This is why we have technical people

…

It wasn’t such an outlandish idea, as much as it was hard to prove it was possible. That is, of course, traversing very long distances in a very short amount of time.

Yes, space is a vacuum, and stuff floats, and can be propelled quickly, just not quickly enough that it would not take a long time to get to the edge of our known universe, given our current technology.

And time wasn’t something we wanted to spend getting there and back

Now, out of thin air, a rather quaint but inapplicable expression to describe where we were now, we had two myths shattered, that we were alone in the universe, and that we were at the limit of how fast we could go.

I got the distinct impression the people we just met had the answers. We just had to find them, well, catch up with them first, and ask them if they would share.

Whilst we were standing by the ‘Ionosphere’, I summonsed both Chalmers and the duty scientist to my day room, to prepare for the update from number one, whom I had advised earlier to relay over the secure channel.

…

But before I got the time to brief them on my theory, number one reported in.

“Firstly, there had been only one casualty and as far as we can tell. Everyone was affected by what appears to be a short stoppage of the life support systems which virtually put everyone to sleep. All of the major systems are back on line, except for the propulsion unit, which, it seems the override cut in when the ship exceeded the maximum speed. The chief engineer is rebooting the controlling computer system which should fix the problem. No one, not even the designers of the propulsion unit, or the ship itself, expected it would ever exceed the maximum design speed, an error that the chief engineers will be taking up with the manufacturers if and when they get home.”

“We can assume then the ship will be able to resume its voyage.”

“Yes sir. I’ve advised the Captain we’ll be standing off until they advise everything is back online.”

“Any explanations as to what happened?”

The Captain of the ‘Ionosphere’ spoke, “One of the scientists discovered what could only be described as an anomaly, with the same sort of properties a black hole has, though it was not a black hole. We headed towards it and then suddenly we were being pulled into it, though there was no discernable hole on the viewer. We tried to escape it, and apparently failed. The last thing I remember, or anyone else for that matter, was the ship going dark, like everything had stopped. Until I was woken by your officer. I cannot explain how we got here, except to say that under normal circumstances, it would take many months to travel the same distance.”

“Did you see any other ships about?”

“We were the only people in that quadrant, as far as I was aware.”

Number one came back at that point, “The sensor log shows there might have been something out there, though it didn’t define what it was. I’m sending a download of the log over as we speak for analysis. One possibility though, based on the information we’ve been using to follow the ship that kidnapped the Captain, is that there is similar energy readings recorded just before the jump.”

Chalmers was first to speak, “When you say jump, what exactly does that mean?”

“We have been looking at the log, and it’s recorded a jump that started near Jupiter, to where we are now. Based on my understanding of astrophysics, and given the short time frame, the only logical explanation is that they were sucked into a sort of black hole, or a rupture in time/space. Whatever caused it, it’s in the realm of science fiction.”

“So was the notion that there was another intelligent life out here, and yet we have found that not to be the case. Whoever these people are, I suspect they have conquered the ability to travel long distances, very quickly, especially if they are, as they said, from another galaxy.”

“You have met other life?” The captain of the ‘Ionosphere’ seemed surprised.

“Yes. They attacked one of our freighters on its way to Venus and stole the plutonium rods needed to keep the base there going. They also kidnapped our Captain, and we were in pursuit of their vessel when we discovered your ship drifting. And it’s my theory your ship may have been dragged into a vortex left behind as they move from location to location. A theory my people will be working on, unless they come up with a better explanation.”

Number one came back, “I’ve just been advised by the Chief Engineer, everything is back online, and we’re no longer needed. I’ll make sure the data transfer is complete and we’ll depart. Anything else?”

“No.”

The transmission complete, I turned to the two scientists. “Soon as you get the data, find out what happened. When we run into these other people, I need to know the right questions to ask them.”

“The odds are we won’t understand,” Chalmers said.

“I thought it was universally acknowledged that if we did find intelligent life out here, the one universal language would be science.”

“That was true based on what we knew before today. Now we know there’s intelligent life out here, everything has changed.”

“Then buckle up for the ride of your life. I want answers sooner rather than later.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

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 installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

Cavorting with a snake?

…

I had no idea that Boggs resented me that much for spending time with Nadia, though I could see how he could assume she was the enemy.

But he knew me, or I thought he did.

That cavorting with a snake statement elicited an instant response from Charlene, a wide-eyed look of total surprise.  I wondered for a moment what her interpretation of cavorting was, certainly not the same as mine.

Something else that was very clear, he hated Nadia.  And I was close to the top of that same hate list, by association.

“I would hardly call it cavorting, Boggs, rather just hanging out.  It’s not what either of you thinks.” I gave Charlene a glare to emphasize my disappointment.

Despite it, it was clear her interpretation was still leaning the wrong way, but the surprise has passed, “I didn’t know Nadia had returned from Florence.”  Charlene obviously kept track of Nadia, because I hadn’t known exactly where she had been staying in Italy.

“I don’t think many people do.”

“Was there a reason?”

“She said her mother was sick and wanted to see her, but I think that was a ruse, and she’s not happy with any of them, which is why she’s not staying with them but just outside the town.”

“That woman is not her mother, but stepmother.  Old man Cossatino tossed her aside for a younger woman, and I’m not surprised.”

Interesting insight, she had not told me that it was her stepmother she was annoyed with, nor where her real mother was.

Boggs however was not interested in the details of Nadia’s parentage, nor Charlene’s opinions.

He turned his attention towards her, “Just what are you doing here.”

“I told you already…”

“Just leave, wait outside, do whatever you want, but leave me alone.”

She went to reiterate her reason for being there, but it was met with a very volatile, “get out now.”

I had expected him to round on me next, as he watched her reluctantly get up and slowly walk out of the room, phone in hand.  The sheriff was about to get a call.

His anger was apparent, but he didn’t say anything for a moment, as if mentally counting to ten before speaking.  Then, “Sit, you’re making me nervous standing there.”

A sigh of relief, I did as he asked.

“In view of this relationship with Nadia, does this mean you are working with Cossatino?”

“Actually I work in Benderby’s warehouse attached to the factory.  I think you know me better than to seek employment with the Cossatino’s, and no, it’s not any sort of relationship other than talking over coffee.”

“In her hotel room,” Boggs added.

So, he had been watching me too.  I should be flattered so many people were interested in whom I spent my time.

“At times, yes, but it’s not anything else, no matter what you might think.  I seriously doubt she thinks of me in that way.”

It was not what he wanted to hear, so he tuned out.    “It’s not the impression you give, but I get it.  She is a contradiction at times.”

I wondered what he meant by that.

It was time to change the conversation.  “Did you ever get to the library to read the documents in the Ormiston collection?”

Yes, it got the desired response.

“What collection?”

“All of the stuff at Ormiston’s house after he died.  His wife had asked the librarian to come and box it up, and it’s been sitting there all this time.  I think so far she’s the only one to read any of it, aside from me.”

“How did you pull that off.”

“You know I was always her protégé at school.  She said Alex had asked her about the documents, but she just told him she didn’t know about them, but that’s not going to hold them off for long.”

He thought about what I’d said, perhaps debating whether to trust me, but I could see curiosity taking over.

“Was there anything useful there?”

“One item scribbled in one of his search diaries.  Look for the big A.”

I watched him carefully when mentioning that piece of information, and it struck a chord, as much as he tried not to react.

“But you knew that already because we both know where that big A is.”

“Does Nadia?”

“No.  Despite what you might think, I’m still on your side, and still working towards finding the location of the treasure, but, I think you need to consider the possibility it’s long gone.  I’m sure the Cossatino’s have made a very extensive search of The Grove, over the years.”

“They don’t act like they’ve found it, or have any idea where it is.  You can see that from the many maps they’ve produced.  I’ve got at least twenty variations, and none of them lead to that spot on the shoreline.”

“There was a latitude and longitude reference hidden in one of the diary sleeves, and it matched the spot where I saw what looked like the big A.  It had another reference, one in the Caribbean, so it might have been taken from the pirate’s log, as the start and end of the run to stash their plunder.  How did you come across the location?”

“Something I remembered my father saying.  It came to me a week ago, when I was camping out and a storm hit.  He mentioned the letter A, a formation on a rockface he had climbed once at The Grove.  There are several, and it was at the last I saw something that resembled an A.”

“Since that shoreline looks as much the same along the whole cliff face, I suspect the pirate used it as a marker do he could find it again.  The fact it’s a little lopsided tells me there’s been some seismic activity that stretched from the inland mountains across the lake that no longer exists to the shoreline, here, and at the old marina.  That’s what you were looking fir, wasn’t it, a shift in the rocks?”

“No.  Not really.  I thought there might be a cavern that was covered by a rockfall, but if there was seismic activity, all it did was clear a path for the lake water to drain into the sea.  But, now we agree on the most likely location of the treasure, it’s not going to be possible to get back there, not now the Cossatino’s can guess why I was there.”

“There is a way, but it involves Nadia.”

He shook his head.  “No.  She can’t be trusted.”

“Well, she’s your only ticket there.  You make up your mind what you want to do, but I’ll be at her hotel tomorrow night if you want our help.  Otherwise, I’ll go myself.”

“That’s not what we agreed.”

“We didn’t agree on anything.  You just asked me if I wanted to go on a treasure hunt.  I’ll be honest with you, I don’t want the treasure because it’s cursed.  It cost you your father, countless Ormiston’s, and that professor on Rico’s boat.  He was tortured by the way in a secret room at the mall.  Nadia and I found it, and Alex Benderby’s stash of treasure documents and maps.  They think a map is going to lead them there, but I think your father, as the Cossatino’s cartographer, spent more time leading everyone away from the real location, all the while searching for it himself with permission from the Cossatino’s.  The fact he said he’d found it was always going to get him killed.  And, if he did, then the Cossatino’s have it.  But, like I said, come or not, I’ll be going.”

And, not to give him the opportunity to argue, I left, leaving him with a rather bemused expression.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

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

Even God got to rest of the seventh day perhaps to admire his handiwork, but for a writer there is no rest.

I have to go to lunch with an old friend who is concerned that I have locked myself away in a garret and will wither and die, the same as not admitting myself it was time to move on.  There is the woman you marry, and your one true love, the one you can say anything to and is taken.  Marilyn is that person.  I’m not sure how this lunch will go.

Perhaps a little more work on the plot, and a few drinks to settle the nerves.

 

Still working on the characters (and all need a lot more work, particularly Davenport, oh, and by the way, he’s new):

 

Richardson – Vanilla Office worker in the wrong place at the wrong time

Gator, Inspector – Jaded policeman not far from retirement, overlooked for promotion, and always on the fringe.  Will this be his big case before he retires?

Halligan – General Manager, also a field agent who failed to complete his mission.  More on what that mission was is coming.

Bill Chandler, we seem to have him under control, except for one small detail, his memories will return.

Jennifer, Chandler’s friend, sister to Manilow, not all she appears to be.  Spoiler alert!  Manilow is another new character who will appear in Bill’s dreams (nightmares)

Benton, Chandler’s immediate superior, yes man, and eternal pessimist.

Aitchison, security chief, aka Colonel Warburton, Manilow’s old commanding officer, repatriated home after making some discoveries about wartime activities.

Wiesenthal – US management employee of Transworld

Giles – Chandler’s hardware assistant

Kowalski – executive promoted to head of security, also new, the cast is getting longer

Andy Collins –from the US, worked with Chandler around at the inception of the network installation, working with Chandler recently when updates were carried out

Davenport, aka Alphonse DeAngelo, Chandler’s old nemesis, ex-Army Colonel, and he will be a piece of work

 

The plotline continues but I’m not sure if this will be the eventual direction it will go.  There will be a lot of writing before now and then:

 

Chandler thinks he now has time for some private investigation because a lot of things about the recent events didn’t add up.  However, in the meantime, the perils of domesticity close in around Bill, the first morning with Jennifer.

A visit to the office, unscheduled, by Bill, brings to light a number of changes; new security and monitoring of movements, making it difficult for Bill to do anything.  Kowalski has replaced Aitchison as head of security, and Bill must pay him a visit.

Kowalski is full of sympathy and advises Bill that he has a lot of leave to be taken in order to get better, and a bonus as well.  He should not return until fully recovered, and then to a promotion.  In other words, Bill reads this as –’Stay Away’.

Giles gives more information of the network problems, and the disaster surrounding the backup tapes, with information that had been requested by Gator.  Of course, there was no information of the backup tapes provided, because they had been destroyed.  Was it on purpose or by accident?

Another dream and Brainless looms large and lifelike in their first meeting.

At his home to finish collecting his clothes and gear, he wakes up and remembers why he’s there.  He had removed a tape from a little-used system he’d installed for another purpose, and had brought it to his own PC to see whether there was any evidence on it – given that every other tape either proved Aitchison and Halligan guilty or had been destroyed by well-meaning but apparently incompetent consultants.  His tape has interesting information, which he notes, then hides the tape.

 

Dear God is that the time?  I’m late.

 

More tomorrow!

© Charles Heath 2016-2019

Stranger’s We’ve Become, a sequel to What Sets Us Apart.

The blurb:

Is she or isn’t she, that is the question!

Susan has returned to David, but he is having difficulty dealing with the changes. Her time in captivity has changed her markedly, so much so that David decides to give her some time and space to re-adjust back into normal life.

But doubts about whether he chose the real Susan remain.

In the meantime, David has to deal with Susan’s new security chief, the discovery of her rebuilding a palace in Russia, evidence of an affair, and several attempts on his life. And, once again, David is drawn into another of Predergast’s games, one that could ultimately prove fatal.

From being reunited with the enigmatic Alisha, a strange visit to Susan’s country estate, to Russia and back, to a rescue mission in Nigeria, David soon discovers those whom he thought he could trust each has their own agenda, one that apparently doesn’t include him.

The Cover:

Coming soon