Book Excerpts

Rules of Engagement
By C. Michael Bennis

Chapter III, London, July 1964

Alec ventured out into the great metropolitan ambience of London after a full English breakfast that included scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, black pudding, mushrooms, baked beans, hash brown potatoes, half a tomato and English breakfast tea. The morning’s humid seventy-plus-degree weather beckoned delightfully as Alec walked happily amid the smells of exhaust and the sounds of traffic. The morning was an orchestra of sounds. He was now being entertained with the chirping of unseen birds, and the strange dialogue of rapid speaking Pakistanis at the corner launderette. Alec’s keen senses were totally alive. Now he smiled delightedly with the smells of Balkan pipe tobacco, while ahead a young couple stopped to kiss.
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The Signs of Destiny
By C. Michael Bennis

Chapter I. – Madrid, October 1973
Madrid. It must have been Sunday. The city was nearly vacant and the few individuals I encountered were madly scurrying for shelter from the scattering raindrops. The first day of spring had passed and all of the trees were covered in buds. It was refreshing breathing the smells of the city in the rain for there was a vibrant expectation that tomorrow’s sunshine would find green foliage everywhere.

Periodically fingers of sunlight capriciously poked through gray cloud-boulders above and darted toward mysterious places in the city and then the rain would suddenly hesitate. Madrid was a splendor glistening beneath sprinkling rains and darting sunbeams.
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Dangerous and Desirable
By C. Michael Bennis

Chapter XV Culiacán
Julio stepped off the plane in Culiacán wearing a black T-shirt, Levis 501 jeans, and JP's Custom Handmade Boots. He was stony-faced as he looked into the sun and put on his dark glasses. During the flight, he recalled the early years with Claudia and Nieves in Madrid, and he again suffered the same recurring pain. Next he recalled Nieves as a child and now as a teenager, and he felt immense pride. Then he thought of Ziv, and he experienced an intense longing. She might be the love he had always waited for. Now, standing on the Culiacán tarmac, he let the warmth of his thoughts flow through his body as he turned his face into the fire of the blazing sun, and he smiled briefly with never-to-be-forgotten memories. Then the memories vanished as quickly as hot water in a quick freeze. He cleared his mind and mentally focused on lowering his heart rate. In moments, his body seemed cold and his mind was clear and vigilant as he entered the Culiacán Federal De Bachigualato airport. At this moment, Julio’s eyes took on the feral look that Ziv saw in the photo of a homeless street urchin in Buenos Aires.
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