Blog: Who Dares Wins

This week’s Excerpt

Escher’s Staircase
Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

Again it’s from The Detective section from Escher’s Staircase. If you like US Muscle Cars, you’ll love this section.

It’s you or me now, Blue. Killing one of your own! Shame! But now I have the proof… Macar Tadek!
My breathing slowed almost to a stop while I focused through the infra-red sight. I held my index finger delicately over the trigger and waited. I could see no movement. Minutes went by.
Surely he has to move!
I saw just the faintest variation in light up on a second floor balcony of the fire-escape. Something had moved.
Is it a cat? A branch of some flower in a pot., moving in a breeze? But there is no breeze!
I re-aligned the barrel to the point of movement. Then there was another, on the steps below the first point. Something was descending. I still had no view of the target. It or he, was just a patch of darkness like the background. Whoever it was moved like a cat.
For a fat man he sure is stealthy. But then again, Korea. I have to be very… very careful.

Then something stooped over the body on the ground. There was no doubt about it. It was Macar. I still couldn’t see his head. But I didn’t need to. I lined up on his shoulder and gently… oh so gently squeezed the trigger. The large body slumped over the one beneath. I could hardly believe my luck. I clambered down and stealthily walked to the two bodies. Macar wasn’t moving. I kicked his body but he didn’t react. I had to move fast!
I ran back to the van, slung the rifle in the back and pulled a camera out of my bag. I took a quick shot from the van. Then I rushed over to and took photographs from four angles of the two bodies, especially picking out Maca’s sniper rifle which lay by his side. He had on a black balaclava. I pulled it off to take another photograph but I stopped, shocked.

Other News
I have finished The Detective section of Escher’s Staircase now. Only one more chapter to go! In many ways it should be the most interesting: about a monk and nun in the 11th Century. Next will be a final edit on Attack Hitler’s Bunker! and then another go at my book on busking. After this I will continue work on something I am calling The Farmer’s Wife.
Just a reminder; Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate will be free from 30 August-3 September on Amazon so tell everyone, their dogs, their friends and their dog’s best friends!

Elsewhere
I am despondent about the situation in Syria. Assuming it is proved that Assad is using chemical weapons (and I don’t think there remains much doubt), I just hope something can be done to stop their use. It seems unlikely given Obama’s understandable reluctance to get the USA involved militarily.
It seems the United Nations is very nearly redundant. Paralysed by indecision and diametrically opposed interests of its main stakeholders: the US, Europe, Russia and China, it might never be a deterrent to determined dictators again.

I would be a fool to claim I have a clue what the solution might be but I am reminded of one suggestion, that of the philosopher Josiah Royce that we need some kind of insurance scheme. He thought that if countries took out policies to protect them in the case of invasion, the money provided could fund an ‘police’ force with overwhelming power.
Nearly half a century after him the kernel of the UN follows a similar template but with one major difference; the policy is administered by the policy-holders. Perhaps this is the problem. How about if the countries funded an independent, private company that oversees the provision of the policies? Just an idea.
I have bought Gravity’s Rainbow to read. 900 pages! Phew! And good luck to both Valentino Rossi and Marco Marquez tomorrow in MotoGP.