Charles Heath's writing blog

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. Bamfield met me at the airport, before we took off.  Monroe had come over and told me there was a visitor in one of the rooms, the one with Operations crookedly glued to the door.  She opened the door, ushered me in, then stepped back out closing the door after her. Mental note: the door to that room would not withstand a good kick. There was a table, two chairs, and one of them had Bamfield sitting, looking up expectantly when I entered the room.  His eyes beckoned me to the other chair, so, after a look around the room, nothing...

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... When we arrived back at the underground site Martina was waiting, and it was clear she was extremely annoyed.  Word, somehow, had filtered back of what just happened. “Are you totally mad?” she snarled.  “You know what’s going to happen now?” I had a good idea but chose not to speak. “They got what they deserved,” Carlo said.  “They found the missing man that you left on the side of the road, by the way, and it was lucky we were there when they found him.  Whether t...

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: Inside the old building, it was very quiet and almost cold. Strange, perhaps, because outside the temperature was bordering on the record hottest day ever, nearly 45 degrees centigrade. The people who'd built this building nearly a hundred years before must have known how to keep that heat at bay, using sandstone. Back then, the sandstone would have looked very impressive, but now after many years of being closed off and left abandoned, the outside was stained by modern-day pollutants giving it a black streaky look, and inside layers of dust, easily stirred up as we walked slowly into the main foyer. It was huge, the roof, ornate, with four huge chandelier lights hanging down, and wood labeling, giving way to a long counter with brass serving cages highlighting it's former use; a bank. In its day it would have conveyed the power and wealth so that it's customers cou...

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. Was she insinuating that Alex Benderby killed Jacob Stravinsky? “Alex is a bully but he’s not a murderer,” I said, and wondering, at the same time, if he had finally graduated to a full-blown bad guy. “He wouldn’t do it.  Like his old man, they get others to do their dirty work.  I’m sure the significance of Alex being out on his father’s boat was not lost on you.  You asked the questions, and now that I’ve thought about it, it’s possible those divers could have planted the body on Rico’s boat.” It's one thing to come up with theories, but it was entirely another to suddenly realize they might be true.  Until this point, I...

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: There was something ironic about getting a message on my phone, particularly when it could have been so much easier if it had come ten minutes earlier. It was for a meeting.  Whilst in normal circumstances it could have taken place at the hotel, the person I was going to meet was very careful about being seen with westerners. And there was no guarantee the hotel and every inch of the lobby was not under surveillance.  After all, this was China, and everything and everyone was being watched. But, I was in the car, hired previously over the internet, on my way from the airport to the hotel, one of the more luxurious in Shanghai. I had been looking forward to having an hour soaking away the muscular niggles brought on by the flight.  That would have to wait. Just as the car pulled outside the hotel, I received another message advising she had just got to her ro...

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. An unlikely ally? When we were far enough away, not far from the bridge that crossed the Thames towards the Houses of Parliament, and with the London Eye in the foreground, I slackened my pace.  There were enough people around to afford us cover if Maury and his team realised quickly enough what we had done to escape. “What now?” she asked. “Go back to your people, tell them you’ve been compromised, but only on the basis that your flat was tossed, don’t mention Nobbin or Severin unless you feel compelled you have to, and make sure you don’t go back to the flat.  Both of them will have it staked out by now.” “And what are you doing to do?” “Try and play the...

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: On the way back to the hotel, the same as where both Madeleine and I were staying, I had time to think about why Suzanne had decided to make an appearance now. I didn't think it had anything to do with Madeleine because I didn't perceive Suzanne as being the jealous sort, and it was not as if we had been caught schmoozing in a corner of the hotel lobby, or anything like that.  But it did raise the question, had Suzanne been keeping some sort of surveillance on us? That would be, well, creepy, wouldn't it? "Any ideas on where we might have dinner?" Her voice float across the void that was between us in the car, so wide four people could be seated comfortably, breaking my thoughts. I looked ever at her.  She had a mischievous expression which I'd seen before and was a prelude to trouble.  She was a girl with too much money and far too much time on her h...