A tired looking & worn out man hunching over, speaks softly but clearly a very urgent message into a two-way radio. He has provided vital information to his handlers as he has done many times before, but this time he's clearly exhausted, he is tired of the intrigue. He just wants to go home to his wife and children & thank God, that this is his last mission. Then his heart skips a beat & suddenly the door to his apartment bursts open and the room swarms with Syrian secret police. They spend long gruelling moments beating him and then dragging him away to undergo intense & tortuous days & nights undergoing interrogation before being mercilessly imprisoned. This is how Mossad Agent Eli Cohen's successful career as an Israeli spy came to an abrupt end.

The CIA and the KGB have always been the masters of intrigue & secrecy in a world where these two monoliths would challenge each other in a world of intrigue, mysticism & secrecy. These Intelligence Agencies would dare each other in accomplishing covert missions in many different countries around the world. Their competing for global supremacy under the guise of national security would usually cost lives of the innocent & the not so innocent & many of those who simply got in the way. The KGB, which is the Russian branch of Intelligence would go on to continuously challenge the US branch of Intelligence known as The CIA for decades or long after the end of WWII.

In 1944, Flying Officer David "Gnat" Royce, RCAF, is gambling that his last few missions over Germany will be uneventful ones. But no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy...

I was seven years old when I had met nine-year-old Aubrey. He had been quite large for his age and had possessed both the eyes and nasal voice of a frustrated character. He was the type of person to be hated and avoided by everyone both inside and outside of school since he had been the kind of person to push and shove those who he had seen as beneath himself, which had included me. Flocks of students would either hurry out of his way or wait for Aubrey to pass by. No one could ever see themselves loving someone so deviant, until he had found me. He would always be there waiting for me beneath the darkest of alleyways, behind the tallest of hedges and hidden within the most confined corners of the school. As Aubrey was large for his age and I had been small for mine, I established great difficulty in pursuing gangs of people that had been classified as being “my kind,” which had only encouraged me to keep myself around a dictator like Aubrey. He had enjoyed being feared by others and had craved mercy from them, as though there had been a new God dominating over every human being including myself. As time had flown by, Aubrey had remained out of sight and had vanished from the town, but never seemed to do so from my mind, as though he had taken over me completely; it was though I hadn’t gone a day without him. The memories of Aubrey had only grown stronger and steadier, keeping his essence alive and present to me every waking day. My hatred for him had only grown more fierce and had no intention of ever stopping. At this point in time, I was part taking in the Vimy Ridge battle and had been the only one left within my company. The entire day had consisted of giving and receiving specialized orders from other sergeants as to when fights were to be scheduled to begin and where they would take place when these battles had occurred. Unfortunately, this had been a day that both the civilization and myself would never find the competence to suppress, a memory so self-consuming that only intends to continue to remain and haunt me for the rest of my days. Waking up to the sights of spewing, grey fog and clashes of bombs striking both opposing sides had ignited a spark inside me; it was time. Dashing over mudslides and the engulfed burrows that had been made within the earth, I had found myself sliding feet first into a huge crater, swallowing my body whole.

SCENE 1

Publica Bank was bustling when Kip and Rosa entered. Ms. Ortiz was in her office but with a mound of paperwork and her back turned to the interior windows of her office.

Linda looked up from her desk and appeared to stare at Kip and Rosa. “Well, the corporation fairly well protects your property and assets; technically, when you married Rosa all the monies and stock became hers as well. Those assets prior to the marriage and prior to the corporation are liable, and I am checking to see if anything in the company can be tied in too. We just don’t know what agreements the US government may have made with the Tico government.”

On the twenty sixth day a small slit in the door opened, revealing a bit of light surrounding a metal cup of water and a chunk of a bolillos, a hard roll. Samuel reached down and pulled the plate to himself, then pushed an empty plate back. For twenty six days, by his count, the routine had been the same. He marked the days by the feeding—one bread and water meal per day. He marked the weeks the same way. One day per week the plate contained boned salt fish; he wasn’t Catholic, but he decided to name fish day, as Friday.

“Ouch.” Kip complained. “I think he’s aiming for holes and ruts.”

“You mean that guy walking with the big dog is our security?” Rosa peered out the window.

Sam notified Costa Rica Customs that two passengers were deplaning at the private hanger at San Jose airport. So, when they arrived they were bussed over to the normal Custom’s entry area. Their luggage was screened and they were generally waved through. Paulo was waiting curbside when Rosa and Kip walked out of the terminal.

“I had to be escorted. He wouldn’t let me see her without either him or his mother in the room with me.” Tears ran down her face. She spoke as if the law had been quoted to her, “Tennessee law allows a non-custodial parent to spend time with her child under the supervision of another person or at a designated facility. I was treated like a criminal. Then when I said I’d be in town for over a week he said I needed to get a lawyer if I wanted to visit her without supervision and I couldn’t see her at all during the week because of school.”