Searching for locations: We’ve just arrived in Beijing International Airport, China

Instead of making a grand entrance, arriving in style and being greeted by important dignitaries, we are slinking in via an airplane, late at night. It’s hardly the entrance I’d envisaged. At 9:56 the plane touches down on the runway.  Outside the plane, it is dark and gloomy and from what I could see, it had been raining.  That could, of course, simply be condensation.

Once on the ground, everyone was frantically gathering together everything from seat pockets and sending pillows and blankets to the floor.  A few were turning their mobile phones back on, and checking for a signal, and, perhaps, looking for messages sent to them during the last 12 hours. Or perhaps they were just suffering from mobile phone deprivation.

It took 10 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate. That’s when everyone moves into overdrive, unbuckling belts, some before the seatbelt sign goes off, and are first out of their seats and into the overhead lockers.  Most are not taking care that their luggage may have moved, but fortunately, no bags fall out onto someone’s head. The flight had been relatively turbulent free.

When as many people and bags have squeezed into that impossibly small aisle space, we wait for the door to open, and then the privileged few business and first-class passengers to depart before we can begin to leave. As we are somewhere near the middle of the plane, our wait will not be as long as it usually is.  This time we avoided being at the back of the plane.  Perhaps that privilege awaits us on the return trip.

Once off the plane, it is a matter of following the signs, some of which are not as clear as they could be.  It’s why it took another 30 odd minutes to get through immigration, but that was not necessarily without a few hiccups along the way. We got sidetracked at the fingerprint machines, which seemed to have a problem if your fingers were not straight, not in the center of the glass, and then if it was generally cranky, which ours were, continue to tell you to try again, and again, and again, and again…That took 10 to 15 minutes before we joined an incredibly long queue of other arrivals,

A glance at the time, and suddenly it’s nearly an hour from the moment we left the plane.

And…

That’s when we got to the immigration officer, and it became apparent we were going to have to do the fingerprints yet again.  Fortunately this time, it didn’t take as long.  Once that done, we collected our bags, cleared customs by putting our bags through a huge x-ray machine, and it was off to find our tour guide.


We found several tour guides with their trip-a-deal flags waiting for us to come out of the arrivals hall.  It wasn’t a difficult process in the end.  We were in the blue group.  Other people we had met on the plane were in the red group or the yellow group.  The tour guide found, or as it turned out she found us, it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the group, of which there were eventually 28.Gathered together we were told we would be taking the bags to one place and then ourselves to the bus in another.  A glance in the direction of the bus park, there were a lot of busses.

Here’s a thought, imagine being told your bus is the white one with blue writing on the side.

Yes, yours is, and 25 others because all of the tourist coaches are the same.  An early reminder, so that you do not get lost, or, God forbid, get on the wrong bus, for the three days in Beijing, is to get the last five numbers of the bus registration plate and commit them to memory.  It’s important.  Failing that, the guide’s name is in the front passenger window.

Also, don’t be alarmed if your baggage goes in one direction, and you go in another. In a rather peculiar set up the bags are taken to the hotel by what the guide called the baggage porter.  It is an opportunity to see how baggage handlers treat your luggage; much better than the airlines it appears.


That said, if you’re staying at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, be prepared for a long drive from the airport.  It took us nearly an hour, and bear in mind that it was very late on a Sunday night.

Climbing out of the bus after what seemed a convoluted drive through a park with buildings, we arrive at the building that will be our hotel for the next three days.  From the outside, it looks quite good, and once inside the foyer, that first impression is good.  Lots of space, marble, and glass.  If you are not already exhausted by the time you arrive, the next task is to get your room key, find your bags, get to your room, and try to get to be ready the next morning at a reasonable hour.

Sorry, that boat has sailed.

We were lucky, we were told, that our plane arrived on time, and we still arrived at the hotel at 12:52.  Imagine if the incoming plane is late.

This was taken the following morning.  It didn’t look half as bland late at night.

This is the back entrance to Building No 4 but is quite representative of the whole foyer, made completely of marble and glass.  It all looked very impressive under the artificial lights, but not so much in the cold hard light of early morning.

This the foyer of the floor our room was on.  Marble with interesting carpet designs.  Those first impressions of it being a plush hotel were slowly dissipating as we got nearer and nearer to the room.  From the elevator, it was a long, long walk.

So…Did I tell you about the bathroom in our room?

The shower and the toilet both share the same space with no divide and the shower curtain doesn’t reach to the floor.  Water pressure is phenomenal.  Having a shower floods the whole shower plus toilet area so when you go to the toilet you’re basically underwater.

Don’t leave your book or magazine on the floor or it will end up a watery mess.

And the water pressure is so hard that it could cut you in half.  Only a small turn of the tap is required to get that tingling sensation going.

It’s after 1:30 before we finally get to sleep.

As for the bed, well, that’s a whole other story.

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

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

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024

Writing about writing a book – Day 22

More of Bill’s backstory, and, if it’s possible, I’m beginning to like this guy.

I suspect, for him as well as many others, it wasn’t easy, but in war zones, it’s either hot or cold, but never any pleasant in any weather conditions, and perhaps if there was a possibility of a fine, balmy, day, there would be no time to enjoy it.

Sleep was difficult. 

Sleep was always difficult, if not impossible. 

Whilst I had lived in barracks, in the tropics as part of my training and acclimatization, it was nothing like this.  Nothing could have prepared me for the endless, oppressive heat.

It started from the day the plane had landed on the tarmac at Saigon airport, the crew opened the door to the cabin, and we walked down the stairs.  The heat came from above, and from the tarmac below.  We were soaked in sweat by the time we reached the buildings.

And it was difficult not to be exhausted, even if you were lucky enough to get a few hours sleep.  That constant feeling of exhaustion was the biggest enemy, and what caused many of the unnecessary deaths.  In the end, for many, it was just too much.  For me, it was training that kept me alive, because of that little voice in my head that kept me vigilant.

That and a keen sense of self-preservation.

Our platoon was still recovering from the shock of seeing the death of two of our mates the previous day.  Although in the camp only a week, already it felt like a year.  We’d been sent out on a patrol, trying to find a group of the enemy who was responsible for cutting one of the supply lines, and it hadn’t taken long for us to realize we didn’t really know if it was the Viet Cong or the people we were supposed to be protecting.  They all looked the same to me, and we had to rely on our South Vietnamese Army liaison to ensure we didn’t shoot the wrong people.

After an eventless day, if you discounted the rain, the heat, and the scares, the Lieutenant ordered us to make camp, just before darkness set in.  We had not seen the enemy, and, as I was finally getting to understand, we probably wouldn’t until they were prepared to show themselves.

At that moment of maximum unpreparedness, when our attention was diverted, and after a long and debilitating day, they chose to attack.

I had no doubt they had been tracking us, and for quite some distance.  I had that effect of hair standing up on the back of my neck.  It actually saved me from getting shot.

The attack killed three of our men and shattered our confidence.

No one slept that night, either from fear the attackers would return, or because we were just plain terrified.  I volunteered for guard duty.  It was easier to be up and about instead of on a camp stretcher staring at the roof of the tent waiting for the inevitable.

Seeing our mates killed so horrifically, before our eyes, had the desired effect.  In the beginning, we expected it to be a walk in the park, with some hoping that we would just stumble around in the jungle for a week or so, then go back to the camp for a well-earned rest.  None had counted on the reality of war, or the fact some of us might die.  Some were even hoping they would not have to shoot their gun.

All of those illusions had now gone after three months had passed, and as reality set in.

Some had sobbed openly, such was their preparedness.  I had to say, I was a little more prepared, but had hoped for a little more time before the battle.  And it surprised me how calm I was when all around me it was chaos.

“Bastards,” Killer muttered.

We called him ‘Killer’ because it was the nickname the Army had given him.  We were sharing the guard duty and had spoken briefly over the watch, but up till then, the silence had stretched over an hour or so.  It didn’t take long for anyone to realize he was a man of few words.

He’d been in the regular army for years and asked for the posting.  He’d made Sergeant several times, only to lose those same stripes for fighting, usually after R&R and a bout of heavy drinking.  Now assigned to our platoon to lend his experience, the conscripts were expecting him to ‘look after’ them.  Other than myself and the Lieutenant, he was the only other regular soldier.  Unfortunately for them, he hated both conscripts and the Viet Cong in varying degrees, and depending on his mood there was little tolerance left for the rest of us.

“The people who sent us here or the people trying to kill us?” I asked before I realized I’d spoken.

I didn’t hear the reply, the skies opening up with another torrential downpour that lasted for about five minutes, and going as fast as it came.  When the sun finally came up, it would make the atmosphere steamy, hot, and unbearable.  It was quite warm now, and I was feeling both uncomfortable, and fatigued.

Killer looked just as stoic as he had before the rain.  He looked at me.  “Damn weather.  Worse than home.”

“Scotland?”

“Scapa Flow, Kirkwall.  I should have been an engineer on ships like my father, but I was too stupid.  Joined the Army, finished up here.  What’s your excuse?”

“Square peg in a round hole.  The army seems to handle us in its stride.”  It was more or less the truth.  I joined the Army to get away from my parents.

“That it does.  That it does.”

The rain came and went, during which the rest of the camp roused and went about its business.  It had been a long night for some, still getting over the shock of the attack, and the ever-pervading thought the enemy was still out there, biding their time.  It would be, for them, a waiting game, waiting for the conditions to wear us down, and lose concentration as inevitably we would.

Certainly, by the time we were relieved from sentry duty, I felt I was in no condition to match wits with a donkey, let alone the enemy on his own home ground.  When I stumbled over to the mess area and looked at the tired and haggard looks on the faces of the platoon, I realized that went for all of us.

Killer and I managed to get about an hour’s rest before the call came to move out, rain or no rain, and after a breakfast to make anyone ill, we left.  For hours it rained.  No one spoke as we strained to listen over the rain spattering on the undergrowth, all the time expecting the unexpected.  That was the benefit of the surprise attack; we no longer took for granted we would be safe.

Water gathered in pools along the trail, hiding any chance of seeing landmines.  Rainwater and sweat ran into our eyes, making it difficult to see.  Water leaked everywhere, making it very uncomfortable.  This was not a war; this was utter stupidity.

I was about to remark on the futility of it all to the Lieutenant, who had taken the lead, when one second he was talking to me and the next he crashed to the ground, a sniper’s bullet killing him instantly.   Someone yelled “Contact” and we hit the ground, bullets flying all around us. 

Too late, I thought, as I felt the hit of what seemed to be a large rock, then the searing pain in my leg, just as I hit the ground…

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2021

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

In a word: Loose

We’ve all heard of the expression, he’s playing it fast and loose, or more interestingly, he’s fast and loose with the truth.

I’ve never really got a proper definition of that expression, but it sounds good, and people have to use their imaginations and put their own interpretation to it.

And if this was the 1930s, and Clarke Gable was playing opposite Jean Harlow, it’s exactly how the posters would describe the blonde bombshell.

Loose, however, in a more literal sense means not tight, so a loose nut on a bolt might be the cause of a catastrophe.

And speaking of catastrophes, there’s a fox loose in the hen house.  Sadly it would be very difficult to catch and tie up.

Of course, in hot weather, you’d rather be wearing something loose, to keep cool.

Women, in particular, can wear their hair loose, as distinct from ‘up’, or in a ponytail or braids.

Some people make a loose interpretation, which inevitably creates grey areas, and loose lips, well, they’ve been known to sink ships.

This word can sometimes be confused with lose, which means something else entirely.

Like, lose a watch, lose your head, in more ways than one, lose your life, as if it was one of nine when it isn’t, and lose everything, perhaps, in the 1930’s stock market crash.

Quite literally, it means to be deprived of, or cease to gain or have.

You can lose weight, have a clock that loses time, or you can lose your temper.

Sometimes I lose the plot.

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

Sayings: Flogging a dead horse

This wouldn’t be so apt if it didn’t bring back a raft of bad memories, those days I used to go to the races, and back all of the wrong horses.

I had a knack, you see, of picking horses that fell over, or came dead last.

Perhaps that’s another of those sayings, dead last, with a very obvious meaning.  Dead!  Last!

But…

In the modern vernacular, flogging a dead horse is like spending further time on something in which the outcome is already classed as a complete waste of time.

However…

Back in the old days, the dead horse referred to the first month’s wages when working aboard a ship, usually paid for before you stepped on board the ship.  At the end of the first month, the theoretical dead horse was tossed overboard symbolically, and thereafter you were paid.

It still didn’t make sense to me that someone would tell me I was flogging a dead horse, until I realized, one day, the lesson to be learned was never to get paid in advance.

Writing a book in 365 days – 350 – new

Day 350 – Writing exercise

He had never liked the desert, or anywhere hot, if he was telling the truth.

…

It started out a joke and ended up as the reason for defunding my project, but irrespective of the reason given, it was not unexpected because of the lack of progress, and cost overruns.

And the fact that I had suffered a minor breakdown, having laboured day and night, in very hot, dusty, trying conditions for longer than I expected.

Of course, the fact that I had assured the Management team that I would be available 24/7, and was forced to go on indefinite sick leave, was probably the final nail in the coffin.

That, and the fact that I had participated in an interview where I had confessed, in a moment of reflection, that I preferred to live in the cooler climate of the mountains than in the middle of the desert, the place where I had been running a major investigation into underground rivers.

Or, as my hard-working and cynical assistant project manager had put it, they didn’t want a woman taking my place, and worse, they didn’t want anyone to know they had run out of funding.

In the end none of it matered.  They shut down the site.

…

Melanie, Acting Project Manager, resident cynic, and all-around conspiracy theorist, had dropped in on her way home, or as she put it, a welcome deviation before returning to a ‘rat hole’ at her sister’s residence while in transit between jobs.

I had just left the hospital, and arrived at my ‘Shangrila’ the day before.  She had just wrapped up the operation in Mexico.  She looked as exhausted as I still felt.

When Melanie watched the replay of the post-project interview, curious to see what had been said, she realised one very important point.  “You were led. The interviewer had a definite plan to lead you down a particular path, and then took a run with it.”

“I was tired and wanted to get it over with.”

“You didn’t ask for the slate of questions ahead of time?”

“I did and was given a folder.  There was nothing about climate preferences, or the possibility of exhaustion, in them.”

“There you are.  It was nothing less than a set-up, clearly designed to derail your project.”

Melanie always suspected the organisation that funded the projects to be exactly the sort of people they portrayed to the outside world, and she had been very vocal at the first meeting, and several since, citing the world needed water, not geo-thermal energy.

In the beginning, it had been a hard sell.  Until suddenly they changed their minds from a hard no to a three year deal.

That was until the two board members who agreed with her had retired in the last six months.

“If they hadn’t retired, we wouldn’t be here.”

Actually, we would.  We had not found irrefutable evidence that there was water under the impenetrable rock.  It was somewhere near there, I just wasn’t sure exactly where, and drilling bores wasn’t cheap.

I had been assured they’d come back to it later.

Meanwhile…

I was on administrative leave.  Melanie was supposed to go to Peru, or Chile.  Instead she stayed with me.

…

Melanie had also suspected the Project Management organisation of having ulterior motives.  I had also heard the rumours that somewhere of the projects had two purposes.

The most recent, an archaeological dig turned into a search for oil, in a place where the local government had been prevented from prospecting.

Our project had the security team ‘enhanced’ because of ‘perceived’ threats to our safety, which, in the end, didn’t materialise.

Just before the funding dried up.

It was not as if they didn’t have a reason.  Suddenly, we found it difficult to bore through the hard rock to get down to the suspected cavern where an underground river ran from the Arctic to the north to the equator.

We had found what was believed to be the entrance in northern Scandinavia, but not the outlet, other than ancient evidence of water feeding a flourishing Aztec city, not just dry dusty ruins.   It had been paradise.

And as much as I would like to also give my archaeological skills a run, that hadn’t been our focus.  We just had to work around the archealogical aspects of the site.

Even so, I had a feeling someone was poking around the ruins, with people going missing, and strange noises at night.

Melanie was adamant that the ghosts of the city’s once-inhabitants were rising up to protect their final resting place from us invaders.

It became the subject of a conversation one morning, after about a week, the amount of time it took for Melanie doing nothing to start getting bored.

She had just latched onto the archaeological aspects of the site, just arriving at a conclusion I had considered a possibility, but unlikely given the local government’s stand on exploration of the ruins.

“It’s an unjustified cost to bore through impassable rock, especially when we cannot prove an outcome.”

“What if it wasn’t and they’re just telling you that?”

I looked at her over the conference table with surprise.  Melanie was my guru for superstitions and conspiracy theories, and was often closer to the bone than most.

She had said once after a few too many margaritas that the site we were working at had been an old Aztec temple and place of worship and sacrifice, and more than one ghost had been seen at night.

I thought I had seen one myself, but I didn’t believe in such things.  But I did suspect that there might be an element of truth in another myth she had uncovered, that somewhere within the boundaries of the site was a reputed entrance to a network of caverns and tunnels, where artifacts had been hidden from the Spanish conquerors, and which several items had been found nearby.

It would make more sense to think we had been shut down so that another cladescine expedition was being funded to locate the entrance, or determine whether there was any truth to the supposition of gold and or artifacts were hidden there.  That would make more money than finding underground watercourses.

“Then what are you telling me?”

“Those extra security staff sent to save us from the revolting masses would know one end of a gun from the other.  Did they look like mercenaries?”

After a few more margaritas she confessed her ideal man was that Hollywood stereotype mercenary, a stereotype that was not supported by the members of of security team, or the additional people sent.

“Not really, but do we really know that security people have a ‘type’?”

“Girls who look like they just came from a fashion show in Milan.  You remember Joanne and Louisa?”

I don’t think anyone could forget them.  She had a point, but by that time, I was almost overcome by exhaustion.

“You think they were archaeology students?”

“Isn’t that how digs work?  One or two experts and a dozen students are working towards their degrees.  You went through that process.”

I had, though, not been so lucky to find a dig so rich in history.  “We were strictly forbidden from any archealogical exploration.”

“And Management knew you’d assure them that nothing like that was going on.  They relied on your reputation, one of the main reasons the local government allowed the project.  That you’d run it and you’d find water.  Especially if you found water.  When I stopped at the office of the mayor to give him the keys, half a dozen of the newbies, including the girls, were still there.  They were supposed to be on a plane a week ago.”

“They don’t have permission to conduct archaeological exploration of the ruins.”

“Who needs permission to do anything, other than us good guys.  We’ve been running a distraction.  I think they’ve discovered the tunnels and caverns.  And they, more than anything else, might lead us to the water.  We were looking in the wrong place.  I think the city was built on top of the water outlet, and the Aztecs destroyed it themselves to spite the Spanish”

“But we were not in the business of treasure hunting.”

Or were we?

“Why don’t we go and find out?”

…

Melanie and I had worked together for nearly ten years and had know each other since university as struggling engineers.  My first choice of archaeology became my second choice out of practicality.

Melanie was fun, we had a brief fling, but it was at a time where serious stuff like study, then work, tore us apart.  Now we had gravitated back into each other’s orbit, and in the latest downtime it was a sign she preferred to stay with me than go home to her sister.

The bolt hole of a room filled with years of accumulated junk may have been a better reason to stay, but after three days of sleeping on the couch, she came out, took my hand, and told me we were finally too old to be making the same mistakes.

It was one of those things where you just knew instinctively that you should be together.  We finished each other’s sentences.  We knew what the other was thinking, but that thought was not expressed out loud.  It was scary sometimes.

Like sitting on the plane heading towards Mexico City, and seeing two of the Management team that had been at the meeting that shut us down.

It had been her idea to disguise ourselves, not with fake hair and props, but by getting her friend, a stylist who worked in a Salon, to give us both a makeover.

Even I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror.  And Melanie, well, I don’t think I ever looked at her other than as that sloppy eighteen-year-old who cared less for fashion and style than I did.

And we didn’t even have to try and act like we were on our honeymoon.

Off the plane and into secret agent mode, which felt strange trying to act like someone your not, was a little comical.

We followed the two ‘targets’ from the plane, to immigration, to the baggage hall and through customs, to outside the terminal building, where they were collected in a white van, the vehicle that delivered the new security team members a few months before, and their leader, who got out to greet them and stow their luggage.

“I was right.  Sneaky devils.”  Melanie might have had a complete makeover but her underlying personality was still there. 

What had seemed a lark back in the retreat where we were safe and cosy now took on a more serious aspect.  The idea of getting proof … of what, wasn’t exactly clear now … gave me second thoughts.

There was definitely something going on, but it might be legitimate, and we were just blowing smoke.

“How do you know any of this is suspect?  I mean, they could be here for something else?”

She looked me up and down.  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  Besides, I asked Monty to bump into the Mayor’s assistant, you know, the one he’s keen on, and ask her if anything is afoot.”

Of course, Melanie had a network of spies. 

“She wouldn’t tell him anything.”

“After a few Margaritas, she’s worse than I am.  You really need to get out more.”

Perhaps I did, though trying to imagine Melanie as this whole other different person was a surprise.

“And…”

“It’s not what she said, it’s how she said it.  I think that there’s an undercover operation going on, like there was while we were there.  I suspect, given what Monte tells me, they closed our operation too quickly, on the basis of a discovery that was premature.  They found the entrance to a tunnel that had been covered over to look like a roof collapse, and everyone jumped the gun.”

“No tunnel?”

“Nothing but an empty cavern.”

“Someone else stole the treasure before them.”

“Doubtful.  They found bones.  One of the intrepid students said it was a place for rituals, like sacrifices to the gods.”

“They did that in temples on top of hills.  They’d more likely be the remains of captured Spanish invaders.”

She shrugged.  “Whatever they’re doing, time is running out.  Maybe they’ll ask us to come back and run interference for them.”

“Would you?”

“They know I wouldn’t.  It’s why they were sending me to Peru.  Purgatory.”

A battered van that had seen better days screeched to a halt in front of us, and I saw Monty through the grimy side window.  The last time I saw the van, he was taking me to the hospital.

He gave Melanie a hug, with far more affection than I expected for friends, and felt a tinge of jealousy.  I would have to get used to her affectionate and easy manner with everyone.

Then he shook my hand.  “You still look terrible.”

“Thanks.  I thought you were going to modernise?”

He had spoken about getting a new Toyota.

“Why mess with perfection?  It gets from point A to point B without a hiccup.”  He opened the side door, and we got in, then closed it with a bang.

Seconds later, we were on our way to the hotel, whatever cloak-and-dagger hotel Melanie had picked.  It was not going to be a five-star or even four-star.

We were, she said, flying under the radar.  I had expected to be given a new fake passport after the makeover. 

I found it hard to believe anyone would care what we did; now we were no longer working on any project.  I was still on Administrative leave, whatever that was.

“So, what’s happening.

“That is a long story and I think it’s better if I show you.  Settle in at the hotel, and I’ll come and get you at 8pm.  You will be … amused.”

Amused, then, it will be.

…

I spent the better part of an hour trying not to think about Melanie in a clingy black jumpsuit.

Our instructions were to dress in black, head to foot, for camouflage.  I didn’t look half as good as she did, and I had to readjust my thoughts.  It had been so long since I’d been that close to a woman, and I hadn’t really expected that I would feel this way.

I got the impression that she liked being admired, again, part of her persona that I would have to get a grip on.  I can’t be jealous of everyone and everything.

In the jalopy, my new name for Monty’s vehicle, he wasn’t telling us much, except…

After the site was closed down, an old man, a descendant of the Aztecs, he thought came to see him.

First it was to thank him for getting it done.

Second, he said he was the last of the custodians of the city, and having no one to pass it on to, asked Monty if he would.

Monty was curious as to what it entailed.

Making sure no one discovered the true power of the city.  It was dismantled when the invaders got too close.  For the elders, it meant they had to kill the city so the invaders would go away.

Of course, he agreed, if only to find out what this power was.

The man took him to a certain part of the city, some distance from where it was considered to be the southern wall line, the original city with four walls and four gates, all of which had only traces remaining.  The city was considered only within the walls.

The spot they were headed was out of view of the city, and, he was told, for a reason.

He ended with the fact that he had seen what the man wanted him to see, but decided to wait until we had returned.  It was what he had been told what there, well, he wanted the rights to the movie because this was going to be an instalment of Indiana Jones.

I was beginning to think he was completely mad.

…

It was a dark night with a cloudy sky and intermittent moonlight.  On the drive here, it had been reasonably light.  Near the bushes after parking, it was very dark, and Monty had been using a pen light to minimise exposure.

Monty parked the car in a spot that was practically concealed on three fronts.  It was clear the man who showed him had been there before, once recently.

From the parking spot, it was a short walk towards a copse of thick bushes that, for some reason, seemed to be growing very well when everything beyond twenty metres was dead or dying.

We watched Monty carefully pick his way through the copse, following equally as carefully.  The bushes were prickly and the thorns sharp.

With several scratches we made to the middle, where an area of the ground was covered in sand.

Monty went to the other side of the clearing and looked on the ground for several minutes before he put his foot into a bush.  That’s what it looked like.  Then, several seconds later the sand started sinking, then moving slowly sideways exposing and opening and steps going down.

Monty had brought a backpack and distributed three torches.

“I’ll go first.”

I noticed he also had a gun.  I’d never seen him with a gun before.

We went down.  And down.  And down.  There seemed to be a lot of steps built into the walls of a hole that had been dug out of the rock that we apparently drilled through.

Until we reached a large, very deep hole that seemed to go down into the depths of the earth.  At the top, there was a wooden structure that looked like the top of an elevator, though that was impossible.

On the side, more steps, heading down.

And in the background, a very faint but familiar sound.  Running water.

“So, this person knew all along we were looking for water in the wrong place?”

Monty nodded.  “He’s a guardian.  I’m surprised he told me, but he seemed to think I had a hand in sending you lot away.  He asked me to be the next guardian.”

“He has no interest in reviving the city?”

“The city is in ruins.  Nothing can revive it.”

“Is there anything of value?”

“If there is, he didn’t tell me about it.”

It was not that difficult to see what had been used in this well.  A system of buckets taking the water from below up to an intermediate reservoir, then redirected to the city, and elsewhere.

The real treasure here was the water.

“Now you know, what are you going to do?” Melanie gave me one of those sideways looks of hers, the one that said, There’s a right and a wrong decision.  We found the waterways, but it didn’t end here.  That was somewhere else, and I could plot it.

They shut the project down, and as far as I could see, it might as well stay shut.  I didn’t think they’d find any treasure, and even if they did, they wouldn’t tell anyone.

I looked at Monty.  “You want to become this guardian character?”

“If Juanita will have me.  What are you going to do?”

“I told them I want to find the endpoint.  This is not the end.  I’ll be going further south, Chile, Peru, Argentina, or find something else to do.  Maybe I’ll write a book about the Aztecs.”

“Good choice.  That old man I was telling you about.  He takes his job seriously.  Those treasure hunters, they’re on borrowed time.  I told him you’d do the right thing.”

“And if we hadn’t?”

“I told him you would do the right thing.  You didn’t make a liar out of me.  Now, let’s go eat.  All this stumbling around in the dark has made me hungry.”

…

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 56

Would a Mexican standoff work?

…

I couldn’t help thinking just how far behind the technological ball we were, and that even if we had to ability to travel far into space, we were always going to find people more advanced than us.

I remembered back to the time, before this mission was to get underway, an almost finished spacecraft waiting for a crew, the round table discussions that were held to talk about what we might expect and how we would react.

I said then that we would not be able to treat them like we would other nationalities on our own planet, which seemed to be the consensus for first contact.

Some thought it unlikely we’d run into anyone else.

And where we were right now was largely uncharted territory.  Of course, there was a whole team aboard whose job was specifically to handle alien encounters, and all of them had been huddled in their meeting room since day one of our first encounter with the Foroi, taking extensive notes, analysing every aspect of each encounter, and contributing information they thought I would find useful in my dealings with them.

It was there I headed now.

I had already been admonished by their leader, Emily Jacques, over my handling of certain situations, particularly when I chose what he called the ‘death or glory’ option.

I told her it was like the nuclear option, where each side held an arsenal of weapons at the ready, threatening to use them, but never with the intention of doing so.  The old ‘Mexican standoff’.

I told her I based my decision on the fact that we were simply dealing with more evolved human beings who’d moved beyond the corporeal life we were still stuck with.  But, for all their advances, the notion of creating a nuclear wasteland still held respect. I doubted anyone, no matter how advanced, could get past the finality of a nuclear attack on a home planet.

And if they had been on ours and seen the effect of the single time our leaders had decided on pre-emptive and retaliatory strikes, they would see the wastelands of what London, New York, and Moscow looked like. How much we hadn’t learned from our mistakes beggared belief.

The table was full, a dozen experts with a lot of books, papers, and computers, all talking at once, a half dozen conversations, each trying to be heard above the others.

I came in, leaned on my chair, and the noise subsided. The leader of the team, Emily Jacques, was down the other end of the table.

I looked at each one of them, experts in fields related to humans, and not one had any idea what an alien might be like.  They were trying to apply the human factors to the aliens, and every decision they made had been based on a flawed theory.

The aliens were nothing like us.

We knew nothing about them, but they knew everything about us.

When I looked at Emily, she said, “The consensus is that we should let her people take her back to her homeland.”

“What if she doesn’t want to go?”

“Is it worth possibly sacrificing this ship and crew just to make a stand?  We want to make friends with these people, not enemies.”

“Did you consider the possibility that if we let her people take her, the other group might object?  I get the impression that no matter what we do, it is going to end badly.”

Was that a possibility they hadn’t considered?

“What do you think we should do?”  Alexandra was the crew representative, and not formally a member of the team, but a person who should have a seat at the table when matters were discussed that concerned the crew.

It was a position I had insisted on before we left on this odyssey, with far-reaching authority to make decisions that would resolve crew issues in a fair and balanced manner.  That included discipline and punishment when warranted.  I did not want the crew to think that their fate rested in the hands of the ship’s officers.  I had ultimate authority but rarely intervened in any decision she made.

“She had offered to become a mediator so that we could sit down and discuss their intentions.  She has also requested what back on earth we would call asylum, she wants to not be taken by either group.  Did anyone back on earth before this began ever consider the possibility that we might be asked for asylum?”

“No.”  Jacob was the international law expert, well-versed in all matters that related to problems back home and was sent with the possibility of his learning or creating a set of rules for intergalactic relations.  “My superiors didn’t think we’d meet any alien races, but now we have, all I have as a basis is earth’s international law, and it has provisions for asylum, and as such, we should be able to extend it galactically, I can’t believe I actually said that, but we may have problems in getting these people to agree to anything we propose.”

“But there’s no reason why we can’t grant her asylum if she formally requests it.  Something that might help, these people, as I understand it, have spent time on our planet, which means that aliens have been walking among us for a very long time.”

“Did she tell you that?  It might just be a ploy to gain your trust.”

“She’s not the only one.  The captain of the first vessel we encountered said the same.  They know of us, and our ways, and they’ve been watching our evolution over a very long period.”

“Why didn’t they just invade us, then.  We’re obviously technologically inferior.”  The technological expert, the person who was charged with getting his hands on alien technology, if we found any, asked.

“It explains the UFO’s then,” said another.

“You know what we would have done the moment their ships arrived.  Shoot first and ask questions later.  It’s probably what they’re expecting from us now.  We have to be better than that.” To the lawyer, I said, “Start drafting some intergalactic rules for asylum.  Everyone else, start formulating questions to ask the Princess about anything and everything.  I’m going to see the Chief Engineer.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2023

The second attempt looks a little better, but not much

The process of writing is rewriting editing and more rewriting.

The other day l wrote some words.  I didn’t like them.  But it had laid the groundwork for a second draft.

Here it is:

 

Growing up I did not believe l had one of those lovable faces.

My brother, known in school as the best-looking boy of his graduating class, said it was a face only a mother could love.

He was mean.

Simone, a girl who was a friend, not a girlfriend, said my face had character.

She was charming and polite.

Looking now, in the mirror, l decided I’d aged gracefully.

I could truthfully say my brother had not, but that was as far as the comparison went.

My overachieving brother was the epitome of business success, a veritable god-zillionaire.  Everything he touched turned to gold.

My ultra-successful sister, Penelope, had married into the right family perhaps by chance, but she was also a very learned scholar whose life was divided between her chair and the university and her social life with the rich and famous.

Then there was me.

I gave up on my chance at university because l was not the scholarly sort and didn’t last long.  Sadly, l was the first of my family to be sent down from Oxford.

Instead, l took on a series of professions such as seasonal labourer, farmhand, factory worker, and lastly, night watchman.  At least now I had a uniform and looked like I’d made something of myself.

It would not be enough for my parents who every year didn’t say it out loud, but the disappointment was always there in their expressions.

My brother in his usual blunt manner said l was a loser and would never change.

My sister was not so blunt.  She simply said it was disappointing so much potential was going to waste.  I only asked her once what she meant and lost me after the first four-syllable word.

Finally, I’d taken their comments to heart and decided l would not be going home to the family Christmas holiday reunion.

I told my boss that l was available to work the night shift over the holidays, the shift no one else wanted.

It was he said the time for reflection.  He hated his family as much as I did so we would be able to lament our bad luck through the long cold hours from dusk till dawn.

It was 3 a.m. and it was like standing on the exact epicenter of the North Pole.  I’d just stepped from the warehouse into the car park.

The car was covered in snow.  The weather was clear now, but more snow was coming.

It was going to be a white Christmas, all I needed.  I hoped I remembered to put the antifreeze in my radiator this time.

As I approached my car, the light went on in an SUV parked next to mine.  The door opened and what looked like a woman was climbing down from the driver’s seat.

She closed the door and leaned against the side of the car.  “Graham?”

It was a voice I was familiar with, though I hadn’t heard it for a long time, my ultra-successful sister, Penelope.  From what I could see, she didn’t look too well.

“What do you want?”

“Help.”

My help, I was the last person to help her or anyone for that matter.  But curiosity got the better of me.  “Why?”

“Because my husband is trying to kill me.”

The instant the last word left her lips I saw her jerk back into the car and then start sliding down to the ground.  There was no mistaking the red streak following her as she fell.

She’d been shot by what could be a sniper rifle, which meant …

…

It still needs work, but I’ve got the gist of where I want to go.

The idea is not to make a character so loathsome no one would want to read about him.

This will evolve and you can if you like come along for the ride!

 

© Charles Heath 2024