Month: September 2024

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 34

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

…

I had hoped we’d land in daylight, but I could see the benefits of arriving at the landing strip after darkness had fallen, and a more primitive form of landing lights had been used.

Less interest from the local people and no bright lights lighting up the runway.

The only lights I could see from the air were the primitive landing lights, fires burning in used fuel drums, and a glimmer of light emanating from two of the buildings set back from the airstrip.

It did worry me, probably more than it should, that the pilots would be landing a plane of this size in virtually a paddock, flying by the seat of their pants, and all credit to them if they got the plane on the ground.  I guessed they’d flown into more than one hot spot around the world, and at least at this one, they were not being shot at.

Their turn around would be quick, just enough time to take on a small amount of fuel and then leave.  No one had said if it would be a fuel tanker or by drums and hand pumps.

The plane had a short distance to go from the end of the runway to what might be called terminal buildings.  The moment the engines were cut, there was a flurry of movement, and after the fuselage door was quickly opened by the co-pilot, then the rear access ramp lowered and standing at the end, once it hit the ground, I could see a tanker and a Land Rover heading towards the rear of the plane, with only small headlamps on.

Monroe had joined me.  Behind me was a hive of activity as the team moved the crates of camera equipment to the end of the ramp, and then the individual packs.  Jacobi was escorted down on the ground by his two-man guard.

“Is this necessary,” he asked as he passed by me

I ignored him.

The Range Rover stopped just by the bottom of the ramp, and two men got out, one I assumed was Colonel Chiswick, former British Army, came over to train the local soldiers, and didn’t go home, and the other a Ugandan soldier with Sergeant stripes.  Perhaps this was one of their airfields feeding supplies and troops for border patrol duties.

Monroe went down first, and I followed.

Chiswick came up to me, holding out a hand.  “James, I presume?”  I shook it.

I nodded towards Jill, “And Monroe.”

“Welcome to nowhere in particular.”

In the distance, another three Range Rovers were heading towards the plane and then stopped within easy distance of the ramp to easily facilitate the moving of the camera equipment into the rear.  Drivers of the cars ushered them, taking their packs and putting them in the back.

I saw a meaningful look pass between Jacobi and Chiswick.  They knew each other.  No surprises there.  If Chiswick was running this base, then he’d have to know about Jacobi whom we knew had friends in all the high places on every side of the fence.

Another car pulled up, a jeep.  “For your man to get to the base.  I gather he has his instructions?”

Mobley nodded, threw his pack in the back, and the jeep drove off.

“Nice night,” Chiswick said, finally, “Glad it’s not raining, or it would have been a rather sticky landing.”

“How long before the plane leave?”

“About an hour.  Don’t worry.  Planes come and go here all the time, so no one really cares much.”

The crates, packs and other men were loaded and taken away.  Monroe had a final word to the pilot, now down on the ground and supervising the fuel loading, then joined me in the Colonel’s car.

“You’ll be leaving just before first light.  Best to get away before the villagers stir.  There will be one or two curious souls, but they’re harmless.  The soldiers here have been informed that you are here for a training exercise, nothing unusual as we get squads from all over from time to time.  As I said, your arrival will have caused little interest.”

From the locals.  It was anyone else other than the locals I was worried about. 

“Excellent.”


There was not much else to talk about in the few minutes it took to get to the compound at the back of the so-called terminal buildings.  It consisted of about ten large barracks, an administration building, and what looked to be a mess.

Pale lights were showing from one of the barracks, and seeing the cars parked out the front, I assumed this was where we would stay until we departed.

The Colonel didn’t get out of the car.  “We’ll be leaving at 04:00 tomorrow morning.  Make sure you’re ready to go.”

“You’re coming too?”

“Bamfield asked me.  Wants to make sure you had someone who knows the lie of the land.”

“I thought you’d delegate that to a few of the soldiers.”

“No.  Can’t have them involved in an incursion or there will be trouble.  This is an off the book’s operation.  Looking forward to it, actually.  There are a few people over there I’d like to have a talk to if we get the time.”

I shrugged.  Just one more problem to deal with.  The Colonel didn’t strike me as being a talker, but a man who let actions define who he was.  And just because Bamfield vouched for him didn’t mean he might be not be working on his own retirement fund.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2022

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 66

This story is now on the list to be finished so over the new few weeks, expect a new episode every few days.

The reason why new episodes have been sporadic, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Things are about to get complicated…

Behind me, I could see Dobbin moving towards the door.

“You really don’t want to do this,” I said.

“He offered me a better deal.”

“I give you these, you will probably have about an hour, two at the most before he kills you.”

She shrugged.   She was a deadly shot, so it was not an option to talk her out of it.  I threw the plastic bag to her.

“This way, at least, you live.  You’re good, but too trusting.”

Dobbin opened the door.  “Enough chit-chat; let’s go before someone else turns up.  Walk away Jackson, don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

I watched them leave, then turned to Anna.  “This should please you immensely.”

“You mean you couldn’t see it coming?  Hell, with all that analysis it wasn’t hard to work out Dobbin was the one orchestrating everything.”

I pulled out my phone and dialled Joanne’s number.  When she answered I said, “They just left.”

“With the data?”

“With what they think is the data.”

“You have it?”

“No.  O’Connell had it, and someone got to him.  He’s dead next door, by the way, and we have two medical cases, one relatively serious, both requiring an ambulance sooner rather than later.”

“On it.  And thanks.”

I went over to Anna and sat beside her.

Jan was glaring at us.  “You said no one would get shot.”

We watched her slide over and join us against the wall.

“I said Jennifer was an unknown quantity.  I didn’t think she’d take me so literally, but on the other hand, the signs were there.  In training, she shot at three of the recruits.”

“Well, she didn’t recognise me, which, I guess, is something.”

“Who are you again?” Jan asked her.

“Yolanda.  I was at the training camp with Sam.  Severin made a pass at me, I kicked him in the you know what’s, and he kicked me out.  I never gave back the comms unit, and I used to listen in to the exercises and discovered they’d finally been activated, so I went to have a look.  Things got very scary when the target started taking out the surveillance team.  They were out of their depth.  Then I caught up with Sam, called him, and asked him what was going on.  He said the target was going to the café and for me to go around the back, no time for hello’s.  A minute or so later I see a guy toss something into the back of the café and take off.  Then it goes up and all hell broke loose.  Naturally, I got the hell out of there, and called him later, asked if he needed some off-book help, and here I am.”

“Could have been the death of you.”

“Nah.  Sam and I were the best two of that bunch, and then maybe Jennifer.  Damn that bitch to hell now.  Hope they give us five minutes with her.”

“So,” I could see Jan was still wrestling with details.  “Anna died in that explosion?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know who Anna was?”

“Not at first, but when I saw a photo of her, and the similarities I shared with her, Sam suggested I take her place, and we took it from there.  Sam told me where I could find O’Connell and it wasn’t hard to reconnect, it was six months and he didn’t notice the changes in Anna, which, to me, is a sign of bad tradecraft.  He still had the money, I pretended to still have the USB but not with me but back at the flat.  He tested the USB and found the right level of encryption, then gave me the five million pounds, and we parted.  Now he’s dead.  When Sam arrived, I thought it was going to be me next.”

“How did you know what sort of encryption was on the USB?”

Good question.  Jan was thinking outside the box, which is what any agent should be doing.

“We spend a few weeks off and on in training, studying encryption techniques, but concentrated on one, for reasons we were never told.  I realized that it was related to the eventual mission.  It wasn’t hard to emulate.  I made up about a dozen USBs just in case.”

“Just out of curiosity, what’s on those USB’s?”

“A PDF copy of War and Peace.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

“The Enemy Within” – the editor’s third draft – Day 2

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the third revision.

And so it begins…

…

The best-laid plans of mice and men …

…

All come to grief when you begin writing. Sure, you have a plan, it may be meticulous, it might be scrambled, it might be almost perfect.

I thought mine was almost perfect.

Then chapter one started and I reached a fork in the road. This way or that, or another altogether.

It was a possibility I didn’t see in the planning stage.

Will it affect the outcome?

Too early to tell.

Part of chapter one has now become chapter two, and the ripple effect has changed the number of chapters. It’s a common feature in a rewrite.

Let you know more tomorrow!

Searching for locations: Lake Louise to Toronto, via Calgary

All the worries we thought we might have in getting from Lake Louise to Calgary, in the end, it was just like driving to work, only a little longer.

When we left the Fairmont, the car had two frozen bottles of water and a frozen donut, left in the car for the two days we were there, so hiding in the garage might not be a good idea.

At the garage where we refueled, it was so cold I could barely clean the windows and glad to get back into the warmth inside the car.

Thankfully as we got closer to Calgary, it got warmer.

We bypass the city going to the airport, but, as it turns out, we would not have had much time to look around anyway.It’s nice to go to an airport and actually find the car rental returns first go with adequate signing to get there.

Returning the car took a few extra minutes because we were at the end of a dozen or so others who turned up at the same time.  All good, they remembered giving us a half full petrol tank.

At the check-in, it is very smooth sailing, the kiosk working and once the booking reference was entered, it spat out the desired number of boarding passes and baggage tags.

Then to baggage drop, through customs where I managed to lose my jacket, which is amazing that you would be allowed to leave anything behind.

So…

We have an hour and a half to kill, so a long soda and two long island teas settle the pre-flight nerves if we had any to start with.

Time to consider the vagaries of the flight.

Today we’re on an Airbus a320, and we are seated in the very last row, row 33.  It’s always a bad thing to look up planes on seatguru.com, because it has painted them as the worst on the plane.

What’s the downside, sometimes the seat pitch is less than further up the plane, the seats don’t recline and you get the seat in front in your face, and you get the constant flushing of the toilets.  And my major bugbear there’s no overhead luggage space.

What’s the reality?

To begin with, the seats recline, but not very much.  We’ll wait till the plane is cruising before judging how far the seats recline in front of us.

The seat pitch is good and it doesn’t feel like were cramped into a small space, but again this is relative to what happens with the seat in front.

Overhead baggage space, none whatsoever, so if you don’t get on first you are basically screwed.  We were almost first to the rear of the plane so I suspect others also know about the lack of overhead bin space.

Being at the read most part of the plane affords you a view of how the baggage handlers treat your baggage, and it’s interesting, to say the least.  They smile a lot, so I suspect that a few bags might get the ‘treatment’.

Enough already.

We’re now backing out of the bay ready to leave.

We’re getting endless announcements in foreign languages so when next I fly with Air Canada I should at least learn French.

Or not…

Ah, the smell of kerosene floods our end of the plane.  So much for air quality, which so it happens is being covered in the safety video at the exact same time.

But as it turned out, the flight was uneventful.

Is there a reason to get out of bed?

I sometimes wonder if there is.

Is that depression speaking, or am I just tired from all the late nights?

Unlike most writers, authors and bloggers I don’t have a day job.  You could say it’s one of the benefits of getting old, this retirement thing, but after a while, not having a reason to get out of bed starts working on your subconscious.

The idea of having a job, and going to work, is a good reason to drag yourself out of bed every morning.  And because of this, the idea of sleeping in takes on a whole new meaning.

You know, I’ll just lie here for a few more minutes, and then I’ll get up.  Having turned off the alarm, the eyelids flutter, and before you know it, half an hour had passed, and you wake up in fright, knowing you’re going to be late.

In retirement, that doesn’t happen.  There is no alarm, there is no guilty pleasure in spending those extra minutes in bed.

Of course, this tardiness, or lack of desire could be because I find I do my best writing in the dead of night, often not getting to bed before 2 a.m.   Last night it was a little later because of a story I’m working on came to life with a new idea.

It had been stagnating because it’s part two and whilst I had an idea about where it was going to go, in the end, we’re off in a different direction, and the words flowed.  You just don’t stop writing when you hit a vein.

But this isn’t always the case.  This morning I have an excuse to stay in bed, but most others I don’t.

Perhaps I should find something else to do, something that will give me that same reason I used to have to get up every morning.

Or maybe I should be more organized in my retirement life, you know, set a schedule and do things according to a timetable.  I was never one for being organized, but perhaps it’s time to start.

Just let me lie here for a few more minutes and think about that.

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.

Searching for locations: Lake Louise, Canada

I was not sure what I was expecting to see when we first arrived at the Fairmont Hotel at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.

I’d seen endless photographs both in Winter and in Summer, and the problem with photos is that they never quite prepare you for reality.

That’s not to say that our first impression was of incredible scenery, it was of the front door if it could be called that, where we pulled up in the car, and then, if the sub-zero temperatures, a mad rush to get the baggage out, and get into the warmth of the foyer, which was almost the size of several football fields, and then some.

Check-in was quick and easy, and then to our room on the first floor.  I had hoped to be higher up but, being a corner room, when we got there, the views could not be more majestic.

I could not believe there were people who were willing to take a sleigh ride in the minus degree temperatures.  Don’t let the sunny aspect fool you, it’s freezing cold, literally, outside.

The lake had frozen over, and a closer look showed there was a skating rink an ice castle, and a hockey rink as well.  People were skating, and walking over the frozen surface of the lake.

No skating, or walking, on thin ice here.

Venturing outside into the cold, you have to be rugged up, and definitely, have both a hat and gloves.  It was minus six degrees.

There’s this amazing hotel, just like you would see in the movies

A frozen lake where you’re half expecting to open up and a huge spaceship, or something else, come out

Mountainsides to climb, but only if you are stark staring mad.  And, of course, if you don’t freeze to death before you get there.

Our room, believe it or not, is on the extreme right-hand side, just above the first roofline.

Tomorrow we will venture further out onto the lake.

Tonight, it’s dinner in the main restaurant.

An excerpt from “Amnesia”, a work in progress

I remembered a bang.

I remembered the car slewing sideways.

I remember another bang, and then it was lights out.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw the sky.

Or I could be underwater.

Everything was blurred.

I tried to focus but I couldn’t. My eyes were full of water.

What happened?

Why was I lying down?

Where was I?

I cast my mind back, trying to remember.

It was a blank.

What, when, who, why and where, are questions I should easily be able to answer. These are questions any normal person could answer.

I tried to move. Bad, bad mistake.

I did not realise the scream I heard was my own. Just before my body shut down.

“My God! What happened?”

I could hear, not see. I was moving, lying down, looking up.

I was blind. Everything was black.

“Car accident; hit a tree, sent the passenger flying through the windscreen. Pity to poor bastard didn’t get the message that seat belts save lives.”

Was I that poor bastard?

“Report?” A new voice, male, authoritative.

“Multiple lacerations, broken collar bone, broken arm in three places, both legs broken below the knees, one badly. We are not sure of internal injuries, but ruptured spleen, cracked ribs and pierced right lung are fairly evident, x-rays will confirm that and anything else.”

“What isn’t broken?”

“His neck.”

“Then I would have to say we are looking at the luckiest man on the planet.”

I heard the shuffling of pages.

“OR1 ready?”

“Yes. On standby since we were first advised.”

“Good. Let’s see if we can weave some magic.”

Magic.

It was the first word that popped into my head when I surfaced from the bottom of the lake. That first breath, after holding it for so long, was sublime, and, in reality, agonising.

Magic, because it seemed like I’d spent a long time underwater.

Or somewhere.

I tried to speak but couldn’t. The words were just in my head.

Was it night or was it day?

Was it hot, or was it cold?

Where was I?

Around me, it felt cool.

It was incredibly quiet. No noise except for the hissing of air through an air-conditioning vent. Or that was the sound of pure silence.  And with it the revelation that silence was not silent. It was noisy.

I didn’t try to move.

Instinctively, somehow, I knew not to.

A previous unpleasant experience?

I heard what sounded like a door opening, and noticeably quiet footsteps slowly came into the room. They stopped. I could hear breathing, slightly laboured, a sound I’d heard before.

My grandfather.

He had smoked all his life until he was diagnosed with lung cancer. But for years before that he had emphysema. The person in the room was on their way, down the same path. I could smell the smoke.

I wanted to tell whoever it was the hazards of smoking.

I couldn’t.

I heard a metallic clanging sound from the end of the bed. A moment later the clicking of a pen, then writing.

“You are in a hospital.” A female voice suddenly said. “You’ve been in a bad accident. You cannot talk, or move, all you can do, for the moment, is listen to me. I am a nurse. You have been here for 45 days and just came out of a medically induced coma. There is nothing to be afraid of.”

She had a very soothing voice.

Her fingers stroked the back of my hand.

“Everything is fine.”

Define fine, I thought. I wanted to ask her what ‘fine’ meant.

“Just count backwards from 10.”

Why?

I didn’t reach seven.

Over the next ten days, that voice became my lifeline to sanity. Every morning, I longed to hear it, if only for the few moments she was in the room, those few waking moments when I believed she, and someone else who never spoke, were doing tests. I knew it had to be someone else because I could smell the essence of lavender. My grandmother had worn a similar scent.

It rose above the disinfectant.

She was another doctor, not the one who had been there the day I arrived. Not the one who had used some ‘magic’ and kept me alive.

It was then, in those moments before she put me under again, that I thought, what if I was paralysed? It would explain a lot. A chill went through me.

The next morning, she was back.

“My name is Winifred. We don’t know what your name is, not yet. In a few days, you will be better, and you will be able to ask us questions. You were in an accident, and you were very severely injured, but I can assure you there will be no lasting damage.”

More tests, and then when I expected the lights to go out, they didn’t. Not for a few minutes more. This was how I would be integrated back into the world. A little bit at a time.

The next morning, she came later than usual, and I’d been awake for a few minutes. “You have bandages over your eyes and face. You had bad lacerations to your face, and glass in your eyes. We will know more when the bandages come off in a few days. Your face will take longer to heal. It was necessary to do some plastic surgery.”

Lacerations, glass in my eyes, car accidents, plastic surgery. By logical deduction, I knew I was the poor bastard thrown through the windscreen. It was a fleeting memory from the day I was admitted.

How could that happen?

That was the first of many startling revelations. The second was the fact I could not remember the crash. Equally shocking, in that same moment was the fact I could not remember before the crash either, or only vague memories after.

But the most shattering of all these revelations was the one where I realised, I could not remember my name.

I tried to calm down, sensing a rising panic.

I was just disoriented, I told myself. After 45 days in an induced coma, it had messed with my mind, and it was only a temporary lapse. Yes, that’s what it was, a temporary lapse. I will remember tomorrow. Or the next day.

Sleep was a blessed relief.

The next day I didn’t wake up feeling nauseous. I think they’d lowered the pain medication. I’d heard that morphine could have that effect. Then, how could I know that but not who I am?

Now I knew Winifred the nurse was preparing me for something unbelievably bad. She was upbeat, and soothing, giving me a new piece of information each morning. This morning, “You do not need to be afraid. Everything is going to be fine. The doctor tells me you are going to recover with little scarring. You will need some physiotherapy to recover from your physical injuries, but that’s in the future. We need to let you mend a little bit more before then.”

So, I was not going to be able to leap out of bed and walk out of the hospital any time soon. I don’t suppose I’d ever leapt out of bed, except as a young boy. I suspect I’d sustained a few broken bones. I guess learning to walk again was the least of my problems.

But there was something else. I picked it up in the timbre of her voice, a hesitation, or reluctance. It sent another chill through me.

This time I was left awake for an hour before she returned.

This time sleep was restless.

Scenes were playing in my mind, nothing I recognised, and nothing lasting longer than a glimpse. Me. Others, people I didn’t know. Or I knew them and couldn’t remember them.

Until they disappeared, slowly like the glowing dot in the centre of the computer screen, before finally fading to black.

The morning the bandages were to come off she came in early and woke me. I had another restless night, the images becoming clearer, but nothing recognisable.

“This morning the doctor will be removing the bandages over your eyes. Don’t expect an immediate effect. Your sight may come back quickly, or it may come back slowly, but we believe it will come back.”

I wanted to believe I was not expecting anything, but I was. It was human nature. I did not want to be blind as well as paralysed. I had to have at least one reason to live.

I dozed again until I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. I could smell the lavender; the other doctor was back. And I knew the hand on my shoulder was Winifred’s. She told me not to be frightened.

I was amazed to realise at that moment, I wasn’t.

I heard the scissors cutting the bandages.

I felt the bandage being removed, and the pressure coming off my eyes. I could feel the pads covering both eyes.

Then a moment when nothing happened.

Then the pads are gently lifted and removed.

Nothing.

I blinked my eyes, once, twice. Nothing.

“Just hold on a moment,” Winifred said. A few seconds later I could feel a cool towel wiping my face, and then gently wiping my eyes. There was ointment or something else in them.

Then a flash. Well, not a flash, but like when a light is turned on and off. A moment later, it was brighter, not the inky blackness of before, but a shade of grey.

She wiped my eyes again.

I blinked a few more times, and then the light returned, and it was like looking through water, at distorted and blurry objects in the distance.

I blinked again, and she wiped my eyes again.

Blurry objects took shape. A face looking down on me, an elderly lady with a kindly face, surely Winifred, who was smiling. And on the opposite side of the bed, the doctor, a Chinese woman of indescribable beauty.

I nodded.

“You can see?”

I nodded again.

“Clearly?”

I nodded.

“Very good. We will just draw the curtains now. We don’t want to overdo it. Tomorrow we will be taking off the bandages on your face. Then, it will be the next milestone. Talking.”

I couldn’t wait.

When morning came, I found myself afraid. Winifred had mentioned scarring, there were bandages on my face. I knew, but wasn’t quite sure how I knew, I wasn’t the most handsome of men before the accident, so this might be an improvement.

I was not sure why I didn’t think it would be the case.

They came at mid-morning, the nurse, Winifred, and the doctor, the exquisite Chinese. She was the distraction, taking my mind off the reality of what I was about to see.

Another doctor came into the room before the bandages were removed, and he was introduced as the plastic surgeon who had ‘repaired’ the ravages of the accident. It had been no easy job, but, with a degree of egotism, he did say he was one of the best in the world.

I found it hard to believe, if he were, that he would be at a small country hospital.

“Now just remember, what you might see now is not how you will look in a few months.”

Warning enough.

The Chinese doctor started removing the bandages. She did it slowly and made sure it did not hurt. My skin was very tender, and I suspect still bruised, either from the accident or the surgery, I didn’t know.

Then it was done.

The plastic surgeon gave his work a thorough examination and seemed pleased with his work. “Coming along nicely,” he said to the other doctor. He issued some instructions on how to manage the skin, nodded to me, and I thanked him before he left.

I noticed Winifred had a mirror in her hand and was reticent in using it. “As I said,” she said noticing me looking at the mirror, “what you see now will not be the result. The doctor said it was going to heal with little scarring. You have been extremely fortunate he was available. Are you ready?”

I nodded.

She showed me.

I tried not to be reviled at the red and purple mess that used to be my face. At a guess, I would have to say he had to put it all back together again, but not knowing what I looked like before, I had no benchmark. All I had was a snippet of memory that told me I was not the tall, dark, and handsome type.

And I still could not talk. There was a reason, he had worked in that area too. Just breathing hurt. I think I would save up anything I had to say for another day. I could not even smile. Or frown. Or grimace.

“We’ll leave you for a while. Everyone needs a little time to get used to the change. I suspect you are not sure if there has been an improvement in last year’s model. Well, time will tell.”

A new face?

I could not remember the old one.

My memory still hadn’t returned.

…

©  Charles Heath  2024

“The Enemy Within” – the editor’s third draft – Day 1

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the third revision.

And so it begins…

…

After spending a number of harrowing days trying to plan, plot, and replot, sort out the characters and their characteristics, discover locations and read up on them, and learn as much as possible about the props, it was time to let loose the pencil.

But, sadly, all the plotting in the world does not translate to instant words on a page.

I started revising.  Great.

I hated what I amended.

Deleted it.

Started again.

The page was staring back at me, daring me to write more of those terrible words, disorganized thoughts, and random passages that had no connection.

No, it’s not writer’s block.

It’s pressure, the pressure of having to revise 1,800 odd words in a day, this day, and tomorrow, and the day after that.

Enough!

I go outside and look at the mess in the backyard, the one I’ve been promising to do something about for the last 10 years.  Perhaps it’s now time.

As rubbish goes into the bin, ideas form, passages start writing themselves in my mind, and plot lines seem to materialize and make sense.

I go back in and get on with the revision.

Just think, come tomorrow I have to go through all this again.  Sigh!

“The Devil You Don’t”, she was the girl you would not take home to your mother!

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…

John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, and 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 favour 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 ‘favour’ 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’.

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