Category: Thriller

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 10

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

Yesterday I was immersing myself in the scenery, and formulating a plan of the city, and the various places where events will gradually unfold.

A place that will have significance will be what is locally known as the caves, a large system of passageways and caverns carved out of the hills that back onto the city’s botanical gardens, and beyond, a rabbit warren of back alleys that was once the market.

The current government moved them into a large open area where it could keep a close eye on all activity, where once, in the back alleys, crime and dissidents flourished.

In fact, the government closed off the whole area and allowed only a small part of the cave systems to be visited by tourists, and only under the guidance of special tour guides.

What is the government hiding there?

Rumors abound. People who go missing in the night are thought to be taken into the caves and ‘lost’.

Including the man who was the last president before the military took over. Is he still alive, held somewhere in a deep, dark dungeon?

Or is he a ghost?

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 8

A trip back through memory lane.

…

We were diverting to Venus, sitting out there on screen, lonely as a cloud, if there could be clouds in space.

So, I wondered if the Captain had a special reason why I should head the team going to the freighter.

It was an opportunity to take one of the new class of shuttles, reported to be faster, more stable, and larger so that we could carry more people and cargo. It would be overkill today.

The crew assigned to collect the cargo was aboard, and my co-pilot for want of a better name was Myrtle, an officer that joined the ship with me, and had excellent qualifications.

We were going through the preflight, ready to lift off.

“First time?”

“In a shuttle, no. In space, real space, more or less.”

I don’t think I wanted to know what more or less meant.

“There’s nothing to it.”

The captain’s voice came over the speaker, “You’re cleared for departure, they’re expecting you imminently.”

“Very good, sir.”

It was never a gentle lift-off, unlike landing, and that initial jerk was an annoyance. Then engaging the thrusters, we began to move forward slowly towards the cargo door, and at the synchronised time, the doors opened and there was nothing but empty space before us.

Outside, we increased speed, turned, and flew under our ship, just to get a look at it, something I knew the people aboard might be interested in seeing, then onto the Aloysius 5 drifting off our port bow.

“Do you see what I see?” Nice to see Myrtle wasn’t blind.

“I do, and that’s worrying.”

What was it? A scorch mark on the side of the Aloysius 5, in a place where we couldn’t see it from our ship, and a direct hit on one of the exhaust manifolds. That would stop a ship dead in its tracks without wrecking it.

“Captain,” I said, hoping he was listening.

“Number one?”

“I think we have a problem.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

‘The Devil You Don’t’ – A beta reader’s 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 solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.

The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.

All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.

…

Available on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 9

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

It’s time for two events to happen. The first is a possible chance meeting with a woman in a bar, which, in ordinary circumstances, might just be a chance meeting in a bar, but for an agent, it’s always something else.

The second, Teresa finally arrives on our main character’s doorstep, uninvited and unwelcome.

I’ve been looking at photos of various places in the Middle East, and I was hoping to go with a vibe similar to Cairo in Egypt, but there seems to be a lot of what I’m looking for in countries like Oman and Jordan, like below

Nizwa City, City, Beautiful, Old Town, Architecture

This scenery gives me the elements of the story, being near the mountains, there’s a large square that can be used for military parades, and buildings I’d expect to find in the location of the story.

It’s a pity we still cannot travel, at least not like we used to.

…

Today’s word count: 1,288 words, for a running total of 19,764.

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories My Way:  The re-write – Part 11

Now that I’ve gone through the story and made quite a few changes, it’s time to look at the story

…

Those fractions of seconds passed differently for Annalisa.

There was a moment when she had made up her mind to let the customer go.  It was a distraction, and she had decided to ‘deal’ with the shopkeeper, not only for his contribution to Simmo’s problems but a lot of others too.

She’d been down the dark path, and what she’d seen was more than any young child should see, or know about, and, yes, she was prepared to admit she was still ‘just a child’.

The customer sidled towards the door, one eye on her and the gun and one eye on the prize.  She could see he honestly believed she might shoot him in the back if he turned around and ran.

With her gun hand shaking as much as it was, he might be right. The gun was ready to shoot the first person who made a wrong move.

Or so she told herself.

It was getting heavy in her hand, she was shaking almost uncontrollably now, and she was getting more and more frightened of the consequences.  She didn’t think, if she aimed, she could hit the side of a barn let alone a person standing ten feet away from her.

She was not a killer.

She was not motivated like Simmo had been.

Another quick glance at Simmo, on the floor, showed he had stopped moving, and the blood was forming a small puddle under his chin.

Was he dead?

She wasn’t going to take the chance of kneeling down to find out.

She knew exactly what the shopkeeper would do if he was given a chance.

The customer reached the door, reached out for the handle, and had his hand on it.  In that same fraction of a second, she realized another person was pushing, trying to make their way in.

With force.

She saw the blue cap, what appeared to be a policewoman, though she hadn’t heard a siren, but also thought the shopkeeper might have a silent alarm, one Simmo’s ‘friend’ obviously hadn’t told him about.

Damn.

It was decision time; take action or be killed.  This was an armed robbery, and with lives at risk, the cops would shoot first and ask questions later.  The gun was in her hand, and that’s who they would be shooting at.

The gun was aimed at the shopkeeper.  A quick sideways glance, a squeeze of the trigger, and that job was done.  Hopefully, he would get the message.  No more drugs for young people.

Virtually the same action, her gun arm swung around and pointed towards the door, slightly down, and she squeezed the trigger again.

The two on the floor, the policewoman and the customer seemed to be wrestling, but more importantly, the policeman’s gun hand was trapped under them both.

The glass door started to disintegrate the very moment she started moving towards it.  A standing start to the fastest race she’d ever run, heading for the door, trading on one of the two on the floor as she braced her shoulder and busted through what remained of the glass door, and out into the street.

The hell with Simmo.  He’d dragged her down the rabbit hole far enough.  Simmo knew her first name, and that she had parents with money, but nothing else.  Besides, he was in such bad shape she didn’t think he’d recover.

The shopkeeper had no idea who she was, it was the first time she’d been to his shop, and now, after a few months with Simmo, not ever her mother would recognize her.

In the distance she could hear a police car coming, siren blaring.

It was a warning if there was ever one to run harder, up the road, down an alley, out into another street, then down into the subway.

Gone.

…

© Charles Heath 2016-2024

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 8

A trip back through memory lane.

…

We were diverting to Venus, sitting out there on screen, lonely as a cloud, if there could be clouds in space.

So, I wondered if the Captain had a special reason why I should head the team going to the freighter.

It was an opportunity to take one of the new class of shuttles, reported to be faster, more stable, and larger so that we could carry more people and cargo. It would be overkill today.

The crew assigned to collect the cargo was aboard, and my co-pilot for want of a better name was Myrtle, an officer that joined the ship with me, and had excellent qualifications.

We were going through the preflight, ready to lift off.

“First time?”

“In a shuttle, no. In space, real space, more or less.”

I don’t think I wanted to know what more or less meant.

“There’s nothing to it.”

The captain’s voice came over the speaker, “You’re cleared for departure, they’re expecting you imminently.”

“Very good, sir.”

It was never a gentle lift-off, unlike landing, and that initial jerk was an annoyance. Then engaging the thrusters, we began to move forward slowly towards the cargo door, and at the synchronised time, the doors opened and there was nothing but empty space before us.

Outside, we increased speed, turned, and flew under our ship, just to get a look at it, something I knew the people aboard might be interested in seeing, then onto the Aloysius 5 drifting off our port bow.

“Do you see what I see?” Nice to see Myrtle wasn’t blind.

“I do, and that’s worrying.”

What was it? A scorch mark on the side of the Aloysius 5, in a place where we couldn’t see it from our ship, and a direct hit on one of the exhaust manifolds. That would stop a ship dead in its tracks without wrecking it.

“Captain,” I said, hoping he was listening.

“Number one?”

“I think we have a problem.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 10

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

Yesterday I was immersing myself in the scenery, and formulating a plan of the city, and the various places where events will gradually unfold.

A place that will have significance will be what is locally known as the caves, a large system of passageways and caverns carved out of the hills that back onto the city’s botanical gardens, and beyond, a rabbit warren of back alleys that was once the market.

The current government moved them into a large open area where it could keep a close eye on all activity, where once, in the back alleys, crime and dissidents flourished.

In fact, the government closed off the whole area and allowed only a small part of the cave systems to be visited by tourists, and only under the guidance of special tour guides.

What is the government hiding there?

Rumors abound. People who go missing in the night are thought to be taken into the caves and ‘lost’.

Including the man who was the last president before the military took over. Is he still alive, held somewhere in a deep, dark dungeon?

Or is he a ghost?

“Sunday in New York”, a romantic adventure that’s not a walk in the park!

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

“Echoes From The Past”, the past doesn’t necessarily stay there


What happens when your past finally catches up with you?

…

Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.

Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.

This time, however, there is more at stake.

Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.

With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.

But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.

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