Paladin Will Travel, 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI (2026)

09/04/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-x/
THE COWARDLY LION, VOLUME VII, CHAPTER X

The loss of the ship's anchor becomes a minor consideration for my small team, loaded into the Zodiac to make a recovery, or at least identification, dive to the bottom of the nearly frozen Bering Sea between the two islands, both named the Isle of the Tsar of Russia. The Zodiac crashed into the rocks of one of the islands, as the expedition ship World Discoverer is called away to go to the aid of another nearby ship in trouble. Climbing the rock face and sheltering under the thick pine forest above makes no sense at all, especially since the islands are inside Russian territory and Russians are coming.

The fifth volume is published and will be sent out to those who ordered in advance, while the 6th volume will go to print in the next few days. Please send a check to the author, James Strauss, at 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, 53147, for thirty dollars for each of the volumes you might want to add to your collection. Keep the adventure going.

“Damn,” Don said, they didn’t try to take the Zodiac.” He turned to face me. “They couldn’t have missed our tracks. They didn’t take the valuable boat because they’re afraid we’re up here, armed, and watching them, or because they’ve already radioed the Russian Navy and the big g...

08/28/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-ix/

Beaching on the rocks of the Tsar of the Isle of Russia, proves more than hazardous, not just to the Zodiac but its occupants as well. The dive for the ship's anchor being unsuccessfu,l and then the emergency call forcing the ship to sail to the aid of another in trouble, portends dangerously difficult survival times for me and my two crew members. Only the climb to the top of the cliffs can provide any safety. Abandoning the Zodiac, we must scale the cliff and then use whatever we find up in the pine woods at the top to help us shelter and await the return of the ship, although life events once again prove impossible to predictd.

Please consider purchasing any of the special packages as I've stocked up to autograph and make comments, which will serve to make the books more special and also collectable as my 'fame' continues to grow. I much appreciate your help, as well in commenting and purchasing in order to help me financially keep the whole adventure going. Jim

I took in the contents of the Zodiac as fully as I could, at least what I could see. “Don,” I finally said, “Grab the canvas sack out of the boat. Dutch, get the top off the outboard. We’re going to need the cover if we want to heat something.” Both men clambered aboard the […]

08/14/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter VII offered here for your enjoyment and edification. Just click on the link and read away….

The Bering Sea becomes turbulent, so the 'Disco' expedition ship seeks shelter wherever out there it can find it. The Tsar of Russia Pass becomes the haven, but the anchor is lost. My physician's assistant role, as sticky as it was, wasn't as bad or as wrongly credentialed as my 'ship's diver' designation should the occasion arise. And it does occur. The hugely expensive anchor for the ship is lost, and the captain demands an attempt to recover it be made. I must go into the dark, cold, and heavily tide-moving waters to make the attempt. I don't want to go down there, but there is little choice if I am to stay aboard and proceed to attempt to accomplish the mission.

Instead of going to my own cabin, I headed directly down to Botany Bay’s number 36. There was something about the way in which the Basque woman had looked at me earlier, which was drawing me back. Don had stayed behind to consult with the passengers. He had begun his masterful job of caging large ...

08/06/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-vi/
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter VI

Relationships begin to form under the beginning of pressure and some potentially terminal circumstance. My well-acted phony credentials show no frayng and remain undetected as I perform roles I never could have expected or believed. The crew of the ship begns to prove to be the most cooperative and efficient group I'd experienced since the Marine Corps, but made up of foreigners and even vagabonds. I began to realize I could not perform the mission alone, and it was likely that the crew, or part of it, would be all I had to work with or failure might be abrupt and more than painful.

I moved through throngs of passengers populating the corridors of the ship. Murmurs of “doctor” came from some of them, as they reacted to my surgical scrubs. I had removed my coat. The temperature maintained inside the vessel hallways was always high, probably to help passengers recover from th...

07/19/2026

https://jamesstrauss.com/the-cowardly-lion-volume-seven-chapter-v/
Life given back by unseen forces not truly understandable, as I am forced to continue a mission that has a result almost unattainable given the lack of resources and backup provided. Aboard an adventure cruise vessel, with phony credentials and little support, I am supposed to bring back a young man held in a gulag, which I am provided little to no information about. The crew of the ship, M.S. World Discoverer, is my only resource, and how in hell am I supposed to enlist them in this hoped-for result? And so, an 'impossible mission' begins in real time and in real play.

The washroom door swung open. Felipe stepped through the entrance, dropped a pile of dry clothes on the floor, and then looked at my nakedness. I had nothing to hide anything with. He stared for a few seconds, looking openly at the roadmap of my career. His eyes met mine for the briefest instant bef...

06/20/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter III
Accommodating being aboard an adventure/cruise ship becomes a startling and almost shocking education, as life aboard a ship had never been something I'd done or contemplated. The Agency hadn't furnished or funded another agent to accompany me, and I was quickly coming to figure out that I would need some crewmen and women to guide and assist me if I was ever to have a chance to get to the gulag, and then get the kid out of the country. I was overwhelmed, and I knew it. My small supply of gold was not going to go far, and I was surprised that the Agency had funded and tolerated its purchase. That alone told me I was once again on a very special and important mission, but this time without the kind of huge support I'd had in Florida.

My books are still for sale. Given my recent heart issues, I'd appreciate your support to purchase signed copies and help keep me going. I cannot thank you enough!

I learned from Don, my bunkie and fellow de-frocked PhD, that the ship was never referred to as the “MS World Discoverer,” which was painted in black across her white prow and in white across her black stern. Unlike most ships, because of seafaring lore about potential ill fortune, the ship had ...

05/15/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VII, Chapter I
The world did not explode as a whole, only the microcosmic life I'd built so cleverly yet haphazardly in embracing real-life espionage and social exchange began to shiver and tremble. My life of many braided and living fibers was harshly strummed by the nearly invisible but punishing hand of the CIA. Loaded with iodine, pulled back from a disappearing island, and deliberately reassigned immediately to nautical service up in the Arctic wasn't causing overload...it was overload itself. My arrival in Nome, Alaska, alone at a closed bar, where cleanup becomes a soothing balm of relief. How many layers of my onion-like life must be painfully laid back before any true progress or accomplishment can be allowed to surface...

It has taken a monumental effort, dragging bruised and sometimes broken parts across shoals, given the appearance of fine lips of moving sand, to reach up and make the attempt to edit, design, assemble, and print volumes V and VI to continue the saga has been like staring up into the curl of a closing wall of solid tsunami wave, facing into it and plunging forward. If you like this series and what came before, then throw your heft into this fight to rise to the surface and survive. Buy any or all of my books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, SmashSwords, or order direct: James Strauss, 507 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. 53147

The only ‘accidental’ discharge or ignition of an atomic device on U.S. soil in the history of nuclear weaponry had come to be blamed on me. Not the United States Navy, which was present; not ex-Navy Seal Marcinko, who was present; and not my control officer, who was also distantly present. The ...

04/30/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VI, Chapter ###III
This is the last chapter of volume VI and the next chapter will begin volume VII.
The mission goes as planned but does not stick cohesively together. Peter Kohler is out of it and then back in, which was hard to accommodate until it happened to me. The event occurs but not conventionally, and the island becomes a place of mere memory and washing sand and sea. I am more than wounded as some plans went far astray from what was expected, and my own state, following detonation, was not one allowing for full recall...only reconstruction from the memories of others, which are not always accurate, either by accident or design. This last chapter concludes volume VI, leaving more mystery which will be investigated deeper as next week's first chapter of the new volume will demonstrate.

Please consider purchasing all the first four volumes as Chuck struggles to get the fifth and now sixth volumes printed and distributed. This series is unlike anything I've ever read, much less written, and has more priority or even classified information than is likely good for me...but it's my birthday on the 30th, and I'm now old enough not to care. You will want to have this collection and then review it when you come across other data that makes the unbelievable events of my life totally believable.

I was on the stern of the Princess, lying across the stern stoop cushion stretching from one side of the hull to the other, a vortex of gentle winds blowing across my body. The aroma of sea brine and the faint, tiny drops of moisture created by the boat’s passage were the only similarities to […...

04/23/2026

THE COWARDLY LION, Volume VI, Chapter ###II

All the horsepower, naval power, money, time, and energy come to the line of departure as the twin Lamborghini-powered Princess makes its landing on Murder Island. As expected, things begin to happen automatically, as Tony hinted they would, and the plan to take care of the errant abandoned device is set up and prepared for detonation. The tensity is sharp, but its edge is placed against a nearly opaque surface. The time to cut the cord or set it off has arrived.

Los Alamos National Laboratory was the facility to which enriched elements were shipped from the Oak Ridge enrichment facility in Tennessee. The gas centrifuge plant is the single largest structure on the planet where all enrichment is performed for atomic or nuclear weapons in the hands of the Unit...

04/18/2026

BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY. Short Story by James Strauss

The game, or rather games of espionage, are not those as portrayed in movies. The home office keeps secrets from field forces and agents, as do the field agents from the home office analysts. This story is about some of those secrets and how field agents both survive and come to trust or distrust one another. This story is not one of fiction, but of a living reality apportioned equally with adaptive capacity and action, while also delivering the pain of lost honor, trust, and friendship. To be a surviving field agent, one must have the absolutely most valuable ability...to possess perseverance. The night comes and stays, but only perseverance many times allows for having the absolute knowledge that dawn is coming once again.

Arch Patton stood on the roof of Hotel St. Gotthard, the only hotel less than half a kilometer from the train station, and overlooking the Bahnhaufstrasse.

Paladin Will Travel

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