The writing of this story

Some writers have imagination … I though must base everything in a book on things which did actually happen or are likely enough to happen, given the world situation. 

I can’t even devise characters out of thin air, invent them … every character, aside from Gabriella, is based on someone I once knew or is an amalgam of a few people, or is in that idiom ... the dialogue may be altered for the story but it was still taken from real life at some stage. Not even the chases and shootouts were invented … they did actually happen, as related by someone I'd met or from someone’s own history.

And this 'realism' especially comes through in chapters one to four, which were written from notes from my time in Russia, including Anya who is three different book characters, just to confuse things. My mate Viktor in the book is also real, he exists and knows of this book, quite amused by the things I have his character do.

The entire saga of around 1500 ordinary pages, or 500 thousand words, is in three parts and has had many rewrites, from the second chapter onwards … it was pretty well finished by the end of 2006 in Russia but had many proofreads and changes until 2017 back in Britain, thanks to my most persistent reader, an Alabamian who calls herself Toodles online … it could never have been completed without her.

The theme running through the story is the simple reality that all us little people go about our lives as we do but things start going awry, not always due to our own bad decisions … you see, there really is a cabal of evil muvvers as I call them who wish to wreck the west and enslave us … Orwell was not wrong … and that turns ordinary people, firstly into dissidents, then into small cells of people resisting, these are then labelled insurrectionists … and so it goes.

The tale is not about the world events themselves, although these are constantly updated along the way … the tale is far more about the human interaction … the hopes, fears, loves, anger, romances, weaknesses … it’s a human saga, all right? 

Or rather about twenty of them, one after the other … the characters do age over the decade and a half, grow up, become harder, become kinder towards suffering humanity.

A second theme started to appear in part one ... that one of the best combat units possible in war is hundreds of small, one man-one woman units, preferably married, both armed and covering each other, understanding each other inside out and back to front. 

Sure they argue and get upset but if threatened, heaven help anyone threatening the two of them, especially after the children are born. Everything depends on both setting aside their differences, their niggles and forming powerful bonds with each other, plus with other mini-units, their friends.

The story has exciting sequences but it also has sequences where nothing much seems to occur … the first three chapters are maybe the slowest in the entire story, then it does take off … that’s how it happened in real life.

Long description below the Read more line.

1-1: East

Character sketches here … Chapter 1-2 here

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I

April, 1996

It was a million to one chance, maybe even more.

‘That comes to £108.99, with the shirts.’  The woman took the Burton’s Card, swiped it and began to wrap the purchases.

‘I’ll wear the trousers, if you don’t mind.’

‘Let me remove the labels.’

So that was one job done this Saturday before the Easter weekend.  It was always a pleasant drive up the A2, park near Greenwich and take the boat to the city. Turning to exit Debenham’s, such thoughts were interrupted by two sirens before him, two obviously foreign sirens, two stunning sirens and his throat went dry.

True, London was a city of foreigners but these two were something else again, they had to be those ice dancers you see on television, definitely continental the way they moved … he had to find out. ‘Excuse me,’ he asked quickly, lest they walked past and out of his life, ‘but are you … er … Russian?’

‘Da, mi Russkiye,’ the one with the golden hair replied, taking in everything of note – the cheeky grin, the now balding pate, the nerve in even addressing her, she thought she liked his sheer gall.

II

In the 12ème arrondissement this Saturday morning, Cafe Chose was quiet.

Nicolette Vasseur curled a strand of fair hair round her little finger and shuffled on her chair, observing the other woman. ‘Will you take Philippe’s name?’

In her eyes, Geneviève should long ago have pushed her casanova into a yes or no and this was Nikki’s way of pushing her but Mlle Lavacquerie was not the type to push, she was seriously indecisive. The events of five years ago in Paris had sent them both over the edge, they’d both vowed revenge on every man who’d ever treated a woman that way.  They weren’t what they’d have called feminist, either of them, but they sure as hell weren’t putting up with that type of treatment.

Nikki had arranged for Genie to meet this Philippe Legrande, the only one with sufficient clout in Bercy, so she’d been told, who would take their idea for a security Section seriously.  She’d always been the little organiser, Nikki.

He hadn’t laughed, Philippe, he’d seen the value of Section 37, ostensibly to expose corrupt officials but it had had other distinct political possibilities too in his eyes, he’d taken a shine to Geneviève anyway and as usually happened with herin turn, she’d fallen in love.

He’d organized the finance and they were off and running.

‘The most Philippe can expect is a hyphenation,’ she murmured. ‘Anyway, he’s not even broached it.  If I could think of a way, Nikki, I’d have done it already, the nightmares are back too.’

‘I can deputize.’

‘No, I have to know how the money is put through, why they don’t just wire it to us – why must I fly there, why always in cash?’

‘Russian law perhaps? I can go if you want.’

‘No, I’ll send Marc, that’s more his line. Besides, there’s no point going yet, the next collect’s not until July – he’ll go a week ahead of me.’

‘Seriously, does it really matter? You return with the money as usual, we do what we do, what’s the problem?’

‘I am. I’m the problem.’