CHAPTER ONE – RETRIBUTION by MICHAEL WALSH award-winning international writer. Available Amazon, LULU and all major bookstores.
Heavy-lidded from the afternoon’s drinking bout Fraser McLeod’s eyes focused on the bar optics as though willing them to remain still. But then again, his tired mind was fighting a losing battle against fatigue.
It was now late. With most of the pub’s patrons having moved on, there was now just the evocative sound of plaintive melodies of a solitary harmonica to be heard.
Lowering his glass, McLeod glanced at the barman. The barkeeper had been pulling beer pumps long enough to recognize someone who was using booze to wash away their memories. The leather-jacketed visitor was unsteady on his feet but he was not objectionable. An hour or so earlier the chance stranger had found Liverpool’s cosmopolitan Dock Road suited his tastes. The quiet inauspicious inn was a perfect choice for those who prefer to fly under the radar.
Scattered along the poorly maintained road serving the longest maritime docking system in Britain were many ships that passed in the night. Travellers came; some stayed a while and suddenly vanished never to be seen again. During the 1970s Liverpool’s waterfront was a watering hole for the footloose. Among them, many men don’t make friends, rootless wanderers looking for meaning in their lives.
That evening, Fraser McLeod had no desire for company. Having raised his glass with parade ground regularity he humbly pushed it across the bar with a request to be again filled. On this latest occasion, the bartender caught the ex-mercenary’s smile. It was a thin smile that confined itself to his lips. There was no warmth in the grey-green eyes, there was no softness.
‘I am just changing the barrel, sir.’
If the visitor couldn’t ration himself then he would do it for him. It was quiet and whilst changing the barrel Ted took his time. Glancing up at the old ship’s clock hooked high on the inn’s smoke-stained walls the bartender noticed there were now only fifteen minutes to towels up.
This would be the stranger’s last drink. Most soaked clients are easily handled and he knew most of them well enough. Ted’s brow furrowed; even by Dock Road standards, this stranger at the bar was a bit of an oddball.
When the bartender returned from the cellar McLeod was still steadying himself with one hand on the bar. As he did so the wanderer’s eyes scanned the few remaining faces scattered around the bar’s lounge. The remaining patrons appeared to have empty expressions as though lost in a world of their own. Each time a pair of eyes caught his own McLeod smiled. The fellow traveller was merely bored and curious but meant no offence. As he picked up the empty glass the bartender felt there was little need to ask which brand of beer.
‘It’s been a long day, friend,’ he enquired.
McLeod wasn’t sure if the barman was asking a question or making a statement. He tried to focus. ‘Sure, you could say that. Yes, a long day…. it has been a lifetime long.’
Ted didn’t pursue the matter. After all, he was no agony aunt. If this guy had problems, then he wasn’t paid to listen to them. The bar was always a good port of call for guys who had complications in their lives.
McLeod quietly talked almost to himself. ‘I never thought I’d see her again. It was pure chance… pure chance. Isn’t that unbelievable?’
‘You met an old friend, huh?’
Raising the freshly filled glass to his thin lips Fraser McLeod again swayed on his feet. ‘A friend you say? Well, she was a bit more than that.’
Smiling, the barman nodded and moved on down the puddle-wet bar to where a drinker was patiently waiting. As whoever was using the harmonica played on McLeod half turned in the direction of the disappearing barman’s back. As he did so his foot slipped from the bar’s foot support but quickly, he recovered his balance.
‘Yes, you could say a bit more than that,’ he slurred as if he was unaware that the bartender was now out of earshot. The drifter’s muddled mind was searching back through the day’s events. Pausing in his thoughts he grinned a strange kind of smile. Try as he might he couldn’t unravel and separate the past from the present. PLEASE SHARE OUR STORIES
RETRIBUTION A Liverpool-based city-vigilante thriller more gripping than Death Wish by Michael Walsh award-winning novelist. ‘Retribution is the greatest movie never made’ ~ William Housman. ‘An excellent thriller written in the tense style of a John Le Carre spymaster novel’ ~ Brian Smyth. . LINKS TO BOOKSTORE CLICK PICTURE OR LINK https://michaelwalshbooks.wordpress.com/
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Categories: Book Reviews
Michael Walsh Stories and Books 
If you enjoy reading fact based espionage thrillers, of which there are only a handful of decent ones, do try reading Bill Fairclough’s Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
What is interesting is that this book is so different to any other espionage thrillers fact or fiction that I have ever read. It is extraordinarily memorable and unsurprisingly apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies’ induction programs. Why?
Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”; maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa; and/or maybe because he has survived literally dozens of death defying experiences including 20 plus attempted murders.
The action in Beyond Enkription is set in 1974 about a real maverick British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Initially in 1974 he unwittingly worked for MI5 and MI6 based in London infiltrating an organised crime gang. Later he worked knowingly for the CIA in the Americas. In subsequent books yet to be published (when employed by Citicorp, Barclays, Reuters and others) he continued to work for several intelligence agencies. Fairclough has been justifiably likened to a posh version of Harry Palmer aka Michael Caine in the films based on Len Deighton’s spy novels.
Beyond Enkription is a must read for espionage cognoscenti. Whatever you do, you must read some of the latest news articles (since August 2021) in TheBurlingtonFiles website before taking the plunge and getting stuck into Beyond Enkription. You’ll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won’t want to exit. Intriguingly, the articles were released seven or more years after the book was published. TheBurlingtonFiles website itself is well worth a visit and don’t miss the articles about FaireSansDire. The website is a bit like a virtual espionage museum and refreshingly advert free.
Returning to the intense and electrifying thriller Beyond Enkription, it has had mainly five star reviews so don’t be put off by Chapter 1 if you are squeamish. You can always skip through the squeamish bits and just get the gist of what is going on in the first chapter. Mind you, infiltrating international state sponsored people and body part smuggling mobs isn’t a job for the squeamish! Thereafter don’t skip any of the text or you’ll lose the plots. The book is ever increasingly cerebral albeit pacy and action packed. Indeed, the twists and turns in the interwoven plots kept me guessing beyond the epilogue even on my second reading.
The characters were wholesome, well-developed and beguiling to the extent that you’ll probably end up loving those you hated ab initio, particularly Sara Burlington. The attention to detail added extra layers of authenticity to the narrative and above all else you can’t escape the realism. Unlike reading most spy thrillers, you will soon realise it actually happened but don’t trust a soul.
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