I’m not a night person and even less so a pub person, except perhaps for a Sunday lunch, for what is usually an incomparable steak.
But tonight is different.
We’re meeting people who have come up from Melbourne for a wedding, people we haven’t seen for a long time.
I’m not a conversationalist, so I leave them to it, and go on a character hunt.
And the pickings are rich.
My first victim, If she could be called that, is the one I call the lady in the red dress.
She’s on the other side of 40, with a sort of earthy attractiveness about her. The first thing to notice, for her age, the dress is too short. Maybe that’s the fashion and I’m just an old fogey, but it does say something.
She’s definitely single, or perhaps a player, certainly a flirt. She holds the stage, and talks with her hands, and those around her are captivated.
The untidy hair loosely collected in a hair tie tells me she carries a sort of messy but not messy look, and I wonder at the state of her residence. It’s a leap I know, but small signs indicate bigger things.
I’ve counted two glasses of beer in an hour and a half, so she is sensible, aware of her surroundings, and of the three men she has spent her time with, it’s hard to pick a winner. It’s not hard to captivate a loser.
Next comes the party girls three 20 somethings dressed to be noticed, and overly animated and screams look at us.
Oops, they just parked themselves nearby with the very expensive and exotic-looking matching cocktails. There’s the obligatory selfie together, and then a casual look around to see what’s on offer.
I don’t think there’s a lot, but my standards and their standards are most likely miles apart.
Hang on, news flash, they’re a part of another group nearby, several older office workers who could be the so-called chaperones, or just having a quiet drink before having to go home to any of, a family, a car, an empty flat, or blessed relief the week is finally over.
Next door to us is a family group, the kids are teens, and I’m wondering if the boys are boyfriends. The mother is an older, very attractive version of the daughter.
Perhaps it’s an experience for the girls because I don’t see a man who could act as a husband unless it’s the second time around with a younger version.
Why not. Men do it, why can’t women. But out on the town with your teenage children?
The bar’s entertainment … a single guy playing the guitar, along with backing music that makes him sound better, but people seem to agree that it’s good but not brilliant.
He’s singing covers, which may have made him just so so, perhaps if he sang his own material it might take him to the next level.
But, who cares, no one seems to be listening, the noise level of what seems like a thousand concurrent conversations drowning out any appreciation.
Of course, it’s headache-inducing because he has the volume so high, just to get over the ambient noise, and in doing so, it takes away the intrinsic musicality of it all, and it’s just more noise to contend with.
I suppose it’s better than canned music.
OK, news flash, the red dress had moved down the table and settled on a prospect, about 15 years younger. Her animation has intensified, and yes, there’s the casual brushing against him, like a cat marking its territory.
The night is young, and it’s looking good. I’m not going to pretend I have given a passing thought to spending a few minutes with her, for character creation purposes only.
And yes, we now have a sing-along. At half-past eight, it’s a bit early for the crowd to be too exuberant.
A squeal shatters the, well, not silence, and is one of the groups pretending like someone had dripped ice down the back of a dress that has no back, the next phase of attention-getting.
And, attention directed their way, they do a little dance, skol the drinks, and with all eyes on them, head to the bar for round two, or is that three. Several others join them, but they don’t need to do the dance. The lack of clothes more than makes up for the squeals.
If these are the modern mating rituals a lot has changed in the last 50 years. Or perhaps not, I’m just too old to remember.
It had been a last-minute decision to move from the city to the suburbs.
Of course, the benefits far outweighed the minor inconvenience of the extra commute, but there was room to grow, and for the same money, instead of a cramped two-bedroom apartment, we had a four-bedroom three-bathroom two-story residence with land, a garage with a workspace, a lawn to more and a garden to tend.
And half a street away, the ocean, so near I could sometimes hear the waves, and certainly when the wind was blowing in off the sea, the aroma of salt in the air.
Every morning I woke up and said a silent prayer to the Gods that had made our wishes come true
I woke up to the sun streaming through the bedroom windows, another morning in paradise. I looked sideways, but Tiana was already up and about, more than likely on her early morning run.
I didn’t have the same enthusiasm, for rising early and exercising. I went out onto the balcony and looked in the direction of the ocean, a cloudless sky indicating another hot day was coming.
I went downstairs, and the first thing I noticed, Tiana’s computer was missing. Another check showed she had gone to work, apparently forsaking her usual exercise regime, something she rarely did, and not in the time I’d known her, which was coming up to five years.
I turned on the TV to get the morning news as I did. Every morning while making and drinking that first cup of coffee, and some muesli.
A breaking story.
Tiana worked at the TV station, but her role was to work on the evening news stories, after giving up the morning news role and the 3am starts when we got married. Less pay she said, but less stress, it was one of the reasons we moved to the suburbs.
I hadn’t heard her phone, but she must have been called in, her experience a factor, she was the best in the business, and other stations had tried to lure her away.
The screen was frozen on the words, breaking the story, as if they were building tension.
Then the power shut down.
We’d been having intermittent issues with fuses, and it was probably just another fuse. I went out to the garage where the fuse box was, but all the fuses were intact.
I went out to the street, where Larry, the next-door neighbor was looking first one way, then the other, trying to locate a cause. A few of the other neighbors were doing the same.
I was reminded of a report that was passed on to us to read, about what to expect I’d there was a sudden loss of services, fuel, and food. Each premise preceding such an event was unrealistic, oil supplies stopped, electricity power stations were sabotaged, being attacked by foreign missiles since the latter items were now capable of traveling long distances.
But what was predicted to happen after that was even more unbelievable, that society as we know it would start showing cracks after two weeks, then if nothing improved, two months before complete anarchy would reign? I had faith in mankind and wrote it off as scaremongering.
“What do you think is going on, Dave?” He asked me. “Your station should have some idea.”
Larry thought, because I was a policeman, I had the answers to everything. The fact I was a beat cop held no significance.
“Not a clue. It’s probably just the power station struggling to deal with the heatwave. I suspect it’s probably a brownout. I’m sure you got the same letter from the power company as we did saying supplies might be cut off from time to time.”
“I don’t think it’s that. It’s a bit bigger than just in this neighborhood, my brother just called, and it’s the same thing 30 miles away. This is big.”
Which in my mind had bigger ramifications? With no power, and no communication, especially between police officers, the propensity to commit crime was huge. Was there a crime syndicate behind this? A few months before an attack on a power station stopped supply for a short time, after which it was discovered there had been a spate of robberies.
Criminals were getting more inventive.
“I’ll find out,” I said, heading back inside, hoping my mobile phone still had a signal.
The house was eerily silent without anything running, and it felt weird knowing there was no power anywhere.
Unlike most people, I had a survival kit, all the items we had been trained to set aside in case of a disaster, one we hoped would never happen. Medical supplies, torch, battery-operated radio, and long-life food in the form of bars and cans.
I kept it on the back of a cupboard in the garage, the torch, and radio the most accessible items. I checked my phone and there was no signal. The towers were down.
I put the batteries in the radio and turned it on. The first station I tuned into was in the middle of an announcement.
“…there is a city-wide blackout with all power stations temporarily off-line. The repair crews are on-site and expect the power will be restored imminently. Those with radios who can hear this announcement, please tell everyone to get a battery-operated radio and listen for further instructions.
All police, medical, first responders, fire services, and military should stand by on their respective communication devices for further instructions.”
I hadn’t given that a thought.
Something else I hadn’t remembered was that some time ago I had given Tiana a device similar to the two-way radio I used for work, that used a spare frequency that no one knew about. Yet. I’d found it by accident, tinkering.
I went into the house and up to the clinic in the bedroom where the two devices were kept. If she had left it at home, it wouldn’t be much use, but being called in like she had, I wonder if she suspected something more sinister was developing.
I looked in the box and Tiana’s was missing.
Now I was worried.
When I went back out to the street, I could hear the sound of emergency service vehicles’ sirens, in the distance, and getting closer.
There was a scratchy sound on my device, an indication someone was about to talk.
Then, a voice, Tiana’s. “David, I know you’re there?”
When I turned my device on, it sent a signal to others on that frequency.
“I am. What’s going on, do you know?”
“From what we’re being told, and, at the moment, can’t tell anyone, is there’s been a highly coordinated attack on a dozen powers stations and sub-stations effectively blacking out the city. No one knows why yet, but there’s a chance one of the saboteurs is going to escape the way he came, by sea, near where we live of all places. They tracked his arrival, one the got a photo of him.”
The FBI was very good at tracking people, but I imagine it was a concerted effort between the CIA, the FBI, and local police forces. I guess, being my day off, they thought it best to leave me in peace.
She gave me a description of the man and signed off because someone was coming, and she would get into trouble, or worse.
I also had a gun stashed in the same place as the radios, checked it, and, safety on, put it in my pocket.
Just in case.
A saboteur was on the loose.
It explained why the sirens were so close. Were they chasing him, or just heading to where he was expected to leave?
Was he in a car, or on foot?
I heard what sounded like someone stifling calling out, just the start of a word. Coming from next door, I wondered if Larry had hurt himself. He was, by his own admission a handyman, but according to everyone who knew him, he was not that handy.
I went next door, down the side towards his workshop in a large barn-type building in the yard. The sliding doors were slightly ajar, he was probably inside and hurt.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
I put my head in and saw him with another man at the back where Larry was fumbling with a set of keys trying to unlock the back doors.
On the other side was a pickup with a boat and trailer, ready to head out fishing, when he got the time. I’d been once with him, and the boat was borderline seaworthy.
He’d been tinkering with it a few days before.
“Everything all right Larry?”
“We’re fine. Larry asked me to go fishing with him, and now seemed like a good day,” the man answered for him.
Larry looked panic-stricken.
I’d seen people like that before, usually with a gun or knife prodded into their ribs.
A closer look at the man, he could be the one Tiana described. Certainly, the height, and the look of a construction worker or tradesman.
“Perhaps I might join you since it’s my day off.”
Larry turned, and his expression told me exactly what was going on. “We’re in a hurry, Dave. Just room for the two of us. Another time.”
With the unwritten ‘please leave’ on his face.
I shrugged. “OK. Catch you later.”
I had about a minute, possibly two, before the man realized, I was not going to leave. He knew it looked suspicious.
It just depended on how long it took Larry to open the doors.
I dodged abound the side, and under the window, as I passed it to the other end of the barn.
Just as I reached the end, I heard one of the two doors open, but no talking.
A sixth sense perhaps, told me the man might have come back to the front, and suspecting I hadn’t left, was about to come around the corner. If he did, there was nowhere to hide.
Gun out, safety off, pointing in that direction, I waited.
Nothing.
If he wasn’t…
The sound of a crumpling aluminum can from behind gave me just enough time to turn, make sure it was the man, and shoot.
Not to kill, but to stop. Only after he fell to the ground did I realize he had been holding Larry as a shield, and it was he who stepped on the can.
How he managed to get that fraction of separation, I don’t know, and he probably would never be able to explain it, but there wasn’t time for analysis right then, or for me to realize how stupid I’d just been.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
And the perils of writing on the fly often leads to back revisions to aid moving forward, and this is one of those occasions. A few revisions were required.
Short of jumping over the side, there was no way we were getting away. And judging from the expression on Rico’s face, now very plain to see halfway along the pier, he was not happy to see us.
Boggs stepped off the deck and joined me on the pier, just as Rico made it to where we were standing, just as it started in a gentle up and down motion with the water, churned up by a passing speed boat, but it was fear rather than the pier’s motions making me feel sick.
The sound of another boat caused me to glance in the opposite direction, out towards the sandbar, where I could see another large boat coming in our direction very quickly, and by the shape of it, quite possibly a police launch or the coast guard.
Rico had seen it too. “What have you done?”
“I called the police,” I said, trying to act braver than I felt. Even with the police on their way, Rico could still do something we’d all regret.
“Why?”
Movement by the fishing store caught my eye, and I saw it was two of the men who’d left the boat with Rico earlier, retreating. They’d seen the situation and were retreating. A police car with its siren blaring and lights flashing just stopped at the entrance to the pier and two officers were getting out, guns in hand.
Those men would getaway. Rico had seen them too and looked relieved. Odd for a man about to find himself in a lot of trouble.
Boggs blurted out, “There’s a dead body in the cabin.”
Rico shook his head. “That’s not possible. I’ve been gone for an hour and it isn’t possible he put himself there.”
He looked around to see the officers coming from the land side of the pier. There was no escape for him, or for us, but this could still end up a sticky situation for us if Rico decided to shoot his way out. Boggs said he owned a gun, and if it was not on him, it might be in the boat.
Rico climbed on board and then moved to the hatch. He lifted the hatch cover and folded it back to show an opening into the cabin. It hadn’t been locked; it just looked like it was. Just as the officers made it to the boat, he stepped in, then down into the cabin.
A minute later, when he came up Rico looked visibly shaken like he’d seen a ghost.
The police launch had arrived just off the stern, kicking up the water and causing the boat and pier to rock violently, two men at either end ready to secure their boat to ours. The land-based officers also arrived, somewhat out of breath, to join Boggs and I on the pier.
I recognised the officer who appeared to be in charge, a man called Johnson, the police chief’s deputy. He was known to shoot first and ask questions later. What worried me the most, he had his gun drawn and ready to shoot.
He looked at me, Rico, Boggs, then back to me. “What’s this all about?”
“There’s a body in the cabin,” Boggs said before I could say a word, still sounding very frightened, but whether it was the body in the cabin, Rico’s fury at his meddling or the fact the police were involved was hard to say.
He switched his glare to Rico. “That true?”
Rico nodded. “I don’t know where it came from, but it wasn’t there an hour ago.” A last look back at the cabin, he stepped off the boat onto the pier.
The seaman aboard the police launch slipped a rope over the bollard at the rear of our boat and then jumped on board to secure it. Another seaman did the same at the bow. Two more jumped on board, one covering Rico and the other going into the cabin.
When he came back up on deck he was talking into his cell phone.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
We walked slowly towards the end of the passage, each time I passed a cell I had a look in, and noted if it had a prisoner or not. By the end of the passage, I counted six prisoners, and one was a woman.’
She just looked at me sullenly, and I guess if it was light enough, that look would be with pleading eyes. Sadly, I couldn’t save her, or the other five.
At the end of the corridor, we retraced our steps towards the hall, along the passage where I counted another three prisoners, then up the stairs to the ground level. We came out into a better-lit alcove with arches leading in three directions.
Straight ahead was the hall.
We turned to the left. Along another passage that seemed to run the length of the wall, what I thought was the stone battlement that made up one side of the castle, looking out over fields, with a village in the distance.
What I thought was the opposite side to the guard tower I’d been in earlier.
I tried to figure out if that’s where we were, and if my memory served me correctly, we were heading towards the wall that was built into the mountainside, in which case we’d go up another set of stairs, at the top of which would be an exit, or turning right, to a room that once served as the guards quarters, now used for kitchen supplies.
What else was here? My mind was blank.
Up the steps, so far I was right, ahead of a thick wooden door, locked, so we turned right and passed a small room. I’d forgotten it, but it was the radio room, wires leading out a small arrow slit window to the aerial. The man in front stumbled, then regained his gait.
I could hear the man behind me shaking his head.
“Halt,” the man behind me barked.
The man in front stopped dead, and I crashed into him. I felt rather than saw the fist come towards me; it was not for me, but the other guard, who, preoccupied with not falling, never saw it coming.
He went down like the proverbial ask of potatoes, no idea what happened.
My turn?
A hand landed on my shoulder, thrusting me towards the door to the storeroom. “Go, now. The door on the other side is open, head down to the creek and follow it. Someone will meet you.”
I half turned, “Who…”
“No time. Go. And shut the door behind you.” I felt him thrust a gun in my hand. “Hit me.”
I hesitated.
“Do it, or I’ll be shot.”
I shrugged and hit him. He slowly slid to the floor. A second glance, no, I didn’t know who he was, the headed for the back of the storeroom. The door was open. A cautious look before stepping out, I saw no one but heard breathing. Jack. How did the dog know I’d be here?
I closed the door behind me and heard the lock engage, then after a pat on Jack’s head, he led the way.
How many people do you know have their front door smashed in at the crack of dawn, followed by a swat team, armed to the teeth, swarming through the house ready to put down any resistance?
Just the suddenness of the cacophony of noise, the shouting, and the sheer threat of death, left me firstly shattered, and secondly, in fear of being accidentally killed, especially when there were six guns trained on me.
When the all-clear came, when no one else was discovered in the house, one of the suited men came back and motioned the six to take a step back and raise their weapons.
“Get up.”
If I was expected a ‘please’, or an apology, both would be a long time coming.
“Where is she?”
I barely had time to catch my breath and try to stop shaking. Six guns were still pointing in my direction, and those holding them no less wanted to shoot me for any reason whatsoever.
“Who?” There were two girls in this house.
“Don’t be obtuse, Mr. Jacobs. Obstruction will get you nothing but a stretch in prison with some very unsavoury characters. Where is she?”
The notion that they could be looking for Liz was as preposterous as the day was long. I had known her for five years, since we both left the same company, unhappy with the pay and conditions, and moved to a new company, deciding to stay together, first as a team, and then I was hoping would be something more intimate.
It had to be someone else, like the odd woman who had ingratiated herself with the group I was with, and ostensibly left the bar with me, but only as far as the car park. Perhaps, if we were being observed, it might have been construed as something else.
“Can you give me a name, at least?”
“Elizabeth Morgan.”
Liz? She designed computer games, and I helped with the programming. Other than that, she went to church every Sunday and visited her folks in the next county every second Saturday. I’d met them on numerous occasions, and they were just ordinary people.
“Why on earth would you be looking for her?”
“That’s classified, Mr. Jacobs. All you need to do is tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know. The last time we spoke, she was heading off to the market to get groceries.”
“Which was?”
“About an hour ago.”
A woman put her head in the door, and said, “she’s nowhere on the property, sir.”
I recognized her immediately as the woman in the bar, and suddenly realized she had been subtly interrogating me about Liz, trying to find out where she was, and why she wasn’t there with me.
She glared at me, then disappeared.
“Who are you?” I asked. “FBI, CIA, NSA?”
“Why would you assume that I’m from any of those agencies?”
“Your friend who put her head in the door. I might not have realized who she was last night, but I do now. You think Liz has committed some sort of cybercrime, don’t you?”
“So, you do know what she’s been up to?”
“No. But you just told me. And I suspect a man by the name of Champion has been feeding you scurrilous lies, but you don’t need to say anything more. You’re right, I do know what this is about, but I know whatever he said to you to get here isn’t true, but, then, he has more money or more low friends in even lower places than we have, so do your worst.”
Liz wasn’t a criminal, nor was she guilty of anything except claiming the rights to her property. Champion, though, always maintained that anything she created while working for him was his. True enough, we all signed the contract. But what she created was after she resigned and we were working on a new project together. Now, to get around that, he was claiming her work would be a violation of national security. It would, if it was in his hands, and that was never going to happen.
“It would be good for everyone if she just surrendered and pleaded her case if what you say is true.”
An interesting change in tactics.
I looked him up and down. Just the sort of man who would sell out to the highest bidder. Champion was good only at one thing, knowing how much a person would sell out his principles for, even his mother if it came down to it. Everyone had a price. Unfortunately for us, it would seem, he didn’t know ours.
He shrugged. “Perhaps so time in a dark hole might loosen your tongue.”
Dark hold indeed.
To be honest, I thought he was joking, but he was not.
I was put in a small room with no furniture or anything to sit or lie on. There was just a cold, damp and hard concrete floor, designed to make you so uncomfortable, you’d sell your soul just to get away from it.
There would be some hard choices to be made here. Would I sell out Liz, would I do everything I could to stop Champion who was intent, now that he had what he wanted, in getting rid of anyone who might have a claim.
She had said this was what would happen, and I didn’t believe her. No surprise then she was gone and didn’t tell me.
But if they were to ask me, and I was in that frame of mind to tell them everything I knew, there wasn’t much I could tell them. I think that’s what she had once told me was plausible deniability.
She had been trying to keep me safe, but didn’t realize that my captors didn’t really care whether I knew anything or nothing, they wouldn’t believe me and were going to extract the information they wanted by any and all means available.
Something I definitely wasn’t looking forward to.
It was impossible to stay awake. I was trying to, just in case they came and took me away while I was unconscious.
Despite the hard, uncomfortable floor, I fell into a fitful sleep, and it was appropriate that I would dream of Elizabeth.
I remembered the first time I met her, being introduced as an assistant programmer, the look of contempt she gave me, and the messenger. I’d never seen anyone that focussed on their work.
It took a month before she would let me look at the code, and then only small sections at a time. It was complex, and way beyond anything I had been involved with, which surprised me how it was I got the job.
She said, one morning, and I agreed, that a more experienced programmer was required.
Until I told her five lines of code needed a slight change otherwise there would be a rather interesting result. I was not only a programmer, I had once worked with a scientist whose field was space and time, not exactly time travel, but he theorized that we could move from one place to another through what were essentially wormholes.
I thought he was working on a script for a television show.
My job was to create a data warehouse, and while doing so, did some reading on the side.
I had also seen the coding behind a prototype machine that was supposed to create the wormhole, but it was too complex for me to understand.
But the code Elizabeth had was almost identical but mixed up. When I told her, she said I was an idiot who wouldn’t know what day it was, and demanded I leave.
Two days later she came to my apartment, apologized, asked me to return, and on the way asked a thousand questions.
At that time, I learned the scientist I worked for was her mentor, and that he was dead, ostensibly from a heart attack. She didn’t believe it, and that’s where I got my introduction to the arch-villain Champion.
From there it evolved into something more special, but the constraints of work and her idea of romance seemed to make it more like a rollercoaster ride and I didn’t press.
So, I was, for the time being, content with my dreams, one of which was playing in my head now.
She had appeared, coming through a sort of haze or distortion, and was standing above me, smiling.
It couldn’t be true, and yet it seemed so lifelike.
She knelt down and took my hand in hers, and whispered. “Wake up, sleepyhead, it’s time to go.”
I could smell the aroma of her perfume enveloping me.
When I went to open my eyes I found they were already open. I gently squeezed her hand, and it was real.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes. Now. We really have to go.”
“Where?”
“Stand up, and I’ll show you.”
I let her pull me to my feet and she gave me a hug, and whispered in my ear, “I love you,”
Now I knew it was a dream. She had never intimated such feelings before.
I’d play along. “It’s impossible to escape this cell.”
“Is it?” She took a step towards the distortion, “Come.”
I followed. Then, the next moment, I was in the dining room of her apartment”
“What just happened?”
Before she could answer, I lost consciousness. Last thought, it was too good to be true.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
The pier had been moving gently up and down in response to a passing speed boat that had flouted the minimum speed law, like most of the speed boat owners.
On board the boat, the movement was more pronounced, and it was a bad time to remember that I get seasick, even standing on the pier. My stomach was suddenly queasy.
Boggs was standing by the hatch that led down below. It was locked with a big padlock so there was no way we were getting below. Along the side of the boat was a raised section with windows, but there were curtained off, and the material was faded and looked dirty.
Boggs walked along the narrow walkway to the bow and tried the hatch in the middle of the foredeck.
I noticed the boat was tied to the pier fore and aft with some think rope and funny looking knots. I don’t think I’d make a very good sailor. I looked up to the top of the mast and it made me feel dizzy. It was a long way up.
Behind me was an area where people could seat, and further back a large wheel which I assumed was how the boat was steered. I could just see Rico standing behind it, captain’s hat on, looking all business-like.
“There’s nothing to see here,” I said, turning back towards Boggs, who was now coming along the other side of the cabin. One slip and he’d be in the ocean. I looked over the side and it didn’t look very deep. I could even see some small fish swimming near the pylon that was covered below the waterline with seaweed.
Boggs stopped at the last window, then knelt down and peered in.
“What do you see?”
“There’s someone in there?”
“Rico?”
“No. I saw him leave earlier. Someone else.”
“You know who it is?”
“No. Never seen him before. A guy in a suit. Not the sort of person I’d expect Rico to know, or have as a friend.”
“What’s he doing?”
Boggs changed his position to get a better look. “He’s just sitting…oh my God, there’s blood.”
“Where?”
I moved quickly over to where Boggs was crouched. “Give us a look?” Curiosity was overtaking concern.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Boggs said over and over.
I pulled out my phone and dialled 911. When they asked me who I wanted, I said Police. Then I looked over at the fishing shop and saw Rico and his friends coming back.
“Boggs.”
He ignored me, trying to get a better view.
“Boggs. It’s Rico.”
Then the policeman answered, “What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“Dead man on a boat, Eden’s Landing, Pier 5, a boat called ‘Freedom Runner’. And you’d better hurry.”
“Why?”
“Because the owners coming and he doesn’t look happy.”
Then to Boggs, “We got to get the hell out of here, now.”
But, by that time, there was nowhere to go. Rico had seen us and was all but running to cut off our escape.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
We walked slowly towards the end of the passage, each time I passed a cell I had a look in, and noted if it had a prisoner or not. By the end of the passage, I counted six prisoners, and one was a woman.’
She just looked at me sullenly, and I guess if it was light enough, that look would be with pleading eyes. Sadly, I couldn’t save her, or the other five.
At the end of the corridor, we retraced our steps towards the hall, along the passage where I counted another three prisoners, then up the stairs to the ground level. We came out into a better-lit alcove with arches leading in three directions.
Straight ahead was the hall.
We turned to the left. Along another passage that seemed to run the length of the wall, what I thought was the stone battlement that made up one side of the castle, looking out over fields, with a village in the distance.
What I thought was the opposite side to the guard tower I’d been in earlier.
I tried to figure out if that’s where we were, and if my memory served me correctly, we were heading towards the wall that was built into the mountainside, in which case we’d go up another set of stairs, at the top of which would be an exit, or turning right, to a room that once served as the guards quarters, now used for kitchen supplies.
What else was here? My mind was blank.
Up the steps, so far I was right, ahead of a thick wooden door, locked, so we turned right and passed a small room. I’d forgotten it, but it was the radio room, wires leading out a small arrow slit window to the aerial. The man in front stumbled, then regained his gait.
I could hear the man behind me shaking his head.
“Halt,” the man behind me barked.
The man in front stopped dead, and I crashed into him. I felt rather than saw the fist come towards me; it was not for me, but the other guard, who, preoccupied with not falling, never saw it coming.
He went down like the proverbial ask of potatoes, no idea what happened.
My turn?
A hand landed on my shoulder, thrusting me towards the door to the storeroom. “Go, now. The door on the other side is open, head down to the creek and follow it. Someone will meet you.”
I half turned, “Who…”
“No time. Go. And shut the door behind you.” I felt him thrust a gun in my hand. “Hit me.”
I hesitated.
“Do it, or I’ll be shot.”
I shrugged and hit him. He slowly slid to the floor. A second glance, no, I didn’t know who he was, the headed for the back of the storeroom. The door was open. A cautious look before stepping out, I saw no one but heard breathing. Jack. How did the dog know I’d be here?
I closed the door behind me and heard the lock engage, then after a pat on Jack’s head, he led the way.
How many people do you know have their front door smashed in at the crack of dawn, followed by a swat team, armed to the teeth, swarming through the house ready to put down any resistance?
Just the suddenness of the cacophony of noise, the shouting, and the sheer threat of death, left me firstly shattered, and secondly, in fear of being accidentally killed, especially when there were six guns trained on me.
When the all-clear came, when no one else was discovered in the house, one of the suited men came back and motioned the six to take a step back and raise their weapons.
“Get up.”
If I was expected a ‘please’, or an apology, both would be a long time coming.
“Where is she?”
I barely had time to catch my breath and try to stop shaking. Six guns were still pointing in my direction, and those holding them no less wanted to shoot me for any reason whatsoever.
“Who?” There were two girls in this house.
“Don’t be obtuse, Mr. Jacobs. Obstruction will get you nothing but a stretch in prison with some very unsavoury characters. Where is she?”
The notion that they could be looking for Liz was as preposterous as the day was long. I had known her for five years, since we both left the same company, unhappy with the pay and conditions, and moved to a new company, deciding to stay together, first as a team, and then I was hoping would be something more intimate.
It had to be someone else, like the odd woman who had ingratiated herself with the group I was with, and ostensibly left the bar with me, but only as far as the car park. Perhaps, if we were being observed, it might have been construed as something else.
“Can you give me a name, at least?”
“Elizabeth Morgan.”
Liz? She designed computer games, and I helped with the programming. Other than that, she went to church every Sunday and visited her folks in the next county every second Saturday. I’d met them on numerous occasions, and they were just ordinary people.
“Why on earth would you be looking for her?”
“That’s classified, Mr. Jacobs. All you need to do is tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know. The last time we spoke, she was heading off to the market to get groceries.”
“Which was?”
“About an hour ago.”
A woman put her head in the door, and said, “she’s nowhere on the property, sir.”
I recognized her immediately as the woman in the bar, and suddenly realized she had been subtly interrogating me about Liz, trying to find out where she was, and why she wasn’t there with me.
She glared at me, then disappeared.
“Who are you?” I asked. “FBI, CIA, NSA?”
“Why would you assume that I’m from any of those agencies?”
“Your friend who put her head in the door. I might not have realized who she was last night, but I do now. You think Liz has committed some sort of cybercrime, don’t you?”
“So, you do know what she’s been up to?”
“No. But you just told me. And I suspect a man by the name of Champion has been feeding you scurrilous lies, but you don’t need to say anything more. You’re right, I do know what this is about, but I know whatever he said to you to get here isn’t true, but, then, he has more money or more low friends in even lower places than we have, so do your worst.”
Liz wasn’t a criminal, nor was she guilty of anything except claiming the rights to her property. Champion, though, always maintained that anything she created while working for him was his. True enough, we all signed the contract. But what she created was after she resigned and we were working on a new project together. Now, to get around that, he was claiming her work would be a violation of national security. It would, if it was in his hands, and that was never going to happen.
“It would be good for everyone if she just surrendered and pleaded her case if what you say is true.”
An interesting change in tactics.
I looked him up and down. Just the sort of man who would sell out to the highest bidder. Champion was good only at one thing, knowing how much a person would sell out his principles for, even his mother if it came down to it. Everyone had a price. Unfortunately for us, it would seem, he didn’t know ours.
He shrugged. “Perhaps so time in a dark hole might loosen your tongue.”
Dark hold indeed.
To be honest, I thought he was joking, but he was not.
I was put in a small room with no furniture or anything to sit or lie on. There was just a cold, damp and hard concrete floor, designed to make you so uncomfortable, you’d sell your soul just to get away from it.
There would be some hard choices to be made here. Would I sell out Liz, would I do everything I could to stop Champion who was intent, now that he had what he wanted, in getting rid of anyone who might have a claim.
She had said this was what would happen, and I didn’t believe her. No surprise then she was gone and didn’t tell me.
But if they were to ask me, and I was in that frame of mind to tell them everything I knew, there wasn’t much I could tell them. I think that’s what she had once told me was plausible deniability.
She had been trying to keep me safe, but didn’t realize that my captors didn’t really care whether I knew anything or nothing, they wouldn’t believe me and were going to extract the information they wanted by any and all means available.
Something I definitely wasn’t looking forward to.
It was impossible to stay awake. I was trying to, just in case they came and took me away while I was unconscious.
Despite the hard, uncomfortable floor, I fell into a fitful sleep, and it was appropriate that I would dream of Elizabeth.
I remembered the first time I met her, being introduced as an assistant programmer, the look of contempt she gave me, and the messenger. I’d never seen anyone that focussed on their work.
It took a month before she would let me look at the code, and then only small sections at a time. It was complex, and way beyond anything I had been involved with, which surprised me how it was I got the job.
She said, one morning, and I agreed, that a more experienced programmer was required.
Until I told her five lines of code needed a slight change otherwise there would be a rather interesting result. I was not only a programmer, I had once worked with a scientist whose field was space and time, not exactly time travel, but he theorized that we could move from one place to another through what were essentially wormholes.
I thought he was working on a script for a television show.
My job was to create a data warehouse, and while doing so, did some reading on the side.
I had also seen the coding behind a prototype machine that was supposed to create the wormhole, but it was too complex for me to understand.
But the code Elizabeth had was almost identical but mixed up. When I told her, she said I was an idiot who wouldn’t know what day it was, and demanded I leave.
Two days later she came to my apartment, apologized, asked me to return, and on the way asked a thousand questions.
At that time, I learned the scientist I worked for was her mentor, and that he was dead, ostensibly from a heart attack. She didn’t believe it, and that’s where I got my introduction to the arch-villain Champion.
From there it evolved into something more special, but the constraints of work and her idea of romance seemed to make it more like a rollercoaster ride and I didn’t press.
So, I was, for the time being, content with my dreams, one of which was playing in my head now.
She had appeared, coming through a sort of haze or distortion, and was standing above me, smiling.
It couldn’t be true, and yet it seemed so lifelike.
She knelt down and took my hand in hers, and whispered. “Wake up, sleepyhead, it’s time to go.”
I could smell the aroma of her perfume enveloping me.
When I went to open my eyes I found they were already open. I gently squeezed her hand, and it was real.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes. Now. We really have to go.”
“Where?”
“Stand up, and I’ll show you.”
I let her pull me to my feet and she gave me a hug, and whispered in my ear, “I love you,”
Now I knew it was a dream. She had never intimated such feelings before.
I’d play along. “It’s impossible to escape this cell.”
“Is it?” She took a step towards the distortion, “Come.”
I followed. Then, the next moment, I was in the dining room of her apartment”
“What just happened?”
Before she could answer, I lost consciousness. Last thought, it was too good to be true.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
The pier had been moving gently up and down in response to a passing speed boat that had flouted the minimum speed law, like most of the speed boat owners.
On board the boat, the movement was more pronounced, and it was a bad time to remember that I get seasick, even standing on the pier. My stomach was suddenly queasy.
Boggs was standing by the hatch that led down below. It was locked with a big padlock so there was no way we were getting below. Along the side of the boat was a raised section with windows, but there were curtained off, and the material was faded and looked dirty.
Boggs walked along the narrow walkway to the bow and tried the hatch in the middle of the foredeck.
I noticed the boat was tied to the pier fore and aft with some think rope and funny looking knots. I don’t think I’d make a very good sailor. I looked up to the top of the mast and it made me feel dizzy. It was a long way up.
Behind me was an area where people could seat, and further back a large wheel which I assumed was how the boat was steered. I could just see Rico standing behind it, captain’s hat on, looking all business-like.
“There’s nothing to see here,” I said, turning back towards Boggs, who was now coming along the other side of the cabin. One slip and he’d be in the ocean. I looked over the side and it didn’t look very deep. I could even see some small fish swimming near the pylon that was covered below the waterline with seaweed.
Boggs stopped at the last window, then knelt down and peered in.
“What do you see?”
“There’s someone in there?”
“Rico?”
“No. I saw him leave earlier. Someone else.”
“You know who it is?”
“No. Never seen him before. A guy in a suit. Not the sort of person I’d expect Rico to know, or have as a friend.”
“What’s he doing?”
Boggs changed his position to get a better look. “He’s just sitting…oh my God, there’s blood.”
“Where?”
I moved quickly over to where Boggs was crouched. “Give us a look?” Curiosity was overtaking concern.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Boggs said over and over.
I pulled out my phone and dialled 911. When they asked me who I wanted, I said Police. Then I looked over at the fishing shop and saw Rico and his friends coming back.
“Boggs.”
He ignored me, trying to get a better view.
“Boggs. It’s Rico.”
Then the policeman answered, “What’s the nature of your emergency?”
“Dead man on a boat, Eden’s Landing, Pier 5, a boat called ‘Freedom Runner’. And you’d better hurry.”
“Why?”
“Because the owners coming and he doesn’t look happy.”
Then to Boggs, “We got to get the hell out of here, now.”
But, by that time, there was nowhere to go. Rico had seen us and was all but running to cut off our escape.
So there are words on paper, and three times I’ve tried to fix it, or, perhaps just make it sound better because reading it in my head, there’s too little background and too many questions.
The flow of the story isn’t working for me, so I guess it’s time to sit down and work out what it is I’m trying to say.
The notion that our main character, Graham, is a loser seems to shine through, and that’s not what I’m trying to portray him as. No, far from it, it’s been a lifetime of bad choices that have put him where he is, and he knows it.
So, in part, this is about owning your mistakes, and it’s my job to make him come across as a hero in waiting. There’s good in him, perhaps too much, but there is also that attitude that led to all those bad choices, the one that can get him into trouble, and a sort of intransigence inherited from his father, that has more or less got him ostracised from the family.
I want this character to be a chop off the old block, both of whom are the type not to back down, not to say sorry, and, to quote a rather apt allegory, would cut their nose off to spite their face.
Graham’s intransigence led to his refusal to follow his father into business, refusal to go to University despite having the necessary qualifications, and just to round out the defiance, his choice of women whom he knew would meet with family disapproval.
And these factors, over a period of time, saw him bounce from a low-paying job to jobs with no prospects, and a string of failed relationships, until this moment in time, where he was basically on his own, working the graveyard shift as a security guard. The sort of job where qualifications weren’t looked for and workmates looked like and probably were ex-cons.
There are a few more details like the older brother, Jackson, politician and schemer, the same as his father before him (the seat was passed down through the family), like the younger sister who is a highly successful surgeon, married into immense wealth. His brother had been less successful in the marital stakes but what he lacked in a wife was more than made up with a string of highly eligible and beautiful women.
And, no, he doesn’t resent the fact they’re rich, or that his parents were, too, just that they treated him with contempt.
It was almost five years since the last time he had seen any of them, that last time he attended the family Christmas in Martha’s Vineyard, the ‘Stockdale Residence’ an ostentatious sprawling fifty-room mansion that, in a drunken rage, he’s tried to burn down.
Once again, he had not received an invitation to the next, due in a few days, and it was not entirely unexpected.
Graham has his faults, but that even, five years ago, had pulled him off the road to self-destruction, helped along by a year stint in jail where he learned a great many lessons about life itself, and survival.
The four years since?
A lot of regrets, and a lot of repentance. Life after jail was a lot worse than life trying to defy the family and the system. There were two roads he could have gone down, and thankfully for him, it was not the wrong one.
So, he’s back on the path, a whole lot wiser, a whole lot tougher.
That might not have been exactly what I was thinking for him over the first three attempts. I don’t think any character really begins to shine until halfway through, as you find him meeting various challenges in ways even you, as the writer, find quite unexpected.
Is that the end result of being a pantser over being a planner?
I don’t think, even as a planner, you can create a character that’s not going to change, or even surprise you, as the story evolves.
And somehow I don’t think I’m about to change from one to the other.
