What Sets Us Apart’ – A beta readers view

There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?

A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a set up.

But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.

And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.

Susan is exactly the sort of woman the pique his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.

Nothing like an offer that’s a double edged sword!

A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.

When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.

I’ve been told there’s a sequel in the works.

Bring it on!

…

The book can be purchased here: http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

…

Travelling after a pandemic: Destination Hobart

Hobart in June – Winter – Day 5 – Wednesday

…

We ate at the wharves, and a place called Mures, which has sit-down eating.

Originally we were going to get lunch at Flippers, or one of three choices along the wharf.

The only problem was nowhere to sit and eat.

This means you have to hope the food at Mures tastes any good.

So, we order a curried scallop pie with chips and potato salad, a serving of battered flathead, and crumbed prawns.

While we were waiting I got a bottle of Tasmanian champagne.

Then it arrives.  The battered flathead also has a mountain of chips and we are going to be struggling to eat all of them.

The battered flathead was, as the saying goes, to die for.  It’s the best-battered fish I’ve had in a long time.

The curried scallop pie brought back a lot of bad memories of my mother’s curried sausages.  It’s the same curry taste, and I used to hate it

It was also similar to the four and twenty curried meat pies I used to have 50 years ago as a teen, with exactly the same taste.

Sadly it was not a pleasant experience, but the flathead more than made up for it.  The potato salad was delicious too, but for something so simple, so many people manage to stuff it up.  This was exactly how I like it.

The champagne was very good too, so the whole experience was above average.  Pity about the scallop pie.  More scallops and less curry would make it a more pleasant experience.

Inspiration, Maybe – Volume Two

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.

Perhaps it was.

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

Coming soon.  Find the above story and 49 others like it in:

It all started in Venice – Episode 14

Larry has a plan

…

I watched Juliet head back towards the hotel, joining the throng of tourists out walking in the refreshing night air before going back to their hotels.

The walk along the grand canal was particularly good and I’d taken it more than once over the years.  Perhaps I would again, tonight, before retiring to contemplate the next move in what was becoming a chess game.

Why had Larry decided after all this time to come after me?  And why the softly softly approach?  In bringing up Kerry’s mother in the conversation, it gave me the idea that perhaps I could ask her.

Of course given the fractious nature of the relationship between her and her son she might not know, but it was worth calling her if only to touch base after so long.  I was sure she would know about what happened to Violetta and understand.

Just before she disappeared from sight I could see her answering a call on her cell phone.  No doubt Larry was looking for more information after the revelations she had relayed to him.

Doing what I had was the equivalent of a double-edged sword, as the saying goes.  On the one hand, he might consider her had the advantage of knowing when and where I was going, but on the other, I knew he would be waiting, and therefore be prepared, though often preparation counted for nothing with unpredictable people like him.

Still, it was done now.  It also threw up another interesting sidebar, that Juliet didn’t like Cecilia if only for the reason she was with me.  Was it jealousy?  Surely she could not still have any feelings for me after all this time, and what she had gone through?

But, in normal circumstances, had she not been involved in this charade, and I had accidentally run into her in the street, what might my feelings be?  They had been all over the place that last time, following a near-death experience, and when my service was in its infancy.  It was a time when a lot of young agents got caught up in the euphoria of action, and some made fatal mistakes.

I had used one of my nine lives then, and several more since, before retiring.  I had never intended to return, but circumstances change, and whatever I may have wanted might have to take a back seat until this matter was sorted.  Then Rodby would make his play, as he always had, citing the losing battle we faced without people like me steering the ship in the right direction.

He was great with analogies, and praise, and putting you in a position where saying no was almost a crime against the state.  A bridge I would have to cross eventually.

The restaurant was closing for the night and a waiter came to gently tell us to leave.  It wasn’t late, but it was time to go.

I didn’t get far before a message appeared on my phone, a rendezvous outside the Doges Palace.  Alfie no doubt had the gist of the incoming call Juliet received not a half-hour before.

He was loitering inconspicuously when I found him, pretending to have an animated conversation with someone on the other end of his cell phone, speaking and gesturing as all Italians seemed to do.

He waved when he saw me, then wound up the fictitious call.

“Perhaps you should also be in the movies.  That was a very eloquent performance.”

He smiled.  “It wouldn’t fool too many people.”

“Is this about Juliet’s call?”

He looked surprised.

“I saw her get a call after she left me to go back to the hotel.”

“Of course.  And, yes.  He seems very upset you called him a moron.”

“If the shoe fits…  Don’t tell me he rang her just to vent over me calling him names.”

“No.  Just to tell her where and when she had to take you to your impending doom.  Seems the wait is over, and since you announced you’re going to visit his mother, he thought it was a perfect opportunity.”

I thought later, after I mentioned it, that it might present him with the means, and to use Juliet of who I would not suspect of luring me into a trap.  It was, in a way, on his part, very clever.

“What was her response?”

“A few choices words, and the fact she was not that close she could make such a request.”

“And let me guess, if she wants to see her brother again, come up with a plan?”

“More or less.  Do you really want to do this, this way?”

“Forewarned is forearmed.  It’s better than going in blind.  Is Cecilia a trained sniper?”

Many years ago Rodby insisted all his agents be trained to the highest proficiency in using a wide variety of guns.  I was in the first intake to benefit, and I had to say, sniper work was the best.

“She is.”

“Then I’ll talk to her. And get her there ahead of time, you too if possible, unless your operating Rodby’s chessboard in Italy.”

“No, I can take time out.  But I insist we have a solid plan before doing this.  No ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment stuff that Rodby tells me you’re famous for.”

Sometimes it was the only way, because the more people who knew, the less chance of success, particularly if there was a foreign mole in your midst.

“You’ll know everything as soon as I do.  Trust me.”

His look told me she did everything but trust me.  “You think you might get a visit in the night?”

“Should I sleep with Cecilia just to make it more interesting?”

“She’s not your personal toy to play with.”

“Wasn’t going to.  It’s just to make Juliet edgier, which, if she saw Cecilia in her pajamas, might push a button and catches her off guard.”

“It’s your call.  Let me know when the plan is set.”

Another thought came to mind, something I’d been thinking about.  “We don’t know where Larry has the bother holed up?  As I understand it, his on a video link so it’s not out in the wide-open spaces.”

“Not at the moment, but we’re working on it.  If it’s relevant I’ll let you know.  It would give us an advantage if we had him, but at the moment, it’s not on the table.  If and when you meet up with  Larry, he will be asking you a lot of questions.

And, as if he hadn’t been there at all, he was gone.  What was worrying was the reappearance of the Frenchman, nearby, and it was clear he had been following either me or Juliet.  There was no doubt he’d seen me with Alfie, but since the whole conversation had been conducted in Italian, it was hard to tell what he would have made of it.

Time would tell.  I would take a walk, consider the options and then go back to the hotel.

© Charles Heath 2022

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

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.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

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