That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 25

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.

When I woke up, it was in a whole new world, but not necessarily of pain.

It was a different room, not quite dark, not hot or cold, looked much like a hospital room layout with a hospital bed, and bright lights outside the doors.

I had no idea if it was daylight or night. Classic disorientation procedure before a different sort of interrogation.

What I also realised, though I was not sure why was that the casts and bandages I had back at the previous base hospital were gone, and everything looked, well, different.

That there was nothing wrong with me.

It’s a terrible thing to realise your own people had basically told you a web of lies about your condition, and how the mind adjusted to those lies. And yet, I would have sworn on a stack of bibles my pain was real.

Drugs. Not only could they do good, but they could also do some very bad things, to the mind and the body. At a guess, I would say it was for Breeman’s benefit. If I’d come back in one piece there would be a truckload of questions.

So, I’d been moved, and kept under the whole time. And if there was nothing wrong with me, why was I still in what looked like a hospital? Maybe it wasn’t. There was only one bed in the room. Perhaps it was a cell for recovering transportees.

My worst fears then, a black site.

My waking must have triggered an alarm because I heard the door open and someone come into the room. The exact position of the door was hidden by a curtain, but I could see the light from outside intensify when it opened and slowly drop ass it closed.

The curtain moved on its rings to show a man in a white coat, perhaps a doctor, but more likely the interrogator or his assistant coming to check the viability of their target.

I had to ask, “Where am I?”

“In a camp, at a location, I’m not at liberty to disclose.”

“When did I get here?”

“Yesterday, late last night. It was busy. We had three new arrivals. You must be on the right side because you didn’t arrive in chains, the other two did.”

He took my temperature, blood pressure and some other tests, and wrote the numbers on a page in a file.

“You haven’t reacted to the serum we gave you. That’s good.” He saw my look of concern. “Oh, it’s only used for transporting injured people from one base to another. It helps to minimise the external forces causing them unnecessary pain.”

“Apparently I’m not injured.”

“No. Not quite sure what happened there, but, whatever happened, it’s above my pay grade. By the way, don’t try to leave this room. There’s a guard outside who had been told to shoot first and ask questions later. I’ve seen the results of her work.”

It had to be Monroe.

That means Lallo would be around soon enough.

An excerpt from “The Things We Do For Love”; In love, Henry was all at sea!

In the distance he could hear the dinner bell ringing and roused himself. Feeling the dampness of the pillow, and fearing the ravages of pent up emotion, he considered not going down but thought it best not to upset Mrs. Mac, especially after he said he would be dining.

In the event, he wished he had reneged, especially when he discovered he was not the only guest staying at the hotel.

Whilst he’d been reminiscing, another guest, a young lady, had arrived. He’d heard her and Mrs. Mac coming up the stairs, and then shown to a room on the same floor, perhaps at the other end of the passage.

Henry caught his first glimpse of her when she appeared at the door to the dining room, waiting for Mrs. Mac to show her to a table.

She was about mid-twenties, slim, long brown hair, and the grace and elegance of a woman associated with countless fashion magazines. She was, he thought, stunningly beautiful with not a hair out of place, and make-up flawlessly applied. Her clothes were black, simple, elegant, and expensive, the sort an heiress or wife of a millionaire might condescend to wear to a lesser occasion than dinner.

Then there was her expression; cold, forbidding, almost frightening in its intensity. And her eyes, piercingly blue and yet laced with pain. Dracula’s daughter was his immediate description of her.

All in all, he considered, the only thing they had in common was, like him, she seemed totally out of place.

Mrs. Mac came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She was, she informed him earlier, chef, waitress, hotelier, barmaid, and cleaner all rolled into one. Coming up to the new arrival she said, “Ah, Miss Andrews, I’m glad you decided to have dinner. Would you like to sit with Mr. Henshaw, or would you like to have a table of your own?”

Henry could feel her icy stare as she sized up his appeal as a dining companion, making the hair on the back on his neck stand up. He purposely didn’t look back. In his estimation, his appeal rating was minus six. Out of a thousand!

“If Mr. Henshaw doesn’t mind….” She looked at him, leaving the query in mid-air.

He didn’t mind and said so. Perhaps he’d underestimated his rating.

“Good.” Mrs. Mac promptly ushered her over. Henry stood, made sure she was seated properly and sat.

“Thank you. You are most kind.” The way she said it suggested snobbish overtones.

“I try to be when I can.” It was supposed to nullify her sarcastic tone but made him sound a little silly, and when she gave him another of her icy glares, he regretted it.

Mrs. Mac quickly intervened, asking, “Would you care for the soup?”

They did, and, after writing the order on her pad, she gave them each a look, imperceptibly shook her head, and returned to the kitchen.

Before Michelle spoke to him again, she had another quick look at him, trying to fathom who and what he might be. There was something about him.

His eyes, they mirrored the same sadness she felt, and, yes, there was something else, that it looked like he had been crying? There was a tinge of redness.

Perhaps, she thought, he was here for the same reason she was.

No. That wasn’t possible.

Then she said, without thinking, “Do you have any particular reason for coming here?” Seconds later she realized she’s spoken it out loud, had hadn’t meant to actually ask, it just came out.

It took him by surprise, obviously not the first question he was expecting her to ask of him.

“No, other than it is as far from civilization, and home, as I could get.”

At least we agree on that, she thought.

It was obvious he was running away from something as well.

Given the isolation of the village and lack of geographic hospitality, it was, from her point of view, ideal. All she had to do was avoid him, and that wouldn’t be difficult.

After getting through this evening first.

“Yes,” she agreed. “It is that.”

A few seconds passed, and she thought she could feel his eyes on her and wasn’t going to look up.

Until he asked, “What’s your reason?”

Slight abrupt in manner, perhaps as a result of her question, and the manner in which she asked it.

She looked up. “Rest. And have some time to myself.”

She hoped he would notice the emphasis she had placed on the word ‘herself’ and take due note. No doubt, she thought, she had completely different ideas of what constituted a holiday than he, not that she had actually said she was here for a holiday.

Mrs. Mac arrived at a fortuitous moment to save them from further conversation.

Over the entree, she wondered if she had made a mistake coming to the hotel. Of course, there had been no possible way she could know than anyone else might have booked the same hotel, but realized it was foolish to think she might end up in it by herself.

Was that what she was expecting?

Not a mistake then, but an unfortunate set of circumstances, which could be overcome by being sensible.

Yet, there he was, and it made her curious, not that he was a man, by himself, in the middle of nowhere, hiding like she was, but for very different reasons.

On discreet observance whilst they ate, she gained the impression his air of light-heartedness was forced and he had no sense of humor.

This feeling was engendered by his looks, unruly dark hair, and permanent frown. And then there was his abysmal taste in clothes on a tall, lanky frame. They were quality but totally unsuited to the wearer.

Rebellion was written all over him.

The only other thought crossing her mind, and rather incongruously, was he could do with a decent feed. In that respect, she knew now from the mountain of food in front of her, he had come to the right place.

“Mr. Henshaw?”

He looked up. “Henshaw is too formal. Henry sounds much better,” he said, with a slight hint of gruffness.

“Then my name is Michelle.”

Mrs. Mac came in to take their order for the only main course, gather up the entree dishes, then return to the kitchen.

“Staying long?” she asked.

“About three weeks. Yourself?”

“About the same.”

The conversation dried up.

Neither looked at the other, rather at the walls, out the window, towards the kitchen, anywhere. It was, she thought, almost unbearably awkward.

Mrs. Mac returned with a large tray with dishes on it, setting it down on the table next to theirs.

“Not as good as the usual cook,” she said, serving up the dinner expertly, “but it comes a good second, even if I do say so myself. Care for some wine?”

Henry looked at Michelle. “What do you think?”

“I’m used to my dining companions making the decision.”

You would, he thought. He couldn’t help but notice the cutting edge of her tone. Then, to Mrs. Mac, he named a particular White Burgundy he liked and she bustled off.

“I hope you like it,” he said, acknowledging her previous comment with a smile that had nothing to do with humor.

“Yes, so do I.”

Both made a start on the main course, a concoction of chicken and vegetables that were delicious, Henry thought, when compared to the bland food he received at home and sometimes aboard my ship.

It was five minutes before Mrs. Mac returned with the bottle and two glasses. After opening it and pouring the drinks, she left them alone again.

Henry resumed the conversation. “How did you arrive? I came by train.”

“By car.”

“Did you drive yourself?”

And he thought, a few seconds later, that was a silly question, otherwise she would not be alone, and certainly not sitting at this table. With him.

“After a fashion.”

He could see that she was formulating a retort in her mind, then changed it, instead, smiling for the first time, and it served to lighten the atmosphere.

And in doing so, it showed him she had another more pleasant side despite the fact she was trying not to look happy.

“My father reckons I’m just another of ‘those’ women drivers,” she added.

“Whatever for?”

“The first and only time he came with me I had an accident. I ran up the back of another car. Of course, it didn’t matter to him the other driver was driving like a startled rabbit.”

“It doesn’t help,” he agreed.

“Do you drive?”

“Mostly people up the wall.” His attempt at humor failed. “Actually,” he added quickly, “I’ve got a very old Morris that manages to get me where I’m going.”

The apple pie and cream for dessert came and went and the rapport between them improved as the wine disappeared and the coffee came. Both had found, after getting to know each other better, their first impressions were not necessarily correct.

“Enjoy the food?” Mrs. Mac asked, suddenly reappearing.

“Beautifully cooked and delicious to eat,” Michelle said, and Henry endorsed her remarks.

“Ah, it does my heart good to hear such genuine compliments,” she said, smiling. She collected the last of the dishes and disappeared yet again.

“What do you do for a living,” Michelle asked in an off-hand manner.

He had a feeling she was not particularly interested and it was just making conversation.

“I’m a purser.”

“A what?”

“A purser. I work on a ship doing the paperwork, that sort of thing.”

“I see.”

“And you?”

“I was a model.”

“Was?”

“Until I had an accident, a rather bad one.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

So that explained the odd feeling he had about her.

As the evening had worn on, he began to think there might be something wrong, seriously wrong with her because she didn’t look too well. Even the carefully applied makeup, from close up, didn’t hide the very pale, and tired look, or the sunken, dark ringed eyes.

“I try not to think about it, but it doesn’t necessarily work. I’ve come here for peace and quiet, away from doctors and parents.”

“Then you will not have to worry about me annoying you. I’m one of those fall-asleep-reading-a-book types.”

Perhaps it would be like ships passing in the night and then smiled to himself about the analogy.

Dinner now over, they separated.

Henry went back to the lounge to read a few pages of his book before going to bed, and Michelle went up to her room to retire for the night.

But try as he might, he was unable to read, his mind dwelling on the unusual, yet the compellingly mysterious person he would be sharing the hotel with.

Overlaying that original blurred image of her standing in the doorway was another of her haunting expressions that had, he finally conceded, taken his breath away, and a look that had sent more than one tingle down his spine.

She may not have thought much of him, but she had certainly made an impression on him.

lovecoverfinal1

Follow that cab… – A short story

Nothing ever good comes from eavesdropping.

Or, so my mother said, once, with such feeling that I suspect she had some experience of having done so. It might explain the enmity between her and her older sister, the aunt we never saw.

Except all that changed when I received an odd email from a woman who claimed to be that very aunt.

We had all been warned about scams that came from dubious sources online, and this initially struck me as one. I would need more information before I answered.

That meant poking the bear, that is, asking my mother about her sister.

And coming right out with the words she hoped she’d never heard.

“Aunt Guenivere sent me an email, asking if we could meet. It seems she wants to meet the nephew she hasn’t seen since I was born. What happened to you two?”

It brought a look of total hatred in return.

“You would be wise not to respond. That woman is just plain evil.”

“You do realize that a statement like that makes it even more imperative that I should meet her. If you’re not going to tell me what happened, I’m sure she will.”

“Then if you must, you must.”

It wasn’t resignation but suppressed rage. Whatever had happened, it was something she believed no one would believe her, or understand, least of all me.

With that, she stood, and walked out of the room, leaving me with the ominous feeling that it would be the last time I saw her.
After verifying that my so-called aunt was Aunt Guenivere, I arranged a meeting in a public place, a tea room in the next town to where I lived. And it wasn’t going to be hard to recognize her, she would just an older version of my mother.

I knew this because I had found a photograph of my mother and her two sisters, all of who looked very much alike. I’d know about the younger sister, she had died in an accidental car crash many years before, and what my mother regarded as a wasted life.

I saw her about the same time she saw me.

And she just made it to the table when her cell phone rang. She smiled, put a hand up and asked for a moment, and then went back outside. I watched her walk up and down, slowly at first, but I could see the conversation was getting heated.

After a few minutes, I went outside to see if I could be of any assistance.

Apparently not. One look was enough, and I knew what it meant. At least her sister and my mother shared the same facial expressions when angry.

Then the conversation ended. I thought, for a moment, she was going to throw the phone on the ground, and only just managed to stop herself.

Instead, she came over and said. “I’m sorry but something has come up and I have to go. I’ll call you.”

With that, she waved down a taxi, one stopped, and she jumped in.

Another pulled in behind her taxi and on the spur of the moment, and said with a flourish, “Follow that cab.”

The driver turned to look at me, and then said, “You’re kidding.”

I held up a hundred dollar note and said, seriously, “This is yours if you don’t lose them.”

Incentive enough.

It was a lot easier to follow that taxi than I thought. We caught up and the first set of lights and then proceeded to miss every second intersection as if the universe knew I needed to keep her in sight.

All the way to the upper west side and a very expensive apartment block. I paid the cabbie and jumped out, just in time to see a very familiar figure join my aunt.

My father.

And they didn’t look like people who didn’t know each other, or who were at war.

They remained outside the apartment block, and I could see my father had arrived by cab, and it was waiting for him.

I got as close as I could, hidden effectively behind the bushes that lined the building entrance. They were speaking loudly, which surprised me

“What the hell were you thinking,” he said, not angrily, but I could tell he was agitated.

“I was thinking it was time someone told him the truth.”

What truth?

“You know what Evelyn thinks of that, and I do too. You made an agreement.”

“I’ve changed my mind. After all, he is my son, not hers.”

—–

“Trouble in Store” – Short stories my way: Editing becomes re-writing (6)

I’ve been looking at the start again, and something about it is nagging at me.

The main character needs a little work, and the start doesn’t exactly grab by the lapels of your coat.

Not yet.

The fact that smoking might kill him yet was, at that moment, an understatement. If he was honest, when he told Maisie he had given them up, it should have been the truth.

And if it had been, he would not be in the situation he was. A lame excuse to go down to the corner shop, had him panicking about getting there before the shop closed at 11 p.m.

His momentum propelled him through the door, causing the customer warning bell to ring loudly as the door bashed into it, and before the sound had died away, he knew he was in trouble.

It took a second, perhaps three, to sum up the situation.

A young girl, about 16 or 17, scared, looking sideways at a man on the ground, then Alphonse, and then Jack. He recognized the gun, a Luger, German, relic of WW2, perhaps the boy or her father’s souvenir, or more likely a stolen weapon, now pointing at him then Alphonse, then back to him.

Jack took another second or two to consider if he could disarm her. No, the distance was too great. He put his hands out where she could see them. No sudden movements, try to remain calm, but his heart rate up to the point of cardiac arrest. No point making a bad situation worse.

Pointing with the gun, she said, “Move closer to the counter where I can see you better.”

Everything but her hand was steady as a rock. The only telltale signs of stress, the beads of perspiration on her brow and the slight tremor of her gun hand.

It was 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the shop; almost mind-numbing.

Jack shivered and then did as he was told.

A few seconds more for him to decide she was going to be unpredictable.

“What’s wrong with your friend?” Jack tried the friendly approach after he’d taken the three steps sideways necessary to reach the counter.

The shopkeeper, Alphonse, who, Jack noted seemed to have aged another ten years in the last few months, spoke instead; “I suspect he’s an addict, looking for a score. At the end of his tether, my guess, and here to get some money for a fix.”

A simple hold up that had gone very wrong.

Wrong time, wrong place, in more ways than one Jack thought, now realizing he had walked into a very dangerous situation. She didn’t look like a user. The boy on the ground; he did, and he looked like he was going through the beginnings of withdrawal.

Oddly, though, when he first came in Jack had noticed a look pass between the shopkeeper and the girl.

Then, as the tense silence reached an almost unbearable level, she said, “All you had to do was give us the stuff, and we wouldn’t be here, now.” She was glaring back at Alphonse. “You can still make this right.”

She used the word ‘stuff’ not money. A flicker of memory jumped out of the depths on Jack’s mind, something discussed at the dinner table with their neighbors, something about the shop as a pick-up point for drugs.

The boy on the floor, he was not here for the money.

Jack thought he’d try another approach. “Look, I don’t want trouble, and you don’t want trouble. I’ll go, forget this ever happened. You might want to do the same. There’s nothing you can do for him now.”

The boy was intermittently writhing and moaning. It looked to Jack like it might be more than just withdrawal.

The girl looked at the man on the ground, at the door, and back again, like she was thinking. The gun, though, still moved between him and the shopkeeper.

Another assessment of the girl; she was completely out of place here, now. It was evident she was from a better class of people, a different part of town. Caught up in a downward spiral because of her acquaintance on the floor.

Caught in a situation she was not equipped to deal with.

“Sunday in New York”, a romantic adventure that’s not a walk in the park!

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

NaNoWriMo 2021 – Day 20

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A score to settle

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Today, it’s viva la revolution.

I’m writing the first part of what is about to unfold as a civilian takeover. Of course, planning aside, and not reckoning on opposition from what should be allies, it fails.

So, it’s not that the rebels had the wrong plan, they just didn’t think it through, or fully understand the circumstances of the person they chose to kidnap and try to use as leverage.

Perhaps this was the moment I was waiting for, and having all of the preliminary backgrounds, and setting all of the plot elements needed to lead to this point, this part is almost writing itself.

I’ve just got to make the really bad guy, badder, if that’s possible.

I want to show a human side to a character that cannot afford to have one, and that in stepping outside their comfort zone things can go horribly wrong very quickly.

And the main character that has returned too soon after a life-changing incident, can and will have moments where the loss of focus could have devastating results.

What’s that expression? Everything could go to hell in a handbasket.

Or not.

Stay tuned.

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Today’s word count: 3,257 words, for the running total of 50,130.

“The Devil You Don’t” – A beta readers view

It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.

John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.

So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?

That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.

What should have been a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realises his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.

The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.

All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.

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Available on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

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