Category: Thriller

The story behind the story – Echoes from the Past

The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.

My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.

Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.

So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.

So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.

I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.

And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.

There was motivation.  I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample.  I was going to give them the re-worked short story.  Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’

Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.

But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself.  We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.

It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected.  I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.

I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.

Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party.  I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble.  No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.

Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?

But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.

And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.

Except for the bad guys.

Get it here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

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The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

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!

PIWalthJones1

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 2019-2024

A long short story that can’t be tamed – I never wanted to be an eyewitness – 4

Four

It was like a Hollywood script.

It was a friend of a friend of a friend, more an acquaintance really, that came up with a plan.  A plan that, if I’d been given a million years to think up, still wouldn’t

But in an odd way, I’d seen it all before.

I was dressed in a prison guard’s uniform, in a room with two others similarly dressed, and a woman who looked definitely in charge.  It was a detail, part of a plan to remove Latanzio from his prison cell at the police station where he was being held for the duration of the arraignment.

My disappearance, and that of Amy, the leader of my security detail, had sent the police into a frenzy particularly when after sifting through the human wreckage of the hotel, they found five dead police officers, and nine unnamed gunmen, all without any identification.

The police were not naming names, but the media were.  A blatant act of attempting to silence a witness and the most positive indication yet that Latanzio was guilty.

But the problem was, there was no evidence the witness was dead, and this being the case, the trial was put on hold until the witness was found, dead or alive.  The only lead they had was a man and a woman matching our description who had been seen landing in and leaving a helicopter in a carpark in lower Manhattan.  No one knew where they went after that.

It was now a day and a half after the event, and rumours were rife as to where the witness was, and who was to blame for the attack on the hotel.  Latanzio’s brother was quick to blame a rival family with whom they were locked in a territorial battle.  The rival family blamed the [name] family, and neither was backing down.

But for the innocent bystanders, there were two takes on these events, the first, a smiling [name] being escorted out of the court, and when a voice cries out ‘did you have the witness killed?’ he replied, ‘What witness?’.  The other, because of the seriousness of the situation, the police decided to move him from his current holding facility to a more fortified jail on fears that members of his organization, or their rivals, might stage a similar shootout attempting to break him out.

They were, of course, right, but it wasn’t going to be his organization or any other for that matter, nor was it going to be a break-in.

We just got the call to say that the real transfer crew was going to be delayed and that the call had not reached the police station but was intercepted by another friend of a friend.

Our mission was a go.

We walked out of the room and into a large warehouse where there were four motorcycle police and a van, the van an exact replica of that to be sent to transfer the prisoner from the police station to a real jail.  Everything looked very, very real.  We had all studied actual tapes of prisoner transfers, enough to know precisely how to act, remarkable given the time we’d been given.

It was a tense moment, there in the warehouse.  Then Amy said, “Mount up.  Time to go.  I’ll see you back here soon.”

There were more rooms, several set up for what was to come.  We had several guests, waiting in other rooms, waiting to be reunited with [name] knowing only that he was being rescued and they would be leaving for a non-extradition country.  It had been easy.  The arrogance had been staggering.

I was on autopilot, having snapped into a mode where at times I felt like I was looking down at myself.  I think it was the same for the others, having studied those tapes so many times, we became them.

The transfer went smoothly, no one suspecting we were not the real crew.

It was curious to observe [name] close up and feel the confidence, the arrogance of the man.  He was in no way intimidated by the fact he was being transferred, in fact, if I was not mistaken, he looked as though he knew he was being broken out.

And for a moment when he looked me directly in the face, I thought he might recognize me, but he didn’t.

The station police escorted him to the back of the van, we escorted him into the van, chained him up, and the doors closed, just as I heard, “He’s your problem now.” 

They would have to be relieved that he was no longer on their premises, and they would not have to fend off any attack.  But from the expression on the officer in charge, I got the distinct impression we would not make our destination, at least, not with the prisoner.

However, that had been accounted for in the master plan.

It was why the warehouse we were going to use as the ‘studio’ was not far away.

I was surprised that they had found a place that was part of a rabbit warren of interconnected buildings at the basement level and that it had two entrances, one at the front, and one at the back so it would appear the prison van was taking a shortcut.

The plan was to stop, briefly in the building, offload the prisoner, and then drive on, heading for the jail.  In that part of the city, there was no easy place to attack the van, that would, if it happened, come several miles from the building.

There were tracking devices on the van so anyone tracking would note the minor change to the route, and think it was an avoidance tactic.

Now, all we had to do was execute the plan, and hope anyone tracking us wouldn’t notice the subterfuge.

…

© Charles Heath 2024

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job? – Episode 4

I didn’t get the last part of the opening sequence sorted until after we arrived in Vancouver.  I made a start on it before breakfast was served, though it was rather odd calling it breakfast when outside the plane it was nearly six in the afternoon.

In finishing it much later, I think I’ve come up with a different direction to the one I planned, but in truth, I was never happy with where it was going from the start.

That’s why I prefer to plot on the run so that it doesn’t necessarily get bogged down with a certain result in mind.  For me, that is the biggest bugbear is writing to a plan.  For some, though, I’m sure it works.  For me, not so much.

So, what happened to the rest of the team?

 

Just in case I’d made a mistake, I kept one eye on the target, who seemed to be consumed by the events unfolding, and another taking a wider search of the surrounding area to make doubly sure the team was still in control of the mission.

They were not.

A hundred yards back in the direction I’d first seen the target heading when the explosion took me out of play, I found one of the team, Jack, a relatively new member of the surveillance division, roughly hidden behind a dumpster, dead, a victim of a clean, accurate, and methodical stab wound to the heart.  No noise from the weapon, or the victim.

The target knew we were onto him.  It also meant that it was likely the other two members of the team were also out of play, I preferred not to think they might be equally dead, and I didn’t think the chances were good that he might not know about me.

It wasn’t a good sign that he had come back to the site of the explosion because I doubted someone of his stature had time to stand around and watch a search and rescue.

And if he was looking for me I had to make sure he didn’t find me.  Good thing then it was exactly what I was thinking when he turned and started to scan the outer perimeter, as I had, and just managed to miss his gaze in my direction.

Yes, he was definitely looking for me, so it was a good bet he had tortured one of the others to get the information he needed.

All the more reason for me to take him down.

I moved closer, all the time keeping him under surveillance and avoiding his searching eyes. 

Then, satisfied I was not at this location, he started moving to the next, before I’d last seen him in the distance.  It was the epicentre of the explosion and the one where there was a high concentration of police and rescue workers.

He stopped.  I used the cover of the confusion, and in a way, a very efficient organization, to move closer.

I saw him take another look around, perhaps he suspected I might be near, then again satisfied, moved on.

It was clear I was not going to be able to take him on while we were in the immediate vicinity of the explosion, there were too many witnesses.  Perhaps he was hoping that the abundance of cover would aid his mission.

He stopped again, among a smaller group of observers, and checked both sides of the line.  From there he had two choices, to consider if I had retraced my steps, or gone ahead thinking I might catch up to him.  Obviously, he’d realized I’d not kept up, and it had been due to the explosion.

Just as he was about to see me on another sweep, a minor explosion of sorts came from the main disaster site, what sounded like part of the structure collapsing, which explained dust rising into the air, and when my attention returned to the spot I’d last seen him, he was gone.

Not a good sign.  He could be anywhere.

But he wasn’t just anywhere.

“Sam?”

It was an unfamiliar voice, not expected, but I’d been more or less wary from the moment I lost sight of him.  And because I had been alert, it saved me from a far worse injury.  I felt the knife thrust through the fleshy part of my side and caught him with my elbow to the side of his head which sent him sprawling and knocking the knife out of his hand and sliding into the area where three bystanders were.

The scuffled turned their attention to him first on the ground, and then hastily getting to his feet and running away, leaving the weapon behind and me chasing after him.

No one said a word.

And this time he didn’t have a very big break on me and driven by rage at what he had done to the members of my team, it didn’t take long to catch up, in a place where we were alone.

In those few steps I’d made up my mind, he was not going to walk away from this.

 

So, is revenge on the menu, or something else?

 

©  Charles Heath 2019

 

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

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Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

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.

InspirationMaybe1v1

First Dig Two Graves

A sequel to “The Devil You Don’t”

…

Revenge is a dish best served cold – or preferably so when everything goes right

Of course, it rarely does, as Alistair, Zoe’s handler, discovers to his peril. Enter a wildcard, John, and whatever Alistair’s plan for dealing with Zoe was dies with him.

It leaves Zoe in completely unfamiliar territory.

…

John’s idyllic romance with a woman who is utterly out of his comfort zone is on borrowed time. She is still trying to reconcile her ambivalence, after being so indifferent for so long.

They agree to take a break, during which she disappears. John, thinking she has left without saying goodbye, refuses to accept the inevitable, calls on an old friend for help in finding her.

After the mayhem and being briefly reunited, she recognises an inevitable truth: there is a price to pay for taking out Alistair; she must leave and find them first, and he would be wise to keep a low profile.

But keeping a low profile just isn’t possible, and enlisting another friend, a private detective and his sister, a deft computer hacker, they track her to the border between Austria and Hungary.

What John doesn’t realise is that another enemy is tracking him to find her too. It could have been a grand tour of Europe. Instead, it becomes a race against time before enemies old and new converge for what will be an inevitable showdown.

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 20

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 in 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…

 

Wallace was furious, and despite his attempts to stay clear of his commanding officer, Thompson discovered he couldn’t hide forever.

“Where is Atherton?”  Wallace asked the moment Johannsson walked into the room.

It was a question he couldn’t answer and had been equally as furious as Wallace when he learned of what had happened.  It was not supposed to go the way it did.  Atherton was to lead them to the remnants of the Resistance, and then Burke and Richardson had orders to kill them all.

The first part of the plan had worked as Burke had said it would.  It was his idea to ‘break’ Atherton out and then he would lead them to the resistance.  London would know where they were, and Atherton would also know, nay not exactly where they were, but how to contact them.  There were only about six left, according to Leonardo.

But he had been wrong before.  He’d labelled the remnants of the resistance as useless but to his chagrin discovered they were anything but.  He had three dead men to prove it.  And given the restraints on his current mission, he couldn’t go into the village and execute a like number of villagers for those men.

That would give away the fact they were not British, but Germans in disguise.  Best, he had been told, to let the matter be until their current mission was completed.  Then, Wallace told him, he could do what he liked with the villagers.

But like all plans, this one had gone awry.  Burke had lost Atherton approaching the village, and a thorough search of every building hadn’t found him.  Atherton, according to Burke, had completely disappeared.

Now Wallace was on the warpath because he didn’t like loose ends and not one as dangerous as Atherton.

“My men lost him by the time they reached the village.  They did a thorough search but he wasn’t there.”

“And you believe that?”

“I trust my men.  Atherton is a fully trained soldier with a few extra tricks up his sleeve, otherwise, London would not have sent him out.  There is a positive in this if he’s out of the way he can’t stir up any trouble.”

“But those so

Called remnants of the resistance can, and I assure you, will.  And more so now they know that we’re not exactly the British liberators they were hoping for.”

“You can’t believe that he found them.  We’ve seen none of them since Leonardo defected.  He told us he killed them all.”

“Well, he’s a liar.  Here’s an idea, get him and tell him to take his men down the hill and find them.  Promise him anything, as long he brings back Atherton and the rest of them dead or alive, preferably dead.  Unless you think you can do a better job.”

“Sir…”

A soldier came running in, then stood to attention until Wallace addressed him.  “What is it?”

“Carmichael hasn’t returned.”

“What do you mean, hasn’t returned.  I thought everyone was confined to the castle?’  He turned around to look at Johannsson.  “What the devil is going on?”

“Some men don’t exactly respond well to curfews.  Carmichael was one of them.”

“Carmichael?  Isn’t he the one who knows the Reich Marshall by sight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now he’s missing.  You still don’t think there is resistance out there, and making us look like monkeys?  This has Atherton written all over it.  How much did he find out?  I thought you had that situation covered.”

“I couldn’t exactly put him under house arrest, could I, not unless you wanted to hand out a sign that said German outpost.”

“Don’t get snippy with me Johannsson. Just get a team of five or six and find the bastard.  And while you’re at it, find this Carmichael.  Take those two fools that lost him, and if you accidentally shoot them, we’ll call them casualties of war.”

“Yes, sir.”  And how long before I share their fate, he thought.  Blame was transferable, so he’d kick it down the line.  “Jackerby,” he yelled out.  I’ve got a job for you.”

© Charles Heath 2019

A long short story that can’t be tamed – I never wanted to be an eyewitness – 3

Three

There was no going back down the stairs, or using the elevator, because there was nothing down below but people who wanted to kill me, and there were no other means of leaving the building other than by the helicopter that just landed.

And there was a distinct possibility that those down below were slowly moving upwards, to join those who had just arrived, a move designed to make sure I would never leave the building.  Except they had no way of knowing their team upstairs had been eliminated.

That left us with one and only one way of getting away from the building.

“We’re going.  Now,” I said, heading towards the open door where the pilot had just got out.

She seemed surprised.  “How?  In that?”  She was pointing at the helicopter.

“Come on.”  I climbed into the pilot’s seat, ran a quick check, then started the take-off procedure.

She came over just as the main rotor started spinning.  She climbed in and was about to close the door.

“Toss your phone,” I said.

“What?”

It was getting noisy.

I picked up one of the two guns I had and pointed it at her.  “Toss your phone.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Stopping them from tracking us.  Toss it.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“We’ll see.”

She tossed the phone out the door the closed it.  I put my gun down, and now ready for take-off, I took a deep breath and lifted the craft off the pad.

Amy looked furious.  But she had a gun and she could have used it to stop me leaving and she didn’t.   Not yet anyway. She put on a headset and glared at me.  I could feel her glare boring into me.

“Where are we going?”

Fortunately the pilot conveniently left the flight plan in the side door panel, and listed the takeoff and landing as the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, a training flight for a new pilot, but it had been anything but that, a quick hit and run landing and take off from a prohibited rooftop helipad, though how they obtained permission was a question no doubt answered when I called up control.

But it was going to be where I imagine I was to be taken if captured, the least likely scenario after my hotel had been stormed with the only outcome possible, and where my assailants would be picked up after a successful kill.

It made going there not an option, but I would have to appear like I was heading there until I came up with an alternate plan. At the very least I could head for the river.

Before I answered Amy, I had the aircraft controllers to deal with because I hadn’t notified them, I was departing the building, and was, momentarily an unidentified flying object.

I managed to convince them I was the pilot, but there were a few tense moments where I had to explain what had happened in what the previous pilot had been an emergency, and that he had to set down or crash.  I told them it had something to do with the tail rotor and if they were tracking me, they’d pick up the erratic flight we were taking.

After another few tense moments, they told me to return to the take-off point and then asked me for the reassurance I’d make it back, and that we were heading for Downtown Manhattan which was part of the flight plan, but stumbled over the reason for leaving early.  From the tenor of the controller’s voice, I got the impression we would be landing in trouble, so I needed another landing site.

“Somewhere other than where they’re expecting us.  If we’re lucky and I don’t crash into the river.”

“Do you really know how to fly this thing?”

Admittedly the way I was struggling to keep the craft under control, the controls required deft handling and that was difficult considering the shakes I’d acquired back at the hotel.

“For both our sakes, let’s hope I can.  We can’t go back to Downtown Manhattan where they will be waiting for us.  Any ideas about an alternative?”

“If you hadn’t thrown my phone away, I might be able to help you.”  She was still angry with me.

I had noticed when I got in that the pilot had left his phone on the console and had seven missed calls.  No doubt those waiting were getting anxious as to how their mission was running.

I handed it to her.  “Use this, its owner won’t be needing it.”

By her expression, and after an attempt to unlock it, it wasn’t looking good.  But, if she was as clever and resourceful as I thought she was, then that phone wouldn’t present a problem.

Then it started ringing or vibrating instead.  Somehow from disconnecting the call, she was able to break in and get the dialing screen.  From there she was able to get the internet, and a minute later said, “There’s a landing on the river, off West 30th street.  You’re heading in the right direction.”

Directions given, she made another call, to her superior.

There were no introductions.  “Yes, we got out, using the helicopter that brought in a kill squad.”

The next question would be where we were, and this would determine how much I could trust her, or that her mission priority was keeping me alive.

“Not sure, sir.  We’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants, but at least it’s over the water, and the control tower is not happy.”

Silence while she listened, then, “Not a good idea.  They’ll be watching you, and it’s best we remain footloose for as long as we can.  I’ll let you know when we land.  What happened in court?”

I saw a faint smile.  “Bet he wasn’t happy about that.  See you soon.”

I didn’t ask.  I just saw the helipad, and now had to make out that we still had problems, which might be a little difficult because I’d been ignoring the controller’s request for me to head towards Downtown Manhattan.  I had told him once that I was having difficulty maintaining level flight, but I was staying over the river, just in case.  But, a helicopter in trouble would get emergency services mobilized, so wherever we landed, we were going to have a reception party and unwanted guests.

Latanzio’s people would be looking and listening intently for our whereabouts, and that of an errant helicopter that would not be going back to where it should.  They’d know how many landing sites there were, how close, and how much pressure we would be under to land.  For all we knew, there might be a sniper waiting at each of the heliports.  Fanciful thinking maybe, but this was a very well-organized hit, and there would be contingency plans in place.

I could see the teleport landing and headed towards it, trying to make it look like it was going to be a difficult landing.

I didn’t have to try very hard.  There was a gusty wind making the craft pitch and had under light hands on the controls.

I could see an ambulance and fire truck just back from the landing site, lights flashing.  The controller had predicted there might be a problem, which meant if we touched down there were going to be awkward questions.

“That was quick,” Amy said.  She too had noticed The reception committee.

Oddly, I didn’t see a police car, or that is to say, a car with blue flashing lights.  Would the FBI be there?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light, and instinctively pulled the stick sideways and went into a deep sideways descent, just as a loud pinging noise came above the whine of the turbine.

A bullet, which if I hadn’t gone into evasive mode would have hit the engine, or worse, one of us.

“What the hell was that?” She yelled, looking around, thinking it was a problem with the helicopter.

“Someone is shooting at us.  Hang on.”

I pulled the stick in the opposite direction, at the same time getting away from the shooter as fast as possible.  The turn had a ghastly effect on my stomach, and I thought, for a moment, I was going to be violently ill.  Amy had also turned a shade of white too.

We were finally out of range, skimming about 100 feet above the water’s surface, slowing down after the panic, and looking for a spot, any spot, to put down and get away.

There, in the distance a car park blocked off and being repaired, but enough space to land.  I could hear the controller screaming in my ear demanding an explanation for my rapid and dangerous departure, but I didn’t have time to explain, nor would he believe me, not if he hadn’t heard the shots fired in our direction.

There were several workmen standing to one side, watching the arrival of a concrete truck as I came in low over their heads and set the craft down about fifty feet from them.

I shut the engine down and waited a minute before opening the door and jumping out, keeping low under the still-spinning rotor blades, and Amy joined me.

One of the crew started coming towards us, two others were taking photos of the helicopter with their cell phones and another was making a call, either to friends or the police.

“We have to go,” I said.  “No time to talk to the locals.  What you need to do is find someone who can hide us until we think of a next move.”

We ran towards the road and then dodged traffic to get to the other side.  We didn’t have time to wait for lights, or the traffic to stop.  Twice I was nearly hit by a moving car, instead, the squeal of rubber on tar.

On the other side, and temporarily safe, Amy was on her phone.

“Calling for backup or a ride?”

“Actually no.  I have a friend or a friend, you know the sort.  I think he can help us, but you might not like it.”

What was not to like if he could save us from the Latanzio’s.

“Call.  Anything is going to be better than acting as a live target.”

The call connected.  “Joe, are you busy at the moment?  No?  Good.  I need you to bring Hollywood to New York.  Today.”

…

© Charles Heath 2024

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job? – Episode 3

I’ve had time to think about the next part of this opening sequence.

Long plane rides that leave in the dead of night are always conducive to working through plotlines because being on a plane in economy, the chances of getting any sleep is nigh on impossible.

And yet, this time the impossible is possible, which means that sleeping has overtaken the thinking process, and it will have to wait till I’ve woken up.

Of course, as usual, being in this interesting situation has provided another tangent, which is doing the impossible.  It reminds me of a saying I once heard, ‘if you want the impossible it will take some time if want a miracle, that will take a little longer’.  Temper that with ‘how long is a piece of string?’

When we last visited our intrepid wannabe hero, we were left with a cryptic ‘is anyone ever in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

Sometimes, but not for our particular hero.

It could be worse, I told myself, while the paramedic cleaned up my cuts and abrasions and gave me a concussion test, which, I suspect, might not quite discover if I was or not.  But, at that moment, it didn’t matter.

I’d lost the person I’d been assigned to keep under surveillance.

It was meant to be a doddle, but of course, no one could ever predict what the conditions might be in any exercise, and whilst I was one part of a team effort, it had been on my watch, and I only realized what it was that I’d been doing when a voice in my ear started asking for an update, because it was coming up to the changeover.

I was surprised the noise of the explosion hadn’t been transmitted to the others.  I waited till the paramedic had finished, a minute at most.

“I got caught up in an explosion, a couple of over-enthusiastic bank robbers, and taken down.  The target was ahead of me.”  I gave the team leader the exact location of where I’d last seen the target, then waited.

If the team was functioning properly, one of the other three should have been close enough to predict where the target would be at the change-over point.

“Are you alright?”  It was a question I’d expected earlier.

“Got caught in the aftershock got a few cuts and abrasions, and a ringing in my ears, but otherwise ok.  The paramedics want me to go to the hospital to be checked over, mainly for a concussion, but I’m ok to resume if you want.”

A minute, or two, of silence, then, “Do as they say.  We have the target still under surveillance.”

And that was it, what I regarded as a massive failure, despite the circumstances.

I watched the paramedics load the battered policeman onto a gurney and head towards the ambulance.  I went over to the cuffs and picked them up.  A souvenir of the event, if nothing else.

Lights flashing and siren wailing it left, heading for the hospital.

I took a last look at the scene and started walking away in the direction I was originally heading, and once past the perimeter, walked through the group of bystanders who’d gathered to watch the event unfold.  On the other side, I stopped, took another look back at the scene, and did the proverbial double take.

Standing not ten yards from me was the target.

And a quick look in every direction for the members of the surveillance team showed none of them was anywhere near the target.

I spoke quietly into the communication device.

“Target, I repeat, the target is in sight.  Is anyone nearby by?”

Silence.

So we now have a dilemma, if there is no answer from the team, are they maintaining radio silence, or is something more sinister afoot?

©  Charles Heath  2025