Colonel Davenport, the evil mastermind as I like to think of him, but in reality, he was a tortured soul on a number of fronts.

I’d like to say what happened to him was not his fault, but to a certain extent, people can go one way or the other, choose between right and wrong, choose the easy path or the hard path, and most of all, never take advantage of a situation for personal gain.

Most people.

But try having a reputation to live up to, and the expectations of everyone put on your shoulders, and you knew you would never be able to carry the load?

That was Archibald Davenport, first son of General Horace Davenport, the great, great, great, so many times grandson of the fearless and famous Walter Davenport, who was with General Grant, serving with honor and valor in the Civil War.

No such weight was ever passed on to his younger brother, Leslie, so, free to live his own life, and in doing so, far surpassing his older brother in respect and accomplishment.

Archibald Davenport managed to miss the Second World War, much to the disappointment of his father, kept to the fringes of the Korean War, but unluckily was in the wrong place at the wrong time when serving officers were sought to go over as advisors to the Vietnamese in the years before the conflict escalated.

Or, speaking plainly, his commander wanted to move the problem on by obtaining a promotion to Major and recommending him for service in Vietnam.  It was either that or dishonorable discharge and a few years in the stockade.

Knowing how it would affect his father, he took the commission.

But for an operator like Davenport, a man who could seek out and at the same time have trouble finding him, saw the conflict as a means to an end, and has latched onto an operative that he assumed was working covertly with the CIA, realized the potential for a man of his talents.

It didn’t take long before he was unofficially attached to the CIA, his army commander willingly signing the orders to ‘get rid of what will become a major (pardon the pun) problem’.  So began the empire, arms, drugs, information, whatever was needed by whoever had the wherewithal, he was the man to see.

How did Bill find himself under Davenport’s command?

You’ll have to wait and see.

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…

——

SS Standartenfuhrer Wilhelm Schmidt and his men were looking forward to some rest and recreation, after they completed one small but vitally important job for the Reichsfuhrer: retrieve a traitor named Meyer and bring him back to Berlin so an example could be made of him to deter others.

A simple job, several days at best, very much a holiday in itself after several long years in various campaigns.

He always wanted to visit Italy and particularly Tuscany, and they would be staying in a castle, with, he had been told, a very refined wine cellar.

He had also been told there was a possibility that the column might be attacked on its way to the castle, and he had all of his men on high alert.  He was almost disappointed nothing happened.  He didn’t think it would.  Few resistance fighters would hardly go up against the might of a panzer, and his crack troops.

He’d said as much to the castle commander, a double agent by the name of Wallace, known as British to the British and German to the high command.  Schmidt had no interest in double agents, or agents of any kind, along with the intelligence services or the Gestapo for that matter.  He was here for the traitor and then gone.

They made it without incident, the main gates opened for their arrival, then closed after the panzer and trucks were parked inside.

Wallace was waiting for him.

Salutes, then, “No trouble along the way?”

“No.  Should there be?  I know we were warned, but all we saw were war-weary Italian women and children, and a few old men.”

“The resistance is out there, led by an Englishman by the name of Atherton.  I wouldn’t underestimate him and the few resistance left.”

Schmidt thought Wallace looked rattled, a man at the end of his tether.  He’d seen quite a few like him, too long at the front, jumping at shadows.

“It won’t be a problem.  I’ll send out a squad of 10 and they’ll mop up anyone left.  They’re probably hiding in the woods, or, if they saw the tank, shaking in their boots.  Chances are they will have left if they had any sense.”

Wallace hated arrogance, and Schmidt had it in spades.  There would be little point telling him that this wasn’t a battlefield, but guerilla warfare against an enemy on their home ground.  The fact Jackerby had not come back, or Fernando and his men told him Atherton was picking them off, one by one, if they left the castle.

If Schmidt wanted to go wandering around outside, that was his choice.  Wallace was staying inside and waiting until they mounted an attack.  Or for them to realise it was going to be a stalemate.  He was now no longer interested in Meyer, that was Schmidt’s problem.

Schmidt selected 9 soldiers and put his second in command in charge of them with very specific orders.  If anything, other than one of their men moved, shoot it.  He did not want prisoners.

The rest of the men were sent to the makeshift barracks, a building that was used as a chapel not far from where the tank and trucks were parked.  The rest of the castle’s men were also there, except for those on guard duty on the ramparts, and in the cellars where there were entrances from outside.

Not that anyone could get through the iron gates that were currently locked.  Atherton and whomever he had with him would not be gaining entrance to the castle from below, and those on the ramparts would pick them off long before they reached the main gate, or the walls.

At strategic points on the rampart, machine guns had been set up, and a box or two of hand grenades were available.  Wallace was fairly confident there was nowhere where Atherton could gain access, despite his clandestine exploration of the castle when he first arrived.

Wallace personally checked the sentry points and alertness of the guards.

Then he went down to the cellar and the gate where the soldiers involved in what was now called ‘operation mop-up’ were waiting for darkness to fall before leaving.

Wallace came down to see them leave, not surprised by the buoyed spirits and camaraderie of men who had been working together for a long time.  He envied them.  With the sort of work he and the few members of his team did, there was no time for any bonding, and each lived with the fact that they could not really trust anyone, even those they worked with.

Then, in a matter of minutes, in almost silence, they were gone, and the gate was locked.  With any luck, the area would be cleared of resistance and locked down in preparation for the arrival of Meyer.  His handler would be captured and would inform them of the pipeline further up the chain of command, and then he could put an end to the traitors escaping.

With any luck, he might still get back to Germany as a hero.

——-

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

…

It was rather an anti-climax to see the cat, Herman, come slinking out of the bedroom, down the passage, and then stop just at the edge of the room to look at the visitors.

He must have been hiding in her room all this time, and when he’d heard the door close, he thought it was safe to come out.

Jan saw him and held out her hand, “Come on, Herman, you’re safe now.”

He didn’t seem to agree and sat down just back of that invisible line in the sand that he wasn’t, yet going to step over.

But he did meow a few times, just to let us know he wasn’t pleased.

“Now that you’ve seen the cat, what were you thinking might be of significance?”

“I don’t know.  The fact he considered the cat his might have been significant in some way.”

Herman was back on his paws and taking tentative steps towards Jan.  Each time he stopped, he looked sideways at me, waiting.  Perhaps he thought I might attack him.  It would be the other way around.

“Doesn’t trust me, does he?”

He took a step back at the sound of my voice.

“Don’t listen to him Herman, you’re safe here with me.”

He looked at her, the same expression on his face he gave me.  Talk about the original poker face.  I doubt anyone could guess what he was thinking.  

A few more steps, then about a yard away he stopped again and sat.  He then spent the next few minutes looking at me.  Was this a test to see who blinked first?  I knew who would win that contest.  Not me.

Jan moved slightly and he jumped, and moved back several steps, looking warily at us both now.

“We’re not going to win him over, are we?”

“Maybe, maybe not.  There are a bowl and some food in the other room.  Put some in the bowl and bring it to me.”

Ah, the way to a cat’s heart is through his stomach.  I think the only thing relevant to that statement was that he was male.  I did as she asked, handed her the bowl, and resumed my position, far enough away for him not to consider me a threat.

He watched me leave the room and return again, and I think he recognized the bowl, and that we were about to trick him into submission.

She put the bowl down next to her and patted the floor.

“It’s your favourite, Herman.”

Yes, head movements, and was he sniffing to see if he could recognize what was in the bowl?  Maybe he was hungry after being hidden away.  Would starvation overcome a fear of strangers?

A minute later we had the answer.  He was hungry and tentatively came over before smelling what was in the bowl before starting to eat.

Jan patted him.

“Works every time,” she said.

Both of us realized at the same time that Herman had a collar, slightly lost in the fur.  And she had the same idea as I did, that the collar might be significant.

She removed it as gently as she could without startling him, and then looked at it, around the outside, and then on the inside, and a sudden change of expression told me she found something.

“VS P4 L324.  What do you think that means?” she asked?

“Whatever it is, it’s a reminder that’s significant to O’Connell, or it is a message to someone if anything happened to him.  I expect that might mean it was a message to you.  You shared the cat so, clearly, he thought at some point in time you would look.”

“If he was expecting me to decipher it, then he must have seen something in me that I can’t.”

“You would work it out in time.  The point is if he hid that in plain sight, believing that if anyone came, they would take no notice of the car, then what else might he have hidden.  Does the cat have a bed?

“Not at his place, he used to sleep at the end of his bed.  But I put out an old blanket.”

How did she know the cat slept on the end of O’Connell’s bed?  I wasn’t going to ask, but if they were more than just friends, perhaps he had confided some details of what he was doing.

“In your room?”

“In the spare room where you found the food.”

I went back to the room found the blanked tossed in a corner, put there by the person who searched her flat no doubt, because I couldn’t see the cat doing it, not unless he was extremely bad-tempered and had super cat powers to move objects multiple times heavier than he was.

I picked it up and immediately had cat hair on my clothes.  Good thing then I wasn’t allergic to cats.

Then, I had a feeling someone was watching me.  I was right, Herman had come back to see what I was doing.

“Just straightening it out for you,” I said.

The death stare didn’t change.  He just stood there looking at me.  Or was he looking through me at something else, like a ghost?  It was slightly unnerving.

I felt around the edges and suddenly, in the middle of one side, where the manufacturer’s label was, it felt like something was under it.  On closer examination, I could see the stitching had been removed for several inches in length and then crudely sewn it back together.  Inside what would be a pouch, I could feel something under the material, and with a little more twisting, I thought it might be a tag.

I’d seen a pair of scissors in the kitchen and came back to get them.  Jan was busy trying to position the wet part of the towel over her head.  After I’d finished with the blanket, I would fetch her some Panadol.

I gently cut the crude stitches and then wriggled the item out.  It was a card with a number on it, 324.  That was all that was printed on the card.  Not what it was, who it belonged to, or what it represented.  I went back into the room where the cat was now sitting on her leg.

“There was a card sewn into the blanket.  It has the number 324 on it.  That would make it…”

“… a check for a post box, or safety deposit box, or a storage locker.”

Not exactly what I was going to say, but close enough.

Then she said, “It’s the same number on the collar.  L324.  Locker 324.  Somewhere defined by VS and P4.”

“Do you have a computer?”

“Not here.  Do you?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll go into the office and use one of theirs.  I assume you can do the same?”

I could, but I wasn’t quite sure what or who would be waiting for me,, now that I knew I couldn’t trust Nobbin.

“To be honest, I don’t think it’s safe for me.  It’s probably better if I don’t, not until I can find out who is who.”

Either of the two, Nobbin or Severin could be on the wrong side, maybe even both of them.  I was surprised that Severin didn’t drag me off when he came for Maury.  Perhaps I was still useful to him in the field as a second string to finding the USB.

I helped her to stand.  

“No time like the present.  I’ll let you know what I find if anything.  Are you going to stay here?” she asked.  

“No.  Severin knows about this place and might come back.  We’re done here.  I’ll make sure the cat gets out.  I don’t think you should come back here unless you have to.”

“Then I’ll see you at the hotel.”

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?

A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.

But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.

And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.

Susan is exactly the sort of woman to pique his interest.  Then, inexplicably, she disappears.  That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.

Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!

A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.

When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.

I’ve been told there’s a sequel in the works.

Bring it on!

…

The book can be purchased here:  http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

…

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

…

I was going to say ‘Captain’s log supplemental’ and add a stardate, but the analogy might get lost because not everyone is a Star Trekker.

Needless to say, there’s always more to say about an event, especially when the mind is casting about for ideas to add or enhance a story.

It comes down to, does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?  It’s an interesting question because, in this instance, art will be imitating, to a certain extent, life.

Perhaps what is lost in the telling is the inability of newly divorced people in working out where the boundaries are, whether or not they are entitled to know about the other person’s private life, and how that will make them feel.

I’m guessing when a marriage breaks down, there’s always a cause, and while the word amicable gets bandied around a lot, it’s said, but quite often not meant.

Does mummy have a boyfriend?

Does daddy have a girlfriend?

What generally happens is the children are the only ones who know what’s really happening to each of the parents, because they get transported between the two, as neither parent would want to be seen stopping the other from seeing them/

Of course, where the children are grown up and leading their own lives, the situation should be a lot easier.

But, where does this fit in with the story I hear you asking.

 

Marriages fall apart for many reasons.  In the story, Bill acknowledges that it is largely his fault, and one suspects it’s probably an undiagnosed case of PTSD that back in the sixties and seventies was not really understood.

It led to both he and Ellen leading individual but separate lives whilst keeping up appearances for the sake of their children.  There’s no doubting who brought them up, Ellen, and who had the greater influence over them, although, for the sake of this story, both couldn’t wait to leave home and live somewhere else.

They do, and together.  They are not married and do not have children.  They were not the cause of the breakup, and fortunately, neither of the girls blame one or the other parent.

But that doesn’t mean, over the years, that either parent hasn’t tried to use them to glean information about the other.  It is how Bill discovered, some time ago, that Ellen had ‘a special friend’.

Yet, neither of the daughters have seen him, and not surprisingly, he had made sure that Bill has never seen him.  It’s for a particular reason, one that will become obvious later in the story.  It is, I think, a rather clever twist.

Also, Ellen is not a bad person and certainly wasn’t bad to Bill, perhaps more long-suffering.  She did stay with him for a long time, mainly for the children, but also because she genuinely cared for Bill.

And Bill had not had another woman friend, not until he discovers his feelings towards Jennifer and even then, he keeps that to himself, even when he really doesn’t have to.

Sigh.

Time to return to my fictional world.

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

Alone in the room, Herman returned.  I hadn’t seen him leave, but he was a cat, and cats were adept at slinking around, quietly stalking their quarry.  On the edge of that threshold between passage and living room, he was sitting, watching me.

“So, Herman.  The stories you could tell, eh?”

It elicited a meow and a deadpan expression.  No point in trying to read his mind, I’d probably finish up with a headache.

“Don’t suppose you could tell me where O’Connell’s secret hideout is?”

Another meow.

If he could talk no doubt he was saying that he wouldn’t tell me even if I tried to bribe him.  I thought about it, but instead went over to the door and opened it about six inches.

“You can go now.  It’s not safe, for man, woman or cat.”

Nothing this time.

“You’d better go before I change my mind.”

We were having a staring match.

Was that a nod?  He stood and started walking towards the door.  Perhaps he sensed I might close it just before he made it there.  Then, in a flash, he was gone.

I shrugged, and followed him out, closing the door behind me.

He was fast.  He was nowhere in sight.  Places to go no doubt.

Like me.

Only I wasn’t quite sure where it was.  I pulled out the piece of paper that was for a flat for sale, with several part words on it, ‘oak’ and underneath it, ‘Brom’.

It had to be part of the street name and a suburb.  The ‘Brom was obviously Bromley, the other a part of the street address.

I needed to find an internet café and do some research.  I also needed a new cell phone, but that could wait.  The main problem was finding an internet café, once just about on every corner, but now, with everyone owning a smartphone, there were very few to be found.

It took an hour before I found one in a back street in an area where there were several low-cost hotels, the sort that backpackers stayed in.

Armed with coffee and a sandwich, I began the search, starting with the realtor, and found the listing was no longer available, that is, not on their internet site.  It told me that the flat was taken up, possibly by O’Connell.

Next, I brought up a map application and put in the address, for information on both pieces of paper and ended up with Oakwood Avenue of Bromley Road, nearer to Beckenham than Bromley.

I had the flat number, now all I had to do was check it out.

Another search on the computer gave me the relative times, and a map to follow, by bus, train, and car.  I would have to get my car, which would take about half an hour, then drive out to the address which would take a further half-hour.

The flat was on the ground floor, and the realtor’s brochure had the layout of the block, and where the flat was located.  That it was on the ground floor and on a corner would make it easier to gain access without causing any trouble.

I would time my arrival for after dark so that I would go relatively unnoticed.