Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden: Blackwell Ops, #5
Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden: Blackwell Ops, #5
Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden: Blackwell Ops, #5
Ebook180 pages2 hours

Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden: Blackwell Ops, #5

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Georgette Tilden, wife of Blackwell Ops operative Jack Tilden and an operative in her own right, returns to tell her own unique story.

A deadly combination of charm, looks, and skills, Georgette will disarm, disable and drop you —  
you won't have a chance to blink.

TJ Blackwell, the owner of Blackwell Ops, has always encouraged his operatives to work solo. In fact, most of them don't even know who the other operatives are.

Way back in Book 1, TJ decided to take a chance. He encouraged and even orchestrated Georgette's marriage to Jack, but at least partly for an ulterior motive.

Now TJ can send the two of them on assignments better suited to a team than a lone wolf.

In Book 5, Georgie recounts some of her own solo assignments as well as a few assignments with her new husband.

But she doesn't stop there. When TJ sends down an assignment that results in Georgie teaming up with not one, but two other operatives, both female, the result is more intense than she could have imagined.

And it leads to bigger and better things.

Also in this book, we revisit the skills and wiles of two other operatives: Marie Arceneaux and Melanie Sloan (from Books 3 and 4). Need I say fireworks ensue?     

As always, this is only part of Georgette's story, as told to the author. And as always, only the more sensitive parts of Georgie's story are fictionalized. Everything else is true.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 1, 2019
ISBN9781386779889
Blackwell Ops 5: Georgette Tilden: Blackwell Ops, #5
Author

Harvey Stanbrough

Harvey Stanbrough is an award winning writer and poet who was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. Twenty-one years after graduating from high school in the metropolis of Tatum New Mexico, he matriculated again, this time from a Civilian-Life Appreciation Course (CLAC) in the US Marine Corps. He follows Heinlein’s Rules avidly and most often may be found Writing Off Into the Dark. Harvey has written and published 36 novels, 7 novellas. almost 200 short stories and the attendant collections. He's also written and published 16 nonfiction how-to books on writing. More than almost anything else, he hopes you will enjoy his stories.

Read more from Harvey Stanbrough

Related to Blackwell Ops 5

Titles in the series (21)

View More

Related ebooks

Crime Thriller For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Blackwell Ops 5

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    Blackwell Ops 5 - Harvey Stanbrough

    Chapter 1

    I joined Blackwell Ops a little over five years before my husband and I were married.

    His name is Jack Tilden, and he’s also an operative for TJ Blackwell. I might never have considered such a career move if it hadn’t been for Jack.

    Not that he talked me into anything. He didn’t even know I’d made the move until I told him almost fifteen years after we first met.

    TJ had sent Jack to find me through my father, Ralph O'Shaughnessy, an old acquaintance of TJ’s. I was to give Jack a boat ride to a nearby assignment. That’s it. That was my total role.

    But I got to see Jack in action, sort of, and I was impressed. I even helped a little toward the end of the assignment, which taught me some of my own capabilities.

    For close to ten years, though, I went on about my life. But Jack, Blackwell Ops, and the excitement of participating peripherally in Jack’s assignment was never far from my mind.

    Over the next few years, I talked with my dad about the old days, slowly drawing him out, and the more he told me, the more excited I became.

    Finally, I made the phone call to TJ myself. I didn’t depend on my father’s recommendation, but took a leap of faith, trusting in my own abilities. I assumed TJ had few female operatives. As it turned out, I was right, though at the time it hadn’t dawned on him that an operative of a specific gender might come in handy on some assignments. Or at least that’s what he said.

    I passed TJ’s tests with relative ease, and I got my first assignment only a few weeks after I’d signed on and started accepting his pay.

    I still remember the minimalist green text that appeared on the screen of the VaporStream device that first time:

    Proceed to Whiteabbey by any mode you choose.

    TWP Robert O’Sheerhan.

    Seven days max to completion.

    Good luck.

    Whiteabbey is basically a suburb situated to the north-northeast of Belfast on the north side of the bay. 

    TWP stands for terminate with prejudice. It means leave no doubt.

    And Robert O’Sheerhan was a relatively well-known up-and-comer in one of the many paramilitary groups that made up the IRA at the time.

    Seven days max meant I had plenty of time, so I decided to take my boat, Jetty, across St. George’s Channel from my home in Wales. It would be an easy six-to eight-hour ride, depending on the seas. 

    I spent the better part of a day learning what I could about O’Sheerhan. He was single and had a reputation as a ladies’ man. Gender-specific assignments indeed.

    Almost every evening he dined in one of three restaurants, but afterward he always frequented the same nightclub—Whitehouse Working Men’s Club—which is about two hundred yards from where I planned to dock my boat. It couldn’t have worked out any better. Often he was seen going into the club with one woman on his arm, and leaving hours later with another.

    That gave me the beginning of a plan. I learned all I could about the club, including the entrances and layout. There was even a section of small rooms along one narrow hallway. I couldn’t be sure what they were for, but I could guess.

    I packed the appropriate clothing, then told Dad over supper that I was going to take the Jetty out for a couple of days. He was used to that, so I knew he wouldn’t worry. Though the way he looked at me I assumed he must know something was up.

    I left our small harbor the following morning in the pre-dawn light.

    Because of my early departure and just in case Dad was watching, I took my time. I tacked south at first. When I was certain I was out of sight, I turned back west, continued for a few hours, then turned north. A few hours later the southern tip of the Isle of Man was passing in the distance to the east. A couple of hours after that I was moving through the North Channel (the Strait of Moyle).

    As the sun was setting, I turned back west and took a direct route to where I would park the Jetty at a private dock with several slips off Gideon’s Green at Whiteabbey.  One boat more or less shouldn’t attract too much attention. At least I hoped.

    I got to the dock at a little after 7 p.m. and decided to take a nap. My target time to arrive at the club was 10 p.m.

    At around 8:30, I put on what I thought was an alluring dark-charcoal dress. It was short, striking my thighs a good five or six inches above my knees. But as I looked at my reflection in the mirror, I realized I’d be dressed like all the other women in the club. I didn’t want that. I wanted to stand out, both in appearance and in not obviously hawking my wares.

    So I took off the dress, hung it up, and slipped into a pair of tight-fitting camouflage trousers, a white blouse that would look electric-blue or dazzling red under the club lights, a snug waistcoat—but also camouflage—that would enhance my figure, and my small, highly shined black combat boots.

    After all, Mr. O’Sheerhan was a man of action.

    I checked the mirror again. It might work and it might not. I started to put my hair up—even in a ponytail it hangs almost to my waist—but I decided to leave it down. It’s one of my better features. My face is a long oval, and my black hair tends to showcase it.

    When everything else was ready, I checked my pistol—a Beretta .380—and tucked it into the small of my back, then tucked my hair inside my jacket. No need to draw attention to myself before I reached the club.

    At the head of the pier, I crossed a small road, caught a path through Gideon’s Green that led to Whitehouse Park Road, then turned back west along the railroad tracks to the club. I passed through a narrow woods and stopped outside the back of the club. There I pulled my hair out of my jacket and finger-combed it, then made my way around to the front entrance.

    A hefty bouncer stood behind a red velvet rope. Behind him, a heavy red-steel door was propped open with a concrete block. He had close-cropped nappy black hair and almost no neck. The collar of his sports jacket seemed to lead directly to his head. He was checking IDs and collecting a cover charge for the men in line, but he moved the rope and waved some of the women through. I was one of those fortunate few, though he did a double-take at my outfit. A slight smile followed the double-take.

    Even the noise filtering out through the door didn’t prepare me for the cacophony inside. The buzzing of a hundred private conversations was almost a physical barrier. The club was only dimly lighted, as I expected, with a combination of blues and reds over a tile floor.

    A long, dark bar ran away to the right. It put me in mind of mahogany. It was lined with barstools, all of which were taken, and there seemed to be at least three people standing at the bar for every barstool.

    At first glance the tables scattered across the floor seemed to all be filled too, with three to six people per table. Booths ran along both side walls toward the front of the room, as well as along the left front wall. At the far end of the room, maybe sixty or eighty yards away, was a raised oval bandstand. The musicians were just taking the stage.

    On the near side of the bandstand was a fairly large dance floor, maybe thirty feet deep and the width of the stage. It was bordered on three sides with tables. The small door that led to the back entrance and the narrow hallway of rooms was near the corner to the right of the stage.

    Since O’Sheerhan was something of a celebrity and a regular, it would stand to reason he would have a special table or booth, one reserved in his name. Probably it would be nearer the stage and on the right, if the small rooms off the hallway were what I thought they were.

    As the guy at the microphone on stage was greeting the crowd, all of whom seemed to be cheering in anticipation of the music, I moved deeper into the room to clear the entry way. Then I stopped at a waist-high brass rail, gripped it with my hands and checked the row of booths on the left. As I expected, those were the least-popular seats in the place. Only about half of them were full, and none had any sort of reservation placard on it.

    I looked them over again to be sure, then let my gaze wander over the tables on the main floor again.

    The band struck up their first song of the evening, a cover of the Rolling Stones Brown Sugar, and the dance floor filled with couples, mostly from the tables.

    I watched, shifting my attention from the couples on the floor to those who remained at the tables, until the song ended and the couples found their way back to their tables. Again, most of the tables were full, with only a few empties toward the edges. And again, I was certain my guy wasn’t seated at any of them.

    Still, I looked them over one more, then shifted my attention the row of booths on the right. That’s where I’d expected to find my target anyway.

    But a long moment later, I was certain he wasn’t at any of the booths on that side either. And it was already what, 10:15? Maybe 10:30?

    Thoughts raced through my mind. Was he coming in tonight? All accounts said he came in practically every night. Had I picked the one night that wasn’t practical? Was I going to blow my first assignment?

    Chapter 2

    I made my way through a few people and got to the bar just as the band fired up another loud song. Competing with several others at the bar who were yelling orders, I finally got the attention of one of the bartenders.

    A skinny young man in white trousers and shirt looked up and smiled as he drew a draught for another customer. The kid had the audacity to wear a red garter just below his left bicep. Other than that, he reminded me of an ice cream salesman from one of those box trucks. His arms were so thin I was surprised the garter remained in place.

    I held up two fingers, leaned forward and shouted, Guinness Stout.

    He nodded, and a moment later he turned away to serve the other customer.

    I thought I might have to get the attention of another bartender, but a moment later the skinny kid poured my two draughts and brought them to me along with a couple of napkins.

    I reached into my right front pocket for money, but he waved it off. He yelled, Settle up later with your waitress. Then he turned away to answer another customer’s query.

    Fine. I took my pints, caught my napkins with the little finger on each hand, and turned away to force my way through the crowd at the bar again. I was proud of myself for not spilling anything.

    Finally I began making my way along the aisle between the right row of booths and the tables. It was fairly crowded too, mostly with customers coming up the aisle to the bar.

    I found two empty tables on the left not quite halfway along the aisle. I took the one farther from the aisle. I didn’t want anyone jostling my table on their way to or from the bar. I set my stouts on the table first, then sat facing the front of the club. After I took a sip, I glanced around at the row of booths again.

    But just as I did, the left hip, then the backside of a pair of men’s jeans filled my view. In the light of the club, they looked almost purple. Through the loops of the jeans was a wide black leather belt. Above that was an electric-blue linen shirt over a pair of very broad shoulders.

    On the other side of him, giggling as if she’d gone mental, was a shapely young woman in a skimpy red dress. It was rendered almost black by the lighting. She had a shock of red hair cut in a pageboy style and a braided, white-leather headband. The top of her head was a few inches below his right shoulder.

    I glanced up just as he looked down to steady himself against the back of a chair at the table between my table and the aisle.

    Adrenaline surged through me.

    It was him.

    For a split-second I was face-to-face with my

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1