Tag: #amwriting

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

An excerpt from “The Devil You Don’t”

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

 

By the time I returned to the Savoie, the rain had finally stopped, and there was a streak of blue sky to offer some hope the day would improve.

The ship was not crowded, the possibility of bad weather perhaps holding back potential passengers.  Of those I saw, a number of them would be aboard for the lunch by Phillippe Chevrier.  I thought about it, but the Concierge had told me about several restaurants in Yvoire and had given me a hand-drawn map of the village.  I think he came from the area because he spoke with the pride and knowledge of a resident.

I was looking down from the upper deck observing the last of the boarding passengers when I saw a woman, notable for her red coat and matching shoes, making a last-minute dash to get on board just before the gangway was removed.  In fact, her ungainly manner of boarding had also captured a few of the other passenger’s attention.  Now they would have something else to talk about, other than the possibility of further rain.

I saw her smile at the deckhand, but he did not smile back.  He was not impressed with her bravado, perhaps because of possible injury.  He looked at her ticket then nodded dismissively, and went back to his duties in getting the ship underway.  I was going to check the departure time, but I, like the other passengers, had my attention diverted to the woman in red.

From what I could see there was something about her.  It struck me when the light caught her as she turned to look down the deck, giving me a perfect profile.  I was going to say she looked foreign, but here, as in almost anywhere in Europe, that described just about everyone.  Perhaps I was just comparing her to Phillipa, so definitively British, whereas this woman was very definitely not.

She was perhaps in her 30’s, slim or perhaps the word I’d use was lissom, and had the look and manner of a model.  I say that because Phillipa had dragged me to most of the showings, whether in Milan, Rome, New York, London, or Paris.  The clothes were familiar, and in the back of my mind, I had a feeling I’d seen her before.

Or perhaps, to me, all models looked the same.

She looked up in my direction, and before I could divert my eyes, she locked on.  I could feel her gaze boring into me, and then it was gone as if she had been looking straight through me.  I remained out on deck as the ship got underway, watching her disappear inside the cabin.  My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to keep an eye out for her.

I could feel the coolness of the air as the ship picked up speed, not that it was going to be very fast.  With stops, the trip would take nearly two hours to get to my destination.  It would turn back almost immediately, but I was going to stay until the evening when it returned at about half eight.  It would give me enough time to sample the local fare, and take a tour of the medieval village.

Few other passengers ventured out on the deck, most staying inside or going to lunch.  After a short time, I came back down to the main deck and headed forward.  I wanted to clear my head by concentrating on the movement of the vessel through the water, breathing in the crisp, clean air, and let the peacefulness of the surroundings envelope me.

It didn’t work.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started thinking about why things hadn’t worked, and what part I played in it.  And the usual question that came to mind when something didn’t work out.  What was wrong with me?

I usually blamed it on my upbringing.

I had one of those so-called privileged lives, a nanny till I was old enough to go to boarding school, then sent to the best schools in the land.  There I learned everything I needed to be the son of a Duke, or, as my father called it in one of his lighter moments, nobility in waiting.

Had this been five or six hundred years ago, I would need to have sword and jousting skills, or if it had been a few hundred years later a keen military mind.  If nothing else I could ride a horse, and go on hunts, or did until they became not the thing to do.

I learned six languages, and everything I needed to become a diplomat in the far-flung British Empire, except the Empire had become the Commonwealth, and then, when no-one was looking, Britain’s influence in the world finally disappeared.  I was a man without a cause, without a vocation, and no place to go.

Computers were the new vogue and I had an aptitude for programming.  I guess that went hand in hand with mathematics, which although I hated the subject, I excelled in.  Both I and another noble outcast used to toss ideas around in school, but when it came to the end of our education, he chose to enter the public service, and I took a few of those ideas we had mulled over and turned them into a company.

About a year ago, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse.  There were so many zeroes on the end of it I just said yes, put the money into a very grateful bank, and was still trying to come to terms with it.

Sadly, I still had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.  My parents had asked me to come back home and help manage the estate, and I did for a few weeks.  It was as long as it took for my parents to drive me insane.

Back in the city, I spent a few months looking for a mundane job, but there were very few that suited the qualifications I had, and the rest, I think I intimidated the interviewer simply because of who I was.  In that time I’d also featured on the cover of the Economist, and through my well-meaning accountant, started involving myself with various charities, earning the title ‘philanthropist’.

And despite all of this exposure, even making one of those ubiquitous ‘eligible bachelor’ lists, I still could not find ‘the one’, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  Phillipa seemed to fit the bill, but in time she proved to be a troubled soul with ‘Daddy’ issues.  I knew that in building a relationship compromise was necessary, but with her, in the end, everything was a compromise and what had happened was always going to be the end result.

It was perhaps a by-product of the whole nobility thing.  There was a certain expectation I had to fulfill, to my peers, contemporaries, parents and family, and those who either liked or hated what it represented.  The problem was, I didn’t feel like I belonged.  Not like my friend from schooldays, and now obscure acquaintance, Sebastian.  He had been elevated to his Dukedom early when his father died when he was in his twenties.  He had managed to fade from the limelight and was rarely mentioned either in the papers or the gossip columns.  He was one of the lucky ones.

I had managed to keep a similarly low profile until I met Phillipa.  From that moment, my obscurity disappeared.  It was, I could see now, part of a plan put in place by Phillipa’s father, a man who hogged the limelight with his daughter, to raise the profile of the family name and through it their businesses.  He was nothing if not the consummate self-advertisement.

Perhaps I was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle, the attachment to the establishment, that link with a class of people he would not normally get in the front door.  There was nothing refined about him or his family, and more than once I’d noticed my contemporaries cringe at the mention of his name, or any reference of my association with him.

Yet could I truthfully say I really wanted to go back to the obscurity I had before Phillipa?  For all her faults, there were times when she had been fun to be with, particularly when I first met her when she had a certain air of unpredictability.  That had slowly disappeared as she became part of her father’s plan for the future.  She just failed to see how much he was using her.

Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.

I thought about calling her.  It was one of those moments of weakness when I felt alone, more alone than usual.

I diverted my attention back to my surroundings and the shoreline.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman in the red coat, making a move.  The red coat was like a beacon, a sort of fire engine red.  It was not the sort of coat most of the women I knew would wear, but on her, it looked terrific.  In fact, her sublime beauty was the one other attribute that was distinctly noticeable, along with the fact her hair was short, rather than long, and jet black.

I had to wrench my attention away from her.

A few minutes later several other passengers came out of the cabin for a walk around the deck, perhaps to get some exercise, perhaps checking up on me, or perhaps I was being paranoid.  I waited till they passed on their way forward, and I turned and headed aft.

I watched the wake sluicing out from under the stern for a few minutes, before retracing my steps to the front of the ship and there I stood against the railing, watching the bow carve its way through the water.  It was almost mesmerizing.  There, I emptied my mind of thoughts about Phillipa, and thoughts about the woman in the red coat.

Until a female voice behind me said, “Having a bad day?”

I started, caught by surprise, and slowly turned.  The woman in the red coat had somehow got very close me without my realizing it.  How did she do that?  I was so surprised I couldn’t answer immediately.

“I do hope you are not contemplating jumping.  I hear the water is very cold.”

Closer up, I could see what I’d missed when I saw her on the main deck.  There was a slight hint of Chinese, or Oriental, in her particularly around the eyes, and of her hair which was jet black.  An ancestor twice or more removed had left their mark, not in a dominant way, but more subtle, and easily missed except from a very short distance away, like now.

Other than that, she was quite possibly Eastern European, perhaps Russian, though that covered a lot of territory.  The incongruity of it was that she spoke with an American accent, and fluent enough for me to believe English was her first language.

Usually, I could ‘read’ people, but she was a clean slate.  Her expression was one of amusement, but with cold eyes.  My first thought, then, was to be careful.

“No.  Not yet.”  I coughed to clear my throat because I could hardly speak.  And blushed, because that was what I did when confronted by a woman, beautiful or otherwise.

The amusement gave way to a hint of a smile that brightened her demeanor as a little warmth reached her eyes.  “So that’s a maybe.  Should I change into my lifesaving gear, just in case?”

It conjured up a rather interesting image in my mind until I reluctantly dismissed it.

“Perhaps I should move away from the edge,” I said, moving sideways until I was back on the main deck, a few feet further away.  Her eyes had followed me, and when I stopped she turned to face me again.  She did not move closer.

I realized then she had removed her beret and it was in her left side coat pocket.  “Thanks for your concern …?”

“Zoe.”

“Thanks for your concern, Zoe.  By the way, my name is John.”

She smiled again, perhaps in an attempt to put me at ease.  “I saw you earlier, you looked so sad, I thought …”

“I might throw myself overboard?”

“An idiotic notion I admit, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”

Then she tilted her head to one side then the other, looking intently at me.  “You seem to be familiar.  Do I know you?”

I tried to think of where I may have seen her before, but all I could remember was what I’d thought earlier when I first saw her; she was a model and had been at one of the showings.  If she was, it would be more likely she would remember Phillipa, not me.  Phillipa always had to sit in the front row.

“Probably not.”  I also didn’t mention the fact she may have seen my picture in the society pages of several tabloid newspapers because she didn’t look the sort of woman who needed a daily dose of the comings and goings, and, more often than not, scandal associated with so-called celebrities.

She gave me a look, one that told me she had just realized who I was.  “Yes, I remember now.  You made the front cover of the Economist.  You sold your company for a small fortune.”

Of course.  She was not the first who had recognized me from that cover.  It had raised my profile considerably, but not the Sternhaven’s.  That article had not mentioned Phillipa or her family.  I suspect Grandmother had something to do with that, and it was, now I thought about it, another nail in the coffin that was my relationship with Phillipa.

“I wouldn’t say it was a fortune, small or otherwise, just fortunate.”  Each time, I found myself playing down the wealth aspect of the business deal.

“Perhaps then, as the journalist wrote, you were lucky.  It is not, I think, a good time for internet-based companies.”

The latter statement was an interesting fact, one she read in the Financial Times which had made that exact comment recently.

“But I am boring you.”  She smiled again.  “I should be minding my own business and leaving you to your thoughts.  I am sorry.”

She turned to leave and took a few steps towards the main cabin.

“You’re not boring me,” I said, thinking I was letting my paranoia get the better of me.  It had been Sebastian on learning of my good fortune, who had warned me against ‘a certain element here and abroad’ whose sole aim would be to separate me from my money.  He was not very subtle when he described their methods.

But I knew he was right.  I should have let her walk away.

She stopped and turned around.  “You seem nothing like the man I read about in the Economist.”

A sudden and awful thought popped into my head.  Those words were part of a very familiar opening gambit.  “Are you a reporter?”

I was not sure if she looked surprised, or amused.  “Do I look like one?”

I silently cursed myself for speaking before thinking, and then immediately ignored my own admonishment.  “People rarely look like what they are.”

I saw the subtle shake of the head and expected her to take her leave.  Instead she astonished me.

“I fear we have got off on the wrong foot.  To be honest, I’m not usually this forward, but you seemed like you needed cheering up when probably the opposite is true.  Aside from the fact this excursion was probably a bad idea.  And,” she added with a little shrug, “perhaps I talk too much.”

I was not sure what I thought of her after that extraordinary admission. It was not something I would do, but it was an interesting way to approach someone and have them ignoring their natural instinct.  I would let Sebastian whisper in my ear for a little longer and see where this was going.

“Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.  I was supposed to be traveling with my prospective bride.  I think you can imagine how that turned out.”

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

“She’s in the cabin?”  Her eyes strayed in that direction for a moment then came back to me.  She seemed surprised I might be traveling with someone.

“No.  She is back in England, and the wedding is off.  So is the relationship.  She dumped me by text.”

OK, why was I sharing this humiliating piece of information with her?  I still couldn’t be sure she was not a reporter.

She motioned to an empty seat, back from the edge.  No walking the plank today.  She moved towards it and sat down.  She showed no signs of being cold, nor interested in the breeze upsetting her hair.  Phillipa would be having a tantrum about now, being kept outside, and freaking out over what the breeze might be doing to her appearance.

I wondered, if only for a few seconds if she used this approach with anyone else.  I guess I was a little different, a seemingly rich businessman alone on a ferry on Lake Geneva, contemplating the way his life had gone so completely off track.

She watched as I sat at the other end of the bench, leaving about a yard between us.  After I leaned back and made myself as comfortable as I could, she said, “I have also experienced something similar, though not by text message.  It is difficult, the first few days.”

“I saw it coming.”

“I did not.”  She frowned, a sort of lifeless expression taking over, perhaps brought on by the memory of what had happened to her.  “But it is done, and I moved on.  Was she the love of your life?”

OK, that was unexpected.

When I didn’t answer, she said, “I am sorry.  Sometimes I ask personal questions without realizing what I’m doing.  It is none of my business.”  She shivered.  “Perhaps we should go back inside.”

She stood, and held out her hand.  Should I take it and be drawn into her web?  I thought of Sebastian.  What would he do in this situation?

I took her hand in mine and let her pull me gently to my feet.  “Wise choice,” she said, looking up at the sky.

It just started to rain.

 

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newdevilcvr6

In a word: Holiday

Some call time off from work whether it is for a day, a few days, and couple of weeks, or maybe longer, a holiday.

Or leave, leave of absence, annual leave, or long service leave.

Others may call it vacation.

It depends on what part of the world you live in.

But the end result is the same, you do not go to work, so you stay home and do all those things that have mounted up, you drive up, and for some reason it is always up, to the cabin, for a little hunting shooting a fishing, or you get on a planr or a ship and try to get as far away from home and work as possible.

That’s called going overseas. It seems if there is an ocean between w there you go and where you live, no one will be able to disturb you.

Sorry, I bet you didn’t leave that mobile phone or iPad home did you?

But, of course there are a few other obscure references to the word holiday.

For instance,

It can be a day set aside to commemorate an event or a person, a day when you are not expected to work, e.g. Memorial Day, Christmas Day, Good Friday. In Britain they used to be called Bank Holidays.

It can be a specified period that you may be excused from completing a task, or doing something such as getting a one year tax exemption, which maifh also be called a one year tax holiday.

Yes, now that is an obscure reference, particularly when no tax department would ever grant anyone an exemption of any sort.

Endless flight – a short story

It had been billed as the longest commercial flight in the world.  London to Sydney.

Previous times it had been flown, it was devoid of passengers and cargo, except for a few reporters and airline staff; not more than about 20.

The plane, state of the art, was capable of flying twenty-one hours straight.  We would only need Nineteen and a half.  It was the first flight of its kind, and we were the first to participate in what was being touted as history-making.

I was on board only because I’d won a competition.  To be honest, I couldn’t believe my luck.

I guess it was the same for the other 287 of us on board.  With baggage and cargo included, oh, and not forgetting fuel, I guess our biggest concern was getting off the ground.

It wasn’t long before that fear had been dispelled, though for a moment more than one of us thought we might not get into the air.  There were collective sighs of relief when we finally lurched into the air.

Once the seat belt sign went off, the First Officer spoke to the passengers, more or less telling us we were going to make history and to sit back and enjoy the in-flight service.

I guess it was ironic that as someone who didn’t like flying I was in this plane.  The thing is, I didn’t expect to win the competition.  But, I was on board for the experience and was going to make the most of it.  I’d brought half a dozen crossword books.

I woke from an uneasy sleep about two hours before I e plane was due to land.  The cabin lights had come on, and breakfast was about to be served.

Everyone else was in varying states of awareness.  Some hadn’t slept at all, which was what usually happened to me, and they looked like I felt.  Bleary-eyed and half awake.

I looked at the flight path in the headrest in front of me, and it said we had about an hour and fifty minutes, and from the outset, precisely on time.  We’d had headwinds and tailwinds but neither had any lasting effect on our arrival time.

Something else did.  After breakfast had been cleared away, and we were all getting ready for the last hour of the flight, word came through from the flight deck that we had to go into a holding pattern due to a problem on the ground.

The first question on everyone’s mind, did we have enough fuel.  The Captain, this time, allayed that fear.

But, I was sitting over the wing where I could see the engine.  I was not an expert but I thought I’d heard a murmur, the sort an engine made where the fuel supply was running out.

Perhaps not.  Perhaps it was my overwrought imagination after not enough proper sleep.

Another half-hour passed, and I could feel a change in the plane’s flight.  I was now listening and waiting and interpreting.  The Captain said the problem was resolved and we were cleared to land.

That’s when the engine outside my window stuttered, if only for a fraction of a second.

Fortunately, we were well into our descent, and I could see the ground below.  Now, going through some low cloud, the ride became bumpy, and I was sure it was covering the more frequent stuttering of the engine, and once, I was not the only one to hear it.

As the wheels went down and clunked into place, I think the engine stopped, though I couldn’t be sure, because there was little or no change in the plane’s flight other than a slight change in the plane’s speed but not its rate of descent, and none of us would have been any wiser had the pilot, in his usual calm manner, not told us there was a small problem with one of the engines but there was no problem with landing, and we would be on the ground in ten minutes.

In fact, the landing was, as any other I’d been on, flawless, even though I was sure I heard a slight stutter in the other ending, but by that time we were on the ground.

The only difference between this and any other landing was the accompaniment of several emergency services trucks, and the fact we were not going to a gate.  Instead, we were taken to a bay not far from the runways, and then calmly taken off the plane.

From the ground, just before being loaded onto a bus, I could see the plane, and it looked the same as it had any other time.

What did bother me was several words spoken by what looked to be an engineer.  He said, “That plane was literally flying on vapor.  What you’re seeing is 228 of the luckiest people in the world.”

If ever there was an excuse to buy a lottery ticket…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

“Because it’s not me” – a short story

If the was one fault I had, it was prevarication.

For a long time, I had always been afraid of making a mistake, after I had done exactly that.  They said our mistakes didn’t define us, but that one had.  I had lost the trust of everyone, from my parents to friends.

It was only a small lie, or so I told myself, but it had far-reaching ramifications, and almost cost someone their life.  But whilst I believed it was not all that bad, and the police had agreed that anyone who had been put in the same position would have done the same, there were those who didn’t agree.

It was a moment in time I often relived in my mind, over and over, and eventually led to several outcomes.

The first, I left home, the town where up till then I’d lived all of my life, walking away from family and those who used to be friends, knowing that what they said and what they felt were two entirely different things.  For all concerned, it was better that I left, cutting all ties, and make a fresh start, away from those whom I knew would never forget, even though they forgave me.

The second, and most dire, I changed my name, and my history, even how I looked.  Today, I was a very different person to that of thirty years ago.

The third, I moved to another country and vowed never to return, always looking constantly over my shoulder, expecting someone from the past to find me.  I instinctively knew that I would never escape, that one day a stark reminder would come back and destroy everything.

I picked the one occupation that would keep me both occupied and invisible.

Journalist.

I had started at the bottom, literally writing death notices, and worked my way up to what is ubiquitously known as ‘foreign correspondent’, going to places where no one else would go, those hotbeds of unrest, and war zones, reporting from both sides.

Perhaps it could say I had a death wish, a statement my editor had once said when he came to see me in hospital back in London after I’d been caught up in a rocket attack and repatriated.  He had come to offer me a job back home, to tell me my tour was over.

I declined the opportunity, and he left, shaking his head.

But that was not the only visitor that came to the hospital that day.  The other visitor was an elderly man, immaculately dressed in a pinstripe suit and bowler hat.  It screamed public servant, and the moment I saw him wandering up the passage, a chill ran down my spine.

Although he looked like he was looking for someone else, I knew he would eventually finish up in my doorway.

Five minutes after I first saw him.

When he appeared at the door, I thought about ignoring him, but realized that wasn’t going to change anything.  Besides that, I guess I wanted to know why he would want to see me.

“James Wilson?”

“Would it make any difference if I said no?”  Well, it didn’t mean I couldn’t spar with him, just a little.  “Who are you.”

“Do you mind if I come in?”

I got the impression he would do it anyway, irrespective of what I said.  I said no, and as I suspected he came in anyway, closing the door behind him, then took a minute or two to make himself comfortable in the visitor’s chair, which was an impossible task.

Then, settled, he said, “I understand you have just been repatriated from Syria.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

It wasn’t common knowledge where I’d come from, so this person knew something about me, which was immediate cause for concern.

“The bane of a reporter trying to cover a dangerous situation,” he said, with just the right amount of levity in his tone.  “I get it, by the way.  I once had that devil may care attitude you need to get the story.  I was chasing a Pulitzer, believe it or not, and used a few of those nine lives in the process.  Which one are you up to?”

I was going to say that awards didn’t matter but among those who made up the press pack in those God-forsaken places, there was an unwritten desire to be rewarded other than by pay.  For me, though, it was not a defining factor.

“Lost count.  But why would that interest you, or whoever it is you represent?  By the way, just who do you represent?”

Second attempt at finding out who this man was.  If he was dodging and weaving, it would suggest a clandestine organization.

“People who would like to use your unique talent in getting into trouble spots around the world.  We’re not asking you to come work for us exclusively, rather piggyback on the job that you already do so well.”

An unnamed man from an unnamed organization.  What he was offering wasn’t unheard of, and I had been warned, more than once, that jobs, like he was suggesting, were more often than not offered to people like me.  With that came one line of advice, turn around and run like hell.

But, with nothing to amuse me in hospital, I was curious.  “Doing what exactly?”

The fact his expression changed indicated my response had taken him by surprise.  Perhaps he was used to being told where to go.  Not yet.  I had this fanciful notion in the back of my mind that what he might offer might get me closer to the story.

“Keeping your eyes and ears open.  We’ll tell you what to look for, all you’ll be doing is looking for evidence.  There will be no need to go looking for trouble, if there’s evidence we ask you to report it, if not, no harm done.”

Not so hard.  If that was all it was.  The trouble was, if something sounds simple, which that did, but inevitably, it was going to be anything but.  I’d heard stories and the consequences.

“You’re presuming that my editor will send me back.  He just offered me a job at home.”

“I think both of us know you’re not interested in domesticity.  If he isn’t willing to adhere to your wishes, I’m sure we could find someone else who would be willing to take you on.  You have had several offers recently, have you not?”

So, without a doubt, he knew a lot about me, especially if he asked around.  I had had several offers, but I was happy where I was.  I liked the no questions about your past that my current employer had promised.

Yes, looking at the determination on this man’s face, I had no doubt they or he could do what he said.  No one comes to a meeting like this without holding all the cards.  Also, not that I wanted it to be so, It told me that my agreement was not necessarily going to be optional.

But I was happy to dither and find out.  “Since I’m not sure when the hospital is going to discharge me, and the fact I’m not exactly very mobile at the moment, can I consider the proposal.  Right now, as you can imagine, getting back to work is not exactly a priority.”

“Of course.”  He took a card out of his coat pocket and put it on the bedside table.  “By all means.  Call me on that number when you’ve decided.”

He stood.  “It will be a great opportunity.  Thank you for your time.”

Of course, the two impressions I was left with were, one, he had me mixed up with someone else, and two, that I would never see him again.

It was an impossible task, for me at least, because I did not have a poker face, and could barely carry a lie.  I would be the last person they’d want for the job.

And thinking that, I rolled over, put it out of my mind, and went back to sleep.

© Charles Heath 2021

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 9

…

What just happened?

…

My turn to put him under the spotlight, for a minute, then two.

“There are no optional questions here, Mr. James.”

No, but some needed careful consideration, like throwing the dead pilot under the bus.

“Roy, the pilot, was adding some hours to his fly time, probably looking for a promotion.”

“So it was not a proper sanctioned operation.”

Looking for a scapegoat higher up the food chain.

“You need the commander’s authority to go up, so it was sanctioned.”

“Then this commander could have ordered the pilot to fly into the no-fly zone.”

My thought too, but I wasn’t going to fuel his suspicions.

“For what reason, after all, it’s not called a no-fly zone just so people can write the words on a map.”

He didn’t reply. I had thought he might tell me he was the one asking the questions.

He let me stew for a few more minutes, then, “You don’t seem to know much about anything Mr. James, whereas we know a lot about you.”

The ‘you’ he was referring to wasn’t just me, but our whole operation and what we were doing, which, of course, I wasn’t privy to. Did we have a spy in our midst?

“One more time, Mr James, can you tell me what the helicopter was doing in the no-fly zone?”

It was accompanied by another of those smiles, all-knowing perhaps, or trying to make me believe he did. But the bottom line was, if he did, he was not going to tell me.

Instead, the smile turned to a scowl. “I do not believe you are as uninformed as you say you are so I suggest most strongly that you give up this appearance of innocence. I shall ask once more Mr. James, and if you are not forthcoming, the matter will be out of my hands. I assure you, you will not like the alternative.”

I was sure I wouldn’t like the alternative.

“The answer sadly will still be the same, so if you must, I’m sure I won’t be able to talk you out of it.”

He simply shook his head and left the room, leaving me to ponder what my fate would be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 8

…

Was that a battle of wits?

…

I think I won the battle of wits, or whatever it was.

A few moments later he sat on the other side, pushing the chair back from the table, and me, as a deliberate act.

Distancing.

Besides adopting the speak when spoken to route, I was also adopting that age old modus operandi of not volunteering anything. If they knew anything they would have to tell me what they knew.

So, to begin with, another round of silence.

Then, after a few more minutes, s thin knowing smile, as if he knew everything I’d do before I did. Perhaps he was a psychology professor.

“What we you doing in a no fly zone?”

Well that answered at least two questions right there. We were where we were not supposed to be, and, as a stab in the dark, knowing how good the pilot was, we had deliberately strayed there.

On orders, or curiosity. No, orders.

Reason, suspected enemy or other activity in a designated area being used as cover. Had the Commander known about this and ordered a discreet incursion.

It felt more like a routine operation.

“I was not the pilot. You’d have to ask him, although that might be difficult now he’s dead.”

“The nature of you pre op briefing, then?”

“There wasn’t one, or if there was, I wasn’t included.”

“That would be a violation of regulations would it not?”

“You’d have to ask the military lawyers. I just make up the numbers, and do as I’m told.” I could add more but don’t volunteer information. Let them dig for it.

“Then why were you on board?”

He asked that question as if it was a surprise to him or someone else.

I think at that moment I realised there might be bigger fish that might get fried from this interview. There was an arrangement in place that if the pilot wanted to go up for extra hours, he had to take someone like me along, for situations like that which had happened.

This had been sanctioned by the Commander, but I don’t think it included heading out to hot spots. If this man was from our side, he might be on a witch hunt.

I looked at him in a new light.

This man was trouble of a different sort.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 6

…

Locked up with nowhere to go

…

It looked like a military camp, but the soldiers were not like my captor. They were as I had expected, of foreign origin. The woman driving the pickup was American, and also the last person I’d expect to see in what was quite obviously a military camp.

The pickup stopped with the brakes squealing outside a large wooden building covered in camouflage netting. The man sitting next to me got up, jumped off the end of the vehicle. The woman got out, they exchanged words in quiet voices I could not hear properly, then she walked away.

He walked down the side of the vehicle hitting the metal side quite hard. To wake me up, perhaps.

“Get down Mr. James. I’m not buying the jelly legs anymore.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t been pretending when they picked me up but maybe he knew my condition better than I did. I didn’t think it was worth annoying him.

I slid to the end of the well and dangled my legs over the side then slipped slowly till my feet touched the ground. Aches and pains in my ankles and knees, but they would hold me up.

Time to move on.

He stood beside me. “This way.”

As I surmised, we went into the wooden building, down a narrow passageway for a distance, and, judging by the gentle downward slope and the temperature drop, we were either going into a cave or underground.

A minute, two, then he stopped and opened a door. “Inside.”

I took a deep breath and stepped into the room, expecting to be either shot or worse.

But it was nothing like that. It was just an empty room with a camp stretcher.

The man put his head in the doorway. “Get some rest, Mr. James.”

The door swung shut and I heard the key turn in the lock. This was not a room that could readily be escaped from.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

In a word: needle

…

In the current times, the word needle is very polarising.

Will you have the vaccine, or not.  Is one of the reasons simply because you hate needles?

I know I do and have a fear factor of 100%.  Fortunately, I got very sick a few years ago and spent 10 days in the hospital, and was forced to have multiple needles every day.

Now it’s not so hard

But, I digress.

A needle is one of those things used in the medical profession mainly to deliver vaccines and medicine.  It is a very small cylinder.

A needle can be used to sew up a garment or make repairs.  This is a smallish piece of metal with an eyelet.

A needle can also be used to stitch up wounds, though it’s best you have a local anesthetic first.

Another way of using needles is to describe tiny icicles which hurt when they hit your face or your eyes.  It is called a needle effect.

Then, another use of the word, is to needle someone, that is to say, bombard them with questions, or annoy them.

It’s a pointer on a dial, like that of a fuel gauge, which for me, always seems to hover just above empty.  It can also be on a compass, where heading north is not always clear especially where magnets are nearby.

A fir tree’s leaves are more like needles.

You need one to play a record on a gramophone, not that they exist anymore.

Paradoxically it can also be used to describe a pointy rock or an obelisk-like “Cleopatra’s Needle”

It is also an etching tool.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Part 5

It a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment

Our hero has survived the crash, now he’s stuck in enemy territory.

…

This was supposed to be a milk run.  There had been no reported activity in our zone and the pilot had decided to go up just the log some more air time.

He was hoping after reaching a 1,000 hours so he might be able to move to fixed wing aircraft and then move on to becoming an airline pilot.  Unfortunately, he was not going become anything now.

That didn’t explain why we encountered a convoy out in the desert, especially one with a rocket launcher and English speaking soldier types.

Did we stumble across another outfit running a secret operation and mistook us for the enemy?  It didn’t seem the case, our helicopter was distinctively marked just so we wouldn’t be mistaken, and then there was the fact the man knew my name.

How could that happen?  It would need someone back at the base to tell someone of the fact the helicopter was going up and who was in it, and there weren’t too many people who knew that information.

And only one who knew exactly when and where we would be.  Unless, of course, the pilot had strayed into a no-fly zone.  There was only one that I knew of and it was nowhere near our flight path.  Of course, it wouldn’t take much to bamboozle me in the air because I had no sense of direction.

Unless the pilot had another agenda.  I could hardly tell where we were because desert all looked the same to me, and navigation wasn’t my strongest point.

After the first few miles of very bumpy road, I managed to get into a sitting position and look in the direction we were heading.

More desert.

Ten minutes later I could see an encampment in the distance, literally an oasis in the middle of nowhere.  A secret base camp or something else?

As we got closer I could see it was mostly covered by camouflage so it couldn’t be seen from above. Clever.  Chances were we had no idea this place was in the desert.

Who or what is waiting for him?

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021