Category: Books

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 35

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 prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

 

She gave me a minute to think about the situation, and then said what I was thinking, “So he could be anywhere?”

“He was dead.  I felt for a pulse.  There wasn’t one.”

I could interpret that expression on her face, ‘you’re not a doctor’.

She turned another page, read a few lines, then made a note at the bottom.

It read, if my deciphering was up to scratch, ‘doesn’t know if subject dead or not’.

She looked up again.  “It appears these documents are out there,” she waved her hand in the air, “somewhere.  Fortunately, they have not turned up, not has someone tried to sell them back or to the newspapers, so we’re lucky.  So far.  That isn’t going to last for much longer.  Every extra day out there is another chance for the government to be embarrassed.”

“You know what the contents are?”

“Don’t be silly.  That’s above my pay grade, and besides, you and I are better off not knowing.  So, what you need to do is find O’Connell and/or find the documents on this USB drive.”

She slid a card across the table.  It had a name and a telephone number.  Monica Sherive.  A mobile number, a burner no doubt that couldn’t be traced back to her.

“You find either, you tell me first.”

“Nobbin?”

“Second, and when I tell you.”

“So you don’t trust him either?”

“At the moment, for both you and I have to be careful who we trust.”

I added her to the list of people I couldn’t trust, not that she had told me I could trust her.  Yet.

“And if I get contacted by Severin again?”

“Have you?”

I had thought about not telling her about that brief meeting where he told me about the USB drive, but it couldn’t do any harm.  At least she hadn’t asked me if I knew about the USB, which was something, I suppose.

“Yes.  Once.  Told me to keep my head down.  And asked me if O’Connell had time to talk to me.  It was the same answer I gave him back in the alley.  No.  I’d just managed to corner him when he was shot.”

“By Severin, or this other fellow,” she shuffled back several pages, then said, “Maury?”

“No.  That was what was odd about it.  The shot came from somewhere else.  A sniper I would have thought.”

And, my brain suddenly moving into overdrive, piecing together what might be a coincidence, but in our business, they were rarely coincidences.  A sniper shot him., say Nobbin or one of his people, he looks dead, waits for a call to the cleaners, intercepts it, and collects the so-called dead O’Connell.  It was a good conspiracy theory.

And as far-fetched as one.

Severin had to have the body somewhere, trying to figure out how to bring O’Connell back to life so he could torture the USB location out of him.

Hell, that was as twisted as the conspiracy theory.

Time to change the subject.  “Do you have any idea who Severin and Maury are?”

She went to the back of the file and pulled out some photographs, mug shots perhaps of staff members.  She put five faces in front of me and asked me if the two were there.

They were.  The first, with the name of David Westcott, and the fourth with the name of Bernie Salvin.

“Who are they?”

“They used to work in the training department for ten or so years ago.  Westcott was also a handler for several years.  They both requested a transfer to operations, and we give a mission.  Six agents were assigned, and all six were killed, an investigation after the fact found that their identities had been leaked to the enemy before they reached the target.”

“They gave them up?”

“Nobody knows for sure.  There were others in that group, but in the end, the department retired them all.  All their years in training served them well.  We found the place where you were trained.”

Another photograph of the main building.  I nodded.

“It was an old training facility closed down five years ago.  It was just sitting there waiting for an enterprising crew.  It won’t happen again.  Needless to say, we haven’t been able to find either of them, only the people they employed, who believed it was in good faith.  A mess in other words.  Now, go.  Find me answers.”

She stood.  The meeting was over.

© Charles Heath 2020

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s final draft – Day 1

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.

…

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.

Searching for locations: Windsor Castle, London, England

A fine day, on this trip a rarity, we decided to take the train to Windsor and see the castle.

This is a real castle, and still in one piece, unlike a lot of castles.

Were we hoping to see the Queen, no, it was highly unlikely.

But there were a lot of planes flying overhead into Heathrow.  The wind must have been blowing the wrong day, and I’m sure, with one passing over every few minutes, it must annoy the Queen if she was looking for peace and quiet.

Good thing then, when it was built, it was an ideal spot, and not under the landing path.  I guess it was hard to predict what would happen 500 years in the future!

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I’m not sure if this was the front gate or back gate, but I was wary of any stray arrows coming out of those slits either side of the entrance.

You just never know!

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An excellent lawn for croquet.  This, I think, is the doorway, on the left, where dignitaries arrive by car.  The private apartments are across the back.

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The visitor’s apartments.  Not sure who that is on the horse.

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St George’s Chapel.  It’s a magnificent church for a private castle.  It’s been very busy the last few months with Royal weddings.

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The Round Tower, or the Keep.  It is the castle’s centerpiece.  Below it is the gardens.

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Those stairs are not for the faint-hearted, nor the Queen I suspect.  But I think quite a few royal children and their friends have been up and down them a few times.

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And well worth the effort to reach the bottom.

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Any faces peering out through the windows?

Taking the headlines and conjuring up the plot of a novel

What do you make of this lot:

What happened at a Russian missile site?  This is also tinged with nuclear fallout.

The US is consulting with allies in Asia about missile sites.  Nothing more inflammatory to a country like China, with whom relations are deteriorating at a rapid rate of knots.

Investors rush to buy bonds.  OK, that’s short term bonds not long term bonds, and that, of course, caused an inverted curve, or a preclusion to a recession.

Gold and silver investment is booming, and in times past, this could be a precursor to war.

China has a huge fishing fleet in the South China Sea.  Why, no one knows.

China is also planning naval exercises in the same area.  Are they flexing muscles or sending a warning?

They’ve also had problems in Hong Kong, but it didn’t escalate into what happened at Tiananmen Square.  But, bottom line, Hong Kong is not a place to go to or stop over any more because of a constant threat of being arrested.  I’m certainly never going there again, which is a shame because it was my second favorite Asian city after Singapore.

And, of course, there’s another flashpoint in Kashmir, which everyone seems to have an opinion, but that had been simmering for a long, long time, and probably will for years to come.

And as for the former world power, the UK, they have got past Brexit, or have they?

So, from a thriller writer’s perspective, it means that if Russia is rearming, the US is trying to pre-empt missile strikes from China, or anything is simmering in North Korea which currently doesn’t seem to be the case, it seems the savvier investors have a notion the world might be on the brink of war, and the US might be in the middle of it all.

The US appears:

  • to be in a trade war with China, or perhaps a war of words
  • are selling billions worth of arms to Taiwan, a red rag to a bull if there was ever one
  • are offering to help out in Kashmir
  • are sending ships to the South China sea to show the ‘flag’
  • are standing back and watching North Korea launch missiles
  • are emphatically denying there will be a recession, at least at home

Can we get a plot line out of all this?

Title:  Flashpoint

Synopsis:

A leaked report on a Russian missile base suggests a recent ‘mishap’ with disarming ‘old nuclear missiles’, was more than just routine issue, and a flyover by satellite shows there are more sinister and unexplainable operations in play.

Meanwhile, the arrival of a Russian nuclear specialist and a group of Chinese scientists in North Korea is quickly followed by several missile tests a week later.  Are the North Koreans, with the help of the Chinese, looking to arm their missiles with Russian nuclear warheads?

The CIA has sent two of their best operatives to find out what is really going on, one, Sam Stockton, borne of Russian parents, and who has yet to exorcise his demons from the last failed mission, and the other, Elizabeth Chen, a North Korean expert who is coming out of retirement for this particular delicate assignment.

Will they discover the truth before the world descends into a nuclear holocaust?

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Searching For Locations: Disneyland, Paris, France

Whilst I found this tree house to be interesting, it seems to be far from practical because there was little to keep the wind and rain out, though I suppose, in the book, that might not be such a problem.

Be that as it may, and if it was relatively waterproof, then the furnishings would probably survive, and one had to also assume that much of the furnishings, such as the writing desk below, would have washed up as debris from the shipwreck.

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The stove and oven would have to be built by hand, and it is ‘remarkable’ such well-fitting stones were available.  It doesn’t look like it’s been used for a while judging by the amount of gree on it.  Perhaps it is not in a waterproof area.

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The dining table and the shelf in the background have that rough-hewn look about them

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A bit of man-made equipment here for drawing water from the stream

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And though not made in the era of electricity, there is an opportunity to use the water wheel to do more than it appears to be doing

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And tucked away in a corner the all-important study where one can read, or play a little music on the organ.  One could say, for the period, one had all the comforts of home.

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An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

“The Document” – the editor’s final draft – Day 30

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…

…

Just crossed the finish line

…

That’s it for another edition.

67,941 words written, but if I sat down now to contemplate what I’ve just done, the post-it notes would get in the way.

Oh, there was so much revision to do!

But, at least I managed to revise a complete novel in a month which is what I try to do each year, and then worry about editing and refining the next work in progress for the next eleven.

Not looking forward to that job, no sir.

Of course, the ending is nothing like what I envisioned the first time around, but when does it ever once the characters take over.

Until November for the next new novel, or something momentous, I bid you all a good night.

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1

In a word: Hear

Which reminds me, I am told I have selective hearing, that I only hear what I want to hear

But what if you overhear someone?  Would it be by accident or on purpose?  Of course, some people talk so loudly you can’t help but hear them

In reality, to hear is to perceive with the ear something or someone

If you pay attention in class, you might hear what is being said

The judge, far from being dismissive, said he would hear the case

And I’m sure we sometimes wonder if God can hear our prayers

Did you hear the news?  If it’s anything other than COVID I probably did.

Hear hear, now what does that really mean when someone cries it out after someone else makes a statement?

This is not to be confused with the word here

Like when someone asks where you are, you say I’m here, but forget to add that you are invisible

This is going to end here and now!

Here is a book I think you should read

Here, let me take that bag of groceries

How many times did you consider not saying ‘here’ when the teacher called your name at roll-call?  I know I did, a few times