Category: Thriller

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 26

Where the hell are we?

…

When I opened my eyes, there was a moment where I felt I was rising up from the bottom of the ocean, holding my breath, and heading towards the light.

I was in the captain’s seat, and as my vision focussed, I sucked in a huge breath and sat up. There were others in front of me still slumped over their consoles, barely visible in the emergency lighting.

I tried standing intending to go over to the navigation console and felt my legs buckling under me, and had to sit down again.

I heard a groan from behind me, followed by, “What happened?”

It was the Chief Engineer.

I turned just as he attempted to stand and collapsed to the floor.

I tried again, with more success, and walked slowly over to him. That was when a different sort of light illuminated the bridge and, when I turned to see what it was, just saw the edge of a planet come into view.

We were very close, and it seemed the ship had adopted a circumnavigation path. The ship also seemed to be slowly rotating, hence the changing view of the planet.

Others were stirring. I helped the Chief Engineer up.

“Whatever happened,” I said, “we seemed to have traveled to an as-yet-unnamed planet.”

“Mars perhaps?” He sat back at his console.

A voice yelled out, “not Mars sir, Uranus. And in the distance, that reddish-colored moon is Oberon I think.”

Exactly where the alien ship had said there was a colony, under the ice surface.

I turned to the Engineer, “Chief, what’s the state of the ship?”

“It apparently is on standby, awaiting our command. It is as the Navigator says, we are at Uranus, in a geosynchronous orbit.”

The moon that we believed to be Oberon came up on the screen, and standing off it was three ships, the two that we had encountered, and a larger ship, no doubt belonging to the kidnappers.

“Do you have the elapsed time since we started the test?” I was curious how long we had been unconscious.

I would also like to know why were ended up unconscious, but that was a matter for later. The other problem; the three ships would soon discover our arrival and would be curious themselves, and I didn’t like the odds if we had to go into battle.

“Sixty-five earth minutes, sir.”

I’m sure he would tell me just how fast we had traveled soon enough. “I’ve got to get back down to engineering. I’ll have a report as soon as possible, but, if required, we’re on standby for any operation you deem necessary.”

“Very good.” Then, “Any chance we arrived un-noticed?” I asked the navigator.

“No sir. We were just scanned, so they know something is out there.”

I found it surprising that the kidnappers had told me precisely where they were going. Perhaps they had not expected our ship could follow them, and that, until just over an hour ago, was exactly our thoughts too.

“Is it possible to scan the moon, and the planet?”

“In the process of doing so, sir.”

I went over to the military console where the officer was quickly checking all the systems. “Everything online and available?”

“As far as I can tell. We should be able to retaliate if we have to.”

“It may be sooner than we think. One of the ships, a smaller one, is heading in this direction.”

I yelled out, “Anyone needing medical assistance?”

No one replied. It seems they had all suffered the same malaise I had, a period of unconsciousness. Then a series of reports filled the bridge as each officer reported their systems were online and ready.

I then asked the ship’s department heads to report in, and each came back, not asking the obvious question, but to say everything, and everyone, was ok.

Five minutes later, the ship could be seen approaching us, stopping in indeterminable distance from us, but it was quite close, close enough to make out the detail of the outer hull, and, I noticed, for one of the scientists to scan the vessel and take photographs for reference if we needed to know about it later. The first alien ship in our database.

Then a voice came over the communications system, not one of ours. “Hailing earth ship’s captain. We are sending one of your crew back to you, we do not know what is wrong with him.”

The next instant the captain, in a prone poisition, appeared on the deck in front of the chair. “Medical team to the bridge,” I said.

I went over to him, and he appeared asleep. I checked for a pulse, and there wasn’t one. He was cold, and not a good sign.”

“We have him,” I said. “What happened?”

“He collapsed. Our medical people tell me from what they know of your physiology, that he has stopped breathing, and possibly had what you call a heart attack. I assure you we did not harm him, or your other crew member in any way.”

One of the ship’s doctors came out of the elevator and ran over to us, and immediately did a scan. We were the first ship, the first people, in fact, to use the new technology which was supposed to diagnose most of the problems humans could suffer in a matter of minutes.

“He’s dead, sir,” the doctor pronounced. He had brought several others on the medical team, along with the means to transport him back to the hospital.

They carefully lifted the captain onto the mobile stretcher. “Permission to leave, sir?”

I nodded.

The alien captain, if it was him, came back, “We would like to know how your ship managed to get here so quickly. Our knowledge of your technology makes it impossible for you to travel such distances as you have, and especially in that ship.”

“We’re trying to work that out ourselves. Would you like to tell us how you can move so quickly yourself?”

“We have nothing to hide. Perhaps we could meet and discuss it.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 8

A picture can paint a thousand words, or more, or less, but…

…

The interesting thing about a place in the dark, in the distance, and behind a chain wire fence usually means something. Especially when there are mysterious lights involved.

We were at a night sports event, watching over a thousand screaming and yelling kids from five to eighteen pretending to compete in a variety of athletic events.

I was there to nominally to support my granddaughter in her endeavours, but right at that moment, on the far side of the track, what I was really there to see was what was behind the wire fence

“Are you watching, Poppy?”

Well, at that moment I wasn’t, but I did turn just in time to see her clear a meter high high jump and execute an elegent backflip, a result no doubt of the ballet training she had since the age of four. Seven years later those lessons had transformed into a high jumper with a great future.

Except, she couldn’t really care less. It was more about the parents and athletic organisers expectations, than hers. I was there, she told me in a secretive tone, to tell everyone to back off.

if you think spying was a dangerous occupation, then let me tell you trying to navigate a safe path between child and parents, and then the rest of the word, forget it.

So, with my trusty phone camera, slightly modified, I was pretending to take pictures of surrounding trees in the high density lighting for the athletics oval, whilst zooming in on the real target.

And, about to take the money shot, I could feel a tugging on the side of my jacket.

I looked down to see the petulant face of a child not happy.

“You said you were coming to see me perform.”

I had. I looked over at the woman the boss had assigned as my ‘date’, Nancy, and whom I’d introduced as a long time friend who deigned to suffer my invitation so she could meet the girl I was always talking about.

“Yes, Poppy,” she said with an evil undertone. “You said you wanted to see her high jumps. You’d better get over there, while I take some pictures of the trees for you.”

“Why do you want pictures of dumb old trees?” That was a question I would have asked myself, and I didn’t quite have an answer for it.

Nancy did. “Because he’s odd like that. It’s one of the quirks I like about him.” She took the camera out of my hand and shooed us off.

And, heading back to the high jump, she asked, “What’s a quirk?”

“Just ask your father later. He knows all about quirks.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

What I learned about writing – Always write down a story, start or end, for later.

My mind will not rest.

Down here, it is summer, and the last few days have been exhaustingly hot, well, it is summer after all, but tonight it is particularly hot.

So, as I can’t sleep, I’m lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, otherwise known as the cinema of my dreams.

Where am I?

Well, it has to be someplace other than here, of course.

…

I’d seen the Trevi Fountain in the movies, but, until now, it just seemed like any other fountain, only larger.

In reality, it was much more than that, and, so it seemed, it was also that for many other people.  Mid-afternoon on a warm sunny day, they were all standing in awe.

Perhaps some were making a wish, and I saw several toss coins in.  There would be a lot of money in there, and I couldn’t help but think about what sort of job it would be to retrieve it.

Odd too, I thought, if they hadn’t, how many old and rare coins might be somewhere on the floor.  Of course, I only thought of the aesthetic value rather than the practicality of the water system that the Romans had built long before such feats of engineering were being contemplated.

No, I was here on holiday. 

After years of travelling to a great many places for my job, one that never really gave me any time for sightseeing, I’d decided it was time to indulge in a little tourism.

Before this, I’d been to the Colosseum, the old ruins, the Spanish Steps, and the Parthenon.  This was going to wrap up in the afternoon.

“So, are you here on business or pleasure?”

I turned to see Giuseppe, a man I’d had a rather complicated working relationship in the past, and one who was not informed that I was coming to Italy.

The fact that he was here was no surprise.  It was, however, surprising that he could sneak up on me.  It showed I was slipping, or, more than likely, I was more susceptible to being distracted.

“I am but a humble tourist.  I’m sorry, but you have been following me for nothing.”

“Why is it I find that difficult to believe?”

Because of what I used to do, but it was not something I would openly admit.  And the only reason he was standing there was that someone else had made a mistake, and it had required a bit of diplomacy to smooth the waters.

Unfortunately, that had destroyed my invisibility in Italy and most of Europe.  A stark reminder of why, these days, I spend most of my time in semi-retirement at home.

“As difficult as it might be to understand, having your cover blown makes it impossible to continue, verified by the fact you’re here now.  Was it a red flag on my name, or facial recognition?”

He sighed, the man who had heard it all before.  “Just remember, we’re watching you.”

A last shake of his head, he walked over to a car parked a short distance away, got in, and drove off.  I had no doubt he was not the only one who had been watching me.

“It seems you were right.”

Another voice, this time a woman, and expected.  Carla had been waiting in the coffee shop for Giuseppe or someone like him to make an appearance.

“They were not exactly hiding the fact that they had me under surveillance.”

She handed me the coffee with a smile.

“That means we can have some fun, does it not?”

That had been the plan.  I knew if I entered Italy using the identity I used the last time, it would put them on alert and prompt a reaction.

“It still doesn’t mean they won’t suspect something is afoot.”

“And since when did you start doubting yourself?”

Since my last operation fell apart because I made one simple mistake that no agent would have made in a million years.  But I had, and it almost ended two careers.

The other person had just handed me the coffee and unaccountably seemed less angry with me than she should be.

“You of all people should know the answer to that.”

She sighed and took my hand in hers.  “What I do know is that there’s a very clever operation afoot and you’re the one who planned it.  And far from being on the sidelines, we have a new and important role to play.  And speaking of play, it’s time you and I got into our roles.  Oh, and just for the record, I still love you and I know how you feel about me, and before I brought you coffee, I made a wish.”

So had I, and it had been answered.

…

It was another of those dreams that might lead somewhere.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

…

© Charles Heath 2023-2025

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 rewrites, 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 Year’s, 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 apartment buildings were 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 Centre is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy man with 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 were several 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 a 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 that 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, it literally 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 recurrence. 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 that 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 that 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 romanticised 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

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 60

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…

Joanne let me get away far too easily. 

When I got back to my car, I ran the scanner over it.  One tracker was easily found, another that took a full half hour to find, and some very strange stares from people on the sidewalk.

I put them both on another car and then went back to the safe house.  Knowing O’Connell was just a pawn meant there wasn’t a hurry to find him.  Anna had everything she needed from him, and now he was of little use to her.  The only question was whether he was still alive.

Jennifer had taken my pyjamas and my bed in the master bedroom, so I was relegated to the spare. 

Not happy.

We needed a plan.  In all the excitement I’d forgotten O’Connell had three places, the original apartment with Herman, his mother’s house in Peaslake, and the apartment in Bromley.

I was up before Jennifer, making coffee, when she came out.

She made my pyjamas look good.  And there was the distraction factor Maury was prone to banging on about.

“How did it go at the office?”

“Turns out Anna Jakovich, the apparent seller of the USB, is a biochemist herself, one who was involved in a laboratory disaster, and discharged as part of the problem.  Make of that what you will, but it looks like her husband was just the fall guy.”

“Of course, it all makes sense then.  Gets the husband to steal the data on the pretext they’re saving the world, then kills him, and pins the blame on him if anything goes wrong. gets us to stump up several million pounds, then ditches O’Connell and runs with the money, and the USB, to bilk another unsuspecting government, like the Russians, or the Chinese.”

“Can you read minds?”

“No.  Got a call from Dobbin, though I have no idea how he found my number since it’s a burner.  Seems he finally found the file on Anna, presumably the same one you got.

“He doesn’t know you’re involved.”

“He does now.  He figured you’d seek help from your classmates that were still on the books.  There’s two of us, me and Miss Desirable, Yolanda.”

“Didn’t she leave the Severin School of wannabes before qualifying?”

“And went straight to the city office of the department and offered up all details on our once fearless leaders for a second chance.  On the books, and back in training, training we might be able to use.”

“Possibly.  The question is, of course, whether she knew what they were planning…”

“Dobbin says she was fooling about with Severin, or perhaps that was Maury…”

“Then Dobbin or Monica or both knew in advance what was going to happen and could have prevented a tragedy if that was the case.  I don’t think she quite knew everything.”

“Well, what I know now is that we’re simply pawns in a much larger game, dancing to a tune that is completely out of key.  Makes things all the more interesting, don’t you think.  By my estimation when we complete our mission, we’re likely to end up like Severin, we just have to work out which one it is before we reach our expiry date.  That coffee smells divine, by the way.  We’re not going anywhere until I’ve had a cup.”

At least she hadn’t decided to go back to her old life.  Not yet anyway.

We tackled Peaslake first.  It was a free-standing house, and we had reasonably covered access that gave us entry to the property with minimal chance of observation.

When we were close, I was nearly run off the road by a fire engine, in a hurry.  Closer still we could see a plume of smoke rising from behind the trees, and when we reached the top of the street, we could see where the fire engine was going.

O’Connell’s house was on fire.

I parled the car and we went to join the throng of nearby residents, all with nothing better to do.

“What happened?” Jennifer asked one of the residents.

“There was an explosion, a fireball, someone said they thought it was a gas tank, and then a fire started.  It was fully ablaze by the time the first fire engine arrived.”

The firefighters had most of the blaze subdued, and we could see the house was destroyed. 

Was it Anna or O’Connell, or both covering their tracks?  The house had become compromised when Jennifer and I turned up.

Five minutes later the Detective Inspector and her Sargent arrived.

“Should I be worried now you’re here,” she asked when she saw me.

“It belonged to the mother of one of our officers who is involved in the case I’m working on.”

“He has the information?”

“No, or maybe.  We don’t know.  We do know there’s a woman involved who was working with our agent.”

“Oh.  I’ve been told there are two bodies found inside, one man and one woman.  Nothing else yet, but I’m going to talk to the forensic team waiting to see if they know any more.  Don’t go anywhere, I may need to talk to you.”

“Just a question.  You didn’t let Jan out, did you?”

She looked puzzled.  “Jan?”

“The girl who shot Severin.”

“Oh, her.  MI5 came and took her away the moment my back was turned.  Why?”

“She probably did this.”

“You might have told me she was dangerous.  Who is she?”

“An MI5 assassin.”

She sighed.  “You people are a law unto yourselves.  Don’t go anywhere.  I’ll be back.”

We watched her stomp away.

“Well,” Jennifer said, “that just made our life a little more difficult.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 7

There is always something strange about certain photographs that is not evident when you take them.

For instance, the photograph above.

While this might look like vegetation by the side of a river or stream, it’s the blackness behind what look like steps up from the water level that adds a level of intrigue or mystery.

For instance:

…

We had spent two weeks slowly going upriver looking for a needle in a haystack. It was an apt description, because there had been quite a large number of likely spots, all of which, after investigation, came to nothing.

I mean, the description Professor Bates had given was as hazy as day is long in these parts.

His recollection: that it was a cave-like space behind lush undergrowth, with stone steps.

It was all the more confusing. Because when we found him, he was drifting on a rough-hewn and constructed raft, half dead from dehydration. We were told he’d been on the raft for nearly a week.

That meant the cave could be anywhere between where we found him at the 10 mile mark and 200 miles further on, based on river flow.

We were currently at the 150-mile mark, and the river was losing depth and width; soon, there would not be enough water to continue in the boat.

It was dusk and too dark to continue. We’d been enthusiastic in those first days, continuing on in the dark, on shifts, using the arc lamps.

Then, after a week, having lights on made us target practise, and after several brushes with death, and the loss of all the bulbs being shot out, we got the message.

There was the odd marauder during the day, but we had the width of the river for safety.  Now that had gone too, and we had lookouts posted, but seeing into the dense jungle was difficult.

But we got through another night with no activity, and come morning, what looked like the entrance to a cave was not fifteen feet from us.

All we had to do was row over and check.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

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 the eye socket to the mouth, and he was wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologised 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 recognise 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 went 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 tyres.

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.

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 realised 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 was 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 through the back door if there were 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 discreet 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 we 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-foot fall 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 of where he had gone.

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 2019-2026

…

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 and 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.