Category: Author

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 136/137

Days 136 and 137 – Writing Exercise

…

The first thing I could hear when consciousness returned was the swooshing sound.  It was an odd sound that lingered, causing puzzlement momentarily.

Until recognition kicked on.  A roof fan, turning slowly, regurgitates air that holds the aroma of mould.

The odd sensation, if it could be called that, was that silence wasn’t silent.  There were noises everywhere on the edge of my consciousness.

The fan was simply the loudest.

Noises that my mind, as it finally started working again, tried to identify because that will to survive had kicked in.

It needed to know where I was, why I was there, how long I had been there, and what had happened in the period just before.

Except my mind at that moment could only deal with one thing at a time.

The fact that I was alive.

…

It was dark, but when was darkness really darkness?  It wasn’t.  There was always some ambient light somewhere.  A crack, a hole, even a covered window could never stop even the tiniest of rays from getting through.

There was one, at the top, where the black paint had not been applied properly.  I focused on it, watched it get bigger, and then converted what was inky blackness into a lesser shade of black.

I was in a room.

I closed my eyes then opened them again.

There was something else.

Yes, on the periphery of my vision.  A blinking red dot.  I shifted my head slightly and saw it, perhaps the corner of the room, blink, blink, blink.

Steady.  Slow.  As if sending a message.  Of course, we are watching you.

Question: Who is the ‘we’?

…

Location established.

Not in imminent danger.

Breathe.

I was lying down on a reasonably soft surface, and carefully testing fingers, one arm then the other, one leg then the other.

No restraints.  No pain when moving any part.

Move head, no pain, so my incapacitation was not a result of being hit or shot.

Only possibility: drugged.

So…

Where was I before this happened?

It took a moment to process the memories, isolate the details.  I received an address, a house I had been to before several times, with a special code.

An urgent request for help.

At the last interview, I had been instructed to give the target a burner phone with one number, mine, and a code that would be routed to me with the location.

I went to the location, gained access to the building, and found the target sitting in a room bound to a chair.

Then nothing.

They, whoever they were, had been waiting for me.

That meant only one possibility:  the target was in on the ambush.

…

Here’s the thing.

If I were to do a threat assessment, based on one being low and ten being high, it was, at the moment, a three.

I was not bound, not gagged, not hurt.

Why?

Whoever was holding me in this room wanted me for something.

The lack of restraints told me they did not expect me to retaliate, which meant they had leverage, and they would speak to me before initiating anything.

Alternatively, running through possibilities, they could use this room as a means of conditioning, alternating hot and cold, intense lighting, flashing lights, loud and soft sounds, darkness, sleep deprivation, all so I would lose track of time.

Leading to interrogation, sometimes with violence.

Been there and done that.

They could know why I was there, they might not know the whole story, or they might want something else altogether.  I was a harbinger of secrets.  A prize target. 

For someone who wanted revenge for past deeds…

Or maybe I was just being sidelined while certain people got away.  It would set us back, and I would miss the deadline.

…

The room was suddenly bathed in light.  Not bright but enough to make everything distinctly clear.  After my eyes adjusted.

It was just an ordinary room, pale green walls, carpet with water stains on one side, a window painted black. A bed and nothing else.

The bedspread had seen better days.

The sheets and pillowcase matched.

It was not a hotel room.

“Mr Ryker.”  The voice was female, youngish, not angry, but not gloating.

The sound came from the roof, near the flashing red light.  The speaker was watching me.

“I’m going to open the door.  There is no point trying to escape.  If you do try, you will be shot.  I just want to ask some questions.”

Routine or otherwise?  While attached to electric wires, I could be shocked if I didn’t give a suitable answer.

“Go ahead,” I said, whether they believed I would stay put or not.

I sat on the side of the bed after considering my options for escape.  It was possible, but it was also suicidal.  It was a better option to see who my captor was, then reassess.

After a minute, the lock clicked, and the door opened.  I could see a guard, armed, ten feet back from the other side of the door.  Just outside a woman, nothing special to define her, in dress, in features, in language.

She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a schoolteacher or librarian.  That might have been a defining feature.  A tigress dressed up to look like a kitten.

“Mr Ryker, at last we meet.  You are a very elusive man.”

“Not that elusive, apparently.”  I gave my best impression of a defeated protagonist.

She smiled.  “Don’t despair.  You only made one mistake.  You cared.”

I shrugged.  There was a difference between caring and following orders, but I wasn’t going to explain the difference. 

What I wanted to know was how they knew about the call, or worse still, the location of the target that was used to draw me into their web.

“Come.  Walk with me.”

“Isn’t that risky.  I’m sure you know what I’m capable of?”

“You’re not going to risk Deborah’s life, are you?”

Was there a simple answer to that question?  If we could not keep her safe, there was only one other option. It was one I was not very happy about.

“In normal circumstances, Mr Ryker, I would agree with you.  But you stepped over that invisible line, didn’t you?”

I closed my eyes and took a few seconds to think about how different this might be if I had not taken that one step.  It was just one kiss, but it had a profound effect on me.

Against everything I had been taught.

One moment undid years of training and work ethic, loyalty to the job, and ignoring the distractions.

A shrug, then I stood and faced her.

“My boss always said, in this line of work, everyone has a use-by date.”

“That’s a bit harsh.  You make it sound like he thinks you are all sacrificial lambs.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Doesn’t have to be so.”  She took several steps back, leaving space for me to pass, and the guard would not lose direct line of sight.

I joined her.

There was a hint of lavender in the air.

I’d never seen her before, and of all the players from the briefing, and there were about a dozen, she was not one of them.

So much for thorough research.

“You’re wondering who I am, aren’t you?”

“Not just another pretty face, I imagine.”

“You think I have a pretty face?  I assure you, back when I was a teenager, I was the proverbial ugly duckling.”

High school, peer groups, the in girls making life hell for the ugly ducklings.  Revenge could be a bitch, and I wondered how many of her contemporaries were wishing they’d never met her.

“Not any more.”

…

It was a long passage with doors with numbers on them.  A dormitory, perhaps.  An old school.

At the end of the passage a large ornate staircase, with two sets of stairs to the level below, one on the left-hand side, and one on the right.

The wall opposite the balcony had windows, some glass, smeared with years of detritus, the centre Staines glass with a depiction of Christ of the cross and angels swirling.

Below looked dusty and littered with furniture that had been, if I were to guess, tossed by disaffected students or inmates.

Odd, no one had tried to hurl a desk or chair through the window.

It was impossible to see outside.

“What is this place?”

“A monument to the rich and powerful who strived hard to keep most of the population in poverty.”

“And when the revolution came, you simply traded one set of greedy bastards for another.  The people basically traded poverty for death.”

There was a flash of anger in her eyes.  “You think you’re better than us?”

“I think if you were to go back to your village and see how the people are, they would be no better off than they were a hundred and fifty years ago.  If I were to go back home to my village, we would be no better off than we were a hundred years ago.  The world revolves around the one per cent who own everything and the five per cent that run everything.  I’m sure you want for nothing, which makes this a hollow argument about ideology.”

What looked like someone counting to ten before exploding, she sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“We will beg to differ.”

“Think what you like.  You’re totally wrong, and if your people taught you anything, it’s not to debate with the enemy.”

The smile returned, the first in her eyes remained.

Was I going to be the challenge she might be looking for? 

Several volleys of machine gun fire broke the tension, and her eyes betrayed her thoughts.

“What the…”

A single shot dropped the guard with the gun, and out of the shadows, one of Barrymore’s agents appeared.  Jocelyn or Josephine, I couldn’t remember her name.

Another two heavily armoured agents came up the stairs, guns pointed at my mysterious friend.

I saw Jocelyn put a hand to her ear and listen. The reply, “Clean up, move out.”

The two agents bound the girl and took her away.  She had not recovered from the shock.  I was still a little surprised myself.

“It works,” Jocelyn said.

She was referring to the device that had been implanted in me before the operation.  They needed a crash test dummy.  I volunteered.

If it hadn’t worked, it was quite literally a suicide mission.

“Is she anyone of consequence?”  I was referring to my captor.

“Just one of a dozen brainwashed agents he thinks can contribute to a better world.  It’s like a cult, with a maniacal leader and a bunch of acolytes.  Pity really.”  She slapped me on the shoulder. “Good work.  We got another assignment for you.  Not quite as easy as this one was.”

Crash test dummy or suicidal maniac? 

All in a day’s work.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Searching for locations: Vancouver, Canada – 2

This morning we wake up to rain.  Or so we thought.  Taking a closer look out the window of our room on the 16th floor, we notice the rain is speckled with snowflakes.  As the morning progressed, the snow got harder until there were flurries.

 Later we discover this is called wet snow by the local Vancouverians, and whilst they winge a lot over the endless rain, to them rain is infinitely better than snow.

To us, by the afternoon, it was almost blizzard conditions, with lots of snow.  Then the only thing is that it does not accumulate on most of the ground so there are no drifts to play in.

Because the weather is so dismal, we decided not to go into Vancouver to do some sightseeing because the clouds were down to the ground, and then the snow set in.

Another interesting fact is that construction workers do not go off the job if it’s raining, or worse, when it is snowing.  Our room overlooks a new apartment complex under construction, and the workers battled on through what seemed like appalling conditions.

At four in the afternoon, the Maple Leafs are playing the Ohio Blue Jackets in Ohio.  It is a game we expect them to win.  Sparks is the goalkeeper, not Anderson; they’re playing back-to-back games, and Anderson’s starting tomorrow.

They win, four goals to two.  

Just before darkness falls, about four thirty, the snow stops, and there is a little rain, which melts the snow.

Time to go up to the executive lounge to get some snacks and coffee, then sleep because the next day we’re taking on the Trans Canada highway from Vancouver to Kamloops.

The forecast is for snow, more snow, and just for a change, more snow.

In a word: Park

We mostly understand that a park is an area set aside for recreation, and can have trees, flowers, a lake, and vast lawns.  These parks are also sometimes called ‘gardens’.

A great example of a park is Central Park in New York.

Nearly every city has a park of some sort; some have more than one.

But the word park has several other uses.  For instance,

You can park a car, or bike, or yourself; in other words, it’s a place where you stop for a while.  For cars, it is a carpark.

You could say ‘it’s just a walk in the park’, which means that the job is going to be easy.  I never understood that analogy because quite a lot of parks have difficult walks, and not so much ‘a walk in the park’.

It is also used to describe a place where animals are kept, other than calling it a zoo; it can go by the name of a wildlife park.  Zoos, though, are more for cities.  Wildlife parks can be quite huge, and many are found in Africa.

A park can also be used to describe a sporting arena or field.

You can park a bag in a locker.

You can park an idea in the back of your mind and come back to it later, or if you are like me, it disappears into the ether.

It can be an area of land around a manor house, but there are very few of those left now.  The most notable of these are in England and were designed by a man called Capability Brown.

Another excerpt from ‘Betrayal’; a work in progress

…

My next destination in the quest was the hotel we believed Anne Merriweather had stayed at.

I was, in a sense, flying blind because we had no concrete evidence she had been there, and the message she had left behind didn’t quite name the hotel or where Vladimir was going to take her.

Mindful of the fact that someone might have been following me, I checked to see if the person I’d assumed had followed me to Elizabeth’s apartment was still in place, but I couldn’t see him. Next, I made a mental note of seven different candidates and committed them to memory.

Then I set off to the hotel, hailing a taxi. There was the possibility that the cab driver was one of them, but perhaps I was slightly more paranoid than I should be. I’d been watching the queue, and there were two others before me.

The journey took about an hour, during which time I kept an eye out the back to see if anyone had been following us. If anyone was, I couldn’t see them.

I had the cab drop me off a block from the hotel and then spent the next hour doing a complete circuit of the block the hotel was on, checking the front and rear entrances, the cameras in place, and the siting of the driveway into the underground carpark. There was a camera over the entrance, and one we hadn’t checked for footage. I sent a text message to Fritz to look into it.

The hotel lobby was large and busy, which was exactly what you’d want if you wanted to come and go without standing out. It would be different later at night, but I could see her arriving about mid-afternoon, and anonymous among the clientele the hotel attracted.

I spent an hour sitting in various positions in the lobby simply observing. I had already ascertained where the elevator lobby for the rooms was, and the elevator down to the car park. Fortunately, it was not ‘guarded’, but there was a steady stream of concierge staff coming and going to the lower levels, and, just from time to time, guests.

Then, when there was a commotion at the front door, what seemed to be a collision of guests and free-wheeling bags, I saw one of the seven potential taggers sitting by the front door. Waiting for me to leave? Or were they wondering why I was spending so much time there?

Taking advantage of that confusion, I picked my moment to head for the elevators that went down to the car park, pressed the down button, and waited.

There was no car on the ground level, so I had to wait, watching, like several others, the guests untangling themselves at the entrance, and keeping an eye on my potential surveillance, still absorbed in the confusion.

The doors to the left car opened, and a concierge stepped out, gave me a quick look, then headed back to his desk. I stepped into the car, pressed the first level down, the level I expected cars to arrive on, and waited what seemed like a long time for the doors to close.

As they did, I was expecting to see a hand poke through the gap, a latecomer. Nothing happened, and I put it down to a television moment.

There were three basement levels, and for a moment, I let my imagination run wild and considered the possibility that there were more levels. Of course, there was no indication on the control panel that there were any other floors, and I’d yet to see anything like it in reality.

With a shake of my head to return to reality, the car arrived, the doors opened, and I stepped out.

A car pulled up, and the driver stepped out, went around to the rear of his car, and pulled out a case. I half expected him to throw me the keys, but the instant glance he gave me told him he was not the concierge, and instead he brushed past me like I wasn’t there.

He bashed the up button several times impatiently and cursed when the doors didn’t open immediately. Not a happy man.

Another car drove past on its way down to a lower level.

I looked up and saw the CCTV camera, pointing towards the entrance, visible in the distance. A gate that lifted up was just about back in position, then clunked when it finally closed. The footage from the camera would not prove much, even if it had been working, because it didn’t cover the lift lobby, only what was in the direction of the car entrance.

The doors to the other elevator car opened, and a man in a suit stepped out.

“Can I help you, sir? You seem lost.”

Security, or something else. “It seems that way. I went to the elevator lobby, got in, and it went down rather than up. I must have been in the wrong place.”

“Lost it is, then, sir.” I could hear the contempt for Americans in his tone. “If you will accompany me, please.”

He put out a hand ready to guide me back into the elevator. I was only too happy to oblige him. There had been a sign near the button panel that said the basement levels were only to be accessed by the guests.

Once inside, he turned a key and pressed the lobby button. The doors closed, and we went up. He stood, facing the door, not speaking. A few seconds later, he was ushering me out to the lobby.

“Now, sir, if you are a guest…”

“Actually, I’m looking for one. She called me and said she would be staying in this hotel and to come down and visit her. I was trying to get to the sixth floor.”

“Good. Let’s go over to the desk and see what we can do for you.”

I followed him over to the reception desk, where he signalled one of the clerks, a young woman who looked and acted very efficiently, and told her of my request, but then remained to oversee the proceeding.

“Name of guest, sir?”

“Merriweather, Anne. I’m her brother, Alexander.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my passport to prove that I was who I said I was. She glanced cursorily at it.

She typed the name into the computer, and then we waited a few seconds while it considered what to output. Then, she said, “That lady is not in the hotel, sir.”

Time to put on my best-confused look. “But she said she would be staying here for the week. I made a special trip to come here to see her.”

Another puzzled look from the clerk, then, “When did she call you?”

An interesting question to ask, and it set off a warning bell in my head. I couldn’t say today, it would have to be the day she was supposedly taken.

“Last Saturday, about four in the afternoon.”

Another look at the screen, then, “It appears she checked out Sunday morning. I’m afraid you have made a trip in vain.”

Indeed, I had. “Was she staying with anyone?”

I just managed to see the warning pass from the suited man to the clerk. I thought he had shown an interest when I mentioned the name, and now I had confirmation. He knew something about her disappearance. The trouble was, he wasn’t going to volunteer any information because he was more than just hotel security.

“No.”

“Odd,” I muttered. “I thought she told me she was staying with a man named Vladimir something or other. I’m not too good at pronouncing those Russian names. Are you sure?”

She didn’t look back at the screen. “Yes.”

“OK, now one thing I do know about staying in hotels is that you are required to ask guests with foreign passports their next destination, just in case they need to be found. Did she say where she was going next?” It was a long shot, but I thought I’d ask.

“Moscow. As I understand it, she lives in Moscow. That was the only address she gave us.”

I smiled. “Thank you. I know where that is. I probably should have gone there first.”

She didn’t answer; she didn’t have to, her expression did that perfectly.

The suited man spoke again, looking at the clerk. “Thank you.” He swivelled back to me. “I’m sorry we can’t help you.”

“No. You have more than you can know.”

“What was your name again, sir, just in case you still cannot find her?”

“Alexander Merriweather. Her brother. And if she is still missing, I will be posting a very large reward. At the moment, you can best contact me via the American Embassy.”

Money is always a great motivator, and that thoughtful expression on his face suggested he gave a moment’s thought to it.

I left him with that offer and left. If anything, the people who were holding her would know she had a brother, that her brother was looking for her, and equally that brother had money.

…

© Charles Heath – 2018-2025

“Sunday in New York”, a romantic adventure that’s not a walk in the park!

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact that his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just several small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, point to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints at impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovers piece by piece, damning evidence that she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence are about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

…

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 136/137

Days 136 and 137 – Writing Exercise

…

The first thing I could hear when consciousness returned was the swooshing sound.  It was an odd sound that lingered, causing puzzlement momentarily.

Until recognition kicked on.  A roof fan, turning slowly, regurgitates air that holds the aroma of mould.

The odd sensation, if it could be called that, was that silence wasn’t silent.  There were noises everywhere on the edge of my consciousness.

The fan was simply the loudest.

Noises that my mind, as it finally started working again, tried to identify because that will to survive had kicked in.

It needed to know where I was, why I was there, how long I had been there, and what had happened in the period just before.

Except my mind at that moment could only deal with one thing at a time.

The fact that I was alive.

…

It was dark, but when was darkness really darkness?  It wasn’t.  There was always some ambient light somewhere.  A crack, a hole, even a covered window could never stop even the tiniest of rays from getting through.

There was one, at the top, where the black paint had not been applied properly.  I focused on it, watched it get bigger, and then converted what was inky blackness into a lesser shade of black.

I was in a room.

I closed my eyes then opened them again.

There was something else.

Yes, on the periphery of my vision.  A blinking red dot.  I shifted my head slightly and saw it, perhaps the corner of the room, blink, blink, blink.

Steady.  Slow.  As if sending a message.  Of course, we are watching you.

Question: Who is the ‘we’?

…

Location established.

Not in imminent danger.

Breathe.

I was lying down on a reasonably soft surface, and carefully testing fingers, one arm then the other, one leg then the other.

No restraints.  No pain when moving any part.

Move head, no pain, so my incapacitation was not a result of being hit or shot.

Only possibility: drugged.

So…

Where was I before this happened?

It took a moment to process the memories, isolate the details.  I received an address, a house I had been to before several times, with a special code.

An urgent request for help.

At the last interview, I had been instructed to give the target a burner phone with one number, mine, and a code that would be routed to me with the location.

I went to the location, gained access to the building, and found the target sitting in a room bound to a chair.

Then nothing.

They, whoever they were, had been waiting for me.

That meant only one possibility:  the target was in on the ambush.

…

Here’s the thing.

If I were to do a threat assessment, based on one being low and ten being high, it was, at the moment, a three.

I was not bound, not gagged, not hurt.

Why?

Whoever was holding me in this room wanted me for something.

The lack of restraints told me they did not expect me to retaliate, which meant they had leverage, and they would speak to me before initiating anything.

Alternatively, running through possibilities, they could use this room as a means of conditioning, alternating hot and cold, intense lighting, flashing lights, loud and soft sounds, darkness, sleep deprivation, all so I would lose track of time.

Leading to interrogation, sometimes with violence.

Been there and done that.

They could know why I was there, they might not know the whole story, or they might want something else altogether.  I was a harbinger of secrets.  A prize target. 

For someone who wanted revenge for past deeds…

Or maybe I was just being sidelined while certain people got away.  It would set us back, and I would miss the deadline.

…

The room was suddenly bathed in light.  Not bright but enough to make everything distinctly clear.  After my eyes adjusted.

It was just an ordinary room, pale green walls, carpet with water stains on one side, a window painted black. A bed and nothing else.

The bedspread had seen better days.

The sheets and pillowcase matched.

It was not a hotel room.

“Mr Ryker.”  The voice was female, youngish, not angry, but not gloating.

The sound came from the roof, near the flashing red light.  The speaker was watching me.

“I’m going to open the door.  There is no point trying to escape.  If you do try, you will be shot.  I just want to ask some questions.”

Routine or otherwise?  While attached to electric wires, I could be shocked if I didn’t give a suitable answer.

“Go ahead,” I said, whether they believed I would stay put or not.

I sat on the side of the bed after considering my options for escape.  It was possible, but it was also suicidal.  It was a better option to see who my captor was, then reassess.

After a minute, the lock clicked, and the door opened.  I could see a guard, armed, ten feet back from the other side of the door.  Just outside a woman, nothing special to define her, in dress, in features, in language.

She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a schoolteacher or librarian.  That might have been a defining feature.  A tigress dressed up to look like a kitten.

“Mr Ryker, at last we meet.  You are a very elusive man.”

“Not that elusive, apparently.”  I gave my best impression of a defeated protagonist.

She smiled.  “Don’t despair.  You only made one mistake.  You cared.”

I shrugged.  There was a difference between caring and following orders, but I wasn’t going to explain the difference. 

What I wanted to know was how they knew about the call, or worse still, the location of the target that was used to draw me into their web.

“Come.  Walk with me.”

“Isn’t that risky.  I’m sure you know what I’m capable of?”

“You’re not going to risk Deborah’s life, are you?”

Was there a simple answer to that question?  If we could not keep her safe, there was only one other option. It was one I was not very happy about.

“In normal circumstances, Mr Ryker, I would agree with you.  But you stepped over that invisible line, didn’t you?”

I closed my eyes and took a few seconds to think about how different this might be if I had not taken that one step.  It was just one kiss, but it had a profound effect on me.

Against everything I had been taught.

One moment undid years of training and work ethic, loyalty to the job, and ignoring the distractions.

A shrug, then I stood and faced her.

“My boss always said, in this line of work, everyone has a use-by date.”

“That’s a bit harsh.  You make it sound like he thinks you are all sacrificial lambs.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Doesn’t have to be so.”  She took several steps back, leaving space for me to pass, and the guard would not lose direct line of sight.

I joined her.

There was a hint of lavender in the air.

I’d never seen her before, and of all the players from the briefing, and there were about a dozen, she was not one of them.

So much for thorough research.

“You’re wondering who I am, aren’t you?”

“Not just another pretty face, I imagine.”

“You think I have a pretty face?  I assure you, back when I was a teenager, I was the proverbial ugly duckling.”

High school, peer groups, the in girls making life hell for the ugly ducklings.  Revenge could be a bitch, and I wondered how many of her contemporaries were wishing they’d never met her.

“Not any more.”

…

It was a long passage with doors with numbers on them.  A dormitory, perhaps.  An old school.

At the end of the passage a large ornate staircase, with two sets of stairs to the level below, one on the left-hand side, and one on the right.

The wall opposite the balcony had windows, some glass, smeared with years of detritus, the centre Staines glass with a depiction of Christ of the cross and angels swirling.

Below looked dusty and littered with furniture that had been, if I were to guess, tossed by disaffected students or inmates.

Odd, no one had tried to hurl a desk or chair through the window.

It was impossible to see outside.

“What is this place?”

“A monument to the rich and powerful who strived hard to keep most of the population in poverty.”

“And when the revolution came, you simply traded one set of greedy bastards for another.  The people basically traded poverty for death.”

There was a flash of anger in her eyes.  “You think you’re better than us?”

“I think if you were to go back to your village and see how the people are, they would be no better off than they were a hundred and fifty years ago.  If I were to go back home to my village, we would be no better off than we were a hundred years ago.  The world revolves around the one per cent who own everything and the five per cent that run everything.  I’m sure you want for nothing, which makes this a hollow argument about ideology.”

What looked like someone counting to ten before exploding, she sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“We will beg to differ.”

“Think what you like.  You’re totally wrong, and if your people taught you anything, it’s not to debate with the enemy.”

The smile returned, the first in her eyes remained.

Was I going to be the challenge she might be looking for? 

Several volleys of machine gun fire broke the tension, and her eyes betrayed her thoughts.

“What the…”

A single shot dropped the guard with the gun, and out of the shadows, one of Barrymore’s agents appeared.  Jocelyn or Josephine, I couldn’t remember her name.

Another two heavily armoured agents came up the stairs, guns pointed at my mysterious friend.

I saw Jocelyn put a hand to her ear and listen. The reply, “Clean up, move out.”

The two agents bound the girl and took her away.  She had not recovered from the shock.  I was still a little surprised myself.

“It works,” Jocelyn said.

She was referring to the device that had been implanted in me before the operation.  They needed a crash test dummy.  I volunteered.

If it hadn’t worked, it was quite literally a suicide mission.

“Is she anyone of consequence?”  I was referring to my captor.

“Just one of a dozen brainwashed agents he thinks can contribute to a better world.  It’s like a cult, with a maniacal leader and a bunch of acolytes.  Pity really.”  She slapped me on the shoulder. “Good work.  We got another assignment for you.  Not quite as easy as this one was.”

Crash test dummy or suicidal maniac? 

All in a day’s work.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

“Echoes From The Past”, the past doesn’t necessarily stay there


What happens when your past finally catches up with you?

…

Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.

Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment, Will’s life slowly starts to unravel, and it’s obvious to him that it’s time to move on.

This time, however, there is more at stake.

Will has broken his number one rule: don’t get involved.

With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.

But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved, there are going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.

…

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The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 28

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.

…

I was escorted to a small room that adjoined the interview room, and I was separated from the main event by a one-way mirror.

It was a cliché, but not surprising.

The interrogation room was much the same as an office, with a table, two chairs, and on the side, a cabinet, closed up, an interesting addition to what might be called a boring room.

It was currently empty, and I was the only one in this small room, sitting at a counter, looking in.  In front of me was a stack of writing pads, pens and pencils.  I wondered if I was the only party that was about to observe Lallo and the new arrival.

Five minutes passed before the door to the room next door opened and a hooded man was led in.  His hands were cuffed, and his legs had chains, standard prisoner gear.  

From the man’s manner and body language, it appeared to me as though he was surprised he was being treated so badly, and was not forcefully resistant, but wasn’t making it easy for his captors.

He was asked to sit, and when he didn’t he was forced to sit, with some force, and then his hands were locked onto the metal bar at the table.  His legs were locked to a lower bar.  A precaution in case he decided to attack his interrogator.

One thing I knew for sure, this man would not give up information willingly.

Once he was secured, one guard took up station inside the door, and the other left.  That’s when Lallo made his appearance.  He came in, put a file on the desk, nodded to the guard who remove3d the hood, and then he sat.

I’d expected to see Lallo in full uniform.  He was not.  He was, if anything, dressed casually.  The man on the other side was in a cream suit, very crumpled and slightly stained as if he had not changed during the entire journey from capture to this room.

No doubt part of his conditioning.

“Mr Jacobi, that is your name isn’t it?”

The man stared at him sullenly.  I got the impression he was usually the one asking the questions, not the other way around.

The man lifted his head and stared straight at Lallo.  It was not a look I’d want to be on the end of, but Lallo, I suspect, had been on the end of a lot worse.  And a closer inspection of his face, and features, I noticed that someone had already started the harsher form of interrogation.

“You know this already.  I am an employee of the United States Government, your Government, and you will regret treating me like this.”

“That may be so, but you have failed to define what part of the Government it is you work for.  Is it the CIA?”

Another withering stare, followed by, “You people are so incompetent, the left-hand does not know what the right hand is doing.  I require a telephone so that I can contact my liaison, and this farce will stop, and you will be reprimanded very severely.”

“I seriously doubt anyone knows you are missing yet.  Maybe after a week or so, but we know you keep to yourself, and very few people know your business, a situation, I assure you, benefits us more than it benefits you.  So I will assume you are Jacobi.”

There was a knock on the door, and Monroe came in with a small box, handed it to Lallo, and then left again.

Lallo looked in the box, then pulled out a plastic evidence bag with a mobile phone in it, and put it on the table.  “This is the phone you use to call General Bahti, your contact inside the current government.  It seems it is not registered with a telephone network in your country, but another, shall we say neutral, country.

He reached into the box and pulled out another plastic evidence bag also with mobile phone in it.  “This phone,” he held it up, “is the one you use to talk to the, shall we call them the local resistance.  It’s so much nicer than calling them rebels.”

The man’s eyes followed each bag from the box to the table.  He was almost expressionless.

Then Lallo pulled out another bag, with another phone, “This is the phone which you make and receive calls from your American contact.  It is what we call a burner phone, and was given to you, we think, on a recent visit to this country, by that contact.  I am assuming this is the person you wish to call and who will stop this farce.”

If Lallo was expecting the man to break down there and then, he was sadly mistaken.  There was little if any movement in his expression, perhaps just enough for Lallo to assume he’d got the men behind the phones correct.  That he was basically unmoved at Lallo’s revelations told me this man had a resolve Lallo was going to find hard to shake.

Lallo took the third phone out of the evidence bag and pushed it across the table towards the man.  “You can call your contact now, and you can tell him I would like to speak to him.”

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2022

‘What Sets Us Apart’ – A beta reader’s view

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

A retired spy, well, not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a 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 to pique his interest.  Then, inexplicably, she disappears.  That might have been the end of it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum: find her or come back to work.

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

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

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

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

Bring it on!

…

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

…

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 50

Arrival in Sorrento

…

We didn’t have to wait that long to see what our tail did, he simply sped up and drove off, perhaps satisfied he had been made, and knew we were going to ditch him before we got to our eventual destination.

It would be hard for him to guess where we were going, so that meant that he would arrange for someone to pick us up as we came into the city, or after.

After all, he knew what car I was travelling in, and he knew what we looked like.  Which is why we stopped briefly in Naples and changed cars and clothes.

Then, by a quirk of fate, we saw him again, parked on the side of the road, near Pompei, waiting.  He had been hidden behind several trucks, but at the last minute on of the trucks moved, and I saw the car.

And there he sat, not assuming we would be smart enough to change cars.  What was it Rodby said from time to time?  Good help is hard to find.

I had no doubt the moment he reported in, that other arrangements were not already underway.  If they were smart, they’d know what my destination was, the home of the Burkehardt’s up in the hills that overlooked the Mediterranean, with billion-dollar views, nestled in among the exclusive and very expensive resorts.

Cecelia had booked on and it was where she had been relaxing in what time she had away from surveillance.  She was at the hotel when I called, and we arrived there a half hour later.

I’d already forewarned her about my new shadow.

She met us down in the foyer, gave Francesca her ‘don’t mess with me, or else’ scowl, and then took us up to the room.  It was amazing, and I would probably never be able to afford to stay in a room, or place, like it if I had to pay for it myself.

Francesca was suitably impressed.  “How much had you got on your expense account.  I can barely buy a sandwich with mine.”

“Normally we don’t either, but this is a ‘by all means available’ mission.”

She gave me a blank look, and I didn’t have the time or inclination to explain it to her.  We would not be seeing her again after this.

“I trust your charges are behaving themselves selves and remaining anonymous,” I asked her, after sitting down with a bottle of wine and three glasses, and we’d all taken a separate chair each.

“No.  You didn’t expect them to stay in the room, despite the fact someone is trying to kill them.  I’m not their nursemaid.  They want to get killed they can.”

I frowned at her.  We were supposed to be keeping them alive.  I suppose learning they were fakes didn’t help.  Vittoria and Juliet weren’t, or at least I hope they weren’t, but the jury was still out on that.

I was going back to see them after I spoke to the Burkehardt matriarch.  Or maybe I would talk to Juliet again.  I couldn’t believe that everything I did seemed to involve her, and I was hoping the universe wasn’t trying to tell me something.

“Who are these people again,” Francesca asked.

“Didn’t you tell her?”  Cecelia looked at me.

“No.  Relevance?”

“None,” she looked at Francesca.  “A woman called Vittoria who was a maid at the house I’ve been watching for that last day or so and her daughter Juliet are supposed to be keeping a low profile.  It appears Juliet might be another direct descendant of the Count’s.  I’m surprised your employers didn’t tell you of her?”

“They mentioned the possibility of another heir.  They just didn’t know who or where she was.  She’s here, you say?”

“Yes.  I hope they’re safe, and, no, we’re not telling you where they are.  Not until we know your employers, whom I’m assuming are the Burkehardt’s, are not trying to kill her.”

“I assure you that neither am I, and I work for the investigations company, not the Burkehardt’s.  I can only take orders from my boss.  He was very clear about that.”

“Good.  I’d hate to have to shoot you because you lied.”

I could see she meant what she said.  I hoped Francesca did too.  She seemed to brush that threat aside.

“What about the countess?”

“That’s the bigger question, where is she?  We’d like to know so if you have any ideas, please share.  For this dynamic to work, you must be willing to share information.  It’s not going to be a one-way street.”

“So, you don’t know where the countess is?”

Cecelia looked at me. 

“Inquisitive little bugger, isn’t she?  Don’t make it so obvious you want to know.  Didn’t your boss tell you; that you must be subtle when approaching people like us, people with more experience, and less of a conscience.

Francesca looked at me.

“Don’t think I won’t stop you if you get in the way.  You can stay while it is useful to us, but don’t ask questions you know we’re not going to give you answers for.”

“Then I’ll assume you don’t know where she is, other than most likely in Sorrento, waiting for the meeting.”

“Good assessment.”

© Charles Heath 2023