One Touch of Espionage

Touch Touchstone Series: Book 1 (Revised), 95,700 words.

Meet "Touch" Touchstone, peacetime US Army Counter Intelligence Agent. The year is 1965; he's been stationed in France because he speaks French. This is his only overseas assignment. He enlisted and has two years left. Touch resides in an apartment in Reuil-Malmaison, France, not far from Paris. He has a roommate, Nick, the unit's darkroom specialist. They become trusted friends and photograph Paris together, day and night.

Touch is one of a number of special agents, but his work is boring. He wants action. After a year, he takes Nick's TR-4 and goes on vacation through Switzerland into Italy. Part of his plan, developed with Nick, is to take a series of photos in various cities for Nick. Almost immediately, he finds himself in situations involving a progressive amount of personal danger. In Bern, while doing a photo for Nick, he is almost killed.

He's smart and begins to believe he has been set up, perhaps by his roommate. Then his girlfriend, Angela, who said she couldn't come, appears, and the next day two unknown individuals try to push him off the tram stop on the face of the Eiger mountain. A shaken Touch drives Angela to Italy via the cobblestone switchbacks of the St. Gotthard Pass. A frantic Touch,  pressed by a speeding black auto is chased down the mountain. He survives only by fast learning and quick reflexes. His pursuer didn't make it.

More attempts on his life occur near Lake Colo and Lake Garda. The situation becomes more complex when Nick arrives and the trio barely survive an attack at night in the Verona amphitheater by Roman legionnaires armed with swords. Finally, Touch is filed in on what's happening, what roles he has been playing, and the dangerous game KGB agents are playing to undermine NATO's Nuclear capability. In the end, the good guys win. Touch is barely alive, however, and ends up with a "Z-shaped" scar while floating in the Bay of Venice.