An Amazing interview with Rags Daniels read on...
Title: LALLAPALOOSA
Author:
RAGS DANIELS
Page Count: 300
ISBN: 9-780957-406711
Genre: ADVENTURE
Cost: £9.95
Can you tell me
something about yourself Rags?
I was Born into a working class
family, the second of four children, in Salford 1944. We migrated South in
1956. Wild and curious, I ran off to London where I met the majority
of the characters I write about. The swinging sixties and early seventies
played a major roll in my insatiable thirst for adventure, and against a
backdrop of mini-skirts, mod’s, rockers and Muhammad Ali, bore witness to an
era of crazy fads, culminating in Britain’s first ever woman Prime
Minister in 1979. And of whom Lord Acton said, ‘Absolute power corrupts
absolutely,’ and by the end of her era, Thatcher was case in point. And while
the Nation paddled through rubbish, bodies unburied, strikes, power cuts, spiraling
inflation, limited working weeks, abysmal production, etc, etc, the real money
was going into the pockets of fraudulent corporate boards and City
Yuppies.(Groomed to Kill), my first book was written against a backdrop of
inner city poverty and tells of a lad who became a government assassin.
I worked in Norway on timber
frame construction where I met John Millen a naval architect who
designed Pearl Harbour after the war. I became a ‘minder’ for his
mother-in-law, both on and off his motor yacht. in which he and his wife toured
the world. I returned home, attended Brunel University and passed I.O.C.W.(GB)
inc,exams. After that I worked for Borough Architects Dept. I resigned, got
married, built my own house while running several companies, then constructed a
steel mill in India and a tiger compound in Nepal for the World Wild
Life Trust. When widowed, I returned to writing and investigative journalism…It
is information from my diaries from the 60’s and 70’s that informed my writing
of POLICY, creating a fictional account of one such tale of political intrigue,
which led to me being by MI6. My latest book Lallapaloosa is ready for
publishing and is currently being scripted for the silver screen. I now reside
with my son, an A level English teacher, and Roxzan, my 12 year old adopted
daughter.
Now that is one
fascinating life!
What inspired
you to write?
This particular book?
I was trawling through my book-shelves, when I came across a copy of a
young medical students book titled; ‘Motor
cycle Diaries.’ by Ernesto
"Che" Guevara. As the world knows, he later
became a Marxist and the world’s most well-known revolutionary. Several ideas
crossed my mind and I began to make notes of how to handle his last days being
hunted by Bolivian crack rangers. It ended up as two stories, with one told in
flashback of his final days spent with a band of mercenaries employed to assist
Che escape, and two, thirty five years later, of the murders of the mercenaries
who assisted him.
Who are you
favourite authors?
Nicholas Monserrat...John Grisham...Mario Puzo…Robert Lewis
Stevenson... J.D. Salinger...Brendan Behan...
Can you tell me
something about your latest book?
October 8, 1967, 'Che' Ernesto Guevara was executed... Or so
the world believed.
Inspired by a true sequence of
events, ’Lallapaloosa’ tells in flashback the story leading up to the
betrayal and 'capture' of the world’s most famous revolutionary and
master of disguise.
Original, fast moving, and atmospheric to the last
whiff of a Partagas cigar, it begins
thirty years after the event with a series of sinister murders against a
fraternity of retired mercenaries who, having fought alongside 'Che' in the
Congo, grouped for one last mission in the jungles of Bolivia.
For thirty years, Richard Strang, thought he shared
the world’s best kept secret with no one. Then one summer evening, the
tap of a blind man's cane, and a nose for the toasted Cuban leaf, changed all
that.
Wow! How long
did it take you to write it?
Approximately, including the research, one year.
Can you tell us
something about the writing process, do you have a set time for writing, did
you do any research or anything else of interest that was involved?
Yes, loads of research, even down to the entries he made in
an old German diary he carried are displayed in the book, along with his campaign
maps. I usually write early in the morning, facing a blank wall so as not to be
distracted by anything. And take the occasional break for a puff of a cigar and
a coffee.
What do you
think readers will come away with when they have finished your book?
The ones who have read it want me to do a sequel. Material
is not a problem, though a prequel would be easier. Every review to date has
been positive, though there aren’t many, but it was well received.
Would you share
an interesting paragraph or two from your book?
BOOK 2
(Tania’s
2nd Interrogation)
Chapter
12
It was
playtime ...
Ray
Kinsella lazily scratched the side of his jaw. He was in his element; his broad
Irish accent, soothingly monotone, was marinated with menace. “February 25th.
You leave Sao Paulo, Brazil, travelling on a tourist card in the name of Laura
Gutierrez Bauer.” Tania’s eyes dilated with fear and beseeched me to stop the
madness. “April 13th: you arrive in Mexico.” He prodded Tania’s temple with the
snout of his 9mm and went on. “That’s sixteen days. Sixteen days of postcard
writing and sight-seeing. First question, who did you meet in Sao Paulo? And
remember ...” He lowered his voice, “lie and my friend will taste it on your
breath.” Tania’s lips quivered, childlike, her answer barely audible. “Speak
up, Miss Bauer. I’m deaf in one eye.”
“Werner
Metzel.”
Kinsella
let out a long low whistle. “A Russian national, promoted to major in the KGB
six months ago, now acting as Moscow’s front line sandbag in Brazil. Precarious
choice of playmate, wouldn’t you say? Why?”
“Why ...?
Why what? I ... I don’t understand.”
“That’s
because us Irish are the most misunderstood race on the planet. Sixteen days.
It didn’t take sixteen days to sabotage Ché’s guerrilla movement in the
interests of Moscow. In fact, it wouldn’t have taken you sixteen minutes.”
Kinsella
reached for a cigarette and borrowed mine to light it. “Did you?” he asked.
“What?”
“Play
one way conversation with Metzel.”
“Is that
question two?”
“Why do
I get the feeling my arse is about to choke?”
“No comprendo.”
“Don’t
give me any blarney. You understand all right. Now answer the question before I
give your eardrum lead poisoning”
“Metzel
passed on the information about Zone Red.”
“And in
return, you gave away the location of Ché’s guerrilla camp.”
“That
was Marcos.”
“Forget
Marcos. You severed communications between Nancahuazú and La Paz and gave away
the location of the guerrilla camp.”
“That’s
not true.”
“I’ll be
the judge of what’s true and what isn’t, Ms. Bauer. Question two. Compared to
the men in Ché’s group, the men you befriended, you’d enjoyed a sophisticated
existence of which they knew nothing. You treated them like ignorant savages
and tantalized them with your superior knowledge of the world. In turn, they
entrusted you and you betrayed them—transmitted everything that happened, every
move Ché made. Again, why?”
“Metzel
promised money, arms ... the help we needed to succeed.”
Kinsella
fell silent. It was a lengthy silence, the sort that conceives and gives birth;
the sort that gives the victim hope. In my book, skilled interrogators never
fall silent, because once they do they lose command, their psychological edge
is blunted. There was a script. A script we’d gone over and over. Suddenly his
jaw moved, and a pole of ash fell from his cigarette and disintegrated on his
sleeve. “Does that answer taste right to you, Rick?” he asked. It was an
admission he was stumbling.
“If I
was a snake, Ray,” I said. “My tongue wouldn’t bother flicking out a second
time.”
“Okay
then, ask why she risked using her fake Argentinian passport to gain entry into
Mexico.” He was straying off beam, losing thrust. Tania was no fool; she would
pick up on it and use it to her advantage. Of course, it was important to know
why she’d risked travelling on false Argentinian papers when she had genuine
documents of Bolivian citizenship and a Bolivian passport in the name of
Alvarez, both obtained through a hasty marriage of convenience, dissolved
within weeks. I let things rest a moment. Tania’s mind would be racing in
circles, searching for tell-tale signs of a bluff, a way out, a finger hold she
could convert to an eight lane highway. I took the spotlight off her, placed
her firmly in the stalls, and went into an Amos and Andy routine.
“Forget
all that, Ray. Question is, would anyone miss her if I ordered you to pull the
trigger?”
“Soviet
Intelligence might.”
“As in
Castroland,” I said.
“As in
the Caribbean Kremlin,” Ray added.
“Same
thing.”
“Then
there’s the East German MFS,” Ray said, continuing with the game.
I let
out a long sigh. “I wonder what it’s like to be without friends.”
“Just
say the word, Rick, and I’ll put her out of her misery.”
“Some
might construe it ideological sabotage.”
“You
British wouldn’t know ideology if it crawled up your trouser leg and chewed
your balls off,” Tania snapped defiantly. She’d sensed a bluff, attained her
finger hold, and was fighting back. Either that or she hated being sidelined. I
analysed her eyes for that telltale flicker of cock-sure insolence. Nothing.
She was good, very good.
“Ernesto Guevara viene del monte pa’ la
ciudad. Ya tienen los guerrilleros un jefe a quien seguir,” I said in a low
voice, quoting from the song Che’s men used to sing about him coming down from
the mountains. She suddenly stiffened; her eyes grew wider and the colour
drained from her face. “Ya pasa por las montanas y hasta en las selvas y se Ie ve. Porque Ernesto Guevara, luchando, vive y se va
...”
“But Ché
has yet to come down from the mountains to the city.” Kinsella interrupted.
“He
will.” A sudden rebelliousness flashed in Tania’s eyes. “If not him, it will be
another like him.” Her rash display of bravado seemed genuine, but it was also
part of an agent’s profession to be a good actor.
“But not
Ché,” I said flatly.
“Because
Fidel wants him back in Cuba,” Kinsella said matter of factly.
I shook
my head. “No he doesn’t, Ray, at least not by choice. Moscow’s ordered Fidel to
take him back. Bolivia was a mistake. Central America was a mistake. Question
two ...”
A look
of bewilderment flitted across Tania’s face. It was genuine; genuine enough to
mentally record.
“I don’t
understand,” she said.
“Question
two ...”
“I’ve
already answered it.” There was a tinge of anxiety in her voice and her slender
fingers fidgeted erratically with the gold and silver bangles on her wrist.
“Metzel was my link with the KGB. It was Metzel who organised the weapons
shipments into Sao Paulo and supervised the cash transfers.”
“We know
all that, Tania. It’s not why we are here. ‘Our Man in Havana’ type vaudeville
espionage techniques went out with black fedoras, white shirts and dazzling
ties. The question was why did you deliberately set out to sabotage Ché’s
guerrilla movement?”
“I
didn’t.”
I threw
her a lifeline. One I could let go the second I concluded her answer
unconvincing. “Didn’t deliberately, or didn’t sabotage it?”
“I made
a mistake.”
“You
disobeyed orders, flushed two years work down the toilet.”
“Let me
shoot her, Rick.” The frustration in Kinsella’s voice was intentional.
I shook
my head. “We play out the game.”
“Fuck
the game.” He thumbed back the hammer, leaned back in his chair, and turned his
face away to avoid blood spatter. “I’m bored and I’m tired and I don’t want to
play anymore.” Tania’s shoulders dropped and her face went slack.
I said:
“Let me ask her one more question, and then we’ll call it a day.”
“She’s
lost. She’s lied twice already. Let me shoot her, Rick. This place is beginning
to depress me. The coffee’s crap, the beer’s crap and ...” He sniffed, wrinkled
his nose, then turned and looked at Tania through half closed eyes. “I can
smell crap.”
“Now
you’ve made her cry.”
“Sorry.”
“If you
pull that trigger, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Not
ever?”
“Pull
the trigger.”
“I
thought we were mates.”
“Trouble
with you Ray, you have no faith.”
“I might
not carry a rosary, but I do wear a crucifix.”
“I’m not
talking about the kind of faith you have when you go for a bank loan, Ray. I’m
talking faith in human nature, the cosmic force kind, the kind our friend here
has.”
“But the
lady’s gone and crapped herself!”
“That’s
because she had faith in you.”
“You
mean she really believed I was going to shoot her?”
“She was
totally convinced.”
“Can I
just clear up one thing?”
“Go on.”
“Were
you serious when you said you’d never speak to me again if I shot her?”
“Were
you, when you threatened to shoot her?”
Kinsella
sighed and relaxed his position. “Ask her the final question.”
I threw
her a ‘perfume tester’. If her answer came up aroma of roses, I’d give her a
break before moving on. “The ‘journalist’ Roberto Benigno, you contacted him in
February this year, invited him to a clandestine meeting held here in Bolivia.
Benigno was a sympathiser who helped in the collection of funds for the
revolution and was connected with the group arrested in Salta. After the
meeting in La Paz, you, a Belgian travelling with dubious press credentials,
and Benigno, caught the bus for Cochabamba. You arrived at dawn and took
another bus to Sucre. Benigno and the Belgian stayed at The Gran Hotel. The
next day you hired a jeep and the three of you travelled to Camiri. Two days
later, you met up with Ché. Give or take the odd three point turn and breaks
for bodily functions, am I right so far?”
“No. The
Belgian was a Frenchman. His name’s ...”
“Regis
Delacroix?”
She
nodded. I smiled. She was almost back on track. I lit two Astorias
simultaneously and passed one to Tania. She took it between trembling fingers,
drew on it, and inhaled deeply.
“Break
time,” Kinsella unexpectedly announced, bolstering his gun and getting to his
feet. I followed suit and stretched my legs in the direction of the bar,
scanned the shelves for anything palatable, and grabbed three bottles of
American champagne. “Pepsi, Pepsi, or Pepsi anyone?”
“What
sort of piss-hole is it when you can’t get a decent cup of tea?” Kinsella
moaned. He was over by the window peering out.
“You
shouldn’t have shot the barman, Ray.”
“Are you
saying I should’ve had faith in him as well?”
I glanced
in the direction of Tania. She was slumped like a bruised and battered
flyweight living in dread of the bell that would signal the next round.
“Maybe
Tania’ll make you a nice cup of tea.”
“I doubt
she’s in a fit state to make a decent corpse.” Chair legs scraped the tiled
floor and Tania got to her feet. She was gutsy if nothing else. She ducked
under the bar-flap and came up the other side waving Rodolfo’s shotgun in her
hands. “Vamos, both of you back to
the table!” Her lips were a thin line of pent up aggression, and the cock-sure
insolence I’d noted earlier blazed in her eyes.
“Cut the
blarney, bitch, and make the tea,” Kinsella said, glancing at her as he made
his way back to the table.
“Sit!
Put your hands on the table, Irish, palms down. You too, Mister Strang.”
“Are you
going to shoot us?” Kinsella asked.
“Stupid
Irish,” she hissed. She cocked the hammers and pressed the butt against her
shoulder. “You’re first.”
“And
you’re adamant a pot of tea is definitely out of the question?”
“I
wouldn’t spit in your mouth if you were dying of thirst.”
Kinsella
shrugged resignedly. “So shoot.”
“Hang on
...” The dull thump of a hammer cut me short. A second thump followed. Tania
cursed, hurriedly re-cocked the hammers and repeated the action.
Kinsella
grinned broadly. “That’s what I call faith,” he said, taking two shells from
his pocket and standing them side by side on the table. “Now put the gun down
and make the tea, there’s a good girl.”
Any other links
of interest: None to speak of.
Thank
you so much for sharing this with us Rags.
It is all really fascinating and I wish you well with any future work.
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