http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/ en hi@etlc.info Copyright 2013 2013-03-20T03:06:34+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcadventure/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcadventure/#When:13:10:37Z Introduction Books in this category typically have the protagonist or other major characters consistently placed in dangerous situations.    How to Access Books Click on the link of a book to read its description.   Home Base 2011-04-11T13:10:37+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcsutherlands_-_sample/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcsutherlands_-_sample/#When:03:06:34Z Sutherland’s Rules Dario Ciriello (author) ONE The helicopter was still circling, woppa-woppa-woppa, when Christian arrived. Peggy had told him about it when he phoned in. It was Christian’s habit as owner to arrive at work around nine-thirty, a small luxury he’d earned, damn right he had. Not that he even needed to call, which he did every morning at eight-thirty, because Peggy could perfectly well run things without him and after four years he trusted her implicitly. His morning check-in with her was a kind of guilty reflex, more to let her know he was on the ball than anything else. Woppa-woppa-WOPPA as he opened the car door. God, the thing was loud, banking low over the water just a couple hundred yards away, downdraft messing up the satiny, grey-misted sheen of the Sound. A boat out there, too: a Coast Guard launch holding position below the chopper, and was that black shape a diver? They’d found something, or were trying to. A whale, a body, bales of contraband—anything was possible. How could they stand it in the boat, the noise had to be deafening. Not to mention going into that water, dry suit or not, and the wind from the rotors beating at you and whipping up an icy chop. With early March frost still sparkling on the north side of the roofs, better they than he. He’d never been a fan of cold water. Woppa-woppa-woppa. Christian was glad to close the door on it, first the outer, then the inner, which cut the racket down to a tolerable level. He had enough shit to deal with without that as well. He hated noise, and thank God for the double-paned windows and heavy insulation he’d installed. It had cost a fortune, but if you wanted to store perishable herbs, roots, powders and dried flowers thirty feet from the waters of Long Island Sound, good insulation and climate control equipment were mandatory. Walking into the office always made him happy. The scent coming in off the street was like being transported into an exotic eastern fantasy land, and that was only the glassed-in office. The storeroom was something else altogether, a heady atmosphere of sensual, exotic, pungent, and mysterious aromas that caused visitors’ eyes to widen in wonder when they entered. He greeted Peggy and hung his coat and scarf next to hers. In the storeroom where Estefan packed and shipped all the internet orders, the bulk of their business, the kid caught sight of him through the clear partition and waved. Christian smiled and returned the greeting. Jerking a thumb towards the door as he crossed to Peggy’s desk, he said “So do we know what all that’s about? It’s like being in a bloody war zone!” “Not a clue.” She handed him a slim sheaf of papers as he walked up to her desk. “You got a letter. From England.” “A letter?” He did, right on top of the pile. It had British stamps on it. Christian never received any letters these days, just fliers and junk, and the statements and bills that some utilities and credit card companies still insisted on sending despite having talked him into electronic billing on the pretext this would help them save the planet. Receiving a letter was like traveling back in time. He recognized the writing on the envelope at once. Billy, his best friend ever since his late teens. Only Billy would use the postal service for a communication in this day and age. Odd that he should send it to his work address, though. “Did you hear the news last night?” said Peggy. Christian’s mood, which had momentarily rebounded, went back to its cellar. “Don’t get me started.” It wasn’t the first time; there’d been previous calls for the FDA to regulate the twenty billion-dollar supplement industry, but they’d crashed and burned in the face of strong industry and public opposition. This time the pill barons had brought out the heavy artillery and come after his hide. “It could have been worse,” said Peggy. “I mean, even if it passes we have two years before the regs kick in, plenty of time to find new lines. And you can bet there are going to be appeals.” “I hope so. But it’s a witch hunt, nothing less. We’re just trying to make a bloody living, and the bastards want to close us down with their scare tactics and bullshit studies.” “It’s a witch hunt all right,” she said. And, straight-faced, “Be sure you hide the cat or they’ll accuse you of having a familiar.” Peggy could always make him smile. He mock-swatted her with his unread Times and told her to get back to work. In his own small office, Christian slit open the envelope with an antique, stiletto-style opener and fished out the letter. There were four sheets, folded one inside the other. The outer three were blank; inside those was a single page, unencumbered by letterhead or even address or date lines. The hand was unmistakably Billy’s, textbook British cursive from the mid-century, with a slight rightward lean and Billy’s uniquely-formed cursive e: ε. Like the envelope, the note was written in plain blue ballpoint. It read: Chris, Remember that IOU I told you about years ago? It’s come to life. Contacts are refreshed and it’s time to collect. Can you come to London? I need your help. Don’t delay. Always, Bill He read the letter again just to be sure. Jesus. After all these years. He’d forgotten all about the IOU and the hash, but of course Billy hadn’t. And Billy wanted his help? He shook his head in amazement. Outside, the helicopter was still circling; he could just hear Estefan’s music playing in the stock room. No wonder Billy had chosen snail mail over email. It was the one means of communication not subject to electronic surveillance. Christian had read somewhere that even the best intelligence services had the greatest difficulty in ungluing and invisibly resealing an envelope, you often couldn’t just steam them open; and the three blank pages, he guessed, were there to foil optical systems. Not that anyone would be interested in Christian’s mail. He’d been a model citizen for almost forty years. Billy was no Luddite, but his insistence on maintaining a low profile was an article of faith. When Christian last saw him, Billy had a loaded, gamer-quality desktop computer which he never hooked up to the internet; the connected one was a cheap laptop which he only used for email and basic web surfing—safe, vanilla stuff. Anything he considered at all sensitive he did on a library computer rerouted through one or more anonymous proxies, or from an internet café. And, yeah: though the note would have meant nothing to a stranger, it was definitely sensitive. Which might be added reason for sending it to the office. I need your help. Okay, but for what? How could he help? In the small office kitchen, Christian took out a mug, then replaced it in favor of a cup and saucer. Simply receiving a letter from England had made him nostalgic for Things Prim and Proper. He reached for the coffee pot, decided on tea instead. Hell, go the whole way. Peggy had bought a large tin of Walker’s shortbread Petticoat Tails, his favorite. He took a couple, then two more, accurately arranging them on the saucer’s edge two on each side, like fletching on an arrow shaft. Back in his office, he closed the door, set the tea beside him on his desk, unfolded his Times, and let his eyes flick over the headlines. More US deaths in Afghanistan. Afghanistan. Well, no coincidence, the country had been in the news just about daily for an entire decade. But his eye wouldn’t leave the word, and in the blaze of neurons, a circuit closed. Contacts are refreshed and it’s time to collect. Oh, fuck. Billy had to be out of his mind. But he’d also been clear: I need your help, he’d written, and Billy never asked for help. He wanted Christian in London, now, and forget about discussing this other than in person: Billy didn’t trust the phone any more than he did email and would just change the subject or play dumb. Billy was his best and oldest friend, and Christian owed him, owed him big-time. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—refuse. He’d do anything for Billy. Anything, except maybe something that would get them both killed. No, this needed face time, and reason. Get some clarity and try to talk him out of it. He re-read the letter. Contacts are refreshed, that was the key item. Something had brought the past, almost forty years dead, to fresh—and, at least in Billy’s mind, urgent— life. But this was huge. Trying to talk Billy out of it would be like trying to stop the sun rising. Christian sipped at his tea, ate all four shortbread fingers in rapid succession, and drained the cup. He navigated to the British Airways website and began checking boxes. Today was Tuesday. Carol was away till Sunday. The office was under control. He needed a break, and Peggy and Estefan could run things just fine without him. He suddenly realized it was quiet outside. He turned to the window. Sure enough, the chopper had gone, replaced by the wheeling and crying of gulls. Far off to the left, a barge was just emerging from the grim, erector-set span of the Williamsburg bridge; further out, the mist-veiled, bar-graph bulk of Manhattan, which could have been the far shore of the Thames on any similar morning, triggered a visitation of images from almost a half century ago, a time so different to the present that it seemed another world. # The IOU was for two hundred and fifty kilos of hashish. It was1970, and Billy had just returned from India, courtesy of British Overseas Airways Corporation. He landed at Heathrow on a wet April morning, a lean, large-boned man looking like a film star. Hazel eyes and a deep tan startled against a tropical suit of white cotton somehow still impeccable after the fifteen-hour trip. Christian picked him up in his new car, the blue Cortina that seized on him driving back from the Glastonbury pop festival the following summer. Something in Billy’s look, an uncharacteristic tightness, told Christian things had gone very wrong. They kept it to small talk until they arrived at Billy’s flat in Ladbroke Grove. The flat was chill and damp. Christian volunteered some shillings for the gas meter and put the kettle on. While Billy took his bags upstairs and changed, Christian lit the fire and made tea. By the time he was done, Billy was sitting in his favorite chair by the window, halfway through rolling a joint. Christian took a seat on the sofa across the scarred pine coffee table. “So, what happened?” “What happened?” Billy nodded, seeming to think it through as he poked around in the end of the joint with a pencil and carefully inserted a rolled-up strip of cardboard torn from the pack of rolling papers for a filter. He lit the joint and drew a lungful, holding it down before he spoke. “The bastards tried to stitch me up,” he said, leaking smoke with every word. “Wanted to cut my share down.” He pulled on the joint again, making the business end glow like a demonic eye. “You’re joking!” said Christian. God, no wonder he was pissed. Billy exhaled smoke, took another big hit, and passed the joint, holding the smoke down for several seconds before releasing it in a slow stream from nostrils and mouth. “No. They said I was paying too much for the stuff, and that they’d never agreed to that. Said they were going to take two thousand out of my share to make up the difference.” Billy frowned. “I’d never reckoned them for such breadheads. Some cats are just too fucking greedy.” “Oh, man!” said Christian, at a loss for anything better. “I can’t believe they did that. How did it happen? Hadn’t you agreed prices beforehand?” “We’d agreed on a price range, got to have room to deal. But once I’d set everything up, they conveniently forgot all about that.” Christian had only brought dope back into the country a couple of times, from Morocco, and that had been just a few ounces for his own use. The thought of playing in Billy’s league, of the sums of money involved and the chances of betrayal, imprisonment, even death, scared the hell out of him. Billy seemed to thrive on it. “So what are you going to do?” Christian offered the half-smoked joint back, but Billy, who’d already started rolling another, shook his head. Christian took another puff. The hash tasted good, spicy and rich. “Oh, it’s done.” “What’s done?” He waited while his friend, apparently deep in thought, waved a match under the lump of hash and crumbled it into the joint, twice what Christian would have used. Finally, Billy said, “I cut them out of the deal.” “You what?” Billy finished rolling the joint and examined it briefly before lighting it. Even back then he was a perfectionist. “I cut them out. And then I came home.” He raised his eyes to meet Christian’s, and shrugged. All Christian knew about Billy’s financiers was that they were two Swiss guys Billy had met on the road on his last run. But even in the muddled, happy-go-lucky world of hippie dope deals, this sounded like a dangerous move. “Wait, you told them you wouldn’t work with them?” Billy nodded vigorously. “Yup. Fuckers try to cheat me, I’m not risking my neck for them. Especially when I set them up a world-class deal.” “So they have to start all over again?” “Right. They won’t find anyone in that whole valley to work with them, though.” Christian ground out his own joint and took a sip of tea. He had a nice buzz going. “Plus,” added Billy, blowing a cloud of smoke, “they’ll have to find another seven thousand quid.” Christian stared. “Seven thousand? What do you mean?” “Mmm? I mean they lost a big chunk of bread.” He met Christian’s eyes, his smile bland, inscrutable. Not for the first time, Christian found himself both fascinated and annoyed by his friend’s odd habit of delivering information in short, discrete bursts. He suspected Billy liked the listener to specifically request every item, maybe to make sure they were interested, but the tactic just made him feel he was slow on the uptake. Before he could say anything, Billy—perhaps sensing his irritation—went on, speaking slowly as if to someone slightly dense, or at least slightly stoned, which Christian definitely was. “Hans and Jérome just wanted to be the backers. Fine with me. I was to arrange the deal from start to finish, including delivering the load to Bern. They’d put up the cost plus expenses and my own fee of four thou, one up front, the other three on delivery. Their only stipulation was the hash had to be Afghani, and the best. Well, two hundred and fifty kay is a fair amount to find if you want the quality to be consistent. So I had this idea.” He took a parting hit on the joint, put it out, and began rolling another. “Instead of shopping around, attracting a load of attention and drawing every hustler and maybe even the local fuzz, I thought, what if I hire a farmer in advance to grow a crop just for us? The Swiss cats went for the idea. We talked about prices, and they gave me the cash to set up the deal. So I left them in Kabul and went to Mazar, up in the north, hung around a few weeks, and got to know the locals. “Before long, I’d sussed out who was who and tried most of the local produce. There’s this old cat, Ahmed, who farms a hillside with his three sons. Their shit is amazing—half-kilo blocks stamped with the word ‘Mzar’ on one side in gold leaf. Perfumey, really heavy stone. Ahmed couldn’t grow nearly as much as we needed, but he said he could work with some of his neighbors, overseeing the entire harvest and pressing, and between them they could manage two hundred and fifty kay.” He lit the fresh joint, slid the makings across to Christian, and drank his entire mug of tea in one go. “See, the farmers usually do business in the bazaar, selling a bit here, a bit there. They haggle and compete, and the buyers beat them down to rock bottom. The farmers barely scratch a living. So at the end of the winter, these cats up there, they’re fucking broke. The larder’s bare, they’re running up bills all over town, and they’ve got another seven or eight months to go before the new crop pays off. “Well, we start talking prices with one of his sons, Reza, translating. Ahmed names a high number. I haggle a bit, but not much—he’s still much higher than he’d ever get in the market—and settle there. So Ahmed’s over the moon, and you know he’s going to make some margin on what he pays his neighbors, too. But right now, the cat’s broke. He starts angling for an advance, offers me a discount for a little cash up front. So I say to him, ‘tell you what, I’ll do better than that: we’ll go to the scribe, have him a write out a contract, and I’ll give you the whole sum, every penny, up front at your full price. In return, you, your sons, and your neighbors grow and press up the best fucking hash you ever have in your life for me, better than anyone’s ever seen, okay? Better even than what you’re making now.’ Well of course, he jumped at it. When I took him the money, he was in tears. I mean, the cat’s never seen so much bloody money at once in his life!” Christian couldn’t believe it. Billy had always seemed so sharp, so methodical. How could he do something so stupid? “Jesus, Billy, how could you trust him? You’ve only known the guy a few days!” “No. You have to understand, these are Pathans, tribesmen. Honor is everything to them. He took me to the village scribe right away and had him draw up an IOU with his sons’ names on it as well. Believe me, when these people give you their word, it’s good. More than good, it’s set in stone. It goes beyond even personal honor—it’s the village’s, the clan’s, honor.” Shaking his head in disbelief, Christian took the half-smoked joint Billy proffered. “So you paid the guy—Ahmed—in advance, and then the Swiss guys tried to cut down your share?” “Right. I took them a sample of his regular hash and they loved it. Sweetness and light, full of praise. Next thing you know, they’ve conveniently forgotten that we’d agreed on a range, not a fixed price, insisted I’d gone over what they authorized and paid far too much. Of course, the clowns are stoned out of their heads by now, and they’ve been that way for weeks. They wanted to take the extra out of my share. I tried to reason with them, but they wouldn’t budge. So I told them to go fuck themselves. “I went to tell Ahmed the score and he says, ‘My agreement is with you, my brother, only with you. You have my word. And these two dogs, I can see they never trouble you again. It is not hard for foreigners to disappear here.’” Billy laughed. “I thanked him and told him that wasn’t necessary, just not to deal with them, and to spread the word they weren’t to be trusted. So now my plan is to drive out there next spring and collect the load.” “But won’t it still cost a fortune? I mean, getting it all back here?” “I’ve got enough saved from the last run to cover my costs. And I know exactly how I’m going to go about it.” “But won’t they come after you? The Swiss guys?” “Let them try.” Billy’s grin was feral, all teeth. “Just let them fucking try.” The words echoed around in Christian’s head. Billy was a big guy, and—considering how much dope he smoked—fit. He’d gone to a military school and served a spell in the army before dropping out. And for all his cool and dope smoking he’d never become a hippie, quite the opposite: there was about him an aura of the primal, wild and unpredictable. Sitting across from him, Christian nodded slowly. Yes. It would be a fool who tried to take Billy on. # It was Tuesday, and Chrissy should be receiving the letter right about now. Billy had deliberated for several days over sending it. He was asking his best friend to risk his freedom, even his life. But he knew with visceral certainty that Chrissy’s presence was vital, that without him the venture stood no chance. Besides which, when he looked back on their conversations during Chrissy’s last visit, barely a year ago, he knew that adventure was precisely what Chrissy needed. Oh, he’d worry and wobble, and probably try to talk Billy out of it, but Billy didn’t think he’d let him down. He finished trimming the untidy edge of his dense beard and turned his head this way, then that. Better. He rinsed off the scissors, dried and replaced them in the right-hand drawer of the vanity. He still wasn’t exactly fond of the beard and hated the way crumbs of food tended to lodge in it, but the added protection, not to mention respect, it had brought him during his recent visit to Reza’s farm was more than worth the inconvenience. There was even more white in the beard than in his hair, and that especially helped, since Afghans held men with white beards in high regard and afforded them a respect and latitude usually associated with tribal elders. He could put up with the thing for a couple more months. He went back to the bedroom, slipped his keys into his right jeans pocket and the mobile into the left, and descended to the kitchen. His tools and the various parts he’d need today were already in the car, and notes for the day’s jobs on the kitchen table next to his wallet. He slipped on his jacket, pocketed wallet and notes, and fished in the bits-and-pieces drawer for the already-loaded pipe and his old Zippo. The hash lit at once; Billy took three quick pulls, snapped the lighter shut, and held the smoke in for several seconds. He closed the little hinged lid over the bowl, waited a moment, then pocketed both lighter and pipe. After knocking back the cooling half-cup of tea, he set the cup in the sink and opened the door to the garage. Everything felt right with this world. It was going to be a good day. # Christian left a breezy message on Billy’s machine to the effect that he was making a brief trip to London and would be there Friday. Next, he called Carol, who was in Mazatlan on a girls’ break with her friend Michelle, ostensibly celebrating Michelle’s divorce. There was music and background noise on the other end of the line as she greeted him, then an instant of muffled quiet as though she’d put her hand over the microphone. She sounded as if she was having fun. “Do you miss me?” he said, only half serious. “Ummm…well, not right now, at this instant. We’re at brunch, having Margaritas. Later, maybe?” Laughter in the background. He laughed. Yeah, right. Later, they’d be partying in the bars and discos. ‘Chelle would be on a mission to make up for the lost years, and he had no illusions that Carol was going to let her party alone. Carol had more than once said ‘Chelle was a closet lesbian. Whatever you two get up to, I don’t want to know, he’d told her, unless it’s together, of course—then I want to know everything!” And it probably would be together, Carol practicing her Sapphic moves as she did once in a long while. What you get for getting into an open marriage to a bi woman. The thought of his wife getting hot and wild with her undeniably sexy, full-figured friend both turned him on and worried him for the feelings it could lead to. Like any guy, he’d more than once entertained threesome fantasies but somehow it had never happened; Carol kept her occasional girlfriends to herself. He mostly didn’t mind whom she bedded—she really didn’t abuse her freedoms—but he always feared her falling in love. She seemed to have no trouble balancing it all, but the thought of losing her scared him shitless. It would break him, he knew it. Because there was real love between them. Was why he’d married her, though he sometimes wondered why she’d married him, a podgy, graying ex-hippie, and her a full twelve years younger with a taut, dancer’s body men would kill for, and a libido to match. Weirdly, he never felt so threatened when she dallied with one of her occasional male lovers. Just a plaything, babe, was how she’d typically refer to them. Or once—and it had made him laugh out loud despite himself—as, “self-directed sex toys, not anything I’d want to talk to for long.” She was in a good position to take her pick: running a dance school, she got to meet new people all the time, straight and gay, married and single. And Carol was damned smart, didn’t suffer fools gladly, so he took her characterization of her boy toys at her word. Relax, she’d told him more than once, it’s not only your body I’m after. And it was true that, even after thirteen years of marriage, the two of them enjoyed each other’s company as much as ever; the sex was still hot, and they could still talk for hour after hour just as they did in the first months. It was love: complicated, but no less precious for that, not a bit. Of course, he had the same privileges under the open marriage rule, though he hadn’t exercised them in years. He didn’t have her ability to stand back emotionally, couldn’t see women the way she could see other men. But he’d more than once noted her tenderness with women, and that worried him. With the guys, he believed there was a mutually understood detachment. They got a good time out of it. They knew they were just boy toys; and though he’d never say so openly, there was just a tinge of secret, kinky satisfaction in knowing she’d done another guy and that sex was all there was to it, that he was the one she came home to. After one of these trysts, she always returned bright and recharged, and made sure that he didn’t feel left out by fucking his brains out that night or the next. She had no barriers, never did; and even after being married so long, she still found new and breathtaking ways to push them both over the top. So really, the open marriage thing worked for him at every level except the emotional one. Worked well enough that when that bothered him, he just took a deep breath and hoped for the best. Life didn’t come with guarantees, no matter how much he wished it would. “Right,” he replied. “Well, have fun. Listen, I’m going to London next week, just for three days. I’ll be back Sunday, a few hours before you.” Suddenly, she was attentive. “London? For three days? Why?” “I’m going to see Billy. It’s been over a year. I just had a note from him.” “Is something wrong?” He shouldn’t have mentioned the note. “No, really. Just made me feel homesick for old times, old friends. Anyway, I’ll have my phone. Just wanted to let you know.” “Well, miss me,” she said. “Bring me back something. And I do miss you, babe.” # At La Guardia on Friday morning, Christian endured the outrageous nonsense with the shoes and keys and small change, followed by a pat down from a three-hundred pound slob with a low hairline. Ridiculous. Why did anyone put up with it? Since receiving Billy’s letter, he’d been bobbing along, mostly happily, on an ocean of memory and reminiscence. He flashed on the days when there was no airport security, none, only check-in and immigration and manual customs checks. On one occasion in 1968, a night flight over the Pyrenées, the pilot had invited the passengers by pairs into the cockpit of the Air France Caravelle to see the light show from a thunderstorm a few dozen miles away. Flying was still something special in those days, something to enjoy. Till those first idiots—Arabs, even back then, or was it the Bader-Meinhof gang? Idiots, anyway—started hijacking aircraft and screwed it up for everyone else. A couple of hijacks, a bomb threat, the awful grenade attack at Athens airport in ‘73, and everything began to change. That other time returning from Morocco, Jesus! A quarter-pound of kif stuffed into his briefs, and halfway through the flight he started to lose his nerve. It was the winter of ’69, and the authorities were wising up by then. Organized crime hadn’t yet moved into the hash business, and a lot of the stuff that came in was just people like himself carrying a few ounces or even a pound on their person, maybe a few pounds in a suitcase; it was the rare standout like Billy that drove six hundred pounds of primo red leb welded into the bodywork of a camper van twenty-five hundred miles to London. But flights landing from India and Morocco were starting to attract attention even then. They’d spot him for sure, with his longish hair, and what on Earth had he been thinking? He had a powerful impulse to just flush the stuff into the swirling bright blue of the aircraft toilet. He’d have to break it up a bit, but those jet-powered flushes could probably handle construction debris. But the kif was so delicious, fresh and aromatic, a giddy stone. What a waste! So when, half an hour before arrival, the hostess came by with the duty-free cart, Christian bought a bottle of Scotch and two of Cognac, triple the duty-free allowance. Once through immigration, he slipped his passport back into his hip pocket and made straight for the ‘Goods to Declare’ counter at customs, with the two BEA duty-free shopping bags in plain sight. The customs officer looked up. “Yes sir, how can I help you?” Christian half-smiled, letting his nervousness show, and set the shopping bags square on the low counter. “Officer, sorry, I’m over my limit on alcohol. Do I have to pay duty on the extra?” The officer glanced into the bags, mildly interested. “Any cigarettes, sir?” Christian shook his head. “I don’t smoke.” “Any perfume or jewelry? Cameras, carpets, anything else acquired abroad?” “No, nothing.” He gave a small laugh, allowed himself to babble a bit, no effort at all given his jittery nerves. “Overspent on holiday, actually. This is about all I could afford.” A nod and a knowing smile. “Very good, sir. I think the treasury can stand the loss just this once.” And with a wave of a dark-uniformed arm, he was through. It was, in every way, a better world back then. Ciriello 2013-03-20T03:06:34+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcsutherlands_rules/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcsutherlands_rules/#When:02:47:51Z Sutherland’s Rules Dario Ciriello (author) Product Description Sutherland's Rules is a fast-paced, intelligent thriller spiced with the paranoia of a spy novel, laced with high tech, and finished off with a shimmer of the fantastic. All Christian White wants is a quiet life. But between the FDA threatening new regulations which would bankrupt his business, and the challenges posed by his open marriage to Carol, his attractive, younger, bi wife, peace isn't anywhere on the horizon. And when he receives a letter from Billy, his old chum and sometime guardian angel from their hippie days, asking him to come to London and help him to collect on a forty-year-old IOU, Christian's other problems start to look insignificant. Because the IOU is for two hundred and fifty kilos of charas, high-grade hashish from Afghanistan. And Christian owes Billy too much to even consider refusing. Ciriello 2013-03-20T02:47:51+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlczinnman/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlczinnman/#When:01:39:56Z Zinnman Robert Craven (author) Product Description In this assured and compelling sequel to Get LENIN, it is 1941, and the Allied intelligence team of Henry Chainbridge, Peter De Witte and Eva Molenaar are tasked by Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden personally with destroying a terrifying new weapon of mass destruction being developed jointly by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, using Chinese prisoners of war as guinea-pigs before giving it its first full test on the Russian Front. As ever, Eva is the sultry Polish-born spy putting her body on the line at the heart of the enemy, Chainbridge is the reserved master strategist and De Witte is the suave, blind intelligence gatherer in love with Eva Molenaar, but does she still love him back or has she fallen for a German agent? Craven 2013-01-04T01:39:56+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcwhere_the_rain/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcwhere_the_rain/#When:09:43:03Z Where the Rain is Made Keta Diablo (author) Product Description Nominated for Bookie Award by Authors After Dark. Nominated for Best Romance of the Year by Deep In The Heart of Romance. A decadent-looking savage has captured Francesca DuVall and her brother Marsh. Now she spends every waking moment planning an escape from the camp of the brutal Dog Soldiers. Ethan Gray is a curator at a national museum . . . until he travels through time to help his beloved People. In the Cheyenne world he’s known as Meko, leader of the most revered tribe of the plains. Cultures and hearts battle, violence and death haunt the road ahead, but when kindred souls collide, anything is possible. From the windswept plains of Colorado to the placid life of a curator, their love is fueled by passion and kindled by destiny. Diablo 2012-03-03T09:43:03+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcamongst_-_sample/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcamongst_-_sample/#When:01:41:43Z Amongst My Enemies William F. Brown (author) CHAPTER ONE Konigsberg, Germany, February, 1945 Dante had it wrong. Hell wasn’t a blazing inferno filled with the mournful cries of the damned; it was the frozen plains of northern Germany, and it could be quiet as a grave. That day began like all the ones before it, with Stolz, the German Kapo or head guard, pounding his meaty fist on the side of the rusty old truck as he screamed, "Raus! Raus mit dich!" Up in the truck’s canvas-covered cargo bed, a mound of ragged, emaciated prisoners would shudder and shrink into the shadows; but the sad truth was there was no place to hide and they knew it. They were what was left of a forced labor battalion trapped here in the frozen rubble of Konigsberg on the Baltic coast in East Prussia. Remnants of the German Army and the SS still held the old port city, surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by a vengeful Red Army; and life can’t get any more tenuous than that. Most of the prisoners huddled together in that old truck bed were Russian, with a smattering of Poles, Lithuanians and Czechs, but no one cared. Michael Randall and Eddie Hodge were American, but no one cared about that either, Randall thought, as he rolled over and looked outside through a tear in the ragged canvas. In late winter at this latitude, the light was thin and the days pathetically short; but as he looked, he saw the first pink line of another cold, clear dawn creep over the horizon. Slowly a frozen landscape of broken buildings, bomb craters, and rubble began to emerge in tones of dirty gray on sooty black. It must be morning, he thought. Somehow, he and Eddie had survived another miserable night as they had survived the many long, painful ones that had preceded it. Not that it mattered; they were all going to die here and every poor wretch inside that truck knew it. Two years before, the Red Army rolled out of the steppes of Central Asia like an angry tidal wave and no force on Earth was going to stop it until it crashed down on Berlin. However, the main Russian thrust had gone much further south, through central Poland. Konigsberg and the remaining German enclaves along the Baltic coast had been bypassed and there is no glory in a sideshow --- no medals and nothing worth dying for. So Ivan let the cold weather, starvation, and his artillery do the killing. Each morning, he would drink his tea, eat some black bread, and lob a few shells into the rubble, leaving an acrid haze over the city that reeked of burnt wood, burnt brick, and burnt rubber. All it accomplished was to rearrange the bricks, turn the gray snow a bit darker, and kill a few more of the poor, dumb bastards caught inside. Fortunately, spring was still months away. When the thaw came, the ice would slowly give up its dead and the city would really begin to stink. Randall nudged the pile of rags lying next to him. "Eddie, we gotta get up. Come on," he said, but his friend did not move. "Mikey, I can't," came the weak reply. "It’s the legs, I ...” “You gotta try; you gotta get them moving.” “Moving? Jeez, I can't even feel them any more." In the dim light, Randall could barely make out Eddie’s pale, sweaty face; but he knew his friend was dying. That would be the ultimate outrage, the one he would never accept. They had been inseparable since their aircrew met at that Army Air Corps field back in West Texas early in 1943. That flight school was the first time either of them had strayed more than a hundred miles from home. Eddie came from a long line of watermen in Rock Creek, South Carolina who spent twelve hours a day in small boats dredging clams and oysters from the heavy river muck. Mike grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, milking cows at 5:00 AM. He was a muscular six-foot three, two hundred ten pound tight end for his high school football team; while Eddie was a wrestler, maybe five-foot-five, one-hundred thirty-five pounds, and taut as a steel cable. Now, after a year of training, nineteen combat missions over Germany, and four months trapped inside this Hell-hole, they had become two halves of a whole, brothers pulling, pushing, and taking turns keeping the other one alive. "Hey, what's a pal for?" one of them would say, because without a buddy, life hung by a very thin thread in a place like that. Then Eddie got frostbite. First, it was his toes. Michael kept rubbing them, changing the dressings, and forcing Eddie to keep the circulation moving, but it was too damned cold. The frostbite slowly spread from the toes to his foot. Soon, the leg began to swell. Eddie grew feverish and weak, his eyes red-ringed and his skin a waxy pale. It was gangrene and everyone inside that truck knew it. "We’ve gotta get them moving,” he said as he reached over to rub Eddie’s legs again. “Mikey, stop it!" Eddie moaned and pushed him away. “It hurts too much.” One by one, the other prisoners slipped past them, climbed over the tailgate, and dropped to the ground, leaving the two young Americans alone in the truck bed. "I was having that dream again,” Eddie said with a thin smile. “It’s November back home, the first day of duck season. The marsh and cane fields lay all flat and brown and there’s a thin mist floating on the river, just enough so you can’t tell where the land ends and the water begins. You and me, row my Daddy’s old skiff up river to the duck blind. We climb up in there and have a beer and a couple of them ham sandwiches my sister Leslie made us for breakfast -- country ham on homemade bread with lots of butter. I can almost taste ‘em, Mikey. And when them birds finally do come over, the flock’s so thick it fills the sky. We shoot and we shoot until our shoulders ache from the kick of them shotguns. And God, it feels good, Mikey, it feels so damned good!" "Yeah," Michael sighed, letting Edie stay in the dream for a few minutes, anyway. Four months ago, their B-17 took off into a clear, Italian sky for the long leg north to Berlin. They hit their marks and dropped their bombs, but before they could make the big turn west, the German flak guns found them. A B-17 is a tough bird and Lieutenant Jensen, their pilot, fought hard to keep it in the air as they lumbered north and east, out of control. The smoke and flames got worse and worse inside, until the plane went into a steep dive. Mike and Eddie clawed their way to a side door and bailed out, but they were the only ones who made it. They came down in a muddy wheat field somewhere in East Prussia. Long columns of refugees choked the roads heading west, desperate to stay ahead of the Russians. Discarded furniture, mattresses, pianos, steamer trunks, and suitcases lay strewn along the roadsides. He and Eddie found some civilian clothes and it was easy for them to blend in -- not that it mattered. Two days later, they were stopped at a German Military Police roadblock, and the joke was on them. The Germans weren’t looking for American airmen. They were looking for strong backs to dig tank traps and clear rubble. Instead of a POW camp or being thrown against the closest wall and shot as spies, they were dragooned into a forced labor battalion headed north to Konigsberg. Michael nudged him again and pleaded, "You gotta get up, Eddie. We’ve been through too much together. You can’t quit on me now." "Quit?” Eddie moaned. "My legs are all froze up; they won’t move.” “Then let me help,” Michael tried to rub them again. “Oh, God!” Eddie moaned, so Michael stopped. He could see the pain was too intense now, and he didn’t know what else to do. "Eddie, if you don’t get up, they'll kill you and this time; I won't be able to stop them." "Promise?" the little guy answered with a pleading smile. “You and me, we should’ve stayed inside that old B-17. We shoulda gone down with Jensen and the rest of them; but no, we were too smart for that, weren’t we? We went out that hatch and we thought we were safe, that we could just walk away." "We still can walk away...” "No, you can, not me; ‘cause I’m not like you, Mikey. They hit you; you bounce back up even higher. They hit me and I hurt. Besides, none of this is real,” he said, waving a limp hand toward the frozen landscape outside. “This is Saturday afternoon at the old Orpheum. Remember? Flash Gordon and Doctor Zarkov? That’s you and me, and this here is the Planet Mongo. See, it's all pretend, Mikey. It ain’t real. It can’t be, because nobody can make-up anything this crazy mean. Nobody." That was when Stolz beat his fist on the side of the truck again, and Michael knew Mongo was all too real. "Raus!” Stolz bellowed. “It is a fine morning in the glorious Thousand Year Reich and the Fuhrer wants you two American swine to earn your keep.” "Eddie, I can’t just leave you here to die." Michael whispered. “Then don't! Don’t leave me here to die," Eddie grabbed Michael’s coat and pulled him closer, pleading. "You'd do it for a lame horse, wouldn't you? You’d do it for a lame horse. Besides, what's a pal for? Huh? What's a pal for?" Stolz’s voice grew louder. “Herr Randall, you know I get cranky in the morning. You too, Hodge. If I have to roust you out, by God, I’ll thump the both of you good!" Michael’s stomach was tied in knots, but he knew Eddie was right. So he crawled to the back of the truck and dropped off the tailgate onto the ground. The big German stood directly in front of him, hands on hips with his usual amused, arrogant smile. Not that Stolz was all bad. He wasn’t SS or even Army. He was a civilian, a shipyard worker dressed in a threadbare infantryman’s greatcoat, a pair of knee-high Polish cavalry boots, and a knit seaman's cap, pulled down over his ears. He could occasionally be human and he could always be bought. "All right, Herr Randall, where’s your little friend?” he asked, the sarcasm billowing like frozen clouds on the cold morning air. “Is he ‘sleeping in’ today? Waiting up in ‘Gasthaus Stolz’ for some room service?" "It's his legs, they’ve swollen up bad." Stolz shrugged with complete indifference. "So?" "Let him stay in the truck today, Stolz. I’ll do his share of the work. Okay? A little rest and he'll be fine tomorrow." "You know the rules,” he bellowed so all the prisoners would hear. "You all do! If you don’t work you go back to the SS, where you won’t have old Stolz to wet nurse you.” Michael edged closer. "The SS will shoot him; you know they will." "No, no,” Stolz corrected him. "Even the SS is running out of bullets, so my guess is they’ll just break his legs and toss him off the pier. But no, I don’t think they’ll shoot him.” “You bastard!” “I don’t make the rules! And I don’t argue with the men in black who do." Michael stared at him. "Will you do it then?” “Do it? Do what?” Stolz frowned, as if he did not understand the words. “Me? Shoot your friend? Surely, you’re joking, Randall” “He’s dying.” Stolz threw a contemptuous glance toward the Russians. “Randall, I’d put a bullet in that lot without a second thought, but shoot an American? Me? I know you Yanks. The stench of a thing like that will stick to a man, and I have no interest in becoming one of Herr Roosevelt's ‘war criminals.’ So if your friend needs killing, that is something you must do yourself." Michael looked at him for a long, excruciating moment, and held out his hand. "Give me your gun, then." "Give you my gun?" Stolz snorted. “You really have lost your mind!” Michael bent down and pulled off his boot. Reaching up into the toe, he pulled out a dirty American five-dollar bill, the last of the meager hoard he and Eddie had squirreled away for their big escape. At least, it would help one of them escape, he thought. Stolz snatched the American money out of Michael’s hand, and jammed it into his pocket. “You’re a fool. What makes you think I’ll give you a damned thing now?” Michael stepped closer and locked his black eyes on the big German’s, letting them bore in. “Stolz, when the Red Army finally gets here and starts hanging Germans from the street lamps -- any German -- you’re going to need every friend you can get.” Stolz laughed, but he wasn’t very convincing. Finally, he reached into the worn leather holster hanging on his on his hip and pulled out the old Czech revolver the SS had given him. "All right, my young Ami friend,” he said as he opened the breach and let the bullets drop into his hand. “You may have my pistol," he said as he pushed one bullet back into the cylinder and snapped it shut. "One shot, that’s all you get. Use it on your friend or use it on yourself, I don’t care which you do,” Stolz said, motioning toward the Russians. “But I’m the only thing standing between that lot and Herr Himmler's men in black. Use it on me, and they’ll tear you to pieces.” That said, he handed over the pistol. “So go kill your friend, Randall. The sun is up now, and we have work to do.” Michael looked down at the revolver, remembering the old Greek saying, “When the Gods really want to punish a man they grant him his wish.” Slowly he climbed back over the tailgate. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized how badly the truck stank of dirty men, rotting flesh, and death. "Oh, good," he heard Eddie say as he saw the revolver and held out his hand, but Michael wasn’t ready for that yet. "Mikey, we both know you can’t do it yourself," Eddie added, as he pulled the pistol from Michael’s hand. "Thanks. And I want you to go hunt those ducks for me, you hear? Hunt them for both of us." "Yeah, the ducks, I'll do that," Michael mumbled. "You go down to South Carolina, to Rock Creek and see my Daddy. See my little sister Leslie, too. You’ll like her. Daddy, he’ll understand; but Les won’t. She didn’t want me to leave, so this is gonna be hard on her, real hard. So you go on down and tell ‘em what happened here. See, it’s not the knowin’ that’s hard; it’s the not knowin’. "Yeah, I'll do that; I’ll do that." “Promise me you will, Mikey, promise me.” “I will, I promise I will.” "Good," he said, sounding pleased. "’Cause you'll get out of this mess, Mikey. You'll get out of here for the both of us, ‘cause somebody's got to. You can’t let them get away with it, not ALL this, not without somebody knowin’ what happened. It’ll make a difference. It’ll make a difference,” Eddie said as he slumped back, exhausted. “You can go now, Mikey, you can go.” Michael heard him cock the pistol and turned his head away. He couldn’t go, and he couldn’t stay; all he could do was sit there, frozen to that spot until he heard a muffled Bam! and he jumped as if he had been the one who had been shot. It seemed like an eternity before he could reach over and pry the pistol from Eddie’s limp fingers. The blue-steel barrel was already growing cold. Hoping against hope, he opened the breach and looked inside, praying he would find another bullet, but Stolz wasn’t that careless or that kind. If there was, he would have used it on himself. If there had been a third he would have shot the big German too, but there was only the one. Damn that Stolz! Damn him to hell, he thought as he put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder for the last time and crawled away. He dropped off the tailgate onto the ground and turned his face into the bitter arctic wind. It cut into him like shards of broken glass, but the pain felt good. Damned good! It froze his tears and cleared the fog, allowing him to see things with an amazing clarity. Stolz stood there looking sheepish, as if he couldn’t quite decide how to act. However, like any good German, when in doubt, opt for cruelty. He jammed a meaty paw in Michael’s chest. “Where is my pistol!” he demanded. “Or did you miss?” Michael said nothing. “No stomach for killing a man up close like that, eh boy? It’s not the same as it was dropping a bomb from one of your fancy airplanes, is it?” Stolz shoved him again, harder this time, trying to reassert his authority, but Michael shoved back. Stolz was cruel, but he wasn’t stupid. The American’s eyes flared and the German felt the heat wash over him as if the doors to a blast furnace had opened. "Touch me again and I'll kill you,” Michael whispered and he was not surprised when Stolz backed away. Randall handed him the pistol and headed toward the other prisoners. Stolz did nothing. He probably figured the young American had gone completely mad like everyone else around there. But the Russians understood. They said if you pound on a man long enough and give him absolutely nothing to live for, he might curl up in a shell and die, or he might explode. He might “grab the Devil by his coattails and hang on for the ride.” However, Michael wasn’t crazy. He had to get out, out of Konigsberg, out of Germany, and out of this stinking war. He had to live, and that would be his revenge. He would remember every hurt, every pain, and every injustice and there would be payback. He would get the bastards who did this to Eddie and to him, and to the long, long line of poor dumb bastards who came before them. He would live, and he would have his revenge. Brown 2012-01-09T01:41:43+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcamongst_my_enemies/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcamongst_my_enemies/#When:01:18:09Z Amongst My Enemies William F. Brown (author) Product Description Inside an old German U-Boat rusting on the bottom of the Baltic are millions in gold bars, stolen art and jewels, and a secret that could tear NATO apart. The only one who knows the truth is Mike Randall, a battle-scarred American who survived four months in the frozen Hell of northern Germany at the end of the war. When he does speak up, he puts a target on his own forehead, one which the Russians, the West Germans, the U-boat's former owners, the Israeli Mossad, and even his own government quickly take aim at. Some want the gold, some want him dead, and some want proof about a high-ranking spy inside NATO itself. Randall's wants are much simpler. Caught between the Kremlin and a new, deadly, 4th Reich, he wants revenge and to satisfy some old debts with a steel-jacketed bullet. Brown 2012-01-09T01:18:09+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlca_touch_-_sample/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlca_touch_-_sample/#When:13:18:46Z A Touch of Ice L.j. Charles (author) One Bone cold and heart warm. Me, I live in the middle. No extremes allowed in my life. Not so for Shelly Summers. She’s the only client I have who regularly leads me on a wild ride through the twenty-somethings, a decade I stumbled through without taking notes. “Everly!” Shelly’s squeal shattered the quiet of my Zen-like office. “You won’t be-lieve what happened.” I wrapped her in the barest minimum of hug, experience telling me it would be enough. My fingertips brushed against her back for a fraction of a second. Fragments of her desperation slammed through my body, leaving behind fractured images of her latest internet dating disaster. My mind and body struggled, reached for the comfort of balance, for the safety between the extremes that ruled Shelly’s life. I stepped away from her with my best professional smile firmly in place and my inner dialogue running at top speed. You can do this, Everly. Personal coaching is your thing, and Shelly’s issues are nothing like your nightmares. I turned to face her. “Fill me in on what I won’t believe.” The wispy notes of her floral perfume tickled my nose, and I stifled a sneeze as I bent to snag two bottles of water from the mini-fridge. I’d been working with Shelly for a couple months and wasn’t about to give up, no matter how hard she clung to her desperation. But oh, how much easier this session would be if I didn’t have a lack-of-sleep hangover. She perched on the edge of one of my overstuffed chairs mahogany leather and tapped the bottle of water against the palm of her hand. I counted three seconds before she tossed the bottle on the seat and popped up to pace my office, stopping every so often to smooth her miniscule denim skirt over the top of her thighs. “I stood outside the restaurant, Everly. Just stood there like a dork. Couldn’t make myself go in like you wanted me to. Not without a date. Everyone would have stared at me and felt sorry for the loser, and that’s no way to get a guy to notice me. Relationships are such a pain. Well, except for having sex. Orgasms are easy. It’s relationships that are a problem.” “The assignment wasn’t to help you get a date. We’ve discussed the importance of knowing yourself before you attempt a relationship.” I pointed to the client chair, a not so subtle suggestion. Shelly controlled her agitation long enough to squirm onto the edge of the seat. “Okay, I’m ready. Tell me what you think.” Her voice held a hint of demand as she tugged on the hot pink strands of her spiky ’do. “If you’re going to get past this relationship issue, you need to start listening to your internal wisdom. What makes you smile? What do you look forward to when you get out of bed in the morning? Make a list of those things, a written list that we can talk about.” “Yeah. Okay, I can do that. Like last night I had dinner with Keith and he took me to” I held up my hand. “The rule is: nothing you put on the list can involve a man. Everything you write down has to reflect what brings you, alone, joy.” “Just me?” “Just you. I also want you to gather pictures from magazines that make you happy, and Shelly, no pictures of men. Arrange them in a collage, what I call a storyboard. Bring it to your next appointment along with the list of what makes you happy, and we’ll decide where to go from there.” “You can’t be serious. I’m twenty-five years old, and there are new wrinkles popping out on my face every day. I don’t have time to be screwing around with pretty pictures. Look at me.” She pointed to her face, stood, and started pacing again. “I don’t make enough money for a lot of plastic surgery. Maybe a tuck here and there, but… Don’t you think I’ll be more successful if I continue hitting the best singles bars in town? Oh, and maybe add a new internet service to my subscription list?” “Let me just askhow’s that been working for you?” “Okay. You have a point. Not so well.” She huffed, watching me through confused eyes as her ring-laden fingers rubbed circles on her temples. A shaft of sunlight glittered against the sparkling stones, sending rainbows of color around my office. Chills tingled over my skin, and Shelly dissipated into a blinding white haze of fog. What the hell was happening? Fear caught the edge of my last conscious thought and clung with the tenacity of steel manacles. Bone cold. The old woman’s bare toes pushed against the floor, keeping the rhythm of the rocking chair smooth and even. Her body taut, she struggled for every breath. The motion, and the ragged sound of her breathing, pulled me deeper into her pain. Time. Her left hand clutched the arm of the chair. Her right hand was extended; a cube of ice rested on her palm, melting. She didn’t feel the cold. It was too late. Slowly, continuously, disappearing. A murder. Her midnight blue eyes glistened with tears, but still held the clarity of youth. She focused on the window in front of her, not seeing the scene on the street below, but on a memory. The crumpled body of a man loomed in the distance. She paused and then turned her back on the scene. The opportunity for her to accept her destiny was lost forever. The internal movie played on, the story of all the things she’d missed in life. All the things she could have done, but didn’t. The darkness outside provided a clear reflection in the window. My face looked back at me. Old. Wizened. Every wrinkle etched with regret for what might have been. Cold, bony fingers dug into my shoulders, shaking me. “Everly? Everly Gray?” The old woman? Panic zinged through me and my eyes popped open. Shelly Summers. Client. Young. Coaching appointment. “What the hell?” Shelly’s breath whooshed out, drowning me in the scent of peppermint and apprehension. “You’re okay, right? It was just a spell of some kind, like an epileptic thing? You should have told me this could happen, that you flipped out sometimes. A girl likes to be prepared for something like this, you know.” I’d reduced my client to a babbling heap of nerves. And then there was me. No telling how long it would take me to recuperate from…whatever the hell that was. I reached for my bottle of water, the trembling in my fingers visible. Client session. Professional. Get. It. Together, Everly. I chugged several gulps of the life-giving liquid, knowing I had to act normal and complete Shelly’s session. “I’m fine, Shelly. Honestly, it was just one of those dj vu moments. We were discussing your” “Lack of a permanent life partner. But I really need to know you’re not gonna flip out again.” “You have my complete attention. It was nothing more than a brain blip.” She bobbed her head up and down. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Only I usually have them after spending an evening in a club. So, about your not-so-brilliant idea to have me create some kind of art project.” Impatience lurked behind her words. Immediate scare about my mental stability over, Shelly was completely back to normal. Her eyes snapped with annoyance and a rosy pink glow had pushed the pale from her cheeks. Relief left my knees wobbly. Later, Everly. You can deal with…whatever that was…later. I sucked in a breath. “You’re not letting potential life partners get to know you. The purpose of this” I gave Shelly another glimpse of my professional smile “art project is to move beyond orgasms and into the heart of a relationship.” Silence hung between us. “With this kind of assignment, you should give me a guarantee. After all it’s going to take me off the market for” Shelly’s hazel eyes dilated “maybe hours. Hours of prime time spent on self-reflection?” She collapsed back into the chair, tugged the bottle of water from under her, and blew out a sigh that ruffled her bangs. “What if I can’t do this?” “You can do it. I’m not saying you should stop the activities you’re comfortable with, only that these assignments may improve your chances of finding the right mate.” “All right.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “No, it’s not all right. This self-reflection idea makes me kind of crazy, actually.” “Take it in small doses. Work your way into the assignment.” “Maybe I should consider a lesbian relationship instead. That would change the way I look at things for sure.” “Yes, I expect it would, but I don’t think your sexual orientation is…optional. Start with creating the storyboard. And I’d like you to make another attempt at eating a meal in a restaurant by yourself.” “Okaaay.” “How about if you try lunch instead of dinner? More single people are out at lunch time.” “I’ll try. But I’m going to give the lesbian idea some more thought. It works for a lot of people.” I shifted in my seat and contemplated the best way to approach this. “Take a minute to imagine a day-in-the-life of being lesbian. Do you honestly think you’re going to be happy with a woman as your life partner?” “What? No. Oh, no of course not.” She dug a tube of pink lipstick from her pocket and smoothed it over cosmetically plump lips. “The idea is to broaden my horizons, make me more interesting to potential husband material.” “How about you put that idea on hold until after you try the new assignments. Let’s see how they work before you move on to anything too life-altering.” Bloody whacko twenty-somethings. Shelly pushed every nerve in my body to the breaking point. She slid her gaze in my direction. “To my way of thinking, self-refection is way more life-altering than spending a few hours as a lesbian.” Not much I could say to that. She stood, tugged at her skirt, and pulled on some attitude. “Okay. I’ll give it a try.” I kept my fingertips to myself as we hugged goodbye. No way could I chance being tossed into another Shelly image. Not after…whatever that…vision thing was. I shrugged out of my work clothes on the way upstairs and replaced them with my most comfy sweats. I stopped, drinking in the serenity of my sleeping space. I’d done all the floors of my townhouse in bamboo before I moved in and still loved the natural beauty of the pattern. The walls were white with a faint purple undertone that blended with the gray and violet accents of the bedding and loveseat. A perfect room for peaceful sleep. So why was the universe sending me nightmares? Except this time I had the…vision to decipher. I padded barefoot down the hall and gathered the supplies I needed, dumped them on the white lacquer kitchen table. Kitchens, my kitchen anyway, had to be pristine white. The perfect background for creating any number of colorful recipes, only this one was for my psyche, not my taste buds. I’ve always believed that client assignments are gifts from my subconscious wisdom, meant to be applied to my life as well as theirs. Helps me connect with them. I started flipping pages, the colors, shapes, and words blurring as an odd pressure built in my head. It was disorienting and more than a little scary. I tried to slow things down, to make my brain catalogue details and select a logical sequence of pictures. But no. My brain had a totally different agenda and kept sending “rip” commands to my fingers. Damn it, I hate when the universe gives me crap like this to deal with. Wasn’t it enough being born with the hinky touch thing? Now I was going to have to cope with visions as well? I blew out a frustrated sigh but dutifully sat down with a stack of magazines and a pair of scissors.The pressure in my head eased the faster I ripped, so I went with it. Tossed the scissors aside and focused on tearing out whatever sent shivers through my fingertips. It didn’t take long, maybe fifteen minutes of clock time, but I was shaking and a thin film of sweat covered my body. What the hell? I stumbled to the sink and slurped handfuls of water until my breathing slowed to normal. And then I faced the pile of shredded magazines and a haphazard arrangement of glossy pictures. The images had nothing to do with my life at all. Nope. Not a chance in hell they were about my life. They were about someone’s murder. Charles 2011-09-28T13:18:46+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlctouch_of_ice/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlctouch_of_ice/#When:13:08:44Z A Touch of Ice L.j. Charles (author) Product Description Everly Gray’s fingers are a magnet for trouble. When she touches photographer Mitchell Hunt and sees the image of a dead body, she dives into the murder fingertips first. Life takes a turn for the dangerous when she discovers the body is related to a small-time crime family that accidentally stepped on the toes of notorious criminal, Delano West. Caught in a web of intrigue where nothing is as it seems, El discovers an aptitude for breaking and entering, the pain of an up close and personal meeting with a bullet, and the terror of facing a cold blooded killer. What she doesn’t learn to keep her fingers to herself. Charles 2011-09-28T13:08:44+00:00 http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcget_lenin_-_sample/ http://www.etlc.info/index.php/adventure_blog/etlcget_lenin_-_sample/#When:07:04:36Z Get Lenin Robert Craven (author) Chapter 1 September 1938 – Munich The early-hours sounds of the city drifted up through the hotel window - trams, cars and music. Spotlights fanned the still summer night, casting swooping shadows around the room. Eva Molenaar pulled a robe about her, slipped from the bed and reached into her handbag to retrieve her cigarette case and lighter. Her head swam with vodka, but she still felt in control. Tapping the cigarette four times against the case before lighting up, she sat on the window sill and viewed Munich. Every building was draped with red swastikas, giving the street the look of a theatre proscenium. She looked back at the Soviet Attaché snoring in the bed, his big, shaven head resembling a bulb. The Russian had been an inexhaustible seam of information. Whatever the outcome of the conference, her homeland was finished. Her next thoughts were of her family and her handler. The cigarette case was a gift from him. It was silver, slim and anonymous. She dressed quietly. She had been careful as to where she had put her clothes. She switched the bathroom light on and the snoring from the room beyond increased as if in response. Her hair she could do nothing about, but she made an effort to control it. Splashing cold water onto her face and applying make-up, she stepped back to review herself, turned out the light and slipped out of the room. In the corridor raucous singing and the sound of a phonograph boomed from the suite where the Italian delegation was staying. Street girls flitted from room to room, one or two giving her a sisterly look as she passed them. At the end of the corridor, a two-man SS security detail checked her papers. At 3 a.m. and with so many girls in constant motion, they paid little heed to her, waving her through. Eva crossed the foyer. The night-staff were so bored they didn't even look up to see a pretty girl passing them by. Journalists, writers and Pathé news teams sat smoking and drinking. Some were shouting into lobby phones to editorial departments across the world's time zones. German songs bellowed from the residents' bar. At the second check point she came under greater scrutiny, encountering more plain clothes Gestapo. Her papers, issued via the Dutch Embassy, were gallantly handed back with a suave smile. The Fraulein should not be travelling the city at night alone – one of them strode out of the foyer onto the street and hailed a passing taxi. Eva beamed thanks to them, flashing her thigh as she slipped into the car. As the taxi made its way through the city, an almost New Year’s Eve feeling filled the night. ‘What do you think of Neville Chamberlain flying in tomorrow? The eyes of the world will be on Munich!’ announced the driver, cheerfully breaking the silence. ‘Let’s hope it’s the last conference,’ agreed Eva nonchalantly, making it a point to stare out of the window, ‘Good for business, though!’ He raised a smile but noted the pretty girl seemed lost in her thoughts. Undeterred, he kept the conversation going but ensured it was small talk. It killed the time. Eva’s German was fluent but her accent still had traces of her native Polish. She replied occasionally to the driver who was extolling the joys of the city before she interrupted him asking him to drop her off. Despite his protests, she insisted she was suffering from car sickness and would rather walk the last block to clear her head. She tipped him and waved sweetly, insisting she was ok as he sped back to the hotel. Dawn was breaking over the skyline. A young couple passed her hand-in-hand, wishing her a good morning, the young man dressed in crisp Wehrmacht uniform, the girl in a beautiful cocktail dress, revellers from one of the many embassy balls. They both couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old. As Eva stepped into the hotel where she was staying, a pair of Messerschmitt fighters tore across the dawn skyline, glinting like knives. Ascending smoothly to escort the in-coming diplomatic flights, they banked up into the vanilla coloured clouds and disappeared. The street became silent again. Eva collected her key, using the name De Witte. In her room, Eva did one thing before retiring to bed. Opening her wardrobe, she took out her long blue raincoat. She had placed a half-full packet of cigarettes in the pocket. She took them out, intent on transferring them into the silver cigarette case. Sliding her thumbnail along the glued edge, she opened out the carton. She reached for the cigarette case. It was fitted on the inside with two strips of metal that swung out on a hinge. Each strip was fitted with buttons equidistant on both sides. Placing the carton's thin edge between the two strips of metal, she pressed them together, the points under the tab pushing out the cardboard. They were a combination of dots, visible to the eye only when angled into the light, but to her handler a simple code in fine-point Braille. She paused before the next sequence. Should Germany invade the Soviet Union, Lenin's body would be a priority evacuation. The attaché had snorted in derision through the shot glass as he spoke those words. She input the message. Using one of her hairpins, she fastened the carton together, placing three cigarettes back. She then stowed the cigarette packet back in her coat pocket. Removing the Braille strips, she released the hinge holding the plates together. With the Gestapo being so diligent during the conference she couldn't afford to have these strips discovered. She put one plate along the hemline of her overcoat for its return to British Intelligence and, stepping out into the corridor, she went over to the open-grilled elevator and slipped the other plate through the gap between the lift door and the floor. It dropped from sight without a sound. She lay on the bed, pulled the top cover around her, and replayed the banquet where she had met the Russian. The first recollection was of the room filled with the smell of pomade, cigars and aftershave. She had committed to memory the faces and names around her to the medley the orchestra was playing - Oswald and Diana Mosley, Unity Mitford, Von Ribbentrop, Molotov, Daladier, and a tall American businessman named Donald T Kincaid. She had met dozens of his ilk in her time and this one was no different. He was about fifty, rich in a vulgar fashion and accompanied by a young platinum blonde. He regarded Eva and most of her Eastern European counterparts with barely disguised contempt. Still, he had leered at her through the thick lenses of his glasses whenever the blonde he was escorting was engaged elsewhere in conversation. Eva spotted the Russian Attaché in an ill-fitting uniform from the photograph memorised earlier. He was looking at her as she had hoped, his small eyes glinting with lust. Breaking from a group of publishers and freelance reporters, she struck up a conversation in Russian. In no time he had moved past clumsy flirting to doe-eyed adoration. Closing her eyes, she shuddered for what might happen during the remainder of the evening, but in fact nothing did as the drunken Russian passed out struggling to get his boots off. Kincaid made her nervous, though. With his sort of money she would be easy to find should he decide to take up the chase. On several occasions he had jettisoned the blonde to make small talk, ignoring the Russian’s ire. * * * The dawn light glinting through the heavy curtains woke her. It was 8am. Eva showered quickly, slipped into a formal skirt and jacket, and took out her perfume. Spraying some into the air, she stepped into the fine mist and out again. She took the overcoat from the wardrobe and spilled the remainder of the perfume onto it. Draping it over her arm, she took the stairs down to the lobby where she singled out a waitress serving coffee to some English journalists looking lost amid their luggage. The waitress was thin and angular- faced, with her fair hair pulled back severely. ‘Pardon me, Fraulein, could you ensure this is cleaned? I must leave for Stuttgart this afternoon.’ Touching the waitress on the arm with a pre-arranged signal, she handed her the coat. Eva smiled faux-shyly at the journalists, apologising for the interruption. The waitress smiled back, giving a slight nod in recognition of the signal and of the codeword ‘Stuttgart’. She told Eva that it would take an hour to clean and directed her to the breakfast room. Eva took a seat furthest from the door and ordered a coffee and pastry from a gaunt-looking waiter. Lighting a cigarette, she exhaled slowly as she glanced around the room. Satisfied no-one was paying attention to her, she began to relax. A group of Americans commandeered the table beside her, their banter and relaxed manner adding to the ambience. They all appeared well-groomed and well-dressed, unlike their British counterparts in the foyer outside. Two smiled over at her, inviting her to join them. She demurred with a smile. ‘Can’t wait to hear what these guys have to say,’ said the one with leading man looks. He lit up a pipe, drawing on it in measured puffs. ‘We’re after all talking about a bunch of book burners and their appeasers,’ agreed his companion. His eyes kept drifting over to Eva as he spoke. Like his friend, he was handsome and appeared erudite. ‘Editorial’s gonna have a field day. I wonder if they still burn books over here.' The conversation stopped once their orders arrived accompanied by a large pot of coffee. The waitress who had taken Eva’s coat came into the restaurant looking for her. When she spotted her, she came over and offered her a newspaper to read. Eva thanked her with a smile and, after skimming the pages, found the crossword. Reaching into her bag she withdrew a pen and began to fill in the clues with coded messages. She folded the paper into her bag and prepared to hand it back to the waitress when her coat was ready. All around her was laughter, the clatter of cutlery and the German waitresses flirting with the Americans. It almost seemed the human species was staring into annihilation and keen to breed as compensation. The coffee arrived and Eva noted how bad the waiter’s skin was. She summoned a smile to thank him, hoping it wouldn’t encourage him to hover. The coffee was fresh and strong. Her hangover was abating and the pastry was warm from the kitchen. Now all she had to do for the next two hours was stay alive, her thoughts drifting with the cigarette smoke. Do they still burn books over here? 2011-09-13T07:04:36+00:00