It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
Writing exercise – about “She didn’t know what he wanted” with the reveal in the last line.
…
It always amused me that everyone in the office thought I was the fountain of all knowledge, the one person who knew all the answers to everyone’s dating problems and what they should do to win over a particular boy or girl.
I had my own aspirations, but no one seemed interested, and because of this, I had made up my mind not to help another person.
Except when it came to Daisy Withers, how could I not?
We started out a few ears back on very rocky ground. We both arrived full of hopes and dreams, and wanted to do the best to achieve our hopes and aspirations, and we were both very competitive.
That competitiveness brought us to a showdown when a particular role was up for grabs; we both went for it and ended up getting overlooked simply because of our actions.
That day, we forged a new alliance, where we would help each other rather than try to sabotage our best efforts, and in my case, I started seeing her in a different light. The problem was, she did not feel the same way about me, and simply saw me as a friend.
It was difficult to watch her dating other men and more difficult when those relationships crashed and burned, but I was always there to pick up the pieces.
It was an ago old story, and I had finally decided, when the previous Christmas, when she had finally agreed to come home with me, for no other reason other than to be somewhere else, she had found a new man, and I went home alone, finally realizing that it was never to be.
…
When Daisy didn’t return after that Christmas break, I discovered she had requested a transfer to the West Coast office for a few months. I figured that her new romance had moved up a notch, the man coming from San Francisco, and she wanted to be with him.
It gave me a chance to exorcise her from my mind and get back to my work. The enthusiasm level had been flagging a little, and being passed over for a promotion, I thought I had given me pause to wonder just exactly what it is I wanted.
Daisy wasn’t the distraction, so I couldn’t blame her. I think I had made another realization in those few months: that my heart was no longer in what I was doing. It was time for a change, a complete change, and I had all but decided to hand in my resignation and spend a year in Europe just looking at old stuff.
That resolve just hardened when I saw Herb MacKenzie coming up the passage towards my office. Only yesterday, I discovered the man who had taken the role I had wanted was a relation on one of the directors, his identity disguised by the fact he was using his mother’s maiden surname, a ploy to have the office believe it was not blatant nepotism.
It was. He was very inexperienced, and sadly, when his father came to see me and ask that I helped him as much as I could. Until today. That was now off the table.
He knocked, came in, and sat down. He never waited to be asked and had that air of arrogance that ran through the father as well. We were minions and to be treated as such.
I sighed. “What’s today’s crisis?”
“None. I need a little advice, and I’m told you’re the expert.”
“Who in this office thinks I’m an expert?”
“Everyone. This place wouldn’t run without you.”
It’s odd that he was telling me that. Last I heard, last Friday in fact, over celebratory drinks in the board room, that he was the one the place couldn’t run without.
“I doubt that’s true, Herb.”
He shrugged. Maybe flattery wasn’t working today.
“One of the senior staffers is coming back from the West Coast office next week, and I was thinking of flying over to lay some groundwork.”
The moment he mentioned groundwork, I knew it was not work he was referring to. He was rich and entitled and had no trouble dating socialites. His photo in the papers told me as much.
And if I was to make a guess…
“She was here for a few years. Seems you two were always in the running for the same promotion. and I’m guessing a little more on the side.”
Why not tell him the truth? I was over her, and it wouldn’t matter. My resignation letter had been written for months; all I had to do was sign it.
“There wasn’t. We were not each other’s type. Competitors, not lovers. Sorry.”
“But you know what makes her tick.”
Enough to know she was not his type, but given all her previous choices, maybe it would work. After all, he was the boss’s son, and that might count for something.
I shrugged. “Why am I not with her if I did?”
That seemed to confuse him, but then it wasn’t hard to do that, either.
And as usual, when I tried to tell him what he didn’t want to hear, he ignored it. “Any words of wisdom, what she likes, or wants.”
I thought about it. I had over the years, tried to work out that exact answer and had never quite succeeded. Flowers, no; fine dining, no; a night in an expensive hotel, no; a week away at an exotic resort, no; going to see my home and family who could win over the most reticent of people, didn’t get the chance.
And then I realised, what did it matter. My window had closed, that ship had sailed, call it what you like. “You want to know what I think. She would want to know what you want, because most of the time most girls just don’t know what you want. And that would have to be very special. So, for what it’s worth, tell her it would mean everything to you if she would take the time to go home to where you live and meet your family. They will more than you ever could help her realise the sort of person you are and want to be. Girls like that stuff.”
If nothing else, that would turn her off so quickly she’d probably resign too.
“Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.” He leapt out of the chair. “Gotta go.”
…
By the time he reached the end of the corridor, I had retrieved the resignation letter, signed it, attached it to the email saved in drafts and sent it to his father.
I had never been more sure of anything in my life. The future of the company belonged in his hands. Resignation sent, I went to the stationery storeroom and got a moving box. I was halfway throwing the accoutriments of four years into it when I saw his father coming up the passage.
I looked at the timer on my watch.
Five minutes and twenty-three seconds.
He didn’t knock.
“Unaccepted. You can’t leave. I’ll double your salary. Tell me what you want, and you can have it. within reason, that is.”
I looked at him. Serious but afraid. I don’t think it could occur to him that someone like me might want to leave. Minions needed their jobs and would do anything to keep them. I believed that for a long time.
“Daisy’s coming back. She’s better at this than I am. And Herb will schmooze her. He has a way with women I could only dream about.”
The expression on his face told me a different story. Why was Daisy coming back if she was doing everything right? The word was she had been told that if she reorganised and revitalised the office, which had seen revenues and prestige begin to decline under the previous manager’s auspices, why would she leave?
A question I was no longer interested in.
I tossed the last forgettable item into the box.
His phone rang, and he looked at the screen and frowned. Another crisis. He looked up. “I have to take this. “Take a week’s vacation. Anywhere. Think about it. Tell the travel office you have my authority.”
A week’s vacation wasn’t going to change my mind. But it was wrong of me to give Herb what I believed was the secret to winning her heart.
I called her.
Disconnected. She had changed her phone number. Well, if that wasn’t a sign from the Gods!
…
A week’s vacation wasn’t in the stars. I picked up the box, took a last look at what it was I thought I wanted, and walked out.
I rang home and told them I was coming in a few days and to dust off my old room; I’d be staying for a while. It was superfluous; Mom had my room ready for me to come back. She always knew, one day…
Ticket booked and apartment sorted, there was only one thing left to do; go to the bar I went every Friday night and tell anyone who cared I was going. For the last three months, it had been without Daisy, but that didn’t matter. I had to get used to her not being around.
At the fourth drink, the hands of the clock about to reach my home time, I heard rather than saw someone sitting in the seat next to me. Daisy’s seat.
“Do you come here often?”
Daisy.
“Too often. It’s a habit I’m breaking after tonight.”
“Any particular reason?”
“It’s not the same anymore.”
I looked sideways, and sucked in a breath, maybe two. I had forgotten how beautiful she looked. It just made the parting all that much harder.
“That’s because I’m not here. Pity I’m not staying.”
“That’s a shame. Why?”
“A friend of mine quit his job, quite out of left field actually, and, well, it won’t be the same.”
“That is a shame.”
The bartender came over, and she ordered what I was having and another drink for me. It was going to be the last, but the apartment could wait.
We didn’t speak again until the drinks came, and she had taken a few sips of hers. Perhaps she needed time to think about what she was going to say.
“Funny thing, life. Three days ago, I was sitting in a posh restaurant opposite this guy, Herb – I mean, who calls their kid Herb, or Herbert. Anyway, he’s prattling on like the try-hard he is, and all I’m thinking of is this guy I know back in New York. He used to listen to all my woes, gave me this annoyingly right advice, never telling me how he really feels, never chastising me, as he should have, for being the fool that I was.”
“That’s being a bit harsh on yourself. I’m sure he wouldn’t agree.”
“No. He wouldn’t. And that was what was annoying about him. I mean, he went out of his way to ask me if I wanted to home home with him, not because he had to, but because I had nowhere else to go and he didn’t want me to be alone.”
“Maybe he thought if he left you behind, you might do something foolish. Again.”
“I did do something foolish, again. And when that broke up as it inevitably does, I had a long think about it. I needed time away. Walter gave me a chance at running the West Coast office, but it was never going to work. That was always going to be Herb’s domain, and it didn’t take long to realise that his desire for us to be more than friends translated into, I would do the work and he would take the credit.”
“Just like his grades and university qualifications. They were too good to be true.”
“Wendy told me you’d left. Double the salary and a week’s vacation in the Maldives. When you took your box, I knew that was off the cards. That’s when she told me that Herb was coming over, and we guessed it was to see me.”
I think I would have paid money to see her deal with Herb.
“Anyway, there I am, sitting there with a seventy-five dollar plate of soup in front of me, and he tells me the plan. Yes, he had a plan. I seriously hope he doesn’t approach all the girls with this. He says something like, ‘it would mean everything to him if I would take the time to go home to where he lived and met his family. They could more than he ever could help her realise the sort of person he is and wants to be.’ I mean, you couldn’t make that stuff up – well, he certainly couldn’t, but I knew who did. Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
I shrugged. “You weren’t ready to hear that or wanted to hear it. I figured if you wanted to go, you would, but that if something better came along, then I’d finally get the message.”
“That I was taking you for granted. Staring into the bowl of soup, hearing those words, I finally got the message. Not from him, but from you. I doubt whether he’s ever had an original thought in his life. The thing is, I ate the food, made all the right noises, assiduously avoided being closer than a yard, thanked him for his kindness and said I would think about it. Then I went back to the office, signed the resignation letter and sent it to Wally, packed my backpack with everything I wanted, not that it amounted to much, and sat at the airport until the first plane flew to New York.”
“And now you’re here.”
“And now I’m here. When did you fall in love with me?”
Was this a conversation worth pursuing? Probably not, but again, I had nothing better to do.
“The first moment I saw you. I knew then I was going to have my heart broken, but I still did it anyway. You were always the impossible dream.”
“You were just impossible. I wanted to hate you, tried to hate you, pretended to hate you, and then just gave up. You were there, I liked you being there, and then, when you weren’t, I missed you. So, I tried to forget you, and it didn’t work. I started thinking about why you would ask the one person who drove you nuts to go home with you. It just didn’t occur to me that I might just discover why you were the person you are, and that I just might come to my senses and see what I had always been looked for standing right in front of me. Maybe it just wasn’t about you, but inadvertently, you told me what it was you wanted. Nothing special. Just the girl that you fell madly in love with and just wished, even for a second, she would love him back. Well, here I am, here to tell you I love you back. And I have since the day I met you. It’s why nothing else works. it’s why I’m happiest when I’m with you. It’s why I’m never afraid to be me when I’m with you. And it’s why I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
And then she let out a huge sigh of relief. “Now, we just have one problem…”
I pulled out an envelope from my coat pocket and handed it to her. I had bought her a ticket just in case she came.
She pulled out the piece of paper and read it. “You were that sure?”
“No. Like I said, you are, or were, the impossible dream.”
“And yet…”
“I read my horoscope this morning. It’s the first time ever. It said quite specifically that my impossible dream would come true.”
Well, in my experience based on the fact many years ago I used to play Cowboys and Indians, and I was always an Indian, I used to make a bow, and arrows, from the limbs of a tree in our back yard, those arrows were never straight.
How they got them so back in the middle ages without a lathe is anybody’s guess.
We all know what straight means, level, even, true, not deviating. It could be a board, a road, the edge of a piece of paper.
But, of course, there are other meanings like,
He was straight, meaning heterosexual, a question not 50 odd years ago anyone would ask you, and 100 years ago, you wouldn’t dare admit anything but.
In poker, a card game, it is a sequence of five cards, and the sort of straight I’d like to get is ace high. Chances of that happening, zero per cent.
It can mean being honest, that is, you should be straight with her, though I’m not sure telling your wide you’re having an affair would be conducive to continuing good health.
It could mean immediately, as in, I’ve got a headache and going straight to bed, probably after hearing news of that affair that was best left unspoken.
Perhaps that would be the time to have a whiskey straight, that is without mixers or ice. I’ve tried, but still, at the very least I need ice.
This is not to be confused with the word strait, which is a narrow waterway between to areas of land.
But, here’s where it gets murky because a company can be in dire straits after being in desperate straits, and a person can be strait-laced, and just to be certain, most lunatics finish up in a straitjacket.
Williams’ Restaurant, East 65th Street, New York, Saturday, 8:00 p.m.
We met the Blaine’s at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaine’s frequently visited, and had recommended.
Of course, during the taxi ride there, Alison reminded me that with my new job, we would be able to go to many more places like Williams’. It was, at worst, more emotional blackmail, because as far as Alison was concerned, we were well on our way to posh restaurants, the Trump Tower Apartments, and the trappings of the ‘executive set’.
It would be a miracle if I didn’t strangle Elaine before the night was over. It was she who had filled Alison’s head with all this stuff and nonsense.
Aside from the half frown half-smile, Alison was looking stunning. It was months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5th anniversary that cost a month’s salary. On her, it was worth it, and I would have paid more if I had to. She had adored it, and me, for a week or so after.
For tonight, I think I was close to getting back on that pedestal.
She had the looks and figure to draw attention, the sort movie stars got on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds silence, and many more gasps.
Even I had a sudden loss of breath earlier in the evening when she came out of the dressing room. Once more I was reminded of how lucky I was that she had agreed to marry me. Amid all those self-doubts, I couldn’t believe she had loved me when there were so many others ‘out there’ who were more appealing.
Elaine was out of her seat and came over just as the Head Waiter hovered into sight. She personally escorted Alison to the table, allowing me to follow like the Queen’s consort, while she and Alison basked in the admiring glances of the other patrons.
More than once I heard the muted question, “Who is she?”
Jimmy stood, we shook hands, and then we sat together. It was not the usual boy, girl, boy, girl seating arrangement. Jimmy and I on one side and Elaine and Alison on the other.
The battle lines were drawn.
Jimmy was looking fashionable, with the permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and designer dinner suit that looked like he’d slept in it. Alison insisted I wear a tuxedo, and I looked like the proverbial penguin or just a thinner version of Alfred Hitchcock.
The bow tie had been slightly crooked, but just before we stepped out she had straightened it. And took the moment to look deeply into my soul. It was one of those moments when words were not necessary.
Then it was gone.
I relived it briefly as I sat and she looked at me. A penetrating look that told me to ‘behave’.
When we were settled, Elaine said, in that breathless, enthusiastic manner of hers when she was excited, “So, Harry, you are finally moving up.” It was not a question, but a statement.
I was not sure what she meant by ‘finally’ but I accepted it with good grace. Sometimes Elaine was prone to using figures of speech I didn’t understand. I guessed she was talking about the new job. “It was supposed to be a secret.”
She smiled widely. “There are no secrets between Al and I, are there Al?”
I looked at ‘Al’ and saw a brief look of consternation.
I was not sure Alison liked the idea of being called Al. I tried it once and was admonished. But it was interesting her ‘best friend forever’ was allowed that distinction when I was not. It was, perhaps, another indicator of how far I’d slipped in her estimation.
Perhaps, I thought, it was a necessary evil. As I understood it, the Blaine’s were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in. I didn’t ask if the Blaine’s thought we were just ‘anyone’ before I got the job offer.
And then there was that look between Alison and Elaine, quickly stolen before Alison realized I was looking at both of them. I was out of my depth, in a place I didn’t belong, with people I didn’t understand. And yet, apparently, Alison did. I must have missed the memo.
“No,” Alison said softly, stealing a glance in my direction, “No secrets between friends.”
No secrets. Her look conveyed something else entirely.
The waiter brought champagne, Krug, and poured glasses for each of us. It was not the cheap stuff, and I was glad I brought a couple of thousand dollars with me. We were going to need it.
Then, a toast.
To a new job and a new life.
“When did you decide?” Elaine was effusive at the best of times, but with the champagne, it was worse.
Alison had a strange expression on her face. It was obvious she had told Elaine it was a done deal, even before I’d made up my mind. Perhaps she’d assumed I might be ‘refreshingly honest’ in front of Elaine, but it could also mean she didn’t really care what I might say or do.
Instead of consternation, she looked happy, and I realized it would be churlish, even silly if I made a scene. I knew what I wanted to say. I also knew that it would serve little purpose provoking Elaine, or upsetting Alison. This was not the time or the place. Alison had been looking forward to coming here, and I was not going to spoil it.
Instead, I said, smiling, “When I woke up this morning and found Alison missing. If she had been there, I would not have noticed the water stain on the roof above our bed, and decide there and then how much I hated the place.” I used my reassuring smile, the one I used with the customers when all hell was breaking loose, and the forest fire was out of control. “It’s the little things. They all add up until one day …” I shrugged. “I guess that one day was today.”
I saw an incredulous look pass between Elaine and Alison, a non-verbal question; perhaps, is he for real? Or; I told you he’d come around.
I had no idea the two were so close.
“How quaint,” Elaine said, which just about summed up her feelings towards me. I think, at that moment, I lost some brownie points. It was all I could come up with at short notice.
“Yes,” I added, with a little more emphasis than I wanted. “Alison was off to get some study in with one of her friends.”
“Weren’t the two of you off to the Hamptons, a weekend with some friends?” Jimmy piped up, and immediately got the ‘shut up you fool’ look, that cut that line of conversation dead. Someone forgot to feed Jimmy his lines.
It was followed by the condescending smile from Elaine, and “I need to powder my nose. Care to join me, Al?”
A frown, then a forced smile for her new best friend. “Yes.”
I watched them leave the table and head in the direction of the restroom, looking like they were in earnest conversation. I thought ‘Al’ looked annoyed, but I could be wrong.
I had to say Jimmy looked more surprised than I did.
There was that odd moment of silence between us, Jimmy still smarting from his death stare, and for me, the Alison and Elaine show. I was quite literally gob-smacked.
I drained my champagne glass gathering some courage and turned to him. “By the way, we were going to have a weekend away, but this legal tutorial thing came up. You know Alison is doing her law degree.”
He looked startled when he realized I had spoken. He was looking intently at a woman several tables over from us, one who’d obviously forgotten some basic garments when getting dressed. Or perhaps it was deliberate. She’d definitely had some enhancements done.
He dragged his eyes back to me. “Yes. Elaine said something or other about it. But I thought she said the tutor was out of town and it had been postponed until next week. Perhaps I got it wrong. I usually do.”
“Perhaps I’ve got it wrong.” I shrugged, as the dark thoughts started swirling in my head again. “This week or next, what does it matter?”
Of course, it mattered to me, and I digested what he said with a sinking heart. It showed there was another problem between Alison and me; it was possible she was now telling me lies. If what he said was true and I had no reason to doubt him, where was she going tomorrow morning, and had she really been with a friend studying today?
We poured some more champagne, had a drink, then he asked, “This promotion thing, what’s it worth?”
“Trouble, I suspect. Definitely more money, but less time at home.”
“Oh,” raised eyebrows. Obviously, the women had not talked about the job in front of him, or, at least, not all the details. “You sure you want to do that?”
At last the voice of reason. “Me? No.”
“Yet you accepted the job.”
I sucked in a breath or two while I considered whether I could trust him. Even if I couldn’t, I could see my ship was sinking, so it wouldn’t matter what I told him, or what Elaine might find out from him. “Jimmy, between you and me I haven’t as yet decided one way or another. To be honest, I won’t know until I go up to Barclay’s office and he asks me the question.”
“Barclay?”
“My boss.”
“Elaine’s doing a job for a Barclay that recently moved in the tower a block down from us. I thought I recognized the name.”
“How did Elaine get the job?”
“Oh, Alison put him onto her.”
“When?”
“A couple of months ago. Why?”
I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face, while my insides were churning up like the wake of a supertanker. I felt sick, faint, and wanting to die all at the same moment. “Perhaps she said something about it, but it didn’t connect at the time. Too busy with work I expect. I think I seriously need to get away for a while.”
I could hardly breathe, my throat was constricted and I knew I had to keep it together. I could see Elaine and Alison coming back, so I had to calm down. I sucked in some deep breaths, and put my ‘manage a complete and utter disaster’ look on my face.
And I had to change the subject, quickly, so I said, “Jimmy, Elaine told Alison, who told me, you were something of a guru of the cause and effects of the global economic meltdown. Now, I have a couple of friends who have been expounding this theory …”
Like flicking a switch, I launched into the well-worn practice of ‘running a distraction’, like at work when we needed to keep the customer from discovering the truth. It was one of the things I was good at, taking over a conversation and pushing it in a different direction. It was salvaging a good result from an utter disaster, and if ever there was a time that it was required, it was right here, right now.
When Alison sat down and looked at me, she knew something had happened between Jimmy and I. I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, it didn’t matter. If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact I took over the dining engagement did. She knew well enough the only time I did that was when everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket. She’d seen me in action before and had been suitably astonished.
But I got into gear, kept the champagne flowing and steered the conversation, as much as one could from a seasoned professional like Elaine, and, I think, in Jimmy’s eyes, he saw the battle lines and knew who took the crown on points. Neither Elaine nor Jimmy suspected anything, and if the truth be told, I had improved my stocks with Elaine. She was at times both surprised and interested, even willing to take a back seat.
Alison, on the other hand, tried poking around the edges, and, once when Elaine and Jimmy had got up to have a cigarette outside, questioned me directly. I chose to ignore her, and pretend nothing had happened, instead of telling her how much I was enjoying the evening.
She had her ‘secrets’. I had mine.
At the end of the evening, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was physically sick from the pent up tension and the implications of what Jimmy had told me. It took a while for me to pull myself together; so long, in fact, Jimmy came looking for me. I told him I’d drunk too much champagne, and he seemed satisfied with that excuse. When I returned, both Alison and Elaine noticed how pale I was but neither made any comment.
It was a sad way to end what was supposed to be a delightful evening, which to a large degree it was for the other three. But I had achieved what I set out to do, and that was to play them at their own game, watching the deception, once I knew there was a deception, as warily as a cat watches its prey.
I had also discovered Jimmy’s real calling; a professor of economics at the same University Alison was doing her law degree. It was no surprise in the end, on a night where surprises abounded, that the world could really be that small.
We parted in the early hours of the morning, a taxi whisking us back to the Lower East Side, another taking the Blaine’s back to the Upper West Side. But, in our case, as Alison reminded me, it would not be for much longer. She showed concern for my health, asked me what was wrong. It took all the courage I could muster to tell her it was most likely something I ate and the champagne, and that I would be fine in the morning.
She could see quite plainly it was anything other than what I told her, but she didn’t pursue it. Perhaps she just didn’t care what I was playing at.
And yet, after everything that had happened, once inside our ‘palace’, the events of the evening were discarded, like her clothing, and she again reminded me of what we had together in the early years before the problems had set in.
It left me confused and lost.
I couldn’t sleep because my mind had now gone down that irreversible path that told me I was losing her, that she had found someone else, and that our marriage was in its last death throes.
And now I knew it had something to do with Barclay.
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.
…
The folder had half a dozen single-page sheets with a photo attached to each with a standard-issue army paper clip. There was no top secret in pale red ink diagonally scribed across any of the pages which somehow diminished the exercise.
I guessed this was the hand-picked team selected for me to take on our suicide mission. It didn’t have the officer overseeing the mission, or the go-between Jacobi. Not exactly a useful man to have along in a firefight, because he would be too busy working out who would pay the most if or when he survived.
It still astonished me that we hired people like Jacobi, fully knowing that they would sell out their own mother if the price was right. I was going to reserve one bullet in my gun to execute him the moment he even looked the wrong way.
Trust him, I did not.
Nor any 0f the six members of that hand-picked team.
Sergeant Barnes. Tall, wide, deadly, that last attribute courtesy of a line in his resume that said he killed three soldiers of the army we were supposed to be training and supporting. No meaningful reason was given as to why he did, only that he’d just finished serving a five-year sentence, cut short by a month so he could join this force. Hand to hand combat, and a handy man to have if you’ve got a handheld rocket launcher handy.
Private Williamson. Had been a Corporal, but considered that too much of a burden, having men look up to him, and having to give orders. He decided to go AWOL instead. Used to be a butcher before signing on to see the world, and as described very handy with a knife. Refused to use a gun, and refused orders too, which was the reason why he was in the stockade, with his friend, the next man on the list.
Private Shurl. If we needed a man who excelled at sword fighting, he was our man. A very accomplished swordsman, but I doubt we were going to need a man of his talents because enemy swordsmen seemed only to exist in the old movies. I guess Lallo was expecting the three musketeers or something. Other than that, he was a useful radioman and would be handling the communications once we were on the ground in enemy territory.
Corporal Stark. His claim to fame was reading maps. He was also an expert on the ground in the country whose borders we were about to violate. He lived in the country for several years with his wife, who came from there, and who’d been killed by the dictator in a case of mistaken identity. Stark would have to be carefully managed.
Staff Sergeant Mobley. A man who had been up and down in ranks for a long time, suggesting a bad attitude, his latest bout leaving him fresh from a stint in the stockade. He had no valid reason to be in on this disaster and yet had volunteered. That took courage, to apply for a suicide mission with little hope of return. I suspect he had an agenda that no one else knew about.
And, lastly
Lieutenant Lesley Davies. A woman marine, no longer a lieutenant but just another soldier who obviously didn’t understand the concept of taking one step back when everyone else steps in another direction. It didn’t say what it was she did wrong, but my guess there were a few men out there frightened of meeting her on a dark night. Some women are dainty, some women are large, and then there’s Davies, a powerhouse that could be dangerous if out of control.
Out of all of that team, she was the one who interested me the most.
There was a knock on the door, interrupting my thoughts. I called out, “Enter”, surprised the person outside hadn’t just shoved their way into the room.
The door opened, Monroe walked in and closed the door behind her.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re running point.”
“And save your sorry ass from those recruits. Not a brain between the lot of them, and we need people who can think, given the nature of the forthcoming exercise. The brains trust has decided the rescue team reports to us. I didn’t ask for it by the way. This is one of Lallo’s sick jokes.”
Maybe he had a problem with her too and was hoping she wasn’t coming back.
“You and me both,” I said.
She threw another folder on the table. “Operational orders, wheels up at 0600 tomorrow. Make sure you get a hearty meal before we leave, it might be your last for a while.”
I shrugged.
“Suit yourself.” She went back to the door, gave me a curious look, and left.
I opened the file and looked at the one piece of paper in it. It was marked Top Secret in red diagonally across the page, probably specially done by Lallo to make me feel important. It had departure time, the weather, the flight time, how long the stopover would be before going on to the target.
Tightly planned, no room for missing connections, though this was the army, not an airline taking us, no room for errors. New intel said that we had five days before the prisoners were to be executed.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
I woke to the sound of a cracking sound behind me, and, when I rolled over, I found myself staring up the barrel of a gun.
The number one rule broken, don’t fall asleep in enemy territory.
But something else bothered me in those few seconds as I struggle to wake up and comprehend what was happening. Where was Jack? If he’d been here this would not have happened.
But still bleary-eyed from just waking up and in that initial confused state of not knowing where and when, all I could see was a uniformed shape holding the gun standing over me, and feel, in those few seconds that I was not going to survive this.
I braced myself for a bullet, wondering if death was going to be instantaneous. I had hoped I might die in a less inglorious manner.
“Sam? Is that you?”
It was a rather dumb question to be asking an enemy soldier because my mind hadn’t adjusted to the fact the soldier was not in a German uniform, nor in work clothes, but quite possibly the uniform of a soldier from the castle, and if it was, why be asking the question and not just shooting me?
Then, finally, my eyes focussed and I could see clearly who it was, and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever it was, knew me but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. But in the next second, I saw the gun retract and the man behind it come closer and crouch down beside me.
He was not a soldier from the castle, but a soldier in the familiar British uniform. From somewhere else entirely. An Army Captain if I was not mistaken, which, for another second, I also thought was odd.
And then recognition of a face I hadn’t seen in years.
“Blinky?”
OK, so it was a strange nickname, but it was apt, William O’Reilly blinked a lot, hence the nickname. And Will had been on the same training course as I had three years before, only he had ended up in administration. Bad eyesight.
“It is you, Sam.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I dragged myself up from the ground to sit up. I did a quick scan around me, but Jack was nowhere to be found. It was not like him to desert me when trouble arrived.
“Apparently rescuing your sorry ass. Now that I’m here, I can see why the Colonel said you needed help.” He held out his hand and pulled me up.
“Forster? You work for him?”
“No, but he asked for someone who knew you by sight, and I was the only one available. Besides, I was getting sick of sitting behind a desk while the rest of you were out in the field doing heroic shit.”
I brushed the undergrowth off my uniform and straightened my clothes. It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable.
“I don’t think falling asleep is very heroic. When did the orders come through?”
“Yesterday. A message was sent and received, a rendezvous at an old church. I came with three others, including a very serious sergeant major who had absolutely no sense of humor. I saw this farm; thought I’d check it out.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get your head shot off.”
“By the man-mountain. Nearly, yes, until I told him who I was. Said you were up here. Waiting for something?”
“Then enemy. We were hoping they turn up so we could deal with them.”
“That would be the traitors up at the castle, or the turncoat resistance members working with them? Carlo, he told me his name, he reckons it’s not happening. Said once I found you to come down and we’ll catch up with the others at this church.”
I picked up the weapon and then we headed towards Carlo’s position.
I could see the Colonel’s reasoning. Send someone I knew who couldn’t be working for the other side. It worried me that the message from Thompson hadn’t been received, because if it had, Martina would have got someone to tell us.
H is for — Help is on the way. Only it isn’t; it’s a betrayal of trust
…
It comes down to who you trust.
Me, I didn’t trust anyone, and it served me well. Over the years, the very people you thought you could trust were mostly the people you couldn’t.
A brother who screwed me over with our inheritance.
A wife who cleaned out the bank accounts and left with my best friend.
Naturally, my best friend.
A business partner who spent all the working capital on business trips and women, sending the company broke and the blame for it on me.
It left me with nothing and more or less a hermit, living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, reliant on np one else but myself.
But, like every idyllic haven and so-called peace of mind, it was never going to last.
I bought my little slice of heaven, about a hundred or so acres of forest, and built a log cabin in the middle of it. The conservationists would be proud of me. There was nothing detrimental to the environment in it.
It kept me busy, hunting, fishing, and surviving.
It’s why when someone turned up at my doorstep, they were either lost or found one of the tracks I’d made and followed, again because they were lost.
Or, it was someone looking for me, and there were a few. People people who didn’t realise it was not me who screwed them over but others I worked with. I’d been lucky so far, but that luck was always going to eventually run out.
My last visitors had been several hikers looking for the caves, about thirty miles to the west. I pointed them in the right direction and sent them on their way the next morning.
It’d been a month or two since then, and with the advent of summer, I was expecting more.
Or so the forest ranger had said last time he came. Apparently, the caves, thirty miles away, were supposed to have gold nuggets in the walls.
No sooner had he left, a pair of hikers, a man and a woman ,come out of the woods via the eastern trail. I was cutting wood when they appeared.
I waited until they’d crossed the clearing before letting them know I was there, just out of their sight.
My voice startled them, so I came out of the hollow, axe in hand, trying not to look threatening.
“We heard someone was hiding in the woods. That would be you?”
He had that smart Alec look about him, the sort who knew everything but knew nothing. A city boy dressed up to look like a country boy.
The girl looked like she would be more at home on a catwalk, with designer everything.
These two were no more hikers than the man in the moon was, if there was one.
“Not hiding, just keeping away from people. I don’t get along with people. What are you doing here?”
He stopped a short distance from me and put his pack down. It looked heavy. The girl did likewise and sat on hers. She said, to no one in particular, “I’ve done enough walking for today.”
I could see she was tired and angry. I had heard raised voices earlier and wondered if it was them.
The man, or boy, looked at me. “We’re heading towards the caves. I guess we still have a ways to go.”
I pointed with my hand, “Thirty miles that away.”
The girl groaned.
“Any chance we can stay for the night?”
“If you don’t mind the floor.”
“We have sleeping bags and food.”
I shrugged. “If you want. There’re no showers, but there is a river about half a mile away.”
“Fair enough.” He sat too, and I could see they both had equipment that was new, including the boots.
“Phones don’t work out here,” the girl said, holding up her cell phone and moving it around.
“No. Just satellite phones. It’s one of the reasons I’m off-grid. No longer attached to a phone or anything, really. I’ll finish cutting the wood, and I’ll be back.”
They didn’t look like they were going anywhere for a while.
When I came back with a bundle of wood, I let them into the cabin and showed them where they could stay.
At one end was my room; the rest of the cabin was given over to kichen, lounge and fireplace where I had the fire. It was down to embers waiting for my return with wood for tonight.
They put out their sleeping blankets and took off their boots, which may have been a mistake because I thought I saw blood on their socks while I stoked the fire into life. The girl made strange faces as she removed her boots.
There was a pot over the flames and they said they could use it to make their dinner.
While it was heating, I said, “I take it you don’t hike much.”
“It’s a recent thing,” the girl said. “Fresh air and countryside. A bit different to walking in the park.”
“Are you here just for the fresh air?”
The girl looked at the boy, and I could see a slight shake of the head.
He spoke, “Just taking a hike as far as the caves to check them out. You know them?”
“Never been there. The last people passing through were headed there, too. I don’t think they made it.”
Last I heard from the ranger, they’d rescued two people from the forest, one of whom had fallen down the side of the mountain and had been badly injured.
“I’m guessing the trail is difficult?”
“To an inexperienced hiker, yes, but you guys look like you’ve done this before.”
“A little. But what we lack in experience, we make up for with enthusiasm.” He looked at the girl. “Don’t we?”
Her look at him, then me, said anything but.
“Then you should be fine.”
I was up and about before they woke, making sure there was hot water for coffee.
They could also cook something if they wanted to, but after the evening effort, I got the impression they were yet to shake off the trappings of a fast food diet.
When I came back from the river with water, they were up and about, hardly enthusiastic, the toll of the previous day’s trek plain to see in their pained expressions.
“Good morning,” I greeted them cheerfully, hoping it would improve their demeanour.
Both muttered a greeting on return. The girl added, “Which way is the river?”
I pointed in the direction where the trail began at the tree line. “Ten minutes that way. The water is cold but refreshing. Stick to the pool. You’ll see it.”
“Thanks.”
I noticed that she started off by herself.
The man gathered his bathroom bag and started to follow her, then stopped.
“How long will it take to reach the caves?”
“Two days if you keep an even pace and head in the right direction, north west. I’m assuming you have a map?”
“Yes. I have a GPS that should help. But, we were wondering, have you been to the caves at all?”
Odd question to ask. “No. It’s a long way just to see some bat droppings. You’re not the first people to pass through and ask me the same question.”
“We were hoping you would guide us. I’m wise enough to know that we are too inexperienced to do it on our own. You can see how we ended up when we arrived.”
“Then you should go home. It’s not for the faint hearted.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t. I made a bet, and it’s not one I can afford to lose. I can pay you, if that will change your mind. Think about it.”
Just what I didn’t need. I came to this place to get away from people and responsibility. I shouldn’t really care what happened to fools, and this fellow was a prize fool.
I didn’t need money, but if he was willing to pay, I’d put a high price on it. After I let him stew for a few hours.
I had been taught to take people at face value, but there would always be people who would slip past the usual scrutiny.
People were good at pretending to be something else and telling you in the most sincere of tones everything you want to hear.
My record on judging people was not the best.
Still, as my mother always said, the majority of people will be fine, there’s only a few scumbags that ruin it for everyone else.
My two visitors and upcoming intrepid adventurers were too good to be true. And we all knew the saying, if it’s too good to be true, it generally is.
Call me cynical.
Years of being taken advantage of had forced me off the grid, and I had hoped that I’d got far enough away that only the forest ranger could find me.
It was good to learn that both rangers who worked this part of the forest were the same as me, escaping from a wretched life borne out of trusting all the wrong people.
Dave was the closest, and while down by the river and far enough away from my visitors, I called him. I had a satellite phone, not for general use, but to call the ranger station if there was a fire or other calamity. This was the second time I’d called.
“Ethan.”
“Dave.”
“How is it out there in Shangrila?”
“Almost perfect. I had two hikers turn up yesterday telling me they were heading towards the caves.”
“Gold miners?”
“They don’t look as if they have ever hiked anywhere in their lives. Everything they have is just off the shelf, minus the price tag.”
When I first arrived at the ranger station, there was a long discussion about setting up a camp and staying. Of course, it was not allowed unless I worked as a fire spotter. There was no pay and a good chance of being burned to death, but it offered the solitude I was looking for.
They said people had to report to the ranger station before venturing into the unknown, and if anyone was coming my way, they would tell me.
“They did not report to the office. We have only one registered group out there but in a different quadrant.”
“Is it possible they didn’t know about the regulations?”
“If they’re proper hikers, no. Have they told you why they’re out there?”
“Not in as many words. Is there something out here that I don’t know about?
“Only that some guy found a fifty-ounce nugget in one of the caves. Since then, it’s been proved that he had stolen it from a private collection, but news of that has been suppressed because of who it was stolen from. But to stop people from going there, a bulletin was released telling everyone the nugget didn’t come from the caves. We don’t want a mini gold rush sending thousands of people into impenetrable parts of the forest, getting lost, injured, or worse. Perhaps they didn’t get the memo.”
“Or they’re up to something else.”
“You going with them?”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“I can offer you a small guide’s fee, a couple of hundred dollars a day, because it will cost tens of thousands to get them out when, not if they get lost.”
“OK. You should be able to track us. If anything else is in play, I’ll call you.”
“No problems.”
I felt better knowing the forestry rangers were monitoring us. Just in case.
When I got back to the cabin, they were sitting outside, all packed up and ready to go. I thought it was a little strange that the girl looked more like a fashion model with perfect makeup; the last thing she needed in the forest.
There was also an air of tension between the two, the sort that was often said it was so think you could cut in with a knife. An argument?
The boy sounded happier than he looked. “Have you considered the offer?”
“How much are you willing to pay?”
“A round thousand, five hundred each way.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the notes.” New, and crisp. “Half now, the rest when we get back.”
I came over and took the money. “I’ll be five minutes. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Of course. And thank you.”
I looked at the girl and had a sudden flash of memory. I’d seen her before, somewhere, but where? It certainly wasn’t in hiking gear, and she certainly wasn’t as miserable as she looked then.
I shook my head. It would come back, only by then it would be the wrong time and definitely the wrong place.
The first mile was the hardest. Not necessarily in terms of terrain; it was nearly flat country before we started up the first mountain, the first of five or six.
Firstly, they had to get over the previous day, and after seeing their feet, the initial struggle just getting the boots back on would have been interesting.
Secondly, it was the time of the year for the first snow of the season, so it was cold. Very cold. Fortunately, they had dressed for the weather.
Thirdly, the animals were active, and both of them were easily startled. I wasn’t expecting to see any bears, but there might be one of two skulking. Generally, they left people alone.
We stopped twice in clearings for a break, and at first, I told them that at the rate we were going, it might take three or four days to get there.
Note: they were not in a hurry.
I tried to engage them in small talk, but I got the impression there was little to talk about. The girl wanted to, but a glance from the boy stopped her.
Note: They did not want me to know who they were. My guess is that the first names were not their real names.
By the time we had traversed the first mountain and had reached a tributary that ran into the main river, some distance away, we stopped for lunch.
They had wisely brought energy bars and drinks. I suspected the girl was a gym freak because she seemed more at home with the physical exercise. The boy wasn’t and was sweating profusely, the sort who avoided exercise and fitness. His definition of exercise would be running for the train to avoid being later than late.
I led, the girl followed, and the boy was the rearguard. More than once, I saw him looking around.
Note: Was he expecting someone, or did he believe someone was following us?
With the rustling sounds in the undergrowth, it wasn’t hard to be worried about what could suddenly appear. I had seen the odd wild pig and several bears over the last year.
By the time we made it over three of the five hills or mountains, we were making a good pace, and by the time light was fading, we had traversed about sixteen miles.
This was going to take two full days, perhaps a little longer. Darkness fell quickly, and rest beckoned. Out in the forest, the notion of sleep was a luxury. Although I didn’t tell them, I rarely slept when on a trek it was never that safe.
Something else I may have failed to mention is that sound travels on the cold night air. They had moved to a position at the bottom of a rocky escarpment, where they thought they were far enough away not to be heard.
“Tell me again why I let you talk me into this ridiculous odyssey?” The petulance and contempt were plain to hear in her tone.
“You wanted a life of luxury. It wasn’t my fault that your parents cut you off. I can’t see why they don’t like me, other than I’m not one of their self-entitled fools they were throwing at you.”
There was no mistaking the contempt in his tone either. It still didn’t identify who she was other than she was from a wealthy background. It explained the attitude and the equipment.
“You told me that money wasn’t an issue.”
“It isn’t. Once we find a chunk of gold, everything will be fine.”
” I hope you’re not expecting to find it just lying around waiting for you to simply pick it up. The guy who told you about it would have taken everything he could see.”
“He couldn’t carry it all.”
“So he chose you above everybody else he could tell where this El Derado is? If it was me, I wouldn’t tell a soul. Or I would tell people to go somewhere entirely different.”
She had made some very valid points, and if I had been the original discoverer, I would not tell anyone where the gold was. Not unless I was selling bogus treasure maps. And the caves were not exactly unknown. Intrepid hikers who wanted a challenge set it as the hardest trek that could be had in the area.
If there was gold in the caves, it would have long been discovered before this.
“Well, he didn’t. Just accept that I know what I’m doing.”
That next statement should have been, ‘You’ve been scammed’, but instead, she didn’t say another word. My only thought was that anything was possible, but I remembered the rangers saying that the geological structures were not conducive to finding any sort of mineral.
In the beginning, we tend to write ourselves into the stories we write, and also, the various other characters are a collection of traits of people we have known in the past and present.
The trick is with those other people not to make them too much like their real-life counterparts, or you may spend the rest of your life in litigation.
I know there are parts of me in my characters because people I know who have read my stories tell me how much they are like me. The problem with that is I didn’t realise I was doing it.
But, to emphasise, the story is not about you.
Unless it is an autobiography.
I have thought about it, writing the story of my life, but it’s so boring, the best use of my book would be to read it just before going to bed.
What is probably more interesting would be the story of my family, traced back to the mid-1700s, and they are a very interesting bunch. To me, it seems that people who lived a hundred years ago had far more interesting lives than we do these days.
All the while we are talking about the nuts and bolts of the story, words are being put on paper more or less at the rate of 1,666 a day.
Of course, chapters don’t magically write themselves into 1,666 words; I wish they did.
That means after 10 days, we should be a third of the way through the story, and we almost are.
I am having fun imagining what it would be like to live in a draughty and cold castle, not for the first time, I have been here before, and what it’s like for the prince who tried so hard to escape the inevitability of his life.
Perhaps a few banquets with dancing might make him see differently.
Maybe waiting for his mother to return to sanity after she couldn’t cope after losing her husband.
Or perhaps discover things about his mother that he would prefer not to know.
Perhaps discovering how far his older brother was going to throw his country under the bus because he didn’t care, might motivate him to institute a few changes.
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.
In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.
I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.
There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.
Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.
For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.
It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 