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 installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
The passage heading towards the marina was littered with fallen rocks, timber beams, and roofing material. Much of the damage was in this wing, where the marina had started falling apart.
It was a problem with the foundations. A long and costly investigation had found that the marinas foundations had been inadequately built on a shifting base, made worse by the seasonal water flow.
It was interesting to learn that the event that caused the start of the problems had not occurred in a hundred years, but had been noted in an early newspaper report, and only that it was a phenomenon,
No one at the time had any interest in building there, and it was understood when the navy built its marina, there was no mention of anything untoward happening that would preclude the construction.
And, over the life of the project, nothing had happened. It was why, when the mall was being touted, no one really knew anything about flooding because it hadn’t happened in living memory. That only came later, after the damage was done.
We reached the end of the passageway and found the stairs leading up to the walkway around the marina was closed off. Someone had pulled a board away and we could peer through the crack.
There was daylight beyond, and we could see the large cracks in the staircase, and along the walls either side. There were two sets of stairs up both at the end of a mall passageway, and, in between, there were steps down into the carpark. To one side of that was an elevator lobby, but the elevators would not be working.
But, just out of curiosity, I pressed the button. The light came on, but nothing happened, and, a second later, it went out again.
I looked up, but Boggs had not moved from the top of the stairs.
These steps were not blocked by a barricade, but there would be some difficulty stepping over masonry that had fallen from the roof, which now had a gaping crack and a few pieces of concrete missing. I could see the steel reinforcing and it was rusting.
A few years, all of it would eventually come down.
“You sure this is safe,” I asked.
“Been here a few times. I reckon it hasn’t changed much in years.”
He was looking at the map again, and I peered over his shoulder. The stairs were there but looking down we could only see as far as the landing. There were cracked and broken tiles everywhere, and the handrail had been bent severely out of shape by a boulder now wedged in the rail.
Boggs put the map in his back pocket and said, “Follow me.” He started walking slowly down the stairs, flashing his cell phone light ahead so we could see if there were any hazards.
At the landing, we looked further down the stairs, and these were cleaner. Also, the wall which kept the marina out had a crack in it, and it was damp which meant water was seeping in. The smell was of mold, and I wondered if that could be good for our health.
I followed him down to the first level of the carpark. In the distance, looking back towards the front entrance of the mall, way in the distance was the slatted entrance gates, light seeping in through the cracks.
Between us and those gates were several cars, crushed by a huge concrete beam that had fallen on them. I remembered, then, that there had been a husband and wife in one of the cars at the time and they’d been killed. Their children had been luckier, the youngest had to go to the restroom, and that minute delay had saved them.
Still, it would not be good seeing your parents killed in front of your eyes.
“This place is giving me the creeps,” I said and shuddered.
They said there were ghosts, and I now believed them.
“What are we looking for?: I asked.
“Evidence of the underground river.”
“That would be long gone by now, since they built this lot over it, and some of it falling into it.”
“We shall see.”
He then went down the next flight of steps to the bottom carpark, and I followed. There was less debris on this level, but it was much darker down here, and with only Boggs’ cell phone light, we couldn’t see much else.
“That’s strange,” Boggs said, having taken a dozen or so steps to the right.
“What is?” I wondered what his definition of the word strange was.
“There’s supposed to be an open section here where the wall fell away, pushed by the water flow last time it flooded. The report said that a section here wasn’t anchored properly with formwork, hence the ease in which it was moved.”
I looked at the wall. It seemed to be still intact to me.
Boggs pulled out a pocketknife and tapped it against the surface.
The false concrete chipped and fell away, and a closer inspection showed stippled plaster over plywood, very damp plywood. Boggs extracted a knife and worked on the wall, clearing a foot square, the damp plaster easily peeling away.
A false wall, one that no one would think twice about if they were not looking for it.
Boggs then scraped sideways until the blade hit metal, then he scraped around it until a gate-type bolt was exposed. It didn’t have a lock. It was rusted shut, so Boggs found a rock and hit it a few times, shaking it loose. He opened it, then tugged on it.
Was he expecting a door to open?
“Give us some help here.”
We both pulled on it, and it gave way, showering us in plaster pieces. At least we weren’t smothered in dust.
As it opened, light flooded in, almost blinding me.
I let Boggs open it the rest of the way while my eyes adjusted.
Then I tentatively looked out.
From where we were standing, we could see the two levels of the marina walkway, broken away at this end above the doorway, and a big hole in the side wall of what was the marina pool. We could see, and smell the seawater, and beyond, the ocean.
Looking down, there was a sheer drop of about 30 feet, and under us, there was an opening. At that 30 feet was flowing water, and through the water, I thought I could see clothes.
“Is that a body down there?”
It looked like one.
“No. Don’t think so. Someone probably threw a clothed dummy down there for fun, once when this was open. I’d say it was closed up to make the place safer. Anyway, we’ll soon find out. We’re going down to have a look.”
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.
It was a cold, overcast, wet day. Everywhere was wet from the last downpour, which made it difficult to take the shortcut across the grass in the park. More rain was imminent.
I was, as usual, running late for the appointment, having not factored in train cancellations and unseasonal weather.
It was not far from where I entered the park, and I could see the bench was empty, which meant my contact was also running late. Perhaps I might be saved a bollocking today.
For the last forty yards, the direct line of sight to the bench would be lost for a short time, and when I finally got it back in sight, someone was sitting on it, and it definitely was not the person I was meeting. It looked like a young girl, a university student, or a clerk. Definitely not the usual contact. Not any more.
Protocol said that if there was a stranger at the meeting place, we were to walk away and reschedule. I was not one for following the rules.
When on the final few yards, I felt my cell phone vibrate and pulled it out. A message. “Substituted contact with replacement given a very tight timeline. She will brief you, her name is Heather Knowles, and the codeword for authentication is 1 spark. The mission starts at the end of the briefing. Play nice.”
I had no idea the department was recruiting so young, or perhaps I was used to working with many older people.
I sat down at the other end of the bench and could feel rather than see her looking at me. I turned to look at her, a serious expression on her face. No humour today, then.
“Heather?”
“Are you the bright spark?”
“Twenty years ago, maybe, but not today.” She made it sound like an intended, thinly disguised insult.
“Let’s walk.” She stood and inclined her head in the direction we would be going.
I wondered if she had the same thought I did, a man walking in the park with a girl half his age. It was odd that Charmaine, my usual handler, would make a meeting such as this look so out of place. Perhaps she thought it might look like a father-daughter meeting.
“Charmaine told me you were one of her best operatives.”
Start with a compliment, that meant something a whole lot worse than I could imagine was about to happen.
“One of many, I wouldn’t say one of the best. Not after the last operation. Just to warn you, this call-up was unexpected. My last mission went south, and I wasn’t expecting a recall so soon.”
Everything would have been fine if we had not been subject to on-the-spot oversight in the name of transparency, a new initiative by what we used to call ‘the powers that be’. The person I was assigned to protect had been betrayed and had been killed, and I nearly died in the escape. The sole survivor, just, I’d spent a month in the hospital and another three recuperating.
“As you are all too well aware, situations develop quickly, sometimes too quickly. We have been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if the intel is correct, and we have no reason to believe it isn’t. You are along for the ride because of your expert knowledge, but just a heads up, you are also being assessed for ongoing participation or retirement.
“You the assessor?”
“Me, no. I’m relatively new, and this will be my first major operation. Charmaine tells me that having you along will teach me very valuable lessons.”
As I assumed, babysitting. Every now and then a senior officer was allotted a new recruit and told not to get him or her killed. I’d managed to dodge that bullet, but not any more. I just hoped it was something easy. I remembered my first operation. No one to guide me, just a jump into the deep end and you either sank or swum. I shrugged. “The message said the operation starts at the end of whatever this is. What is it?”
“Let’s find a Cafe. I could do with a coffee.”
“I read up on your case file notes for the last operation, that one where Jackson got the drop on all of us. Crosschecked with other Intel, it seems that you were deliberately set up to fail. Of course, while the evidence points to one particular person, we have no proof, and, of course, that person can find any number of excuses to dodge responsibility. I’m sure you think you know who it is too.”
“I have one or two candidates in mind.”
She smiled when the waitress came over with the coffee and a small banoffee pie. She’s offered to get me one, but my taste, boring as it was, ran to apple pies which they didn’t have. Then, after she had gone, and Heather had tasted the coffee, she turned her attention back to me.
“The operation has two objectives, to draw out the mole, we’ve decided to call this person a mole, and to surprise Jackson in a place where he thinks he is totally safe. Yes, a bold move on a slippery son-of-a-bitch, but this time, he’s not going to get away.”
Young and naive, I thought. Jackson was always a slippery customer, and always when we just about had him on the hook. Going back into the fray, up against him, the man with a thousand eyes and ears everywhere, so soon, was a little daunting. And he would be expecting us.
“Few have tried, many have failed, myself included. My specialist knowledge will only be how to escape alive when he turns the tables on us, yet again.”
She smiled. “Oh, ye of little faith. I come from a new generation of agents, we’re meaner, sneakier, and for this mission at least, we can shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Oversight?”
“Yes, well, he’s in for a treat, isn’t he when he finds out, well after the clock has struck twelve. We’re going old school, and involving the need-to-know principle, and oversight just doesn’t need to know.”
“He’ll find out. Everyone is a snitch looking for a favour these days. Our service is looking more and more like the Stasi.”
Another of her winning smiles. “All those who need to know, know, now. That’s three. The boss isn’t going to tell anyone, I’m certainly not, and I doubt you share anything with anyone. What does the G, middle name, represent?”
“Need to know, and you don’t. When is this operation taking place?”
“Tonight. You have about 6 hours to fortify the nerves, and then there will be a briefing. There are three others who will be along for the ride also, and I think you will approve. Now, I’m afraid I can’t let you out of my sight until then, so tell me what you’d like to do.”
I had a suggestion, but I kept it to myself. If she didn’t trust me, she should say so, but it didn’t bother me. I had a trusty book of cryptic crosswords and an addiction to coffee. Maybe I might even ask her to tell me more about herself.”
Six hours passed quickly, and when the time came, we were picked up in a plain white van and taken to a disused factory. It seemed an odd place to have a team briefing. But she was right about the support team. They were well-known to me and were the best extraction team the department had.
The fact that we were using an extraction team told me the mission was going to be difficult if not very dangerous. Anything regarding Jackson was.
“The plan is simple, Jake, your team covers the exits. There are three. We’re not stepping on eggshells this time. Just shoot anything that moves. Given the location, there will not be any innocent bystanders to worry about. Ken and I will go in and take the targets. Once secure, we bring them back here for interrogation. We all have a reason to bring Jackson down, but remember, we need him, and the person he’s meeting is alive.”
“Where is this happening?” I asked.
“Patience. N9 one has a cell phone on them if you have to leave it behind. No one is on their own until the op starts. It’s not a lack of trust, it’s keeping it all under wraps until we strike, every other time he’s seen us coming. Not this time. Let’s go. I’m driving.”
I got it. This was so secret, no one was supposed to know before we got there. Charmaine must have thought long and hard about how every other operation had been compromised and brought it a fresh face to run it. What did bother me was the ‘we all have a reason to bring Jackson down…”
I guessed soon find out.
As darkness fell, we drove out of the city and towards the hills that surrounded the city, and it looked like we were heading to the haven of the rich, a community of cabins nestled in the woods, each with privacy, and security guards that kept it so. I had been there once before to pay Jackson a visit and didn’t get past first base. This was going to get interesting.
An hour later, very dark, very quiet, we were half a mile from the gatehouse on the one road in or out. The van was parked, we changed into dark coveralls and black beanies, took two guns and spare ammo, and finally put in the comms devices. Heather then gave the extraction team each a device. “You can now see where the security guards are. These guys are mercenaries, so don’t treat them with kid gloves. We don’t need any of them interrupting the part. Ken, let us know when you out have the gatehouse.”
Seconds later we were alone, the others disappearing into the forest. The darkness was almost complete, any moonlight blocked out by the trees. Heather also had a device and switched it on. Immediately, eight blips came up on the screen, evenly spaced over what looked like a wide area. The guards on patrol.
A crooked line came up also, with a different blip, what I thought must be us, and a path to the cabin where our targets were. She pushed a button, and another blip appeared. “The traitor,” was all she said before she headed into the forest.
Over the next fifteen minutes, Ken reported the gatehouse was secure, and six of the eight blips disappeared from the screen. I didn’t ask what that meant.
Then we came out of the forest into a clearing that had a cabin, with two cars parked out front. “There are two personal guards for Jackson, one inside, one out.”
A quick scan located the outside guard over by the cars having a cigarette. Obviously, they did not think that anyone was going to bother their boss tonight. Wrong. By the time he realised there was going to be trouble, he was down, trussed, and silenced.
“You take the back, I’ll go in the front. Let me know when you’re ready to go in.”
Five minutes. As I was about to step onto the porch, the other guard came out, totally unprepared, and I took him down, quickly and quietly the moment he stepped off the porch, and in the process of lighting a cigarette. Smoking kills was very apt.
I told her I was ready.
“Now.”
We stepped into the cabin at the same time. Jackson had a gun, but Heather shot it out of his hand before he could use it. The other man, the traitor, was exactly who I thought it was.
He glared at me, then switched to Heather, the surprise turning to shock.
It could have been anywhere in the world, she thought, but it wasn’t. It was in a city where if anything were to go wrong…
She sighed and came away from the window and looked around the room. It was quite large and expensively furnished. It was one of several she had been visiting in the last three months.
Quite elegant too, as the hotel had its origins dating back to before the revolution in 1917. At least, currently, there would not be a team of KGB agents somewhere in the basement monitoring everything that happened in the room.
There was no such thing as the KGB anymore, though there was an FSB, but such organisations were of no interest to her.
She was here to meet with Vladimir.
She smiled to herself when she thought of him, such an interesting man whose command of English was as good as her command of Russian, though she had not told him of that ability.
All he knew of her was that she was American, worked in the Embassy as a clerk, nothing important, whose life both at work and at home was boring. Not that she had blurted that out the first they met, or even the second.
That first time, at a function in the Embassy, was a chance meeting, a catching of his eye as he looked around the room, looking, as he had told her later, for someone who might not be as boring as the function itself.
It was a celebration, honouring one of the Embassy officials on his service in Moscow, and the fact he was returning home after 10 years. She had been there once, and still hadn’t met all the staff.
They had talked, Vladimir knew a great deal about England, having been stationed there for a year or two, and had politely asked questions about where she lived, her family, and of course what her role was, all questions she fended off with an air of disinterested interest.
It fascinated him, as she knew it would, a sort of mental sparring as one would do with swords if this was a fencing match.
They had said they might or might not meet again when the party was over, but she suspected there would be another opportunity. She knew the signs of a man who was interested in her, and Vladimir was interested.
The second time came in the form of an invitation to an art gallery, and a viewing of the works of a prominent Russian artist, an invitation she politely declined. After all, invitations issued to Embassy staff held all sorts of connotations, or so she was told by the Security officer when she told him.
Then, it went quiet for a month. There was a party at the American embassy and along with several other staff members, she was invited. She had not expected to meet Vladimir, but it was a pleasant surprise when she saw him, on the other side of the room, talking to several military men.
A pleasant afternoon ensued.
And it was no surprise that they kept running into each other at the various events on the diplomatic schedule.
By the fifth meeting, they were like old friends. She had broached the subject of being involved in a plutonic relationship with him with the head of security at the embassy. Normally for a member of her rank, it would not be allowed, but in this instance it was.
She did not work in any sensitive areas, and, as the security officer had said, she might just happen upon something that might be useful. In that regard, she was to keep her eyes and ears open and file a report each time she met him.
After that discussion, she got the impression her superiors considered Vladimir more than just a casual visitor on the diplomatic circuit. She also formed the impression that he might consider her an ‘asset’, a word that had been used at the meeting with security and the ambassador.
It was where the word ‘spy’ popped into her head and sent a tingle down her spine. She was not a spy, but the thought of it, well, it would be fascinating to see what happened.
A Russian friend. That’s what she would call him.
And over time, that relationship blossomed, until, after a visit to the ballet, late and snowing, he invited her to his apartment not far from the ballet venue. It was like treading on thin ice, but after champagne and an introduction to caviar, she felt like a giddy schoolgirl.
Even so, she had made him promise that he remain on his best behaviour. It could have been very easy to fall under the spell of a perfect evening, but he promised, showed her to a separate bedroom, and after a brief kiss, their first, she did not see him until the next morning.
So, it began.
It was an interesting report she filed after that encounter, one where she had expected to be reprimanded.
She wasn’t.
It wasn’t until six weeks had passed when he asked her if she would like to take a trip to the country. It would involve staying in a hotel, that they would have separate rooms. When she reported the invitation, no objection was raised, only a caution; keep her wits about her.
Perhaps, she had thought, they were looking forward to a more extensive report. After all, her reports on the places, and the people, and the conversations she overheard, were no doubt entertaining reading for some.
But this visit was where the nature of the relationship changed, and it was one that she did not immediately report. She had realised at some point before the weekend away, that she had feelings for him, and it was not that he was pushing her in that direction or manipulating her in any way.
It was just one of those moments where, after a grand dinner, a lot of champagne, and delightful company, things happen. Standing at the door to her room, a lingering kiss, not intentional on her part, and it just happened.
And for not one moment did she believe she had been compromised, but for some reason she had not reported that subtle change in the relationship to the powers that be, and so far, no one had any inkling.
She took off her coat and placed it carefully of the back of one of the ornate chairs in the room. She stopped for a moment to look at a framed photograph on the wall, one representing Red Square.
Then, after a minute or two, she went to the mini bar and took out the bottle of champagne that had been left there for them, a treat arranged by Vladimir for each encounter.
There were two champagne flutes set aside on the bar, next to a bowl of fruit. She picked up the apple and thought how Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden, and the temptation.
Later perhaps, after…
She smiled at the thought and put the apple back.
A glance at her watch told her it was time for his arrival. It was if anything, the one trait she didn’t like, and that was his punctuality. A glance at the clock on the room wall was a minute slow.
The doorbell to the room rang, right on the appointed time.
She put the bottle down and walked over to the door.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the 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
—–
“You left a paper trail, a car registration form at the flat in Bromley.”
I saw him shake his head. “I thought I’d removed any evidence.”
“Good thing then, that I found it, and not Severin who was next through the door.”
He nodded towards Jennifer. “What’s she doing here, she was one of your surveillance team.”
“She came with me. The department threw her out, I found her and asked her if she wanted to find out what was going on. Apparently, she did. Everyone can put their guns down now. We are, believe it or not, all friends here.”
Jennifer put her gun back in a pocket I hadn’t seen before.
Adam lowered his, but it was still ready to shoot if either of us made the wrong move. The old woman’s aim hadn’t changed; she was still intent on shooting me if I moved.
“Mother, give it up.”
A few seconds later she lowered the weapon, but it was still ready. To fire if I moved.
“Can we sit,” I asked. Having a gun aimed at you tended to make you feel week in the knees. I was.
There were three chairs in front of the fireplace, this room also having a fire ready but not lit, and one chair by the writing-table. We sat in the three chairs, the old woman over by the table. She put the rifle down on the desktop, within easy reach.
“My first question,” I said, “has to be, how are you still alive?”
“You left when Severin’s crew arrived to clean up. He left at the same time. Luckily. Then two of Dobbin’s agents arrived and cleaned up the cleaners, as it were, and took me to a safe place where it was discovered my injuries were not fatal.”
“You were hit by a sniper, that’s hard to believe he, or she, aimed to miss.”
“They didn’t. I think I moved slightly because of you, so I have you to thank for my life. Something else to remember, Dobbin doesn’t know I’m here, and I think the only link was that registration certificate. No one actually knows me by Adam Quigley, except, of course, my mother.
“And the USB everyone is after?”
A few seconds of silence, then, “It’s missing.”
“Were you the only one who knew where it was?”
“No, but as far as I’m aware, that person is dead, killed by the explosion you witnessed. We were due to meet there, just before the explosion which is why I was heading there.”
“You walked past it, as I recall.”
“Standard procedure. I walk past, check to see if the contact is there, then come back a few minutes later. I was running late, just got past when it went up. We would have both been in there, and dead.”
“And the USB gone with it?”
“Yes. My friend had it with him at the time. I was going there to pick it up.”
“No copies?” It was too much to expect there would be, even if it was worth more than life itself.
“No. That sort of information needs to be in as few places as possible.”
“You knew what it was about?”
“Yes.”
“And…”
“It’s above all our pay grades. But something I can tell you; I know why your Severin and Maury wanted it back.”
“It was theirs?”
“Yes. They originally stole it. I stole it from them and trying to return it to whom it belonged.”
“Nobbin?”
“God, no. I’ve since discovered he’s as crooked as all the rest. But now that it’s gone, it doesn’t matter who the owner of the information is. Just staying one step ahead of the jackals, that’s the job in hand.”
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:
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.
This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.
His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
“Love is simply a tenuous attachment looking for a reason to break.”
As a twice-widowed, twice-divorced cynic of marriage, I could have expected no less from my mother.
I’d just explained the latest reason for Marigold’s non-appearance at lunch, without having to tell her the truth, that Marigold hated my mother.
At times, so did I. This was one of them.
I also hated the fact that we had become rich from my mother’s plotting and scheming, what she called strategic marriages and fortuitous deaths.
It left me a target, or so my mother said, and her opinion of Marigold was so low she had said from the outset that she had married me for my money. Hardly, because of a watertight prenuptial she had to sign, one that only a woman who loved the man, not the money would sign.
For that reason, I believed I was the luckiest person alive.
“Let’s face it, you don’t like her.”
“She’s a schemer Rodney, mark my words. She’s up to something, I can feel it.”
I shook my head. “Not accepting your lunch invitation doesn’t mean she’s up to anything. She had a prior engagement, and you always ask at the last minute.”
“My plans are nebulous. I could be anywhere, anytime. Right now, I’m here.”
I shrugged. It was not an argument I was going to win.
I went back to my office after lunch, dejected.
Perhaps there might be something in what she said because Marigold had become a little distant over the past few weeks and oddly secretive about her movements. I thought she was planning a surprise party or weekend away.
Candice, the PA who’d been with me ever since I’d made junior management ranks, followed me into the office.
“I can tell you lunch went swimmingly.” Sarcasm wasn’t her strongest asset, and it dripped off every word.
She hated my mother, too, particularly in the way it affected me.
“She should have been living it up in the south of France with the rest of the meddlers.”
I could just see Marigold in my peripheral vision, and when I looked up, I could see her almost stomping her way towards my office.
Others were familiar with her visits and used to her moods. I wondered what had happened.
Candice left as she came in. She stopped in front of my desk and literally threw her cell phone at me. I caught it just before it caused an injury.
“What the hell is that?” I could see now she was extremely agitated.
“What?”
“On the phone, it was attached to an anonymous message sent to me.”
I swiped the screen, once again lamenting her lack of implementing security on her phone, and a still from a video was sitting on the screen. I pressed the play icon and watched. Three minutes of what appeared to be me with another woman, in bed, in a hotel room. It certainly looked like me. It had a date and time stamp, 9:53, three days ago, when I was in Salt Lake City.
“It’s not me, Marigold.”
“Sure as hell looks like you, Rodney. You care to explain where you were and who you were with, if not with that woman?” It was accompanied by a belligerent look, daring me to have a cast iron alibi.
The thing is, I did. But it was not one I could explain to her. But what was more concerning was the fact there was a video and quite obviously a fake, and that it had found its way to her.
“I’ll go one better, Marigold. I’ll give the phone to the IT tech department, and they’ll tell me who sent the anonymous message and verify whether or not it’s me. You do want me to prove it’s not me, don’t you?”
Judging by the expression on her face, she did not, and it took a few seconds to realize why. My mother’s iron clad prenuptial had only one failing, and it was null and void if I was caught cheating. My mother had told me enough times.
“Of course.” Less bluster now. “I’ll leave it with you.”
Candice watched her leave before coming back into my office.
“What did you do?”
“More like what didn’t I do but apparently did.” She sat down, and I handed her the phone. “Have a look at the video. It’s quite interesting.”
She did, and I watched her fascination turn from surprise to wide-eyed amazement. Then she gave me a look that may have been misplaced in awe. “If that’s you, then you’re leading a secret life.”
“Did you see the date and time stamp?”
“Yes. It’s definitely not you. But it begs the question, do you have a brother or twin you know nothing about.”
“Would you like to ask my mother that question?” Her change of expression told me she didn’t. “That leaves the tech guys down in IT.”
“Oh, lucky you mentioned IT. I got a report this morning about the unauthorised use of the mainframe computer.”
“We know what those guys get up to, using it to run simulations, within acceptable limits. They know that if they break the rules, it’s their loss.”
“This is different. It was only reported because, apparently, while you were practising your sexual skills, you were also down in the computer room. Your pass card was used, albeit an older one that you reported as lost about a month ago. It was supposed to have been deactivated, and it wasn’t.”
“Then I guess I’d better go down to security and find out what it all means.”
Going down in the elevator, I had a few moments to ponder on how quickly my mind had set on the idea Marigold was hatching a scheme that would bypass the prenuptial agreement. Perhaps the continual verbal battering that I could not trust her.
Of course, it didn’t help that she turned up with a so-called anonymous video file of me cheating, just the evidence she needed. Perhaps I would more readily accepted her innocence had she not subtly changed in the last month or so. I put it down to the conversation about children, the fact my mother wanted to become a grandmother, and Marigold’s reluctance to be a mother, a sentiment fuelled by a very bad experience with her own mother. My mother wasn’t exactly a role model either.
And if it was a scheme, why would she readily hand over her phone with the evidence? Perhaps I needed to have an open mind. That meant definitely not telling my mother, though she seemed to have spies everywhere. If I had been even thinking of cheating, she would have sent Boris, her fixer, to stop it before it started.
IT was one of three departments under my jurisdiction, and the current manager was one of my recruits. I’d read about Gabrielle some months before when she was arrested for hacking several government computer systems to prove their vulnerability to foreign hackers and instead of being applauded had been vilified, and sent to computer Coventry. No one would hire her. I tracked her down, spent a few days talking about computers, hackers, and stupid people, and then hired her.
A computer genius of this calibre was impossible to find, and if I did manage to find one, it would cost far more than we could pay them.
“Rod, what brings you to the dungeon.” Gabrielle was always pleased to see me. I had wondered a few times if something else might have developed between us, but I was a married man and it never crossed my mind. There was also a chance her open and friendly manner could be misinterpreted.
“It seems I’m in trouble.” I held up the phone. ” This has images of me, only I know it’s not me because I was somewhere else.” I passed it to her. “I believe this is the first time I’ve seen a deep fake video.”
She looked at the video, with similar facial expressions to Candice. “It can’t be you.” She’d also seen the time and date stamp. “We both know where you were. Let me check it out, and I’ll get back to you.”
When I arrived back in my office, Eric Dorning, the head of security, was waiting for me. Candice simply nodded her head in his direction and shrugged, telling me Eric had not told her why he was there.
“Close the door, Rod. It’s a delicate matter.”
And Seriously, he wanted the door shut? I closed it and sat behind the desk. “What can I do for you?”
“A key card that was believed missing was apparently used to gain access to the computer department. Two issues, one that was not deactivated, and the other, that it was yours, and had an all-access clearance attached to it. That it was lost is, at the very least,8 a suspension, while aspects of how and where it was lost are undertaken. At worst, it could cause dismissal depending on the damage caused to the company. As you are…”
I put my hand up to stop him right there. The fact that my mother was a substantial shareholder and was in some small part responsible for my position in the company, I never asked for special treatment. “I know what you are going to say, and don’t. I am no different from any other employee, and if the course of action on your part is to suspend me while you investigate, then do so.”
“We don’t have to do that.”
“You do. This can’t be kept under wraps, and everyone needs to know that no one in this company should expect or be given special treatment. A short truthful statement about why I’m missing will suffice.”
“Your mother will not approve.”
“It’s not her call. Am I being suspended?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should escort me to the front door and remove my key card and phone.” I put the card and the phone and company car keys on the desk, and stood. I could see Candice observing, and she knew what it meant. She made a face, then headed for the elevator. I deduced that it meant she wanted to see me at the cafe up the street.
It was clear Eric did not want to suspend me because when I was unavailable, he had to report to my immediate superior, Victor Wellman, a man who was bitterly opposed to my appointment. With this crisis, he would have all the ammunition he needed to get rid of me. Eric had said as much on the way down. He said he would call when the investigation was complete.
Candice had two cups of coffee waiting and a puzzled expression. “What did you do wrong?”
“Losing a card key without adequately securing it at all times is a cardinal sin, and in certain circumstances, a stackable offence. I’m guilty as charged.”
“What about the fact that after reporting it missing, they didn’t deactivate it? If there’s blame, Eric is the one who should take responsibility for the current incident.”
“I hardly think any of that matters. Wellman will use this to have me removed. And he’s well within his right to do so.”
“You think he’s brave enough to take on your mother?”
“He’s the only one who is, but it may have unintended consequences. But I’m not going to fight it. I’ve had enough of politics and everything else. I asked for no special treatment.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Take a few days off, see what’s bugging Marigold. I have been missing lately, so perhaps we can catch up.” If she was home. To be honest, I had no idea what she did with herself lately.
I had expected to come home to an empty house.
After leaving Candice to contemplate her future, I took the subway, something I hadn’t done in a long time. Then, it was a reasonable walk to our apartment. I spoke the James, the only building concierge I knew, who was on a rare day shift. It was odd to see the foyer in daylight on a weekday.
Then I went up to the apartment and let myself in. I had expected to be alone, but after I shut the door, I heard subdued voices, followed by laughter. Marigold. And she was not alone.
I followed the sounds up the corridor to the end, our bedroom. I put my head in the door and saw her naked, sitting on a man I didn’t recognise. It was not hard to see what they were doing.
“Revenge sex, Marigold. I can’t say I’m surprised.”
She squealed in surprise, or was it shock?
“When you’re done, pack your bags and leave. You better not be here when I come back. Goodbye, Marigold.”
I left, knowing she would not be able to catch me or follow me. Whether she left or not didn’t matter. I was never going back to that apartment again.
…
It took a week to unravel the conspiracy and see the reality.
The man with Marigold was one of Mellman’s recruits in a plan to get rid of me. He had also recruited Marigold, who had tired of me because I was never home, and it was she who had taken the card key.
Her ‘boyfriend’ was a graphics expert and had been the one to transplant my body and that of a random woman over a recording of him having sex with Marigold. It took Gabrielle a week to work out how he did it and was more appreciative of his talent than she should be.
He had used the card key to get in and was the one responsible for the unauthorised use of the mainframe. He has also erased all the CCTV footage for the time of the transgression.
Wellman was silly enough to send the video to Marigold, thinking it would be untraceable and anonymous. It may have seemed so to a novice like him, but it was easily unmasked by an expert like Gabrielle.
I never did understand why Mellman wanted to destroy my life because it couldn’t just be because my mother had used her influence to get me that job. Not for a few months, anyway, when Eric had told Gabrielle that he had discovered that there had been another candidate for that role, a relative of Mellman’s. Still, to me, it seemed over the top.
I could understand Marigold. Perhaps if she had told me she didn’t want to be married to me anymore, I would have been disappointed, but I would have been sure she got a decent settlement, rather than what she ended up with.
But, in the end, I did get to do something I’d always wanted to do, and that was to try my hand at being a private detective. Gabrielle had brought it up in one of our late-night conversations, the fact we were well suited to handling cases where people were wronged by deep fake videos and anonymously released revenge tapes.
We were both surprised but the number of people who called, texted, or emailed in the week after I posted an advertisement.
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 installment 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 tat 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.
