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.
After another exhausting walk, by now the heat was beginning to take its toll on everyone, we arrived at the pagoda forest.
A little history first:
The pagoda forest is located west of the Shaolin Temple and the foot of a hill. As the largest pagoda forest in China, it covers approximately 20,000 square meters and has about 230 pagodas build from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
Each pagoda is the tomb of an eminent monk from the Shaolin Temple. Graceful and exquisite, they belong to different eras and constructed in different styles. The first pagoda was thought to be built in 791.
It is now a world heritage site.
No, it’s not a forest with trees it’s a collection of over 200 pagodas, each a tribute to a head monk at the temple and it goes back a long time. The tribute can have one, three, five, or a maximum of seven layers. The ashes of the individual are buried under the base of the pagoda.
The size, height, and story of the pagoda indicate its accomplishments, prestige, merits, and virtues. Each pagoda was carved with the exact date of construction and brief inscriptions and has its own style with various shapes such as a polygonal, cylindrical, vase, conical and monolithic.
This is one of the more recently constructed pagodas
There are pagodas for eminent foreign monks also in the forest.
From there we get a ride back on the back of a large electric wagon
to the front entrance courtyard where drinks and ice creams can be bought, and a visit to the all-important happy place.
As accomplished as we can be at putting words on paper, what is it that makes it so difficult to sit in a chair with a camera on you, and saying words rather than writing them?
Er and um seem to crop up a lot in verbal speech.
OK, it was a simple question; “What motivates you to write?”
Damn.
My brain just turned to mush, and the words come out sounding like a drunken sailor after a night out on the town.
The written answer to the question is simple; “The idea that someone will read what I have written, and quite possibly enjoy it; that is motivation enough.”
It highlights the difficulties of the novice author.
Not only are there the constant demands of creating a ‘brand’ and building a ‘following’, there is also the need to market oneself, and the interview is one of the more effective ways of doing this.
If only I can settle the nerves.
I mean, really, it is only my granddaughter who is conducting the interview, and the questions are relatively simple.
The trouble is, I’ve never had to do it before, well, perhaps in an interview for a job, but that is less daunting. That usually sticks to a predefined format.
Here the narrative can go in any direction. There are set questions, but the interviewer, in her inimitable manner, can sometimes slide a question in out of left field.
For instance, “Your character Zoe the assassin, is she based on someone you know, or an amalgam of other characters you’ve read about or seen in movies?”
That was an interesting question, and one that has several answers, but the one most relevant was; “It was the secret alter ego of one of the women I used to work with. I asked her one day if she wasn’t doing what she was, what she would like to do. It fascinated me that other people had a desire to be something more exotic in an alter ego.”
Of course, the next question was about what I wanted to be in an alter ego.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
We walked another umpteen miles from the exhibition to a Chinese restaurant that is going to serve us Chinese food again with a beer and a rather potent pomegranate wine that has a real kick. It was definitely value for money at 60 yuan per person.
But perhaps the biggest thrill, if it could be called that, was discovering downstairs, the man who discovered the original pieces of a terracotta soldier when digging a well. He was signing books bought in the souvenir store, but not those that had been bought elsewhere.
Some of is even got photographed with him. Fifteen minutes of fame moment? Maybe.
After lunch, it was off to the station for another high-speed train ride, this time for about two and a half hours, from X’ian to Zhangzhou dong.
It’s the standard high-speed train ride and the usual seat switching because of weird allocation issues, so a little confusion reigns until the train departs at 5:59.
Once we were underway it didn’t take long before we hit the maximum speed
Twenty minutes before arrival, and knowing we only have three minutes to get off everyone is heading for the exit clogging up the passageway. It wasn’t panic but with the three-minute limit, perhaps organized panic would be a better description.
As it turned out, with all the cases near the door, the moment to door opened one of our group got off, and the other just started putting cases on the platform, and in doing so we were all off in 42 seconds with time to spare.
And this was despite the fact there were about twenty passengers just about up against the door trying to get in. I don’t think they expected to have cases flying off the train in their direction.
We find our way to the exit and our tour guide Dannie. It was another long walk to the bus, somewhat shabbier from the previous day, no leg room, no pocket, no USB charging point like the day before. Disappointing.
On the way from the station to the hotel, the tour guide usually gives us a short spiel on the next day’s activities, but instead, I think we got her life history and a song, delivered in high pitched and rapid Chinglish that was hard to understand.
Not at this hour of the night to an almost exhausted busload of people who’d had enough from the train. Oh, did I forgot the singing, no, it was an interesting rendition of ‘you are my sunshine’.
The drive was interesting in that it mostly in the dark. There was no street lighting and in comparison to X’ian which was very bright and cheerful, this was dark and gloomy.
Then close to the hotel our guide said that if we had any problems with the room, she would be in the lobby for half an hour.
That spoke volumes about the hotel they put us in.
This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.
And so it begins…
…
What’s a spy story without an insidious plot?
…
So, the world of the spy is usually in the most expensive clothes, the most expensive cars, staying in six-star hotels, high rolling in the best casinos, in the company of very beautiful women. Also let’s not forget they can shoot with almost any weapon from a Luger to a sniper rifle, to a portable land-to-air missile launcher, they can fly any sort of plane or helicopter, and to finance all this, a briefcase full of money, six different passports, and whatever documents might be needed in a crunch situation.
Let’s not forget that he or she is an expert in martial arts and self-defence, and the notion of taking on six assailants at once does not faze them one bit.
Yes, larger than life.
But do they have to be? I mean, at some point our agent has to be a newbie in the field, after months and months of training in all the essential things they need to know.
That first job in the field.
Will they succeed, or will they be found out and killed before they draw their second breath?
This story starts out as a first mission of a newbie, and the fact that from the moment he is on the ground in the target zone, everything goes wrong. He is still working on the premise that those who sent him had researched the mission and planned for a basic safe working space. After all, it was a matter of going in, getting the target, and getting out. Since no one else was supposed to know they were coming, it should have been simple.
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.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
Before we embarked on the great driving expedition, for which I was beginning to think might be harder than it seemed to Boggs’ one-track mind, we decided to go and check out the mall, and if, indeed, there was an underground river, or, at the very least, if his flooding theory was correct.
We were going to need very old clothes, and when I left the next morning, my mother noticed it.
“I’m going to do some gardening with Boggs. He came up with this notion we could help out at the old folk’s home.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
And it was a lie I knew would eventually come back to bite me. My mother hadn’t exactly told me to stop seeing Boggs, because she was beginning to think his mental capacity had been diminished after the beating.
It was a logical and perfectly acceptable reason for his odd behavior.
I went directly to Boggs’ house, and he was waiting for me. From there it was about twenty minutes, to a spot where he knew the surrounding fence had a hole big enough for us to crawl through.
It was odd seeing the place again, sitting out a few miles from the town, looking forlorn. At the front entrance, off the road specially built between it and the town, there were miles of cyclone fencing, with signs alternately telling people to keep out on threat of prosecution for trespass, and more recently, hazard signs proclaiming the whole area was unsafe.
From where we’d stopped, we could see the carpark, enough for hundreds of cars, a bus terminus, a taxi rank, and the front façade of the shopping center, mostly looking like the front of a castle, with towers and ramparts.
There had been auxiliary plans for a medieval theme park at one stage, that would have blended in with the mall buildings, but that had to be abandoned, even though the land allocated to it was stable. Or so a surveyor said.
We continued on until we reached the side leading to the marina. From this vantage point looking one way, there was the ocean, and the other, the damage to the side of the mall buildings, the cracks, and, in places, where the roof had collapsed.
This would be the first time I’d set foot in the place since it had been a mall.
It had been popular, and there was always plenty of people shopping, eating and drinking, going to the cinemas, or just having a day out. There had also been a museum dedicated to the naval days.
Now there was nothing.
It was ironic that as many of the castles in the British Isles that had been reduced to rubble, that was exactly what was going to happen here if someone didn’t take a bulldozer to the lot and level it out.
And that might happen sooner rather than later. This was reputed to be the site of many a disappearance of a local person. Three girls, two men, and a boy were supposedly hidden somewhere inside the mall, but the bodies had never been found.
I was thinking of those missing people when I said, with a degree of trepidation, “Do you really want to do this? I mean, if you’re sure there’s an underground waterway here, I’ll happily take your word for it.”
Boggs just shook his head. “You’re the last person I’d expect to chicken out.”
“It not that.”
“Isn’t it? I can go by myself if you’re worried about getting hurt.”
“No. You and me together. I have to learn to fight those fears.”
Another look, then, “OK. “Just a little further.”
Another minute or so, we reached a large rusting cylinder which had an almost illegible sign on it say the tank held inflammable liquid. I tapped on the metal and it sounded empty. I guess as part of the shut down they would have had to drain the tank. I followed the tangle of pipes that ran slightly downhill for about 20 yards and then saw the opening in the fence Boggs had referred to.
We left our bikes behind the tank, among some bushes.
We then walked down to the fence line where the pipes passed through, and Boggs pulled back the chain wire. A closer look showed it had been cut halfway up, making it easy to slip by, easier if there were two people along for the visit.
“Did you cut the fence,” I asked him.
He didn’t answer. I guess he wanted me to think he had.
“Have you been here before?”
“Through here, yes. A few times.” He held the wire away and I climbed through. I did the same for him on the other side, and he joined me. The two halves melded back together so from a distance no one could tell the fence had been tampered with.
From the fence, we had to cross the access road to the marina, and across a carpark, now overgrown with weeds, and bushes, with the odd tree springing up through the cracks in the concrete.
The wall, when we reached it, was where several large cracks joined, and part of the wall had fallen away leaving a hole large enough to crawl through. I put my head through the crack and could barely see anything. There was light coming from the seaward side, but on the other, it was inky darkness.
There was also a very disturbing aroma, like freshly laid concrete crossed with the smell of a garage repair shop. Years of spilled oil and grease.
“Is it safe?” I asked.
Boggs shrugged. “It could all fall down at any moment. You read the signs on the fence. Basically, this is, on one hand, cheating death. On the other, we could be on the verge of an interesting discovery.” Then, without another word, he went through the gap and inside.
A few seconds later, I could see the light from his cell phone.
I shrugged. If anything happened, like the building falling on me, I probably wouldn’t feel it. And he was right, we could be on the verge of an interesting discovery.
I followed him inside and slid down the broken concrete and bricks to a dirty but solid-feeling floor, where Boggs was waiting, the light from his phone pointed in the direction of a storefront.
And looking at a dummy still dressed in clothes left behind.
I couldn’t help but think I’d seen that style of clothes somewhere before.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
Before we embarked on the great driving expedition, for which I was beginning to think might be harder than it seemed to Boggs’ one-track mind, we decided to go and check out the mall, and if, indeed, there was an underground river, or, at the very least, if his flooding theory was correct.
We were going to need very old clothes, and when I left the next morning, my mother noticed it.
“I’m going to do some gardening with Boggs. He came up with this notion we could help out at the old folk’s home.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
And it was a lie I knew would eventually come back to bite me. My mother hadn’t exactly told me to stop seeing Boggs, because she was beginning to think his mental capacity had been diminished after the beating.
It was a logical and perfectly acceptable reason for his odd behavior.
I went directly to Boggs’ house, and he was waiting for me. From there it was about twenty minutes, to a spot where he knew the surrounding fence had a hole big enough for us to crawl through.
It was odd seeing the place again, sitting out a few miles from the town, looking forlorn. At the front entrance, off the road specially built between it and the town, there were miles of cyclone fencing, with signs alternately telling people to keep out on threat of prosecution for trespass, and more recently, hazard signs proclaiming the whole area was unsafe.
From where we’d stopped, we could see the carpark, enough for hundreds of cars, a bus terminus, a taxi rank, and the front façade of the shopping center, mostly looking like the front of a castle, with towers and ramparts.
There had been auxiliary plans for a medieval theme park at one stage, that would have blended in with the mall buildings, but that had to be abandoned, even though the land allocated to it was stable. Or so a surveyor said.
We continued on until we reached the side leading to the marina. From this vantage point looking one way, there was the ocean, and the other, the damage to the side of the mall buildings, the cracks, and, in places, where the roof had collapsed.
This would be the first time I’d set foot in the place since it had been a mall.
It had been popular, and there was always plenty of people shopping, eating and drinking, going to the cinemas, or just having a day out. There had also been a museum dedicated to the naval days.
Now there was nothing.
It was ironic that as many of the castles in the British Isles that had been reduced to rubble, that was exactly what was going to happen here if someone didn’t take a bulldozer to the lot and level it out.
And that might happen sooner rather than later. This was reputed to be the site of many a disappearance of a local person. Three girls, two men, and a boy were supposedly hidden somewhere inside the mall, but the bodies had never been found.
I was thinking of those missing people when I said, with a degree of trepidation, “Do you really want to do this? I mean, if you’re sure there’s an underground waterway here, I’ll happily take your word for it.”
Boggs just shook his head. “You’re the last person I’d expect to chicken out.”
“It not that.”
“Isn’t it? I can go by myself if you’re worried about getting hurt.”
“No. You and me together. I have to learn to fight those fears.”
Another look, then, “OK. “Just a little further.”
Another minute or so, we reached a large rusting cylinder which had an almost illegible sign on it say the tank held inflammable liquid. I tapped on the metal and it sounded empty. I guess as part of the shut down they would have had to drain the tank. I followed the tangle of pipes that ran slightly downhill for about 20 yards and then saw the opening in the fence Boggs had referred to.
We left our bikes behind the tank, among some bushes.
We then walked down to the fence line where the pipes passed through, and Boggs pulled back the chain wire. A closer look showed it had been cut halfway up, making it easy to slip by, easier if there were two people along for the visit.
“Did you cut the fence,” I asked him.
He didn’t answer. I guess he wanted me to think he had.
“Have you been here before?”
“Through here, yes. A few times.” He held the wire away and I climbed through. I did the same for him on the other side, and he joined me. The two halves melded back together so from a distance no one could tell the fence had been tampered with.
From the fence, we had to cross the access road to the marina, and across a carpark, now overgrown with weeds, and bushes, with the odd tree springing up through the cracks in the concrete.
The wall, when we reached it, was where several large cracks joined, and part of the wall had fallen away leaving a hole large enough to crawl through. I put my head through the crack and could barely see anything. There was light coming from the seaward side, but on the other, it was inky darkness.
There was also a very disturbing aroma, like freshly laid concrete crossed with the smell of a garage repair shop. Years of spilled oil and grease.
“Is it safe?” I asked.
Boggs shrugged. “It could all fall down at any moment. You read the signs on the fence. Basically, this is, on one hand, cheating death. On the other, we could be on the verge of an interesting discovery.” Then, without another word, he went through the gap and inside.
A few seconds later, I could see the light from his cell phone.
I shrugged. If anything happened, like the building falling on me, I probably wouldn’t feel it. And he was right, we could be on the verge of an interesting discovery.
I followed him inside and slid down the broken concrete and bricks to a dirty but solid-feeling floor, where Boggs was waiting, the light from his phone pointed in the direction of a storefront.
And looking at a dummy still dressed in clothes left behind.
I couldn’t help but think I’d seen that style of clothes somewhere before.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 