Tag: Story

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 31

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, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

…

The folder had half a dozen single-page sheets with a photo attached to each with a standard-issue army paper clip.  There was no top secret in pale red ink diagonally scribed across any of the pages which somehow diminished the exercise.

I guessed this was the hand-picked team selected for me to take on our suicide mission.  It didn’t have the officer overseeing the mission, or the go-between Jacobi.  Not exactly a useful man to have along in a firefight, because he would be too busy working out who would pay the most if or when he survived.

It still astonished me that we hired people like Jacobi, fully knowing that they would sell out their own mother if the price was right.  I was going to reserve one bullet in my gun to execute him the moment he even looked the wrong way.

Trust him, I did not.

Nor any 0f the six members of that hand-picked team.

Sergeant Barnes.  Tall, wide, deadly, that last attribute courtesy of a line in his resume that said he killed three soldiers of the army we were supposed to be training and supporting.  No meaningful reason was given as to why he did, only that he’d just finished serving a five-year sentence, cut short by a month so he could join this force.  Hand to hand combat, and a handy man to have if you’ve got a handheld rocket launcher handy.

Private Williamson.  Had been a Corporal, but considered that too much of a burden, having men look up to him, and having to give orders.  He decided to go AWOL instead.  Used to be a butcher before signing on to see the world, and as described very handy with a knife.  Refused to use a gun, and refused orders too, which was the reason why he was in the stockade, with his friend, the next man on the list.

Private Shurl.  If we needed a man who excelled at sword fighting, he was our man.  A very accomplished swordsman, but I doubt we were going to need a man of his talents because enemy swordsmen seemed only to exist in the old movies.  I guess Lallo was expecting the three musketeers or something.  Other than that, he was a useful radioman and would be handling the communications once we were on the ground in enemy territory.

Corporal Stark.  His claim to fame was reading maps.  He was also an expert on the ground in the country whose borders we were about to violate.  He lived in the country for several years with his wife, who came from there, and who’d been killed by the dictator in a case of mistaken identity.  Stark would have to be carefully managed.

Staff Sergeant Mobley.  A man who had been up and down in ranks for a long time, suggesting a bad attitude, his latest bout leaving him fresh from a stint in the stockade.  He had no valid reason to be in on this disaster and yet had volunteered.  That took courage, to apply for a suicide mission with little hope of return.  I suspect he had an agenda that no one else knew about.

And, lastly

Lieutenant Lesley Davies.  A woman marine, no longer a lieutenant but just another soldier who obviously didn’t understand the concept of taking one step back when everyone else steps in another direction.  It didn’t say what it was she did wrong, but my guess there were a few men out there frightened of meeting her on a dark night.  Some women are dainty, some women are large, and then there’s Davies, a powerhouse that could be dangerous if out of control.

Out of all of that team, she was the one who interested me the most.

There was a knock on the door, interrupting my thoughts.  I called out, “Enter”, surprised the person outside hadn’t just shoved their way into the room.

The door opened, Monroe walked in and closed the door behind her.

“Let me guess,” I said.  “You’re running point.”

“And save your sorry ass from those recruits.  Not a brain between the lot of them, and we need people who can think, given the nature of the forthcoming exercise.  The brains trust has decided the rescue team reports to us.  I didn’t ask for it by the way.  This is one of Lallo’s sick jokes.”

Maybe he had a problem with her too and was hoping she wasn’t coming back.

“You and me both,” I said.

She threw another folder on the table.  “Operational orders, wheels up at 0600 tomorrow.  Make sure you get a hearty meal before we leave, it might be your last for a while.”

I shrugged. 

“Suit yourself.”  She went back to the door, gave me a curious look, and left.

I opened the file and looked at the one piece of paper in it.  It was marked Top Secret in red diagonally across the page, probably specially done by Lallo to make me feel important.  It had departure time, the weather, the flight time, how long the stopover would be before going on to the target.

Tightly planned, no room for missing connections, though this was the army, not an airline taking us, no room for errors.  New intel said that we had five days before the prisoners were to be executed.

No pressure then.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Writing about writing a book – Day 16

As we now know Bill realizes that he had been captured and interrogated by someone, ostensibly Chinese, but not exactly from the Viet Kong

I’ve been pondering how Bill ends up in the hands of the Chinese, well, I know how he does, and this needs to be put down.

Some pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

”’

Davenport arrived at the airstrip where I was waiting in a makeshift building, with windows, easy chairs, a self-serve bar, and best of all air conditioning.  Waiting for the chopper that was bringing in my replacement from Singapore airport.

He didn’t normally come to see us off so I thought it either odd or just a change of heart.  He had brought the shiny Cadillac, an ostentatious piece of Americana that never failed to capture the local’s imagination.

Davenport was, I soon discovered, a man who liked to impress upon the world how great America was.  I hadn’t the heart to tell him it failed on me.

He had crisp fatigues on and looked as though he had just stepped out of the shower, very clean, very cool, and very refreshed.  The car’s air-conditioning would have helped.  We all got that first ride from the strip to the camp in that car, and it was memorable, to say the least.

The driver stayed in the car, engine running, as he stepped into the lounge.  “Chandler.”

“Sir.”  No snapping to attention, neither of us was in uniform.

“There’s been a change of plans.”

“Sir.”  This didn’t sound very good.

“Your replacement is not coming.  Some trouble on the plane over.  Can’t spare a man so you will have to fill in.  I’m sorry.”

I went to say that I’d done my rotation, but the look on his face told me it would fall on deaf ears, so instead, I shrugged, let the driver, who had appeared out of the car as if on cue, collect my case, and followed Davenport out to the car.

It was definitely cooler in the car.  Davenport slid in the other side, the driver closing his door, then got in himself.  I had to close my own.  We headed back towards the camp slowly.

“We need 6 men for this op, Bill.  I’ll find some way of making this up to you.”

I shrugged.  “If you say so.”

I’d been looking forward to getting out of the jungle and getting back to civilization, as well as Ellen, who had been waiting patiently for the last six months.  She would not be very happy when I finally got to tell her.

“Oh, but the way, I took the liberty of calling your wife and apologizing on your behalf and said you’d probably be another week at the most.  She didn’t seem to mind.  She sounds like a nice lady.”

“She is.  She has to put up with me.”

“Yes.  We all have that problem.”

I listened to the hum of the air conditioning, the only other sound inside the car.  Usually, Davenport had a symphony playing over the radio, but not today.  He seemed different, more aloof, but, then, after the altercation, I had with him recently, we hadn’t spoken much after that.  Not unless we had to.

“The job isn’t difficult,” he said when we were nearing the compound.  “Another prison camp, and this time the intel is solid.  Buggers were careless and we’ve got some pictures.  The only problem is getting there.  It’s going to be a bit of a hike.”

Another of his understatements.  I could remember the last ‘bit of a hike’.  “When do we leave?”

“First light tomorrow.  Chopper to the drop zone then a day’s march to the camp.  RV at the drop zone from day 4 till you get there.”

“Who’s in charge?”  I’d run the last operation so I was hoping it would carry forward.

“If you’d been staying instead of being a last-minute replacement, it would have been you.  Instead, we had to bring in a couple of specialists who have been on the ground here quite some time.  They know the terrain and the people.”

New guys.  I hated new guys.  Especially those who purport to have experience on the ground.  Invariably they didn’t and I’d had words with Davenport more than once about it, especially when we had such a high attrition rate.  I believed it was only a miracle that I had lasted this long, and I was now tempting providence this time around.

“I hope they are better than the last two.”

“They are.  I picked them myself.  At least you will be there to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Which was exactly what I didn’t want.

Damn.

Back at the compound, I dragged myself back to my old quarters, hoping they hadn’t given away my billet just yet.  It was a hut if you could call it that, which had seen better days, but it kept the rain out.

I shared it with another soldier, or ex, I didn’t really know, and he was not the sort of man you asked, and even less talkative than most.  I knew his name was Barry McDougall, that he was Scottish, he didn’t wear a kilt and had killed men with his bare hands, one in a barroom fight.

Allegedly.

I was not surprised.  He was six feet six inches tall, all muscle, and always surly, and unlike many of the English that had come and gone, didn’t complain about the heat.

I dumped my bag on the locker at the end of the bed and sat in one of the two well worn easy chairs.  Barry was in the other, reading.

He lowered the paper and looked at me.  “Back, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Miss the chopper?”

“No.”

“Beer’s cold.”

“Thanks.”

I got up and went to the fridge.  One of the perks of the job.  An endless supply of cold beer.

“Get me one too.”

I did and passed it to him, the sat down again.  He took the beer and went back to his paper.

“Seen the new guys,” I asked.

A voice from behind the paper, “Yes.”

“Any good?”

“No.”

“Another fun run in the jungle then?”

“Looks like it.”

We drank in silence.  What more could be said?

There is more but I have to let the words jumble around in my head while I sleep.  More on this tomorrow!

…

© Charles Heath 2018-2021

Searching for locations: From Zhengzhou to Suzhou by train, and the Snowy Sea Hotel, Suzhou, China

For the first time on this trip, we encounter problems with Chinese officialdom at the railway station, though we were warned that this might occur.

We had a major problem with the security staff when they pulled everyone over with aerosols and confiscated them. We lost styling mousse, others lost hair spray, and the men, their shaving cream.  But, to her credit, the tour guide did warn us they were stricter here, but her suggestion to be angry they were taking our stuff was probably not the right thing to do.

As with previous train bookings, the Chinese method of placing people in seats didn’t quite manage to keep couples traveling together, together on the train.  It was an odd peculiarity which few of the passengers understood, nor did they conform, swapping seat allocations.

This train ride did not seem the same as the last two and I don’t think we had the same type of high-speed train type that we had for the last two.  The carriages were different, there was only one toilet per carriage, and I don’t think we were going as fast.

But aside from that, we had 753 kilometers to travel with six stops before ours, two of which were very large cities, and then our stop, about four and a half hours later.  With two minutes this time, to get the baggage off the team managed it in 40 seconds, a new record.

After slight disorientation getting off the train, we locate our guide, easily ground by looking for the Trip-A-Deal flag.  From there it’s a matter of getting into our respective groups and finding the bus.

As usual, the trip to the hotel was a long one, but we were traveling through a much brighter, and well lit, city.

As for our guide, we have him from now until the end of the tour.  There are no more train rides, we will be taking the bus from city to city until we reach Shanghai.  Good thing then that the bus is brand new, with that new car smell.  Only issue, no USB charging point.

The Snowy Sea hotel.  

It is finally a joy to get a room that is nothing short of great.  It has a bathroom and thus privacy.

Everyone had to go find a supermarket to purchase replacements for the confiscated items.  Luckily there was a huge supermarket just up from the hotel that had everything but the kitchen sink.

But, unlike where we live, the carpark is more of a scooter park!

It is also a small microcosm of Chinese life for the new more capitalistic oriented Chinese.

The next morning we get some idea of the scope of high-density living, though here, the buildings are not 30 stories tall, but still just as impressive.

These look like the medium density houses, but to the right of these are much larger buildings

The remarkable thing about this is those buildings stretch as far as the eye can see.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 31

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, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

…

The folder had half a dozen single-page sheets with a photo attached to each with a standard-issue army paper clip.  There was no top secret in pale red ink diagonally scribed across any of the pages which somehow diminished the exercise.

I guessed this was the hand-picked team selected for me to take on our suicide mission.  It didn’t have the officer overseeing the mission, or the go-between Jacobi.  Not exactly a useful man to have along in a firefight, because he would be too busy working out who would pay the most if or when he survived.

It still astonished me that we hired people like Jacobi, fully knowing that they would sell out their own mother if the price was right.  I was going to reserve one bullet in my gun to execute him the moment he even looked the wrong way.

Trust him, I did not.

Nor any 0f the six members of that hand-picked team.

Sergeant Barnes.  Tall, wide, deadly, that last attribute courtesy of a line in his resume that said he killed three soldiers of the army we were supposed to be training and supporting.  No meaningful reason was given as to why he did, only that he’d just finished serving a five-year sentence, cut short by a month so he could join this force.  Hand to hand combat, and a handy man to have if you’ve got a handheld rocket launcher handy.

Private Williamson.  Had been a Corporal, but considered that too much of a burden, having men look up to him, and having to give orders.  He decided to go AWOL instead.  Used to be a butcher before signing on to see the world, and as described very handy with a knife.  Refused to use a gun, and refused orders too, which was the reason why he was in the stockade, with his friend, the next man on the list.

Private Shurl.  If we needed a man who excelled at sword fighting, he was our man.  A very accomplished swordsman, but I doubt we were going to need a man of his talents because enemy swordsmen seemed only to exist in the old movies.  I guess Lallo was expecting the three musketeers or something.  Other than that, he was a useful radioman and would be handling the communications once we were on the ground in enemy territory.

Corporal Stark.  His claim to fame was reading maps.  He was also an expert on the ground in the country whose borders we were about to violate.  He lived in the country for several years with his wife, who came from there, and who’d been killed by the dictator in a case of mistaken identity.  Stark would have to be carefully managed.

Staff Sergeant Mobley.  A man who had been up and down in ranks for a long time, suggesting a bad attitude, his latest bout leaving him fresh from a stint in the stockade.  He had no valid reason to be in on this disaster and yet had volunteered.  That took courage, to apply for a suicide mission with little hope of return.  I suspect he had an agenda that no one else knew about.

And, lastly

Lieutenant Lesley Davies.  A woman marine, no longer a lieutenant but just another soldier who obviously didn’t understand the concept of taking one step back when everyone else steps in another direction.  It didn’t say what it was she did wrong, but my guess there were a few men out there frightened of meeting her on a dark night.  Some women are dainty, some women are large, and then there’s Davies, a powerhouse that could be dangerous if out of control.

Out of all of that team, she was the one who interested me the most.

There was a knock on the door, interrupting my thoughts.  I called out, “Enter”, surprised the person outside hadn’t just shoved their way into the room.

The door opened, Monroe walked in and closed the door behind her.

“Let me guess,” I said.  “You’re running point.”

“And save your sorry ass from those recruits.  Not a brain between the lot of them, and we need people who can think, given the nature of the forthcoming exercise.  The brains trust has decided the rescue team reports to us.  I didn’t ask for it by the way.  This is one of Lallo’s sick jokes.”

Maybe he had a problem with her too and was hoping she wasn’t coming back.

“You and me both,” I said.

She threw another folder on the table.  “Operational orders, wheels up at 0600 tomorrow.  Make sure you get a hearty meal before we leave, it might be your last for a while.”

I shrugged. 

“Suit yourself.”  She went back to the door, gave me a curious look, and left.

I opened the file and looked at the one piece of paper in it.  It was marked Top Secret in red diagonally across the page, probably specially done by Lallo to make me feel important.  It had departure time, the weather, the flight time, how long the stopover would be before going on to the target.

Tightly planned, no room for missing connections, though this was the army, not an airline taking us, no room for errors.  New intel said that we had five days before the prisoners were to be executed.

No pressure then.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

“Many have come, few have stayed” – a short story

It was true to say that very few people knew our department existed. In fact, I was not sure quite who it was I worked for, but when I’d been first tasked with the assignment, a transfer precipitated by a transgression that might have ended my career, I was certain I had been sent to purgatory.

At least, that’s what the sign on the door said.

The office, if it could be called that, was in the basement, around so many twists and turns in the passages that it was easy to believe you had entered another dimension. It wasn’t located in the building you walked through the front door of, but somewhere else nearby. Through the walls, you could hear the sounds of cars, but whether it was a nearby road above the ceiling, or they were parking, it was not easy to say.

On another side, the sounds of trains passing through tunnels were barely discernible, and sometimes only noticeable by a slight vibration of the coffee mug on the desktop, of which there were four, the maximum number of occupants in the small area, but I have never seen who two of the other four were.

Such was the nature of our job. We operated in secret, hidden from the world, and the others. I was never quite sure why.

…

The interview, when I thought was going to be fired, was given by an old man in a pinstripe suit, long past the age of retirement. In fact, had I not known better, I would have said he was dead, and all that was missing was the cobwebs. He had no sense of humor and got straight to the point.

“You are being transferred to PIB effective immediately.”

He didn’t say what PIB stood for, and the no-nonsense tone told me this was not the time to ask.

“Many have come, but few have stayed. It’s not a job to be taken lightly, and a word of advice, the work you are about to undertake is not to be discussed with anyone but the person you have been assigned to work with.”

He then handed me an envelope, sealed, and that was the end of the interview.

I did not get to speak a word. I had this speech memorized, ready to explain why I had failed so badly, and what I was prepared to do to make up for it, but I was not given the opportunity. Perhaps I should just be grateful I was given another chance.

I waited until I was out of the building, and a block away in a small cafe, and the cheerful waitress had brought my coffee and cake. It was, in a small way, a celebration I still had a job, working for the organization I had set my sights on way back when I was in school.

Making sure no one was sitting too close; I opened the envelope and took out the neatly folded sheet of paper.

It was blank.

Was this some sort of joke?

There was a loud noise outside in the street, a car backfiring, and it caused a few anxious moments, particularly for me in case it was trouble, but it wasn’t. When normality returned I went back to the sheet of paper, picking it up off the top of the coffee cup where it had fallen, and something caught my eye.

Writing. Specifically, numbers, but what I thought I’d seen had disappeared, or hadn’t been there at all.

A shake of the head, perplexed, to say the least, I took a sip of the coffee. As the cup passed under the sheet, a pattern was discernible, displaying then disappearing. Bringing the cup back under the sheet, numbers suddenly appeared. It was a telephone number. It was also very cloak and daggers.

Was it a test? Because at that moment when I saw the blank sheet of paper, the meaning was very clear. It was a puzzle, and if I didn’t work it out, then I didn’t get the job. I’d simply been told to turn up at an anonymous building to see a man whom I doubted would answer to the name I’d been given to ask for again after I left.

I entered the number then pressed ‘call’.

Seven rings before a woman’s voice answered, “Yes?”

No names, no identification.

“Mr McCall gave me an envelope with this number in it.”

“You worked it out?” She sounded surprised.

“By accident, yes.”

“Well, four out of five candidates don’t. Consider this to be your lucky morning, the day is not over yet. Where are you?”

I told her.

“Then you’re not far from Central Park. Go to the souvenir store and wait.”

“How will I know you?”

“You won’t, I’ll recognize you.”

Then the phone went dead, and I was left looking at it as if I had the ability to see, via the phone, who that person was. I shrugged. How many others had failed even the most basic test, to figure out what was on the sheet of paper, and, was it an indication of the work I would be doing?

I spent the better part of an hour watching the squirrels at play. They scuttled around on the ground chasing each other or their imaginary friends or leaping from branch to branch in the shrubs and trees. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world, and I wondered what that would be like.

Unfortunately, I had to pay the rent, bills, and eat, all of which required having a paying job. I had been looking at having to return home a dismal failure and fulfil the destiny my father had predicted for me.

“David Jackson, I presume?”

I looked sideways to see a woman about my own age, dressed so that she would look anonymous in a crowd. It was anyone’s guess how long she had been there, but that, I guess was the point. She had been observing me, and no doubt assessing my suitability.

Could I blend in? Perhaps not if I was that easily identifiable.

“I am.”

“What if anything has been explained to you about the job?”

“Nothing. I was asked to meet a nameless man in an anonymous office and was handed an envelope which led to my call to you.”

After I said it out loud it sounded crazy.

“If you don’t mind me asking but how did you work out how to read the letter?”

Moment of truth, was there a right or wrong answer? Most if not all the people who received it would not work it out.

“Quite by accident.”

She smiled. “The truth is a rare commodity in our business. But then, you’re one of a very select group of people who made it to this level.”

“Just out of curiosity, what happens to those who done work out how to read the number?”

“They don’t get to stand where you are. Welcome aboard.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

Writing about writing a book – Day 15

Our main character Bill probably needs to give an account of the situation he found himself in.  I have, for a while, considered that he is just another soldier who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now, I want to add a dimension.

He finishes up where he is, in the end, because he chose to be there, and it was something of a rocky ride to get there.

That I’m still planning in my head.

In the meantime, this is the initial piece I wrote for his situation description:

I used to joke about telling people my middle name was ‘danger’.  It seemed I was not the only one, and for a time, worked with a group of soldiers and ex-soldiers in a capacity similar to that of being a mercenary.

Each one of us had a specialty.  Mine was being the sniper.  Johnny had knife skills and not the sort that was used in a kitchen.  Freddie, explosives, Bill, well, you just left Bill alone because he had a grudge against the world and everyone in it.

The Colonel used to say we were all handpicked, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.  I knew for a fact some of the team came straight out of the stockade before their time was up.

Because some of us were expendable.

The thing was; none of us cared.  For those who were ‘rescued’, it was better out in the jungle, dodging bullets, than being inside, your fate left in the hands of the Gods. 

I knew how it was.  I’d been there once or twice myself.

This morning had started the same as many others.  Rise and shine, a breakfast of sorts, into the chopper, and after an hour or so, dropping into a grassy patch, with nothing but jungle in every direction.  Our mission was to find and liberate a number of our people who had gone missing, read captured, on the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.  It was a familiar country because I had, over the last year or so, gone hunting missing POW’s in the area.  Old prisons had been converted into drug laboratories, and we’d broken up a few of those too.

The noise of the chopper put paid to any sort of stealthy approach and, by the time it dropped us off, if there was anyone nearby, our advantage, if we ever had one, was gone.  The trouble was, to cover the same distance by foot would take a week, and, by the time we arrived, if we arrived, more than half the team would be dead.  We may have been good, but we were not that good.  It was not our home turf.

It was hot, sticky, and nothing like home.  There wasn’t a day that passed when I thought to myself it was getting harder and harder to remember when I wasn’t constantly hot and sweaty, nor as frightened.  It happened that way, towards the end of a tour.

Once on the ground, every man was on full alert.  We changed the lead and tail end constantly, to make sure we didn’t lose anyone.  And it was hard going, the constant heat, sweat, punctuated with slight relief when it rained.

Then as quickly as it came, it went, leaving you wet then sticky.

And if that wasn’t enough to contend with, there was the enemy.   You couldn’t see them, nor hear them yet you had the feeling he was watching you the whole time, and it made your skin crawl.

Sometimes the enemy attacked when we had to camp, invisibly swooping, shooting from the trees, and firing a mortar or two, then disappearing back into the luminous greenery without a trace.  These were the remnants of the Viet Cong, Cambodian armed forces, disaffected Laotians, or the Chinese, or so we believed, but they were well-trained mercenaries and just the sort of people the drug cartels would use.

And surviving the operation, any operation, was like playing Russian roulette.  Was it your turn this time, or someone else’s?  You could be walking along, straining your eyes and ears, and next minute, find the man who was covering your back, dead.  Booby traps were silent and swift.  Landmines are loud and very messy.  Both hangovers from the war, and never cleaned up.  People you’d meet, you never knew whose side they were on, so it was best to avoid all contact.

© Charles Heath 2015-2021

Searching for locations: The Pagoda Forest, near Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China

The pagoda forest

After another exhausting walk, by now the heat was beginning to take its toll on everyone, we arrived at the pagoda forest.

A little history first:

The pagoda forest is located west of the Shaolin Temple and the foot of a hill.  As the largest pagoda forest in China, it covers approximately 20,000 square meters and has about 230 pagodas build from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Each pagoda is the tomb of an eminent monk from the Shaolin Temple.  Graceful and exquisite, they belong to different eras and constructed in different styles.  The first pagoda was thought to be built in 791.

It is now a world heritage site.

No, it’s not a forest with trees it’s a collection of over 200 pagodas, each a tribute to a head monk at the temple and it goes back a long time.  The tribute can have one, three, five, or a maximum of seven layers.  The ashes of the individual are buried under the base of the pagoda.

The size, height, and story of the pagoda indicate its accomplishments, prestige, merits, and virtues. Each pagoda was carved with the exact date of construction and brief inscriptions and has its own style with various shapes such as a polygonal, cylindrical, vase, conical and monolithic.

This is one of the more recently constructed pagodas

There are pagodas for eminent foreign monks also in the forest.

From there we get a ride back on the back of a large electric wagon

to the front entrance courtyard where drinks and ice creams can be bought, and a visit to the all-important happy place.

Then it’s back to the hotel.

NaNoWriMo 2021 – Day 25

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is NaNoWriMo-WriterBadge-851-2x.png

A score to settle

…

A writer has to be all people, and, sometimes that can be a difficult remit.

To start with, I know what it’s like to travel, stay, and work in remote, sometimes primitive, locations. Getting there is sometimes a laborious task, battling the weather, the people, and the authorities.

It can be scary at best and terrifying at worst.

And it can be lonely with tenuous links to those back home.

Now, supplant that with the fact you are in that place on false pretenses. You now have to channel all of the above and find a degree of both bravado and confidence, which most times, in reality, you don’t have.

Easy, you say, to write about, because you’re not really there, so you can be whatever you want, do whatever you want.

The problem is, it still has to be believable.

So we’re starting with a character that has a job to do, preferably to be on his own so he doesn’t have to be responsible for anyone he’s working with and can use any or all means available to get the job done.

Still not a difficult portrayal.

Quite often there’s no need to complicate the character by adding a background life, which might mean that he has a wife, which is unlikely if he is an agent provocateur, a girlfriend, which is also unlikely, because as a lover, he doesn’t need the distraction or the problem of keeping secrets, which, because of his job, would be a necessity.

But…

Time to add a complication.

His boss sends an assistant, or partner, one that he’s not told about.

And is a woman.

Suddenly his dynamic changes completely, and we need to have some character analysis, like his attitude to partners, and attitude towards women.

The problem is, how the reader is going to perceive this characterization, and that’s where the job becomes harder because on one hand, you want him to be the epitome of the new age man, and on the other, the hard-nosed agent that has no time for building relationships, and particularly because that person is female.

It’s going to be an interesting dynamic, and now that I have thought about, enough to write this, I can see some elements of his character will need to change.

Needless to say, she is going to be a strong female character, so more about her tomorrow.

…

Today’s word count: 1,587 words, for the running total of 5,751.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 30

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.

At the end of the discussion, which began to get quite heated, I was escorted from the room and taken to another interrogation room.

Fresh from his intimidatory success with Jacobi, Lallo was, no doubt, going to try and press on his advantage with me though I was not quite sure what it was he thought I could help him with, other than to dissuade him from his current plan.

I had to wait an hour in that small, stuffy room considering the possibilities.  Surely he wasn’t expecting me to join his band of merry men.

When he finally came, he arrived with a folder and two bottles of cold water, one of which he gave to me before he sat down.

I took a sip of water out of the bottle, after checking the seal hadn’t been broken.  I still didn’t trust him, and with good reason considering the trick he’d played on me.

“Now, I’m sure you saw and heard everything that happened with Jacobi.”

I nodded.

“He’s the reason your mission failed.  He met the other team on the ground and was supposed to lead them to the building where the targets were hiding.  Instead, he told the Government forces, Bahti, the plan for their rescue and their location.  It was a double-cross brought on by greed.”

“It always is.  But he’s more than likely right about the fate of the two prisoners.”

“Half dead, yes, pressed into working on a prison farm, but neither has been cracked yet.  After the last attempt at rescuing them, we cultivated new agents on the ground.  Their advice has led to us being able to formulate a new attempt to rescue them.”

Had they asked my opinion long before the first attempt, I would have told them to have more than one source, and particularly if they were paying handsomely for information.  It was always an opportunity for double-cross.

There still was, but I don’t think that eventuality was factored into Lallo’s thinking.

“Who’s the fool you have in mind to lead this disaster.”

“You.”

Good thing I’d braced myself for the bad news, and it came as no surprise.  In that hour of considering possibilities, they all seemed to come back to one person.  I was the only one left who’d been there, if only for a few hours.

It had also given me time to work on an excuse not to go.

“I don’t think so…”

Lallo put his hand up to stop me.  My protestations might have worked on a reasonable man, but Lallo wasn’t reasonable.

“Well, you, too, have a choice.  Stay and be court marshalled for your failure to follow orders in the last attempt or redeem yourself and volunteer to lead the next.”

“I did nothing wrong the last time.”

“Not according to the investigation I’ve just completed, the one that I intend to submit to the JAG if you are unwilling to follow orders.”

And there it was.  All the time I’d been in Lallo’s hands he had been compiling a feasible case against me, just so that I could be induced to do his bidding.  I was stupid not to connect the dots long before this and shut my mouth.  Everything I had denied, was the same evidence he could use against me.

n typical military-style, someone had to shoulder the blame for the previous mess.

And to be given a choice, one that made me as expendable as Jacobi, was, as far as Lallo was concerned, a masterstroke.

If I went and was killed in action, he would have a scapegoat he needed.  If I didn’t go, I would be court marshalled and thrown in a cell for the rest of my life.  And if I went, and succeeded, he would become the golden boy in the intelligence services, and the same fate as any other scenario would befall me.  It was lose-lose.

“You’re not throwing out any bones?”

“Don’t have to.  But you get to pick the team you want to go with you.”  He tossed a file across the table to me, and I opened it.  Several pages, with photos attached.

A who’s who of the military types that spent more time in the stockade than on the battlefield.  Men who would do anything to stay out, men who had nothing to lose.  Men who were expendable.

“You’re kidding?”  I looked up at him, but his expression told me he wasn’t.

“Are you sure any of these will obey orders?”

“You have my assurance they will.  We’re sending an observer, just to make sure everyone stays on mission.  You have three days to pick a team of four men, establish command, and prepare to leave.”

Something else I thought about in that hour, other than it was probably the last time I would have for reflection, was that it would have been better to die in the helicopter crash.

I waited until he left the room before I reopen the file.

© Charles Heath 2019

“Many have come, few have stayed” – a short story

It was true to say that very few people knew our department existed. In fact, I was not sure quite who it was I worked for, but when I’d been first tasked with the assignment, a transfer precipitated by a transgression that might have ended my career, I was certain I had been sent to purgatory.

At least, that’s what the sign on the door said.

The office, if it could be called that, was in the basement, around so many twists and turns in the passages that it was easy to believe you had entered another dimension. It wasn’t located in the building you walked through the front door of, but somewhere else nearby. Through the walls, you could hear the sounds of cars, but whether it was a nearby road above the ceiling, or they were parking, it was not easy to say.

On another side, the sounds of trains passing through tunnels were barely discernible, and sometimes only noticeable by a slight vibration of the coffee mug on the desktop, of which there were four, the maximum number of occupants in the small area, but I have never seen who two of the other four were.

Such was the nature of our job. We operated in secret, hidden from the world, and the others. I was never quite sure why.

…

The interview, when I thought was going to be fired, was given by an old man in a pinstripe suit, long past the age of retirement. In fact, had I not known better, I would have said he was dead, and all that was missing was the cobwebs. He had no sense of humor and got straight to the point.

“You are being transferred to PIB effective immediately.”

He didn’t say what PIB stood for, and the no-nonsense tone told me this was not the time to ask.

“Many have come, but few have stayed. It’s not a job to be taken lightly, and a word of advice, the work you are about to undertake is not to be discussed with anyone but the person you have been assigned to work with.”

He then handed me an envelope, sealed, and that was the end of the interview.

I did not get to speak a word. I had this speech memorized, ready to explain why I had failed so badly, and what I was prepared to do to make up for it, but I was not given the opportunity. Perhaps I should just be grateful I was given another chance.

I waited until I was out of the building, and a block away in a small cafe, and the cheerful waitress had brought my coffee and cake. It was, in a small way, a celebration I still had a job, working for the organization I had set my sights on way back when I was in school.

Making sure no one was sitting too close; I opened the envelope and took out the neatly folded sheet of paper.

It was blank.

Was this some sort of joke?

There was a loud noise outside in the street, a car backfiring, and it caused a few anxious moments, particularly for me in case it was trouble, but it wasn’t. When normality returned I went back to the sheet of paper, picking it up off the top of the coffee cup where it had fallen, and something caught my eye.

Writing. Specifically, numbers, but what I thought I’d seen had disappeared, or hadn’t been there at all.

A shake of the head, perplexed, to say the least, I took a sip of the coffee. As the cup passed under the sheet, a pattern was discernible, displaying then disappearing. Bringing the cup back under the sheet, numbers suddenly appeared. It was a telephone number. It was also very cloak and daggers.

Was it a test? Because at that moment when I saw the blank sheet of paper, the meaning was very clear. It was a puzzle, and if I didn’t work it out, then I didn’t get the job. I’d simply been told to turn up at an anonymous building to see a man whom I doubted would answer to the name I’d been given to ask for again after I left.

I entered the number then pressed ‘call’.

Seven rings before a woman’s voice answered, “Yes?”

No names, no identification.

“Mr McCall gave me an envelope with this number in it.”

“You worked it out?” She sounded surprised.

“By accident, yes.”

“Well, four out of five candidates don’t. Consider this to be your lucky morning, the day is not over yet. Where are you?”

I told her.

“Then you’re not far from Central Park. Go to the souvenir store and wait.”

“How will I know you?”

“You won’t, I’ll recognize you.”

Then the phone went dead, and I was left looking at it as if I had the ability to see, via the phone, who that person was. I shrugged. How many others had failed even the most basic test, to figure out what was on the sheet of paper, and, was it an indication of the work I would be doing?

I spent the better part of an hour watching the squirrels at play. They scuttled around on the ground chasing each other or their imaginary friends or leaping from branch to branch in the shrubs and trees. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world, and I wondered what that would be like.

Unfortunately, I had to pay the rent, bills, and eat, all of which required having a paying job. I had been looking at having to return home a dismal failure and fulfil the destiny my father had predicted for me.

“David Jackson, I presume?”

I looked sideways to see a woman about my own age, dressed so that she would look anonymous in a crowd. It was anyone’s guess how long she had been there, but that, I guess was the point. She had been observing me, and no doubt assessing my suitability.

Could I blend in? Perhaps not if I was that easily identifiable.

“I am.”

“What if anything has been explained to you about the job?”

“Nothing. I was asked to meet a nameless man in an anonymous office and was handed an envelope which led to my call to you.”

After I said it out loud it sounded crazy.

“If you don’t mind me asking but how did you work out how to read the letter?”

Moment of truth, was there a right or wrong answer? Most if not all the people who received it would not work it out.

“Quite by accident.”

She smiled. “The truth is a rare commodity in our business. But then, you’re one of a very select group of people who made it to this level.”

“Just out of curiosity, what happens to those who done work out how to read the number?”

“They don’t get to stand where you are. Welcome aboard.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021