Month: September 2024

In a word: Piece

Aside from the fact that it really means part of something else, we’ve got to remember that it is one of those ‘i before e except after c’ things.

I have a piece of the puzzle.  Well, maybe not.  You know what it’s like when you’re assembling a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  Yes, you get to the end and one piece is missing.

You’re so angry you want to give someone a piece of your mind.

Just remember not to give too many people pieces or you will become mindless.

We might be listening to a musical piece, which can be a movement, I think, in a symphony

Or we might piece together the parts of a child’s toy, especially on that night before Christmas when everything can and will go wrong.  I’ve been there and done that far too many times.

I’ve been known to move a chess piece incorrectly, no, come think of it, I’m always doing that

Some people call a gun a piece.

This is not to be confused with the word peace, which means something else, and hopefully, everyone will put away their pieces (guns) and declare peace.

And, every Sunday, at the church, there’s always an opportunity to say to the people around you ‘peace be with you’.

I wonder if that works very well if the person standing next to you is your enemy?

An excerpt from “One Last Look”: Charlotte is no ordinary girl

This is currently available at Amazon here:  http://amzn.to/2CqUBcz

…

I’d read about out-of-body experiences, and like everyone else, thought it was nonsense.  Some people claimed to see themselves in the operating theatre, medical staff frantically trying to revive them, and being surrounded by white light.

I was definitely looking down, but it wasn’t me I was looking at.

It was two children, a boy and a girl, with their parents, in a park.

The boy was Alan.  He was about six or seven.  The girl was Louise, and she was five years old.  She had long red hair and looked the image of her mother.

I remember it now, it was Louise’s birthday and we went down to Bournemouth to visit our Grandmother, and it was the last time we were all together as a family.

We were flying homemade kites our father had made for us, and after we lay there looking up at the sky, making animals out of the clouds.  I saw an elephant, Louise saw a giraffe.

We were so happy then.

Before the tragedy.

When I looked again ten years had passed and we were living in hell.  Louise and I had become very adept at survival in a world we really didn’t understand, surrounded by people who wanted to crush our souls.

It was not a life a normal child had, our foster parents never quite the sort of people who were adequately equipped for two broken-hearted children.  They tried their best, but their best was not good enough.

Every day it was a battle, to avoid the Bannister’s and Archie in particular, every day he made advances towards Louise and every day she fended him off.

Until one day she couldn’t.

Now I was sitting in the hospital, holding Louise’s hand.  She was in a coma, and the doctors didn’t think she would wake from it.  The damage done to her was too severe.

The doctors were wrong.

She woke, briefly, to name her five assailants.  It was enough to have them arrested.  It was not enough to have them convicted.

Justice would have to be served by other means.

I was outside the Bannister’s home.

I’d made my way there without really thinking, after watching Louise die.  It was like being on autopilot, and I had no control over what I was doing.  I had murder in mind.  It was why I was holding an iron bar.

Skulking in the shadows.  It was not very different from the way the Bannister’s operated.

I waited till Archie came out.  I knew he eventually would.  The police had taken him to the station for questioning, and then let him go.  I didn’t understand why, nor did I care.

I followed him up the towpath, waiting till he stopped to light a cigarette, then came out of the shadows.

“Wotcha got there Alan?” he asked when he saw me.  He knew what it was, and what it was for.

It was the first time I’d seen the fear in his eyes.  He was alone.

“Justice.”

“For that slut of a sister of yours.  I had nuffing to do with it.”

“She said otherwise, Archie.”

“She never said nuffing, you just made it up.”  An attempt at bluster, but there was no confidence in his voice.

I held up the pipe.  It had blood on it.  Willy’s blood.  “She may or may not have Archie, but Willy didn’t make it up.  He sang like a bird.  That’s his blood, probably brains on the pipe too, Archie, and yours will be there soon enough.”

“He dunnit, not me.  Lyin’ bastard would say anything to save his own skin.”  Definitely scared now, he was looking to run away.

“No, Archie.  He didn’t.  I’m coming for you.  All of you Bannisters.  And everyone who touched my sister.”

It was the recurring nightmare I had for years afterwards.

I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the thoughts, the images of Louise, the phone call, the visit to the hospital and being there when she succumbed to her injuries.  Those were the very worst few hours of my life.

She had asked me to come to the railway station and walk home with her, and I was running late.  If I had left when I was supposed to, it would never have happened and for years afterwards, I blamed myself for her death.

If only I’d not been late…

When the police finally caught the rapists, I’d known all along who they’d be; antagonists from school, the ring leader, Archie Bannister, a spurned boyfriend, a boy whose parents, ubiquitously known to all as ‘the Bannister’s, dealt in violence and crime and who owned the neighbourhood.  The sins of the father had been very definitely passed onto the son.

At school, I used to be the whipping boy, Archie, a few grades ahead of me, made a point of belting me and a few of the other boys, to make sure the rest did as they were told.  He liked Louise, but she had no time for a bully like him, even when he promised he would ‘protect’ me.

I knew the gang members, the boys who tow-kowed to save getting beaten up, and after the police couldn’t get enough information to prosecute them because everyone was too afraid to speak out, I went after Willy.  There was always a weak link in a group, and he was it.

He worked in a factory, did long hours on a Wednesday and came home after dark alone.  It was a half mile walk, through a park.  The night I approached him, I smashed the lights and left it in darkness.  He nearly changed his mind and went the long way home.

He didn’t.

It took an hour and a half to get the names.  At first, when he saw me, he laughed.  He said I would be next, and that was four words more than he knew he should have said.

When I found him alone the next morning I showed him the iron bar and told him he was on the list.  I didn’t kill him then, he could wait his turn, and worry about what was going to happen to him.

When the police came to visit me shortly after that encounter, no doubt at the behest of the Bannister’s, the neighbourhood closed ranks and gave me an ironclad alibi.  The Bannister’s then came to visit me and threatened me.  I told them their days were numbered and showed them the door.

At the trial, he and his friends got off on a technicality.  The police had failed to do their job properly, but it was not the police, but a single policeman, corrupted by the Bannisters.

Archie could help but rub it in my face.  He was invincible.

Joe Collins took 12 bullets and six hours to bleed out.  He apologized, he pleaded, he cried, he begged.  I didn’t care.

Barry Mills, a strong lad with a mind to hurting people, Archie’s enforcer, almost got the better of me.  I had to hit him more times than I wanted to, and in the end, I had to be satisfied that he died a short but agonizing death.

I revisited Willy in the hospital.  He’d recovered enough to recognize me, and why I’d come.  Suffocation was too good for him.

David Williams, second in command of the gang, was as tough and nasty as the Bannisters.  His family were forging a partnership with the Bannister’s to make them even more powerful.  Outwardly David was a pleasant sort of chap, affable, polite, and well mannered.  A lot of people didn’t believe he could be like, or working with, the Bannisters.

He and I met in the pub.  We got along like old friends.  He said Willy had just named anyone he could think of, and that he was innocent of any charges.  We shook hands and parted as friends.

Three hours later he was sitting in a chair in the middle of a disused factory, blindfolded and scared.  I sat and watched him, listened to him, first threatening me, and then finally pleading with me.  He’d guessed who it was that had kidnapped him.

When it was dark, I took the blindfold off and shone a very bright light in his eyes.  I asked him if the violence he had visited upon my sister was worth it.  He told me he was just a spectator.

I’d read the coroner’s report.  They all had a turn.  He was a liar.

He took nineteen bullets to die.

Then came Archie.

The same factory only this time there were four seats.  Anna Bannister, brothel owner, Spike Bannister, head of the family, Emily Bannister, sister, and who had nothing to do with their criminal activities.  She just had the misfortune of sharing their name.

Archie’s father told me how he was going to destroy me, and everyone I knew.

A well-placed bullet between the eyes shut him up.

Archie’s mother cursed me.  I let her suffer for an hour before I put her out of her misery.

Archie remained stony-faced until I came to Emily.  The death of his parents meant he would become head of the family.  I guess their deaths meant as little to him as they did me.

He was a little more worried about his sister.

I told him it was confession time.

He told her it was little more than a forced confession and he had done nothing to deserve my retribution.

I shrugged and shot her, and we both watched her fall to the ground screaming in agony.  I told him if he wanted her to live, he had to genuinely confess to his crimes.  This time he did, it all poured out of him.

I went over to Emily.  He watched in horror as I untied her bindings and pulled her up off the floor, suffering only from a small wound in her arm.  Without saying a word she took the gun and walked over to stand behind him.

“Louise was my friend, Archie.  My friend.”

Then she shot him.  Six times.

To me, after saying what looked like a prayer, she said, “Killing them all will not bring her back, Alan, and I doubt she would approve of any of this.  May God have mercy on your soul.”

Now I was in jail.  I’d spent three hours detailing the deaths of the five boys, everything I’d done; a full confession.  Without my sister, my life was nothing.  I didn’t want to go back to the foster parents; I doubt they’d take back a murderer.

They were not allowed to.

For a month I lived in a small cell, in solitary, no visitors.  I believed I was in the queue to be executed, and I had mentally prepared myself for the end.

Then I was told I had a visitor, and I was expecting a priest.

Instead, it was a man called McTavish. Short, wiry, and with an accent that I could barely understand.

“You’ve been a bad boy, Alan.”

When I saw it was not the priest I told the jailers not to let him in, I didn’t want to speak to anyone.  They ignored me.  I’d expected he was a psychiatrist, come to see whether I should be shipped off to the asylum.

I was beginning to think I was going mad.

I ignored him.

“I am the difference between you living or dying Alan, it’s as simple as that.  You’d be a wise man to listen to what I have to offer.”

Death sounded good.  I told him to go away.

He didn’t.  Persistent bugger.

I was handcuffed to the table.  The prison officers thought I was dangerous.  Five, plus two, murders, I guess they had a right to think that.  McTavish sat opposite me, ignoring my request to leave.

“Why’d you do it?”

“You know why.”  Maybe if I spoke he’d go away.

“Your sister.  By all accounts, the scum that did for her deserved what they got.”

“It was murder just the same.  No difference between scum and proper people.”

“You like killing?”

“No-one does.”

“No, I dare say you’re right.  But you’re different, Alan.  As clean and merciless killing I’ve ever seen.  We can use a man like you.”

“We?”

“A group of individuals who clean up the scum.”

I looked up to see his expression, one of benevolence, totally out of character for a man like him.  It looked like I didn’t have a choice.

Trained, cleared, and ready to go.

I hadn’t realized there were so many people who were, for all intents and purposes, invisible.  People that came and went, in malls, in hotels, trains, buses, airports, everywhere, people no one gave a second glance.

People like me.

In a mall, I became a shopper.

In a hotel, I was just another guest heading to his room.

On a bus or a train, I was just another commuter.

At the airport, I became a pilot.  I didn’t need to know how to fly; everyone just accepted a pilot in a pilot suit was just what he looked like.

I had a passkey.

I had the correct documents to get me onto the plane.

That walk down the air bridge was the longest of my life.  Waiting for the call from the gate, waiting for one of the air bridge staff to challenge me, stepping onto the plane.

Two pilots and a steward.  A team.  On the plane early before the rest of the crew.  A group that was committing a crime, had committed a number of crimes and thought they’d got away with it.

Until the judge, the jury and their executioner arrived.

Me.

Quick, clean, merciless.  Done.

I was now an operational field agent.

I was older now, and I could see in the mirror I was starting to go grey at the sides.  It was far too early in my life for this, but I expect it had something to do with my employment.

I didn’t recognize the man who looked back at me.

It was certainly not Alan McKenzie, nor was there any part of that fifteen-year-old who had made the decision to exact revenge.

Given a choice; I would not have gone down this path.

Or so I kept telling myself each time a little more of my soul was sold to the devil.

I was Barry Gamble.

I was Lenny Buckman.

I was Jimmy Hosen.

I was anyone but the person I wanted to be.

That’s what I told Louise, standing in front of her grave, and trying to apologize for all the harm, all the people I’d killed for that one rash decision.  If she was still alive she would be horrified, and ashamed.

Head bowed, tears streamed down my face.

God had gone on holiday and wasn’t there to hand out any forgiveness.  Not that day.  Not any day.

New York, New Years Eve.

I was at the end of a long tour, dragged out of a holiday and back into the fray, chasing down another scumbag.  They were scumbags, and I’d become an automaton hunting them down and dispatching them to what McTavish called a better place.

This time I failed.

A few drinks to blot out the failure, a blonde woman who pushed my buttons, a room in a hotel, any hotel, it was like being on the merry-go-round, round and round and round…

Her name was Silvia or Sandra, or someone I’d met before, but couldn’t quite place her.  It could be an enemy agent for all I knew or all I cared right then.

I was done.

I’d had enough.

I gave her the gun.

I begged her to kill me.

She didn’t.

Instead, I simply cried, letting the pent up emotion loose after being suppressed for so long, and she stayed with me, holding me close, and saying I was safe, that she knew exactly how I felt.

How could she?  No one could know what I’d been through.

I remembered her name after she had gone.

Amanda.

I remembered she had an imperfection in her right eye.

Someone else had the same imperfection.

I couldn’t remember who that was.

Not then.

I had a dingy flat in Kensington, a place that I rarely stayed in if I could help it.  After five-star hotel rooms, it made me feel shabby.

The end of another mission, I was on my way home, the underground, a bus, and then a walk.

It was late.

People were spilling out of the pub after the last drinks.  Most in good spirits, others slightly more boisterous.

A loud-mouthed chap bumped into me, the sort who had one too many, and was ready to take on all comers.

He turned on me, “Watch where you’re going, you fool.”

Two of his friends dragged him away.  He shrugged them off, squared up.

I punched him hard, in the stomach, and he fell backwards onto the ground.  I looked at his two friends.  “Take him home before someone makes mincemeat out of him.”

They grabbed his arms, lifted him off the ground and took him away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a woman, early thirties, quite attractive, but very, very drunk.  She staggered from the bar, bumped into me, and finished up sitting on the side of the road.

I looked around to see where her friends were.  The exodus from the pub was over and the few nearby were leaving to go home.

She was alone, drunk, and by the look of her, unable to move.

I sat beside her.  “Where are your friends?”

“Dunno.”

“You need help?”

She looked up, and sideways at me.  She didn’t look the sort who would get in this state.  Or maybe she was, I was a terrible judge of women.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Nobody.”  I was exactly how I felt.

“Well Mr Nobody, I’m drunk, and I don’t care.  Just leave me here to rot.”

She put her head back between her knees, and it looked to me she was trying to stop the spinning sensation in her head.

Been there before, and it’s not a good feeling.

“Where are your friends?” I asked again.

“Got none.”

“Perhaps I should take you home.”

“I have no home.”

“You don’t look like a homeless person.  If I’m not mistaken, those shoes are worth more than my weekly salary.”  I’d seen them advertised, in the airline magazine, don’t ask me why the ad caught my attention.

She lifted her head and looked at me again.  “You a smart fucking arse are you?”

“I have my moments.”

“Have them somewhere else.”

She rested her head against my shoulder.  We were the only two left in the street, and suddenly in darkness when the proprietor turned off the outside lights.

“Take me home,” she said suddenly.

“Where is your place?”

“Don’t have one.  Take me to your place.”

“You won’t like it.”

“I’m drunk.  What’s not to like until tomorrow.”

I helped her to her feet.  “You have a name?”

“Charlotte.”

The wedding was in a small church.  We had been away for a weekend in the country, somewhere in the Cotswolds, and found this idyllic spot.  Graves going back to the dawn of time, a beautiful garden tended by the vicar and his wife, an astonishing vista over hills and down dales.

On a spring afternoon with the sun, the flowers, and the peacefulness of the country.

I had two people at the wedding, the best man, Bradley, and my boss, Watkins.

Charlotte had her sisters Melissa and Isobel, and Isobel’s husband Giovanni, and their daughter Felicity.

And one more person who was as mysterious as she was attractive, a rather interesting combination as she was well over retirement age.  She arrived late and left early.

Aunt Agatha.

She looked me up and down with what I’d call a withering look.  “There’s more to you than meets the eye,” she said enigmatically.

“Likewise I’m sure,” I said.  It earned me an elbow in the ribs from Charlotte.  It was clear she feared this woman.

“Why did you come,” Charlotte asked.

“You know why.”

Agatha looked at me.  “I like you.  Take care of my granddaughter.  You do not want me for an enemy.”

OK, now she officially scared me.

She thrust a cheque into my hand, smiled, and left.

“Who is she,” I asked after we watched her depart.

“Certainly not my fairy godmother.”

Charlotte never mentioned her again.

Zurich in summer, not exactly my favourite place.

Instead of going to visit her sister Isobel, we stayed at a hotel in Beethovenstrasse and Isobel and Felicity came to us.  Her husband was not with her this time.

Felicity was three or four and looked very much like her mother.  She also looked very much like Charlotte, and I’d remarked on it once before and it received a sharp rebuke.

We’d been twice before, and rather than talk to her sister, Charlotte spent her time with Felicity, and they were, together, like old friends.  For so few visits they had a remarkable rapport.

I had not broached the subject of children with Charlotte, not after one such discussion where she had said she had no desire to be a mother.  It had not been a subject before and wasn’t once since.

Perhaps like all Aunts, she liked the idea of playing with a child for a while and then give it back.

Felicity was curious as to who I was, but never ventured too close.  I believed a child could sense the evil in adults and had seen through my facade of friendliness.  We were never close.

But…

This time, when observing the two together, something quite out of left field popped into my head.  It was not possible, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought she looked like my mother.

And Charlotte had seen me looking in their direction.  “You seem distracted,” she said.

“I was just remembering my mother.  Odd moment, haven’t done so for a very long time.”

“Why now?”  I think she had a look of concern on her face.

“Her birthday, I guess,” I said, the first excuse I could think of.

Another look and I was wrong.  She looked like Isobel or Charlotte, or if I wanted to believe it possible, Melissa too.

I was crying, tears streaming down my face.

I was in pain, searing pain from my lower back stretching down into my legs, and I was barely able to breathe.

It was like coming up for air.

It was like Snow White bringing Prince Charming back to life.  I could feel what I thought was a gentle kiss and tears dropping on my cheeks, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Charlotte slowly lifting her head, a hand gently stroking the hair off my forehead.

And in a very soft voice, she said, “Hi.”

I could not speak, but I think I smiled.  It was the girl with the imperfection in her right eye.  Everything fell into place, and I knew, in that instant that we were irrevocably meant to be together.

“Welcome back.”

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

onelastlookcoverfinal2

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 10

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 instalment of an old feature, and back on the treasure hunt.

…

I’d kept out of Nadia’s way since then, and the few occasions our paths had crossed, she had studiously ignored me. After graduating she disappeared, and seeing here with Alex, just now, was the first time in years.She had grown into the sort of woman you’d see in the social pages of the newspapers and magazines, sometimes for all the wrong reasons, and I wondered if that was how Alex had leveraged her co-operation.

But, there were bigger problems to overcome before I had a chance or find out her back-story.

Alex was going after Rico for the map, a map he didn’t have, a map that Rico was going to need and Boggs was going to suffer the consequences.

Or not, if I could do something about it.

I had a stroke of luck when I got back to the warehouse office where McDonald was waiting, not necessarily for me, but most likely Alex.“Ah, Sam,” he said when he saw me walk through the door, “Come into the office. We need to have a chat.”

That sounded ominous. I wondered if it had anything to do with my absence for what seemed a long time when I’d been watching Alex and Nadia.

“We have a new opening on the afternoon shift, and I thought you might consider it because it pays a little more, with a shift allowance. The hours are 4pm to Midnight. What do you think?”

On the way back to the warehouse I’d been thinking about how I was going to help Boggs and keep the job because the hours I was working made it impossible to do anything during the day, other than spy on Alex.

Taking this afternoon job, I could work, and, in the mornings, help Boggs in his quest.

“When would this start?”

“Tomorrow. You would not have to come in till 4pm.

“Sounds good then, I’ll take it.”

He seemed more relieved that I had accepted. It made me think for a moment whether this was Alex’s idea, and he had an ulterior notice. If he did I guess I would soon find out.

An hour later I was on my way home.I had a lot of items to talk about when I saw Boggs and a possible mission.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

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.

Inspiration, Maybe – Volume 2

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:

Searching for locations: – Lake Louise, Canada, ice, snow, and cold

The Fairmont at Lake Louise, in Canada, is noted for its ice castle in winter.  This has been created by the ice sculptor, Lee Ross since 2007, using about 150 blocks of ice, each weighing roughly 300 pounds.

When I first saw it, from a distance, looked like it was made out of plastic  It’s not.  Venturing out into the very, very cold, a close inspection showed it was made of ice.


And, it’s not likely to melt in a hurry given the temperature when I went down to look at it was hovering around minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit.


And that was the warmest part of the day.