This is a spot behind a group of restaurants at Victoria Point, Queensland.
But it could be anywhere, like a spot we saw on a boat trip on a river in the Daintree, in far north Queensland
So, this could be a spot, not far inland from the ocean where smugglers, or drug runners come ashore, in a place so remote they would never get caught.
Unless an enterprising federal agent comes up with a plan to track them from the ocean side using satellite images, or reported sightings of suspicious activity.
My money is on a random sighting, a vague report files in a small town police station, and a body washed up in shore, apparently the victim of a crocodile attack. Or not a crocodile.
It cold be a fishing trip gone wrong in a backwater stream, a weekend away by a dialled group of friends, who are not really friends, which all comes to a head when one of the friends go missing.
Or, I’d you like the idea of historical drama, a story about the first expedition from the bottom of Australia to the very top, for the first time, with all the hazards of rivers to cross, paths to create though the bush, the heat, the animals, the local inhabitants who have yet to see Europeans.
To be honest, I would not want to be one of those early explorers, especially those who went inland and struck desert, or died just short of their goal.
Just as an aside, we did learn about these people, Hume and Hovell, Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson, Burke and Wills, and others.
We were standing at the entrance of Aladdin’s cave. At least that was the name on the sign above the entrance.
Three days driving, the last 122 miles into the desert, or what was now desert, through three ghost towns, which looked like sets out of a movie, to what was once supposed to be a theme park.
In the middle of nowhere. Literally.
We’d parked in what was once a thousand car carpark now almost relatives by the sand, through a large gate that proclaimed the seven wonders of the world, through to a cliff face where there were several caves, where we were now.
“And remind me exactly why we are here?”
“We win the bidding war for this place. I mean, think of the potential.”
“I’m thinking, but not of the potential.”
Good thing then Lexie was not my wife or girlfriend, because if she was, she’d be questioning my sanity right about now.
She was a work friend, along for the ride.
Well, to begin either, this whole area was a storage facility for the nuclear weapons that were designated for destruction after the non-proliferation treaty. There are about a dozen caves around here, all with massive blast doors, of which Aladdin’s cave was the first. I can’t wait to see inside.”
“If it truly is Aladdin’s cave then should it not be riches beyond avarice. I want the lamp.”
There was only one small problem. I needed the code to open the doors, and that was only available once we had arrived. Once there, I was to give a person on the end of the phone a code, one that changed every day, once I proved my identity. It was a crazy system, but I had to admit, it made the cave secure.”
I made the call, once I could see the code. It was on the screen, behind a nuclear blast-proof window, rather apt considering. It was a code that changed every hour.
“The voice on the other end of the phone simply said, “Code please?”
I read it to them. As soon as the call was disconnected, the doors began to open.
Then behind me, another voice. “Thank you for that. Now, step away, or your friend here dies.”
I turned. I thought I recognized the voice of Joe Santiago, crime boss, a man who’d served his ten years, but never divulged where he had hidden the loot.
Another six months with guns were standing in a semi-circle, cutting off any exit I might try.
“So, this is where you hid the money, and key evidence.”
“And, as they say, it’s where the bodies are buried. This really wasn’t going to be a theme park.”
“O rather guessed that. I was expecting someone else, a lackey, but you did say one, you couldn’t trust any of those you worked with.”
With that said, six shots, six men down, and a seventh, at that moment when Santiago was disorientated by the first six shots. Not to kill but disable.
A well-planned and executed operation to catch Santiago, who had never suspected we had turned one of his gang and had known all along where his loot was.
Then it was just a matter of waiting until he got out of jail, after advertising the fact I’d won the auction to buy the Theme Park site, outbidding all of his people.
A visibly shaken Lexie said, “and when were you going to tell me we were going to be bait?”
“None of us were sure this was going to work.”
A swarm of agents moved in to take away the seven, including a cursing Santiago, who swore he’d been set up.
The doors were now open, and we were looking into a dark abyss. The light only went so far. I stepped inside and used the torch on the side wall, looking for the light switch.
It was about ten feet away, a large lever that had to be pushed up. I gave it a moment, then pushed it into the on position, and the lights came on.
I heard a gasp from Lexie and turned around.
It was huge, a cavern gouged out of the small mountain, all but empty except for a shipping container sitting about fifty yards from the entrance.
Yet another new voice came from behind us.
“We’ll take it from here.”
It belonged to an FBI agent, who was with three others. No guns were drawn, but I suspect if I objected, they might.
“Did you not get the memo that I am in charge here,” I said.
He handed me a phone, “Your commander would like a word.”.
I took it. “Sir?”
“We’ve been trumped by jurisdiction, just let them take over, but stay and let me know when they’ve gone.”
“There’s a shipping container right bang in the middle of the cave.”
“Let them take it “
He disconnected the call, and I returned the phone.
“Do as you wish.”
A forklift went past, and we watched as it picked up the container and took it to a waiting truck.
The FBI agent saluted, and he left with his team.
Lexie had watched the whole proceedings with an amused expression on her face. This was obviously not news to her. “Couldn’t have predicted that could we.”
I pulled out my phone and called the boss. “They’ve gone.”
“They went for the big shiny object. I’m surprised they didn’t realize Santiago is all about the show. I’m sure they’ll soon discover it’s booby-trapped, but that’s fine, they’ll take a while to realize they’ve been had. Now, you two go to work. The real evidence is hidden in there somewhere. Call me when you find it.”
Lexie looked over at me. “What did he say?”
“The evidence is still here, not in the container.”
She looked around at the wide, deep, open space where, if it was going to be Aladdin’s cave, there would be treasure stacked everywhere.
“I’m guessing we need yo do a sweep. You start on the other side, I’ll start here, and we’ll meet at the middle of the rear.”
I waited until she was in position, and then we moved towards the rear, studying the wall for hidden doors. It was possible that rooms or passages ran off this cave.
A few minutes later Lexie let out a triumphant “Ah-ha!”
I stopped. “What is it?”
She held up a small object that looked like the proverbial lamp.
“Aladdin’s lamp. Perhaps if I polish it.” She did so, with a flourish.
“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?
John and Zoe are nowhere near Vienna, Zoe having gone to Bucharest and then Zurich on her way back to see John who was going to pick her up from the airport, then the both of them were going to Lucerne for a few days.
A reminiscing cruise on Lake Geneva had been on the cards, but there might not be time.
First, they had to do some work on charting who was trying to kill her, because she has finally come to the realization that there is more than one. Her visit to Bucharest yielded another name, quite possibly the person who was masquerading as Komarov.
Second, John was intending to introduce her to the new members of their team, the team he hasn’t quite got around to telling her about, who will be dedicated to research, investigation, and, via Isobel and the dark web, organizing the hits.
John had decided that she should not out there be distracted by finding work, just doing the work. He was going to take care of the rest.
Perhaps a good time would be over dinner?
Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rupert are on surveillance duties while Isobel is tracking down which hotel the lovebirds are staying in. As soon as she has the information, Rupert is on the job.
She then moved to track John, knowing Zoe will be with him because she has seen the passenger lists for flights from Bucharest to anywhere.
Both are thankful neither John nor Zoe was in Vienna, which then makes it a priority that neither Worthington of Arabella should leave, except to go back home. Although they hadn’t established it was the reason Worthington was in Vienna, it was too close to the bungled attempt on their lives for them not to draw the appropriate conclusion.
Sebastian has a plan B that no one was going to like, not even himself.
Plan A was yet to be formulated.
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 1,566 words, for a total of 54,355.
This is rugged bushland not far from suburbia, though you wouldn’t know exactly where it is just by looking at the photograph
But, for the writer, this is an excellent setting.
For instance, once again we are out wandering in the bush, lost. It’s not hard to get lost, and stay lost if there are no recognizable landmarks, and given we all walk with a bias to one side or the other, and we have to avoid objects like trees, ravines, animals, and rocks, keeping a straight line is impossible.
But the question is, how did you get into the bush in the first place?
It’s not as if you would deliberately go there, just to if you can get lost.
No, my idea is that you have been kidnapped and drugged, then taken to a location either in the book of a car or just in the back seat with a hood, then dropped off and left to die
The criminals in this story are more efficient in getting rid of pesky witnesses.
Or maybe it’s something less sinister, like going out and counting the koalas in the bush, well, what’s left of the bush as the suburban spray takes more and more of the koala’s habitat.
And it could also be like the planet of the apes, the koalas start fighting back.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realises his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
One of the recurring memories I have of my childhood was the annual pilgrimage to Grand Marais, Minnesota, located on the North Shore of Lake Superior.
It was the place where my father grew up, along with three brothers and a sister, and where his parents had been born, lived, and eventually died.
The other memory, that his parents never came to visit us, we always had to go to them. That, and the fact my mother hated them, that animosity borne out of an event at their wedding that no one ever spoke about.
Not until a long, long time later, after my father had passed away.
We stopped going when I turned eighteen, though I don’t think that was the reason. Mt grandparents hadn’t died or gone anywhere, it was just the week before our pilgrimage was to begin, my father announced there would be no more visits.
You could see the relief on our mother’s face, much less ours because they were, to put it mildly, quirky. Steven, the youngest brother put it more succinctly, weird and creepy.
Perhaps it had been the house, a large sprawling two-story mansion that had been added to over the years, and reputed to have thirteen bedrooms. Thirteen.
They had a butler, a housekeeper, a chauffeur, and several housemaids. Odd, because I got the impression my grandfather didn’t work, and yet they were, reputedly, very wealthy. Equally odd, then, that wealth didn’t extend to my father.
Which, in the final analysis, was probably the reason why we stopped going. He had been cut out of the will.
…
Of course, none of this would have reached my consciousness if I had not received an email from one of the sones of my fathers, brother, and uncle who had never visited us, I’d seen probably three times in my life, and who had lived with his parents in the mansion.
I’d not seen, or heard of any children of any of the other brothers, or sisters, so this was a first, and aroused my curiosity. I had thought that our part of the family had been exorcised from all their collective memories.
Apparently not.
And, that curiosity would soon go into overdrive because with the email came an invitation to come and stay, and meet the other members of the family.
I had a sister, Molly, and called her once I got the email, and she said she had one too.
Was she going? Hell yes. It, for her, was going to be the unearthing of all the secrets.
What secrets, I asked, knowing full well there had been a few, but she had simply said I’d have to wait and see.
…
The drive brought back a lot of memories, and unconsciously I found myself listening to the same songs we did when Dad droves us.
Molly had come to my place, and we drove there together. In itself, it was a good reason for us to reunite after so long being apart. It was even more profound considering we did not live all that far apart, it was just life and family that got in the way.
She, like myself, found herself reliving the annual pilgrimages, her memories being hazier than mine, but that was because she was a lot younger.
She had been the one to leave home first, finding our restrictive parents unbearable. My departure took longer because my mother had implored me to stay, and not leave her with ‘that unbearable man’.
That final few miles from the outskirts of town, past the waterline, then inland was hushed with anticipation. I last remembered the house, although forbidding, as impeccably maintained, with gardens, I was sure, that featured in ‘Architectural Digest’.
This vision as we approached was so different than the last, in the last vestiges of the evening, a dark forbidding place still, only a lot more sinister. The gardens had been abandoned long ago, and everything was overgrown.
The fountain out front, the centerpiece of the gardens, was buried and gone.
The house had also fallen into disrepair, and I was surprised the local authorities hadn’t condemned it.
I parked the car in the driveway, and we sat there, staring at it.
“That motel back down the road is looking good,” Molly said.
The invitation also included staying in one of the thirteen rooms.
“Depends on how many ghosts there are.”
“The motel or here?”
I shrugged. “I guess we’d better get to the front door before it’s dark, just in case.”
Closer to the stairs leading up to a veranda, I could see the different shades of timber when rotten planks had been replaced. We made it to the front door, Molly hanging on to me just in case.
I pulled a ring dangling from a chain and heard a gong go off inside the house. A minute passed, two, then the door creaked open, and an old man in a dinner suit was standing there. “Mr. Garry, and Miss Molly, I presume.
He stood to one side before we answered, and we went in.
The inside was utterly different from the outside, having been renovated recently, much brighter than I remembered from the endless wood paneling. The old man ushered us into a large lounge room, on one side a huge log fire was burning, and around the walls, where there wasn’t a bookshelf full of books were family paintings.
“It’s like a mausoleum,” Molly said.
I recognized a lot of those faces in the paintings, including one of our father and mother together, probably not long after they were married. The men of that family all looked the same, except when it came to me, I looked more like my mother.
“Much better than it used to be.”
“I don’t remember much.”
To one side there was a large staircase that you could go up one side and down the other, and as children, we used to run up and down, and generally be annoying. Sliding down the banister was strictly forbidden, until after everyone went to bed.
I was half expecting to see the old man come from the depths of the house, but instead, a man that I could easily mistake as my father came through from the rear, where, I remembered, there was a room before the kitchens.
“Garry, I presume. And Molly. My God, it’s been too long.”
A shake of the hand for me, and a hug for Molly.
“David, or Jerry?”
“David. You remember. We used to run amok in this place.” He grinned.
He was the wild one, and all I did was follow. There were about seven of us, in the end, before we stopped coming.
“The others will be here tomorrow, and they’re dying to meet you. My dad was the last man standing, and he left the place to me, not that it was much by that time. I’ve spent years doing it up, but there’s a long way to go before it returns to its former glory. By the way, there are no ghosts in the bedrooms, and they are modernized with their own bathroom. I saw you out in the car before, looking horrified. Just a word to the wise, that motel does have ghosts. The jury is out on whether grandfather still roams the hallways, but I guess that’s something you’ll find out tonight. He was a horrid man by all accounts. Sorry, my wife says I babble when I’m nervous.”
“He does.” A woman, a few years older than Molly came out from the back.”
“Angelina?”
“You remember me.” She smiled.
I remembered her, had for a long time because back then, she was the first girl I thought I was madly in love with. The fact she was a cousin didn’t seem to matter. She just ignored me anyway.
And her beauty had not diminished over the years. “How could anyone forget you?”
“Yes, I had that effect on boys, didn’t I? It’s good to see you again.”
We both scored a hug, and yes, being close to her again did increase my heart rate just a little.
“Come,” David said, “sit and we’ll have a drink. Have you eaten?”
“Not for a while.”
“Then we were about to have a bite, I’m sure there’s plenty for everyone. Sit, and we’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“No wife, husband?”
“Yes on both accounts, but we would never bring them here. This family is difficult enough for us let alone outsiders. The rest of the group, well, you’ll see, are just plain quirky relatives. If you ever saw the Addams Family, TV series or movies, well, they’d fit right in here. But you’ll see. More on that soon.”
He and Angelina disappeared outback and silence fell over the room.
“Why do I get the feeling we might be murdered in our beds tonight?”
It was beginning to look like that was a possibility.
…
When David returned with the old man, Angelina, and what looked to be a maid with food and drinks, we sat down again, turning our fears of being murdered into a severe frightening of ghosts.
The old man was enough to think ghosts were alive in the house. It couldn’t possibly be the butler from the last time I saw him because he would have to be about 120 years old.
When all of us were settled, David began.
“There is another reason why I asked both of you here, along with all the others, by the way, there are around ten of us. Your father never told you the truth, or perhaps anything, of the situation when he stopped coming to visit his parents, did he?”
“He just said it was a difference of opinion, that his father would never see reason, didn’t like my mother or her family and gave up trying to be civil.”
“It was worse than that, he told him that if he didn’t give up your mother, he would cut him off from the family fortune, which eventually he did. It’s probably why you found life a little tougher for a few years.”
That was one way of putting it, we were taken out of our private schools and had just about all our leisure activities curtailed, and the worst, no more holidays. Mother even had to get a job, which disappointed her family, but they were not as rich as my father’s family was, so couldn’t help us financially.
“It was difficult.”
“Well, the good news is, your grandmother, our grandmother, was not as quirky or pedantic as her husband and never forgot the service your father did for her when he could. In that regard, she has left a bequest to both you and your sister, Molly. It’s been a long, hard battle to get it through the system, but it’s finally sorted.”
“I liked grandmother more than grandfather,” Molly said.
“Most of us did. He was a rebel himself, going against his family, a very interesting bunch themselves. Our quirkiness probably came from them, the last of the relatively unknown banking and railroad tycoons more famous in the 19th century than today where we are relatively forgotten. It is of course a blessing in disguise. But you ask, what is that quirkiness worth?”
“Not much I would imagine, after all this time. Our father taught us the value of money, so it’ll be nice to have some extra.”
“Some extra.” He smiled. “It’s about 125 million dollars, each. Enough I would say that you can now afford some quirks of your own.”
The editor looked up from his seat at me, frowning.
“Who are you again?”
He was a busy man, he kept telling us all, and didn’t have time to remember everyone on staff, particularly the reporters whom, to him, seem to come and go as they please.
“Jenkins, sir. New last week.”
“And you’re here because?”
“You said to come and see you about an assignment, sir.”
“An assignment?”
“Yes, sir. An assignment, sir.”
He’d come past my desk and stopped, asking that same question, “Who are you again?” Before pretending to recognize the name and tell me to come to his office in an hour for an assignment.
“Jenkins, you say. Not related to Elmer Jenkins by any chance.”
“He was my father, sit.”
“Damned fine reporter. Assignment you say.” He shuffled through the pile of folders on his desk, then plucked one seeming at random, and handed it to me.
“Odd goings-on at St Peter’s cathedral. Go and see what it’s all about, will you?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
…
Perhaps the better story here was how come the church seemed to get the best real estate in every city, and the bigger the church, the better the spot.
St Peters was where I would have expected the city center to be, on a few acres of perfectly manicured gardens surrounding an exquisite cathedral built in the mid-1500s.
I was not a Catholic, so I had not ventured inside, not realizingthat it had always been open during the day, church services or not.
There was also a parish office, a school of sorts, and a priory for visiting priests, as well as those who worked around the cathedral, so it was not unusual to see one or more priests wandering about.
But the most interesting thing about this cathedral was the fact it had an exact replica if the statue of St Mary Magdalene by the Italian sculptor Donatello, considered to be an earlier attempt before creating the real one now housed in the Museo dell ‘opera del Duomo in Florence.
It was not an advertised tourist attraction, but it could be seen by special appointment only with very restrictive visiting hours because of its rarity and delicate condition.
But the report I’d been given was that a cleaner, working in the room where it was housed had seen something very odd involving the statue. It had what she had described as tears coming from the statue’s eyes.
Of course, the editorial staff had rung the church to ascertain whether the reports they have received were true, and were immediately and emphatically denied, thus putting it into the category of “thou protest too much”, indicating, meaning there had to be something going on.
A second report, which was interesting in itself, had said there was an increased flurry of activity in the church, with several notable arrivals, particularly of the bishop, and a Cardinal from the Vatican, who was by coincidence in the country.
To the inquisitive reporter, that was embers in the grate about to create a much bigger fire.
…
“You heard?” Jaimie was another of the ‘going to be famous one-day’ group, I was also a member of.
I arrived breathlessly at the entrance to the cathedral grounds, to find several other reporters already there, conversing.
They were my former classmates at university, working as junior reporters for various media outlets.
“The editor tossed me a sparse file with very little to go on.”
“They’re not taking it seriously, are they?” Joey, never the one to take his profession seriously, was here just to meet and greet.
The three of us were juniors. There was not any of the ‘serious’ reporting staff there, perhaps waiting to see what we came up with.
“No. I mean, a cleaning lady and a statue with tears. My guess, sap leaking out of the wood, though waiting four or five hundred years to do so is a bit farfetched.”
“Then it’s true that it might be a replica of the real thing.” Joey seemed surprised, and it was him, never studying up on background before turning up.
“I’ve seen the real one in Florence,” Jaimie said.
“You’ve been everywhere, done everything, and seen everything. Why am I not surprised?”
Joey never liked her because of her family’s wealth and privilege which granted her access to much more than either Joey or I ever had. Including traveling the world twice.
“Can’t help drawing the parents I got, but that’s beside the point. You should have done some research.”
Joey held up his cell phone. “All the research I need is right here. Where and when I need it?”
“Why are you waiting here?” I asked. I would have expected them to be chasing up the relevant parish office person, if not the bishop himself.
“The doors are closed, which is highly unusual for a church during the day, and the sigh refers everyone to the parish office, who are telling everyone, and reporters, in particular, there will be a statement soon. We have a line of sight to the office and one of the staff will call us. Why wait over there when this area is so much more peaceful “
“So, you’re just going to quit?” I asked.
“What else can we do?” Jaimie was not the adventurous sort.
Neither was I, but this story could be something more, and getting the scoop might improve my standing with the editor.
“Do a little investigating of our own.”
“We might miss the statement.”
“You know what it will say, you could probably write it yourself. Nothing to see here, move along. I’m going to see if there’s a back door.”
“Churches don’t have back doors, Colin.” Joey would not be coming, his preferred modus operandi was to do as little as possible.
“Then I’ll soon find out.” I looked at Jaimie. “Coming?”
She shook her head. She liked to play by the rules, but it is getting a good story, there were no rules.
“Then no doubt I’ll see you later.”
…
I walked slowly towards the main entrance, but my intention was to do a circuit of the cathedral and see how many entrances there were, and if I could gain entrance by one of them, acting like a routine might so as not to arouse suspicion.
After a few minutes, I realized just how large the cathedral was, having only been inside once; to attend the wedding ceremony for one of my uncles and then it had seemed small when compared to Westminster Abbey.
In the end, I found an unexpected obstruction, a fence between the walkway from the church, most likely the cloisters, to where the clergy lived, and the gardens alongside the cathedral.
There was a gate. I walked across the grass, and by the time I reached it, it swung open, and Jaimie popped her head out.
“Come on, before anyone sees you?”
“How did you get in there?”
“Simple. Did you try the front door?”
“I assumed it would be locked.”
“It wasn’t. Then I guessed you’d been right here, after watching you leave “
She closed the gate. “Quick, before someone comes.”
She walked quickly back to, and into the church through what might literally be the back door, but more likely how the priests came and went.
Once inside, she led the way through the back room where a variety of vestments were hanging, out into the church, across the front of the altar to the other side where there was an archway, and steps leading down to a lower level, presumably where the statue was located.
“And you know this is the way to the statue because…” The moment I asked, I knew the answer. It was a dumb question.
“My parents had a viewing and brought us, kids, along. At the time I thought it was a funny-looking wood statue.” She spoke quietly because the acoustics for sound at this end of the cathedral was amazing.
You could probably hear a pin drop on the other side.
Then, she added, “It’s down in the basement. They build a special room with all the environmental procedures built-in. Been here for a long time.”
I followed her down to the bottom of the stairs, considerably more steps than the usual floor to floor level in a modern building, and the moment we came through the arch, the temperature dropped ten or more degrees, and I shuddered.
I had a strange feeling of unease, that something bad had happened here.
The light was very poor, perhaps because of the environment, but across the room I could see a glass-fronted space with a statue in the middle on a base, with lights shining upwards, giving it a strange hue. To one side there seemed to be someone kneeling, as if in prayer.
Jaimie started walking towards the statue, slowly, as if she had been mesmerized by it.
I followed, but headed towards the kneeling figure, stopping just short.
Jaimie had stopped in front of the statue, staring at it.
The next second the kneeling figure jumped up and grabbed Jaimie and dragged her away, telling me, “get away from here, back to the stairs, and don’t look at the statue under any circumstances.”
By the time we reached the archway, he had sufficiently shaken Jaimie back to life, although she sounded confused, and dazed.
“What just happened?”
“You looked at the statue. How did you get down here, past the guards?”
“There are no guards upstairs,” I said. “Though we did come around the back way.”
“You two get out of here now, and I’ll overlook this transgression. Do not mention anything you’ve just seen or heard, or God will, quite literally, smite you down.”
“Through the statue?” I thought it a bit far-fetched.
“The cleaner prayed for a miracle. She got one. That statue now has some sort of power. Now, you never heard that, and you cannot use it in a story or it will create panic. I can tell you are reporters. Just stick to the official handout.”
“What about the cleaner, she’s already told a lot of people.”
“She’s dead. Her story has already been refuted. Go, now. I’m relying on your common sense.”
…
Outside back in the sunshine, we stopped before going back to Joey, who was still standing by the gate.
“What just happened?” Jaimie asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why are we standing here. I don’t remember coming here.”
“We were in the church?”
“No. Who are you, by the way. I haven’t seen you before.”
I looked at the alternating blank, inquisitive face trying to see if she was playing a joke on me.
Amelia Benton, nee Fosdyke had worked very hard to get where she was. Becoming a star didn’t happen overnight, as much as the fan magazines would have it, because one star performance had to be followed by another, and another.
It meant you had to be lucky enough to get that call, the one that ensures you get a role that was a plum, or it was written for you.
It also meant playing the game, trying to not rock the boat or push too hard, realizing that extra straw some demanded would break the proverbial camel’s back.
And with the successes came favors, cards she could play at the appropriate time.
She used one of one of these to help her brother, Oliver, a budding scriptwriter, who, she was assured, had talent, and a reasonable script.
It was, for her, a leap of faith.
But there was only one problem. Oliver could be a pedantic pain in the neck, and after being given a miraculous first chance. He was burning bridges and causing grief.
It was why she called him, and, in the end, demanded his presence. Or else. And she still held enough sway over him to ensure his obedience.
She was reading her latest script when her personal assistant ushered him into the room, making him wait until she finished the scene.
Then putting the script to one side she glared at him. Being older, she had often been left to mind him and had established a form of authority which earned until he was older, and some idiosyncrasies set in, making him harder to contend with.
Burning bridges and being haughty were two recent traits that ordinarily she would ignore, but it was impacting her reputation.
Time to fire the first salvo, “Just what the hell are you playing at?”
He stood before her, a truculent expression on his face. He was still bristling from the rebuke served by his assistant, a wise-ass boy named David.
“I just got a call from the front office telling me Joachim is up there with chiefs discussing your role in the delays to production. It might not be all your fault Oliver, but you could try to be less confrontational.”
“They keep asking for idiotic changes, I mean, seriously, how do you work with these people?”
“A few lines here and there, I’m told. Seriously, Oliver? I get you this opportunity and how do you repay me. This is my neck on the line, not only yours and if Joachim can’t save you, I definitely won’t. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”
He nodded. “I am not ungrateful Amelia, believe me. I just didn’t expect…”
“Nothing in this business makes sense Oliver, and yet, after a while, you find that it does. You’re new and inexperienced in the industry. Get some experience and a few years in, and maybe then you can complain. Until then, I don’t expect any more issues.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Oliver. Save them for the people who matter. Now, you better get back back to your meeting.”
Job done, she went back to the script.
Oliver stomped back to his office, more annoyed than ever.
The meeting was not exactly a humiliation, the script changes were not exactly a surprise to him because, as David had said, they’d already been discussed.
But he had dismissed them. What was wrong with the lines as originally written. He knew that the two leads when rehearsing the lines had twisted the words hence the sniggering at the end of the scene.
The director should have exercised more control over his actors, more control in fact over the whole cast. He understood why his sister would be concerned, given her connections.
But he wasn’t going to be told what to do. And, as for that wise-ass David, changing his script without permission, or consultation, even of it appeased the director, well, he was going to get what he deserved.
The director took him aside at the end, though, that was unexpected. Oliver had been sufficiently fired up that had he seen David right after the meeting, he might have said some very regrettable things.
Now, having time to simmer down, he was starting to have second thoughts. His sister hadn’t said as much, but like other occasions where pride had got in the way, she hadn’t been there to save him from himself.
Just then, David poked his head in the door. “You wanted to see me?”
Oliver could clearly see the boy wanted to be anywhere nut in his office. “Come in and shut the door.”
David came in, reluctantly, shut the door, and moved the seat back away from him before he sat.
“You do realize,” Oliver said, “that you were not hired as a writer. In fact, I’m not quite sure what you were hired for.”
“Yes.” Wary.
“Then why would you make those changes.”
“It’s what you would have done. You talked about it with the director and the actors involved. I was there, and I saw the script annotations. The director wasn’t happy, and I want to keep this job and learn.”
“Irritating superiors is not the way to go about that.”
“Not my intention. You just temporarily lost sight of the end result. It in no way changes anything. You were about to get removed, by the way, and that would have been wrong. Call it what you like Mr. Fosdyke, but you’ve been handed a reprieve. You can yell at me if you like, but it won’t change anything. I’ll still be here. Better though, if we got along, and after all, I’m sure you could teach me a lot about writing a really good script.”
He could, though he could never see himself as a teacher. And this fellow was a bit presumptuous. But he hadn’t done anything he wouldn’t have done himself, so no harm done. A small price for a few lessons.
“OK. But don’t let it go to your head.”
David looked visibly relieved. “Can I go now?”
“No. We have a few additions to do.”
“Done. They’re annotations in your master. As I said, nothing you hadn’t already thought of.”
“I threw that script away.”
“I know. It was a mistake, so I kept it. It has a couple of other good ideas in it. I suggest you consider them. Now. I gave to go. See you early tomorrow.”
Oliver watched him leave, a little faster than he should, then laughed. Impertinent. He’ll probably go a long way in this business.
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…
Once out of the elevator I could see another security desk halfway up the corridor. There were no doors before the desk, only after, so my destination was past the desk.
I pulled out my card in readiness, and as I approached, a woman came out of a door behind the desk and joined the security guard.
She spoke to the guard, then looked at me. “My name is Joanne, I have been assigned to help you, and in accordance with security measures in place on the floor, I will be accompanying you. One of the conditions of access is to not be anywhere on your own.”
“Except in the restroom, I hope.”
A momentary frown, “Common sense applies, you know.”
OK, try not to be flippant.
She handed me a form, I read it, ticked several boxes, and signed it. I gave the guard my card and he scanned it. Logging my movements, was not unexpected. Having a shadow was.
But, there was nothing I was going to look at, that I didn’t want anyone not to know about.
“Good,”: she said when I handed the form back. She in turn passed it to the guard, then said, “Follow me.”
A gate opened to let me through, then jolted shit behind me. Either the mechanism was broken, or the thud was just to remind people going through it, it was not a toy.
We went three doors up the corridor where she stopped, opened the door, and ushered me in.
It was a reasonable-sized room with a desk, a computer with three screens, and two chairs, one I guess for me, and one for her.
We sat.
I thought I’d ask a couple of questions first. “Do you always look after incoming researchers?”
“Yes.”
“And when there is none?”
“I work in with the research team, creating or updating breeding papers for agents in the field.”
“Do agents normally come in to look stuff up?”
“No. Generally, they request it through secure channels.”
“Secure channels?”
“Usually, one of our consulates or embassies scattered all over the world.”
Good to remember.
“You’re just going to sit there?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged. So be it.
I logged in and typed in Severin’s original name David Westcott.
The search engine brought back over a million hits, the first dozen relating to a violinist who seemed to be having a relationship and drug problems.
To narrow that search down, I added ‘Military service” in the hope that he may have been in the military before joining the intelligence services.
He was. I did the same for Bernie Salvin and found the two of them had served roughly at the same time, in the same places, and were among the last people out in 2014.
When I added “Intelligence” to the search, the computer sent me on a side mission, bringing up documents relating to both men’s service in various branches of the intelligence services, for 5 years, after which it seemed they had just up and left, their service sheet marked ‘retired’, which could have meant anything, but I think it was a euphemism for ‘dead’.
I thought about asking my shadow, but that would lead to too many other questions that I didn’t want to answer. As it was, I could see she was very interested in the two names I’d just searched on.
It explained how both men were so knowledgeable about the operations and facilities. A quick search on the training facility we had used showed it had been closed, and abandoned, 6 years before. I’d always thought it had that abandoned feel about it, and we were using it for the atmosphere value.
Then came searches on Severin and Maury and Arche Laboratories, and that too brought up the Security profiles of both men, but their prior history had been manufactured, though no doubt based on their real experience, being in the military in Afghanistan, and in a branch of the intelligence services, though not mentioning the specifics.
There was information on several security breaches and the computer systems being hacked reportedly by a foreign country, but nothing had been taken, a story perhaps to allay the fears of people who might think dangerous material might have fallen into the wrong hands.
At the very least, it was reported the facility would be shut down, due to its age and everyone being reassigned to a new more secure facility. The fact Severin and Maury didn’t transfer told me they had either been caught, or they ad jumped before the fingers of accusation were pointed at them. Either way, both had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Until I and others have become their unwitting recruits.
Everything O’Connell said was true, and it was all there, so Dobbin was as well versed on the pair as I now was. And, now I had some background before I met Severin later in the day.
When Joanne finally plucked up the courage to ask me about my searches, I told her I had been reading up on a lot of old laboratories that used to contract government research and had narrowed the place where the information came from to several candidates and struck it luck the first search. Arche Laboratories.
Previously I had got a list of the security staff from half a dozen labs that had closed unexpectedly, looking for possible matches to Severin and Maury, because I thought they would have a military and intelligence background, but the two I’d used, didn’t seem to fir the profile. Their photographs, those that were posted for Arche Laboratories looked nothing like the Severin and Maury today, but I’d expected that.
She didn’t need to know that and looked satisfied with my answers.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 