I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, 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.
Chasing leads, maybe
When the room was empty and only Richards and I remained, he cut the ties that bound my hands and legs.
“Bad business,” he said.
I sat again, and flexed the muscles that had begun to stiffen up whilst tightly bound.
“I’m assuming you know a woman by the name of Jan?” I said. “She told me she was working for MI6 so I’m assuming you’re her handler.”
“When she chooses to be handled, yes. Jan is just one of her names. She’s currently missing, and I think we now know why?”
“Her work,” I nodded towards the body.
“God no. She’s charged with chasing down leads and then calling the cavalry. We had a tracker on this chap, found him, and had him in a safe facility awaiting interrogation, what we thought was safe at any rate, and Jan and another agent watching over him until the interrogation team arrived. When the interrogation team got there everyone was gone, but with enough blood on the floor to paint a pretty clear picture. Maury had been interrogated and killed there, dumped here, with no indication of the whereabouts of our agents. She told me this guy and another trained you, and others, in rather strange circumstances. A bogus operation. To what end?”
“From what I could tell, a single surveillance operation. Me and a dozen others. Cut loose after it failed, those of us that survived, that is.”
“A lot of effort to achieve nothing.”
“Pity we can’t ask him what it was about?” I looked over at the body. Maury was hardly recognizable. Whoever carried out the interrogation had been either in a hurry or in a bad mood.
“Indeed. She told me this chap called O’Connell was involved. Now so?”
Another rule that popped into my head from the training: never share information with other agencies unless you absolutely had to. I had no doubt if Dobbin was here, he would agree, but he wasn’t.
I wondered if I should tell him she had allegiance to another branch of the secret services, or mention Dobbin.
“He was the surveillance target. We were charged with observing him, but not what he was suspected of. I followed him as far as the exploding shop, got temporarily disorientated after the blast,, but managed to reacquire the target, following him to an alley where I spoke briefly to him before Maury and Severin arrived, and he was shot, apparently killed.”
“Either he was or he wasn’t.”
“The body disappeared. My view is he is still alive, somewhere.”
“That explosion was supposed to be caused by a gas leak.”
“Standard operational doubletalk. A journalist was killed, apparently in the shop waiting for the target. It went up after the target passed, I’m assuming his tradecraft was to check first then go back. Never got a chance. I think now given the circumstances, the journalist was going to hand something off. I’ve been asked a number of times by various people about a USB drive. You know anything about it?”
“This is the first I’m hearing about anything about a USB drive. You know what was on it?”
“Above my pay grade, I was told.”
“OK. What about this Severin character?:
“All I have is a phone number, and that, I think we can both agree, will be a burner.”
“Agreed, but it might be useful.”
I gave it to him and he put it on his phone.
A new team of men in white suits arrived at the door, no doubt MI5 forensic specialists, and two more agents, bigger and tougher, what I would call the muscle.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come back to the office to answer a few more questions. It’s not custody, but mandatory co-operation.”
“And if I refuse?”
“It might make their day if you know what I mean.”
I shrugged. One I might be able to take, but not the both of them. And they both looked like they would be happy to teach me the error of my ways if I tried to escape/
“That won’t be necessary. I’m taking him with me.”
“Dobbin just came to the door, flashing an MI6 warrant card.
“I’ve been charged with cleaning this mess up.”
“And so you shall, but not including this agent. Orders from above, reasons why, as they say, are above your pay grade.
I suspect the warrant card said Dobbin outranked him. Did our people have fake MI6 IDs?
“This is highly irregular.”
“Call your boss, if you don’t like it. I can wait.”
I could see the reluctance in his face.
He glared at me. “Go, but don’t go too far. I still might get clearance to have another chat.”
John has found Zoe after playing a little cat and mouse in the streets near the hotel. Back at the hotel, they just get back to the room when a member of Worthington’s hit team arrives and comes off second best.
Of course, the rest are stationed at the obvious exits, and it takes some effort to getaway.
Even that escape is fraught with danger, but with all the cunning she can muster, Zoe makes sure they get back to Vienna.
With Worthington’s hit team hot on their train, a diversion in the main railway station helps aid their departure.
By now, two things are certain:
Worthington is behind the latest attempted hit, and they are both in the firing line, and
John had to decide whether or not he wants a life always looking over his shoulder.
No prizes for guessing his choice!
…
Today’s writing, with John throwing his lot in with Zoe, 2,905 words, for a total of 39,717.
When I first saw it I thought it was an old country estate, converted and expanded into a golf clubhouse.
It wasn’t. It is a purpose-built clubhouse and function center for corporate seminars and wedding receptions, as well as catering to the golfer, and golf tournaments.
It also has a very good outlook over the golf course.
But, in my writer’s mind, this will provide inspiration for a story that could be set in a large country house, with the central tower and lookout featuring in what might be a grisly death, and a group of guests who have gathered together to enact a mock murder that turns out to be very real.
Yes, the idea has been done to death over many many years, but I have a few new twists in mind.
I had hoped by the time I was promoted to assistant manager it might mean something other than long hours and an increase in pay.
It didn’t.
But unlike others who had taken the job, and eventually become jaded and left, I stayed. Something I realized that others seemed to either ignore or just didn’t understand, this was a company that rewarded loyalty.
It was why there were quite a few who had served 30 years or more. They might not reach the top job, but they certainly well looked after.
I had a long way to go, having been there only 8 years, and according to some, on a fast track. I was not sure how I would describe this so-called ‘fast track’ other than being in the right place at the right time and making a judicial selection.
When it was my turn to be promoted, I had a choice of a plum department, or one most of my contemporaries had passed over. At the time, the words of my previous manager sprang to mind, that being a manager for the most sought after department or the least sought after, came with exactly the same privileges.
And, he was right. I took the least sought after, much to their disdain and disapproval. One year on, that disapproval had turned almost to envy; that was when the Assistant Managers were granted a new privilege, tea, and lunch in the executive dining room.
“So, what’s it like?” John asked, when our group met on a Friday night, this the first after the privilege was granted.
He had been one of the three, including me, who had the opportunity to take the role. Both he and Alistair had both declined, prepared to wait for a more prestigious department. It hadn’t happened to them yet.
“The same as the staff dining room, only smaller. Except, I guess, the waitstaff and butler. They come and serve you when you have to go to them in the staff room. They’re the same staff, by the way, except for the butler.”
I could see the awe, or was it envy, in their eyes. “but it’s not that great. The Assistant Managers all sit at one end of the table, and we’re not part of the main group, so no sharing of information I’m afraid. And the meals are the same, just served on fancier crockery.”
“Then nothing to write home about?” Will was one of those who they also thought to be on a ‘fast track’. I was still trying to see how my ‘fast track’ was actually that fast.
“Put it this way, the extra pay doesn’t offset the long hours because you get overtime, I don’t, so on a good week, you’d all be earning more than me. Without responsibility, if anything goes wrong. I think that’s why Assistant Managers were created, to take the blame when anything goes wrong.”
That had been the hardest pill to swallow. Until I got the role, I hadn’t realized what it really involved. Nor had the others, and it was not something we could whinge about. My first-day introductory speech from Tomkins, my Manager, was all about taking responsibility, and how I was there to make his life easier. It was a speech he made a few times because he’d been Manager for the last 16 years, much the same as the others, and promotion if ever, would come when they died.
And Manager’s rarely died, because of their Assistant Managers.
“How old is Tomkins now?” Bert, a relative newcomer to our group, asked. He was still in the ‘in awe’ phase.
“About the same as Father Time,” I said. “But the reality is, no one knows, except perhaps for the personnel manager.” O looked over at Wally, the Personnel Department’s Assistant Manager. “Any chance of you telling us?”
“No. You know I can’t.”
“But you know?” I asked.
“Of course, but you know the rules. That’s confidential information. Not like what you are the custodian of, information everyone needs.”
Which, of course, was true. Communication and Secretarial Services had no secrets, except for twice a year when the company Bord of Directors met, and we were responsible for all the documents used at their meetings. Then, and only then, was I privy to all the secrets, including promotions. And be asked ‘What’s happening?’.
“Just be content to know that he’s as old as the hills, as most of them. It seems to me that one of the pre-requisites for managership is that you have been employed here for 30 years.”
Not all, though, I’d noticed, but there wasn’t one under the age of fifty.
And so it would go, the Friday night lament, those ‘in’ the executive, and those who were not quite there yet.
It seemed prophetic, in a sense, that we had been talking about Mangers and their ages. By a quirk of fate, some weeks before, that I learned of Tomkins’s currents state of health via a call on his office phone. At the time he was out, where, he had not told me, but by his the I believed it was something serious, so serious he didn’t want me, or anyone else, to know about it.
That phone call was from his wife, Eleanor, whom I’d met on a number of occasions when she came to take him home from work. I liked her, and couldn’t help but notice she was his exact opposite, Tomkins, silent and at times morose, and Eleanor, the life of the party. I could imagine her being a handful in her younger days, and it was a stark reminder of that old saying ‘opposites attract’.
She was concerned and asked me if he had returned from the specialist. I simply said he had but was elsewhere, and promised to get him to call her when he returned. Then I made a quick call around to see where he was and found that he was in Personnel. I left an innocuous message on his desk, and then let my imagination run wild.
At least for a day or so, the time it took for me to realize that it was probably nothing, the lethargy he’d been showing, gone.
I’d put it out of my mind until my cell phone rang, and it was from the Personnel Manager. On a Sunday, no less. In the few seconds before I answered it, I’d made the assumption that Tomkins’s secretive visits to the specialist meant he needed time off for a routine operation.
Greetings over, O’Reilly, the Personnel Manager, cut straight to the chase, “For your personal information, and not to be repeated, Tomkins will be out of action for about two months, and as that is longer than the standard period, you will become Acting Manager. We’ll talk more about this Tuesday morning.” Monday was a holiday.
All Assistant Managers knew the rules. Any absence of a manager for longer than a month, promotion to Acting Manager. Anything less, you sat in the office, but no change in title. There was one more rule, that in the event of the death of a manager, the assistant manager was immediately promoted to Manager. This had only happened once before. 70 years ago. If a manager retired, then the position of Manager was thrown open to anyone in the organization.
It was an intriguing moment in time.
Tuesday came, and as usual, I went into the office, with only one thought in mind, let the staff in the department know what was happening, of course, the moment I was given the approval to do so by Personnel.
Not a minute after I sat down, the phone rang. I picked it up, gave my name and greeting. It was met with a rather excitable voice of the Assistant Manager, Personnel, “I just got word from on high, you’ve been promoted to manager. How could that possibly happen…”
Then a moment later, as realization set in, “Unless…”
Can you reach a point where you are never satisfied with what you’ve written?
What more can I say?
Looking at the mess constituting my room and my life, slob may have been an appropriate description. I considered myself old, overweight though not necessarily fat, hair graying at the edges, and few wrinkles around the eyes, there were no real pluses in my description.
Some said I had a kindly face, but perhaps I had the look of a paternalistic grandfather. There were several men in the office who were the same age and had grandchildren. And some who had children at a time when they should be planning for retirement, not parenthood.
World-weary and perpetually tired, I’d passed the mid-life crisis, wondering what it was that affected other men my age. Twenty-odd years later, I was still wondering.
I used to think I’d missed a lot in half a lifetime.
Now, I didn’t know what to think.
Did I deserve pity? No.
Did I deserve sympathy? No!
The only person who could get me out of the rut was myself. For years I’d traded on Ellen’s good nature. She deserved better, left me, and was now happier in the arms of a man who I wanted to believe treated her far better than I. She had told me so herself, and judging by her manner, it had to be true. Only recently had she got her smile back, the one that lit her face up, one that infectiously spread happiness to anyone near her.
There were reasons why I became the person I was now. Some might say they were valid. In the cold, hard light of dawn, I could see it was time I stopped using my past as a crutch and got on with the business of living.
Perhaps today would be the first day of the rest of my life.
I took the bus rather than drove. At that hour of the morning, the traffic would be bad, and there would be no parking spaces left. And I was using public transport more and more, have become accustomed to the convenience. Time to read the paper, or a good book, or just dream about a different life.
This morning I thought about Ellen. I hadn’t for a while, but that might have been fueled by the arrival of the divorce papers she wanted me to sign. I’d had my time to be angry, and disappointed, she’d said, and she was right. It was time to move on.
And she had stuck by me through thick and thin, coming back from overseas service a basket case after nine months in a POW camp, after a war that was more horrible than anyone could imagine. Two mental breakdowns, periods of indolence and lassitude, leaving her to bring up the girls on her own. I had not been a great father, and much less a husband.
I remembered that argument word for word.
I could see the looks of pain in the girl’s faces.
I remembered the hug, the kiss on the cheek, the tears. It had not been out of hate, but a necessity. For her and the children. Until I found some lasting peace, they were better off at arm’s length. Away from the arguing, the silences, the absences.
And disappointment.
After she left I tried to get my life in order. Drugs, professional help, alcohol, meditation, then work.
Over ten years ago, it took a year, perhaps a little more before sanity returned.
She did not.
By then I knew she had found someone else, a mystery man, whom neither she would tell me who, and the girls honestly didn’t know. She’d promised that much, any new man in her life would not get to meet the girls. And she would tell me, and then when she was ready.
Then, suddenly, the children were no longer children but young adults and out in the world on their own, and I had become more a banker than a father, an observer rather than a participant, and it was as if we were more like ships passing in the night. And overnight, the ships had sailed to the other side of the world.
My own fault, of course, and a bit late now to change history. I could see Ellen’s influence over them, her prejudices and dislikes, and their contempt, like their mother, for me, simmering beneath the surface, but in fairness to them, I really hadn’t been much of a help as a parent should be.
And now I was getting my life back in order, perhaps I could try and make it up to them, and that first meeting, with them and Ellen, nearly a month ago, had been a step in the right direction. They’d agreed to see me again, without her, during the holidays, which had now arrived. All I had to do was make the call, and get on a plane.
This mess I was heading into, it would not take long. I pulled out my phone and after searching for a travel agent near where I worked, I made an appointment to see about going overseas.
She had spoken to me about the divorce papers several days ago, alternately pleading with, and then abusing, me. There had been some very strong language in the conversation, words I’d thought her incapable of using, but I confess, finally, I didn’t really know her all that well anymore.
Since then I had been calling her to arrange a meeting. She had not yet replied. With some distance to go before I reached the office, I tried calling her again. I was almost glad when she didn’t answer.
I never realized just how hard it was to revise and re-write, and how much time it takes.
Perhaps that’s why first novels take so long to write!
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, 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.
Chasing leads, maybe
It was all over in the blink of an eye. The swat team had secured the scene, zip ties, and shoved me into a corner with two burly men standing over me, guns ready in case I tried to escape.
Before the next wave, I had time to consider what just happened. Obviously, Dobbin or Jan had set the scene. She lied about being able to track Maury, they found him, brought him back to the room, tortured him, and then killed him. The few seconds I had to look at the body showed signs of intense interrogation.
A side benefit was to stitch me up for the crime. The fact the police were at the door a minute after I’d arrived meant they had been waiting for me to come back. That pointed to Jan as the informant.
But to what end. If they considered I was the only one who could find the USB, why let me get caught by the police.
Jennifer would be safe. She had been in the foyer a full ten minutes before I arrived, and was sitting in a corner when I passed her. If they knew she was involved, she would have been missing. Hopefully, she would have seen the swat team arrive, and leave.
A few minutes after the swat leader spoke into his two-way radio, a middle-aged woman and a young man in his late 20’s arrived, the woman first, the young man behind her. A Detective Chief Inspect, or Superintendent, and Detect Sergeant. He was too well dressed to be a constable,. One old, one new.
The young man spoke to the swat leader, the woman surveyed the scene, looked at the body, then at me, shaking her head slightly.
I tried to look anonymous if not invisible. The fact they had found no ID on me would not count well for my situation, or so I had been told. Nor was the fact I preferred not to speak.
Never volunteer information.
A nod from her and the two swat guards took several steps back. She pulled a chair over from the side of the bed, and once three feet away, sat down.
“I’m told you are refusing to answer any questions.”
“Refusing to answer and simply not talking is not the same thing.”
“You do speak.”
“When appropriate.”
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my room, along with a young lady, who as you can see, is not here. That much you should have gleaned from the front desk.”
She pulled a card out of her pocket. “Alan, and Alice Jones. Not your real names I suspect., nor very original. Do you know who the man on the bed is?”
“He told me his name is Maury, not sure of his first name, but that wasn’t his real name. His other name was Bernie Salvin, but that might also be a fake. He was one of two men who were in charge of my training.”
“For what?”
“I suspect it might be above your pay grade.”
If she was shocked at that statement she didn’t show it. In fact, I would not be surprised if she had suspected it was likely it had to do with the clandestine security services. Torture victims were not an everyday occurrence, or at least I hoped for her sake they weren’t.
She gave a slight sigh. “And who do you work for?”
“There’s the rub. I have no idea. I’ve just been caught in the middle of a bloody awful mess.”
The second rule is always to tell the truth, or as close to it as possible so you don’t have to try and remember a web of lies, and trip yourself up at later interviews. And keep it simple.
“So, no one I should be calling to verify who you are?”
“No. Not unless you can revive the man on the bed. I’m only new, been on the job after training for about a week. I was part of a team running a surveillance exercise when a shop exploded and the target disappeared. I’ve been trying to find out what happened.”
Her expression whanged, telling me she was familiar with the event.
“Do you find out anything?”
“Only that the would be a body in the shop, a journalist, that was trying to hand over some sensitive information. I have no idea what it was, or who he was. The target, whom I suspected was there for the handover, is now also dead. So, quite literally, two dead ends. Do I look like someone who could do that to a man?” I nodded in the direction of the body.
“You’d be surprised who was capable of what. Do you have a real name?”
“I do, but I won’t be telling you. You have my work name, that’s as much as I can volunteer.”
“A few days in a dank hole might change that.”
“A few days in a dank hole would be like a holiday compared to the week I’m currently having.”
She smiled, or I thought it was a smile. “I daresay you might.”
There was a loud noise and some yelling coming from outside the door. A man burst into the room, two constables in his wake.
A man I didn’t recognize.
She stood. “Who are you?”
“Richards, MI5.” He showed her a card, which she glanced at. She’d no doubt seen them before.
“We’ll be taking over from here.”
“This person?” She nodded her head in my direction.
“Leave him. We’ll take care of him.”
“Johnson, Jacobs, let’s leave the room to them. We’re done here. Places to be, gentlemen.” She nodded in my direction. “Good luck, you’re going to need it.”
I had hoped by the time I was promoted to assistant manager it might mean something other than long hours and an increase in pay.
It didn’t.
But unlike others who had taken the job, and eventually become jaded and left, I stayed. Something I realized that others seemed to either ignore or just didn’t understand, this was a company that rewarded loyalty.
It was why there were quite a few who had served 30 years or more. They might not reach the top job, but they certainly well looked after.
I had a long way to go, having been there only 8 years, and according to some, on a fast track. I was not sure how I would describe this so-called ‘fast track’ other than being in the right place at the right time and making a judicial selection.
When it was my turn to be promoted, I had a choice of a plum department, or one most of my contemporaries had passed over. At the time, the words of my previous manager sprang to mind, that being a manager for the most sought after department or the least sought after, came with exactly the same privileges.
And, he was right. I took the least sought after, much to their disdain and disapproval. One year on, that disapproval had turned almost to envy; that was when the Assistant Managers were granted a new privilege, tea, and lunch in the executive dining room.
“So, what’s it like?” John asked, when our group met on a Friday night, this the first after the privilege was granted.
He had been one of the three, including me, who had the opportunity to take the role. Both he and Alistair had both declined, prepared to wait for a more prestigious department. It hadn’t happened to them yet.
“The same as the staff dining room, only smaller. Except, I guess, the waitstaff and butler. They come and serve you when you have to go to them in the staff room. They’re the same staff, by the way, except for the butler.”
I could see the awe, or was it envy, in their eyes. “but it’s not that great. The Assistant Managers all sit at one end of the table, and we’re not part of the main group, so no sharing of information I’m afraid. And the meals are the same, just served on fancier crockery.”
“Then nothing to write home about?” Will was one of those who they also thought to be on a ‘fast track’. I was still trying to see how my ‘fast track’ was actually that fast.
“Put it this way, the extra pay doesn’t offset the long hours because you get overtime, I don’t, so on a good week, you’d all be earning more than me. Without responsibility, if anything goes wrong. I think that’s why Assistant Managers were created, to take the blame when anything goes wrong.”
That had been the hardest pill to swallow. Until I got the role, I hadn’t realized what it really involved. Nor had the others, and it was not something we could whinge about. My first-day introductory speech from Tomkins, my Manager, was all about taking responsibility, and how I was there to make his life easier. It was a speech he made a few times because he’d been Manager for the last 16 years, much the same as the others, and promotion if ever, would come when they died.
And Manager’s rarely died, because of their Assistant Managers.
“How old is Tomkins now?” Bert, a relative newcomer to our group, asked. He was still in the ‘in awe’ phase.
“About the same as Father Time,” I said. “But the reality is, no one knows, except perhaps for the personnel manager.” O looked over at Wally, the Personnel Department’s Assistant Manager. “Any chance of you telling us?”
“No. You know I can’t.”
“But you know?” I asked.
“Of course, but you know the rules. That’s confidential information. Not like what you are the custodian of, information everyone needs.”
Which, of course, was true. Communication and Secretarial Services had no secrets, except for twice a year when the company Bord of Directors met, and we were responsible for all the documents used at their meetings. Then, and only then, was I privy to all the secrets, including promotions. And be asked ‘What’s happening?’.
“Just be content to know that he’s as old as the hills, as most of them. It seems to me that one of the pre-requisites for managership is that you have been employed here for 30 years.”
Not all, though, I’d noticed, but there wasn’t one under the age of fifty.
And so it would go, the Friday night lament, those ‘in’ the executive, and those who were not quite there yet.
It seemed prophetic, in a sense, that we had been talking about Mangers and their ages. By a quirk of fate, some weeks before, that I learned of Tomkins’s currents state of health via a call on his office phone. At the time he was out, where, he had not told me, but by his the I believed it was something serious, so serious he didn’t want me, or anyone else, to know about it.
That phone call was from his wife, Eleanor, whom I’d met on a number of occasions when she came to take him home from work. I liked her, and couldn’t help but notice she was his exact opposite, Tomkins, silent and at times morose, and Eleanor, the life of the party. I could imagine her being a handful in her younger days, and it was a stark reminder of that old saying ‘opposites attract’.
She was concerned and asked me if he had returned from the specialist. I simply said he had but was elsewhere, and promised to get him to call her when he returned. Then I made a quick call around to see where he was and found that he was in Personnel. I left an innocuous message on his desk, and then let my imagination run wild.
At least for a day or so, the time it took for me to realize that it was probably nothing, the lethargy he’d been showing, gone.
I’d put it out of my mind until my cell phone rang, and it was from the Personnel Manager. On a Sunday, no less. In the few seconds before I answered it, I’d made the assumption that Tomkins’s secretive visits to the specialist meant he needed time off for a routine operation.
Greetings over, O’Reilly, the Personnel Manager, cut straight to the chase, “For your personal information, and not to be repeated, Tomkins will be out of action for about two months, and as that is longer than the standard period, you will become Acting Manager. We’ll talk more about this Tuesday morning.” Monday was a holiday.
All Assistant Managers knew the rules. Any absence of a manager for longer than a month, promotion to Acting Manager. Anything less, you sat in the office, but no change in title. There was one more rule, that in the event of the death of a manager, the assistant manager was immediately promoted to Manager. This had only happened once before. 70 years ago. If a manager retired, then the position of Manager was thrown open to anyone in the organization.
It was an intriguing moment in time.
Tuesday came, and as usual, I went into the office, with only one thought in mind, let the staff in the department know what was happening, of course, the moment I was given the approval to do so by Personnel.
Not a minute after I sat down, the phone rang. I picked it up, gave my name and greeting. It was met with a rather excitable voice of the Assistant Manager, Personnel, “I just got word from on high, you’ve been promoted to manager. How could that possibly happen…”
Then a moment later, as realization set in, “Unless…”
Can you reach a point where you are never satisfied with what you’ve written?
What more can I say?
Looking at the mess constituting my room and my life, slob may have been an appropriate description. I considered myself old, overweight though not necessarily fat, hair graying at the edges, and few wrinkles around the eyes, there were no real pluses in my description.
Some said I had a kindly face, but perhaps I had the look of a paternalistic grandfather. There were several men in the office who were the same age and had grandchildren. And some who had children at a time when they should be planning for retirement, not parenthood.
World-weary and perpetually tired, I’d passed the mid-life crisis, wondering what it was that affected other men my age. Twenty-odd years later, I was still wondering.
I used to think I’d missed a lot in half a lifetime.
Now, I didn’t know what to think.
Did I deserve pity? No.
Did I deserve sympathy? No!
The only person who could get me out of the rut was myself. For years I’d traded on Ellen’s good nature. She deserved better, left me, and was now happier in the arms of a man who I wanted to believe treated her far better than I. She had told me so herself, and judging by her manner, it had to be true. Only recently had she got her smile back, the one that lit her face up, one that infectiously spread happiness to anyone near her.
There were reasons why I became the person I was now. Some might say they were valid. In the cold, hard light of dawn, I could see it was time I stopped using my past as a crutch and got on with the business of living.
Perhaps today would be the first day of the rest of my life.
I took the bus rather than drove. At that hour of the morning, the traffic would be bad, and there would be no parking spaces left. And I was using public transport more and more, have become accustomed to the convenience. Time to read the paper, or a good book, or just dream about a different life.
This morning I thought about Ellen. I hadn’t for a while, but that might have been fueled by the arrival of the divorce papers she wanted me to sign. I’d had my time to be angry, and disappointed, she’d said, and she was right. It was time to move on.
And she had stuck by me through thick and thin, coming back from overseas service a basket case after nine months in a POW camp, after a war that was more horrible than anyone could imagine. Two mental breakdowns, periods of indolence and lassitude, leaving her to bring up the girls on her own. I had not been a great father, and much less a husband.
I remembered that argument word for word.
I could see the looks of pain in the girl’s faces.
I remembered the hug, the kiss on the cheek, the tears. It had not been out of hate, but a necessity. For her and the children. Until I found some lasting peace, they were better off at arm’s length. Away from the arguing, the silences, the absences.
And disappointment.
After she left I tried to get my life in order. Drugs, professional help, alcohol, meditation, then work.
Over ten years ago, it took a year, perhaps a little more before sanity returned.
She did not.
By then I knew she had found someone else, a mystery man, whom neither she would tell me who, and the girls honestly didn’t know. She’d promised that much, any new man in her life would not get to meet the girls. And she would tell me, and then when she was ready.
Then, suddenly, the children were no longer children but young adults and out in the world on their own, and I had become more a banker than a father, an observer rather than a participant, and it was as if we were more like ships passing in the night. And overnight, the ships had sailed to the other side of the world.
My own fault, of course, and a bit late now to change history. I could see Ellen’s influence over them, her prejudices and dislikes, and their contempt, like their mother, for me, simmering beneath the surface, but in fairness to them, I really hadn’t been much of a help as a parent should be.
And now I was getting my life back in order, perhaps I could try and make it up to them, and that first meeting, with them and Ellen, nearly a month ago, had been a step in the right direction. They’d agreed to see me again, without her, during the holidays, which had now arrived. All I had to do was make the call, and get on a plane.
This mess I was heading into, it would not take long. I pulled out my phone and after searching for a travel agent near where I worked, I made an appointment to see about going overseas.
She had spoken to me about the divorce papers several days ago, alternately pleading with, and then abusing, me. There had been some very strong language in the conversation, words I’d thought her incapable of using, but I confess, finally, I didn’t really know her all that well anymore.
Since then I had been calling her to arrange a meeting. She had not yet replied. With some distance to go before I reached the office, I tried calling her again. I was almost glad when she didn’t answer.
I never realized just how hard it was to revise and re-write, and how much time it takes.
Perhaps that’s why first novels take so long to write!
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, 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.
Chasing leads, maybe
It was all over in the blink of an eye. The swat team had secured the scene, zip ties, and shoved me into a corner with two burly men standing over me, guns ready in case I tried to escape.
Before the next wave, I had time to consider what just happened. Obviously, Dobbin or Jan had set the scene. She lied about being able to track Maury, they found him, brought him back to the room, tortured him, and then killed him. The few seconds I had to look at the body showed signs of intense interrogation.
A side benefit was to stitch me up for the crime. The fact the police were at the door a minute after I’d arrived meant they had been waiting for me to come back. That pointed to Jan as the informant.
But to what end. If they considered I was the only one who could find the USB, why let me get caught by the police.
Jennifer would be safe. She had been in the foyer a full ten minutes before I arrived, and was sitting in a corner when I passed her. If they knew she was involved, she would have been missing. Hopefully, she would have seen the swat team arrive, and leave.
A few minutes after the swat leader spoke into his two-way radio, a middle-aged woman and a young man in his late 20’s arrived, the woman first, the young man behind her. A Detective Chief Inspect, or Superintendent, and Detect Sergeant. He was too well dressed to be a constable,. One old, one new.
The young man spoke to the swat leader, the woman surveyed the scene, looked at the body, then at me, shaking her head slightly.
I tried to look anonymous if not invisible. The fact they had found no ID on me would not count well for my situation, or so I had been told. Nor was the fact I preferred not to speak.
Never volunteer information.
A nod from her and the two swat guards took several steps back. She pulled a chair over from the side of the bed, and once three feet away, sat down.
“I’m told you are refusing to answer any questions.”
“Refusing to answer and simply not talking is not the same thing.”
“You do speak.”
“When appropriate.”
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my room, along with a young lady, who as you can see, is not here. That much you should have gleaned from the front desk.”
She pulled a card out of her pocket. “Alan, and Alice Jones. Not your real names I suspect., nor very original. Do you know who the man on the bed is?”
“He told me his name is Maury, not sure of his first name, but that wasn’t his real name. His other name was Bernie Salvin, but that might also be a fake. He was one of two men who were in charge of my training.”
“For what?”
“I suspect it might be above your pay grade.”
If she was shocked at that statement she didn’t show it. In fact, I would not be surprised if she had suspected it was likely it had to do with the clandestine security services. Torture victims were not an everyday occurrence, or at least I hoped for her sake they weren’t.
She gave a slight sigh. “And who do you work for?”
“There’s the rub. I have no idea. I’ve just been caught in the middle of a bloody awful mess.”
The second rule is always to tell the truth, or as close to it as possible so you don’t have to try and remember a web of lies, and trip yourself up at later interviews. And keep it simple.
“So, no one I should be calling to verify who you are?”
“No. Not unless you can revive the man on the bed. I’m only new, been on the job after training for about a week. I was part of a team running a surveillance exercise when a shop exploded and the target disappeared. I’ve been trying to find out what happened.”
Her expression whanged, telling me she was familiar with the event.
“Do you find out anything?”
“Only that the would be a body in the shop, a journalist, that was trying to hand over some sensitive information. I have no idea what it was, or who he was. The target, whom I suspected was there for the handover, is now also dead. So, quite literally, two dead ends. Do I look like someone who could do that to a man?” I nodded in the direction of the body.
“You’d be surprised who was capable of what. Do you have a real name?”
“I do, but I won’t be telling you. You have my work name, that’s as much as I can volunteer.”
“A few days in a dank hole might change that.”
“A few days in a dank hole would be like a holiday compared to the week I’m currently having.”
She smiled, or I thought it was a smile. “I daresay you might.”
There was a loud noise and some yelling coming from outside the door. A man burst into the room, two constables in his wake.
A man I didn’t recognize.
She stood. “Who are you?”
“Richards, MI5.” He showed her a card, which she glanced at. She’d no doubt seen them before.
“We’ll be taking over from here.”
“This person?” She nodded her head in my direction.
“Leave him. We’ll take care of him.”
“Johnson, Jacobs, let’s leave the room to them. We’re done here. Places to be, gentlemen.” She nodded in my direction. “Good luck, you’re going to need it.”
Pick a mountain, and hike over it. The harder the trail, the better it was.
There were five from the original group of eight, from thirty years ago, brought together by the first Gulf War, and kept together as support for each other as we tried, and sometimes failed, to reintegrate into civilian life.
It had saved me.
It had not for Benny, Jack, and Roland, and as hard as they tried, and as hard as we tried to save them, it was as sad as it was tragic, not only for us but for those they left behind.
Over the years we added, and lost, new recruits.
This year there would be six, the original five, and a new recruit, a woman that Wally had recommended, and though there were no rules barring women, it just never seemed to be a potential candidate.
Until now. Josephine or Jo had seen service in Iraq and was known to Justin, who worked off and on in a veteran’s hospital as a counselor. He could see the signs of a deteriorating soul and asked her if she would like to join a bunch of fools tackling a trail sensible people would leave alone.
A girl joining five guys in the forest, I could see how that might look, especially when he told me. Both of us were surprised when she agreed to come along. The only hitch, she would be coming with me to base camp.
I just hoped it was not another pathetic attempt on his part to matchmake. In all that time, since returning, I had not had a successful, or long-term relationship, simply because I didn’t want to share the burden.
The others were more successful in varying degrees, but rarely mentioned it when we got together. I was happy for them, but it was not for me.
Josephine arrived, precisely at the time she said she would, in a vintage Mustang that sounded like it had a V8. Josephine was once a mechanic, and according to Justin, had rebuilt the car from the ground up after finding it in a hayloft.
It looked brand new,
I was out front tossing stuff into an SUV when she pulled into the drive. From there I watched her extricate herself from the driver’s seat, a tall thin girl with long blonde hair, and that Scandinavian look about her.
Nothing about what I saw in front of me screamed battle veteran.
“Ken, I presume?”
I was not sure whether we should shake hands, hug, or what. Instead, I just stood back and nodded.
“Josephine, or Jo?”
“My real name is Betty, but I hate it, so either will do.”
How do you break the ice with what appeared to be an ice maiden?
“Justin said you were looking for some excitement. I’d hardly call our little group exciting, but you never know. There might be a few bears to wrestle.
“I hope not.”
“Don’t worry. These bears are not all that dangerous if you leave them alone. Have you heard of the expression, ‘don’t poke the bear’. Very apt in this case. Want to toss your kit in the back? I’ll get off the driveway and you can park your car in the garage. Nice car, by the way. Always wanted one, could never afford it. Still, a man can have dreams.”
She smiled, but I think my prattling was a sign of being nervous in her presence, a common complaint of mine. I just never did understand how to talk to women about normal stuff.
I wondered, for a moment, if the bears were all we would have to worry about, because as we were going inside, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large black SUV parked just down from the front of my house, window down and a man, smoking a cigar, looking directly into my yard.
It was not the first time, I’d been in a few scrapes and on the end of some surveillance, but this felt different.
I guess I’d soon find out.
…
It was a two-day trip and we would be stopping in Iowa City on the way. There was a light conversation for the first half-hour, as we both realized, we were not conversationalists. Perhaps if we had more in common.
But the silence that fell over the cabin was not an uneasy one. She closed her eyes and appeared to sleep. I drew the straw to drive the first leg, she the second.
I’d not noticed the black SUV, but that didn’t mean it was not somewhere behind us. I deliberately parked around the back of the diner, then told her I needed to look at the engine to check if we were leaking oil, which it did sometimes, and watched her go inside.
I knew surveillance tactics. Put a tracker on the car, and then you can follow at leisure.
I felt around all the spots a tracker could be hidden, and after almost believing there wasn’t one, I found it, tucked under the driver’s side door in a slot meant for the car jack, then attached it to another car.
Black SUV would be out there somewhere. It was moot whether he would fall for the trick.
Jo was sitting in a booth with two cups of coffee.
“I hope you like fried chicken.”
“My favorite, but then, anything fried is my favorite.”
She smiled, but I could see the sadness. I wonder what had happened to her, but I was sensible enough to know not to tug at that string.
“Up for the next leg?”
“Yep, but it’s going to be a little more sedate than I’m used to. Unless, of course, you want to get there early.”
“No, slow and steady is fine with me.”
How do you keep an eye on what’s behind you without looking like you’re keeping an eye on what’s behind you?
Jo never looked in the rear vision mirror, except if she was changing lanes, or passing another vehicle. Other than that, she looked to me like she was pouring her whole soul into the job at hand.
It wasn’t until we were almost to Iowa city before I thought I saw the black SUV and then lost it as she turned to go into the motel. On the way, I changed the reservation for two adjoining rooms, and dinner to be brought in. I used the excuse that it would be better not to go out, that way we could get an early night, and start the next morning.
I wanted to be the first at the base camp so I could bring her up to speed on how things worked. And the quirks of the rest of the hikers.
Then, after dining in her room, I left her with a six-pack and some awful TV show.
Back in my room, I dug out my laptop and did a search on her name, on the off chance the internet might yield some answers.
There were a lot of Josephine Littleton’s oddly enough, and over 15,000 hits. I had to scroll six pages before a single line caught my attention. Local Deputy Sherriff has assault charges dropped.
A click on the URL led me to a newspaper article, the Rio Grande Sun, dated six months ago, with a photo of a man in a Deputy’s uniform, who looked something like the man in the SUV, and a woman that was definitely Jo.
Married before she went to the war when she came back, he found it difficult to handle her and like most spouses who have no understanding of the problem, react. Some leave, after trying to reconcile the spouse they now had versus the one before and failing, very few resort to more direct action. Deputy Grady reportedly assaulted her. Her word against his, and against the law in a small county where they would close ranks, she had only one option.
Drop the charges or leave. She left, no doubt hoping to get away from him, but he would have contacts, and no trouble tracing her. Did she know he was following her?
It might be a subject for conversation tomorrow.
I was woken by the sound of a thump, something hitting the wall between our rooms, and raised voices.
I got the adjoining rooms just in case I needed to get in to see her if she was having the nightmares we all had. I unlocked the door and stepped into the room.
There was a man on the floor, groaning, and Jo, in pajamas, sitting on the end of the bed, tears flowing down her face. There were also red welts on both cheeks, from being slapped.
The man looked up at me. “Walk away. This is none of your business.”
I glared down at him. “Too late, I’ve seen your face, Deputy Grady. Now it is my business.”
I looked at Jo. “Are you alright?”
She shook her head, no.
“What happened here?”
Grady rolled over and stood up, flexing his body as if to tease out the aches and pains. I assumed it was he who hit the wall.
“We were having a conversation, and she unaccountably shoved me into the wall.”
“Before or after you hit her.”
She raised her head and looked at me. “Leave, like he said. There’s nothing you can do for me.”
“Save yourself a whole world of pain, too,” Grady added, with the sort of gloating tone only a small-town cop could do so well. The big man in a small world.
“I’m not leaving until I get the truth, Grady. But I will give you a little information for free. Be thankful you can get up off the floor. I know something about the pain Jo is going through. You don’t, you could never understand. When you assaulted her, she could have retaliated, but instead, she cared enough about you to leave before she did. Right now, you just got the reprieve of your life. To be honest, I expected to see you slit from groin to throat and your heart tossed in the trash can, and she would have done that eyes closed and without a second thought.”
I was laying in on a bit thick, but this fool really didn’t know how lucky he was. When I lashed out, I hurt five people, badly, and I hadn’t realized what I was doing until Justin told me to stop.
Jo looked at him, the look of surprise on his face, then me, then back to Grady.
“You never understood, and you didn’t care. Get the fuck out of my life, and don’t come back, or I will kill you.”
He glared at her.
“What the hell is wrong with you? We were fine until you went away. I told you not to go. You didn’t have to go.”
“You were smothering me. You, your mother, and that awful sister. I thought a few months away would clear my head. It did far worse than that, and I need help, not you.”
“You were fucked in the head before you went away. God, to think I wasted my time trying to make something out of your pathetic life.”
He looked at me. “You’re welcome to her. I’m done.”
He picked up his cap off the floor and jammed it on his head, then headed for the door. I opened it for him. “Don’t let me see you again, or you will feel the full force of the US military machine rolling right over the top of you.”
“Fuck you too, asshole.”
I closed the door after him and leaned against it.
She looked at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ve been there and done a lot worse. But I think you just took the first step on a long road to recovery, you admitted you need help.”
“I did, and you have no idea how that feels.”
There were still two bottles of beer left so I opened them and handed one to her. “Here’s to the first day of the rest of your life.”
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 