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.

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, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

Onboard the plane shortly after it took off, I watched Monroe go to each of the team and give them a folder with their role, and, no doubt, instructions on what they had to do, and to handle the equipment they were assigned.  The list I’d seen required a sound technician, a grip, a cameraman, his assistant, the director, the producer, which I took to be Monroe, and a few other production assistants.

None looked happy, and probably already knew what the cover story would be.  I didn’t see or hear any objections, each just took their folder and started on their homework.

She didn’t spend much time with Jacobi, just enough to tell him he was going to be the guide.  It was a role he was most suited to, and that of local liaison.  At least it would explain why he was with us.

After that, she came to see me.

“Was it your idea or Lallo’s?” I asked.  

“Lallo’s.  I’m as surprised as you, but you have to admit it’s a great cover story.”

“For a group who wouldn’t know one end of the camera from the other.”

“Plenty of time to learn.  You don’t have to worry.  All you have to do is be perennially bad-tempered and yell a lot.  I’m sure you can do that without having me tell you how to.”

“No. probably not.  Bamfield said it all the equipment worked.”

“When we take the C4, detonators, grenades, and a few other assorted armaments out it will.”

“You know where the other stuff is,” I said, hoping she understood that it was the diamonds I was talking about.

“Somewhere in one of the boxes.  It was best not to tell anyone, so if anything happens, we can’t give it away.  We can worry about that once we get past the border.  I suggest you get your head down.  At least one of us has to be sharp at the other end when we land.”

With that, she went back to her corner, ran her eye over the team now deep in their studies, then looked like she was going to get some sleep.

After a few hours, the enthusiasm to learn had died down, and each of the team members made themselves comfortable.  There would be more time to study on the other side of the fuel stop.  Everyone on board got what sleep they could, not that it was the best of places in the cargo hold of a C-130.  One destination we were all familiar with was that of Djibouti when we would set down to refuel at the airbase there.

It was a half-hour stop, and, as Monroe advised, we didn’t leave the plane.  It was best no one knew we were aboard or what we were doing, a feat I thought quite remarkable because if it was my airbase, I’d want to know.

But, as airbases went, it was the same as the rest.

Back in the air, we were heading for Uganda.  It was another 6 or 7 hours, so it was a good time to get some more rest before we landed.  I had no idea when the next time would be that there would be time for some shuteye.

I’d been keeping an eye on Monroe.  She appeared to be the liaison for everything, and had accompanied the pilot to the base tower, most likely to file the flight plan, one of several I imagine, and to report back to Bamfield.  It explained why the pilot returned without her, and she didn’t get back until 15 minutes before we were due to leave.

Should I be worried?  There wasn’t much point.

After an hour, I went up the back of the plane and sat next to Jacobi.  He had been ostracised by the rest of the team; an order given by Monroe for them to leave him alone.  He’d been escorted onto the plane by two burly military policemen, and his bag of equipment given to Monroe for safekeeping, so we were sure from the time he left the cell at the black site to getting on the plane he had communicated with anyone.

Even so, I was sure he had been in similar situations before, and he was still alive to tell about it.  If he had a plan, whatever that plan was, we would soon find out.

In the meantime, I thought he might have an interesting story to tell, and I had a few hours to kill.

He sullenly watched me come down the fuselage, and then sit next to him, loosely putting what passed as a seat belt on just in case we hit an air pocket.  The flight was not as smooth as it might be on a commercial airliner and was certainly a lot noisier.

“Have you spoken to the right people yet?” I almost had to yell in his ear.  

Lallo had said he was going to get Jacobi to call his friendly General in the Congo army to smooth the way, and it would be interesting to know under what circumstances Jacobi had explained our arrival at his border.  And another to tell the kidnappers we were on our way.  Monroe said he had made several supervised phone calls, but not exactly who to.

We had to pray that the General would be among those to also help us locate the targets and, once the exchange was made, assist us in our departure, for a small sum to compensate them for the inconvenience.

He knew why I’d come to see him.  “The captors know we are coming, and hopefully before the time limit has passed.  They will kill them this time if we don’t get there in time.”

“I’m sure they’d like us to think that, but you know as well as I do they need the ransom for their ongoing operations.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to plan f which is where they kill us, the hostages, and just take the ransom.  Either way, I hate to be the one who is only going to make things worse, but I don’t get to decide what’s right or wrong.”

“It’s how it works out there.  Everyone is available for a price.  If it wasn’t this lot, it’d be another or another.”

“Or the military, maybe, looking to cash in because the state doesn’t pay them enough.  That’s why we’re putting you at the head of the procession.  If we’re ambushed, you’ll be the first to go.”

“I admire your lack of faith in me.”

“You haven’t done anything to inspire faith, Jacobi.  But so long as you keep your word, and do everything right, I won’t have to shoot you.”

There was no horrified look.  He knew the score of being in the ‘Mr. In-Between’ business.  He would no doubt get a share of the diamonds for brokering the deal, on top of whatever Lallo offered him, and a cut of the General and his men’s fees for guaranteeing our safety.  I guess his business also had its hazards, wasn’t for the faint-hearted, and for those working all sides of the fence, a particularly exciting time.

Generals, soldiers, kidnappers, rebels, practically every man and his dog had an itchy trigger finger.

“It’s not me you have to worry about.”

“How so?”

“I didn’t betray them the last time, and that person was never identified.”

A good point.  “Then let’s hope no one else knows we’re coming, or what we’re bringing as ransom.”

He looked at me, a look that told me I thought he might just make a play for the diamonds himself and forget about the targets.  It was a very tempting ransom.

“You know how it is.  Spies are everywhere.”

“Just make sure you’re not one of them.”

I think I said it with just enough sincerity that he believed me.

“It’s not worth my while, I assure you.  Once you’re involved in a double-cross, you cease to be of worth to anyone.  I will not be the source of your problems if there are any.”

For a man who’d already been caught out in a raft of lies, there was nothing he could say that would make me trust him.  He was going to require an escort once we landed.

I had two perfect candidates for the job.  Williamson and Shurl.  From what I had observed on the ground before we boarded the plane, and in the plane, they stuck together.  I got the impression they knew each other.

After I left Jacobi, I told them what I wanted them to do.

It was the day for sullen responses.  They didn’t want to be babysitters.  Tough.

Next, I went and visited Mobley, sitting closer to the front of the plane, by himself.  Monroe had sat with him for an hour or so before we reached Djibouti, and it had raised a small flag.

I staggered towards him, the pilots deciding to take the rough path through the sky, and almost fell into the seat next to him.

He didn’t look at me the whole time, even when I’d sat down.  Was he pretending to ignore me, or had he decided he was above taking my orders?

“I’ve got a few hours to waste so if you think I’m going away forget it,” I said, loud enough to get his attention.

A slight flutter of an eyelid.  Not asleep.

“Monroe tells me you’re in charge of this motley crew,” he said, still not looking at me.

“Not because I want to be.  I’m not sure what your reason is to be here, and, frankly, I don’t care, but I really don’t want to be here.  I wasn’t given a choice.  I’m guessing you did from what I’ve been told.  We don’t have time to debate the issue.  What I want you to do is when we arrive at the base, is hang back, come up with whatever excuse will fly, and give us several hours head start.  You’ll be with one of Chiswick’s men.  What’s important is to check no one follows us.”

“You think someone might?”  A look of almost interest.

“I’m sure of it.  There’s no way we will get to the base in Uganda, no matter how far from civilization it is, and not be noticed, or worse, that someone already knows we’re coming.”

“What’s the ultimate rendezvous?”

“Over the border in the Congo.”  I passed him a hand-drawn map of the area, from the landing strip to the GPS co-ordinates of the exchange point in the Congo, but not the track that we would be taking, some of which I hoped might be by the river.  I think Monroe had given him as much detail of the job as she could, as she probably had all of them.

“Monroe in the loop?”

“She will be by the time we land.”

“Good.”

Eyes closed again; the conversation was over.

Time to have a talk to Monroe.

“Got some good news,” she said when I sat next to her.

“We’re turning around and going home?”

“Where is home?”

It was an interesting question.  I’d been bounced around so many airbases, I don’t think I’d had a permanent fixed address from the day I signed up.  Was it where I used to live?  No point going back, everyone I’d known back then had either moved on or died.  Technically I was now an orphan, and unlike others, I had no family of my own to go home to.

“No idea anymore, I’m afraid.  So, what’s this good news.”

“We have an exit strategy.  Bamfield told me to tell you everything is in place.  All we have to do is liberate a plane and we’re on our way home.  It’s the reason why Davies is on the mission, Bamfield says she can fly anything.”

“I’ve never heard of a plane called ‘anything’.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Any other details?”

“We’ll know exactly what the score is when we get there.  That’s all I know at the moment.”

“There’s more?”

“Hopefully through the pilot’s last contact with Bamfield.  Otherwise, it’s going to be just another boring day at the office.”

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

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 with what happened during the second world 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…

…

Neither of us knew what to expect, and I had tried to steel myself for the worst. It was war, and I’d seen some awful things, but when it had happened to people you knew, and to a certain extent civilians that were nothing to do with the war, it was all that much harder to both understand why, and see.

There were dead, I counted at least ten, villagers who were innocent of any crime other than the fact they didn’t like Leonardo. They had no chance, shot and left to die in almost the same positions I’d seen them when I’d left earlier.

But, after checking everywhere, I could not find Martina.

Then Jack appeared. He came up to me and tugged on my trouser leg. “So this is where you got to?” I said. Why had he come back, though?

He headed back further into the cavern near where we had been earlier, a doorway I had not seen. It was ajar. Jack simply stood still, looking at it.

I pulled out my service pistol, not wanting to be caught unaware, and moved quietly towards the door, then slowly pulled it open.

At first, I saw nothing, then, looking down, I saw a figure on the floor. I knelt down to see who it was. The boy, Enrico. I’d seen his parents earlier, both dead. He must have escaped and hidden in the room, and, luckily, no one had followed him.

Except for Jack. Or had Jack come back, having sensed something awful had happened?

I checked him but there didn’t seem to be any wounds, and, when I shook his shoulder, he jolted, and jumped up ready to attack me, until he saw who it was, then grabbed hold of me. He was shaking, and suddenly sobbing. He had seen what had happened, and it was not something he was going to forget.

And he was going to want to exact revenge.

He was not the only one.

It took ten minutes before he had calmed, and managed to sit, leaning back against the wall. The room was where empty bottles were stored on wooden boxes, and he must have hidden among the crates. Anyone searching quickly wouldn’t venture much past the doorway.

It had saved his life.

Then, when I asked, he related what happened.

It was over very quickly. There had been a pounding on the door, and Martina had assumed it was Chiara returning. Chiara, he said, had said she had a small errand to run before locking herself in with the others.

When Martina opened the door, Leonardo was there, and they captured her, then set about killing everyone else. Enrico had been in the rear of the cavern looking for extra places for the others to camp when he heard the shots being fired.

Instead of going back to see what was happening, he hid in the bottle room, afraid for his life. Afraid for his parents and the others, but he had quickly realized there was nothing he could do. Leonardo had used the act of surprise.

One of Leonardo’s men had come back to where he was hiding, and just as he put his head in the door, Leonardo had called him back. They had to leave before Carlo and I returned. One of his men suggested they remain and capture us when we came back, but Leonardo said we’d come to him as soon as we saw what had happened.

He was right.

Carlo had made up a list of the dead and found that not only Martina was missing, so was Giuseppe and Francesco.

I told him Chiara was still alive, but barely, that Leonardo and his men had almost killed her, extracting the other’s whereabouts.

Martina and the others were most likely receiving the same punishment Chiara had received, up at the castle in one of the dungeons.

We were going to have to rescue them if they were still alive.

In fact, now that Thompson had sent reinforcements, the fight was going to be a little more in our favor with six of us, instead of two. Perhaps seven, if I could not persuade Enrico not to come, but that was going to be difficult. In his place, I would feel exactly the same.

When Enrico was ready, we went back out to the main cavern where Carlo was sitting, head in hands. It was probably the only time he would get to mourn his fellow villagers/

Jack was seeking forgiveness for deserting me, but I was not mad at him. That he was able to give some form of companionship to Enrico probably saved him from making a mistake thinking he could exact revenge on his own.

I told him Leonardo would pay for this, and, predictably, he told me that he would be coming with us. I promised myself that I would find some way of keeping him safe.

…
© Charles Heath 2020-2023

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 2018-2022

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, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

We flew out of an unnamed base in an unmarked aircraft, heading for Africa.  It would be my second visit.  The first didn’t quite go as expected, but there was a chance of redemption this time around.

I was the only one who had been there before, other than our two-faced guide, Jacobi, who by now would be working out how he could double-cross us and save his skin.  I had no illusions about a man who would turn in his own mother if he had to.

We were going to need a plan b and a plan c going in with him because I had no doubt plan a had already been sent to the relevant people, who were awaiting our imminent arrival with bated breath.  Pity we would not be landing anywhere near that location.

In fact, none of us would know where we would be dropped, until minutes before it happened.  Security, this time, was going to be formidable.  Lallo explained why it was a matter of need to know, and all I had to say was, I didn’t need to know.  I suspect Monroe knew, but she was the sort who could keep a secret.

As for the rest of the team, they were a motley crew, but within the group, there was an odd sort of camaraderie between them.  Perhaps Lallo had told them that if they stepped out of line, Monroe would shoot them.

Aside from the passengers in the C47 transport, there was a pack for each of us, and enough weapons to start a war.  Since we would not be calling at any recognisable airport, I doubted we would be having any customs or immigration problems.  No one was travelling with any identification papers.  It was that sort of mission.

Bamfield met me at the airport before we took off.  Monroe had come over and told me there was a visitor in one of the rooms, the one with Operations crookedly glued to the door.  She opened the door, ushered me in, then stepped back out closing the door after her.

Mental note: the door to that room would not withstand a good kick.

There was a table, two chairs, and one of them had Bamfield sitting, looking up expectantly when I entered the room.  His eyes beckoned me to the other chair, so, after a look around the room, nothing else other than the table and chairs were in the room I casually made my way to the chair and sat.

We glared at each other over the tabletop.

”I’m guessing this is the last place you expected to be?”

“You have a funny way of issuing invitations?”

“Would you have come along if I asked you politely.”

“Probably not.”

Another minute’s silence while he looked for the words that would be anything other than an apology for coercing me into a corner.  I’d come to realise that Bamfield was far from the sort of officer I’d first thought him to be.

An excuse could be made that because he needed to find people to do a particularly dangerous and covert operation, nothing was off the table, including blackmail, in order to get the job done.  How he was justifying it using armed services personnel was anyone’s guess, but it would have been kicked higher up the food chain before approval was given.

These operations weren’t just conceived by military commanders, just the CIA on a good day, allowing the armed services to tag along.  But make no mistake, this would be a CIA operation, and the CIA to take the credit if it worked out, and the army would take a hit if it didn’t.  Either way, it would never reach the newspapers.

“You don’t need me to tell you how important this is, and that we’ve only got one shot at it.  If you get caught, any of you, we cannot acknowledge you, so you will be on your own. Your team will obey orders.  Monroe is there to maintain discipline if it’s needed.”

“So she’ll be shooting first and asking questions later?”

“Something like that.  She’s a tough officer, and worthy of your respect.”

“And the rest?”

“Good soldiers who just got into trouble.  They’re being given an opportunity for redemption, and this mission will count towards lessening their sentences.  At any rate, Monroe will have your back.”

Good to know.

“You’ll be going to a new destination, after stopping over in northern Uganda.  We’ve arranged for the plane to land at a disused airstrip when you’ll be met by Colonel Chiswick.  He’ll be arranging you and your teams travel arrangements from there.  I can’t tell you any more at this time for security reasons.”

“I have only one question.”

“Only one?”

“There is another 999 but I figure none of those will get answered.  It was the same question I asked the last time, who are these people we’re supposed to be rescuing?”

A long and thoughtful look.  Could he trust me?

“Two CIA operatives, meddling in DRC affairs without authorisation.  They were originally sent to clean up the child soldier problem but somehow got in the middle of the war between government forces and rebels, if you could call them that.  They’re mostly militia groups, and the situation was too fractured for them to do much good.  Problem is, they made promises, and now we have to bail them out.”

“Another CIA stuff up then.”

“It had good intentions, but in Africa, good intentions are often mistaken for something else entirely.  This is, however, one other possible problem you may have to deal with.”

Of course, there always was.  Nothing covert operations was involved in didn’t have a wrinkle or three.

“Good or bad?”

He shrugged.  “They might not want to go with you.  We now suspect they may have had something to do with the last fiasco, and it wasn’t entirely Jacobi’s fault.  But, that doesn’t necessarily mean he might not be working with them.  You’ll be travelling with a small fortune in diamonds as payment for their release, but it may not necessarily be what it seems.  I tell you this, so you don’t get any surprises.”

“Good to know, but I suspect there’s more to the story that you’re not telling me.  I’m sure Monroe will keep you in the loop.”

I stood.

Was I expecting a handshake or a good luck, maybe, but I don’t think that was his style?  He was probably used to sending men to senseless deaths, so another few would stir his conscience.  I shrugged, and walked out of the room, not looking back.

…

© Charles Heath 2019

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 with what happened during the second world 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…

It was about a mile by foot to the old church.  Carlo was waiting for us, and then led the way because I wasn’t sure where it was, even though I’d been there once, and hadn’t really been taking any notice.

It was enough time to ask Blinky a few questions about how things were going because he would have a better overall view of the war being involved in the operational side of things.  Thompson’s group of which I was a part, only had our part in a much larger war effort involving a number of covert operations.

It wasn’t going well, not that he put it in so many words, and it looked like it was going to drag on a while longer.  Beyond that, he was not saying anything more.  Perhaps he didn’t know, or perhaps he thought the trees had ears.

I know, loose lips sink ships.

Carlo was indifferent, though I could see he was not happy about Leonardo not turning up so we could kill him and his men.  For me, I had an awfully bad feeling we had missed something, and the end result of it was not going to be good.

And that feeling of foreboding only increased the closer we got to the church ruins.

Blinky was shocked to learn that the Germans would destroy a church and kill the priest.  I guess a lot of people would be if they knew.

When we were about 50 yards from the entrance, I saw one of Blinky’s men show his face, behind a gun raised just in case we were not friends.  When he saw Blinky with us, he lowered the gun and stepped out of the shadows so we could see him.

Closer again, I could see the soldier was looking quite distraught.

“What’s the matter?” Blinky asked him.  

“When we got here, we went inside the church.  God, it was awful.  There’s a woman in there, and…” 

A woman?

I almost ran, and at the end, lying on the ground was a woman, with the Sergeant trying to do what he could.

Carlo bustled past and was first to her side.

“Chiara,” he said hoarsely.

Chiara?  What was she doing here?  How did she get here?  What had happened?

I joined Carlo on the other side.  She was awake but in a terrible state.  Whoever inflicted punishment on her had been very brutal.  The sergeant had managed to cover her broken body with the remnants of her clothes and had tried to clean away some of the blood.

She had been beaten severely and she had the sort of wounds I’d seen before, a result of both fists and weapons.  Torture used to extract information, and, with a sinking feeling, I knew exactly what information Leonardo would be after.

And equally, I knew there would be no point getting to the underground hideout.  All I could hope for was that some, if not all who had been taken there for their safety, had escaped.  But, without forewarning…

She looked from Carlo to me.

“What happened,” I asked.

“Leonardo.  I went out to collect one of the family members and ran into Leonardo and his men.  

They brought me here, and…”  It was spoken haltingly, as each breath, each word, brought on new and sharp pain.  She was having trouble breathing, and the blood coming out her mouth told me it was possible she had broken ribs and a punctured lung.

I hoped not, but it was a forlorn hope.  There was little we would be able to do for her, and moving her, and finding proper medical help was going to be almost impossible.

At the end of that first speech, I saw her shudder, and then moan as waves of pain passed through her.

The Sargent had a field medical kit and had taken out a syringe which I assumed had morphine.  She was going to need it.

“This should take away the pain,” he said to no one in particular, then administered it.

For a moment I thought it had rendered her unconscious, but a minute or so later she opened her eyes again.  Glassy, but there was a shred of relief in them.

“You’re going to have to move her to somewhere better than this.  There’s a lot of damage, and it’s going to be difficult.”  The Sargent knew he was fighting a losing battle.

I got the impression it wasn’t the worst he’d seen.

I felt her hand touch mine, and she said, softly, “Tell Martina I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’m not the brave person she thinks I am.  I couldn’t withstand the torture.  I tried, I tried very hard, but I couldn’t stop myself…”  Again, it was in dispersed with wheezing, breathlessness, and bouts of pain when she tried to breathe in.  I almost couldn’t quite understand her, because her English was not as good as Martina’s.

It confirmed my worst fear, that Leonardo knew where Martina and the others were hiding.

I jumped up.  “Blinky, stay here, do what you can for her.  Carlo…”

He was up and heading for the exit.  He heard, and he knew what it meant.

Blinky took my place, and said, “Go.  We’ll be here when you get back.”

For a big man, Carlo was fast, and it took until we’d almost reached the underground entrance before I caught up with him.

© Charles Heath 2020

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 solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realizes 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.

…

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

…

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, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

…

The folder had half a dozen single-page sheets with a photo attached to each with a standard-issue army paper clip.  There was no top secret in pale red ink diagonally scribed across any of the pages which somehow diminished the exercise.

I guessed this was the hand-picked team selected for me to take on our suicide mission.  It didn’t have the officer overseeing the mission, or the go-between Jacobi.  Not exactly a useful man to have along in a firefight, because he would be too busy working out who would pay the most if or when he survived.

It still astonished me that we hired people like Jacobi, fully knowing that they would sell out their own mother if the price was right.  I was going to reserve one bullet in my gun to execute him the moment he even looked the wrong way.

Trust him, I did not.

Nor any 0f the six members of that hand-picked team.

Sergeant Barnes.  Tall, wide, deadly, that last attribute courtesy of a line in his resume that said he killed three soldiers of the army we were supposed to be training and supporting.  No meaningful reason was given as to why he did, only that he’d just finished serving a five-year sentence, cut short by a month so he could join this force.  Hand to hand combat, and a handy man to have if you’ve got a handheld rocket launcher handy.

Private Williamson.  Had been a Corporal, but considered that too much of a burden, having men look up to him, and having to give orders.  He decided to go AWOL instead.  Used to be a butcher before signing on to see the world, and as described very handy with a knife.  Refused to use a gun, and refused orders too, which was the reason why he was in the stockade, with his friend, the next man on the list.

Private Shurl.  If we needed a man who excelled at sword fighting, he was our man.  A very accomplished swordsman, but I doubt we were going to need a man of his talents because enemy swordsmen seemed only to exist in the old movies.  I guess Lallo was expecting the three musketeers or something.  Other than that, he was a useful radioman and would be handling the communications once we were on the ground in enemy territory.

Corporal Stark.  His claim to fame was reading maps.  He was also an expert on the ground in the country whose borders we were about to violate.  He lived in the country for several years with his wife, who came from there, and who’d been killed by the dictator in a case of mistaken identity.  Stark would have to be carefully managed.

Staff Sergeant Mobley.  A man who had been up and down in ranks for a long time, suggesting a bad attitude, his latest bout leaving him fresh from a stint in the stockade.  He had no valid reason to be in on this disaster and yet had volunteered.  That took courage, to apply for a suicide mission with little hope of return.  I suspect he had an agenda that no one else knew about.

And, lastly

Lieutenant Lesley Davies.  A woman marine, no longer a lieutenant but just another soldier who obviously didn’t understand the concept of taking one step back when everyone else steps in another direction.  It didn’t say what it was she did wrong, but my guess there were a few men out there frightened of meeting her on a dark night.  Some women are dainty, some women are large, and then there’s Davies, a powerhouse that could be dangerous if out of control.

Out of all of that team, she was the one who interested me the most.

There was a knock on the door, interrupting my thoughts.  I called out, “Enter”, surprised the person outside hadn’t just shoved their way into the room.

The door opened, Monroe walked in and closed the door behind her.

“Let me guess,” I said.  “You’re running point.”

“And save your sorry ass from those recruits.  Not a brain between the lot of them, and we need people who can think, given the nature of the forthcoming exercise.  The brains trust has decided the rescue team reports to us.  I didn’t ask for it by the way.  This is one of Lallo’s sick jokes.”

Maybe he had a problem with her too and was hoping she wasn’t coming back.

“You and me both,” I said.

She threw another folder on the table.  “Operational orders, wheels up at 0600 tomorrow.  Make sure you get a hearty meal before we leave, it might be your last for a while.”

I shrugged. 

“Suit yourself.”  She went back to the door, gave me a curious look, and left.

I opened the file and looked at the one piece of paper in it.  It was marked Top Secret in red diagonally across the page, probably specially done by Lallo to make me feel important.  It had departure time, the weather, the flight time, how long the stopover would be before going on to the target.

Tightly planned, no room for missing connections, though this was the army, not an airline taking us, no room for errors.  New intel said that we had five days before the prisoners were to be executed.

No pressure then.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021