Agent S was sitting in a dingy hotel room staring at his service revolver on the table in front of him. The hotel was in a nondescript part of a town in a tiny, neutral country (Z) that bordered his (X) and another large country (Y), the enemy. His country and the enemy had fought several wars over a long period that dated back to his grandfather’s time as a foot soldier in the Army. The grandfather had died a few weeks after receiving commission in a desolate, cold, high-altitude outpost. His father, who served in the Air Force, had a distinguished career marked by quite a few distinctions for valor shown on the battlefield. In retirement, he often recounted what sounded like embellished versions of the dogfights he had been a part of. Agent S followed the family tradition and joined the Navy and then, after a long stint as a sailor, became part of a special forces team. By the time he joined the special forces team, he had already been through two wars. When his commander heard rumblings of another war, he decided to leave the special forces and join the intelligence services (XII). Agent S followed him. That was where the trouble began.
When Agent S was with the special forces team, he had worked closely with many in XII. The success or failure of the special forces teams’ missions depended on the quality of the intelligence provided by XII officers. They cultivated contacts in the enemy country, identified safe crossing points and plotted the routes to take, once in enemy territory. So, Agent S felt he was making a natural transition into his new role as a spook. After several months of high-pressure training and shadowing veterans, he was finally ready for his special assignment; to oversee the defection of an Air Force pilot from a base not far from the border. The pilot had been corrupted and compromised to the point where there was no likelihood of a double-cross.
The plan was for the pilot’s wife to leave her country on an early morning bus and commence a 10-hour journey to the neutral country where Agent S was supposed to meet her. Once she had crossed the border, he was supposed to alert his air-defense units to stand down, to ensure safe passage for the defector plane. He was then supposed to transmit the Go Code to his undercover operatives in the enemy territory. The pilot’s task was to change the path of a test flight and make a mad dash to the border, flying low to avoid detection by the enemy’s air defense system. It was a plan with so many moving pieces and any single piece out of place could have possibly doomed the entire project. Yet he was confident he was going to be able to pull it off.
When the station chief showed up at his hotel room early that morning (04.42), he felt a gut punch. He knew the news couldn’t be good. The station chief handed him a cryptic message. Decoded, it read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ It came from the national security chief. Agent S was crushed. He thought of the poor woman who was on the bus on a strange journey. In a country where most women lived behind a veil, he imagined she was only doing what her husband had asked her to do, not knowing anything about her husband’s convoluted plot. Now, instead of meeting her husband’s ‘friend’ on the other side of the border, she was going to walk into the waiting arms of the military police on her own side. Her husband, in the meanwhile, would soon be either sitting in the stockade, head in his hands, or being whisked to an interrogation room in a special facility.
Agent S thought he should feel guilty for thinking that his mission was more important than peace between two war-prone nations. But he didn’t. He told himself he was not going to apologize for thinking what a successful mission would have meant for his career. Maybe it was not the career that he cared about. It was his word. A lot of lives depended on his word: the pilot’s, the pilot’s wife, and those of the undercover operatives. Now they’re all going to be dead because he didn’t hold up his side of the bargain. Should he pick up the gun and blow his head off?
He wondered, what would George Palmer do?
Meanwhile, at Vauxhall Cross, intelligence officers were poring over information they had received on the border situation between countries X and Y. Fresh to arrive that morning was an intercept that read, ‘Talks at critical stage. Cease all undercover operations.’ Alerts went out to MI6 agents in countries X, Y and Z. Within hours they had pieced together details of the defection plot. It turned out that many of the operatives working on the defection plot were also on MI6 pay. The chief wanted to minimize damage all around, but didn’t want any of his agents involved in the mess. He sent for Peter English; said he was golfing that weekend with the PM, so would Peter be a trooper and give it some thought? ‘Have your ideas on my desk by Monday AM. Much appreciated, that’s a good fellow!’
English, somewhat at sixes and sevens, drove his Healey up to Bywater Street, for a rendezvous with his old mentor, George Palmer.
‘Well, George,’ asked English, ‘this is something of a fiasco, I’ll say! Am I allowed to pick your brain for any possible solution?’
‘Well, Peter, this Agent S has found himself in the kind of pickle I experienced in Sofia, Bulgaria, 1953. The whole operation was rolled up by Gala and chums, virtually overnight. Lost a lot of good agents to Moscow Central. Only narrowly escaped myself. Had to rely on the local ju-ju man to get me back through the curtain in one piece. Left by way of the old mole run. Popped up into Greece. Physically fine but dead inside.’
‘I don’t like moles.’
‘Me neither, Peter. Bill Blunt was responsible for the betrayal, though I didn’t suspect him at the time. Nobody did. Like when one crosses the road at Picadilly Circus, my head turned this way and that looking for a culprit.’
‘I once nearly got run over by a bus, there. A big, bloody double-decker! The number 37 to Pall Mall. I’m sure the driver was reading a newspaper at the time.’
‘Hope it was The Times.’
‘Quite. Anyway, what happened next, old chap?’
‘Director kept me at the Big Top for a month or two. Household chores. Light duties. He could see how shook up I was by the whole affair. Gave me a desk in a quiet corner and a bottle of Scotch.’
‘Shame about Director; dying like that at the cricket. Heart failure, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes; but Director wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I kind of envy him; sitting there at Lords, watching the test match with the sun on his face; a glass of Pimm’s in his hand; the sound of leather on willow.’
‘Indeed, if you put it like that, old bean. How would you like to go, George?’
‘With a bullet in the back, of course. What more noble way for a spy to die?’
‘My thoughts, exactly. Say, George, you’re on fire today. It must be this whiskey; dammed fine stuff.’
‘It’s from Angela. Another sorry gift.’
‘Oh, and I’m sorry for asking, George. I didn’t mean to…’
‘No, no Peter. We are both men of the world and then some.’
‘Where is Angela now?’
‘My sources inform me she’s shacked-up with a young Italian army officer in Rome. Speaks fluent Italian, did you know? Clever girl.’
‘She’ll be back. You’ll see. It’s always the case. But returning to the story; continue with the narrative, if you will.’
‘Ah, well, sure enough, not much later, Director invited me for tea and crumpets at Fortnam and Mason. Y’know, to soften me up. In pretty much the same sentence, he said he could see I was my old self again; and that was fortunate because I was needed in the field. Prompto. Berlin. A veritable holiday park in those days. Never a dull moment.’
‘Good old Director. A golden heart below that cold, grey exterior. And did that do the trick; helped you recover from the Bulgarian fiasco?’
‘Yes and no. Being busy kept my mind off things but the hurt remained. Still does; as from other things, too.’
‘Of course, ‘Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.’
‘Yes, ‘The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.’ Empson. ‘Missing Dates’. Very good, Peter. You studied literature at university, didn’t you?’
‘And Arabic.’
‘A double First?’
‘Naturally.’
‘And was Cambridge to your taste?’
‘Stop messing with me George, you old devil. You know we both did our time at Oxford.’
‘Sorry, Peter; one whiskey too many. These cigarettes: strong flavour.’
‘Ukranian. I know they’re a little earthy, but I developed a taste for them whilst out there last summer. Only two packets left, unfortunately. So, what are we to do with this Agent S? By the look of this transcript, he’s feeling somewhat sorry for himself, poor darling. By the way, I hear Agent S is an Anglophile who hates whiskey; whilst his father, a Sandhurst graduate, had a weakness for Johnie Walker. Black label.’
‘Admirable taste for an army man. As for Agent S: fly a Scalphunter over. Persuade him, one way or another, to come work for the Circus asap; before he does something rather silly, such as batting for the other side. After the de-brief, give him a little tea and sympathy; a little R&R at the Circus won’t do any harm. Provide him with one of those mindful people, if need be.’
‘A counsellor?’
‘Yes, that’s the word I’m looking for.’
‘And then?’
‘Send him back out into the garden, of course. Get him to tend the flowers again. Stiff upper-lip and all that. A modest monetary donation from the Reptile Fund might be an incentive.’
‘Will do, George. Another tipple?’
‘Maybe that would be rather unwise. I’m rather on the wain, as they say. A little besotted by the bottle!’
‘Oh, don’t be a stuffed shirt! Hold out your glass.’
‘Okay, if I must.’
‘To the Service, George! Chin-chin!’
‘To the service, Peter. Bottoms-up!’
Balu Swami lives in the US. His works have appeared in Flash Fiction North, Ink Pantry, Short Kid Stories Literary Veganism and others.
You can find more of Balu’s work here on Ink Pantry.
John Caulton is the editor of the website ‘Flash Fiction North’. He is the author of a short story collection entitled ‘The Grass Whistle’.
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
