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,…
Tag: the chronicles of a memory cartographer
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 COMC Files Book V chapter 18
Istanbul: 72 hours ago Sandi felt the pulse of Istanbul, its call to prayer echoing through the alleys as the city’s night took on a spectral glow. She was ostensibly a buyer, working for Tarmo’s shipping interests, but below the surface: she was tracing Turkey’s quietly intensifying maneuvers in Africa, missions that stretched beyond logistics…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 17
The Persian at the Table I cross Istiklal, tram bell shrilling and simit vendor’s shouts echoing off marble façades and old Beaux-Arts apartments. The phone buzzes hot in my hand—you trust the wrong one—but my eyes stay locked on the lace-curtained window. Asdar falls into shadow-flank, no words; all fine-tuned presence, golden eyes watching for…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 13
Tarmo Most women, for me, are beautiful cities: worth savouring, never worth staying. Elena was never a pin on my map. She’s the one place I keep circling, whatever the longitude: Pärnu, Zurich, the nights where, against every adult instinct, I bargained with powers older than strategy. Called on Odin like some northern fool in…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 12
The bathroom is a sanctuary—steam blurring the shards of strategy, suspicion, and Burçu’s steel-edged words. Hot water scours off every diplomatic layer until nothing’s left but pulse and skin, the day’s political foreplay rinsed down to soap and heat. Stepping out, I’m my own ghost in the mirror: hair dripping, towel knotted at my hips,…
The C.O.M.C. Files 