Sussex rd

SUSSEX ROAD: A Political Novel (In Progress) By Melissa Hailey and Tony Solorzano INTRODUCTION: Located near the conjunction of the Rideau and Ottawa Rivers, sits the residence of the Canadian Prime Minister. The house, located on Promenade Sussex, or Sussex Road in English, overlooks the river and the province of Quebec. Unlike the house's British equivalent of Downing Street, the Prime Minister's Residence acts as the buffer between the Prime Minister's official work and his or her personal and family life. However, in politics, just like in life, that line is not always so clearly defined... Cast The Right Honorable Prime Minister of Canada Jordan Innis: She is a tall charismatic redhead. Her ride to power has been meteoric. In less than decade she has gone from local government to Provincial and now her newest title Prime Minister of Canada. She suffers from imposter's syndrome and relies heavily on her aide to help guide her. She looks after him while turning a blind eye to his projects and past. Davic Woods: Loyal workaholic aide and best friend to Jordan Innis. He is tall blond with piercing ice blue eyes, always in a sharp suit and never far from his Blackberry phone. He prefers to work behind the scenes paving the way for Jordan to successfully rule. He shields her from the dark realities of politics. His tragic past is something that he keeps hidden. Don’t let his lanky frame fool you as he will not back down from conflict. Rigo Barbosa: Hot blooded Latino-American sports writer turned husband to Jordan Innis. He has never been fond of the other man in Jordan's life. He sees him as an obstacle and an annoyance who is always showing up when Rigo finally has some alone time with his wife. Street wise but politically naive. Nigella Thacher: Childish adult daughter of the British Prime Minister. She always wanted to be a Bond girl, and Davic is the closest thing to her legendary spy so far. She looks forward to stealing away with her Agent Q. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Basil Thacher: Chessmaster of Politics. He is not a fan of the US President and will use the political pawns at his disposal to maneuver any situation in his favor. Big fan of Machiavelli's “The Prince” and Sun Tzu's “Art of War”. Sees his daughter dating Davic as a power alliance to get Canada on side with his goals. Royal Marine Colonel Randall Benton Smyth OBE: An Intelligence Corps officer. He carries guilt over a mission that ended in the brutal torture of three of his men. The one man that saved them from a fate worse than death was the barely old enough to shave computer nerd, Davic Woods. He feels he owes “the boy” his life and will find a way to repay it, somehow. He retired from the field and is the Liaison Officer and Advisor between the British intelligence community and Prime Minister Thatcher. CSIS Assistant Director of Technology Cy Drew: Davic’s foster father and oldest friend. He too holds the guilt of what happened to Davic and will do what is in his power to protect him. He is glad to see him back in Ottawa and reasonably happy again. President of the United States Beau Delacroix: First openly gay president. From New Orleans and has a fondness for manly things like croc wrestling and excessive drinking bouts. His showmanship style of politics got him into office, but it also threatens to unseat him. He knows how Davic Woods operates and worries he is in the cross hairs. First “Lady” of the United States Quentin “Queenie” Delacroix: Drag queen and effeminate spouse of the President. Since the tall blond and handsome Canadian aide never made a pass at the beautiful Prime Minister the sharp dresser must be as queer as a three dollar bill. Add a little social lubricant should make for a fun evening. Beau will certainly enjoy his boyish good looks. Alexandra Potvin: She is a French Canadian Protocol Officer in the PMO. Strongly dislikes the American spouse of the PM. She is intrigued by the anglophone prairie boy PM aide Woods. Leader of his Majesty's Loyal opposition Regina Myerson: Cunning competent leader of the opposition. Her job is to make Innis look bad and get her out of office so she can be Prime Minister. She is not above playing dirty to accomplish her aims. The American husband is a potential easy target and she is going to use it for all that it is worth. Keith Pagent: Leader of a minor political party. Notorious drunk Marxist. Can’t stand the slimy bourgeoisie Innis and lets her know his mind. If he could just remember which account he is using to buy the bottles of booze that keeps showing up on his desk. Parliamentary Security Services Captain Morgan Remy: Head of the detail assigned to protect the Prime Minister. He is a gruff retired military officer. As long as the PM is safe he is happy. He knows if that lanky lackey gets himself killed she will throw a fit. It is not his fault that the lackey knowingly puts himself in danger. Granted he is good at fixing the computer and he is worth keeping around for that. John Bowser :CIA operative who gets his marching orders direct from the President. He is convinced Woods is a spy and has been turned by foreign interests. Either way he has to be stopped before he can damage the President of the United States. Now if CSIS would give him a free hand in this matter. PROLOGUE: The Boy and the Butchers Royal Marines Regimental Aid Post Tango X-Ray, Somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border 10 years before the election “We cannot tell him what happened!” An older British officer stood at the side of a bed in the aid post, squeezing the hand of a badly wounded comatose young man. “The doctors tell me if he wakes up, he will not remember any of it!” the officer said, raising his voice. Royal Marine Colonel Randall Benton Smyth wasn’t going to let the thought of the boy not waking up cross his mind. He had pulled rank to ensure the wounded civilian got the best care the post could offer. The whole task force called Technical Analyst Davic Woods, “The Boy.” Davic was in his early 20’s but due to his thin stature and baby face he still looked like a teen. His dimples made it difficult for him to be taken seriously. He had no business anywhere near combat. The British borrowed him for his expertise in electronic surveillance. The goal was to track down a particularly barbarous cell nicknamed the Butchers, known for the brutality they inflicted on the local population. He was trained to defend himself and would even spar with the guys. They usually overpowered him quickly; all of the soldiers were at least twice his weight. He spent most of the time pinned to the mat. Being all arms and legs and not the most coordinated, he was at a disadvantage. The team saw him as their mascot. He was the first spook they knew besides their Commander, Colonel Smyth. The skinny kid made a point of sharing his maple syrup and coffee. He was generally liked in a slightly annoying kid brother way, but not someone you could trust in a tight spot. He definitely would not have your back. They now knew how wrong they were in that assessment. Davic was not supposed to be in real combat. His place was in front of a computer finding the location of the bad guys. Colonel Smyth had been impressed with Tech Woods’ skills and had even floated the idea of keeping Davic on a long term loan to the British. That line of enquiry was now moot. The boy had shown so much potential, it now seemed a horrific waste. Commander Colonel Smyth shook his head. “At least every last one of those sadistic bastards is dead. They deserved a slow agonizing death, just like what they did to their victims. It is a mercy to the world they are gone,” he said as he grasped the bed rail in anger, his knuckles turning white. “I would have never thought he would be capable of such a thing. He was the only person who was not chained up. I heard the fight. Somehow after being hit in the head he managed to bring a set of keys back to us in the cells.” He continued looking at the angry wound on the young man’s head. Smyth remembered getting himself unlocked and as he freed the rest of the team, his body ached from being in a stress position for days. He watched the lights fade from Davic’s eyes as he crumpled into a heap, blood and gore covering his thin form. Davic’s hand reaching out for something only he could see. The last thing the boy had said to him was to call him “Dad”. He knew it must be confusion from the head trauma. It still stuck with him and bothered him. He felt some paternal instinct to protect the boy. He had never felt this way to any of the men under his charge. He also knew Davic was not a child, and certainly not his son. The vaguely Asian looking man who sat on the other side of the blond man nodded, still in shock seeing his former foster son in an almost unrecognizable state. “How did this happen to him, he is just an intel tech analyst, a computer nerd of the highest order better suited for the Communication Security Establishment.” He tried to discern a familiar feature from the swollen red mass that lay before him. The distinctive ice blue eyes were swollen shut. Davic’s horrific screams still echoed in the Commander’s head. He knew they would reverberate in his mind for the rest of his life. “We owe Tech Woods our lives. He somehow saved us from a fate worse than death,” he said, squeezing the boy's hand just to make sure he was still reacting to pain. Davic feebly tried to pull away, the air casts limiting his movement. This had been an improvement to when he was in the back of a stolen pick-up truck and Rossco, the medic had nearly put a nail through his foot as he lay there like a sack of flour. Rossco called him “expectant”. He did not expect him to still be alive by the time evacuation came. Rossco went so far as to tell the guys “He is gone, he just forgot to stop breathing and has a stubborn heart,” The men were crestfallen and they cleaned up the boy as they waited for the rescue team to arrive. They tried to at the very least restore some dignity to him. The military man quivered under his flimsy hospital gown. His hand picking at the bandages around his wrists. “The Butchers came for us in the dead of the night.” said the Commander, his eyes becoming vacant staring to a distant point beyond the room. “Brown and Kenworth were on guard duty. The shots woke me. I grabbed my side arm and went for the Radio. Communications were down. Smoke filled the villa. I was choking on it. I managed to hide under the bed. We all knew what they did to the people they took. Two weeks later they showed up as agonized corpses.” Smyth was still haunted by the image of a little boy the butchers had doused in petrol and lit on fire as a warning to the village to not talk to Westerners. “Woods managed to make it to my room. He was holding out his cell phone choking on the smoke. Seems your Canadian tech had figured a way around the jamming and had phoned British HQ, but he was unable to speak. Apparently the call was utterly untraceable.” he said remembering the ice blue eyes threatening to roll back in the blond man’s head. Davic had fallen a few times but somehow he had pressed forward. He held out the phone to him. At the time Smyth did not understand what he was trying to do. “After the Butchers subdued Brown and Kenworth, they gassed us,” Smyth said he recalled the shock on the boy’s face as his feet were grabbed and he was dragged across the room. They intended to sell Davic as a s****l favor to men of power. They thought he was kept by the task force for that purpose. “Bacha bazi, is what they called him. A dancing boy.” Both men’s blood ran cold as they knew what it meant. “Did they?” asked Cy Drew a member of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) brass. He really hoped the answer was a resounding no. Davic’s isolated childhood somehow made him more innocent. Smyth nodded and looked away. Both men sat there in silence. The anger welling up in them. “He may act like the old professor, but he looks like some skinny teenaged kid and that was what they assumed he was ...um… is...” he trailed off. “We can’t tell him, that alone would ruin any chance of a life for him. He is only in his early 20’s if he lives and is not too brain damaged he has a chance at a normal life.” Drew insisted. The two men agreed that this whole incident particularly what happened in the butcher chamber would be kept from him. They would do what they could to make sure he got a full and happy life in lieu of the medals and awards he deserved.