Tag: Serial

A matter of life and … what’s worse than death – Episode 7

This is a story inspired by a visit to an old castle in Italy. It was, of course, written while travelling on a plane, though I’m not sure if it was from Calgary to Toronto, or New York to Vancouver.

But, there’s more to come. Those were long flights…

And sadly when I read what I’d written, off the plane and in the cold hard light of dawn, there were problems, which now in the second draft, should provide the proper start.

 

If it had been Jackerby in charge and not Johansson, I had no doubt I’d be at the end of a firing squad now.

Jackerby was not Army, nor a man of honour.  His gait, his manner gave him away, despite the fact he was out of his usual uniform.  I suspect now I had been taken care of, that would change, and we’d get to see his true colours.

After leaving the hall, I was escorted downstairs to the cellar, and where I knew there were a number of rooms with iron gated fronts, places I suspected, in olden days, enemies of the castle were held, enslaved or executed in these cells.

There were several male prisoners is the first two cells, awaiting their fate, one which would not include escaping to the other side, but perhaps something a lot worse than death.

At the end, there was another corridor, and several smaller cells, where second from the end, I was roughly shoved by one of the guards.  He was going to add the butt of his rifle to the back of my head for good measure, but Jackerby stopped him.

I was sure it wasn’t out of respect for Johansson.  It appeared that Johansson needed me for something else.

After the door closed I yelled out, “All the rooms upstairs filled?”

“Yes.  It’s high season.”  So Jackerby had a semblance of a sense of humour.

 

The room, if it could be called that, had a camp stretcher, a seat, and a bucket.  The light came from a burning torch out in the corridor, an interesting touch that electricity had not made it down this far.

The floor was cobbled, and, like the walls, damp.  There was an overbearing odour of mustiness in the room.

It was also cold, so these cells must be located not only under the old castle but underground.  That meant centuries of history, and probably a ghost or two.  I was sure terrible things had happened, down in these cells, not just back then but also recently.

Outside the wall, I could hear the sound of running water, so the back wall must border onto the stream.  And there must be a gap, or hole somewhere for the sound to reach me, but it was too dark to see.

When night fell, it was going to be a lot worse; the light wouldn’t be affected, but it was going to get a lot colder.  As it was the torchlight from the passage barely made an impact, and it took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust.  And I was sure there were rats, just waiting for the dark to come out to play.

I moved the seat to beside the door and sat down, trying to make myself comfortable, in a position where I might hear them coming if they came back.

Then a voice quite near, said, “What are you here for?”

 

© Charles Heath 2019

In a Word: Ghost

Have you seen one?  I haven’t.  Yet.

I’ve stayed in a few places where ghosts were purported to be roaming the passages at night, but apparently not the night I was staying.

And that’s something else that I have a problem with, why is it ghosts only come out at night, or is that just the perception I have hot from reading up on the subject.

Maybe my view of ghosts is somewhat stilted, after all, I think my first introduction to ghosts was watching The Centerville Ghost, a movie I saw on t.v. when I was very young.

You have to admit Hollywood’s perception of ghosts is quite interesting.

 

But…

Do you think they are real?  Do I think they are real?

I think I would have to be presented with some fairly solid evidence they exist, but perhaps not to the point of meeting one.

There are, it seems countless examples of ethereal forces, you know, the wind blowing where there’s no wind or draught outside, room temperatures dropping for no apparent reason, knocking, rattling of chains, strange noises like low moaning.

 

And yet…

There are hotels you can stay in such as the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where it’s possible to run into Sid Vicious.

Sorry, not staying there any time soon.

Then there’s the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles where it’s possible to run into Marylin Monroe, who lived in room 229.

That could be an interesting encounter.

Another is the Westin St Francis in San Francisco where the actress Virginia Rappe died while attending a party held in Fatty Arbuckle’s room, Arbuckle’s room, who was later accused of assaulting and murdering her, and whose career tanked after the incident.

Her ghost is seen moving about the hotel tearing her hair out.  It seems all of the spectral activity occurs on the 12th floor.

 

Good to know if I decide to stay there.  I wonder if they have a 13th floor?

Perhaps in too old to be running the gamut of paranormal experiences, the old heart is not as strong as it used to be.

Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 4

I didn’t get the last part of the opening sequence sorted until after we arrived in Vancouver.  I made a start on it before breakfast was served, though it was rather odd calling it breakfast when outside the plane it was nearly six in the afternoon.

In finishing it much later, I think I’ve come up with a different direction to the one I planned, but in truth, I was never happy with where it was going from the start.

That’s why I prefer to plot on the run so that it doesn’t necessarily get bogged down with a certain result in mind.  For me, that is the biggest bugbear is writing to a plan.  For some, though, I’m sure it works.  For me, not so much.

So, what happened to the rest of the team?

 

Just in case I’d made a mistake, I kept one eye on the target, who seemed to be consumed by the events unfolding, and another taking a wider search of the surrounding area to make doubly sure the team was still in control of the mission.

They were not.

A hundred yards back in the direction I’d first seen the target heading when the explosion took me out of play, I found one of the team, Jack, a relatively new member of the surveillance division, roughly hidden behind a dumpster, dead, a victim of a clean, accurate, and methodical stab wound to the heart.  No noise from the weapon, or the victim.

The target knew we were onto him.  It also meant that it was likely the other two members of the team were also out of play, I preferred not to think they might be equally dead, and I didn’t think the chances were good that he might not know about me.

It wasn’t a good sign that he had come back to the site of the explosion because I doubted someone of his stature had time to stand around and watch a search and rescue.

And if he was looking for me I had to make sure he didn’t find me.  Good thing then it was exactly what I was thinking when he turned and started to scan the outer perimeter, as I had, and just managed to miss his gaze in my direction.

Yes, he was definitely looking for me, so it was a good bet he had tortured one of the others to get the information he needed.

All the more reason for me to take him down.

I moved closer, all the time keeping him under surveillance and avoiding his searching eyes. 

Then, satisfied I was not at this location, he started moving to the next, before I’d last seen him in the distance.  It was the epicentre of the explosion and the one where there was a high concentration of police and rescue workers.

He stopped.  I used the cover of the confusion, and in a way, a very efficient organization, to move closer.

I saw him take another look around, perhaps he suspected I might be near, then again satisfied, moved on.

It was clear I was not going to be able to take him on while we were in the immediate vicinity of the explosion, there were too many witnesses.  Perhaps he was hoping that the abundance of cover would aid his mission.

He stopped again, among a smaller group of observers, and checked both sides of the line.  From there he had two choices, to consider if I had retraced my steps, or gone ahead thinking I might catch up to him.  Obviously, he’d realized I’d not kept up, and it had been due to the explosion.

Just as he was about to see me on another sweep, a minor explosion of sorts came from the main disaster site, what sounded like part of the structure collapsing, which explained dust rising into the air, and when my attention returned to the spot I’d last seen him, he was gone.

Not a good sign.  He could be anywhere.

But he wasn’t just anywhere.

“Sam?”

It was an unfamiliar voice, not expected, but I’d been more or less wary from the moment I lost sight of him.  And because I had been alert, it saved me from a far worse injury.  I felt the knife thrust through the fleshy part of my side and caught him with my elbow to the side of his head which sent him sprawling and knocking the knife out of his hand and sliding into the area where three bystanders were.

The scuffled turned their attention to him first on the ground, and then hastily getting to his feet and running away, leaving the weapon behind and me chasing after him.

No one said a word.

And this time he didn’t have a very big break on me and driven by rage at what he had done to the members of my team, it didn’t take long to catch up, in a place where we were alone.

In those few steps I’d made up my mind, he was not going to walk away from this.

 

So, is revenge on the menu, or something else?

 

©  Charles Heath 2019

 

Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 3

I’ve had time to think about the next part of this opening sequence.

Long plane rides that leave in the dead of night are always conducive to working through plotlines because being on a plane in economy, the chances of getting any sleep is nigh on impossible.

And yet, this time the impossible is possible, which means that sleeping has overtaken the thinking process, and it will have to wait till I’ve woken up.

Of course, as usual, being in this interesting situation has provided another tangent, which is doing the impossible.  It reminds me of a saying I once heard, ‘if you want the impossible it will take some time if want a miracle, that will take a little longer’.  Temper that with ‘how long is a piece of string?’

When we last visited our intrepid wannabe hero, we were left with a cryptic ‘is anyone ever in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

Sometimes, but not for our particular hero.

 

It could be worse, I told myself, while the paramedic cleaned up my cuts and abrasions and gave me a concussion test, which, I suspect, might not quite discover if I was or not.  But, at that moment, it didn’t matter.

I’d lost the person I’d been assigned to keep under surveillance.

It was meant to be a doddle, but of course, no one could ever predict what the conditions might be in any exercise, and whilst I was one part of a team effort, it had been on my watch, and I only realized what it was that I’d been doing when a voice in my ear started asking for an update, because it was coming up to the changeover.

I was surprised the noise of the explosion hadn’t been transmitted to the others.  I waited till the paramedic had finished, a minute at most.

“I got caught up in an explosion, a couple of over-enthusiastic bank robbers, and taken down.  The target was ahead of me.”  I gave the team leader the exact location of where I’d last seen the target, then waited.

If the team was functioning properly, one of the other three should have been close enough to predict where the target would be at the change over point.

“Are you alright?”  It was a question I’d expected earlier.

“Got caught in the aftershock, got a few cut and abrasions, and a ringing in my ears, but otherwise ok.  The paramedics want me to go to the hospital to be checked over, mainly for a concussion, but I’m ok to resume if you want.”

A minute, two, of silence, then, “Do as they say.  We have the target still under surveillance.”

And that was it, what I regarded as a massive fail, despite the circumstances.

I watched the paramedics load the battered policeman onto a gurney and head towards the ambulance.  I went over to the cuffs and picked them up.  A souvenir of the event, if nothing else.

Lights flashing and siren wailing it left, heading for the hospital.

I took a last look at the scene and started walking away in the direction I was originally heading, and once past the perimeter, walked through the group of bystanders who’d gathered to watch the event unfold.  On the other side, I stopped, took another look back at the scene, and did the proverbial double take.

Standing not ten yards from me was the target.

And a quick look in every direction for the members of the surveillance team showed none of them was anywhere near the target.

I spoke quietly into the communication device.

“Target, I repeat, the target is in sight.  Is anyone nearby by?”

Silence.

 

So we now have a dilemma, if there is no answer from the team, are they maintaining radio silence, or is something more sinister afoot?

 

©  Charles Heath 2019

Conversations with my cat – 35

20160922_162010_001

Chester and the great escape.

It’s like watching that movie, you know the one, with Steve McQueen and the motorcycle?

I accidentally didn’t close the back screen door properly and Chester, a cat with many talents, managed to prise the door open wide enough for him to squeeze through.

And, then there’s that momentary elation of having escaped.

Out into the wide open space, where the air is fresher, the sky is blue, the sun is warmer.

And he is no longer restricted.

But…

Why is he standing just three feet away from the door, on the concrete path?  Has he seen a creature he can chase, or worse, torment?  Is he savouring that first few moments of freedom, and soaking up the sun’s warm rays on his back?

Or is he waiting to see if I’ll follow, and try to either catch him or bring him back?

He turns, and looks at me, as if to say, well, what are you going to do?

There’s a certain sense of smugness in that look.

I shrug.  “Just remember there’s no one out there who will wait on you hand and foot like we do.”

I’m sure that was not what he was expecting.

I open the door wider, and add, “Make up your mind now, because once the door closes, that’s it.  You’re out.”

He turned to look back at the great outdoors.  I can see the wheels turning.  A life of luxury or a life on the run?

I almost caught his tail in the door as it closed.  Who said cats weren’t smart?

In a word: Tap

There is nothing worse than, when lying in bed unable to get to sleep, you hear every noise in the house and out, but none worse than a dripping tap.

Its often not because someone forgot to turn the tap off, but a washer is on its last legs.

There are taps for the fallen brave, but aside from the fact that is the name of a piece of music, I think it’s also the title of a film.  But taps itself is a bugle call at dusk, and also played at military funerals.

Then there’s that income stream that you can tap into, other than your next door neighbours power supply.

But what would be far more interesting than to tap into a phone line and listen in?  Despite the fact that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, you could learn something you didn’t want to know.

Then we can go back to the 1930s and a series of films that starred one of my favourite actors Fred Astaire, who was, of course, a tap dancer, along with Ginger Rogers.

In fact, my middle granddaughter is quite a good tap dancer.

And, lastly, was that a tap on the door, or a tap in the window?

What happens after the action-packed start – Part 18

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

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.

 

The debriefing team were not quite what I expected, a man and a woman, one a Major, the other a Lieutenant, and it was apparent they had just met before coming into the room.

He was Major Lallo, Army intelligence, and the woman, Lieutenant Jill Monroe, a familiar name as I’m sure I’d heard it before.

Lallo was not a fighting soldier, he was a paperwork man.  I suspect he was more at home with an order book, and filing communications though that didn’t explain the rank, which he would have to have front line experience to attain.

Monroe looked to me to be the sort of woman soldier that had to prove she was better than any man and had the muscular form to go with it.  Not the sort of a woman to get into a fight over or against.

She stood at the end of the bed, and I suspect by her posture that she was there to make sure I didn’t run, which, by the way, was physically impossible.

Lallo sat in the chair beside the bed, tried to make himself comfortable.  He was going to ask the questions.  He had a small notebook he took out of his pocket with a list of questions.  The small pencil that slotted into the binding was there to write down the answers if any.  I was not sure I was up to answer any questions.

Settled, he started with, “You don’t have to answer, but I suggest you do.  I think by now you are starting to realise that, no matter how strong you think you might be, you’re not.  If you decided to be unforthcoming, then you can be assured that we will be interrogating you with a lot more, shall we say, enthusiasm than in the past.”

By the way he said it, I got the impression he would be the one.  His tone had changed suddenly, to a man who enjoyed others discomfort, and he was looking forward to breaking me if it came to that.

“And if I don’t have the answers to your questions, or should I say, not the answers you are expecting, what then?”

“One step at a time.  We’ll start with the easy questions first.”

I’m not quite sure what he classified as easy.  I didn’t think there were any.

“How long have you been at this base?”

Maybe I was wrong.  “Two months, three days.”

“How did your transfer to this specific base come about?”

“I don’t know.  I was at a training base in Ohio one day, then being presented with orders to get the next transport out the next.”

“Did you, or someone else you know, request your transfer to a new base?”

I didn’t think that was possible.  Someone of my rank went where they were told to go.

“No.  I’m a Sergeant, not a General.”

But was it possible Colonel Bamfield arranged for me to be transferred.  Given the fact he was here, now, it was not beyond the realms of possibility.  But if so, why?

“What was your function at your last base?”

What had this to do with my current situation or anything else for that matter?

“Instructor.”

“In what?”

“Infiltration, covert operations.”

“And I’m assuming then you been involved in these, shall we say, covert operations?”

No use denying it.  It was obvious he had seen my file, which all of a sudden had some very disturbing possibilities.  Just how much information though.

“Yes, but they’re classified and I can’t tell you anything and that.”

“Normally that would be the case, but…”  He left the sentence hanging there for a few seconds before adding, “There was a problem with your last operation, the reason, it appears, you were transferred to the training base in Ohio.  Is that correct?”

A mission that I had been told never to mention, speak of to anyone, no matter how high their rank in the military or government, or even think about again.

A mission I was told had been buried so deep it would never see the light of day.

Until now.

 

© Charles Heath 2019

Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 2 – Revised

Back to the explosion at what was first thought to be at a takeaway.  Certainly, it had been levelled, but so had several other building in the near vicinity, but we haven’t got to that part yet.

The boredom of the flight is still giving me an opportunity to explore the opening sequence a little further, where we left our man on the scene under tight police guard.

 

In five minutes, perhaps less, the whole scene had turned into countless vehicles with red and blue flashing lights, screams from the victims, and yelling from the rescuers.

I was still under police guard, but coming from the other side of the scene, a rather battered and bleeding street policeman came running towards us, stopping short of the man standing back, the one I assumed was in charge.

“Tell me you’ve got them,” he gasped, then looking from the man in charge to me then back again, looking very concerned.

“We have.” He looked very calm and pleased with himself.

“What?  Him?” He nodded in my direction. “He was blown up in the blast and from what I saw was chasing the real culprits, two men covered in dust, one of whom was carrying a large duffel bag.”

“This guy was caught running from the scene.”

I decided to add my bit to the discussion.  “Your car drove straight past them.  I can’t see how you missed them.”

He was starting to look worried.  “We were given your exact description from an anonymous tip.”

The battered policeman bent over and the collapsed to the ground.  Two of my captors went towards him, but he motioned them away.  “Of course you did, by the two men escaping.  Get after them, before it’s too late.  And free this guy.  He’s got nothing to do with the blast.”

After removing the cuffs they jumped back in their car and headed back in the direction they came.  Too late now, the two men would be long gone.

I went over to the policeman on the ground just as another ambulance pulled up and as the paramedics got out, I motioned to them to come and attend him.

“What happened,” I asked him

“A bank robbery, the clowns used far too much explosive and almost brought the building down on them.  Not so lucky for the neighbours.”

He was looking around, then stopped, looking at the place where I’d just been held down. I followed his gaze and then saw what he saw.  The cuffs were still on the ground where the man who removed them had obviously dropped them.

His expression changed, and for a moment I thought he was going to explode.

“What’s wrong.”  Obviously, something was but I couldn’t see it.

“The cuffs.  We haven’t used those for years now.  They weren’t real police.”

My mind clicked into gear at the same time as he uttered the words.

They were there to help the others escape whilst holding us both up with a phony arrest.  I wonder what they would do if they hadn’t been sent after their fellow robbers.

The battered policeman just sighed and lay down on the pavement and let the paramedics work on him.

Only then did we notice he had a piece of an iron bar sticking out of his side.

Then, of course, people just\  don’t happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or do they?

 

© Charles Heath 2019

I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Part 11

Here’s the thing…

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 back on the treasure hunt.

“Do you remember Nadia?”

Boggs was out the back on the veranda, sitting in an old lounge chair that had seen better days, eating tacos, or at least I think they were tacos.  He offered me one but I didn’t like the look of it.  Aside from the fact I wasn’t a fan of Mexican food.

“One of the Cossatino’s, Vince’s sister, tall, shorts skirts and big, well you know what I mean.”

Statuesque, Amazonian, yes I did.  We all coveted what we couldn’t have.

“The same.  She’s back in town.”

“And this means what to us if anything.  As I recall, the one time we tried talking to her, Vince had his friends rough us up.”

“I saw her with Alex today, in the warehouse.”

I had his attention.  I knew what he was thinking.

“Doing what, as if I couldn’t guess?”

“Alex wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“And we also said that when he fucked Annie in front of the class in the sports hall, not that we knew then what he was doing.”

Good point.  “No.  He told her to get the map from Rico.  Has Rico and her…”

“Dated?  Like Rico would be in her league.  He’d be little more than trash in her eyes.  But, no, not that I’m aware of.  But, if she was to throw herself at him, I’m sure he would react like any other dumb bastard who thinks with his dick and not his head.  But he hasn’t got the map.”

“Yet.”

“I still think I should try to sell it to Alex.”

“And I think if you are looking for a reason for a long hospital stay, that would be it.  You need to be careful where Rico is concerned.  Maybe we should check him out tomorrow.”

“I thought you had a job, and couldn’t get away.”

“My shift has changed to the afternoon, so I’ll be available in the mornings.  Do you know where Rico lives?”

“On his boat.  He has a small cruiser at the docks.  Uses if for, he says, fishing trips for businessmen, but I think he does the drug run from the shipping lanes to a quiet cove.”

“For the Benderby’s?”

“No idea, and don’t care.  But you’re right.  We should check him out.  Tomorrow morning.  I’ll meet you at Al’s fishing shop at about 9:00.”

He’d finished the tacos, and clearly had something else to do, something that didn’t involve me.  I felt a little disappointed.

© Charles Heath 2019

#AtoZChallenge — Z is for Zip

AtoZ2019Z

Which, unfortunately, I do not have a lot of in my step.

At last, we have reached the end of the alphabet because I’m running out of zip to write these blogs.

So…

Zip is the sing, the energy, the spring we have in our step, that usually gets us from a to b quickly.  Without this zest, we would need to take a bus, train, or cab.

Then comes the variations like …

Zip code, we all have one of these, though in some countries it is called a postcode.

Zip it up, meaning do not speak, especially if you’re about to spill a secret.

A zip, which is a part of some types of clothing, usually in trousers, jeans, and skirts to name a few.  Some dresses have long zips, some short, all seem to get tangled at one time or another, or, in the most embarrassing of situations, split.

Then there is a colloquial use of the word zip, meaning nothing, zilch, zero, in other words, a basis for of z words.

And that’s about as much zeal I’m going to show for writing this last blog, and I’m going to close the book on it.

Thank you, and goodnight.