At the end of the first book in the series, Alistair, Zoe the assassin’s handler, was killed.
As far as he was concerned, Zoe had reneged on the contract to kill a target, and for that, she had to be punished, just to let the rest of the team know they could not decide arbitrarily who or who they would not kill.
For her sins, Zoe had been captured and was about to be executed when John, the man who wanted to become her boyfriend, turned up on a luckless and unplanned rescue mission.
But as ad-hoc operations go, that one was very successful. Zoe, though badly injured aided John in a do-or-die escape.
Alistair learned to his chagrin, that a badly injured Zoe and untrained well-meaning friend trumped overconfidence.
Of course, Alistair’s death does not go unnoticed, and his mother, a renowned and very capable ex-KGB agent with connections, wanted to avenge his death. Her influence reaches as far as the upper echelons of the State’s intelligence services, and requests from her would never be ignored.
Such a request for information is made, and so starts the next book in the series.
Revenge.
Of course, nothing to do with Zoe or John, or their relationship, runs smoothly, and once again in pursuit of the impossible, makes it his mission in life to win over the assassin-on-sabbatical.
But first, he has to find her., and sort through the lies and treachery of his best friend who is also looking for Zoe, but for entirely different reasons.
It was in the news, and seemed odd to me, that a word such as clip would have any significance beyond that of having a haircut, but apparently, it does.
Maybe they’re referring to the clip of ammunition for a gun?
But for us, a clip can be part of a haircut, letting the scissors loose.
And for those children who had a father who was a hard taskmaster, you would be familiar with a clip around the ears. It can just as easily be used, say when a car clips another car when the driver loses control.
There’s a horse that runs at a fast clip, and can be anything for that matter that moves quickly.
It can be a spring-loaded device that holds all your papers together. Or just about anything else for that matter.
You can clip an item from a newspaper, aptly known as a news clipping.
it can be a portion of a larger film or television programme, but to me, sometimes, when a series has a clip show, an episode where someone reminisces and we see clips from previous episodes.
And last but not least, clip the wings of those so-called high flyers at the office.
John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, and prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
This is a residential tower down at the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, with every apartment on the beachside overlooking the ocean.
There could almost be a Die Gard scenarion going on here, but I like the idea of a drama unfolding in the penthouse, like
The husband comes home and finds the wife with her personal trainer, who is getting too personal, and he is about to thrown him over the balcony. That’s a long way down.
Uber eats arrive at the door, but it’s really two wannabe ransomers who take the daughter, tie her up, then start making absurd demands, and the daughter almost throws the two of them over the balcony.
But, not one to miss an opportunity, or get her stepmother, who is younger than her, into all sorts of trouble.
The brother of the owner, a single father is killed in a freak accident, and his son has to be taken in, brought back to the penthouse, and thinks he’s struck it rich. The conniving brat is about to be taught a lesson he’ll never forget when he discovers all is not what it seems.
Or my absolute favorite, I win the lottery, move into the apartment, and so do the other 27 layabout members of my family.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. It’s going to be an interesting morning.
When I finally make it out to the writing room, I find him sitting on my desk, next to the keyboard, with a rather benign expression.
Remembering that cats can’t have expressive expressions, it worried me that he’s working overtime to make me think he has one.
I can feel his eyes boring into me, following me around the room, watching and waiting.
Waiting for what I wonder.
I also remember that cats are hunters and killers. If he was a lion or a tiger I’d be in a great deal of trouble now. He’d pounce, and that would be the end.
Is this we hat he’d be doing if I let him outside?
Is he sending me a warning?
I finish what I’m doing on the other side of the room and come over to the seat.
Are you done giving me the death stare? I ask him.
A slight shake of the head, and if I wanted to write anything into it, that would be a no.
A few seconds pass, then he jumps down to the floor and walks off.
Job done, I suspect he’s thinking.
Back to his least favourite dinner tonight, I’m thinking.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritising.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Is it going to be revenge or just plain bewilderment?
There were protocols to handle every situation. It’s why I was stuck in a room with a dozen others for nearly six months, learning the ropes.
That’s what Alex called it. He’d also said it was a waste of time because by the time we made it out into the field all the bad guys would be locked up. Patience wasn’t one of his virtues.
That’s why Alex didn’t make it through the first cut.
It had been a long six months but it had been worth it when ten of us out of the original intake of 24 made it. I considered myself lucky.
Now three of those men were missing, and I believed they were dead, or if not dead, incapacitated. This was our first live mission. We had been excited but held that in check. We could celebrate our first mission together, and then if it was a success.
At this moment, in my mind, it was anything but a success.
And my anger was building. I kept the target in sight, and once or twice he nearly slipped away, but I knew the area having studied the maps the day before. I liked to know what it was like on the ground, and if it was the target’s home turf, then I didn’t want him to have the advantage.
It was those little things, our instructor said, that could make a difference.
It did.
I knew or thought I knew where he was going.
At some point, I was going to have to take a chance, and head him off. It also meant I might lose him, but I had a point on the map where I believed if he didn’t go where I was anticipating, he’d still be within range to find him again.
Time.
He went right, I went straight ahead.
His most likely destination, the train station. His training wasn’t much different from mine. After a calamity, look to make an unexpected exit. There were buses, but they led basically to the same place.
Five minutes, and I’d know.
I came out on the main street that ran alongside the train tracks, the station was behind me, and he would have to pass me to get there.
There was also a dead end lane between him and me, and that was where I would corral him.
Almost a minute passed, and it was too long. Two. The thought of possibly being wrong leapt into my mind, along with the sickening feeling in my stomach of failure.
Two and a half. I took several steps in his possible direction, then I saw him turn the corner. I stepped back and out of sight. I needed him to get to the lane entrance before I made a move.
He was wary and looking around. He knew I was on his tail.
As he approached the laneway, I stepped out and started walking slowly towards him. It took a few steps before he realised it was me, and stopped. Was he surprised at my enterprise, or shocked.
Predictably he turned into the lane.
I ran.
At the entrance to the lane, I stopped and saw him reach the dead end. There was no climbing over the fence at the end,. Nor were there any ladders or climbable points either side.
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
And so it begins…
…
So, we have a mission, and we have the players.
…
We let it play out. People die, and others escape. If you escape, knowing that someone is trying to kill you, what is the first thing to happen in the spy world?
A debriefing.
Searching for the reasons why and coming to conclusions can result in accusations. Or at worst, the survivors are blamed for those that didn’t. I hesitate to say it was like in the first days of flying aeroplanes, if it crashed, it was pilot error, not the plane.
The unthinkable happens, the survivor is fired, and the researcher/briefer is sent to their own version of a debriefing to find out what went wrong. At least, that is what everyone thinks happened.
What actually did was far more sinister, and our man who was fired, with a little help, launched his own investigation. It is coincidental that he was in a relationship with the researcher right up until the briefing when she broke it off.
But what follows makes a very interesting story, and highlights the fact that in the shadowy world of intelligence gathering, everyone lies, everyone has an agenda, and not everyone has the best interests of their country at heart.
In 1974 a 26-year-old farmer, Yang Jide, was drilling a well and found fragments of the terracotta soldiers and bronze weapons.
What was discovered later was one of the biggest attended burial pits of China’s first feudal Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. In the following years remains had been found in 3 pits, yielding at least 8,000 soldiers and horses, and over 100 chariots. The soldiers were infantry, cavalry, and others.
Emperor Qin was born in 259 BC and died in 210 BC. He began building a mausoleum for himself at the foot of Mount Li when he was 13. Construction took 38 years, from 247 BC to 208 BC. It was divided into 3 stages and involved 720,000 conscripts.
The pits of pottery figures are 1.5 km east of Emperor Qin’s mausoleum. Pit 1 has about 6,000 terracotta armored warriors and horses and 40 wooden chariots. Pit 2 is estimated to have over 900 terracotta warriors and 350 terracotta horses with about 90 wooden chariots. Pit 3 had so far yielded only 66 pottery figures and one chariot drawn by four horses.
Official records say it was discovered later that it was likely Xiang Yu, a rebel, intentionally damaged the Mausoleum and the soldiers in the pits, by setting fire to the wooden roof rafters, and these fell on and broke the warriors into pieces.
However, we were told that after the terracotta warriors were completed, the Emperor ordered the builders to be killed so that they would not tell anyone about the warriors, and then of those that remained alive deliberately smashed all of the artifacts.
The thing is, all of the terracotta figures that have been found are in pieces, and they need computers to piece them back together again.
The visit: The first impression is the size of the car park and the number of buses parked in the lot, and a hell of a lot more outside up the road an off on side streets. Obviously, it costs money to park in the parking lot.
The other first impressions; the numbers waiting to get in were not as many as yesterday outside the forbidden city, in fact, a lot less.
Be warned there’s a long walk from the entrance gate where your bags are scanned and a body scan as well, before admittance. This walk is through a landscaped area which it is expect might sometime in the future reveal more soldiers, or other artifacts.
At the end of the walk that takes about ten minutes, you can get a one-way ride to the second checkpoint, but we opted not to as no one else in our group did.
That walk is the warm-up exercise to an organized viewing of the exhibits after going through a second ticket checkpoint. On the other side, we had to hand our tickets back to the tour guide which was disappointing not to end up with a memento of actually having been there.
So, on the other side in the courtyard, the guide told us the most important parts of the exhibition, that we should spend most of the time looking at pit 1, and then spent a little time in 2 which is only there in the first stages of excavation. Then move onto the museum if only to see the replica chariots.
We do.
The chariots were small but interesting
The horses were better and intricately detailed
These are soldiers, perhaps complete examples of those types found in the end pit.
This is one of the archers. You can tell by the way he wears his hair.
Pit 2
The excavation of this pit has only just begun, so it is possible to see where they have carefully removed the top cover, and you can see the broken parts of the warriors lying in a heap.
Some parts of the warriors are more discernible closer up
These parts are carefully extracted and taken to the ‘hospital’ where they are digitised and the computer will match each part with the warrior it belongs to.
Pit 1
This has quite a number of standing soldiers that have been glued back together, but not necessarily complete and I notice a number if the statues were incomplete. And if they cannot find the missing pieces, then they are not added to or filled in.
The scale of the pit is enormous, and they have hardly scratched the surface in the restoration process.
What is there is a number of horses as well.
That’s at the front of the pit, a long line of statues, and what is clear is the location of the well where the first fragments were found by a farmer.
There are about eight lines of soldiers, and some lining the sides.
Midway down there is a large area currently under excavation
At the back is the hospital where the soldiers are reassembled. There’s nearly a hundred in the various stages of rebuilding. These days the soldiers are rebuilt using computer imaging.
The hospital area is where they are put back together
And these are some of the statues in various stages of reconstruction
Another two views of the size and scale of the reconstruction project
The coffee shop is also a sales centre, but there are too many people waiting for coffee and too few places to sit down.
One minute I was sitting out in my office, working on some tweets, and the next I woke up, staring at a black screen.
I thought we’d lost power.
No, I’d been asleep for a long time.
To be honest, I’m worn out. It’s the end of the year and when it’s supposed to be a time to relax, go on holidays, do something else, I find life is getting more and more hectic.
Yes, I’m going on holiday, but it will be a time when I’m subconsciously looking for new locales for stories, the people, the places, what goes on, all different to my usual humdrum.
So, not a holiday in the true sense of the word.
What put me into this trance-like state was writing the next line, yep, it was as simple as that. I stopped at a particular point where I had something else to say, and it just felt like the train had come to the end of the track, out there, in the middle of nowhere.
I wrote that line in my mind, and it sounded good, much the same as we sometimes say something in our mind before we speak, and when we finally do, it sounded better in my head than out loud.
Perhaps I’m losing my touch.
Perhaps that ability to sum up everything I want to say in less than 200 characters is beginning to desert me, and old age and decrepitude is setting in.
Which reminds me, pills before bed.
Perhaps I’m just tired and it’s time to go to bed.
I keep putting it off because sometimes I can’t go to sleep and I’m just lying there staring at the ceiling, sometimes the cinema of my dreams.
I imagine I’m somewhere else, someone else, doing something else.
To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.
But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.
That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.
It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years. Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?
My private detective, Harry Walthenson
I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.
But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it. Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.
Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life. I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.
Then there’s the title, like
The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello
The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister. And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.
But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.
Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.
Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.
I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021. It even has a cover.
