What happens after an action packed start - Part 11

-
It's still a battle of wits, but 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 the enemy if it is the enemy, doesn't look or sound or act like the enemy.

 Old friends, new tricks.



Genial tone, trying to win my confidence.  I wasn’t going to ask, but wait for an explanation.  Asking would be like leaving the door ajar.

He sat after pulling the chair closer to the table and put his clasped hands on the table.
“This is a secret military operation known only to very few, apart from the team that is in situ.  Commander Breeman has been, against very specific direct orders, trying to find out what we are doing here.”  He stopped.

I think this was the moment I was supposed to ask, what was going on here.

If it was secret, then I didn’t want to know, and he was not going to tell me anyway.

I just looked attentive.

“You have been caught up in a jurisdictional issue.  It’s not hard to assume that you were sent here, with the pilot of that helicopter, to do an off the book search for this camp.  That, in itself, would be impossible, but the flyover coincided with a provedore run.  Just plain bad luck.”

For Joe, the pilot, it was.  Or not, if he had been given specific verbal orders, making it out to be a training run.  And the odds of me being on board at the same time, given my association with Breeman?

One coincidence too many.

And if it was as the man before had said, they knew everything, then Bamfield would know of my connection to her.

“You said you had no idea where you were when you were shot down?”

Time, I guess, to speak.  “No, I didn’t.  The desert looks all the same to me.”

“You will forgive me if I say I find that hard to believe.  I know you are better than that, Alan.  Who sent you out here?”

“I was along for the ride.  Standard operating procedure.  A helo goes up, someone like me has to be on board in case of trouble.  More conventional trouble than rockets.”

“But you specifically?”

“I don’t make the rosters, I just go where they tell me.”


Bamfield frowned.  I think he’d finally noticed I was not addressing him as ‘sir’.  Until I knew what side he was on, I considered myself a prisoner of war.



© Charles Heath 2019

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Being inspired, maybe – 57

-
Image
A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: I had a lot to think about. It was one of the main reasons why I chose a relatively remote resort to get away from the pressures and distractions of everyday life. You see, I just got made redundant from a job that I thought was mine for life, and with it came a litany of platitudes and half-truths and downright lies from a hatchet man, rather than the person who should have faced me. The point is, the owner of the company I worked for was someone I had respected.  We had started out together, not as partners, but as close to having a partnership as was possible. My only problem at the time was I didn't have the money to put up, so we had an agreement. An agreement, it appears, that was not worth anything because it was not in writing.  It had been a verbal agreement on a handshake, at a time when that meant something. Now, apparently, it didn't. There was of
Read more

I've always wanted to go on a Treasure Hunt - Part 32

-
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 installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt. The scene was set. Boggs and I had been browbeaten, and he had, willingly he said, given up the real map.  I was beginning to think Boggs had no idea what the real map was, there were so many different variations of it. Vince was on the warpath. Nadia was muddying the waters. The Benderby’s were being their usual menacing selves. A man had been killed and finished up being on Rico’s boat, and Rico had been arrested.  Had Benderby put it there, or was Rico the perpetrator?     Rico wanted the map for the Benderby’s but hadn’t got it from Boggs, which given how menacing he was, should have been a no brainer. Unless he really cared ab
Read more

Being Inspired, maybe - 70

-
Image
A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: I'd heard about the Worthington gardens, everyone had, they'd been featured in the press, magazines and on television.  I never thought I'd get to personally see them, in this lifetime or any other, but there i was, standing in the threshold of a whole new world. But, you ask, how did I get here? That is a story in itself, so you will have to bear with me while I give you some background, and maybe then you will understand what I did not. It was a bad week at the office. Literally. I'd been at loggerheads with both my father, and my older brother, Joseph Taylor Jr., the heir apparent, and lost. And it was a bad loss, one that was going to cost 200 jobs and get a lot of bad press.  I had tried my hardest, painstakingly crunched the numbers to show we could make a profit, but enough to keep it going. Apparently, that didn't matter, the heir apparen
Read more