I’ve written six books in the Nick Temple File Series. Each book chronicles a fictional Cold War episode involving Temple and those close to him in the CIA. I began thinking about the character and what he might be involved in when I was stationed in Berlin from August of 1983 through June of 1986. During slow midnight shifts I’d use the word processing capabilities of subsystem Echo at Field Station Berlin’s intercept site on Teufelsberg to jot down some Nick Temple sketches. About a dozen of these snippets constitute the origin of the Nick Temple character. They are often more parody than anything else, derivative and broad attempts to mimic an archetype suggested by my reading of some of the espionage greats such as Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, Len Deighton, and Ken Follet. I circled back to the character in the late 1990s at my wife’s brilliant suggestion. The results were a screenplay and six novels.
Writing the series was an experience unlike any other I’d previously undertaken or have undertaken since. The customary creative challenges were mixed in with good old-fashioned fun, and lots of it. The usual self-reflective misery, doubt, and introspection that haunt me when I write were relegated to the back of my mind rather than being the engines driving my efforts. I also engaged in more than a bit of nostalgia shaping the Cold War world in a way I preferred through imagination and a highly selective memory.
Above is a jpeg of one of the early sketches, A Nick Temple Christmas. I have posted this during the holiday season in the past and here it is once again. I have the original printed document that is now more than 40 years old. The original is fading and getting a little tough to read, so I’ve transcribed it, warts and all, below. I hope you enjoy reading it at least as much as I enjoyed writing it.
A Nick Temple Christmas
Nick Temple froze in place. Not a muscle of his finely tuned body twitched. There was some sort of noise coming from the top of the building. “A clumsy intruder,” Nick thought to himself. There had to be more than one of them. Nick checked to make certain that the P-38 hidden under his smoking jacket was fully loaded. He climbed the first set of stairs of his luxurious Chevy Chase home with the swiftness and ease that came of years of constant training. He walked undetected to the emergency exit that led out to the helipad that he had installed on the roof at the president’s request.
When he reached the snow covered roof he saw what he was up against. There were eight of them. With a quick reload, he could take them out before they knew what had hit them. He crouched low behind the central air conditioning intake duct and waited for his moment.
He leaped out, firing with his right hand, diving to his left. The clip was empty and six of them were dead. He reloaded in less than 2 seconds and he came up firing. Two more rounds was all it took.
Nick walked over to the scene of death. He recognized them from the file: Dasher, Dancer, Donner, Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Prancer, Vixen. One was missing . . .
