Crimson Traces The station air hums with departures. Brakes exhale, announcements crackle overhead, and somewhere behind me a child cries once before being shushed into silence. The high-speed train to Ankara waits with its nose angled east, silver and intent. Inside, the sound changes—padded by upholstery, softened by recycled warmth. Our bags thud into overhead…
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The COMC Files Book V chapter 27
Inside, the hiss of brakes and the chime of departure boards blend into one constant undertone. The high‑speed train to Ankara waits, silver and intent, its nose angled toward the tracks stretching east. Tickets pass through the gate with soft clicks. We find our seats, stowing bags overhead. Outside, the last few passengers hurry along…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 26
Istanbul Dawn The city stirs, a thousand lives resuming. Cracked windows carry metal shutters clattering two streets over, bus brakes hissing, the simit-seller’s rising cry. Horns thick with impatience, heat building. The warehouse holds night’s breath. Mitra—cardigan-armour—coaxes the camping stove to a blue flame. Coffee bitters the cold air. She moves with dawn-departure muscle: crisp,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 25
Uruk – A Life Before Time Stone steps led up to a towering ziggurat, bricks still warm from the sun. The plain shimmered below, canals and fields, the lifeblood of a people who bent rivers to their will. The air was heavy with incense and myrrh; doves wheeled above in sunlit spirals. He was broader,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 24
Back in the Desert The shaman’s chant slowed. The taste of haoma lingered—bitter, sweet, then gone. Tarmo sat under the Iranian sky, tears drying on his cheek; he could not remember shedding them. He understood: the hunger in the warehouse, the ache in the shower, the urgency of seeking Elena was not merely his own,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 23
Elena lay there, wrapped in a blanket on a makeshift bed in the far corner of a warehouse. Her hair spilt messily over the pillow, her lips parted in the vulnerable slackness of sleep. The only light came from a single streetlamp, its beam cutting through the fractured glass high on the wall. He stepped…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 22
Tehran – Hana Boutique Hotel Real destination next. Mikael’s text is succinct: shaman in Maranjab. Not caravanserai—but past salt lake, dunes eating horizon under star-vault. Tarmo: linen shirt, loose trousers, scarred boots. Downstairs, the Land Cruiser idled, Mikael door-side. Lean man: battered leather jacket, scarf, night-chill doubled. “Reza,” Mikael said. “Ja’far’s pick. Knows desert beyond…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 21
The women arrived just before midnight, delivered without introduction: one in a claret silk slip, the other in a cream dress loose enough to puddle at her ankles when it fell. Their beauty was immediate, smiles deliberate—the kind that promised everything and revealed nothing. Mikael hovered briefly at the door, exchanged standard pleasantries in Farsi,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 20
The jet shuddered into a slow taxi, twin engines spooling down as Tehran’s dawn tilted gold over the tarmac. Imam Khomeini International unfurled beyond the glass: vast, oddly tranquil—its mirrored surfaces glinting like distant mosque domes. Tarmo leaned into the cabin window, pulse half-lulled by altitude and adrenaline, aware that every arrival—no matter how choreographed—carried…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 19
Out Toward the Golden Horn The drizzle has cooled the air, dragging a silk haze over the water. Tourists jam shoulder-to-shoulder along the balustrade, camera phones angling for a glint of ferry lights painting shimmer across the Golden Horn—a wide, grey boundary, as much mental as it is geographic. Mitra’s warmth at my side is…
The C.O.M.C. Files 