Topher Lydon

XXXI. The "Advanced Study Group" met in the drafty chemistry lab at 2:00 PM, under a banner of totalitarian pedagogy that Mr. Vane would have saluted. To the man in the tower, watching through his telescope, it was a portrait of rehabilitative industry. Six boys, heads bent in penitent study, while Mr. Carter—sober, stern—chalked complex schematics on the blackboard. A lesson in moral chemistry, perhaps. The transformation of base elements into something pure. Inside the room,

The kind of trap that a man like Tanaka would devise. He can't do anything about mercenaries, and attacks in America, or Iraq. But the second they step foot on Canadian soil, the DDO will be waiting.

Juan was weird... like deeply weird. And without her, he simply didn't have the magic he needed.

Will cannot win, it's simple facts. Trembley said it well at the start of the book, Will is simply not ready and too young. He's pull the young vote, and the progressive vote from Dufresne, splitting his voter base. But he is going to burn all the political good will he's earned in doing it. He's going to look like an upstart, petulant child throwing a tantrum. But that's the point. will doesn't have to win, he just needs to stop Dufresne from winning.

So typically Will, extorting Andrew to get what he wants. "Yeah, you keep your secrets, doesn't matter 'cause now I have naming rights, so nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" :: Will sticking his tongue out like a juvenile.::

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service national headquarters, located rigidly in the east end of Ottawa, was a sprawling, brutalist fortress of glass, steel, and heavily reinforced concrete. It was an architectural manifestation of the agency itself: cold, impenetrable, and entirely devoid of human warmth. The building was designed to aggressively repel scrutiny, presenting a sterile, monolithic facade to the civilian world while housing the nation’s deepest, darkest, and most heavily classi

Oh he will get his.

speaking of a certain Mr. Merrick, I have plans for him once Andrew works out he's not as incapacitated as he's been pretending to be.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh Man I am slow

Lawyers are kinky man

for those interested, this article provides a striking look at one of these coastal forts. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/abandoned-sea-fort-living-ruin-wales

Elias's Heroes

There was a Horatio Hornblower novel that heavilly implied that the Captain slipped and fell in one of these situations. The only time it was implied HH dealt with an abusive officer in this manner.

The Vega Vixen is a trippy bit of fun...

XXIV. The chemistry laboratory smelled of sulphur, damp wool, and the bone-deep exhaustion of the morning’s five-mile run. The boys of the West Wing sat at the scarred wooden benches, their muscles screaming from the forced march, but their eyes were strangely bright. The phantom echo of the overnight radio broadcast still hummed in their blood. At the front of the room, Carter did not write chemical formulas on the blackboard. Instead, he drew a stark, thick-walled cylinder. He

Andrew Carter survived Libya. He brought his family home. But some wars follow you. On a freezing rural road, he watches his friend—an OPP detective—get executed during a routine traffic stop. The killers are gone. The only survivor is a child, dumped in a bag and left for dead. Andrew can't let it go. He's CSIS. He should stay out of it. But he was the only witness. He saw the killers' faces. And he knows Morrison died for something he wasn't supposed to see. A high-end adoption ring. Wealthy clients paying for children stolen to order. And when the deals fall through, the children are disposed of. Andrew is an Attorney turned intelligence operative. He knows how to build a case. He knows how to dismantle a criminal network. And he's not going to let Morrison's death be for nothing. Carter's Witness—the new chapter in the Carter series.

When developing this story, I was putting it together around Master Carter. I was curious as to Will's Grandfather, and what he would be like. I was originally envisioning a POW camp story, and I had written waaaaaay back in the late 1990's a POW story called Clipped Wings... it never went anywhere and is still sitting on my hard drive. (I throw nothing away) But I looked at it, and realized that the people who ran POW camps after the war would have transitioned into the Penal and Reform school system. ergo: Blackwater

It goes back to what Andrew said to Peter outside the medical tent in Basra. Andrew can control the vectors and threats in his life. He cannot, however, protect Will from the inheirant danger of Will's job. All it takes is one crazy person, someone with radical view points on either side of the political divide. Will is a staunch Centerist, his opposition to the War in Iraq, his voting record of defying the whip. The fact that he is Interim leader of a political party that (at the time) many considered responsible for the Finacial crash in Canada... When you lose your home, your job, your savings, and the man representing the party that did it is standing right there... Andrew is terrified. Will has already been shot once and Andrew could do nothing to stop it.

Miller is a break out character. He's a boy who cannot hide what he is, effiminate, delicate, the lisp. The kind of boy that you know within seconds. That does not, however, make him weak. His standing up to, and taming of, Kaxe is proof of that.

The motor pool at West’s Contingency Operating Base was a chaotic, vibrating symphony of organized military departure. The morning sun had barely crested the horizon, casting long, pale streaks of light across the desert, but the air was already thick with the smell of burning diesel, hot canvas, and the metallic tang of weapon oil. The extraction was finally happening. The bureaucratic red tape had been slashed, the diplomatic corridors had been temporarily pried open, and the British Qui