Christopher Chance's Blog

BLOWN, is the title of my latest screenplay. This is a spec-script, so called because I wasn't commissioned to write it (speculative). Written entirely of my own volition; a need to create a piece of work about an idea using real people as the characters, people who I met on my travels.

There are two female assassins in the story, they are Al Qaida terrorists. I utilised my experience with female ETA terrorists (who I knew personally) to create these two beautiful jihadists. The terrorist skills differ somewhat in so much as the ETA girls were bombers and the Arab ladies are snipers. Nevertheless, their fanaticism for their causes is equal.

The other people in the story are clones of IRA terrorists who I knew from my time in Ulster; Arab drug lords, senior officials in the judiciary, police, military, politics and immigration (not in UK), and phantoms of the night on North African beaches who loaded my boat with cannabis resin... every single one of them a law breaker.

On the side of 'Good' (for want of a better word), are people who I met during my military career; dedicated professionals in pursuit of terrorists. They are the people I use in the employ of the British Secret Service. They are characters I know well because I used them in my book, ASSASSINS CODE 1, which, fortunately I own the film rights to because I am about to adapt that book as a screenplay.

I decided to write this blog to answer the questions my friends ask me time and again. So to give you a taste of what writers do, I will add a 'logline' and a very short treatment/synopsis of BLOWN and maybe next week I will post the first ten pages or so to show you what a feature film script looks like and to give you the opportunity to critique my work. Constructive feedback is always welcome but I must tell you to contact me via my website and not on Wordpress because the spam is so thick I have to delete it page by page. Goodreads guys use the comments box. Anyway, have a look at the logline and treatment.

LOGLINE FOR BLOWN.

A lone British deep cover agent (MI6), posing as a drug runner is blackmailed by Al Qaida into smuggling terrorists into Europe. He must foil their assassination plot to kill top international government officials attending the Industrial World Fair, thereby preventing a global jihad. An action packed journey into the underbelly of terrorism and drug smuggling.

SHORT TREATMENT FOR BLOWN.

A successful hashish smuggler, CASH BEASANT, comes to the attention of AQIM (Al Qaida Islamic Mahgreb), operating in North Africa. They blackmail CASH into smuggling terrorists from Africa into Europe in order to assassinate the German Chancellor, the Chinese Premier and other World Leaders attending the Hanover Messe 2012, the worlds largest Industrial Fair.

The assassination plot was planned by the Russians and Hezbollah. Double agent Shiites infiltrate the Sunni Muslim Wahhabi Sect in order to shift the blame of the assassinations to the Sunnis, who are unaware of the true targets, which include the King of Morocco.

The terrorist connection with senior police and immigration officers creates even more intrigue when the DST (Moroccan Counter Intelligence) becomes involved when they learn of the attempt on the King's life.

The intrigue starts on a remote beach in Morocco and continues to Spain; Tangier, Casablanca, Nador, back to Spain and then to Amsterdam, culminating in Hanover, where all the surviving players die... except Cash, who is revealed at the end as being a deep cover agent for the British Secret Service (MI6). Each leg of the journey contains a loss of life incident, but the violence ends on a high note with the reunion of Cash with his sweetheart, CARMEN, who he thought was killed by his captors.

More in the near future.

Best,
Chris.

It was winter, 2007 when I was extradited from France to Spain. After first being incarcerated in the Douai dungeon, I was transferred to Fresnes prison near Paris. Fresnes is notorious for being the harshest prison in France but I was soon to find myself in a much darker place.

I stood on tiptoe to see through my cell window, the falling snow, wispily settling on the coils of razor wire mounted around the high walls of Daroca prison. The night was coming in fast so it was disheartening to see the shadows across the bleak countryside through the coils of wire as my spirits fell to a new low.

Even the name of the place sounds ominous; Daroca, say it to yourself, it is not a nice word is it? It goes well with the bleak landscape and approaching storm.

I climbed into my bed as the night enveloped the prison and the volume of the rumbling thunder increased. Pulling my blanket around me I listened to the sounds of the night in this evil place and thought about my day and the people I share my space with in this dark corner of the world.

A face looms into my thoughts, a calm face with bushy eyebrows over ice-blue eyes. He looks at me across the dining table in the comedor (canteen), his eyes look right through me as though he is elsewhere. I am sharing my space and the air I breathe with a man who has eaten his wife - a cannibal, and here he is within touching distance chewing on a piece of meat and looking at me!

To my right is a young man who chopped off his uncle's head with a Samurai sword. He chats amiably to the man next to him who raped and mutilated his thirteen year old niece, thirteen was unlucky for her, and especially considering the length of time it took for her to die. I could go on describing the creatures around me but it would become unbelievable for you and you will doubt my word.

The storm is now a tempest and the thunder is reminiscent of ice cracking across a pond, but a million times louder. The lightning is alarming and illuminates my dank cell like a disco strobe light giving me the awful feeling that it is heralding the arrival of something evil and malevolent.

I can hear the cockroaches scratching the floor under my bed as they search for food and beneath that I hear the susurrations of the sleet and rain as it runs in rivulets down my cell window. The muffled sounds of the screams of madmen are barely audible through the thick walls, but they are there; the storm taking its toll on the warped minds of my fellow prisoners.

I feel sleep is near so I curl into my foetal position before taking a last look at the window and falling into sleep.

I could see condensation on the glass, fogging my view of the night sky through the bars of the cell window. The pale glow of the sodium security lights shone through the rivulets of rain on the cracked glass creating a ghostly shimmer.

My heightened sense of imagination played havoc with my mind's eye as I peered through the sparkling glass to see two shimmering points of light which slowly changed colour to that of red glowing coals. Pinpointed in the centre of each red glow is a glittering diamond which formed the eyes of Satan. He is here, hovering over Daroca prison, sinister and threatening.

His murky features taking shape and form with the movement of cloud and the upward glow of prison lights, El Diablo is here, spreading his evil shadow over the netherworld of Daroca.

A numbing sensation sweeps over me, paralysing me with a feeling of total helplessness as the fetid face looms near.

His fangs move as though gnashing his teeth and every sinew of his monstrous form drips with evil as I realise he has come for me. In the silence of the moment I freaked out internally and choked on the scream that didn't come out.

It was as though I was lying face down on a water bed and it was suddenly flipped over so the water bed was suffocating me with its weight. The terrifying emotion of stress and panic created feelings of intense heat across my back followed by ice under the hot skin. My arms and legs felt like they were covered with raspberries because of the size of the goose bumps.

I was frozen with fear as I felt his force searching my soul. 'My God and His son Jesus Christ are in there; so get ye behind me Satan.' The prayers spilled out of me as the fear intensified and the terror gnawed into my heart as the evil loomed over me, trying to consume me.

My heart was racing as the monster's face descended towards me. My chest felt crushed and my stomach started to liquefy as the brilliant white light hit my face.

'Recunto, recuento!' Shouted the duty prison officer, as he performed the final head count of the day, his voice and bright light dissipating the evil red eyes of Satan.

In his accented English, Don Gabriel, the duty screw said, 'Good night, Christopher, the storm has gone. Sleep well, Englishman.'

He slammed the big steel door and noisily crashed the massive bolt home and was gone to chase the demons from the minds of his charges.

I got out of bed and knelt in seizan, the martial arts meditating posture and meditated on my mind cleansing waterfall method of dissipating stress. I then said The Lord's prayer and jumped into bed, never again to be disturbed by Satan, thanks to Gabriel, the angel in prison officers' uniform.

'ASSASSINS CODE 1' is my latest book and will be published on 10th June 11. It is based on actual events that took place after the Munich massacre and the idea came about when I rubbed shoulders with international terrorists in a Spanish prison. They told me about things that may not be in the public domain, so along with my own experiences with terrorists, I created a protagonist to link the events and move the story forward in an exciting way. ARROWSMITH is the protagonist and now I will tell you about what happens in a short synopsis of the story.
A British Secret Service agent is urgently required to infiltrate a terrorist gun running and drug dealing organisation.
The Secret Service is choc full of ex-public schoolboy operatives who are totally unsuited to the task of socialising and dealing with the underclass of heroin dealers and urban terrorists. Good men die trying.
From the other side of the tracks comes, up-through-the-ranks military spook, ARROWSMITH, a flint-hearted Anglo-Saxon who finds himself plucked out of a cadre of undercover operatives training in Germany and inserted into the intrigue of the Joint Services Intelligence Wing at the military HQ in Berlin.
Arrowsmith is under the command of Q, the senior intelligence officer whose office intercepts global intelligence information through various nefarious means and is able to operate outside of normal British Government boundaries and restrictions.
Seemingly unaccountable, Q relentlessly pursues terrorist organisations without the shackles of ministerial control. Q selects Arrowsmith to infiltrate the inner sanctums of terrorist groups as an arms and drugs dealer because he is a proven specimen of strength, endurance and mental agility in the field of shadows. Q also knows about Arrowsmith’s childhood friend, ABDULLA HABIBULLA, who is a Mujahideen warlord, trading heroin and arms in and out of Afghanistan.
Enter KATE MULCAHY, a senior Secret Intelligence Service officer with a wealth of female international intelligence contacts, a priceless asset in the war against the narco-terrorist, a dedicated agent with talented linguistic skills and a hard attitude to all things masculine, whose lesbian traits are crushed by ‘Arrow’ Arrowsmith’s beautiful masculinity. She imparts the secrets of her Zoroastrian ancestry and teaches Arrowsmith secret codes to ensure his safe passage through the mountain passes and primitive trails of the arms and drugs brigands.
Kate’s feelings for Arrow escalate rapidly as they work together along the learning curve of the international secret agent.
Part of his induction into the higher echelons of the Secret Service is joining the VRK Secret Sect, which is a nucleus of Intelligence from which all other departments and agencies are influenced. VRK means Very Restricted Knowledge and the sect is an offshoot from the Brotherhood of Freemasons. Arrowsmith attends his initiation ceremony in the crypt of the Berlin HQ to become a Knight Assassin.
After the ceremony Kate’s affections blossom and their relationship deepens. Eventually, she trusts him implicitly and imparts her knowledge of the precious contacts essential in their cloak and dagger world.
A defecting double agent from East Germany causes a minor hiccup in Arrow’s training so Q tests him and tasks him to deal with the agent. Arrow suffers the loss of a beautiful colleague as he kills the double agent. Arrow returns to West Berlin to learn about his insertion into the terrorist strongholds.
Through the network of terrorists, arms dealers and drug barons; a complicated plot is hatched so the groups involved will get their arms, drugs and money to support their cause. The plot involves ETA; Black September, Mafia, Mujahideen, IRA and Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi.
HANNAH COHEN, a beautiful Shin Bet (Mossad) operator, passes information to Kate Mulcahy regarding the terrorist plot. This raw intelligence enables Q to organise and insert the brazen impostor, Arrowsmith; who successfully infiltrates the organisation and trades heroin and arms with ETA, Black September, Mujahideen and IRA with the help of his warlord friend, Abdulla Habibulla, who also provides a guide on arrival in Peshawar.
IBRAHIM, a Warrior of the Islamic Order of Chivalry (FUTWWA), no less. A brave, experienced assassin, educated at Oxford is assigned to help Arrow in his endeavours. Ibrahim proves his worth in different guises and stays with Arrow till the end.
Arrowsmith’s task is to smuggle 500kg of pure heroin from Afghanistan through Pakistan and on through the Suez Canal to rendezvous with the Claudia, the famous IRA ship captured with tons of weapons and Joe Cahill, the IRA supremo onboard.
The KGB wrongly suspect Arrow’s cargo of heroin is to finance arms for the Mujahideen, so they set about to scupper his yacht in the Arabian Sea. One of Arrow’s crew members is a British double agent working with the KGB. He is assassinated by Hannah Cohen, the Mossad agent, who replaces him as a crew member. She stays on board and witnesses the transferring of the heroin onto the Claudia at the rendezvous somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. Also, on entering Tripoli harbour, Arrow meets two Arabs. Hannah Cohen recognises two high-ranking members of Black September: MAHMUD YUSSUF NAJJER and ZAID MUCHASSI, both on the Mossad ‘Most Wanted’ list, talking with Arrow. (Later, in real life; both these men were assassinated by Mossad).
Hannah Cohen is whisked away by Mossad, leaving Arrow and Ibrahim to sail the yacht to Gibraltar where Arrow recruits an old pal as a crew member, BRIAN FLYNN. Flynnie also stays with Arrow till the end.
Before leaving Tripoli, there is a change of plan. The arms will remain in Tripoli and be loaded onto the Claudia while Arrow takes £2 million to Ireland. The money is the change from the arms deal with MOHAMMED BOUDIA who loads the money onto Arrow’s yacht. Boudia is one of the top men in Black September. (Later, in real life, Mossad’s Wrath of God squad assassinate him in Paris.)
As they cast off in Tripoli harbour, the two Arabs, Muchassi and Yussuf arrive with two female terrorists. The terrorists jump onboard as the Arabs drive away. After disarming them, Arrow reluctantly agrees to take one to Morocco and the other to Ireland. During the journey both girls end up in the sea before reaching their destinations.
After picking up Flynnie in Gibraltar, Arrow puts in to Kinsale harbour and begins the Irish adventure by contacting the IRA to inform them of the £2 million. The Claudia, with tons of weapons and Joe Cahill on board had been arrested at sea, so the money is a big surprise. Eventually, Arrow is accepted into the High Command of the IRA and is instrumental in the planning of future operations: just what Q had planned.
Much of the adventure takes place in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ireland, and Libya and on the high seas. The action is violent, sexy and intriguing. The characters are captivating; alluring and in places, real: though the real ones die a violent death.
The story is based on actual events but is manipulated to induce a compelling read. It ends with Arrowsmith being accepted into the inner sanctum of the terrorist organisation as a hero and as an arms and drugs trader involved in the planning of future terrorist activity.
Q is delighted with his success at placing Arrowsmith at the centre of things and is excited with the prospect of further adventures in the world of international terrorism. Arrow is his new secret weapon, planning his next moves.
I hope you liked my little taste of the story enough to want to read the book.
It will become a screenplay project if it is successful.
Walk in peace,
Christopher Chance.

Valdemoro Prison, Madrid, Spain. 1998.

I arrived on wing 9 (the international wing) after being processed through ingreso, the reception wing of Spain's top security prison. I was carrying my bag of personal belongings and a mattress, sheets and blankets. With aching arms and much relief, I dropped the lot at the bottom of the stairs next to the wing office.
A screw (prison officer) told me to search out any Brits here who I might share a cell with, or he will allocate me a cell. Not wanting to be placed with Arabs, Turks or Gypsies, I hurriedly entered the sala (recreation room) and searched for Northern European faces. I spoke to several frogs, clogs and krauts (French, Dutch and Germans) before I hit on an English face who talked out of the side of his mouth.
He very cautiously questioned me about why I was in Valdemoro. I told him I had been transferred from La Moraleja prison in Dueñas, near Palencia to attend my trial in Madrid. He asked if I knew Kenny Noye was in here. I told him I didn't. He asked if I would like to meet him. I said that I prefer to find a place to live before the screw finds one for me. He told me not to worry because there was a bed in his cell. I immediately went back to the screw and told him I am in with the Brit face.
The Brit accompanied me through the noisy sala into another large recreation room lined with bookshelves and men quietly reading and writing at tables dotted about the place. My new cell-mate told me to wait while he approached a lone figure hunched over a writing pad. He whispered something out of the side of his mouth and stepped back so the man could eyeball me. A perceptive little nod and the Brit face beckoned me over. I walked over to the table to look down on the hard face staring back at me. He looked a bit younger than me and looked tanned and fit. He gave me a craft (masonic) handshake, which I responded to and asked if I needed anything. I pulled a chair and joined him and that was the beginning of getting to know each other. I had just met Britain's public enemy number one, Kenneth Noye.
We didn't become big pals or anything like, but we dined together three times a day, we trained in the gym and we marched around the yard day after day chewing the fat about all kinds of things. There is a lot more to say, but that and what I think about Kenny Noye can wait till my next blog.

I recently published my third prison book as an e-book. I have other works ready for publishing but I am reluctant to e-book them until I see the colour of my royalty cheques.
I wonder about what happened to the typewriter and if conventional books and bookstores will go the same way. Many known authors are now publishing on e-books: Forsyth; King, Follet, just to mention a few.
The most popular Christmas present this year will likely be an e-book app/reader and mothers will soon latch on to the idea because their kids want everything futuristic and cyber and any inducement to kids reading, plus the tidy factor of not having to pick up books in every room of the house will entice them to buy one.
The growth rate of e-books must be a cause for concern amongst publishers and agents, but not for me--I'm only the writer of stories.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christopher-C...
Best,
Chris.