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 tie she 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.

A smile on her face, she opened the door.

It was not Vladimir.  It was her worst nightmare.

…

© Charles Heath 2020

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second worlds war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

I remained on the spot, not moving, for at least five minutes before I let out a sigh of relief.  It would be relatively safe because I had heard them walk off, following the river, and Jack, as my eyes and ears, had been out and had come back,. tail wagging slightly.

I was hoping he was not in league with Jackerby.

“So,” I said quietly to him, “you think it is safe out there?”  To be honest, I was not sure why I was asking the dog, or, for that matter, if he understood a word I was saying.

I  took tail wagging as a good sign.

Until, all of a sudden he went quiet and very still again, ears up and listening.

Then, I heard what he had heard.  The cracking sound of a foot on a twig or dry branch.

From behind me.

We both turned slowly.

An Italian man, about mid 30’s with a dated rifle in his hands, aimed at my head, not twenty feet away.  I was not going to take the chance he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.

“Who are you?”  He started with schoolboy German, obviously not his first language.

The problem I had was deciding whether he was the traitor, or with the resistance that hadn’t been betrayed.

“Not a German for starters,” I said.

I noticed Jack was standing very still with teeth bared.  He didn’t like this man.  Perhaps he too didn’t like the odds of rushing the man with the gun.

“Englander?”

The way a German would call an Englishman.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Are you from the castle?”

That was a trick question if I say no, he wouldn’t believe me, and if I said yes, I’d be tarred with the German brush.

“I escaped from there, so in a manner of speaking, yes I am from the castle.”

“Name?”

It couldn’t hurt to tell him.  “Sam Atherton.”

He let the gun drop, but it was still in a position to shoot me if I tried anything.

“Are you from the resistance?  I mean the group that hasn’t been compromised by a traitor?”

“I don’t know anything about the resistance if there is one.  I’m a farmer, trying to go about his business in the middle of a war.  What are you doing here?”

It might seem to anyone rather odd to be standing around in the woods.  “Hiding from two men who have come from the castle to follow me.”

He looked around.  “Where are they now?”

“Supposedly following me into the village, in that direction,” I pointed to where I thought the village was, “where I’m supposed to be leading them to the resistance, which, you said, doesn’t exist.”

“I didn’t say it didn’t exist, only that I don’t know anything about it.  What makes you think there is a resistance unit in these parts?”

Good question.  And, depending on what side he was on, still to be determined, I was not going to give them away.  “I’m acting on some sketchy intelligence we got in London, along with the possibility that the men in the castle, who are supposed to be Englanders, as you call them, but who are actually working with the Germans.  Seems they were right on one count, because they caught me and put me in a cell, and possibly wrong, according to you, on the other.”

“How did you manage to get away, if you were in a cell.”

So, here comes the part that sounds totally improbable.  “One of the two men following me broke me out.”

Yes, the look on his face said it all.

I shrugged.  “Ask the dog.  He’ll tell you.  His name is Jack by the way, but I’m not sure if he understands English.”

The dog went still again and turned his head.

Another crack, another person in the undergrowth, coming from the other side of the bushes.  My first thought, my two pursuers, realizing they’d lost me, had circled back to find me.

The man in front didn’t raise his gun, so it was someone he knew.

“Who is he?”

A woman’s voice.  I turned my head slightly.  She was older, perhaps this man’s mother.  She had a pistol in her left hand.

“Claims he escaped from the castle.”

“They all do.”

I heard a soft bang, and then something in my back, like a needle.

Seconds later my heard started spinning, and few more seconds later my legs gave out, and darkness followed.

© Charles Heath 2019

Yep, in changing characters and timelines and thinking about the plotline between Bill and Ellen, a lot has changed, well, perhaps not a lot, but some fundamentals in the relationship.

Whilst I am determined, for some unknown reason, to write the first draft by hand, it leads to using a lot of paper and wearing out several self-leading pencils.  I have a bin with screwed up paper, and yes, if I get it in, it’s three points.  A lot don’t make it and lie forlornly beside and in front of the bin.

If only I had a cleaner to clean up.  When I’ve become a best selling author.

I look at the pages I kept.  God, I didn’t know I was that messy.

Coffee first.

I start typing the first draft on the computer using my trusty old version of Microsoft Word, only because I know how to use it.

I have Scrivener but haven’t yet worked out all the bells and whistles.  That will come, no doubt, with book number two.

But, as you might think, I am getting ahead of myself.  I have yet to finish the first.

—

A cool breeze blew briskly across meadows of tall grass, giving the impression of the ocean in a storm.  High above, clouds scudded across the sky, occasionally allowing the sun to shine through to bathe the ground in sunshine, intensifying the richness the greens and browns.

It was spring.  Trees were displaying new growth, and flowers were starting to show the promise of summery delight.  An occasional light shower of rain added to the delightful aromas, particularly where the grass had recently been mown.

I was there, too, with my grandmother, the woman who had, for the most part, brought me up at her country residence.  But, as I got older, the dream changed and sometimes there were storm clouds on the horizon, or I was caught in the rain, alone and frightened, or lost in the woods in the dark.

There were other visions like these from my childhood, now a million years away somewhere in a distant past that was hard to remember or say where and when they belonged.  It was a pity some were now based on images stolen from the start of a movie seen on TV late at night as I was trying to get to sleep.  Or that the psychiatrist had said there was some trauma from my early childhood, trying to work its way out.

Like every other morning, these images came to me as I was hovering somewhere between conscious and unconscious, just before the alarm went off.  Then it did, filling the room with a shrill noise that would have woken the dead.

I cursed, and then dragged myself over to the other side of the bed where I’d put the alarm clock, and hit it, killing the shrill sound.  I’d put it there so I would have to wake up to turn it off.  And, worse, I’d forgotten to turn it off the night before because it was, technically, the first day of my holiday.

Not that I really wanted one because since Ellen left, my life consisted of work, work, and more work.  It kept my mind off being alone, and in an empty apartment except for the books, a bed, a table and two chairs, a desk, and well-worn lounge chair.  I’d been there for a while and still hadn’t bought any new furniture or anything else for that matter.

And the last holiday I’d gone on had been organized by Ellen only a few years ago in Italy after our two daughters had finished school and graduated almost top of their class.  We’d both thought it might help mend the damage, and for a while we were happy, but happiness was too fleeting for me, and soon after the rot had set in, and it was the beginning of the end.

I remembered it only too clearly, coming home, opening a letter addressed to her, and finding proof of what I think I’d known all along.  She was having an affair, had been for quite some time.

It should not have been a surprise given what I had put her through over the years, since my discharge from the Army and later the nightmares active service had fuelled, but it was what it was and sent me spiralling to a new low.

But that was two years ago.  I came out of the fog a year after that.  Ellen was away most of the time with a new partner she never told me about, and the girls, who shared a unit not far from mine came to see me from time to time

But for all of that, all I now had left were memories.

I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.  I was on holidays.  No work, no pressure, nothing. 

I thought about going back to my grandmother’s house and visit, but my grandmother was no longer there, and my mother, who was, was too judgemental, and I didn’t need to be told, yet again, how I had let the only woman for me slip through my fingers.

I could do almost anything.

I’d almost managed to doze off again when the phone rang.

I jumped to its equally shrill sound cutting through the silence.  It had to be a wrong number because no one at work would call me and I didn’t have many friends, at least none who would call me at this hour.

I let it ring out.

Blissful silence.  For five minutes.

Then it rang again.

Ignore it, I thought.  It had to be someone from the office.  I’d told them all not to call me, not unless the building was burning down and they were all trapped in it.

And even then, I’d I said I would have to think about it.

Burying my head under the pillow didn’t shut out the insistent ringing. 

Almost reluctantly I rolled back, pulled the telephone out from under the bed, and lifted the receiver to my ear.

“Bill?”

It was Carl Benton, my immediate superior; an insipid, loathsome, irritating little man, the last person I would want to speak to.  He’d insisted I take this leave, that the office could survive without me, adding in his most condescending manner that I needed the break.

I slammed the receiver down in anger.  It was a forlorn gesture.  Seconds later, it rang again.

“I seem to remember you were the one to tell me to go on holiday, that I needed a holiday.  I’m off the roster.  It can’t be that important.  Call someone else.”  I wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to speak.  Not this morning.  I was not in the mood to listen to that squeaky, falsetto voice of his, one that always turned into a whine when he didn’t get his way.

And hung up again.

Not that it would do any good.  I knew that even if I was in Tibet, he would still call.  Then I realized it was too early for him to be in the office, and if he was, he would have been dragged out of bed and put in a position where if he didn’t produce results, they might realize just how incompetent he was.

At last, my holiday had some meaning and smiled to myself.  I’d make the bastard sweat.

A good days work if I say so myself.

I only wished I was better at typing, but it was a self-correcting ribbon and would suffice.

Tonight it would be the sleep of the just.

Tomorrow, more plotting, more characters.  I need a friendly head of a department, one that suffers Benton, a name for the assistant, and what are the circumstances that drag him back into work?

Death, murder, police, or security?

And all I thought I had to do is write!

—

© Charles Heath 2016-2023