Hey Megan--thanks for the review! Thank you and Nick (guy below)for both being so helpful and observant. The changes are in the manuscript--and edits on ellipses, Itals, etc. I did the … (love the shit out of those and always have to go back and change) and the (former) editors did a lot of the extraneous itals. I did have mostly just for stream of consciousness type thought, just as you are saying, so all I have to do is go back to the original, and see what I have there. At least I now know that these style devices are overdone (or don’t work at all). This is what I needed :)
I do feel I may need ellipses in the more stream of consciousness type thought sequences sometimes. You’ll have to let me know what you think in later chapters where his surface thoughts, then deeper layers of conflicting thoughts must be separated. (This is actually the reason for the technique, and not just to be clever).
Arab male—dark eyes… Yep, but I hope reader will figure out that he’s playing a role (unpacking bag, he does think something about putting on his next role). Lobby Lothario guy was one, now he’s putting on broken English terrorist guy with Haifa/Arafat accent coming up in ch 3.
*What Angel is actually picking up on in his eyes, Salheyin, El Thar, etc.(And you know how we women melt for guys we think we can fix!!) I hope I’m doing it effectively. Milton, the whole theme is Milton and two sons fighting (Christ and Lucifer), only its all going on in poor Karim’s head, and in his soul.
If you haven’t ever read Milton’s Paradise Lost, its a must! Google it. Its amazing!
I did already get another review (on a deleted version) with mention of the airliner/shrapnel line. The point is well-taken and I think what’s in the bag could actually stand alone as ominous enough. Mainly, we need foreshadow that the intent here is not a good one. One thing, this would be a smaller, single-aisle aircraft like Ryanaire uses, and not a wide-body. And he does have multiple grenades (which they did use to blow up two planes on the tarmac in Jordan). Hey! Ask your mom what she thinks! They did blow up planes (without people) several times in ‘60s and ‘70s with a few grenades (but I don’t know how many).
I have written down somewhere in my notes what model of plane this is. I’ll try to find it. The one we flew to Cairo from Rome was single aisle, and we were packed in like sardines. (As mentioned to Nick) I’ve actually had my hair singed by people in seat next to me a few times when it was longer, so Karim moves his ciggie. (And in a very politically correct way, he will quit smoking before Angel actually has to kiss him, I promise).
Yes, first chapter is ponderous. Angel, (sigh) must be chopped. If you ever get penchant for chopping, let me know :) This did not get to heavy-duty copy editing phase before I got sick. Hopefully, the other chapters don’t get bogged down as bad.
Thanks a bunch! If you think of anything else off the top of your head, (florid… florid is what I always worry about with Angel), please message me. I have a special “rewrite” folder this is all going in. Although the easier changes are being made directly into the manuscript right away.
Ask mom about grenades, machine gun fire and this type of single-aisle plane. 1987, so its probably a 1960s manufacture.
*Hey everybody, Megan’s mom is an airline mechanic—that is so freakin’ cool!
Action Adventure / The Demon Lover Chapter 2
Chapter 2
She had to be the one.
He’d checked out all the Aero-Trans gates, and no other woman came even close to matching with the blonde in the news clipping.
Still, he vacillated.
He knew this type of American woman. The beauty queens, socialites—the daddy’s girl heiresses—had come to him in a steady stream in Washington. They liked to be seen with mysterious foreign men. It was a status symbol with them, like driving a Ferrari or marrying a senator’s son. The allure of the forbidden was also a factor, like when daddy dug a little deeper and found out the particulars on just who his baby had been fucking… So, he’d learned early on to stay away from the little princesses… In fact, that’s when he’d learned relationships involving emotional entanglement were a bad idea altogether. Why bother, when variety suited his nature and his purposes so much better?
But this girl, she had the looks… Yes, golden girl stunning… Nice, full lips—especially the pouty lower one… And she certainly had the body, at least from what he could tell of the outline beneath the jacket. He could see from his vantage point now that she had long shapely legs. She had a flat, slender waist and when she’d turned and walked away from him earlier, he’d admired a firm, high ass. She was built like someone who spent a lot of time with a personal trainer… He wished he could tell more about her tits. Nice rack. If she had implants, like most of these types, he could usually tell instantly if he got a good view. Certainly by feel…
Still, there were things that didn’t fit. Even with heels, she’d only come up to his chin. Pageant babes were usually taller. And it was more than just her height. This girl came off too unassuming, too unaware of her assets. He thought of the shy little smile she’d given him. Mmmm, yes… Not at all his type, but sweet… Too sweet. Breathy voice, southern drawl, but he couldn’t place the accent… Whispery… He’d almost had to strain to hear, but he picked up on the diphthong “I”, like “ayh”, (a for e, i, and sometimes o), the disyllabic and elongated vowels (yayh-us for yes), and soft center glides (she got 3 syllables out of “have”). Of course, he was no expert on regional American accents, but he’d lived in Virginia, where this Jennifer Wiley was supposed to be from. The dialect was non-rhotic, meaning they didn’t pronounce “Rs” unless followed by a vowel. This girl pronounced her Rs, but did drop her ending Gs. Maybe she was a transplant? As he had been…
His nearness had rattled her and she’d obviously had a little stammer when that happened, but he saw the way she’d been checking him out—if a bit shyly.
Yet she blew him off.
That certainly never happened... Intriguing , yes… if he’d had more time, it could have gotten a lot more interesting…
When he started pressing her for information, she’d taken him by surprise with her snappy comeback… Classified information… (claaass-ahh-faiydd -breath- hen-fer-maaay-shun). A hokey line, but was she trying to be clever, or truthful? It increased his concern—even if everything about this girl otherwise told him she lacked the confidence essential to charming foreign diplomats and Heads of State. But maybe it was just her act… Everyone had one, and after years of role-playing himself, if this was her game, he had to admire her level of skill. If she was the target, he’d know soon enough. Right now, he had other things to worry about.
Like, where the hell was Holli? If he missed the plane, everything was screwed. He glanced at his watch and frowned. Ten minutes. He had ten minutes…
Aside from the woman, this thing with the other flight and the place crawling with airport security gave him the jitters. On the other hand, it made for good cover. Just play it as you go, he reminded himself. Don’t work to hard at it…
He glanced again at his watch. Time to move. With calculated ease, he started toward the men’s room.
As if on cue, Holli sauntered briskly into the lobby, briefcase in hand. His men trailed closely behind him. A subtle look from the man in the gray suit ricocheted to several different points around the lobby. Ian moved to the payphone. The four others held their position, eyes darting tensely around the room. Their orders—if the slightest thing went wrong, open fire, kill until killed—were not given by the man in the gray suit. In fact, as he entered the men’s room, his main concern was that one of them would lose their cool or overreact to something, especially if the penchant for martyrdom reared its ugly head.
He made a thorough check of all the stalls, which revealed only two pairs of feet. Probably as good as it was going to get, especially if things quieted off in the lobby. He had no time. As quickly and silently as possible, he thrust his arm through the mouth of the first trash bin by the urinals, digging down through soggy paper towels until his hand hit something solid.
By the time the first toilet flushed, he’d hoisted out a black Nikon camera bag, rectangular shaped, and large enough to hold two cameras and an assortment of lens. In the privacy of a stall, once opened, the bag revealed camera equipment alright, but that was just the first layer. From beneath a thin sheet of coned foam rubber came a 9mm semi-automatic, with silencer.
Yes, his Glock... Come to Papa baby, but he usually didn’t use a silencer… It had pissed him off to have part with it for a couple of days. He’d had to borrow Nidal’s shitty Ruger… wouldn’t shoot a hole in a piece of paper at 50-fucking feet…Oh course, some people thought Glocks were shitty… Drug dealers choice and gangsta bling—yeah, but he could get off the shot while they were still trying to switch off the Beretta’s safety…
The Glock he loaded and placed in the holster already fastened beneath his suit coat. The silencer he put back in the bag. What he didn’t remove from the bag: three hand grenades, six magazines for 9 mm handguns, and a Scorpion CZ 61 mini sub—were more than enough to reduce an airliner to shrapnel.
There was also a roll of duct tape, which he tossed back in, then re-covered the weapons with the foam and cameras. He zipped and shouldered the bag, then exited the stall.
So far, so good. The whole operation from the hardware perspective was going almost exactly as arranged. He didn’t plan on using the mini sub, but it was there for the unexpected. The others had already retrieved their similar gear. It amazed him how easy it had all been—with plants in both the Aero-Trans booking offices as well as some airliner maintenance employees, and several thousand American dollars for the janitor responsible for tidy toilets in the gate lobbies.
Almost perfect… Time to prepare for the next act, his next persona—a role that he did not relish—the heavy-accented, but well-spoken political extremist who could intellectualize all forms of death, murder and mayhem for the sake of the cause…
Before heading for the door, he pulled the news clipping from his breast pocket to study one last time. The woman in the grainy, slightly out-of-focus photo had a crown on her head and a bouquet of roses in her arms. The black and white photo had suffered from over-enlargement, so fair hair and distorted pageant-winner smile was about all he could make of the woman’s features. The caption read: Miss American Goodwill To Pay Egyptian President Birthday Visit. He felt a prick of irritation as he folded the clipping and slid it back in his pocket.
Yes, Everything as ordered, but not quite. She should not be here. The Ambassador had been his idea, but not the woman. He’d sent out that communiqué over a week ago, so what happened? Maybe the missive had not reached the right hands in time. Knowing some of the bumblers he’d dealt with behind desks in the D.C. office—paper-pusher types too unimaginative, or just too goddamned queasy for the field… It might still be on someone’s desk under a mini model-of-the-Pentagon paperweight. Or maybe they thought it was a dud or bluff. He knew from personal experience of rookie training days when they might stake out a target for weeks, only to find that the trail had gone cold, or never existed at all. Meanwhile, in another city—or maybe another jurisdiction or sovereignty all together—the action of a terror bombing or assassination of some rival leader or legitimate head of state would go down. The next day the press and video clips of the scene would be part of the morning briefing… This an old terrorist trick to keep the enemy on their toes—but off balance—so that in fact, one never knew whether the next moment would be a waltz or a death march.
Concerning the American woman, the Rome operative had been clueless last night when they’d met at one of Rome’s packed dance clubs. The American been more interested in the women that kept wandering up to stand near them. A steady parade of tits and ass…
Yes, he’d been there the night before with some of the other squad members. My how the word spread... They made it almost too easy for him. Like a fucking rock star, especially if he was packing the Glock too… Ciao bella. Handgun: Like having an extra cock.
A blonde and brunette duo in mini skirts came over to where the two men were seated at the bar. Last night, he’d had the brunette, but tonight, it was the blonde who practically shoved her tits in his face. She’d had on some kind of little studded bolero-type top and nothing else from the hips up. He’d laughed and put an arm around her bare midriff, offered to buy them both drinks, but explained that—unfortunately, he had other plans.
The blonde looked deprived. The American—youngish, but a fairly ordinary-looking sort—looked almost betrayed. “When are you coming back to Rome? We really should do this more often…”
“Yeah, sometime…” He got up and left the other agent sitting there with a stunned look. He made his exit after tossing the equivalent of $200 American dollars in Lira down on the bar for the women. He hoped he’d conveyed the message with his parting black glare that he wasn’t happy with the situation and the lack of confirmation about the woman. He’d really wanted to kick the shit out of something or someone at that point, so the dude was actually pretty lucky, whether he got any pussy last night or not… He’d checked earlier at the hotel where the woman was supposed to have been booked. They said nobody by that name had checked in, but that could have been a security measure.
So nothing to do but wait and see. Essentially, at this point, the woman’s fate was out of his hands. He’d done what he could, but he had a job to do. If she boarded the plane, it would be to her misfortune. He had no choice but to deliver. The Ambassador—a former attaché to Lebanon with ties both then and now to the CIA—should have been prize enough, but at the last minute, the bastard got greedy. He saw the newspaper photo and he wanted the woman too.
And what Oafkir Ismaili wanted—he, Karim El Azhar, son of Ahmed the carpenter of Salheyin—intended to see that he got. It was part of the plan, for now.
By the time Karim left the men’s room, the lobby had returned to some semblance of normalcy. At least two passengers had been arrested, and the rest scheduled for flight had been guaranteed they’d be off the ground within the hour. He’d passed through the last security checkpoint on entering the lobby area, so when three other Aero-Trans flights arrived right on schedule, Karim proceeded to the proper gate, the camera bag dangling casually from his shoulder, and boarded one of them.
Back in the lobby, Aero-Trans employees with clipboards circulated through the thinning crowd, taking down information that would enable them to match passengers to available seats on other flights. Angel still sat on the row of plastic chairs, hands now twisting nervously in her lap, bags spread around her feet like a wall of defense. She’d already given one of the airport personnel her name and destination. The woman had assured her she’d be called momentarily. The call came, just as the first plane, now filled to capacity, taxied to the runway.
“Miss Smith?”
“Yes?” Angel nodded as she approached the information desk.
The woman at the desk peered over her glasses at Angel before making a swift notation with her pencil on the clipboard in her hand. “Party of one, right?”
Angel nodded again.
“We’ve had a cancellation on flight 433 to Cairo. I have one seat left. Would you like me to reschedule you for that flight? It leaves in five minutes.”
Angel thought for a moment. “That would be great, but… My destination is Khartoum.”
“I can work that out on the computer. Just stop by the front desk when you arrive in Cairo, and they’ll have arranged another flight for you to Khartoum.”
Still confused, Angel asked, “What about my luggage?”
"Its being transferred right now.”
“Well I guess I’m set then.” Angel smiled, but still felt worried.
The woman was too busy to smile back.
“Gate Five please,” she said, before returning her attention to her clipboard.
Five minutes, Angel thought to herself. Then, five minutes! Oh Lord. She snatched up her bags from the desk and ran.
At gate five, a stewardess herded her out an exit door and onto the tarmac, where stairs were being wheeled up to the door of the departing airliner. Immediately after they scrambled up the steps and boarded, the door closed behind them and the plane began to move away from the terminal. Angel could only hope her luggage had been shuffled aboard as speedily. Clothes and extra toiletries could be replaced, but no way she could live without her books for six months. With that on her mind, she followed the stewardess up the aisle, blushing as other passengers curiously eyed her as the one that had caused them further delay.
They passed the small kitchen galley, then entered a section in front that was partitioned off from the rest of the passengers. Angel waited in the aisle while the stewardess located an empty overhead compartment for her carry-on. Except for an elderly couple in the back row, the entire section seemed to be filled with dour-looking men in suits.
The seats here were more padded and spacious than the ones in the back of the plane where she normally rode. As the stewardess motioned Angel toward an empty window seat in the third row, it dawned on her that she must be in First Class.
“There must be some mistake,” Angel said hesitantly.
“The stewardess frowned. “Mistake, Signorina?
“I’m afraid I haven’t a ticket for First Class.”
“This is the only seat left,” the stewardess said. Then seeing that Angel still hesitated, she sighed heavily and gestured toward the empty seat. As the plane began to pick up speed, she added tersely, “Go on, go on, the extras are on us—for the inconvenience.”
Angel moved around her, then stopped again, waiting for the man in the aisle seat, his face hidden by the newspaper he was reading, to notice that she needed to get by him.
“Signore?” the Stewardess intervened, rapping him on the shoulder. “Sir? Would you mind moving so the signorina can get to her seat?”
The newspaper snapped shut, and the man looked up. Dark eyes passed over the stewardess, then met with Angel’s startled blue ones.
“Certainly,” he replied with that same smooth, if pronounced accent she remembered from earlier.
Angel’s pulse began to race. The man raised unhurriedly, but his eyes burned into hers. He seemed, almost angry to see her standing there. She threw the stewardess a pleading look but the woman only glared back. Heads of the other passengers in the cabin were beginning to turn in her direction.
“Hurry, hurry,” the stewardess snapped as the plane gunned forward for take-off, and Angel realized she had no choice but to sit down and do it quickly, before she caused a scene.
She did wish he’d step out into the aisle and give her more room to pass, but she dared not ask. The space between the seats was roomy, but not that roomy, and she realized there was no way she could get by him without bodily contact. Urged on by the stewardess, who was practically pushing her forward now, she attempted to scoot around him, trying hard not to brush against him.
Unfortunately, at that moment the plane gave a lurch as the whine of the wheels on pavement turned to the hum of lift-off. Angel stumbled, catching the heel of her brand new navy pump on the strap of what appeared to be a large rectangular-shaped camera bag jutting out from beneath his seat. The man suddenly lost his bland expression. His eyes registered alarm.
Thinking only that she was about to fall, Angel clutched at his coat to steady herself. His jaw clenched white. Like lightning his arms shot out to grip her by the waist. After whisking her off her feet, he shoved her into the seat she’d been trying to reach, then continued to loom over her, one hand fixed to the back of her seat, the other thrust tensely inside his jacket.
Angel stared up at him, wide-eyed. Any protests she might have had died on her lips as he bore down on her with an ebony gaze so cold and menacing it seemed to penetrate her very soul. A shiver of fear crept up her spine and she looked around wildly. The stewardess was nowhere in sight. The other passengers had turned back to their newspapers, adjusting their seatbelts or just bracing themselves against the tilt as the airliner began to climb.
Time hung suspended in dark, fathomless depths before finally, the man let his arms fall to his sides. He continued to stare down on her—now more in shock than any sort of threatening manner. Angel watched, mesmerized as he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. His gaze was pensive, seeming to look through her. Whatever haunted those eyes seemed almost tangible. The pain of it cut through her like a knife.
Unbidden and disjointed, it came to her from a passage she thought she’d long forgotten: Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep…
There passed if any pass, the void profound of unessential Night receives him next
Wide gaping, and with utter loss of being…
This from Milton’s Paradise Lost, which she’d read obsessively for a period during her early teen years, then studied again in college. The beautiful Lucifer, and his fall from grace… His two incarnations had shamefully fascinated her…
In that instant before he’d had time to re-mask his features, Angel realized how young he really was. Not yet thirty. Yet there was nothing youthful about him. Whatever lurked down inside of him, that blackness she’d glimpsed, overshadowed anything carefree. If she hadn’t been the object of his mercurial display, Angel might have given in the tug of melancholy prompted by his eyes. As it was, she felt only relief when he turned from her and sat down.
She hurriedly fastened her seat belt, even though she felt the plane beginning to level off. He popped the gum he was chewing and stared off into space. Angel watched him in amazement, wondering—just like she had in the lobby—if she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. An ominous cut of his eyes in her direction warned her, she hadn’t. Again she thought of calling the stewardess, but remembering the woman’s impatience with her, decided against it. There seemed to be little else she could do but try and gather what was left of her shredded composure, and endure.
“Fate…” he murmured. “Ya rabbee… Ma feena nihrob min adarna.”
“I beg your pardon?” Angel asked, keeping her tone as cool as possible.
His eyes narrowed, burning into hers. There was a slight hesitation, but then he said smoothly, “We cannot escape our fate… I’m Arabic, not French. You’d asked me earlier, remember?” He seemed to be watching her intently for reaction.
Fate?
Angel stared back at him. His expression was still not the least bit friendly. If this was some kind of pick-up line, it was falling flat. Still, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from thinking, Arabic… Like Aladdin, Arabian Nights… It had been a long time—since childhood really—that she’d read any of those tales. To talk with him could be fascinating…
But his eyes—still black… Now cold as stone, made her remember her discomfort. Hot and cold… Fire and ice…
“Well how nice for you…” she said with what she hoped was the same touch of sarcasm he’d used on her earlier. She felt instant guilt for being rude—as her southern upbringing required—but she was tired of trying to puzzle out this baffling and unpleasant stranger. She presented him with the back of her head for a while, staring out the window so she couldn’t see his reaction, which she was certain would only unsettled her further.
Immediately after the “NO SMOKING” sign flicked off, almost everyone in the cabin lit up except Angel. He smoked Gitanes. One after the other. Angel’s eyes began to tear, then burn with running mascara. She looked desperately toward the bathroom, just a few steps away, but it might as well have been a mile the line was so long. Finally, vanity and comfort won out over propriety. She reached for her purse and dug out a compact.
Though she would have thought it impossible, the reflection staring back at her confirmed that she looked even worse than she felt. Her mascara was indeed starting to run, and her hair had all but fallen. Grabbing out a hairbrush and a Kleenex, she went to work, tackling first those hideous streaks of black beneath her eyes. With that out of the way, she felt more human, and proceeded to fish through her hair for all the useless pins. When she hit on the right one, the entire mass of her thick hair came bouncing down in waves and loose curls, grazing the man’s shoulder as it fell almost to her waist. As she tossed long, feathered bangs back from her face (Ruth Ann hadn’t talked her into the chair for a while…), she happened to capture in the mirror, two dark eyes, watching her intently.
Good Night Alive! What was it with this fella, anyhow? Snapping the compact shut, Angel whirled around and gave him her own black look, which didn’t faze him in the least. He continued to stare rudely at her, taking leisurely drags off his cigarette, until her gaze broke and wavered to the hairbrush now sitting idly in her lap.
Since she was trying not to engage him in further conversation, and laying the hairbrush upside of his arrogant head seemed a little melodramatic, Angel chose to tilt her chin in the air and turn away. She picked up the brush and ran it through her hair a few strokes, feeling more by the minute like a bug being dissected under a microscope. Really???
Just when she’d decided she’d had enough and turned around to tell him so, he stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and took a few steps to join the bathroom queue. The line had dwindled down to a couple of round old ladies from the tourist section, and another young man with dark hair that spiraled in thick curls to his shoulders. He also looked like he could be Italian, Greek, or Arabic. He had a gold hoop earring in one ear, wore Calvin Klein jeans with a prominent logo, and white Reebok sneakers. His denim jacket was unbuttoned just far enough to reveal the “U-2” printed across the front of his tee-shirt. Strangely, he had a rather large gray gym bag dangling from one shoulder. While he was much younger than the man in the gray suit, who now stood behind him in line, there was a similar beauty in his face that made Angel wonder if they weren’t both from the same region. The two men struck up a conversation. They spoke to one another in a language she was unfamiliar with. In spite of guttural inflections with hard consonants, there were also a lot of repeating vowels—in particular soft “a” and even double short “a’a” sounds, which lent their words a musical, rhythmic quality—like poetry. So this must be Arabic…
Angel heard the rattle of the snack cart coming up the aisle from the galley, and tried to concentrate only on what she would order when it reached her. The two men continued to talk—which really wasn’t all that strange—but she did think it odd they way they leaned so close to one another, speaking in whispers rather than normal volume. They both tossed Angel a few dark, side-long glances, which made her uncomfortable. Odder still, they both glanced at their watches and nodded before the younger man disappeared into the lavatory. As Angel pondered this, the man in the gray suit suddenly turned and caught her, for once, staring at him. Angel reddened and quickly looked away, almost sighing in relief when the snack cart pulled between them, blocking off his dark return. When the stewardess inquired, Angel still didn’t know if she wanted Coke or 7-Up, almonds or pretzels, and ended up with black coffee so strong it left a film on the sides of the cup.
With a grimace, she let the tray down, pushing the offending cup to the far back of it. After a while, she snuck another furtive glance at the bathroom line, but her nemesis, and the younger man, had both disappeared. She couldn’t help thinking that the man was taking an inordinately long amount of time inside. Not that she was complaining, of course. He could spend the rest of the flight in there as far as she was concerned. Stifling a yawn, she leaned back and closed her eyes. She could hear the stewardess carrying on an animated conversation with a man in the front row. She thought she heard her address him as “Ambassador Hollingsworth”.
An Ambassador she has time for… Isn’t that the way of things? Angel noted dryly. Who cares if some poor school teacher from Tennessee has to ride all the way to Cairo beside a—a—
The thought trailed off abruptly as, from the back of the plane came a shout—something akin to a war cry, followed by a bloodcurdling scream that sent the hair rising at the nape of Angel’s neck.
More screams and shouts rent the air, punctuated by the sound of rapid feet.
Rebel yells. Angel thought in the abstract, but familiar—like the boys revving up their big-wheel pick-ups in the parking lot of the Tasty Freeze on the first day of hunting season.
Her eyes flew open. The glitter of the ruby ring caught sunlight streaming through the window, and then she saw the gun. A weapon of death, and from behind it, his beautiful face, like David, appeared like stone. His eyes held the same fierceness, the same purposeful intent, that same strange fire from earlier. The man in the gray suit… Like a flood, things suddenly came together in her mind. Oh God, why hadn’t she known?
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I love the way you describe Karim. Very smooth, about his business, good at what he does. I imagine he’s good looking. I love the intense look he always has. Very, very good descriptions.
The more i’m reading, the more i’m seeing that you really don’t need to elaborate on her interest in literature. You give enough hints, such as her not wanting to go without her books for 6 months and the way she always quotes her favorite authors. No further explanation of her passion is needed.
Yes, the italics are a bit distracting. I notice you use them when you’re being clever, or thoughtful, or when you say something profound, etc. but if i were you, i would only use them for emphasis.
Angel thinks Karim’s pickup lines fall flat but i like them (hehe) :-). They’re subtle enough to be casual but overt enough to be flirtatious. The fact that she isn’t impressed makes things more interesting, though. I like that she is so unaware of her good qualities.
I definitely definitely definitely think you should go with your alternate title. I love it.
Once again, brilliant ending. Loved it. Now its getting really good. On to chapter 3.
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Oh, poor Karim haha. “He’s an Arab with mean eyes! He must be a terrorist! I should have known!”
I didn’t catch any spelling errors, and since we’ve already learned that I don’t know how to use commas, I’m going to assume that there weren’t any grammatical errors either.
You did do the whole italics/ellipses thing again this chapter, though. You write in a way that your characters are really pushed through their thoughts and their actions. I really don’t think you need to emphasize more than their thoughts, and you’ll still retain your writer’s voice. Once again, ellipses are only used when a quote is missing something. So far, none of your quotes are missing anything.
This chapter strikes the balance that your last chapter should have. There is a suitable amount of information about Karim and Karim’s past and his interactions with people to justify his actions, but not so much that you’re reading six or seven pages of flashback. Information is like a good, strong balsamic vinegar: when used correctly and sparingly it can bring out a lot of flavor, but use too much and it overwhelms the natural taste whatever you’re putting it in (My Italian is coming out – food metaphors).
I loved two descriptions in particular in here: the coffee and the NO SMOKING. I’m not old enough to remember a time when you actually could smoke in airplanes, but they all still have the NO SMOKING signs anyway. Shows you how old our planes are! The coffee was funny. Does it smell and look like carburetor oil? Yeah. Then it’s either carburetor oil or Middle Eastern coffee. That stuff can put hair on your chest! Wait, maybe that’s why men from the Middle East are so hairy. The coffee. It all makes sense now! Haha.
Anyway, on the flip side of that, there was one description I didn’t like. The whole deal with Karim’s little arsenal being able to reduce an airliner to shrapnel. Most international flights run on planes ranging from 737s to 777s (the newest release being the enormous 787). Probably for the time, it would be a 757, considering the plane, now, is over 10 years old. These are big, big, big passenger planes. Even when they hit the ground and explode, jet fuel only burns at around, with clean oxygen, 1,000 degrees Celsius, which is 725 degrees C too low to melt the titanium used in building an airplane. At best, a grenade let off in the cabin of an aircraft would leave a highly mangled, but still plane-shaped, chunk of metal falling out of the sky. Just my two scientific cents, there.
So far your work has gotten progressively better. I’m feeling more and more sorry for the poor manipulated Angel…who doesn’t even know that she’s been manipulated yet.
These few paltry errors are the best I could do:
(Don’t work to hard at it…) – too, instead of, to.
(to have part with it) – to part?
(The Glock he loaded and placed in the holster already fastened beneath his suit coat. The silencer he put back in the bag.) – Does ‘Glock’ need a comma after it?
(This an old terrorist trick) – was
(The American been more interested…) – being/had been?
(given in the tug of melancholy…) – to the tug?
(You’d asked me earlier, remember?) – You asked me…?
(would only unsettled her further.) – unsettle
(odd they way they leaned) – odd the way they…
And you’re use of ellipses jarred a bit…I kept having to double-check around their vicinity to see if I was missing something else, and I never was.
Did her hair really reach out across the aisle to graze his shoulder?
You did a good job of explaining why someone who appears to run things as tightly as Karim, would be party to such a degree of mistaken identity. One thing though, he quite rightly points out that a pageant babe would be taller, and then decides that this—along with the slightly different accent, and personality—could be an act…but how can you act taller?
The three syllables out of ‘have’ comment was great, as was your breakdown of ‘classified information’. But I found the rest of Karim’s thoughts on her accent hindered my desire to get past that section. I know, I know he’s trying to figure out if she’s the right girl and all, and he’s being thorough…but if you want me to accept that paragraph then you’ll have to write a less engaging story overall.
And that’s as much as I can find to critique. The characterisation is very good. Angel’s thoughts and actions near the end are very realistic. I have every confidence in your ability to turn your prologue around now.
A solid chapter.
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