Excerpt…

Arlene Harte, mid-fifties, comfortably plump, determinedly blonde and relentlessly single though far from celibate had reported from the various fronts of global wars for the Associated Press for long enough to earn a recognizable byline, a syndicated column, and an occasional spot on Washington Week in Review.  Gunfire inevitably palled after thirty years, though travel did not, and there followed a comfortable retirement, the most part of which she spent freelancing articles for the Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler and Travel & Leisure.

The rest of her time was spent working freelance as a spy for her country, ferreting out information that opposition organizations and nations much rather not be unearthed.  Hugh Rincon had recruited her when he’d been on the Asian desk at the CIA.  When he had resigned, she followed him to the Knightsbridge Institute, where the governmental oversight of company activities was significantly less, the pay was pleasurably more, and the job was, to say the least, eclectic.  Arlene was invaluable to them.  Her cover as a freelance writer, especially with her c.v., got her in many a door that would be closed to anyone else, and her unthreatening appearance coupled with a ferocious intellect, an almost preternatural capacity for assimilating the details of global current affairs, and a gift for sniffing out people who liked to talk did the rest.  It didn’t hurt that she could write, her reports a model of clarity and a gold mine of intelligence.  As soon as the intel in them cooled off they were commandeered by the instructors to show the new guys how to get the job done.  

The Knightsbridge Institute, in fact, had just given her another raise, her sinful second in eighteen months, and when she finished the Troy story she had planned to head for Elizabeth Arden in New York.

Regretfully, she decided that Liz would have to wait a few days.

The Renaissance Polat was an abstract thrust of aggressively modern glass that looked more than usually phallic, as is the invariable manner of the glass-and-steel structures of nations clawing their way to first world status.  She went inside, consulted the directory and saw an international nursing conference was currently being held in the public rooms.  She found the bathroom, and from a capacious shoulder bag extracted a navy blue blazer with brass buttons, neatly folded and stowed in a gallon-size Ziploc freezer bag.  She shook it out and pulled it on over her white T-shirt and chinos and surveyed herself in the mirror.  She fished around in the bag again and produced a pair of reading glasses with clear rainbow frames, which she perched on the end of her nose, over which her green eyes looked out inquiringly.  She gave a satisfied nod, closed her bag and walked out with a stride that somehow managed to hint at orthopedic oxfords worn on long nights on the kidney ward.

The conference was being held in half a dozen rooms with concurrently running programming.  It was coming up on the hour.  She selected a panel at random, “Shaping Healthy Behaviors,” and went in.  The speaker was a young woman with a bright red face and a stutter, and most of the audience looked as if it was just about to stop being polite and head on out, but they weren’t Arlene’s concern.

At the back of the room stood a woman in the uniform of the hotel employee, a maroon vest over a white shirt with a black bowtie, black slacks and comfortable black shoes.  She stood next to a table holding a large stainless steel carafe, cups, pitchers of water, glasses, and trays of sugar cookies, most of which remained.  It didn’t speak well for the hotel baker.

Arlene busied herself pouring a cup of coffee, which to her surprise was the real thing, dark and aromatic.  She sweetened it and poured in a healthy dollop of cream and by then the panel had wound down and the crowd, most of them women of varying ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities but all of them looking relieved, streamed out the door.  She loitered until the last of them had departed, and smiled conspiratorially at the server.

She didn’t smile back, a bad sign, but Arlene didn’t give up easy.  She sipped her coffee, closed her eyes in exaggerated ecstasy, opened them and smiled again.  This time there was a lightening of the woman’s expression.

Encouraged, Arlene nodded at the podium and cast her eyes upward.  This time the woman definitely smiled.  Arlene grinned in response and shrugged.  “At least it’s a free trip to Turkey.”

“You are a nurse, too?”  The woman’s English was heavily accented but easily understandable.

“I am,” Arlene said mendaciously.

The woman hesitated.  Arlene looked sympathetic and encouraging.

“Do you do the–“  the woman gestured toward her back.

“Back injuries?  Well, it isn’t my speciality, but…”

Five minutes later they were ensconced in a dingy little break room over some very nice homemade lamb sandwiches in pita bread, and the woman, whose name was Nawal, was relating the problems she’d been having with lower back pain.  Arlene listened attentively, and was even able to offer a few practical suggestions (there were few topics on which an experienced reporter could not offer an educated opinion), and by then of course they were boon companions.

Other hotel employees appeared and were introduced, and shortly thereafter Arlene was running an impromptu clinic, dispensing advice on a variety of ailments in her role as visiting nurse clinician.  When an opportune moment presented itself she made a laughing observation on conventions and the typical convention goer being a cross between the bread and butter and the bane of hotel staff everywhere, and they were fairly launched.  It took only a few more judiciously innocuous comments to nudge the conversation into the right path, and a few more exclamations of disbelief and a rueful headshake or two to keep it going until someone caught sight of their watch and there was a general exodus.

Arlene ate lunch in the break room for the next two days.  “It’s so seldom at these things we get to meet real people,” she said to excuse her presence, and they seemed to accept her as just another mad American.

The last day, she took a fond farewell of Nawal and went back to her hotel to pack.  She alerted the front desk as to her departure and arranged for an early checkout the following morning.

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Dana sez–

I did my second ridealong with the US Coast Guard in 2007, on an Eastern Pacific (EPAC) patrol, seven weeks offshore of Central and South America doing drug interdiction and migrant mitigation. The experience inspired the writing of Prepared for Rage, my second Coastie thriller. As in Blindfold Game, Arlene Harte was my favorite character.

As with my 2004 ridealong, the price of passage was a daily blog for friends and families back on the beach. I have collected blog posts from both ridealongs in an ebook, On Patrol with the US Coast Guard.

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