Our main character Bill probably needs to give an account of the situation he found himself in.  I have, for a while, considered that he is just another soldier who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now, I want to add a dimension.

He finishes up where he is, in the end, because he chose to be there, and it was something of a rocky ride to get there.

That I’m still planning in my head.

In the meantime, this is the initial piece I wrote for his situation description:

…

I used to joke about telling people my middle name was ‘danger’.  It seemed I was not the only one, and for a time, worked with a group of soldiers and ex-soldiers in a capacity similar to that of being a mercenary.

Each one of us had a specialty.  Mine was being the sniper.  Johnny had knife skills and not the sort that was used in a kitchen.  Freddie, explosives, Bill, well, you just left Bill alone because he had a grudge against the world and everyone in it.

The Colonel used to say we were all handpicked, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.  I knew for a fact some of the team came straight out of the stockade before their time was up.

Because some of us were expendable.

The thing was; none of us cared.  For those who were ‘rescued’, it was better out in the jungle, dodging bullets, than being inside, your fate left in the hands of the Gods. 

I knew how it was.  I’d been there once or twice myself.

This morning had started the same as many others.  Rise and shine, a breakfast of sorts, into the chopper, and after an hour or so, dropping into a grassy patch, with nothing but jungle in every direction.  Our mission was to find and liberate a number of our people who had gone missing, read captured, on the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.  It was a familiar country because I had, over the last year or so, gone hunting missing POW’s in the area.  Old prisons had been converted into drug laboratories, and we’d broken up a few of those too.

The noise of the chopper put paid to any sort of stealthy approach and, by the time it dropped us off, if there was anyone nearby, our advantage, if we ever had one, was gone.  The trouble was, to cover the same distance by foot would take a week, and, by the time we arrived, if we arrived, more than half the team would be dead.  We may have been good, but we were not that good.  It was not our home turf.

It was hot, sticky, and nothing like home.  There wasn’t a day that passed when I thought to myself it was getting harder and harder to remember when I wasn’t constantly hot and sweaty, nor as frightened.  It happened that way, towards the end of a tour.

Once on the ground, every man was on full alert.  We changed the lead and tail end constantly, to make sure we didn’t lose anyone.  And it was hard going, the constant heat, sweat, punctuated with slight relief when it rained.

Then as quickly as it came, it went, leaving you wet then sticky.

And if that wasn’t enough to contend with, there was the enemy.   You couldn’t see them, nor hear them yet you had the feeling he was watching you the whole time, and it made your skin crawl.

Sometimes the enemy attacked when we had to camp, invisibly swooping, shooting from the trees, and firing a mortar or two, then disappearing back into the luminous greenery without a trace.  These were the remnants of the Viet Cong, Cambodian armed forces, disaffected Laotians, or the Chinese, or so we believed, but they were well-trained mercenaries and just the sort of people the drug cartels would use.

And surviving the operation, any operation, was like playing Russian roulette.  Was it your turn this time, or someone else’s?  You could be walking along, straining your eyes and ears, and next minute, find the man who was covering your back, dead.  Booby traps were silent and swift.  Landmines are loud and very messy.  Both hangovers from the war, and never cleaned up.  People you’d meet, you never knew whose side they were on, so it was best to avoid all contact.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2023

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

A meeting with Nadia’s father

…

I’d met Nadia’s father once, but had seen him often on the streets.

He was a man to be feared, and never went anywhere without two of his foot soldiers beside him.  Perhaps that was the downside of being a crime boss, you could not be out by yourself.

Benderby was the same, but he was better at disguising them as almost normal people.  Cossatino’s henchmen looked exactly what they were, armed gorillas in cheap suits.

Vince was like his father, but with younger versions, the hangers-on from school days.  It crossed my mind more than once how Nadia had separated him from his minders, but I imagine she was more resourceful than he was.

We said little on the way back to the car, there was little to say.  I might have disagreed with her course of action, in fact, they needed to be taught a lesson, but I knew in doing so, it put a target on her back.

And, if anything happened to Vince, she have her father to answer to.  In that, I don’t think that bothered her, because, unlike Vince, she could stand up to him.  It would have taken more courage than I had for her to up and leave the way she had.

Of course, it didn’t take a lot to see why.  As far as her father and Vince were concerned, she was dispensible, if or when a situation warranted it.  Like working with Boggs and I had no doubt prompted Vince’s reaction.

Not far from the car was another, and as we approached, a man got out of the rear.  Two others got out from the front.  In the receding light, it was difficult to see who it was, but since the man had two minders it had to be either Benderby or Cossatino.

I looked at Nadia, and from her expression, she knew who it was.  She stopped just short of the car, and I joined her.

“It’s my father,” she said.

“How did he know where you’d be?”

“A tracker on my car.”

So, she had intended he find her, but was it her intention that he find Vince?  I doubted he would be interested in what happened to Alex.

She held up her hand, and said, “I wouldn’t come too close, Dad, not if your help wants to scrape what’s left of Vince off the side of the container.”

I looked closely at her hand, and it was her mobile phone.  Would that convince him she meant what she said?

“You’re not that clever Nadia.”

He took two steps, his two minders pulled out their guns and were aiming them at us.

I saw her finger move, and a second later there was a sharp bang coming from the direction of the mall.

“The next one will go off next to Vince.  Unlike what he did to Sam and I, he won’t have time to think about his death.  Tell your goons to put away their guns and get back in the car, or else.”

Cossatino stopped and motioned to his men to lower their weapons.  They did not put them away, nor did they look like they were going back to the car.

A test of wills.  Who would crack first?

I wondered if she had wired an explosive in the container.  I didn’t know much about electronics, but the steel walls of the container surely would have interfered with a cell phone signal.  I guess it didn’t have to be in the container.

“I get it,” he said.  “I should not have told Vince to take care of the problem.  I didn’t consider he would take it literally.  I’m sorry.  We don’t have to do this.”

“Just the fact you think I’m a problem is bad enough, but getting Vince to deal with it?”

“That was a mistake.  The solution was never to hurt you, or your friends.”

“He murdered Boggs, and for what?  There never was any treasure, was there?”

“Maybe once, but no.  The real treasure was the maps.  People will pay a small fortune for them if they believe there’s a chance of finding a trove.  We couldn’t have anyone upsetting the apple cart, but killing him wasn’t what I asked for.  Vince and that fool Alex took it too far, and that’s on me.”

“Literal or not, you’ve made it very clear I don’t fit into this family.  I never did, did I?  You only tolerated Alex because it was a way of uniting the Cossatino’s and the Benderby’s, not because you wanted me to be happy.”

“There will always be a place for you, Nadia.”

“Not while Vince is alive.  He won’t let it go, no matter what you tell him.”

“You leave Vince to me.”

“No.  I can’t trust you either.  So, here’s the deal.  Sam and I are going back to Italy.  I want no part of the family.  But if I see you, Vince, or anyone else I don’t like hanging around, then Isobel and the twins will pay it.”

“What are you talking about…”

At that precise moment, his phone rang, a rather odd ring tone, like one specially set for a particular person, and he answered it without hesitation.

A few seconds later, the call ended.

“You have my word nothing will happen to you, or Sam, as long as I’m alive.”  He motioned to his men to go back to the car.  “Have a nice life Nadia.”

He glared at her for a few seconds then followed his men to the car.  The car then drove off, leaving the two of us standing alone in the increasing twilight.

I had a hundred questions, but it didn’t seem to be the right time.  I went with the most obvious, “What just happened?”

“My father thought he could clean up the mess he made using me as the scapegoat.  Instead, he just confessed to, and confirmed Vince and Alex’s role in Boggs’s death.”  She held up her phone.  “Charlene was listening in to the confessions.  The sheriff should have the two boys by now, and…”

In the distance we could hear the sirens of the police cars and see the flashing lights.  Cossatino had driven into a trap.

“Isobel and the twins?”

“My father’s mistress.  He’s been seeing her since before my mother disappeared.  He cares more for them than me, even Vince if truth be told.  It’s his one weakness and guarantees our safety.  We are going to Italy?”

It might not have been the thought at the top of my list at that very moment, but it was almost a definite yes. There was nothing left here for me, and the last thing I wanted was Benderby as a proxy father.

The sirens had stooped, and the flashing lights become static.  Nadia looked tired, perhaps more than a little sad at the way everything had turned put.  I know I was.

As for what just happened, Nadia had surprised me.  I think for a moment back at the mall she really was going to leave them to die, which I might have considered no better than her brother or Alex’s actions, but she really wasn’t like any of them, and I put that down to her mother.

Something else I hadn’t realized was that she had a different mother, but a memory from a long distant past came back when she had mentioned her to her father, something my mother had said, more or less to say she couldn’t understand what a woman like Francesca could see in a man like him.

Perhaps she had simply up and left when she finally realized the monster she married, but it didn’t explain why she left her daughter behind.  Perhaps her father was guilty of that crime too.

“I think we both need a change, and I’ve never been out of the country.”  I took her hand in mine, then gave her a hug. 

She was shaking, whether it was the cold or the enormity of what just happened was debatable, but for the moment it was over. There would be new storms to face tomorrow, not the least of which would be to face my mother.

“Let’s go back to the hotel.  You need to get some rest.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

© Charles Heath 2019

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.