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

Most children, when they turn 18, or 21, get a car as a present for their birthday.  In fact, I had been hoping, in my case, they would buy me a Ferrari, or at the very least, an Alfa Romeo, blue to match my older sister’s red.

Hope is a horrible thing to hang on to.

Instead, I got a seat at the table.

Not an actual seat but joined the other 7 family members that comprised the management group for the family-run business.  One would retire to make way for new blood, as they called it.

“This is how it works and has done for a hundred years.  In your case, you will be replacing Grandma Gwen.  You will be given an area to manage, and you will be expected to work hard, and set an example to your employees.  There will be no partying, no staying home when you feel like it, and definitely no getting into trouble.  And for the first three years, you will sit, be quiet, listen and learn.  One day, down the track, you will become the CEO.”

“If we’re still in business.”  It didn’t take much to see that the company was struggling, as indeed many others were in the same industry, cheap imports and changing tastes taking a huge toll.

But we had been making exclusive and distinctive furniture for a long, long time, and discerning people who wanted a reminder of an elegant past still bought it.  Part of my training, before I got that seat, was to learn the trade, and like all members of my family, could build a chair from start to finish.

It was part of the mantra, lead by example.

…

On the second day in my new role as manager, I arrived at the office, grandma Gwen was throwing the last of 50 years’ worth of stuff into three large boxes.

It was no surprise that she was resentful at being ousted to make way for me, not that she needed the money, but because even approaching 90, the last thing she wanted to do was retire.

I got the cold stare when she saw me, and, on her way out, a parting shot, “Don’t get comfortable, sonny, they’ll be closing the doors in three months, even sooner.  Your father hasn’t a clue how to run the place.”

Out on the factory floor, the eight specialist workers didn’t exactly give her the goodbye I expected, showing that she didn’t have their respect.  The foreman, Gary, the man who had shown me the intricacies of the work, opened and closed the door for her, shrugged, and headed back to the office.

The others went back to work.

When he came into the office, his expression changed from disappointment to amusement.  He had said, years ago when I was very young, I’d be sitting in that office one.

Now I was there, though the chair, plush and comfortable when new about 50 years ago, was now as old and tired as the office’s previous owner, was hardly a selling point for the job.

“Told you you’d be sitting in that chair one day.  That day is here.”

“Maybe not for long, though.”

“Don’t pay no mind to Gwenny.  She and your father never got along.  She wanted to sell the business 20 years ago when it was worth something, but your Dad wanted to keep the worker’s jobs.  It’ll be a different story in a few years, once we’ve all gone.  No one wants to be an artisan anymore.  And wires, it’s all about furniture in boxes, all veneer and plastic, and a two tear life.”

“Shouldn’t we get a slice of the veneer and plastic market?”

“Can’t beat the overseas factories at their own game.  The trick is to diversify, but to do that we’d need to retool, and repurpose factory space and that costs money, big money.”

With all that stuff I learned at University, economics, management, and design, it might have been better to have taken the medical path, but I had been convinced to lay the groundwork to take over the company one day.

Back then, it wasn’t a possibility the company would not go on forever.  It seemed odd to me that my father hadn’t said anything about the situation Gary knew so well.  Did he not listen to those who knew most?

“So, what’s the solution?”

“That depends on you.”

This was not the job I signed up for.

What did I know about furniture?

It didn’t matter.

It was about manufacturing in a world economy, and the point was, that we could not compete.  Like the car industry, there was nothing but foreign imports and rebadged imported items made overseas.

So what was my role?

I was sure that every conclusion I had come to, everyone else around the table was painfully aware of too.  A short discussion with my elder sister confirmed it.

It was like being aboard the Titanic and watching it sink firsthand.

That seat at the table was in an ancient wood-paneled room with a huge table that seated 24, a table and matching chairs reputedly hand made by the first owner of the company, my so-many times great grandfather, Erich.

The room reeked of wood polish, the mustiness of age, and a deep vein of tradition.  Paintings on the walls were of every CEO the company had, and the first time I was in that room was the unveiling of my father’s portrait.

It was like stepping into a time warp.

Alison, my father’s PA was just finishing up setting the table for the meeting that morning.  She had Bern around for a long time, so long I could remember her when I was a child.

She looked over as I stepped into the room.

“You’re just a little early.”

“Just making sure I know where I’m going.”

“Are you nervous?”

“No.  It won’t be much different from sitting down to a family dinner, only a few less than normal, and I suspect there won’t be too many anecdotes.”

“It can be quite serious, but your father prefers to keep it light, and short.  Your grandfather on the other hand loved to torture the numbers with long-winded speeches and religious tracts.”

Small mercy then.

“Where do I sit?”

“Down the end in the listen and don’t speak seat.  It’s where all new members sit for the first year.”

That was twice I’d been told.

There were eight family members, the seven others I knew well, some better than others.  I’d seen arguments, words said that were better unsaid, accusations, and compliments.  I’d seen them at their best and at their worst.

It would be interesting to see how they got along in this room.

It started with an introduction and mild applause at my anointment to the ‘board’.

Then the captain of the Titanic my father as the current CEO, read out the agenda.

No icebergs expected, just plain sailing.

I sat, and I listened.  It was easy to see why it was plain sailing.  The family had made its wealth generations ago when our products were in high demand, and we had been living off the wealth generated by astute investment managers.

But even so, the business could not keep going the way it was without being an ever-decreasing drain on resources.

We needed a plan for the future.

“Now, if there’s no more business…”  My father looked around the table, his expression telling everyone there was no more business, and stopped at me.

Was that my cue?

“I’m sorry, but I can’t sit here and pretend this place isn’t going to hell in a handbasket.”

“It may or it may not be, but that is none of your concern.”

The tone more than suggested that I should stop, right now.  Of course, if I had the sense expected of me I would have, but if I was going to make a contribution, I might as well start now.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on here?  We need a plan for the future, we need to be doing something.”

All eyes were on me.

I’d never seen my father so angry.  At that moment I thought I’d pushed it a little too hard.  To be honest I don’t know what came over me.

He glared at me for a full minute.  Then as if a thought came to me that moment, there was a slight change in expression.

“Then, I have a proposition for you.  I want you to work on this plan you say we need to have, what you think will be best for the company, and the family, for everyone, for the future.  I believe everyone here will agree on something, as you say, that needs to be done.”

There were nods all around the table.

Then, looking directly at me, he said, “if there is nothing else.  Good.  Our business is done.”

---

© Charles Heath 2022

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.

…

Back at the hospital with Boggs

…

Nadia dropped me off at the hospital where Boggs had been taken.  She offered to come in with me, but I said Boggs might not be too receptive to any Cossatinos given the circumstances of where we found him, adding I was not trying to be disrespectful until I found out what happened.

It was still possible he had ended up on the beach after being dealt with by her father, brother, or some of their gang.  I could have expressed myself better because there was no mistaking that look she gave me.

Coming on top of the admission she almost forced out of me, about trust, I got the impression that the rapport we had built up was slipping away, much like sand through fingers.

Watching her drive off, I wondered if that might be the last time we spoke.  It was, I had come to the conclusion on the way back from the beach, a relationship fraught with many problems, in my case, being with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and in hers, well, I was not sure what her expectations were.

If only she wasn’t a Cossatino.

I went in the main entrance, asked at the admissions counter where Boggs was, giving my name, and stated the fact I was his best friend.  I was expecting to be told the only visitors could be direct relatives.

It elicited a phone call which on any other occasion I might have dismissed as hospital protocol, but in this instance, and the grave expression on the admission clerk’s face told me this was different.

When she hung up the phone she told me to sit, someone would come to get me.  Several minutes later the Sheriff came out of the doors leading into the emergency department.

It looked serious if the sheriff was involved.  I was hoping Boggs had not succumbed to his injuries, even after the medics has said his survival prospects were good.

“Sam.  I was hoping you would come to see Boggs.”

“How is he?”

“Uncooperative to the extent of truculent.”

“He’s awake then.”

“Aside from exposure, and a thorough shaking up, there’s little wrong with him a night or two won’t fix.  But, there’s a small problem with the Cossatinos.  They claim he stole a document from their residence, and they want to charge him with trespassing and theft.  He had nothing with him when they brought him here.”

“Maybe they were chasing him and he hid it somewhere.”

“Maybe, but he’s not talking.  Perhaps you could persuade him to tell you because we need a statement, or I’ll have to charge him, pending an investigation.”

“I’m not exactly his best friend at the moment.”

“Because of Nadia?”

News traveled fast in this town, or was it like the sheriff once told me another time I’d got into trouble, nothing happened in his town that he didn’t know about.  Or my mother told him to tell me she was bad news, which was the most likely scenario.

“She is not the sort of girl you want to be with.  You know as well as I do what the Cossatinos are like, and that’s all of them, Sam, without exception.”

My mother had spoken to him because those were her words.  The sheriff had to be more diplomatic.

“What happened to cutting people some slack?  Have you considered she might be different?”

“She has a file, Sam.”

It was all he needed to say.  I wanted to believe her, but discounting all the rumors and stories I’d heard about her was not going to justify overlooking the obvious.

“Message received and understood.  Is Boggs up to taking visitors?”

“Yes.  Follow me.”

We went through the doors leading to the emergency department, down a corridor where ambulance patients in various stages of distress were lined up waiting to be processed, it was a busy night.  At the end, we turned right where there were several rooms, one of which had a policeman standing outside.

A nod from the sheriff and the policeman opened the door and I went in.  The sheriff didn’t follow me.

Boggs was almost sitting up, staring out the window, until the door closed when he turned to see who had come into the room.  When he saw me, he turned back to the window.

Then I noticed a girl sitting in the chair beside the bed, almost obscured from view.  It took a moment to recognize her, Charlene, the sheriff’s daughter.

What was she doing here?

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

I wandered back to my villa.

It was in darkness.  I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door so I could see to unlock it.

I looked up and saw the globe was broken.

Instant alert.

I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there.  I went to the backup and it wasn’t there either.  Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.

Who?

There were four hiding spots and all were empty.  Someone had removed the weapons.  That could only mean one possibility.

I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.

But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbor and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.

Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.

There were three entrances to the villa, the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch.  One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage.  It was built in the late 1700s, by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief.  It had a hidden underground room which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.

It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were near the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely.  It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.

The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground.  I move aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side.  After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks.  It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that.  I’d left torches at either end so I could see.

I closed the door after me, and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch.  I traversed the short passage which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end.  I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door.  It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.

I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.

I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.

Silence, an eerie silence.

I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting.  There wasn’t.  It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.

I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was.  Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.

That raised the question of who told them where I was.

If I was the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan.  The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental.  But I was not that man.

Or was I?

I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness.  My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void.  Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly.  A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.

Still nothing.

I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job.  I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked where there would be no escape.

Coming in the front door.  If I was not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk-in.  One shot would be all that was required.

Contract complete.

I sidled quietly up the passage staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door.  There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting.  It was an ideal spot to wait.

Crunch.

I stepped on some nutshells.

Not my nutshells.

I felt it before I heard it.  The bullet with my name on it.

And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea.  I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.

I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.

Two assassins.

I’d not expected that.

The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part.  The second was still breathing.

I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives.  Armed to the teeth!

I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian.  I was expecting a Russian.

I slapped his face, waking him up.  Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down.  The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally.  He was not long for this earth.

“Who employed you?”

He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile.  “Not today my friend.  You have made a very bad enemy.”  He coughed and blood poured out of his mouth.  “There will be more …”

Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.

I would have to leave.  Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess.  I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.

Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally.  I was trying not to connect dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.

 

A half-hour passed and I hadn’t moved.  Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.

Until I heard a knock on my front door.

Two thoughts, it was either the police, alerted by the neighbors, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?

I stood, and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm.  I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.

If it was the police, this was going to be a difficult situation.  Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.

No police, just Maria.  I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.

“You left your phone behind on the table.  I thought you might be looking for it.”  She held it out in front of her.

When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically, and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”

I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply, and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”

I looked at my arm and realized it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.

“You need to go away now.”

Should I tell her the truth?  It was probably too late, and if she was any sort of law-abiding citizen she would go straight to the police.

She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity.  “What happened?”

I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible.  I went with the truth.  “My past caught up with me.”

“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss.  It doesn’t look good.”

“I can fix it.  You need to leave.  It is not safe to be here with me.”

The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened.  She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.

I opened the door and let her in.  It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences.  Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge.  She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.

I expected her to scream.  She didn’t.

She gave me a good hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous.  Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about.  She would have to go to the police.

“What happened here?”

“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me.  I used to work for the Government, but no longer.  I suspect these men were here to repay a debt.  I was lucky.”

“Not so much, looking at your arm.”

She came closer and inspected it.

“Sit down.”

She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

“Do you have medical supplies?”

I nodded.  “Upstairs.”  I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs.  Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.

She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back.  I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed though I was not sure why it might interest her.

She helped me remove my shirt, and then cleaned the wound.  Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet.  It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.

When she’d finished she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”

No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.

“Alisha?”

“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you.  She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”

“That was wrong of her to do that.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.  Will you call her?”

“Yes.  I can’t stay here now.  You should go now.  Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”

She smiled.  “As you say, I was never here.”

 

© Charles Heath 2018-2020