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.
I was walking past a fast food outlet, minding my own business when an explosion behind me first threw me about 20 feet along the sidewalk and then dumped a whole lot of building rubbish on me.
So much for minding my own business.
Dazed, half deaf, and bleeding from several shrapnel wounds, I slowly got to my feet and looked back in the direction of where I thought the explosion happened.
Wrong. It was in the other direction. No surprise with the disorientation.
Not far from me, I could see several others on the ground through the settling cloud of dust, bodies lying on the pathway, not moving. A number of cars that had been driving past had got caught almost directly by the blast and had been severely damaged. Other cars behind had crashed into them.
The storefront I had just passed was now just a pile of rubble, much like photos of houses during the blitz and anyone caught in it would not have survived.
Still slightly disorientated, I could hear sirens in the distance, and then, above that, as my hearing slightly improved, screams from people who had taken the full brunt of the explosion.
I headed towards the nearest of the injured when I was knocked abruptly to the ground by two men running away from the scene. It took a few moments to realize these men must have had something to do with the explosion and were fleeing.
I scrambled to my feet and started running after them. They were some distance in front of me as was an oncoming police car, and I thought they could take up the chase, and stopped.
Instead, it drove straight past the two men and stopped opposite me, and before knew what was happening, I was on the ground with four weapons trained on my head, and three of them yelling that if I moved they would shoot me.
I tried telling them about the two fleeing men I’d been chasing but no one was listening.
I had a knee in my back and a gun to my head. This wasn’t going to end well for someone.
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 setup.
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 that piqued 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 had the ubiquitous pleasure of being called one, and that is, a bore.
Probably because I spend so much time telling people about the joys and woes of being a writer.
You can be a tedious bore, cooking could be a bore, and then you could bore someone to death, and then you will bore the responsibility of, yes, doing just that.
Would it be murder or manslaughter?
But, of course, there are other meanings of the word, such as, on my farm I have a bore.
No, we’re not talking about the farmhand, but where artesian water is brought to the surface, in what would otherwise be very arid land.
Or, could be the size of a drill hole, and in a specific instance the measurement of the circular space that piston goes up and down. And if you increase the size of the bore, the more powerful the engine.
Or it could refer to the size of a gun barrel, for all of you who are crime fiction writers.
But, let’s not after all of that, confuse it with another interpretation of the word, boar, which is basically a male pig.
It could also just as easily describe certain men.
Then there is another interpretation, boor, which is an extremely rude person, or a peasant, a country bumpkin or a yokel.
I’ve only seen the latter in old American movies.
There is one more, rather obscure interpretation, and that is boer, which is a Dutch South African, who at the turn of the last century found themselves embroiled in a war with the British.
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.
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…
…
It didn’t surprise Johannesen there were about twenty prisoners down in the dungeons, though he was surprised to find that the dungeon area was quite large, and in several sections. The fact they smelled of wine told him that once, the cells were used at storage areas for bottles of wine.
Several of the cells that were furthest from the downstairs entrance, and recently boarded over caused several overzealous resistance fighters of Leonardo’s to start smashing walls looking for it.
Johannsen tried not to think about Leonardo. He was the very worst of men, a pig even by German standards.
Martina had been put in a cell not far from Leonardo’s wine cache. There was purpose in that, he could get drunk and then take it out of the woman who had made him look stupid. Come to think of it, he thought, it wouldn’t be too hard for a ten-year-old to do that.
The cell door was locked, but Johannsen had a key. He had meticulously gone through all the keyrings and loose keys that had been found and those that didn’t have an immediate use had been stored in the dungeon guardroom.
Matching keys to locks had been one of his secret tasks, under the disguise of being given the job by Wallace to match keys to locks for them. There were a few short in the end, keys to rooms, and cells that seem to serve no purpose. One had become Johannessen’s hideaway.
It was part of a plan he had been formulating, one where he could take prisoners and hide them. Of course, it wouldn’t work for the moment because the prisoners had to be moved on as soon as possible, and staying in the castle, even if the others didn’t know where they were, would invite a microscopic search. It would need Atherton’s knowledge of the castle, and whether there was another escape route they could use.
It was another of his works in progress, one that was highly likely to fail.
He stood back from the door and looked at the crumpled heap on the floor that was once the leader of the resistance. Leonardo had interrogated her before bringing her back, half-dead, to the castle, and in doing so had made it impossible for anyone to interrogate her further. Had that been the reason why Leonardo had bashed her senseless?
He saw a hand move by her side, and a low groan.
He spoke quietly, in English, “Are you able to come closer to the door?” He knelt down, trying to get a better look at her injuries. Abrasions, and bruising. Swollen eyes, possible broken nose, blood spatter everywhere on her clothing which remarkably was relatively intact. He had suspected Leonardo of doing a lot worse and may still have.
She lifted her head slightly, “Who are you?”
“I could be a friend.”
She laughed, then coughed, and blood came out of her mouth. Broken ribs possibly, and a punctured lung. She might be too injured to move.
“There are no friends in this place, just Tedeschi.” She lowered her head and closed her eyes. Her breathing was irregular and shallow. Definitely broken ribs, he thought. And not likely to survive another interrogation. Not if Jackerby was going to conduct it.
“I’d like to help you if I can.”
“Everyone in here, we’re beyond help. You know that because you’re one of them.”
“Some of us care what happens to people.”
She pushed hard to move around slightly to face him, laying her head on the side to face him. “Which one are you?”
“Johannsen.”
“Yes, Johannesen. Atherton mentioned you. As untrustworthy as the rest. But for me, I’m all but dead, but I’ll humor you. Get me out of here and away from that bastardo Leonardo, and I might believe you.”
Atherton. This might be an opportunity to find out how he could get in contact with him, knowing of course, she wasn’t going to tell him where Atherton was.
“If you want to get away from here, we need Atherton. He’s the only one who knows this place inside out.”
He could see her shaking her head, as painful as that might be.
“He’s not.”
“Then is there anyone who does?”
“There is.”
“Who?”
Again she laughed and it sounded like the death rattle of her last breath. “You think I’m that far gone that I would tell you anything?”
“If you want to escape, I can only get you so far.”
“There is no escape. Believe me. If there was, I would be gone. Save your trickery and lies for someone who might be gullible enough to believe you. I’m quite prepared to die, the fact I’ve lived this long is what some would call a miracle.”
With that she turned away, coughed, and went silent. She wasn’t dead, but death wasn’t far away.
When Johannesen reluctantly left the cell, he only made it to the turn towards the steps up when he ran into Jackerby.
Had Jackerby been somewhere near and overheard their conversation.
“You have a rather interesting interrogation technique,” Jackerby said.
Johannesen groaned inwardly. He had heard.
“Sometimes it’s better to try and infuse hope in the subject rather than resignation. I was trying to get her to tell me where Atherton is.”
“And did she?”
“What do you think. After what Leonardo did, she’s not likely to tell us anything. I’m sure if we had taken a different approach…”
“Yes, softly softly. Doesn’t work. Just leave the heavy lifting to us, and don’t bother coming down to revisit the prisoners. Otherwise, I might believe you really are trying to help them escape.”
I’m still working on the sequence of flashbacks for the story, filling out the back story to how Bill became associated with a man called Colonel Davenport.
It is important to remember that while Davenport may have begun with good intentions, it was not difficult to go slowly mad given the conditions. This character, Davenport, runs a multitude of operations within the war zone, turning a huge profit and setting up a business for when the war ended.
Bill meets his Davenport’s cronies and then the man himself. Life is not what it seems, and working for him is not a guarantee of safety, so Bill not only has to watch out for the enemy but also those with whom he also works.
Part 3 – In the Service of Davenport
Davenport and punishment
Busted mission, the first threat to Davenport
Manilow’s death – and how he got there
More on Manilow, the night before his death
Taken to rendezvous with Davenport’s boss
Identify Davenport by ‘sniveling morons’
Sniper – killing Ellen’s father – set up
Sniper – Killing Ellen’s father, execution
Planes and death
Bill gets to meet an interesting cast of characters, not the least of which is Davenport’s right-hand men, and a very unlucky lad who was supposed to see through his tour in the command station far from the war zone, and who is connected to a person close to him.
He was also unwittingly involved in a murder, one set up by Davenport, and one designed to keep his silence.
Part 4 – The Lead up to Capture, and in a POW camp
The object that Davenport is seeking
After R & R revoked, retrieved by Davenport for the last mission
Capture by Cho’s forces, delivered by Davenport’s men
In the POW Camp, and the arrival of Cho
Day of Rescue from Cho
Ellen and Jacobson after rescue in the hospital
Bill’s safety may have been assured had he simply toed the line, but, while on a secret mission with Davenport’s men, he sees an opportunity to take some evidence of Davenport’s activities, as an act of self-preservation.
Of course, he doesn’t reckon with the ruthlessness of Davenport and ends up in a camp where Bill is handed over to the chief interrogator, a friend of Davenport’s. There is no doubt what Cho’s mission is.
But, like all seemingly simple plans, it doesn’t go the way Davenport wants, Bill does not talk, and is eventually rescued.
Part 5 – Post Rescue and Transworld
Employment at Transworld, then first interrogation via Collins
In hospital immediately after being shot
Davenport in my hospital room, post being shot
Recognize Jorgenson
Davenport discovers Bill was rescued, and that is has lost his memory of all the time in his service, so just in case Bill does, one day, remember, he will be there to get the answers, and the missing information.
It is almost a story within a story, and maybe one day will be published as such.
At least now I have some idea of how to work the much larger story into the flashbacks, as a prelude to what happens to Bill once he realizes who is behind everything that is happening at Transworld.
It was a cold but far from a miserable day. We were taking our grandchildren on a tour of the most interesting sites in Paris, the first of which was the Eiffel Tower.
We took the overground train, which had double-decker carriages, a first for the girls, to get to the tower.
We took the underground, or Metro, back, and they were fascinated with the fact the train carriages ran on road tires.
Because it was so cold, and windy, the tower was only open to the second level. It was a disappointment to us, but the girls were content to stay on the second level.
There they had the French version of chips.
It was a dull day, but the views were magnificent.
In the spy business, it pays not to make solid plans, just have an idea of what you might do, and execute it.
When it goes wrong, as it inevitably does, then you can always say, “I knew it was going to fail” and feel good about it.
Expecting a plan to work without it going south is like winning the lottery. What are the odds?
What you can rely on every time is human nature. Yes, sometimes the bad guy is thoroughly bad and goes off the reservation, but that’s the exception. Counterspy measures always include an element of ‘what’s in it for me’ when an opportunity comes up.
So, David and Alisha get captured. It’s the easiest way in.
Then Alisha escapes in the middle of a freak storm with torrential rain that has a visibility range of ten feet at best. Enough time for her to disappear.
It’s all part of the plan.
Others search for her, while David is taken to the main compound, assessing the odds and situation as he goes. He ends up in a cell, left to ponder his fate, and then dragged out for interrogation.
Not exactly part of the plan, but he does learn something new, and quite disconcerting. Someone close to him is a traitor.
So, today’s seeming straightforward news event that didn’t make the front page, nor the next three, is about the death of a man and a woman who had just begun dating, their bodies being found in an ordinary suburban house.
The police received a call regarding their welfare and upon visiting the house, found the man and woman lying side by side on the floor, deceased.
The police were not treating the deaths as suspicious.
So …
What if …
The first thing that leaps off the page is the fact the police are not treating the deaths as suspicious.
That’s exactly the moment that investigators should be looking at the situation a little more closely because, in our scenario, the scene has a staged look about it, and on the surface, it appears to be a simple case of a dual drug overdose.
Firstly, the friends of the two were not aware they were ‘doing drugs’ and if they were, lying on the floor at home was the last place it would happen.
No drugs were found in the house, and the sniffer dogs could find no trace of any except on the bodies.
Secondly, in the upstairs office, a laptop computer was missing, only the cable and mouse were still sitting on the table. Curiously both their cell phones were missing, but nothing else. Between them, they had about 500 pounds, which meant, if there was foul play, the perpetrator had very specific items to take.
Nothing else was disturbed.
Thirdly, a quick examination of the bodies showed the woman had bruising to her neck, a sign that someone had held her in a choke hold perhaps, but the coroner would have a closer look.
Fourthly, a simple check on the names comes back with an access denied flag on the male.
That, as far as Detective Chief Inspector Barnes was concerned, was enough to change the investigation from death by misadventure, to a suspicious, possible murder.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 