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

…

A matter of diplomacy

…

I had to wonder, in that brief moment standing there, how I had come from a contented life plying space in a nomadic cargo vessel, to this, in charge of over 2000 crew, on a spaceship the size of a small town, on a mission to find new life out beyond the known edge of space.

And succeeding beyond all expectations without the loss of a single life, or perhaps that wasn’t quite true, the previous captain had become a casualty in exceptional circumstances.

I looked over at the head of Diplomacy.  “Have you given any thought to my suggestion?”

After coming back from the alien vessel, I had immediately gone to the head of the Diplomatic mission and told him to pick a team to go down to the alien planet, telling him that we had been given permission to learn about their culture and others in their galaxy.

There had been no shortage of volunteers, and they had left not much more than an hour after I arrived back on board.  It was an opportunity not to be missed.

The other matter was about leaving some people there until we came back, or the next earth vessel arrived.  It was not what had been considered back on earth before the mission left, but to me it had some merit, perhaps setting up what might be a galactic embassy smoothing the way for other vessels like ours.

A sea of expectant faces, only one asked the question on everyone’s mind, giving my diplomatic chief a little more time to come up with an answer.

“Who are they, and are they like us?”  The fourth officer had finally appeared from his room in engineering where his interest lay, but from a practical standpoint, was there in case the bridge was lost.

“No.  And yes.  They are consciousness in an artificial body that looks like us, but I imagine it would take the form of any being they came in contact with.  I suspect they have evolved beyond the need for a body that wears out over time, which it seems is our problem, and we are only at the threshold of robotics as replacement parts, even bodies.  I don’t know the whole story, but that’s one for the medical people.  But…”

I turned back to my diplomatic expert, “we are going to have to talk to these people and not only that, we need to understand them and their customs before more of us blunder into their territory and do everything wrong.  You have permission to send two representatives to the planet to talk to their scribes, which I believe are most likely historians.  They are going to tell us about the peoples of this galaxy and perhaps beyond.  It will at least give us something to work with before as they rightly put it blunder our way into possible diplomatic nightmares.”

“Do you think they’d let us set up a diplomatic outpost?”

“You could work on a proposal, but for now we have about six days or so to get as much information as we can.  Anything else is your department, and for you to decide.  I understand there are some in your department who signed on in the hope they might get to stay in a new world, but, again, you will have to make a threat assessment based on all of the contacts so far.  I have endured all of the recordings of our encounters are available.”

“How long have I got?”

“Until we reach the Princesses home planet in about three days’ time.”

Not a lot of time to review and assess given most of the encounters were hostile.  But an arrangement with these people would be considered advantageous as a first stop on the way to other galaxies.  And I had no doubt they had a vast store of knowledge of other alien life forms which would be invaluable.

“How did we get stuck with taking the Princess home, and how do we know they will want her back?  We don’t know the precise circumstances of how she got there in the first place.”

The second officer was not backwards in voicing concerns.  He was the ship’s resident Mr doom and gloom.  But for all that, his was a view that could be used as a counterbalance when making a decision.

“A good question and one I intend to get answers to right after we finish here.”

That left general business on the table, departmental reports, crew statuses, and the all-important ship systems.

Good to know the crew was reasonably happy, all performing their duties through the various crises, and systems had only minor failed that the skeleton shipbuilders crew were able to fix, one way or another.

Best of all, the chief engineer was happy, so far.

An hour later, it was time to visit the Princess.

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2022

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.

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

A meeting of department heads

…

First impressions, I was told, were everything.

Back on earth, before this mission, before I had been selected for the crew, we had to spend time learning diplomacy.

I didn’t mind it because I was used to working with multiple nationalities as crew members aboard the cargo ships I worked, some often at odds with each other, and I had to broker peace.

But this brand of diplomacy was more about meeting aliens from other worlds and what to do, even though those running the sessions really had no clue.  The problem was, we would have no idea of what their customs and rules were, much like on earth where the same applied, but you could look them up before going to an ‘alien’s destination.

I could say that now I had experienced one encounter.  And nothing we did in any of those sessions gave me any help or guidance on what I should do.  Yes, we may have learned a little about their culture, but that was never going to be enough, not in the time I had in front of them.

What needed to happen was for us to set up something similar to the old-time embassy where we could exchange information and prevent the problems of new travellers before they got here.  And there would be more travellers now we had the spaceships and not everyone was going to be a positive influence’ ad the Russian example quite clearly illustrated.

But, getting someone or some people to stay with unknown people on a relatively unknown planet, was going to be a difficult ask.

It was one of a dozen topics on the head of department meeting I had called immediately after being transported back to the ship’ joined by the Princess’ whom we had agreed to return to her people.

I suspect that the aliens who had all but incarcerated her did not want to wear the wrath of her people.  Perhaps we would be treated better and hopefully, we would be able to engage in meaningful diplomatic discussions.  It was a subject I had raised with the Princess when escorting her to her transit quarters. Accommodation befitting a Princess.

She was hateful to come aboard but she seemed apprehensive to go home.  That was something else that would fuel another conversation. Because there was definitely more to that story. I didn’t quite trust our so-called new friends.

The next task was to ensure the princess had a private security detail, and dampeners installed to prevent her being transported off the ship.

After that my first call was to the diplomatic unit where I gave them five minutes of my thoughts on the subject before heading back to my quarters to freshen up, and get down the bare bones of the report I was eventually hoping to send on our first encounter, one that I doubted was over yet. 

I will still be getting over the fact they knew of our existence, lived among us, and we had no idea.  And they didn’t believe we were worthy yet to be told.  Sadly, given my knowledge of humankind, I was not really surprised, but others like the Admiral would be shocked and offended and it was their reaction I was worried about.

It was also not so much of a surprise there were others out there, places and people, we knew nothing about because our telescopic technology still wasn’t up to see beyond the limits of our known galaxies and we were the first well technically the second to go beyond it.

And now we proved we could get to that theoretical barrier, set at Pluto, perhaps a telescope launched from there might help us see what was beyond in the first instance because they did hint at a number of civilisations with their own galaxy.

My idea would be to suggest caution and not hit them with a flood of ships but to spend time building a space station at the edge, and then launch exploratory forays from there, when it was complete.  It would take time ten or more years, but the aliens weren’t going anywhere.

But I knew it didn’t matter what I thought.  That was up to the Admiral and the rest of the Space Alliance, and they would want to be out there getting as many aliens on side, much the same as the others would.

The Russian ship had stayed long enough to offload the prisoners and get ready for the return trip.  That was going to be some homecoming because the Space Alliance was going to want answers long before it hit Earth’s outer limits.

Stolen technology, an unannounced foray into space that could have ultimately destroyed any chance of relations with our nearest space neighbours, I wouldn’t want to be the captain of that vessel, at home, or in front of an international jury.

It highlighted just how easy it was to make mistakes, or how badly everything could go wrong very quickly over a nuance.  His background hadn’t helped him either but that shoe could also have fitted elsewhere too.  I had been lucky, he had not.

I walked into the conference room packed with both relevant and interested parties, all eyes on me.  It was, to say the least, uncomfortable.  Whatever noise there was had subsided into silence.

There was one seat remaining.  Mine.

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2022