Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.

I had to wonder if Lallo had already called the number on the phone he had handed Jacobi, and then considered, if that was the case, there would be no need for Jacobi to call anyone.  Or Lallo had got an answer, just not the answer he was expecting.

Jacobi looked at the phone, and I got the impression he was weighing his options.  The first was how long Lallo would hold him in custody.  That I think we could both assumed to be forever if necessary.  There was, no doubt, a cell at a black site with his name on it already.  The second, if he did call his contact, would that contact co-operate, though it was hard what it was Lallo was expecting Jacobi’s co-operation for.

But there was no doubt Lallo had a plan.

Jacobi took a moment to consider any further options I hadn’t thought of, and then made the call.  We were only going to get one side of the call.

A raised eyebrow indicated Jacobi had an answer on the other end.

“It’s me.”

Why did everyone say it’s me when asked to identify themselves, or as in the case announce themselves?

“No.  An unfortunate set of circumstances, and a gross breach of our agreement.  I am supposed to have autonomy of operations at home.  These bumbling idiots may have blown my cover.”

Somehow, the fact he was sitting in a small room told me his cover was more than likely a myth.  If this was our supposed point man in the failed operation I’d been on, then I could see why it cost a lot of good men their lives.

He had been playing both sides of the fence and sold us out.

“You would have to ask them.”

A moment later he handed the phone to Lallo.  “Prepare to die,” was all Jacobi said.

It didn’t move Lallo in the slightest,

He took the phone and asked, “Whom am I speaking to?”

The expression change told me that it was most likely none of his business.

“This man is responsible for the deaths of a good many men.”  A minute’s silence, then, “I doubt that would be the case considering the number of phones and their credentials.  He had been playing you, and perhaps many others.”

The silence was a lot longer, but the expressions changing by the minute told me that Lallo was not going to get what he wanted.

“No, that is not going to happen, not in the circumstances you describe.  I will be sending him back, yes, but for another mission.  I think it’s time you realized he’s been feeding you false intel for some time.”  Silence again, then, “By the time you do, he will no longer be here, there.  I’m sorry.”

He disconnected the call and put the phone back in the plastic evidence bag.

Then he sat, and gave Jacobi a long, hard stare.

No effect.

“What is happening,” Jacobi finally asked.

“You’re going home.”

“Good.  I expect once I get back there you will leave me alone.”

“On the contrary, Mr Jacobi, you will not be going back alone.  In fact, I’m sending you back with my team, and we are going to extract the same people you were supposed to help us extract the last time.”

“I had nothing to do with that.  It was simply your incompetence.”

“Be that as it may, you will do as I ask.”

“You are a fool.  Why would I do anything for you, and especially since they are both probably dead now, or, if not, past the point of saving.”

“You will then want to hope that isn’t the case, simply because if they are, then three members of your family will be executed.  You can say goodbye to them before you leave, or tell them you will see them again, it’s your choice.”

Lallo, it seems, was no fool, and had ensured he had the necessary leverage.  There was no mistaking the shock on Jacobi’s face.

“You lie.”

Lallo got up from his seat and knocked on the door.  It opened and two men brought in a large screen connected to a computer on a trolley.  They moved it to the vacant wall and left.  Lallo pressed several keys and a picture came up on the screen.  A woman and two small children, and judging from the expression on Jacobi’s face, exactly who he was hoping he would not see.

There were two hooded soldiers either side with guns loosely pointing in their direction.

“One word from me, and they will be shot.  Considering the treachery you have perpetrated, it’s taking a great deal of restraint for me not to give the order to kill them.”

He took a few seconds to regain his composure.  “This serves no purpose,” Jacobi said in a rising pitch, “your people are most likely dead.  It has been a long time.”

“I don’t think so.  We have word from a different source, a more reliable source, that they are still alive.  Barely, but alive, serving a life sentence for treason.  And helping the General with information.  All you need to do is get a small team of mine in and assist them to effect an escape.  They come home alive and, well, your family lives.  They don’t come back alive, well, I don’t think that’s an option, is it?”

Jacobi was in an invidious position of being damned if he did help us, or damned if he didn’t.  Either way, it didn’t guarantee his co-operation or assistance.  Painted into a corner, sometimes people like Jacobi chose the easy road, sacrificing everything to stay alive.  No doubt, until this predicament, he was well in favour with Bahti, and from what I’d heard, Bahti was not a man to cross.  There was a graveyard in the prison that was full of the remains of his enemies.  And people who were once his friends.

I knew firsthand what it was like to be between the proverbial rock and a hard place, and unfortunately, there was no upside.  No doubt the team leader of this new folly would have orders to shoot Jacobi once his work was done.  Lallo would not be able to leave a man in his position alive because of what he knew.

And from my perspective, I felt sorry for the team Lallo had selected to go on what could quite possibly be another suicide mission.

© Charles Heath 2019

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.

“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.

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.

© Charles Heath 2019

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

When I woke, I was outside the warehouse near an ambulance, and when I opened my eyes, I could see my mother, looking close to hysterical.  Further back, behind her, was Benderby himself, looking concerned.

A voice was saying, on the other side, “Just take it easy.  You’ve had a nasty knock to your head.”  I tried, instinctively, to move my hand there, but it was not responsive.

That scared me.

I tried wiggling my toes, and it felt like something was happening.  That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

Then I realised there were more people around the gurney I was lying on and a lot of chatter about a break-in and possible casualties.  There was only one, wasn’t there?  Me.

I went to say something to that effect when I stopped.  Not a good idea to say two masked assailants came to interrogate me about a map.  Firstly, my mother would be annoyed I was wasting my time on frivolous matters with Boggs, and secondly, everyone would think the blow did more damage to my sanity.

If they were calling it a break-in…

“What happened?” I asked.

I moved my head sideways further and could see the Sheriff standing next to Benderby.  The sheriff moved closer.

“We think one or two unknown persons got past the perimeter security, disabled the alarm system, and broke into the warehouse where you were.  One of the night security guards was doing his rounds when he found you on the floor in the main office.  Can you tell us what happened to you?”

One of the paramedics answered for me, “We need to stabilise the wound, check for concussion and any other side effects before you can question him.  That might have to wait until we get him to the hospital.  Now, I need everyone to stand back.”

And he meant everyone, including my mother.  I guessed they would let her come to the hospital with me, but if not, I was sure Benderby would bring her.  He actually had his arm around her, talking to her.  I didn’t think she liked him that much or was I just delirious?

I was about to tell the paramedic to tell the sheriff to go check on Boggs, but that would only lead to uncomfortable questions, and since Boggs had been so cavalier in putting the assailants onto me, I wasn’t very happy with him.  But I did wonder if they had gone back to him about my lack of co-operation, and what they might do to him.

Or, I just remembered, maybe nothing, because they thought it might be an elaborate hoax.  I was beginning to think that myself, despite Boggs giving me a copy of the map.  When I looked at it, on the surface it seemed to be the same as the one Osborne was peddling.

Whilst getting my head bandaged, I saw one of the sheriff’s men come running up to him, speaking and gesturing wildly.  I thought I heard a name, but the paramedic chose that exact moment to accidentally wrap the bandage around my ear.

Then I heard it, sharp and clear, perhaps as an answer to a question by Benderby.

“It’s Boggs.  Looks like someone gave him a severe beating and left him outside his house.”

The result of an equally forceful interrogation, or had it been a warning not to waste people’s time?

It would have to wait.  I had problems of my own.

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.

I had to wonder if Lallo had already called the number on the phone he had handed Jacobi, and then considered, if that was the case, there would be no need for Jacobi to call anyone.  Or Lallo had got an answer, just not the answer he was expecting.

Jacobi looked at the phone, and I got the impression he was weighing his options.  The first was how long Lallo would hold him in custody.  That I think we could both assumed to be forever if necessary.  There was, no doubt, a cell at a black site with his name on it already.  The second, if he did call his contact, would that contact co-operate, though it was hard what it was Lallo was expecting Jacobi’s co-operation for.

But there was no doubt Lallo had a plan.

Jacobi took a moment to consider any further options I hadn’t thought of, and then made the call.  We were only going to get one side of the call.

A raised eyebrow indicated Jacobi had an answer on the other end.

“It’s me.”

Why did everyone say it’s me when asked to identify themselves, or as in the case announce themselves?

“No.  An unfortunate set of circumstances, and a gross breach of our agreement.  I am supposed to have autonomy of operations at home.  These bumbling idiots may have blown my cover.”

Somehow, the fact he was sitting in a small room told me his cover was more than likely a myth.  If this was our supposed point man in the failed operation I’d been on, then I could see why it cost a lot of good men their lives.

He had been playing both sides of the fence and sold us out.

“You would have to ask them.”

A moment later he handed the phone to Lallo.  “Prepare to die,” was all Jacobi said.

It didn’t move Lallo in the slightest,

He took the phone and asked, “Whom am I speaking to?”

The expression change told me that it was most likely none of his business.

“This man is responsible for the deaths of a good many men.”  A minute’s silence, then, “I doubt that would be the case considering the number of phones and their credentials.  He had been playing you, and perhaps many others.”

The silence was a lot longer, but the expressions changing by the minute told me that Lallo was not going to get what he wanted.

“No, that is not going to happen, not in the circumstances you describe.  I will be sending him back, yes, but for another mission.  I think it’s time you realized he’s been feeding you false intel for some time.”  Silence again, then, “By the time you do, he will no longer be here, there.  I’m sorry.”

He disconnected the call and put the phone back in the plastic evidence bag.

Then he sat, and gave Jacobi a long, hard stare.

No effect.

“What is happening,” Jacobi finally asked.

“You’re going home.”

“Good.  I expect once I get back there you will leave me alone.”

“On the contrary, Mr Jacobi, you will not be going back alone.  In fact, I’m sending you back with my team, and we are going to extract the same people you were supposed to help us extract the last time.”

“I had nothing to do with that.  It was simply your incompetence.”

“Be that as it may, you will do as I ask.”

“You are a fool.  Why would I do anything for you, and especially since they are both probably dead now, or, if not, past the point of saving.”

“You will then want to hope that isn’t the case, simply because if they are, then three members of your family will be executed.  You can say goodbye to them before you leave, or tell them you will see them again, it’s your choice.”

Lallo, it seems, was no fool, and had ensured he had the necessary leverage.  There was no mistaking the shock on Jacobi’s face.

“You lie.”

Lallo got up from his seat and knocked on the door.  It opened and two men brought in a large screen connected to a computer on a trolley.  They moved it to the vacant wall and left.  Lallo pressed several keys and a picture came up on the screen.  A woman and two small children, and judging from the expression on Jacobi’s face, exactly who he was hoping he would not see.

There were two hooded soldiers either side with guns loosely pointing in their direction.

“One word from me, and they will be shot.  Considering the treachery you have perpetrated, it’s taking a great deal of restraint for me not to give the order to kill them.”

He took a few seconds to regain his composure.  “This serves no purpose,” Jacobi said in a rising pitch, “your people are most likely dead.  It has been a long time.”

“I don’t think so.  We have word from a different source, a more reliable source, that they are still alive.  Barely, but alive, serving a life sentence for treason.  And helping the General with information.  All you need to do is get a small team of mine in and assist them to effect an escape.  They come home alive and, well, your family lives.  They don’t come back alive, well, I don’t think that’s an option, is it?”

Jacobi was in an invidious position of being damned if he did help us, or damned if he didn’t.  Either way, it didn’t guarantee his co-operation or assistance.  Painted into a corner, sometimes people like Jacobi chose the easy road, sacrificing everything to stay alive.  No doubt, until this predicament, he was well in favour with Bahti, and from what I’d heard, Bahti was not a man to cross.  There was a graveyard in the prison that was full of the remains of his enemies.  And people who were once his friends.

I knew firsthand what it was like to be between the proverbial rock and a hard place, and unfortunately, there was no upside.  No doubt the team leader of this new folly would have orders to shoot Jacobi once his work was done.  Lallo would not be able to leave a man in his position alive because of what he knew.

And from my perspective, I felt sorry for the team Lallo had selected to go on what could quite possibly be another suicide mission.

© Charles Heath 2019