A TOUCH OF GLASS

		             by

  		         Rob Perry


Janet Glass, and her scientist son, Colin, have moved 
from London to quiet, rural Gloucester, hoping they 
might enjoy a more peaceful atmosphere where Colin
could concentrate on his latest project. But the old 
duplex is shared with an elderly village eccentric who 
keeps caged rat's in the backyard and irritates an 
already irritable Colin. Morose and frustrated by a 
project that is not going well, Colin argues with his 
crotchety neighbor, vents his anger on his mother Iris, 
and antagonizes everyone he meets. Then a 
mysterious package arrives.

The explosion from the letter bomb injures Janet, and it's
suspected that Colin has been targeted by animal rights
activists for his research. Scotland Yard Inspector, 
Carl Perry, is not so sure. But the next message leaves 
no doubt that even in the quiet Gloucester village there 
lurks a touch of malice, mystery, murder and maybe even
a touch of Glass.

 			Chapter One


EXT:	GLOUCESTER ENGLAND		DAY

INT:	COTTAGE LEVINE BREAKFAST ROOM

THE LEVINE FAMILY is sitting down to breakfast in their two 
hundred year old cottage.

				UNCLE DENNIS
There'll be frost again tomorrow, just like there was this morning. 
A chap in the pub said so.

Diane's Uncle Dennis had announced the previous evening at
 the family table. 

				MRS LEVINE
They're a mine of information, these men you keep meeting 
in pubs!

Muttered Mrs.. Levine, setting down the teapot with 
unnecessary force. Diane had hastened to head off 
family acrimony. 

				DIANE
The frost had turned everything white this morning. 
Just like a snowfall.

Diane is seen driving her little Austin Van down the narrow 
street on her postal route. She mused about all these things 
as she drove carefully along the B road towards the hamlet 
of Castle Darcy. Uncle Dennis's meteorological predictions
 had proved right. This morning had seen a second hard frost. 
In sheltered spots where it hadn't melted away from yesterday,
 a thick white layer had built up, transforming the bare winter
 countryside. The first sun's rays revealed the silvery lace 
of spiders' webs veiling the bare twigs of wayside bushes.  
The van bumped its way over small holes and cracks past
 the first dwellings and came to a halt before a pair of low-
roofed cottages set back from the roadside behind long 
front gardens.

Diane switched off the engine, pulled on her gloves her 
mother had insisted she bring, and opened the door. 
Her breath formed vapor clouds on the chill crisp air 
which seeped in. There was no one about. Most people
were still only having breakfast, she thought. Diane 
leaned across to the front passenger seat where she 
had put the items for these cottages on the top of the
pile. One of them, a package addressed to the right-
hand cottage, had been sent by recorded delivery 
and required a signature. 

There was another package secured by an elastic band 
to a couple of envelopes, which was intended for the
left-hand cottage. Diane took them both together 
with her clipboard got out of the van. As she made 
her way up the path to the door she heard a faint 
squeak from somewhere behind the cottage. She 
wondered whether Mr. Moss was out back with
his rats and she'd have to make her way round 
there to get the required signature. She'd been
making the postal deliveries for two years now 
and knew quite a few of her regulars. She rapped 
on his door.

A curtain twitched at the window. After a moment, a door 
chain rattled and a minimal crack appeared. A thin, elderly 
face pressed against it, showing only one eye. 

				DIANE
Post!
(Called Diane, adding less obviously)
I need a signature, Mr. Moss. 

The withered lips moved again as an eyelid drooped 
suspiciously above the visible eye. 

				MOSS
Who's it from? Does it say?

Diane sighed and turned the package over. 

				DIANE
A Mrs. Sutton.

		MOSS
Ah, that's my niece, Myra. 

The chain is released and the door opens fully. Mr. Moss
 was revealed.

		MOSS
That'll be her Christmas present for me.

Moss sounded much more amiable. 

				MOSS
She never forgets me, Myra. She's a good girl. And she 
always posts early for Christmas, just like they tell 
you to.

				DIANE
Wish everyone did! 

Holding out the clipboard and maintaining the package
out of his reach. 

		DIANE
Sign here, please, and print your
name underneath in capitals.

		MOSS
I'll have to go and get my glasses. 

Disappointed at the delay, he padded away into some 
unseen region. She could see down the cottage's 
narrow hall straight through into the kitchen at 
the back. She could make out an ancient stove 
and, on it, a pan bubbling. 
A strange bran and vegetable odor wafted down 
the hall to Diane's nostrils. 

		DIANE
(She mutters)
The rats! He's boiling up mash for the
rats!

		MOSS
You'll have to excuse me, my dear, Having the door locked
 up like it in broad daylight. I never thought I'd have to do it, 
but I've got enemies.


Mr. Moss had been saying unlikely statements ever since
Diane had been bringing the post.

		DIANE
I heard the rats as I came up the path.  

Overlooking the latest eccentric claim. She exchanged the 
package for her clipboard. 

		DIANE
Cold for them outside this morning.
		
MOSS
Surely not! 

Knowing that she shouldn't let herself be drawn into this.
 She had a whole round to get through, several villages. 
More likely, if the rats had been ill it was because they
 had nibbled laurel or some other unsuitable plant.

Mr. Moss was fortunately distracted, peering at the
address on his parcel.  

		MOSS
Myra sent it. And always by the
recorded delivery to make sure
I get it. 

With that, he closed the door in her face. She heard the
chain rattle.

Diane retraced her steps, automatically following the 
imprint left on the crust of frost by her approach. She 
crunched down the path to the second cottage, 
slipping the elastic band from the bundle as she 
went and checking the address on the two envelopes.

There were clear indications of a different lifestyle here. 
An adjacent barn appeared to have been turned into
 a two-car garage. Also an extension had been built 
on to the side of the cottage itself. The addition was
 modern, single-story, flat-roofed and spoilt the 
symmetry of the old building. The builders had left
behind a pile of rubble, planks and general debris
which was stacked to the rear of the barn-garage, in 
an angle formed by the garden hedge. The rubbish 
heap was covered with a white layer just like everything 
else. Diane glanced at it with mild disapproval. She 
was thinking how untidy it normally looked, without 
its frosted blanket, and wondering whether it would
stay like that till spring. She rang the bell. She leaves
the large letter in the post box and walks away then
when she gets to her van a tremendous explosion 
is heard.

							CUT TO:

Sally Cox

EXT:	Pennsylvania		DAY

Meet Sally Cox--an unlicensed, no-nonsense private 
detective who hides 90 pounds of muscle with an 
in-your-face femme fatale style. She's bold, she's 
bad and, most of all, she's nobody's fool. Underneath 
her wise-cracking, 100% Southern exterior, there beats
a 14-karat heart with a definite spot for life's losers. 
With the brains to take on any challenge and the 
guts to impose her own brand of justice, Sally Cox 
has what it takes to be your best friend-or your 
very worst enemy.

This time around, Sally takes on a case that batters 
her once-sturdy body and threatens to expose her 
closest held secret. When her investigation into the
case of a woman seriously injured by a bomb, Sally
quickly learns that true blue friends aren't necessarily
clad in blue. She was deep in her favorite dream, the
one about Richard, when she thought she heard the
scratchy sound of pebbles on her window pane. 
Snick, snick, snick. Then a thicker sound, one she 
recognized immediately, the now all too familiar 
sound of breaking glass. Window glass, straight 
below her--no, a windshield this time. The sound
shattered what was left of her sleep, hers dream, 
her Richard.

Those damn kids, the ones from over on Fayette. 
Well, no more, she resolved, then said it out loud. 

				SALLY
No more.

She kept her gun in her bottom bureau drawer, in 
a nest of single socks she held on to, because 
their mates might show up one day. When those
kids got started, they took their sweet time, 
knowing no one would call the police, and it 
wouldn't matter if they did.

				SALLY
It's just property, the police would 
say every time she called. Not their 
property, though. Just her car, her 
radio, her windows, her front door. 
Her, her, her,. 

She moved slowly down the staircase in the dark, 
huffing a little. When she came out on the stoop, 
the children were too engrossed in their nightly 
game of destruction to pay her any heed.  Startled, 
the children looked up from their work. When the
 saw it was her, they laughed. "You go inside, hot 
mama," said the skinny one, the one who always 
did all the talking. "You need your sleep so you'll 
be ready for all that screwing you have to do
 tomorrow." The short, chubby one laughed at this
 great wit, and the others joined in. There were five
 of them, all foster black kids living with that young 
Christian couple. Nice as could be, well intentioned
 but they couldn't do a damn thing with these kids. 

				SALLY
This is gonna stop. It's gonna stop
right now.

They laughed even harder at this, at this pitiful young
white girl sitting on the ground, telling them what to 
do. Then they unloaded everything they had in their
hands, pitching rocks, sticks, and soda cans at her. 
She didn't try to cover her face or head, just sat there 
and let their trash shower down on her. When all the
rocks and sticks had been flung, when they had 
shouted the last crude thing they could think of it was
then, only then, that he showed them the gun.

				SKINNY ONE
Shit, baby, you ain't gonna use that.

		SALLY
That's what you think?

She fired straight up, into the sky. 

				TWIN ONE
She's gonna kill us. She's gonna
kill us all.


The kid screamed and began running. She was fast, that Girl, 
faster than the rest, although her twin was almost as  fast. 
The two of them were at the end of the block and turning
 north before he knew what was happening. The chubby 
one took off then, while the tall, skinny one tugged at the 
littlest one, the snot-nose one, who seemed frozen in fear.

				SKINNY ONE
			(yanking at his arm)
C'mon, Donnie. The bitch's got a gun. 
She ain't messing with us this time.

Snot-nose hesitated for a moment, then began heading 
toward the corner in a clumsy, loping stride, more or
less keeping even with Skinny's long-legged sprint. 
She could have caught them, if she wanted. Instead, 
he fired again, then again, the gun a living thing in her 
hand, separate and apart from her. A car was turning
onto Fairmount as they ran, someone raised a window
and shouted to stop all the noise down there, and there
was a backfire, a young boy's voice screaming, another
backfire, and the gun just kept shooting. The noises all 
jumbled together, she couldn't tell which had come first. 
The littlest one stumbled and fell, and now the skinny 
one was screaming, high and thin like a girl. And then
the street was empty, except for a crumpled little pile of
clothes near the corner. She looked at the gun, still held 
out at shoulder height in her strangely steady right hand, 
but quiet now. She was waiting for something to happen, 
then realized it already had.

By the time the police and the paramedics arrived, she
was almost done sweeping up the broken glass from 
in front of her house. Wouldn't you know, this would 
be the one time they would get here so fast, when she
had so much to do. 

				SALLY
Give me a minute.

The police officers, speechless for once, waited.

				SALLY
Okay, she said, I guess I'm ready.

								CUT TO:

CARL PERRY

EXT:	GLOUCESTER ENGLAND		DAY

INT:	GLASS COTTAGE  

Carl leaned across to the front passenger seat where 
he'd deposited the portfolio bag. He'd put the 
constable reports and photos for this special 
case in the bag. One of them, a photo of the 
remains of the detonator used in the explosion. 

Carl checked the items and zipped the case closed. 
He got out of his BEEFEATER Red British Ford 
Escort. 

His sturdy jump boots bruised spikes of frosted grass
en route to the gate. As he made his way up the path 
to the door he heard a faint squeak from somewhere
behind the cottage. "Sounds like a bloody rat!"

He knocked at the old heavy timbered door that must 
have been at least two hundred years old. Shit it must 
have been painted at least fifty times with no regard
for the other coats. Someone just slopped on the new 
one. He pulls the cord  next to the door and he hears
the familiar clang of a small cowbell. The sound of 
heavy footsteps is heard and the sounds of dead 
bolts clanking open and the door opens exposing a 
gentleman in  his middle fifties.

His face is weather beaten and an obvious attempt to 
hid the weathering time lines with a heavy red beard. 
Brown nicotine stains in the corner of his mouth 
indicating a heavy smoker. He adjusts his glasses
and speaks.

COLIN GLASS

				COLIN
Yeah, who are you and
what do you want? 

		PERRY
Are you Mr. Colin Glass?

		COLIN
Yah who wants to know?

		PERRY
I'm Inspector Carl Perry of Scotland Yard, may I speak
to you in regards to the accident your mother had".

He opens the door and shows him in. The inside is a 
greater disaster than the outside. To the left of the 
main passage is a kitchen loaded with dirty dishes 
from the last father Christmas party, six months ago.

		COLIN
Inspector, you will have to excuse the dirty kitchen,
but with mom in the hospital nothing gets picked up.

		PERRY
Pay it no mind my good man, there will be better times!


Colin wonders what the fuck that's supposed to mean?
 Colin has to move six months of newspapers from the 
small couch before the inspector can find a place to sit. 
On the kitchen table are three full ash trays, not emptied 
since the New Years party. Sitting near the dreary dark 
drapes he can smell the years  worth of cigarette smoke 
they have filtered. He opens the portfolio case and
 removes a pad and pencil.

		PERRY
Shall we get on with it Mr. Glass?

		COLIN
What do you want to know? 

		PERRY
Do you know of anyone who would want to kill you 
or your Mother? 

Colin places the half smoked butte on one of the 
ashtrays and lights up another Cool.

He takes a deep drag on his cigarette and replies. 

				COLIN
My bloody project that's why!

		PERRY
You're a Microbiologist, right?

Carl is noticing the expression on Colin's face apparently
 upset because this total stranger knows too much.

		COLIN
(taking a big drag of 
his Cool)
Yes I am, Yes I am, I' am 
Doing research for MI5 on Acetylcholine."

		PERRY
What is it? 

	COLIN
(Colin takes another
 drag)
It's a chemical produced in the axon of the nerve that allows the electrical nerve impulse to 
jump across nerve synapses, a chemical neurotransmitter, allowing muscles to contract. It's broken down by Cholinesterase.

Carl looks at him like he just spoke in a foreign language. 

				PERRY
I don't quite understand, can
you say that in layman's terms. 

Glass gets up off the couch and grinds the fresh Cigarette 
butt on the edge of an already full ash tray. He places 
another Cool on his lips and lights up.

				COLIN
Cholinesterase is a chemical 
enzyme that breaks down 
Acetylcholine into acetate 
and Choline, two  chemicals 
that are rapidly removed
from the system. The proper
name is Acetylcholinesterase. 

Carl fidgets at his end of the couch, then opens up. 
		PERRY
Sounds like your working with the process for SARIN GAS. 

This statement wakes up the already drowsy Glass. 

				COLIN
Yes, it does doesn't it!

		PERRY
Is the project classified?

Glass takes another puff, this time exhaling in Carl's face,
 causing him to choke on the smoke. 

				COLIN
Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any 
disrespect but I do that to my mother all the time, so again 
I'm sorry. Yes it's classified "SECRET", do you have a 
Clearance?

Pulling out his Franklin Organizer, he removes a plastic 
card with "TOP SECRET" emblazoned on it, showing it
 to Colin. Glancing at it he takes another drag on his 
Cool.

				COLIN
I'm on a team that's blending 
SARIN GAS and Tear Gas to make
a "Trojan Horse".

Carl rubs his hands together

				PERRY
I don't understand?

		COLIN
Chemical Warfare Agents, chemicals, such as a nerve
agents, used in military operations for anti-personnel 
purposes. They can be distributed by artillery shell, 
mortar shell, rocket, land mine, missile, aircraft spray, 
like a crop duster or bomb."

		PERRY
But you said Trojan Horse maybe I missed something.


		COLIN
Organophosphate, the class of chemical compounds 
to which. some nerve agents, such as VX and Sarin 
belong. So named because it is an organic compound, 
a molecule containing carbon and hydrogen, which 
contains an atom of phosphorus. All Organophosphates 
Are Cholinesterase Inhibitors.

		CARL
Is this a new strain called Trojan Horse. 

Colin takes another drag from his Cool and mumbles.

				COLIN
What we have here my good man is VX, a nerve agent 
from the Organophosphate group that acts as a 
cholinesterase inhibitor.  This strain is the deadliest
nerve agent in existence." 

Colin lights up another Cool.

				COLIN
The Trojan Horse is the Thermite, an incendiary agent 
that contains iron oxide and aluminum. In this case we 
call it Thermite Plasma, which, is a type of Thermite 
that burns hotter than any previously available. 

		PERRY
	(Glaring)
I don't understand what one has to do with the other?

		COLIN
Do I have to spell it out for you mate? 

		PERRY
Yes, I think you will have to spell it out for me, Mate!

		COLIN
Nerve Gas is against the Geneva Convention, so we
 legally can't use it, so it's a two Phase Drop, Nerve
 Gas first then Thermite. This brand of Thermite
burns so hot that no trace of the Nerve agent can 
be found, no evidence mate! (A BEAT). Nothing!

		PERRY
I was in Thailand in the seventies working for the
 CIA and we heard rumors about a SOG drop in 
Laos, where this exact process was followed. 
But we heard the Thermite didn't go off and the 
wrong people found evidence of the Nerve 
Gas.

Colin takes another drag from his cool.

		COLIN
This brand of Thermite, always goes off.  No 
evidence of anything is found.

		PERRY
How long after dropping the gas do you wait
before dropping the Thermite.

		COLIN
"One hour!"

		PERRY
What happens if the gas gets away and our 
guys get a dose?

Colin lights up a new Cool.

				COLIN
Our guys wear M-17 Gas Masks 
designed for this type of warfare.

		PERRY
What happens if they get a leak in the Mask?

		COLIN
They all carry an antidote, a chemical which neutralizes
a poison or toxic agent. ATROPINE is an antidote for
VX nerve agent. Atropine is an anticholinergic, a 
chemical which blocks the action of acetylcholine 
within the parasympathetic nervous system. It 
doesn't prevent the Formation of acetylcholine, 
but instead prevents it from acting on the muscarinic 
receptors. So you see, the Incendiary Agent is the Trojan Horse!"
		 
Carl goes for a full-court press.

				PERRY
Why are we going to such a great expense to cover up,
we did all right in the Tailwind episode, nobody 
believed we could do that to our own people?

		COLIN
We may have to use it on our own people!


Carl looking very disturbed goes for the jugular.

				PERRY
 		Ireland?

Blowing smoke in Carl's face again.

				COLIN
No comment!

		 
Carl is really pissed this time.

				PERRY
Do that one more time and I'm
shoving the butte down your throat!

		COLIN
(Colin looks apologetic)
Look mate don't get bloody violent on me, but me 
mum never complains, is the interview over? 

							CUT TO:


GO TO CHAPTER TWO