Charles Heath's writing blog

I'm back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written. The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I'm not very good at prioritising. But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn't take long to get back into the groove. Was I working for a ghost? The question that was foremost in my mind was whether I should call Nobbin, and let him know that I’d met Severin and that his ‘information’ was on a USB. When I’d mentioned the fact O’Connor said the evidence was somewhere, I knew this evidence was on a USB and could be in one of the hiding places O’Connor had set up with Nobbin.  If not, then it had to be somewhere else, somewhere only O’Connor would know about. Somehow, I got the impression O’Connor had not trusted either side.  Yes, he was about to tell me where the evidence was, but if that was the case, it meant it was not anywhere where anyone else would know about. Severin

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way. Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war. And, so, it continues... The message I sent to Forster, in London, was short and to the point, 'Castle in hands of Germans led by Thompson, others, and a further 12 soldiers parachuted in.  Defectors, our original soldiers? and villagers held captive in dungeons.  Resistance limited to five plus self.  Available resources cannot retake castle and will have difficulty in intercepting incoming package.  Suggestions?' Marina read it and added her name before it was sent.  Now, all we could do was wait for

I'm back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written. The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I'm not very good at prioritising. But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn't take long to get back into the groove. Was I working for a ghost? Training sometimes was one of those things that went in one ear and came out the other.  That accounted for the boring bits, but our instructors called it tradecraft.  I guess I should have taken more notice at the time. Home was a bedsit in Bloomsbury, Not far from the Russell Square underground station, on the ground floor overlooking the small park.  Sometimes, in summer I would sit there and watch the world go by, thinking there had to be more to life than waiting for an opportunity. To do what, at the time, I didn’t know.  But, when this opportunity presented itself, oddly as a rather strange ad in the help wanted pages of th

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. It took almost an hour to recover.  Monroe didn’t come looking for me, so I think they knew it would take some time for me to get my legs back. And it felt good to stand under the hot shower for twenty-odd minutes, letting the warmth of the water sink into my bones and clear my head. And think. How long had Bamfield have an eye on me?  It was a question that sprung to mind the moment I saw him in the desert camp.  I’d heard if you were transferred to one of his commands, at some point, it was not because it was another posting, it was because he wanted you there. I’d been specially selected by Bamfield personally,

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.   For instance: And, then, the words: This was meant to be a quiet suburban neighbourhood. That was what I believed it would be the day we were out looking at houses to start our new life together.  That was the dream, meet, get to know each other, get married and move into the place where you intended to spend the rest of your life together. We both had the same dream and for the first six months, it was exactly that.  A dream come true. Until the next-door neighbours, a family of husband, Jerry, and wife, Kerry, son, Billy, and twin daughters, Isobel and Lenore, were murdered in their beds, early one morning. We saw and heard nothing. It was, quite literally, the quietest neighbourhood we'd ever seen.  The only noise that could be heard was the odd petrol lawn mower because most people had electric gardening tools. The same went for the neighbours on the other side.  They saw and heard nothing either.

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 we’re back on the treasure hunt. I was a fool for thinking that I could help Nadia when the whole time she was playing me.  There didn’t look like any tension between them, and nothing that would convince me that he had any sort of hold over her. I cursed myself for my own stupidity. With a shake of the head, I went over to the bar attached to the beachside restaurant and order a cold beer, then another.   The bartender gave me a long measured look as if trying to gauge my age, but I was old enough and had the ID card to prove it.   It was a curse to look so young for that reason, but I suppose, like more old men, I would eventually curse being old.  At least, that’s wha

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way. Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war. And, so, it continues... The new leader of the resistance was the woman, Martina, best if I didn’t know her last name.  Fair enough.  There had been a necessary restructure after the infiltration, and untimely deaths of over half their number. When I asked what happened to the former leader, I learned that he, and all but five other members were captured and taken to the castle.  They were now, for all intents and purposes, double agents, working for the Thompson at the castle. The remaining five, of which

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.   For instance: And, then, the words: To say there was a storm coming was an understatement. Not only caused by the weather but if certain events kept going the way they were, there could be a cataclysmic upheaval that would catch a great many people by surprise. I couldn't say I'd read the signs correctly over the last few weeks, but it was now apparent that some people had, and were doing what they could while there was still an opportunity to do so. Or that what they were doing became public knowledge. It explained a cryptic phone call from a friend that I hadn't heard from in several years, not since he had been headhunted from university to a government department that he couldn't tell me about, only that he would be located in the nation's capital. I hadn't understood why he went, or how his area of expertise could be used, but apparently, someone had seen something I hadn't.

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. I could truthfully say I was blinded by the light.  Whoever my next visitor was, came in and turned on the lights just about blinding me after the ethereal darkness I’d been in for several hours. Of course, it had to be Lallo. “I trust you had an uneventful journey and got plenty of rest.”  He seemed to be in what might be called a jovial mood. Perhaps they were going to let him use his instruments of torture on me now we had arrived.  I was sure that the Geneva Convention, if we were still a signatory to it, was left outside the door to this building. “Well enough.  Whose idea was it to put me in casts and make

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.   For instance: And, then, the words: I had no idea why I was sitting in a hotel room watching a construction site. The briefing had intimated that a deal of some sort was expected between a known criminal and one of the foremen on the site, though no one was sure which one it was, or, in fact, what the deal was about. I did say, when questions or comments were asked for, that they were hardly going to conduct their business out in the open, seeing it was close to freezing, and snow was falling off and on, but it was viewed with disdain. The officer in charge, Ken Cursoff, seemed emphatic this was going to happen and had specifically asked that I and another officer be assigned to the task of conducting the surveillance. The other officer, a rookie named Nadine, who I discovered was the Commissioner's daughter on a fast track, was basically being sidelined in what seemed to me to be a classic case of a sen