Day 223 – Writing exercise

…

There’s no looking away when the proverbial hits the fan.

You hope that it’s never going to happen, and when it does, training kicks in, but there is always that shred of doubt, and that’s all it takes.

One time infinitesimal shred…

In what I believed to be an empty building, I was going through the plan, waiting for the seconds to tick down.

Then I heard a door close.  You know the type, one with a device that automatically closes it after you walk through.  The one that, if set properly, you don’t hear the door shut.

The one that I heard because it wasn’t set properly, or hadn’t been checked recently, and that last six inches gave out and banged as the door hit the jamb.

Which meant someone else was in the building.

I wanted to believe that it was someone leaving, but I knew no one was supposed to be there.  Not tonight.  Not at two am, because the night watchmen had just finished their rounds and were settling in to their packed lunches.

Who was it, and why were they there?

…

This mission required stealth and precision.  Three experts had gone over the building layout, the personnel who worked there, and the place where what I was supposed to take was easily removed.

The building expert had played his part.  He’d been spot on with the sensors and detection traps, and the doors and locks.

I was in the last position before advancing to the room that held the safe that held the objective.

The personnel expert had failed his job.  There was someone in the building who shouldn’t be.

Other than me.

That made the mission far more difficult.  But as I crouched in position, I had time to realise that no one could factor in a random element, a scenario that should have been considered but was missed.

Or maybe it hadn’t.

Maybe it had been overlooked deliberately, and was in the mix because I was supposed to be able to handle random situations.

It was just such a scenario that had got Eloise canned from the program.  She had been bitter about it, saying she had been the only one whose test had a random factor, that she had been deliberately targeted.

I had thought that too, because she had been very good, worked twice as hard, and had been the only girl.

Damn.  Now I was thinking about her and not the mission, a real problem.

I felt a buzz on my wrist, the watch computer vibrating to tell me it was time to move.

Phase 2

Down the corridor, sticking close to the wall, to the end and turn right.  The camera covering the entrance to the room would be off; that is, the red light would be out.

The surveillance monitoring guy would cut the camera at precisely the moment I reached the corner, giving me five seconds to get in the room.

Oddly, there was no surveillance in the room.

I reached the end, another buzz, five seconds, no red light, into the room and made sure the door didn’t slam shut. 

Just.

“Hello, Will.”

I think I did have a heart attack.

…

Eloise.  Larger than life, and looking very suave in all black.

She always could distract me.

“What the..”

I remembered to speak in hushed tones.  Surveillance didn’t know if the room was bugged, but others were, and it was assumed it might be.

My silence had been disturbed when she spoke, even if it was not very loud.

“You’re being set up.”

“How the hell did you know I would be here?”

“Dargers.”

Dargers was the reason I had got into the program,  the one who had been my mother’s handler and had been there when she died, on the job.

“Why?”

“Because you’re getting closer to the truth about your mother.    Fletcher’s in hospital fighting for his life.  Something happened just after you met.”

That was yesterday.  I’d seen another associated with her last mission, but they were still OK.  Or were they?

“You just got here?”

“No.  Been waiting.”

“I heard a door close just before I got here.”

“Then they’re coming for you.  We have to go.”  She handed me an envelope.  “The prize.  I don’t think it has the value you were led to believe.”

Probably not.

…

It came as no surprise that Eloise had neutralised the surveillance and cleared the path.  Or that she knew more about the organisation, because she had been a top-flight private investigator before signing on.

Before the end of the first week, she had categorised everyone: hopefuls and instructors.  That she even spoke to me was a surprise.  There were far more candidates who were more interested in her, but as the training progressed, I thought she hung out with me because she decided I was safe.

I never got to ask her why.

But I shared in her assessments and rode on her coat-tails, learning more from her than most of the instructors.  I still couldn’t understand why I survived the cut, and she didn’t.

Working with her once again only reinforced just how good she was.

Objective achieved; it was a matter of two people working together being better than one, simply because I couldn’t be in two places at once.  That’s when I opened the door; my instinct was to look left, and the threat was on the right.

The first threat, that is.

Our training had taught us that where there was one assassin, there was likely to be more, depending on the degree of danger you presented.  I found it hard to believe I could be a threat, but then I had been a little loose in who I questioned about my mother’s death.

It was a taboo question, but being immersed in the world she once excelled in had provided a unique opportunity.  I just didn’t think I would ruffle any feathers so quickly, or at all.

There were three would-be assassins.  We didn’t shoot to kill, which was our training, because we would be killing our own people, people who we had most likely trained with, or worked with.

Then there was the revelation.

There was another way in and out of the building that I had not been told about, and that in itself told me all I needed to know.

The briefing supervisor was compromised, or hadn’t been given the full brief.

Once out of the building, Eloise faded into the night as if she had never been there.  There had been no time for small talk, as much as I needed that one fleeting touch of hands as she left.

It reminded me that having feelings, or attachments, was at best a curse and at worst a death sentence in this job, if it was a job I wanted to take up, and those feelings I had for Eloise, having been rekindled, were going to make it impossible.

She had said as much about herself when she had left, not saying where she was going or what she was going to do. 

I had tried to put her out of my mind.

…

If this had been a normal operation, in and out, the package would simply be dropped off, and I would relocate and await the next mission.

This hadn’t been normal.

I had a cell number to call if anything went wrong.  The operations supervisor would have been aware of what had happened, and I would be called in for a debriefing.

I had a feeling Browning would be waiting on the end of the line to curate the fallout.  Dead people could be explained away; live people could talk.

I chose to sit on it until morning.  Uppermost in my mind was the fact that if the mission had gone the way Browning’s had planned, I would be either dead or captured, and sitting in a dark room somewhere awaiting interrogation.

I could still end up there.

Now, when I called, he would have to pretend that everything was fine, though there would be doubts as to how I did manage to escape what, in his mind, was meant to be an inescapable trap.

I dialled the number on the untraceable cell Eloise had given me.  The one I got for the mission was tracking my movements.  Those movements ended in the safe room.

Davidson couldn’t help himself when he answered.

“Where did you get that device?”

“I had reason to believe the mission device was compromised, as per training.  There was an unexpected visitor on the building, just before the ‘go’ signal.  Someone knew I was there.  I figured the cell was compromised and dumped it.”

“We had no prior intel of rogue movements, and our devices are secure.”

“Random factors, sir.  It’s what got a trainee tossed out of the program.  Remembered it at the last moment.  Saved me, by the way.  Three assassins tried to eliminate me.”

As if he wouldn’t know that he had three of his agents in the hospital wondering why they were not dead.

He sounded quite calm, which in a sense was disconcerting.

It was good that my training had taught me to trust no one, not even the people I worked for.

“Three?”  His incredulous tone was almost believable.

“Not unexpected, if you remember the briefing.  The organisation does contract some very nasty mercenaries as guards for their perimeter and internal security.”

“And you took care of them.”

“I believe so.  They weren’t shooting back.”

There was a moment’s silence while he digested that piece of information before asking the question he should have asked at the beginning.”

“Did you get what you were sent for?”

“Yes.”

“Then await further instructions on where you are to deliver the package.”

The line went dead.

Since the cell phone I was using was untraceable, he couldn’t send a team to eliminate me, but just to be safe, I powered it down and removed the SIM card, then changed locations.

I wasn’t going to wait to be summoned or hunted down.

…

The organisation I worked for was one of several that worked under the umbrella of the main intelligence service. 

These groups had their offices scattered about the city, hiding behind what could easily be mistaken for legitimate businesses. 

The one I worked for, and run by Davidson, lived in a large sandstone turn-of-the-century building that also had lawyers, doctors and insurance agents.  It was odd turning up at the office and mingling with a very strange collection of civilians.

While it provided the sort of cover we needed, and it gave Davidson the sort of autonomy and control over who knew what he was doing, he wanted to be without the prying eyes of those he reported to; it wasn’t the most secure.  I often wondered what would happen if a shootout came to the corridors.

It hadn’t yet, but there was always a first time.

Being away from the ultra secure central operations centre, security was not as ting, and Davidson’s mall cop security set up, the brain child of his brother-in-law who was a locksmith, was adequate but not bulletproof.

It took me a week to find all the weak spots, the black holes in CCTV coverage, and the door codes, at least those beyond what was issued on our personal key cards.

And to discover that there was another way in that didn’t require a key card, and if Davison had got a proper security assessment, he would have discovered just how insecure the office was.

His office.

When sweeping the roof during my own security inspection I discovered a I discovered a hatch door that gave access to the roof, and below that, an attic, disused, that ran the length of the building.  It was once the servants’ quarters for each of them.

There were some very interesting comments on the walls.

There were back staircases that led to each floor, and invisible doorways so they could mysteriously come and go without being seen.

There was another, the one I would be using.  Davidson was a fresh air lover and had one of the windows in his office half open, playing havoc with everyone’s air conditioning.

He could be annoying like that.

I waited until he went to his one o’clock briefing, entered by the windows, and sat in his seat.  I had no interest in rifling through the drawers or poking around in the filing cabinets.

At precisely five minutes past two he came in, closed the door behind him, and then stopped.

I would have thought he’d notice me before then.

“You need to do something about security.  I, for one, wouldn’t feel safe if just about anyone could wander in off the street.”

His usual scowl turned a shade darker.  “You’re not just anyone, are you?”

I looked at the man who controlled so many lives, to do with as he pleased.  He wasn’t that man when my mother was killed in action, but he was her liaison in the field.  That much I’d discovered before the walls went up.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

His cell phone rang.  The puzzled expression on his face told me he was not expecting a call.

He took his phone out of his top pocket and looked at the screen, shook his head, and disconnected the call.

A few seconds later, a red dot from a laser sight appeared on the wall behind me. I knew there was something there when his expression changed, and then we both watched it until it appeared on his chest before disappearing.

“Is this some sort of sick joke?”

His cell phone rang again.

“Not me.  I think you might want to answer it.  Someone wants to get your attention.”

Who, though? I didn’t know.  I had not arranged anything.

He answered it.  “Whoever you are, you are in more trouble than you can imagine possible.”

Whoever was on the end of the call said something to him; his expression changed, this time to one I’d never expected from a man like him.

He pushed a button on the screen, and it came to life.

“You know better than to go into the lion’s den by yourself.”

Eloise.

“I had it covered.”

“Now you do.”

The red laser light reappeared.

Recognition flickered.  “Morgan.  You’re working with him?”

“Saving him from you, Davidson.  And still working on what I’m going to do about you killing a friend of mine, the same one who intimated to Blake that you were his mother’s liaison on that last mission.  You made a mistake.  It cost her her life, just part of the mess you’ve been cleaning up ever since.  Last night you went too far.”

“You haven’t got all of the facts.”

“I spoke to Richardson, just before he passed.  It was an illuminating discussion, one that answered several questions I had.”

If his expression was going to be an indication of his mood, then just the mention of Richardson brought fear.

“That’s impossible.”

“No.  What was impossible is that I found him.  You did a very good job of hiding him away, so far north he’s almost at the North Pole.  You even changed his name, Ralph Weimar.  You also figured out who I was, didn’t you?”

“A guess at best.  Your tradecraft gave you away.  Isabel Jenkins.”

“Harold Jenkins, another of your losses.”

Jenkins.  I knew that name from somewhere.

His shoulders slumped slightly, as if accepting that whatever he had been doing was over.

“So, not that any of what you think you know is relevant or even happened, what are you going to do?”

“End it.”

I saw the red dot focus on Davidson and then watched him die. 

I didn’t expect what happened next.  The dot moved to me. I thought I heard the bullet leave the gun just before it hit me, and in that fraction of a second before the pain came, it was lights out.

…

I think the miracle was that I was still alive.

I don’t remember anything from the moment Davidson was shot until I just woke, slowly focusing on a water stain on the roof above me.

It felt like I’d been hit by a truck. Or worse, one of those old steam locomotives.

There was an odd perfume aroma in the room, one that seemed familiar.  It was there, on the tip of my tongue.

That was overwritten by another memory, the one where I suddenly associated my predicament with being shot, which led to remembering those last few seconds in Davidson’s office, and then Eloise.

“There he is.”

Eloise.

“What happened?”

“You were saved from a fate worse than death.”

Another memory.  I was in Davidson’s office.  Then another: the realisation I didn’t have an exit strategy.  I was going to confront him … and then what?

“How?”

“You had to be a victim.  Davidson didn’t survive; he wasn’t meant to.  He had to pay for his mistakes.  You, though, you don’t deserve what they would have done to you.  He may have been a murderer, but he did get results.  We both knew there is no real honour in the job we would have had to do.  Don’t go back, even if they ask you.”

“Why are you doing this?  How did you know…?”

“I like you, have done since the first time I saw you.  You know me.  I can see through just about anyone.  And probably because your first words were not ‘babe’, ‘date’ and ‘fuck’.”

“I was going to ask you if you wanted a coffee and a chat once, but thought twice about it, then decided not to.  You had enough admirers.”

She smiled.  “I’m glad I’m out of it.  It was a mistake, but a good one.  I met you.  Come work with me. I’m going back to being a Private Detective.  LA or Hollywood.  Maybe New York.  Who knows.  We can just get on the next train out and see where it takes us. What do you say?”

“How long will I be here?”

“A couple of days.  It’s a clean wound, nothing damaged.  You can thank me later.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Here.  Told them we’re about to be married and I wasn’t letting you out of my sight.  It amuses them. I kinda like the sound of it.  But it takes two to tango, so I can wait until you’re back on your feet, and we’ll see how good we can dance together.  Now, the doctor would like to talk to you, then the police.  I’ll be right here if you need me.  OK?”

“Dance?”  Perhaps there was a little confusion.

“Tango.  Yes.  Tango, Alpha, November, Golf, Oscar.”

I felt a surge of adrenalin run through me, and my mind cleared, taking a quick glance around the room, and ending on Eloise, only she was not Eloise, she was Baxter, Captain, my team leader, and I was Reynolds, Lieutenant, undercover.

She had just issued an Agent down signal, which I assumed to be me.  Protocol Five was instituted, and I was to follow her lead.

Something must have gone terribly wrong.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Day 223 – Writing exercise

…

There’s no looking away when the proverbial hits the fan.

You hope that it’s never going to happen, and when it does, training kicks in, but there is always that shred of doubt, and that’s all it takes.

One time infinitesimal shred…

In what I believed to be an empty building, I was going through the plan, waiting for the seconds to tick down.

Then I heard a door close.  You know the type, one with a device that automatically closes it after you walk through.  The one that, if set properly, you don’t hear the door shut.

The one that I heard because it wasn’t set properly, or hadn’t been checked recently, and that last six inches gave out and banged as the door hit the jamb.

Which meant someone else was in the building.

I wanted to believe that it was someone leaving, but I knew no one was supposed to be there.  Not tonight.  Not at two am, because the night watchmen had just finished their rounds and were settling in to their packed lunches.

Who was it, and why were they there?

…

This mission required stealth and precision.  Three experts had gone over the building layout, the personnel who worked there, and the place where what I was supposed to take was easily removed.

The building expert had played his part.  He’d been spot on with the sensors and detection traps, and the doors and locks.

I was in the last position before advancing to the room that held the safe that held the objective.

The personnel expert had failed his job.  There was someone in the building who shouldn’t be.

Other than me.

That made the mission far more difficult.  But as I crouched in position, I had time to realise that no one could factor in a random element, a scenario that should have been considered but was missed.

Or maybe it hadn’t.

Maybe it had been overlooked deliberately, and was in the mix because I was supposed to be able to handle random situations.

It was just such a scenario that had got Eloise canned from the program.  She had been bitter about it, saying she had been the only one whose test had a random factor, that she had been deliberately targeted.

I had thought that too, because she had been very good, worked twice as hard, and had been the only girl.

Damn.  Now I was thinking about her and not the mission, a real problem.

I felt a buzz on my wrist, the watch computer vibrating to tell me it was time to move.

Phase 2

Down the corridor, sticking close to the wall, to the end and turn right.  The camera covering the entrance to the room would be off; that is, the red light would be out.

The surveillance monitoring guy would cut the camera at precisely the moment I reached the corner, giving me five seconds to get in the room.

Oddly, there was no surveillance in the room.

I reached the end, another buzz, five seconds, no red light, into the room and made sure the door didn’t slam shut. 

Just.

“Hello, Will.”

I think I did have a heart attack.

…

Eloise.  Larger than life, and looking very suave in all black.

She always could distract me.

“What the..”

I remembered to speak in hushed tones.  Surveillance didn’t know if the room was bugged, but others were, and it was assumed it might be.

My silence had been disturbed when she spoke, even if it was not very loud.

“You’re being set up.”

“How the hell did you know I would be here?”

“Dargers.”

Dargers was the reason I had got into the program,  the one who had been my mother’s handler and had been there when she died, on the job.

“Why?”

“Because you’re getting closer to the truth about your mother.    Fletcher’s in hospital fighting for his life.  Something happened just after you met.”

That was yesterday.  I’d seen another associated with her last mission, but they were still OK.  Or were they?

“You just got here?”

“No.  Been waiting.”

“I heard a door close just before I got here.”

“Then they’re coming for you.  We have to go.”  She handed me an envelope.  “The prize.  I don’t think it has the value you were led to believe.”

Probably not.

…

It came as no surprise that Eloise had neutralised the surveillance and cleared the path.  Or that she knew more about the organisation, because she had been a top-flight private investigator before signing on.

Before the end of the first week, she had categorised everyone: hopefuls and instructors.  That she even spoke to me was a surprise.  There were far more candidates who were more interested in her, but as the training progressed, I thought she hung out with me because she decided I was safe.

I never got to ask her why.

But I shared in her assessments and rode on her coat-tails, learning more from her than most of the instructors.  I still couldn’t understand why I survived the cut, and she didn’t.

Working with her once again only reinforced just how good she was.

Objective achieved; it was a matter of two people working together being better than one, simply because I couldn’t be in two places at once.  That’s when I opened the door; my instinct was to look left, and the threat was on the right.

The first threat, that is.

Our training had taught us that where there was one assassin, there was likely to be more, depending on the degree of danger you presented.  I found it hard to believe I could be a threat, but then I had been a little loose in who I questioned about my mother’s death.

It was a taboo question, but being immersed in the world she once excelled in had provided a unique opportunity.  I just didn’t think I would ruffle any feathers so quickly, or at all.

There were three would-be assassins.  We didn’t shoot to kill, which was our training, because we would be killing our own people, people who we had most likely trained with, or worked with.

Then there was the revelation.

There was another way in and out of the building that I had not been told about, and that in itself told me all I needed to know.

The briefing supervisor was compromised, or hadn’t been given the full brief.

Once out of the building, Eloise faded into the night as if she had never been there.  There had been no time for small talk, as much as I needed that one fleeting touch of hands as she left.

It reminded me that having feelings, or attachments, was at best a curse and at worst a death sentence in this job, if it was a job I wanted to take up, and those feelings I had for Eloise, having been rekindled, were going to make it impossible.

She had said as much about herself when she had left, not saying where she was going or what she was going to do. 

I had tried to put her out of my mind.

…

If this had been a normal operation, in and out, the package would simply be dropped off, and I would relocate and await the next mission.

This hadn’t been normal.

I had a cell number to call if anything went wrong.  The operations supervisor would have been aware of what had happened, and I would be called in for a debriefing.

I had a feeling Browning would be waiting on the end of the line to curate the fallout.  Dead people could be explained away; live people could talk.

I chose to sit on it until morning.  Uppermost in my mind was the fact that if the mission had gone the way Browning’s had planned, I would be either dead or captured, and sitting in a dark room somewhere awaiting interrogation.

I could still end up there.

Now, when I called, he would have to pretend that everything was fine, though there would be doubts as to how I did manage to escape what, in his mind, was meant to be an inescapable trap.

I dialled the number on the untraceable cell Eloise had given me.  The one I got for the mission was tracking my movements.  Those movements ended in the safe room.

Davidson couldn’t help himself when he answered.

“Where did you get that device?”

“I had reason to believe the mission device was compromised, as per training.  There was an unexpected visitor on the building, just before the ‘go’ signal.  Someone knew I was there.  I figured the cell was compromised and dumped it.”

“We had no prior intel of rogue movements, and our devices are secure.”

“Random factors, sir.  It’s what got a trainee tossed out of the program.  Remembered it at the last moment.  Saved me, by the way.  Three assassins tried to eliminate me.”

As if he wouldn’t know that he had three of his agents in the hospital wondering why they were not dead.

He sounded quite calm, which in a sense was disconcerting.

It was good that my training had taught me to trust no one, not even the people I worked for.

“Three?”  His incredulous tone was almost believable.

“Not unexpected, if you remember the briefing.  The organisation does contract some very nasty mercenaries as guards for their perimeter and internal security.”

“And you took care of them.”

“I believe so.  They weren’t shooting back.”

There was a moment’s silence while he digested that piece of information before asking the question he should have asked at the beginning.”

“Did you get what you were sent for?”

“Yes.”

“Then await further instructions on where you are to deliver the package.”

The line went dead.

Since the cell phone I was using was untraceable, he couldn’t send a team to eliminate me, but just to be safe, I powered it down and removed the SIM card, then changed locations.

I wasn’t going to wait to be summoned or hunted down.

…

The organisation I worked for was one of several that worked under the umbrella of the main intelligence service. 

These groups had their offices scattered about the city, hiding behind what could easily be mistaken for legitimate businesses. 

The one I worked for, and run by Davidson, lived in a large sandstone turn-of-the-century building that also had lawyers, doctors and insurance agents.  It was odd turning up at the office and mingling with a very strange collection of civilians.

While it provided the sort of cover we needed, and it gave Davidson the sort of autonomy and control over who knew what he was doing, he wanted to be without the prying eyes of those he reported to; it wasn’t the most secure.  I often wondered what would happen if a shootout came to the corridors.

It hadn’t yet, but there was always a first time.

Being away from the ultra secure central operations centre, security was not as ting, and Davidson’s mall cop security set up, the brain child of his brother-in-law who was a locksmith, was adequate but not bulletproof.

It took me a week to find all the weak spots, the black holes in CCTV coverage, and the door codes, at least those beyond what was issued on our personal key cards.

And to discover that there was another way in that didn’t require a key card, and if Davison had got a proper security assessment, he would have discovered just how insecure the office was.

His office.

When sweeping the roof during my own security inspection I discovered a I discovered a hatch door that gave access to the roof, and below that, an attic, disused, that ran the length of the building.  It was once the servants’ quarters for each of them.

There were some very interesting comments on the walls.

There were back staircases that led to each floor, and invisible doorways so they could mysteriously come and go without being seen.

There was another, the one I would be using.  Davidson was a fresh air lover and had one of the windows in his office half open, playing havoc with everyone’s air conditioning.

He could be annoying like that.

I waited until he went to his one o’clock briefing, entered by the windows, and sat in his seat.  I had no interest in rifling through the drawers or poking around in the filing cabinets.

At precisely five minutes past two he came in, closed the door behind him, and then stopped.

I would have thought he’d notice me before then.

“You need to do something about security.  I, for one, wouldn’t feel safe if just about anyone could wander in off the street.”

His usual scowl turned a shade darker.  “You’re not just anyone, are you?”

I looked at the man who controlled so many lives, to do with as he pleased.  He wasn’t that man when my mother was killed in action, but he was her liaison in the field.  That much I’d discovered before the walls went up.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

His cell phone rang.  The puzzled expression on his face told me he was not expecting a call.

He took his phone out of his top pocket and looked at the screen, shook his head, and disconnected the call.

A few seconds later, a red dot from a laser sight appeared on the wall behind me. I knew there was something there when his expression changed, and then we both watched it until it appeared on his chest before disappearing.

“Is this some sort of sick joke?”

His cell phone rang again.

“Not me.  I think you might want to answer it.  Someone wants to get your attention.”

Who, though? I didn’t know.  I had not arranged anything.

He answered it.  “Whoever you are, you are in more trouble than you can imagine possible.”

Whoever was on the end of the call said something to him; his expression changed, this time to one I’d never expected from a man like him.

He pushed a button on the screen, and it came to life.

“You know better than to go into the lion’s den by yourself.”

Eloise.

“I had it covered.”

“Now you do.”

The red laser light reappeared.

Recognition flickered.  “Morgan.  You’re working with him?”

“Saving him from you, Davidson.  And still working on what I’m going to do about you killing a friend of mine, the same one who intimated to Blake that you were his mother’s liaison on that last mission.  You made a mistake.  It cost her her life, just part of the mess you’ve been cleaning up ever since.  Last night you went too far.”

“You haven’t got all of the facts.”

“I spoke to Richardson, just before he passed.  It was an illuminating discussion, one that answered several questions I had.”

If his expression was going to be an indication of his mood, then just the mention of Richardson brought fear.

“That’s impossible.”

“No.  What was impossible is that I found him.  You did a very good job of hiding him away, so far north he’s almost at the North Pole.  You even changed his name, Ralph Weimar.  You also figured out who I was, didn’t you?”

“A guess at best.  Your tradecraft gave you away.  Isabel Jenkins.”

“Harold Jenkins, another of your losses.”

Jenkins.  I knew that name from somewhere.

His shoulders slumped slightly, as if accepting that whatever he had been doing was over.

“So, not that any of what you think you know is relevant or even happened, what are you going to do?”

“End it.”

I saw the red dot focus on Davidson and then watched him die. 

I didn’t expect what happened next.  The dot moved to me. I thought I heard the bullet leave the gun just before it hit me, and in that fraction of a second before the pain came, it was lights out.

…

I think the miracle was that I was still alive.

I don’t remember anything from the moment Davidson was shot until I just woke, slowly focusing on a water stain on the roof above me.

It felt like I’d been hit by a truck. Or worse, one of those old steam locomotives.

There was an odd perfume aroma in the room, one that seemed familiar.  It was there, on the tip of my tongue.

That was overwritten by another memory, the one where I suddenly associated my predicament with being shot, which led to remembering those last few seconds in Davidson’s office, and then Eloise.

“There he is.”

Eloise.

“What happened?”

“You were saved from a fate worse than death.”

Another memory.  I was in Davidson’s office.  Then another: the realisation I didn’t have an exit strategy.  I was going to confront him … and then what?

“How?”

“You had to be a victim.  Davidson didn’t survive; he wasn’t meant to.  He had to pay for his mistakes.  You, though, you don’t deserve what they would have done to you.  He may have been a murderer, but he did get results.  We both knew there is no real honour in the job we would have had to do.  Don’t go back, even if they ask you.”

“Why are you doing this?  How did you know…?”

“I like you, have done since the first time I saw you.  You know me.  I can see through just about anyone.  And probably because your first words were not ‘babe’, ‘date’ and ‘fuck’.”

“I was going to ask you if you wanted a coffee and a chat once, but thought twice about it, then decided not to.  You had enough admirers.”

She smiled.  “I’m glad I’m out of it.  It was a mistake, but a good one.  I met you.  Come work with me. I’m going back to being a Private Detective.  LA or Hollywood.  Maybe New York.  Who knows.  We can just get on the next train out and see where it takes us. What do you say?”

“How long will I be here?”

“A couple of days.  It’s a clean wound, nothing damaged.  You can thank me later.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Here.  Told them we’re about to be married and I wasn’t letting you out of my sight.  It amuses them. I kinda like the sound of it.  But it takes two to tango, so I can wait until you’re back on your feet, and we’ll see how good we can dance together.  Now, the doctor would like to talk to you, then the police.  I’ll be right here if you need me.  OK?”

“Dance?”  Perhaps there was a little confusion.

“Tango.  Yes.  Tango, Alpha, November, Golf, Oscar.”

I felt a surge of adrenalin run through me, and my mind cleared, taking a quick glance around the room, and ending on Eloise, only she was not Eloise, she was Baxter, Captain, my team leader, and I was Reynolds, Lieutenant, undercover.

She had just issued an Agent down signal, which I assumed to be me.  Protocol Five was instituted, and I was to follow her lead.

Something must have gone terribly wrong.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026