Tag: Work In Progress

Oh, how exciting! A brand new never-before-seen chapter!

Enjoy.

Martin caught the soft drink cooler’s light blink twice then go out. Sheriff Quarrals, at the Pavoni and reading the instructions for a coffee, also caught it. “How much you pay for that new unit and the light goes out every few weeks?”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve got some spare bulbs up in the apartment. Mind watching the store for five or so minutes?”

Quarrals went back to the instruction manual and waved him on.

Upstairs in his bedroom, Martin instituted Croyden’s Cone of Silence and lifted a phone handset from a drawer.

Tony Morelli’s low tenor came on the line. “Long time no talk, Larry. How is life in small town America?”

Martin chuckled. “Parochial, Tony. How’s east coast America?”

“What’s interesting about Stacey Allen Knox?”

“I got bored, Tony. Don’t know if our Unsub’s dead, gone to ground, done a runner, … Nothing new for the last month and I do random lookups on whatever’s in the news to keep my hand in, that’s all. You keeping tabs on me, Tony?”

“Did you see she just got back from Rio?”

“Rio interests you?”

“Rio interests a cross-department team with East Coast Operations being one of the departments in the cross. Nobody would’ve cared except she’s a named attorney who routinely works with internationals, not all of whom play nice with their US partners, so she was added to our persons-of-interest list.” Director of East Coast Operations Anthony Morelli paused. “We had eyes on her. She walked out of her hotel in the center of town, took a left, stopped in front of an alley between two skyscrapers, and disappeared.”

“One of our people lost her?”

Previous Fains I (A John Chance Mystery) Chapters

Minor changes to some of the other preceding files. Nothing worth mentioning.

Yet.

Rhonda Gilbert lost her Company tail in a fifteenth-floor custodian’s closet at Trump Tower. The custodian’s closet contained one of her many New York City caches, one of hundreds across the globe. Wherever she posted, she used a mathematical formula based on the host city’s name to determine which buildings to use, which floors to use, and what to cache there. LiquidKey – a sweet little Special Services gadget – provided access to any mechanical lock. A Special Services app provided access to electronic locks.

Each cache contained a complete makeover. In this case, the athletically thin, black suited, middle-aged woman with thick, hip length blonde hair went in and an older, matronly woman with thick glasses, a slight lisp, ruddy complexion, and dark, Mediterranean features came out, each makeover took less then sixty seconds thanks to a special Quick-Change class her Russian handlers arranged for her when she first approached them.

Rhonda enjoyed playing both sides. She enjoyed having her own island which nobody knew about. She enjoyed the Russians paying her while they figured out how they could resurrect their empire, what shape it would take and who would run it. She enjoyed going to them, not waiting for them to come to her, with bona fides of a high-level US intelligence/security weapons research group they knew nothing about.

“Don’t beat yourselves up too much. Most of the people who should know about it don’t know about it.”

Irregular meetings were set up at various hotels – dives to five-star – at odd intervals and wherever her missions took her.

Lots of the stuff she told her handlers returned a nod, a “good job,” a “just continue what you’re doing.”

But everything changed when she mentioned Shaman to them, the US’ latest and greatest attempt to determine if ESP and now labeled PSI abilities existed, and if so, how to screen for them, how to foster them, how to develop them for strategic and tactical purposes.

One or two or her handlers completely lost their composure when she first mentioned it. Many sat forward. Most reached across the table for the files like greedy children seeing handfuls of candy for the taking. A few knocked phones off their cradles to make sure they got their candy first.

Previous Fains I (A John Chance Mystery) Chapters

Yes, rewrite #3.

I don’t want to talk about it.

Vincent Quarrals watched Monique Modine exit Martin’s store from deep in the shadows of the Kristoffersen’s barn. Stacey Knox headed south a few minutes earlier.

He considered walking over when he saw her pull in, decided no. She seemed okay enough. He did a cursory read of her background at the state capital using what little Monique knew as a starting point, and something about Knox told him to go deep, go further, do some more reading beyond her litigation histories.

She bought the Campbell’s farm. He never noticed her in town before. What, did she come into town on a lark, saw a broken down farm badly in need of repair with a for-sale sign on it, and decided hot damn, that’s for me? One of the top lawyers in New York City decides to go country?

Bullshit. Only a flake would do that and she didn’t seem the flake type.

Did she even know the Campbell farm’s history?

Sad place if ever there was one.

The Campbells owned the farm since dirt was young. Al Senior, Al and Blanche’s father, never came back from Korea. MIA or POW or KIA nobody knew, and Mrs. Campbell did what she could to hold things together. They dirt-farmed their small patch but that gave them enough for themselves and a little more. Kind-hearted neighbors, most of them farmers themselves, bought what little overflow she had. She’d drop off baskets of produce and they’d return the baskets, often with new or at least not too worn clothes for her and the kids.

They raised chickens and pigs. Mrs. Campbell planned on selling off the livestock and Al had none of it. “We have two good breeder sows and all our hens are good layers. I can learn how to slaughter and get things to market. We do this right and we can grow the farm, Ma.”

Ballsy for a twelve-year old kid, but nobody knew what a head for business Al had. By the time he graduated high school he was one hell of a butcher. He handled chickens and pigs with razor sharp knifes and never pricked a finger or thumb. Neighbors brought their livestock to him for slaughter. He smiled and only took some good cuts for payment.

Al was fourteen, Blanche twelve, and the widow Campbell gets a suitor. Within a year Mrs. Campbell is Mrs. Stockton and Gus Stockton, a woodsman out of the Canadian Maritimes she meets when a hen-party went to a movie in Albany, is chocolates and flowers and smiles and works the land, helps Al with the livestock and getting it to market, Blanche with her schoolwork, and doubles over laughing when Al and Blanche imitate his eh? accent.

Then one day Gus walks the property and discovers some good timber ready to harvest, complete with a warm little knoll in the center. He talks it over with everybody, leases two good Suffolks and begins harvesting.

Those Suffolk were skittish at first, didn’t like going to that part of the woods, but Gus was good and talked them through, made sure he kept them away until he had the trees ready for hauling.

Then something strange happened. Vince’s mother said “Glory train passed through him.”

Whatever it was, Gus Stockton changed. Oh, he’s still chocolates and flowers and helpful and handy when people are watching, but it turns into fists and belt and a water pipe when people aren’t.

Previous Fains I (A John Chance Mystery) Chapters

No changes to chapter 8 (yet) so finally a new chapter.

Hope you enjoy.

Rhonda Gilbert lost her Company tail in a fifteenth-floor custodian’s closet at Trump Tower. The custodian’s closet contained one of her many New York City caches, one of hundreds across the globe. Wherever she posted, she used a mathematical formula based on the host city’s name to determine which buildings to use, which floors to use, and what to cache there. LiquidKey – a sweet little Special Services gadget – provided access to any mechanical lock. A Special Services app provided access to electronic locks.

Each cache contained a complete makeover. In this case, the athletically thin, black suited, middle-aged woman with thick, hip length blonde hair went in and an older, matronly woman with thick glasses, a slight lisp, ruddy complexion, and dark, Mediterranean features came out, each makeover took less then sixty seconds thanks to a special Quick-Change class her Russian handlers arranged for her when she first approached them.

Rhonda enjoyed playing both sides. She enjoyed having her own island which nobody knew about. She enjoyed the Russians paying her while they figured out how they would resurrect their empire, what shape it would take and who would run it. She enjoyed going to them, not waiting for them to come to her, with bona fides of a high-level US intelligence/security weapons research group they knew nothing about.

“Don’t beat yourselves up too much. Most of the people who should know about it don’t know about it.”

Irregular meetings were set up at various hotels – dives to five-star – at odd intervals and wherever her missions took her.

Lots of the stuff she told her handlers returned a nod, a “good job,” a “just continue what you’re doing.”

But everything changed when she mentioned Shaman to them, the US’ latest and greatest attempt to determine if ESP and now labeled PSI abilities existed, and if so, how to screen for them, how to foster them, how to develop them for strategic and tactical purposes.

One or two or her handlers completely lost their composure, sat forward, and reached across the table for the files. “How far has this gotten?”

She, of course, remained calm, cool, and composed, something she learned to do in high school. Each time she revealed only what she wanted revealed, or revealed something completely opposite to her true thoughts and feelings, she remembered the repeated, ongoing, incessant, never ending insult, emotional, psychological, and physical abuse, embarrassment, she suffered at the hands of other students, teachers, administration.

And let’s not forget the unending, over arching stupidity – Stupidity! – of the same.

Somebody told her to keep her head down and low.

It didn’t matter. They’d tilt her head up just to make sure they slapped her face.

And by the middle of sophomore year, she’d learned to not show what she felt, not show what she thought, and she remembered telling her worthless priest father-confessor, “Getting no response is no fun. Even they get it’s no fun besting an idiot, and if that’s my safest game, I’ll play my safest game.”

In the middle of her junior year she took saw a matchbook with BIG MONEY and INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL on the cover. Beneath them was “look inside for details.” There she read “Draw a camel and answer these three questions Yes or No.” with a postal address at the bottom.

Previous Fains I (A John Chance Mystery) Chapters

No changes to chapter 6. Yet.

Tom stroked Frank Sinatra’s fur as Stacey exited the Station’s main gate. She glanced over and chuckled. “You’re approved of. He doesn’t give up his seat for anybody.”

Frank cushed Tom’s lap and fell asleep, his purrs almost as loud as the F-150’s AC. “Frank Sinatra, huh? If we had Gene Kelly, Ann Miller, and a couple of other hoofers we could make a movie. When did you get a cat? When did you get a truck? When did you get a farm? Feel free to answer in any order you’d like.”

Stacey entered I-278 traffic. Frank stood up and looked out the window as if riding shotgun.

Free of the kitten, Tom reached into his duffel. “Mind pulling over before we’re too far from base?”

He pulled out a second laptop, this one bio-locked. He pressed his thumb against what looked like a mousepad except it was on laptop’s cover. It pinged and opened. He typed in something and waited.

“What you doing, big brother?”

“Homework.”

Stacey couldn’t see the screen but did see him type in two numbers.

“You know, Acra may be in God’s back acre but we do have the internet. We have computers and modems, too. We even have TVs.”

Tom smiled. “You don’t have this kind of internet.” He nodded at the screen then closed the laptop and put it back in his duffel. “Ever hear of a Rhonda Gilbert?”

“Should I have?”

“Guess not. Thanks for stopping. We can move on, now.”

Frank Sinatra, still perched at the window, looked at Tom and twitched his tail.

Tom spread his hands in invitation. “Well come on.”

Frank turned, cushed Tom’s lap again, settled back down, and purred.

“Going to tell me what was so important we had to stop?”

Previous Fains I (A John Chance Mystery) Chapters