Welcome to all readers of all types of books and especially those who are aficionados of ebooks including other authors! I will be posting from time to time about my progress in this very interesting form of self-torture of writing fiction. My current offering is "The Questors - Book One - The Path to War."

The protagonist of this book Alexander Kurt appeared to be a U.S. Navy "Neutral Observer", who by a treaty between the United States and Germany had been posted to Germany's Keil Ship Yards to observe the development of the newest German attack submarines. But in fact, he was an asset of the United States Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Special Branch. His real mission is to gather as much hard information as possible and send it to the O.N.I Special Branch to prepare the United States Navy anti-submarine fleet for the soon to start World War II. But he was found out.

Chapter 16

Then the sky fell in. Near the end of a day, he was preparing to leave when his minder, Heinrich, slammed into the office and shouted, "You bastard!" He then said, "You son of a bitch!" Alex, was taken aback but he noticed that Heinrich was drunk and was holding a German Lugar pistol in his hand. "You have betrayed my whole family and me, you bastard!" You are not a neutral observer you're a god dammed spy! You have been found out by the Gestapo and they were here to pick up both of us for “questioning”! I told them that you were at your apartment and they left, leaving a member of their group to guard me so I could not escape. They are on the way to your apartment to pick you up, and they are already holding my whole family! They also took Bea, my secretary into custody and marched her outside to load her in their prison van. When in the parking lot she panicked and resisted and they shot and killed her. They did the same to her cousin, who was the gate guard on duty when he tried to interfere!" Ales started to speak but Henrich continued “I sent them on that wild goose chase to your apartment not because I wanted to give you a chance to escape. I wanted to have a chance to shoot you myself you miserable son-of-bitch! Sobbing Heinrich started raising his pistol to shoot and Alex quickly reached inside his coat and pulled out his small .380 caliber gun with its silencer attached snapped off the safety, and before Heinrich could aim his weapon at him, Alex shot him twice in the forehead. Heinrich's eyes looked startled for a second then life began to fade from his eyes but his finger pulled the trigger of his gun, and the shot went wild into the wood-floor then he crumpled on top of the gun. Alex stood frozen, amazed, and sick at what he had just done and looked at the body of Heinrich and said, "I'm so sorry friend I did this. I liked you. Maybe it will help your family out of a bad situation, but I doubt it."
          Alex opened his briefcase and began stuffing it with whatever he thought might be useful to O.N.I. He closed it and then said, to himself, "What next?" He looked up to see Heinrich’s Gestapo guard standing in the open door holding his pistol pointed at him. The guard pulled the trigger but the gun miss-fired and while he was attempting to clear the gun’s action Alex fired his small pistol twice more and the agent fell to the floor with the last sigh. Alex holstered his pistol grabbed his briefcase and as he was turning to the exit he was startled by the phone ringing. He looked at it as if was a coiled Texas rattlesnake ready to strike. It rang once more, and he picked it up and said, a cautious, "Yes?" A woman's voice said, "The violin is broken. Front gate ten minutes." He grabbed his briefcase and headed for the front gate. Once in the parking lot he tried not to look at the two bodies lying in a pool of blood and tried to appear calm. He stepped outside the gate and saw a small car just arriving.