Time blurs in streaks of light and motion. I scratch out a few more lines in my notebook before the train shifts pitch, slowing under us. The announcement in curt Turkish says enough. Van. I lean into the glass, stomach tightening. The platform crawls with uniforms—dark jackets, rifles slung with easy authority, eyes scanning every…
Tag: travel
The COMC Files Book V chapter 28
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…
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 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 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 COMC Files: London
Book of Burned Bridges The Heathrow arrivals hall is a fluorescent dawn after so many nights of myth. I stand still just past the immigration gates, letting the static-pated crowd flow around me—families, suits, tourists blinking at arrival boards. I am unaccompanied: Tarmo had cajoled, pleaded for me to board his Zurich-bound jet, but I’d…
The COMC Files: The Pivot
The Living Thread A pale sun claws over the ridge, sending light in trembling bands through the narrow window, gilding the swirl of smoke in the hearth. I take my coffee black—the only appropriate colour for a woman straddling the border of legend—and stack my notebooks, pencils, and a battered digital recorder. The villagers have…
The Myth Mapping Protocol
Zurich: Trust Amellal, 4:59 AM Tarmo leaves the blue-lit command centre on autopilot, muttering something to Sandi about “ten minutes.” The corridors outside feel colder, emptier—a different planet from the round-the-clock surveillance inside. He bypasses the kitchenette, shuffles into the locker-room showers, and starts the water scalding hot, as if heat and steam could cleanse…
The C.O.M.C. Files 