Category: Thriller

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

A score to settle – The Editor’s draft – Day 7

I have the story, the editor is asking for it, and I’m putting the final touches to it

…

Starting a project with half the plan and a sense of where the story is going to go sometimes leaves you in much the same position as painting yourself into a corner.

I’ve been there a few times, which is why I prefer to start the story with no firm ending in sight, and ad-lib.

Yes, at the end of this story, I want the revulsion to succeed, but like all good intentions, sometimes it doesn’t quite work out that way.

Taking on a military dictatorship no matter how benevolent its leader tries to portray it, and themselves, you may discover the intelligence you’re working with is not quite the case.

So, I need to invent a little background, more for me, so that I can get my head around what will be needed.

For instance, this country, in northern Africa, was once one of several old French colonies, among those that were once British, or German. These countries were poor, and had leaders backed by their colonial masters and as Colonialism became a yolk rather than a benefit, the country’s citizens found themselves inducted into the military as a means of giving the country employment and stability.

That in turn emboldened the military leaders to eventually oust the government propped up by the colonial masters and run the country themselves, usually because vested interests need a ‘friendly and corrupt regime to continue exploiting the country and its people.

Until the people fight back. Sometimes that ’cause’ centres itself on one person, or a group of people, and quite often these people can disappear, or be assassinated.

In this case, the county’s most outspoken critic has disappeared, and his deputy finds himself in a rather invidious position of working in the shadows and using suspect means to get a message across.

That means is going to be a human rights conference. There is a plan of sorts, but it’s not known whose involved among the delegates attending from many counties, or who the various intelligence services have on the ground.

Our main character and his assistant are but two of many, and their mission, like others, is overtly one thing, but why they’re really there, that’s for Delacrat to find out, because he knows he’s right in the middle of what could only be described as a nest of vipers.

More on this tomorrow

…

Today’s word count: 2,678 words, for a running total of 16,091.

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

newechocover5rs

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

The cinema of my dreams – It all started in Venice – Episode 6

Eavesdropping on Juliet

…

I was heading back to the Vaporetto station just a short distance from St Marks square when my phone vibrated, an incoming message.

Alfie requesting a meeting.

I had suspected he might be somewhere in the square keeping an eye on proceedings. I had that itch at the back of my neck, that one you couldn’t scratch, an old but reliable indicator I was under observation. 

My old mentor was anything but a trusting soul, and he no doubt was giving Alfie enough rope, much the same as he did to me early on, until he learned the errors of his mistrusting nature.

People like Rodby never changed, and it was one of many reasons I walked away.  He was going to have to do better if he wanted me back.

Alfie sent instructions as to where he was, a small park further along the promenade, not far from where a huge cruise ship had docked.  Even from where I was standing, it was impressive, but only one of about five I’d see in the last day or so.

Oddly, I never had the inclination to get on one.

It took about fifteen minutes, maybe more because of the tourists and general foot traffic, to reach the park, then locate Alfie looking very anonymous on a bench overlooking the water.

In another corner what looked to be a television crew was setting up or cleaning up an open set, involving about a dozen or more people all looking harassed.

He saw me coming but made no visible acknowledgment until I sat at the other end of the bench, purposely not looking in his direction.

“Nice view,” I said.

Well, it would be if the day was not overcast, and with the definite prospect of rain.

“Your friend made a call not long after you left.”

OK.  Straight down to business.  “How do you know that?”

“We put a small app on the phone we gave you that clones other phones.”

Without telling me.  Yes, welcome back to the lies and subterfuge.  I just shook my head.  What else weren’t they telling me?

He put his phone on the bench between us and played the conversation.

It was obvious that Larry had called her, and that Giuseppe wasn’t happy about being discovered.  And it was proof that Larry was monitoring her movements and conversations.  Another mistrusting soul.

“What just happened?”  I recognized Larry’s voice immediately, and the tone suggested he was far from happy.

“What do you mean?”  Her surprise was genuine.  It meant she didn’t know he was listening in, but that might not be for much longer.

“Your first meeting.”

Silence.  Then, after a long minute, she said, “it was my phone, the one you gave me, that was relaying our conversation.  It would be nice if you told me what you were intending to do.”

He brushed that comment aside with, “It’s a matter of trust, and, quite frankly, I don’t trust you.”

It was not exactly how I would have spoken to her.  Any normal person would react indignantly to that response.

There was a telling moment of silence while she digested that piece of information.

Her response, “Then you will not be surprised if I don’t respond, as you say, immediately, because now I know you have the phone,  So long, of course, I decide to take it with me.”

“You will…”

She cut him off, not by yelling, but in what could only be described as a very icy tone.  “You make demands, you make threats.  I gave you my word that I would do this for you.  My way.  Instead, you overplay your hand and you’ve sent him to ground.  If he is who you think he is, then he knows now something is wrong.  You can thank you’re own insecurity and that fool Giuseppe for that.”

“That’s…”

“Don’t interrupt, that’s just rude.  If you want me to continue, which by the way, I think is going to be a waste of time, I will, but you have made it almost impossible by taking away the advantage we had.  And if that is the case, then no more of your idiotic antics.  A simple yes or no will suffice.”

“If you think…”

The call was disconnected.

I looked at Alfie.  “Does she know she’s dicing with death?”

“There’s more.”

Twice, an incoming call to her phone went to the voice message.  The third time she answered.

“A simple yes or no will suffice.”

“Yes.”  A tone bristling with anger.

“Good.  You listen in, and I will call you when there is news.”

The call was disconnected.

“She has gumption,” Alfie said.

“Or a death wish.  You know he’s not going to sit around and wait for her.”

“No.  He’s replaced Giuseppe with someone with a little more talent to keep an eye on her, so she won’t be so obvious next time you run into her.”  He slid a grainy but recognizable photo of a woman who could easily be mistaken for a tourist.

“You have a plan.”

“We have her tour itinerary, courtesy of the hotel.”

“A little convenient, don’t you think.  I take it you have an idea where Larry is right now?”

“Of course, Sorrento, visiting his wife’s sister.”

“Perhaps we might pre-empt all this nonsense, and pay him a visit.  I might be able to convince him he’s barking up the wrong tree.”

“Wouldn’t that alert him to the fact we have him under surveillance?”

“I think he knows that’s the case anyway, and not only by us, but by any number of law enforcement agencies.  Maybe I should just drop a hint that I have to make a trip to Sorrento, and take Juliet with me.  But I would like a jamming app installed on this device,” I held up the phone he’d given me, “first.”

“Rodby said you were a wild card operative.”

“Did he?  I always thought he was the wild card, and I was the voice of reason.”

“He says a lot of stuff, how things were different in the old days.”

“A lot of people died needlessly in those so-called old days, and I’m only here now because I retired before I got killed.  And because I believed him when he said I could disappear.  Obviously, he was lying.”

“You can’t disappear these days, not with the means of tracking everyone via the digital network available.   20 years ago, maybe.  Not now.  No one can truly disappear.”

No, probably not.  For that to happen, I would have had to go live on a desert island and have had no contact with anyone for at least a generation.  A new name, identity, and, and minor changes to my persona had made me invisible for long enough to have had a normal life, and, at the very least, Larry had waited until then.

How many others were there, out in the world, also seeking revenge?  I had taken down a number of so-called ‘bad’ people, but their families somehow never quite saw it the same as we had.  No matter how legitimate the reasons.

“Give me a day to fix the phone, and then you can make the first move.  Try not to make it too hard to keep eyes on you, if only for your own safety.”

“Say hello to the boss, and tell him I didn’t miss him for one moment.”

Alfie stood.  “Try and keep out of trouble, and keep me informed if anything out of the ordinary happens.  Just create a draft message in the email app, save it, but don’t send it.  I’ll let you know if Larry makes any unpredictable moves.”

I watched him take a look around, then walk off, all as if he hadn’t realized there was someone else on the same seat.  It wouldn’t fool anyone, especially the woman pretending to minister a child in a pram, three seats along from us.

How many mothers of babies had earplugs?

Or was I just being paranoid?  It didn’t take long to slip back into that dark and murky world I tried so hard to get away from.

…

© Charles Heath 2022

A score to settle – The Editors Draft – Day 6

I have the story, the editor is asking for it, and I’m putting the final touches to it

…

Today I’m looking at planning a revolution.

Of course, we all know that it is the military forces of a small country that takes over the democratically elected government, or one that is propped up by a superpower.

This is going to be different, and the people are going to run the revolution.

And like those about to make the attempt, I still have to work out the details, and I have a bit of reading to do.

One thing I do know is that you have to take over the airports, military bases, which might take some doing, and the media outlets like radio and television.

Fortunately, the country does not have a large military force, or at least, those among the military that will back the current government when push comes to shove.

They will also need another country’s backing, like the USA, Britain, or Europe. Will there be the CIA, the Russians and the Chinese there? Quite possibly.

We’ll see how it pans out.

Next, I’ll be looking at the conference, the capital city, the lay of the land, and the people.

…

Today’s word count: 2,689 words, for the running total of 13,413.

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 6

…

Locked up with nowhere to go

…

It looked like a military camp, but the soldiers were not like my captor. They were as I had expected, of foreign origin. The woman driving the pickup was American, and also the last person I’d expect to see in what was quite obviously a military camp.

The pickup stopped with the brakes squealing outside a large wooden building covered in camouflage netting. The man sitting next to me got up, jumped off the end of the vehicle. The woman got out, they exchanged words in quiet voices I could not hear properly, then she walked away.

He walked down the side of the vehicle hitting the metal side quite hard. To wake me up, perhaps.

“Get down Mr. James. I’m not buying the jelly legs anymore.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t been pretending when they picked me up but maybe he knew my condition better than I did. I didn’t think it was worth annoying him.

I slid to the end of the well and dangled my legs over the side then slipped slowly till my feet touched the ground. Aches and pains in my ankles and knees, but they would hold me up.

Time to move on.

He stood beside me. “This way.”

As I surmised, we went into the wooden building, down a narrow passageway for a distance, and, judging by the gentle downward slope and the temperature drop, we were either going into a cave or underground.

A minute, two, then he stopped and opened a door. “Inside.”

I took a deep breath and stepped into the room, expecting to be either shot or worse.

But it was nothing like that. It was just an empty room with a camp stretcher.

The man put his head in the doorway. “Get some rest, Mr. James.”

The door swung shut and I heard the key turn in the lock. This was not a room that could readily be escaped from.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

“The Devil You Don’t” – A beta readers view

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 a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realises 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 score to settle – The Editors Draft – Day 5

I have the story, the editor is asking for it, and I’m putting the final touches to it

…

Today is another day for character development, and this time it is Inspector Delacrat.

The question is, how do you maintain that air of honesty and integrity in a country that is run by a cruel and murderous military junta.

How do you explain the disappearance of ordinary citizens during the night, when they are reported as missing?

There is, of course, something about the man that makes you think twice about whether he is to be tarred with the same brush as that of the military, or he’s just an Inspector in the police trying to do his job to the best of his ability, without running foul of the junta.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Something else to be aware of, there are rebels, dissidents, and revolutionaries, all lurking in the background, some overt, some invisible, all working towards the removal of the junta.

The conference is a means to get an international eye on the plight of the country, so will something happen?

Will the rebels make their move?

Will Delacrat find out, and will he try to stop it?

Is our main character’s real reason for being in the country to aid the rebels, or just ensure the safety of one of the delegates?

These are all questions that will be looked at as the story progresses.

…

Today’s word count: 2,829 words, for the running total of 10,724.

An excerpt from “Betrayal” – a work in progress

It could have been anywhere in the world, she thought, but it wasn’t.  It was in a city where if anything were to go wrong…

She sighed and came away from the window and looked around the room.  It was quite large and expensively furnished.  It was one of several she had been visiting in the last three months.

Quite elegant too, as the hotel had its origins dating back to before the revolution in 1917.  At least, currently, there would not be a team of KGB agents somewhere in the basement monitoring everything that happened in the room.

There was no such thing as the KGB anymore, though there was an FSB, but such organisations were of no interest to her.

She was here to meet with Vladimir.

She smiled to herself when she thought of him, such an interesting man whose command of English was as good as her command of Russian, though she had not told him of that ability.

All he knew of her was that she was American, worked in the Embassy as a clerk, nothing important, whose life both at work and at home was boring.  Not that she had blurted that out the first they met, or even the second.

That first time, at a function in the Embassy, was a chance meeting, a catching of his eye as he looked around the room, looking, as he had told her later, for someone who might not be as boring as the function itself.

It was a celebration, honouring one of the Embassy officials on his service in Moscow, and the fact he was returning home after 10 years.  She had been there once, and still hadn’t met all the staff.

They had talked, Vladimir knew a great deal about England, having been stationed there for a year or two, and had politely asked questions about where she lived, her family, and of course what her role was, all questions she fended off with an air of disinterested interest.

It fascinated him, as she knew it would, a sort of mental sparring as one would do with swords if this was a fencing match.

They had said they might or might not meet again when the party was over, but she suspected there would be another opportunity.  She knew the signs of a man who was interested in her, and Vladimir was interested.

The second time came in the form of an invitation to an art gallery, and a viewing of the works of a prominent Russian artist, an invitation she politely declined.  After all, invitations issued to Embassy staff held all sorts of connotations, or so she was told by the Security officer when she told him.

Then, it went quiet for a month.  There was a party at the American embassy and along with several other staff members, she was invited.  She had not expected to meet Vladimir, but it was a pleasant surprise when she saw him, on the other side of the room, talking to several military men.

A pleasant afternoon ensued.

And it was no surprise that they kept running into each other at the various events on the diplomatic schedule.

By the fifth meeting, they were like old friends.  She had broached the subject of being involved in a plutonic relationship with him with the head of security at the embassy.  Normally for a member of her rank, it would not be allowed, but in this instance it was.

She did not work in any sensitive areas, and, as the security officer had said, she might just happen upon something that might be useful.  In that regard, she was to keep her eyes and ears open and file a report each time she met him.

After that discussion, she got the impression her superiors considered Vladimir more than just a casual visitor on the diplomatic circuit.  She also formed the impression that he might consider her an ‘asset’, a word that had been used at the meeting with security and the ambassador.

It was where the word ‘spy’ popped into her head and sent a tingle down her spine.  She was not a spy, but the thought of it, well, it would be fascinating to see what happened.

A Russian friend.  That’s what she would call him.

And over time, that relationship blossomed, until, after a visit to the ballet, late and snowing, he invited her to his apartment not far from the ballet venue.  It was like treading on thin ice, but after champagne and an introduction to caviar, she felt like a giddy schoolgirl.

Even so, she had made him promise that he remain on his best behaviour.  It could have been very easy to fall under the spell of a perfect evening, but he promised, showed her to a separate bedroom, and after a brief kiss, their first, she did not see him until the next morning.

So, it began.

It was an interesting report she filed after that encounter, one where she had expected to be reprimanded.

She wasn’t.

It wasn’t until six weeks had passed when he asked her if she would like to take a trip to the country.  It would involve staying in a hotel, that they would have separate rooms.  When she reported the invitation, no objection was raised, only a caution; keep her wits about her.

Perhaps, she had thought, they were looking forward to a more extensive report.  After all, her reports on the places, and the people, and the conversations she overheard, were no doubt entertaining reading for some.

But this visit was where the nature of the relationship changed, and it was one that she did not immediately report.  She had realised at some point before the weekend away, that she had feelings for him, and it was not that he was pushing her in that direction or manipulating her in any way.

It was just one of those moments where, after a grand dinner, a lot of champagne, and delightful company, things happen.  Standing at the door to her room, a lingering kiss, not intentional on her part, and it just happened.

And for not one moment did she believe she had been compromised, but for some reason she had not reported that subtle change in the relationship to the powers that be, and so far, no one had any inkling.

She took off her coat and placed it carefully of the back of one of the ornate chairs in the room.  She stopped for a moment to look at a framed photograph on the wall, one representing Red Square.

Then, after a minute or two, she went to the mini bar and took out the bottle of champagne that had been left there for them, a treat arranged by Vladimir for each encounter.

There were two champagne flutes set aside on the bar, next to a bowl of fruit.  She picked up the apple and thought how Eve must have felt in the garden of Eden, and the temptation.

Later perhaps, after…

She smiled at the thought and put the apple back.

A glance at her watch told her it was time for his arrival.  It was if anything, the one trait she didn’t like, and that was his punctuality.  A glance at the clock on the room wall was a minute slow.

The doorbell to the room rang, right on the appointed time.

She put the bottle down and walked over to the door.

A smile on her face, she opened the door.

It was not Vladimir.  It was her worst nightmare.

…

© Charles Heath 2020