Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.

“As I understand it, you were to fly to the drop off point about two miles from the abandoned farm where the operatives were hiding, and not far from the farm, where a group of enemy soldiers had set up camp.  The plan was one team was to create a diversion, while the other rescued the operatives.”

It sounded quite simple and equally workable when said out loud, now.

But, at the time and on the ground, nothing could be further from the truth.  It had sounded equally simple when we discussed the final plan before we moved out.  My team would provide the diversion; Treen’s would affect the rescue.

“In your post operational debriefing, you said you encountered the enemy not far from the drop zone.”  He looked down at his notebook, and then up again, after checking what the question was, “but you didn’t exactly say how that affected moving forward, or whether you thought they had been informed prior to your arrival.”

“It was basically unexpected and both Treen and I had to adjust the plan on the fly so to speak.  It was a setback, but it wasn’t what might be called a show stopper.  Not initially, anyway.”

Except Treen had lost it because I soon discovered he didn’t like changes.  The plan was the plan, come what may.

“And, now, after you’ve had time to think about it?”

“I did say, at the briefing, that if the source of the ground had gone silent, it might mean he’d been caught, and if so, may have told the enemy of our intentions.”

“And this suggestion was given no credence?”

“It was left to Treen to factor that into his decision as the officer in charge.  I’m sure that decision was based on more than just my input. but, on the other hand, no one else asked seemed to consider that a possibility.  So, if it was you, would it not seem strange the enemy would let the choppers land, drop us off, and take off again, then give us time to set up before attacking.  If I’d been told anyone was coming, I’d use rockets to take out the choppers in the air, kill the raid before it started.”

Lallo had his best poker face on, so I had no idea what he thought, but he did make a note.

“Where was Treen after you landed?”

“With his group.  We’d re-worked the plan while in the air, and to minimise the choppers exposure, we were to hit the ground running.  We had different destinations, so I didn’t see him or his team.  It was dark, and not possible to see where anyone other than your immediate team members were.”

But as it turned out, their chopper had landed closer to the pickup zone, and we had enemy soldiers between us and them.  We were as soon as we landed effectively cut off from Tree, and he would not get any support from us.

“The choppers didn’t land together?”

“No.  We were a hundred yards, maybe more, apart.”

“But you knew they were close.  You said you heard shots fired not long after your chopper took off.  Was the gunfire theirs or ours?”

“All guns sound the same at night.  It was impossible to say.  It was the first indication that there was a group of enemy soldiers near the drop zone, coincidentally or otherwise, and Treen’s team had been seen.   I sent Sycamore to find out what had happened, and the rest of the team waited.  No point walking into a firefight.  I trusted Treen to get the job done whatever the circumstances.”

“Your man didn’t come back?”

“No.”

“What happened then?”

My team members disobeyed orders to stay on mission, and not wanting to remain alone in the field, I followed them on what I thought was suicide.  If the other members of their team had been killed, or, worse, captured, and it was certainly looking like it, then the odds were they were going to join them.

It’s a perfect situation where being the odd man out works in your favour.

I saw Andrews and Ledgeman go over the hill and disappear, and seconds later the sound of automatic fire.  It was exactly as I thought it would be.  I broke for cover and made it just in time to see a dozen enemy soldiers come over the hill, heading towards our drop zone.  I assumed they’d done a head count and found one was missing.

“It was over before it started.”

© Charles Heath 2019

This story is now on the list to be finished so over the new few weeks, expect a new episode every few days.

The reason why new episodes have been sporadic, 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.

Things are about to get complicated…

We took the underground to Lancaster Gate and parted company before crossing the road and going into Hyde Park.  Severin had designated the meeting place as the rotunda, as he called it, in the Italian Gardens.

It was dark, although there was adequate lighting, which made it a good cover for anyone else skulking nearby.  And making it easier for Jennifer, who sensibly dressed in black, to scout.

It took my time heading slowly towards the stone building.  I was deliberately early so he might not be there yet.  In the intervening time I could hear the odd comment from Jennifer, as she looked over the various suspects who were also taking in the aesthetic beauty of the gardens, which would look so much better in daylight.

Oddly enough in all the times I’d been to Hyde Park, these gardens had never been a point of visiting, such was the allure of the pedal boats on the Serpentine.

I did a slow circuit of the building and saw three people seated inside.  Two women, together, and a man on one side.  It could be him.

“I think he’s already here, just going to check.”

“Nothing stirring out here, so far.”

“Keep alert.”

It was odd hearing a voice almost in my head as if she was next to me.

I came up to the seat in full view of the person sitting on one end of the bench, so as not to alarm them.  I could feel their eyes on me as I sat down.  If it was him, he would talk to me.  I was not going to talk to him.

Something else I noted, there was no direct line of fire from anywhere hidden, so if there was an assassin out there, he would have to do it in the open.  Severin had scouted the place earlier.

“You alone?”  The man spoke after about three, or four minutes.  I’d seen him look around, checking for himself I was not followed.

“As far as I’m aware.”

I moved a little closer.  He was talking very softly.

“What happened to Maury?”

“Tortured and murdered by Dobbin I believe.  If he knew where the device was, he didn’t give up its location.”

“He wouldn’t.   Dobbin you say?”

“As far as I can tell.  He was running O’Connell, but you knew that already.”  To save time dancing around the truth, and lessen the time being a target I added, “Everyone believes O’Connell is still alive.  He didn’t have the device when I searched him.  Who shot him?”

“Not us.  If he is alive Dobbin must have usurped our cleaners, and spirited him away, which means it’s likely Dobbin has the device.”

“He doesn’t.  He co-opted me into his section.  O’Connell appears to have done a runner from him too.  Did you know O’Connell was on mission to pick up the device from an intermediary?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that Anna Jacovich was there too?”

“Then you know what’s on the device?”

“I wish I didn’t.  Or that you two were security guards at the Laboratory where Erich stole the data.  What took so long for him to decide to sell it?

“When he was fired by the company after they lost the military contract.   He had no intention of selling it, just getting it into the hands of the public so they would be forced to stop.”

“Except he was killed, and Anna decided she needed an escape plan.”

“Which O’Connell provided by wire transfer.  The money’s gone, and the data didn’t arrive.  It’s still out there.”

“Who was you boss in all this?  Monica?”

“Who.  No.  It’s….”

I heard the phutt sound of a bullet passing through a silencer, and just caught the edge of the barrel retracting from behind one of the pillars.  No need to check him, he was dead, still sitting upright as if nothing had happened.

I got out of the seat and moved towards where the gun had been, trying not to alert the other two sitting on the other side, facing the other way, fortunately.

When I reached the outside, there was no one.  A quick scan in the darkness, my eyesight hampered by going from light to dark making images blurry at best.

Then I heard a thunk, and a triumphant “Gotcha.”

I hoped that was Jennifer with the shooter.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

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

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

An excerpt from the book:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024