The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
When I woke up, it was in a whole new world, but not necessarily of pain.
It was a different room, not quite dark, not hot or cold, looked much like a hospital room layout with a hospital bed, and bright lights outside the doors.
I had no idea if it was daylight or night. Classic disorientation procedure before a different sort of interrogation.
What I also realised, though I was not sure why was that the casts and bandages I had back at the previous base hospital were gone, and everything looked, well, different.
That there was nothing wrong with me.
It’s a terrible thing to realise your own people had basically told you a web of lies about your condition, and how the mind adjusted to those lies. And yet, I would have sworn on a stack of bibles my pain was real.
Drugs. Not only could they do good, but they could also do some very bad things, to the mind and the body. At a guess, I would say it was for Breeman’s benefit. If I’d come back in one piece there would be a truckload of questions.
So, I’d been moved, and kept under the whole time. And if there was nothing wrong with me, why was I still in what looked like a hospital? Maybe it wasn’t. There was only one bed in the room. Perhaps it was a cell for recovering transportees.
My worst fears then, a black site.
My waking must have triggered an alarm because I heard the door open and someone come into the room. The exact position of the door was hidden by a curtain, but I could see the light from outside intensify when it opened and slowly drop ass it closed.
The curtain moved on its rings to show a man in a white coat, perhaps a doctor, but more likely the interrogator or his assistant coming to check the viability of their target.
I had to ask, “Where am I?”
“In a camp, at a location, I’m not at liberty to disclose.”
“When did I get here?”
“Yesterday, late last night. It was busy. We had three new arrivals. You must be on the right side because you didn’t arrive in chains, the other two did.”
He took my temperature, blood pressure and some other tests, and wrote the numbers on a page in a file.
“You haven’t reacted to the serum we gave you. That’s good.” He saw my look of concern. “Oh, it’s only used for transporting injured people from one base to another. It helps to minimise the external forces causing them unnecessary pain.”
“Apparently I’m not injured.”
“No. Not quite sure what happened there, but, whatever happened, it’s above my pay grade. By the way, don’t try to leave this room. There’s a guard outside who had been told to shoot first and ask questions later. I’ve seen the results of her work.”
I’d been planning the grand tour of Europe for years, and during that time, I’d worked my butt off working 7 days a week, just so that I could take a year off to do it.
And, now the time had come.
I’d resigned from my job, cleaned out the office, handed it over to my successor, and all that was left was a few drinks at the local hotel with those whom I’d worked with over the years.
All expressed the same sentiment, they wished they were coming with me. I said the usual platitudes, that if they came over we’d have to meet up, and if I was staying for an extended period, they could stay with me.
I doubted anyone would take up the offer because we had neither expressed interest in travelling or keeping in touch because although we all had each other’s phone numbers, we rarely called each other.
One call I wasn’t expecting, on the way home after the last of the goodbyes, was from Barry.
Perhaps he was the one I would miss the most, after all, we had worked closely together for the last year or so, I’d been the best man at his wedding, and I was like the brother he never had.
Even his wife, Evie, French by birth, and still getting used to living in another country, considered me as a brother in law. She may also have thought more of me because I spoke French. Barry didn’t and didn’t try, even though he had promised he would.
“Barry!” I was surprised he would call.
“I hear you are going to Paris first, David.”
Evie. How did she get Barry’s phone? It was not possible he could get home that quickly.
“Evie. I had expected to see you at the bar.”
“A wife’s work is never done, as you know.”
She had confided in me one that Barry was a bit of a pain sometimes in his expectations, and it had worried me that his off-hand, sometimes condescending manner, might cause trouble.
“What can I do to help?”
“Can you do me a favour? Drop by on your way home, and I’ll explain.”
It sounded ominous.
“OK.” It wasn’t far out of the way, and wouldn’t be the first I’d dropped in.
I pondered the manner in which she had called on Barry’s phone and still hadn’t worked it out by the time I arrived at their front door.
Evie answered the door.
“Barry not home?”
“Not yet. You know him, always the last to leave.” Was that exasperation in her tone, or something else. “Come in.”
There was the faint aroma of cooking in the air. Evie was a chef back in Paris, and after she arrived, worked off and on in various restaurants, but her temperament meant she often didn’t last long in one establishment.
But one thing I’d discovered, she was a very good cook. Could I hope for an invitation to try out what she was cooking?
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem. Just need a favour.” She picked up a letter, or perhaps it was a card. And gave it to me. “While you’re in Paris, could you hand-deliver it for me? It would mean a lot.”
“Special?”
“Very.”
“You couldn’t post it?”
She shook her head. “I need to know it got there.”
“That special?”
“For me, yes. You cannot imagine. Now, would you like to try my latest creation? Chicken is no longer boring, trust me.”
I never gave the letter another thought until I arrived in Paris and was unpacking my bag for an elongated stay.
The plan had been that Paris was my first stop because there were several people I wanted to visit, but one had been in Hong Kong, texting me just before I got on the plan, and because my travel arrangements were flexible, I stopped at Hong Kong and then went on a two-week tour of China at his suggestion.
It had been worth the effort.
That stopover had flow-on benefits because the apartment in Paris I had wanted to stay in was not available had I stuck to the original plan, but now it was.
I put the letter on the table and went back to that night when Evie gave it to me.
If I thought about it, and I had, several times since then, I had to say I had seen a different Evie, and I hoped that my impression of her now, was based on an aberration.
And had I not been the friend I was, I might have easily slipped into doing something I would regret. I remember walking away thinking Barry had to put on more effort or he was going to lose her.
I went out into the balcony and took in the still-warm night, and the display of lights. Somewhere I had read Paris was the city of lights, and there was a tour, one I would take sooner rather than later.
After several glasses of wine, I took out the map and worked out how I would get to the address on the envelope. Seven underground stations and a half km walk, not far from the Sacre Coeur Church in Montmartre.
A little sightseeing on the side, and lunch at a crepe Cafe nearby.
I had planned to see the Eiffel tower, but it could wait. It’s not as if I could see it from afar from just about everywhere in Paris.
If it could be said something could burn a hole in your pocket, I would have said it was that letter.
From the moment I picked it up and put it in my pocket, I had a strange sense of foreboding. There was absolutely no reason I should, I’d known Evie a long time, and she wasn’t a bad person, nor had she ever indicated there was a dark side.
But, people were complex characters, and often we only see what we want to see, or what they want us to see.
And, of course, I was one of those people prone to overthinking everything.
As I turned the corner into the street of the address on the envelope, I stopped and looked around, very carefully at everyone.
Parisians going about their daily business, not terrorists, not criminals, not people solely out to get me. And yet that feeling of paranoia was getting worse.
After twenty minutes of debating whether or not to turn tail and run, I carried on. I was on the street of the envelopes address, and reaching the building, pressed the button to the apartment number.
A buzzing sound told me the door had been opened, and I went in. Three flights of stairs, the apartment was at the end of the corridor.
I pushed the doorbell and waited a minute before the door opened. A man, not the sort of person I expected Evie would associate with. And certainly not French.
“I have a letter…”
He reached out, snatched it out of my hand, and then slammed the door shut in my face.
“A thank you would have been nice.” I shrugged.
Very, very strange.
A few seconds later the door opened again, the man peering out at me. “Thank you for delivering this. Much appreciated.” Then he closed the door more quietly this time.
I shrugged. Had he heard me muttering through the door?
I went back down again, passing a woman in work clothes, not someone you’d normally pay any attention to.
I did, looking up at her on the stairs as she looked back down at me.
It hastened my departure from that building.
Outside the front door, I could see a police car pull up beside the kerb.
Damn.
Were they here for me?
I hesitated, just as one of the officers got out of the car and was looking directly at me. It was like he instantly recognised me.
I froze.
Then I felt my arm being yanked and a female voice behind me. “We have to go. Now.”
The urgency and insistence in her tone spurred me into action and I followed her up the passage to a rear door which she opened and thrust me out into the courtyard.
“Go. Don’t look back. You will be safe if you go back to your hotel.”
John’s search for Zoe was at an impasse, simply because it was her job to disappear and reappear at will, and he knows he’s no match for her in that regard.
So, having gone to her residence in Paris, not finding her there which was predictable, the place looked like it had not been visited in months, he concluded a short stay might help to clear his head.
Until he gets a phone call.
Kidnappers, other than the Russians, have captured Zoe, and they’re ringing him for a ransom.
Odd, because he was not the one who placed the kidnap order on her, so why would they be ringing him?
This was initiated by Zoe, no doubt playing the kidnapper by sending him to a bigger payday.
If that’s the case then John has to deduce she has faith in him to come and get her.
Which he’s going to do, but not on his own.
It’s time to call Sebastian, someone John knew would know what to do.
Or at least hope he does!
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 3,270 words, for a total of 8,871.
Everyone always wants to change their circumstances, particularly if you are among those who are not so well off.
My father always said, whenever we complained about not having enough money to go on holiday, or buy something we needed, that there was always someone worse off than we were.
As a child, I could hardly believe that was true when it looked like everyone else had everything they wanted.
As an adult, I promised myself that I would never be in those circumstances, that I would always have enough money.
And, of course, what you want, what you would like, and what really happens are very different outcomes, and no matter how much planning, or how many contingencies plans you have in place, a single event can wreck everything.
When you open the front door and see policemen, two thoughts cross your mind. The first, they’re at the wrong place, the second, that something awful has just happened.
“George Williamson?”
It was the second.
“May we come inside?”
As I stood to one side, a thousand thoughts went through my mind until it settled on one, something had happened to Jane.
As she did on every Wednesday morning, she got up early, I made her breakfast, she kissed the tones and told them she would be back the next day, then headed for the airport for her weekly visit to hear office.
When we had to move, her company agreed to let her work from home, and it was an arrangement that worked well, she was only missing for two days a week, and a week when the annual accounting was done.
She was due back this morning.
Instead, I had to police officers in my lounge room, looking very somber.
“Something has happened to Jane, hasn’t it.” I almost couldn’t bring myself to say it.
The policewoman spoke. It was like they had drawn straws and she got the short one.
“I’m very sorry to say your wife was involved in an accident this morning, on her way to the Atlanta airport. We have just been informed she passed away.”
It was one of those moments when there were no words. In fact, I was not sure what I felt in that moment other than a great sadness.
“How?”
“We understand a car ran a red light, hit the limousine. Had she been on the other side…”
Not much consolation in speculation.
“Do you have someone you can call; do you need us to arrange for support…”
“I have a sister, I’ll call her. Thank you for coming and telling me, I guess this is not what you want to be doing at this time of the morning.”
“Part of the job, sir.”
I ushered them to the door and after reassuring them I would be OK, and getting out the phone to call my sister, they left.
The shock of it hadn’t set in. As I closed the door, my thoughts turned to the twins, now at school. They adored their mother and would be expecting her to pick them up from school.
I would have to get them before news of her death reached them. These days, with the internet, someone would find out and it would be better to hear it from me.
“George?”
My sister, Eileen. She had been amazed that I would find a girl like Jane let alone marry her. She had always expected me to be the philandering bachelor.
“Something very bad has happened?”
“Jane?”
“Killed in a car crash this morning in Atlanta. The police were just here.”
“Oh my God, George. The girls.”
“I know. I have to get to them. Can you be here when I get home? They’ll need you.”
“Sure. On my way.”
Next call, the girl’s school. I called the head Master and explained the situation, and he immediately had them brought to his office.
When I arrived, I put on my best ‘this is a happy day’ face and went in, mustering all of the courage I had to not look like something bad had happened.
The girls, of course, thought that their mother had arrived home early and come to get them. She had done it before.
They were only mildly disappointed to see me.
“Mommy not here?”
“Sorry, you have to tolerate me for a while. We have to go home and you’ve been given a day pass.”
Knowing how much they preferred not to be at school, the diversion worked.
The headmaster gave me a wan look as we left.
I fielded a hundred questions on the way home, all of which centered around what surprise Mom had in store for them, and the fact it had to be monumental since they had to go home early.
All the tome I was trying to think of a way to let them down gently, but there wasn’t one. Being blunt wasn’t the way either, they deserved the truth.
As soon as they saw Eileen, I could see the hesitation and a note of trepidation. Usually, Eileen came over when Jane was going to have an extended stay away.
“I need you two to go into the lounge and sit down. I’ll be then in a minute.”
“Is mommy’s not coming home today?”
They knew something was wrong.
“I’ll be in in a minute and will explain everything.”
At least Eileen had to foresight not to show any sign of the distress I knew she must be feeling.
When the girls had gone into the room she gave me the teary-eyed look, and a hug.
“You must be devastated.”
“It hasn’t sunk in. I’m still expecting her to walk in the door, and this is all a bad mistake.”
“The girls…”
“This is one time I hate the idea of being a father.”
“Then I’m glad you called me. You could not break this alone. They are going to be devastated.”
Everyone who knew her would be.
Once again I had to find the courage to keep it together, but at least I had support.
It went better than I expected. At first, they thought it was an elaborate prank, though I was not sure how they could think that.
Then, when they realized it was true, they, like I was when I first heard the news, were in shock, and barely able to comprehend the reality of it.
I did remember saying at one point, “I wish she was still alive, and that she would walk back through that door…” but not able to finish.
So, we just sat there, in silence, the rest of the world passing by, going about its business.
Until there was another knock on the door.
I was going to ignore it, but a nod from Eileen got me off the seat.
Perhaps the police were back to tell me it was all a big mistake, and it was someone else who’d died.
I opened the door…
…and neatly had a heart attack.
“Jane?”
A wish come true? Standing before me was a woman who looked exactly like Jane, down to the last detail, including the unmanageable whisp of hair.
“You must be George. No, not Jane, Jill, the banished evil twin. Now, where is she?”
Just when you think you’ve got a good start, it all comes crashing down.
Here’s the thing…
I’ve been planning the sequel for quite some time, and from time to time, I’ve been jotting down notes about how the story will go. I thought I had filed them all in the same place, and because I thought I had all of them, I missed a part.
This was confirmed when I found a synopsis, something I rarely make before writing a story, with details of several sections I obviously added when the thought came to me. Perhaps the idea of the synopsis was to consolidate all the ideas, at a time when I thought I was going to sit down and write the story.
Dated a month or so before covid came along, I suspect it all got set aside for the two-odd year’s hiatus.
Now, the time has come, and today, I went n a detailed search of three computers, four phones, cloud storage, and the boxes that hold all the handwritten notes.
I have a reference to the section, several chapters, but no writing. In the back of my mind, I have a feeling I’d written the chapters, but the evidence says otherwise.
Damn!
I’ll move on, and come back to it later. At the moment it doesn’t have relevance.
Oh, and Zoe has now become Mary-Anne. What is John going to think when he finally finds her.
…
Todays writing, introducing Mary Anne, 1,501 words, for a total of 3,610.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.
“So,” Lallo said, “you’re telling me you landed separately, Treen and his group advanced towards their position without waiting for your team, that shortly after landing you heard gunfire exchanged, that the members of your team broke ranks and went to help their comrades and that all of them, as far as you were aware at the time, had been killed or captured.”
“Yes.”
“And the two operatives you’d come to rescue?”
“At the time, I had no idea what their status was, but I did make a preliminary assumption that if our mission was blown, then they would hardly be left alive unless the enemy thought they had some strategic value.”
“Or intelligence?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me at the time because my job was to simply to aid the extraction team. To be honest, I had no idea who they were or what their value was.”
That was not exactly the truth because I could hardly say I hadn’t overheard a conversation between Treen, the briefing officers, and an unseen, unnamed officer discussing the two operatives, and the fact it was imperative we get them out at any cost. It wasn’t said why, but I could guess.
It didn’t take long to realize that if our arrival had been known, so would the location and worth of the two we were to rescue. I didn’t think they were killed out of hand, not until they’d told the enemy’s interrogators everything they knew.
And I got the impression they knew enough to cause our whole operation in that country ended up with a great deal of irreparable damage.
No wonder they wanted to sweep it under the carpet.
I watched Lallo scribble a long not over several pages. Was his conclusion the same as mine, but based on truth rather than hearsay?
Then, “Were you met by the person who has been referred to as the so-called source?”
“No.”
“Do you know if Treen’s group were met?”
“No. I was given to understand that source had gone quiet, I suppose another word for either captured or defected to the other side.”
“Apparently there was a report that the agent in situ was going to be at the landing site.”
“Well, there’s your explanation as to why the mission was blown from the start. Whoever it was, was either captured, or a double agent, and told the enemy of our plans.”
“A reasonable assumption in the circumstances, but not necessarily correct.”
“And you know this because…”
I was curious. The agent’s defection would explain everything.
“That agent resurfaced three days ago, again asking for repatriation, and is in the air to a secure site as we speak.”
He stood and took a moment to stow the pencil in the binding of the notebook before giving me his attention.
“We will also be in their air tomorrow, headed for the same secure location. I’m, sure you will be available for that interrogation, because I, too, have serious doubts about this agent’s shall we say, loyalties.”
That still didn’t mean I wasn’t going to finish up at a black site, or worse.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. We’re getting by during the ‘stay at home’ order.
I’m doing just that, though it sometimes feels like I’m in jail, on the inside looking out.
“Now you know how I feel”, Chester tells me, after jumping up on the window ledge to look out the window, trying to see what had caught my interest.
I don’t tell him I’m basically staring into space.
Except, a car passes, not fast, not slow, but much like the rest of the traffic that passes by. Or used to. With the order to stay at home, and the fact schools are not open, there have been fewer and fewer cars passing by.
“Didn’t that car…” Chester mutters.
He’s right. The same car just went back the other way. Slow, but not too slow.
“Perhaps’s he’s looking for a house, a particular address.”
We watch and wait.
Five minutes later the car has returned and stops outside my window. A man gets out the passenger side, says something to the driver, then closes the door. He starts walking back up the street from where the car had just come.
The car drives off, then a minute later is back, and parks on the other side of the road. We can see the driver. Not the sort of person you’d want to need on a dark night. Tattoos on his arm, and smoking a cigarette, negligently stopping ask on the road below his window.
“He’s watching,” Chester says.
“He’s a lookout?”
We’re both thinking the same. A crime is being committed. They’ve scoped the street for an unattended house, a rarity for obvious reasons, though these days robbers rob the house while you’re still in it.
We wait. Three minutes later the other man comes running very quickly to the car, jumps in and they drive off very quickly before the man had closed the door.
Seconds later another man appears with a baseball bat in his hand.
“Close call,” Chester says, interest now waning. He jumps down. “Pity they didn’t catch the robber.”
Perhaps. But one thing is for sure, those robbers will not be back.
Diversion over, back to boredom. Chester has gone back to one of his hiding spots. I’m going to do another crossword.
Six months is going to be a long, long, long, long time.
Sometimes the experiences we have often find their way into stories. This was certainly one of them:
Remarkably, the Peninsula Hotel experience began at the arrival gate.
The moment we stepped out of the air bridge and into the terminal building, a representative of the Hong Kong airport was waiting with a card with our name on it. She was there, with driver and electric car (sometimes called a golf cart) to ease our way through the immigration and baggage formalities.
No walking for us, which was fine by me. It’s a train ride and a long walk from the gate to immigration. And after all the sitting on the airplane, walking was not the first thing I was looking forward to.
The drive took a few minutes, slowed down by many other passengers walking towards the same destination, most wondering why two relatively young people like us (even if we are in our 60’s) were getting a ride.
After clearing immigration, which took very little time, and where there was a very short queue considering the number of arrivals they handle, we were met on the other side by our airport representative, and taken to the baggage carousel.
Another simple process, our bags were almost waiting for us. From there we exited customs, and out representative handed us over to the representative of the hotel. I thought he was the driver.
He took us through to the limousine lounge and directly to our car, a very clean shiny new looking green Rolls Royce, the ultimate in the airport to hotel transportation.
Inside it was immaculate, and astonishing, and very, very comfortable. I could image the Queen riding in the back of one. It took about 30 to 40 minutes, one of the quietest, most smooth rides I’d ever had, and worth every cent we paid for it.
The bucket list now has one less item on it.
The arrival at the hotel was effortlessly handled. We were met by two of the check-in staff and escorted to our room on the fourth floor.
There was just enough time to take in the amazing foyer, front entrance and twin staircases leading to a mezzanine floor, before getting into a waiting elevator and taken to our floor. As an aside, the mirrors in the elevator were like something out of a hall of mirrors, you look into the mirror and see dozens of yourself looking back.
It’s an effect I’ll have to take a photo of.
We have been upgraded, and out room is larger than the one originally allocated. It has a view of the Space Museum, the Veranda Cafe roof, and parts of Hong Kong harbor. It is overcast and raining so it does not matter about the view.
It’s Hong Kong, and that view will change every hour.
Formalities over, we are left standing in stunned silence.
We have arrived.
They say getting there is half the fun.
They’re wrong.
Or at least in the case of the Peninsular Hotel they are.
If just getting to the hotel via the signature Green Rolls Royce is any indication, there had to be a lot more in store.
We booked a room in the ‘old’ hotel and it was categorized as ‘deluxe’. The Peninsula adds a whole new meaning to the word Deluxe. If this was one of their lower priced rooms, then I’d love to see their better rooms.
But the room itself is not the sum of the experience; it is also the aura within the building, the service, which is quiet and unassumingly polite and unobtrusive. You are ushered from the front door, held open by a very elegantly dressed concierge, to your room without so much as a heartbeat.
The details, well, they are mere details that cause no concern, all taken care of before you arrived. We arrived early, before the advertised check-in, and this fazed no one. Room available, tired travelers sigh in relief, knowing a hot shower and several hours sleep would not be possible.
I was more than pleasantly surprised, and exploring the hotel would have to wait.
OK. So the story is about Alistair’s mother seeking revenge on Zoe for killing her son.
She’s not the only one.
Zoe is or was an assassin. She had a substantial number of kills to her credit, she doesn’t share numbers so we won’t find out exactly how many, and there are others who seek revenge too.
One is co-incidentally, the head of the intelligence service John’s friend Sebastian works for, a man by the name of Worthington, who had a twin brother whom she killed by mistake.
He has been using his position in intelligence to track the woman who executed his brother for some time, and being in Venice at the time of the Alistair affair, catches sight of Zoe recovering in a hospital after requesting to meet Sebastian’s newest recruit.
Of course, Sebastian is playing fast and loose with the truth, as always, but the damage is done.
Zoe aka Mary Anne aka Chantal is not being hunted by three different people and has just had a bounty put on her head guaranteeing even more people searching for her.
All while heading to a meeting in Marsailles about a freelance hit.
…
Today’s writing, with a target, firmly painted on Zoe’s back, 1,991 words, for a total of 5,601.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 