The Mallorcan Bookseller (The 3R International Series Book 1) Page 4
He started as a desk officer. Sitting at a desk for eight hours a day researching information that came in from across the world. Information was assessed and graded on its level of credibility by reviewing any supporting corroboration or the past history of the source, the person who was giving the information. Information that was assessed as actionable was classed as intelligence – meaning something further needed to be done and a desk officer’s job also included providing some options for his team supervisor to then consider and take further.
He enjoyed the work, understanding that intelligence to a field officer, those people who were the ones actioning the intelligence, often alone, was vital for their safety and the security of the operation. He knew he had been earmarked as a future field officer and so was content to bide his time and learn his craft, knowing that a field officer often got in trouble as a result of a poor intelligence assessment. If something was missed, this could leave a field officer exposed to risk, a risk that could mean expulsion from the country they were operating in, or potentially something far worse, including losing their life.
After a couple of years, he was posted to Berlin with a role initially looking into potential terrorist factions. A relatively low risk assignment, he combined desk work with some basic field work. He shone in this role and was given greater responsibility in the field and over the following three years, his responsibility grew to the stage where he was both planning and leading field operations. The Berlin Station Chief, John Woodward, a very experienced field officer in his own right, recognised Greg’s skills and attributes for field work and put him forward for undercover training. So three years after arriving in Berlin, Greg found himself posted back to London, reporting for specialist U/C training.
The programme started with a class of ten field officers. Greg knew three of them. Not well, but at least by sight and to occasionally chat to. They had met during their initial basic training and would occasionally see each other at the MI6 offices at Vauxhall Cross on the Embankment. The first part of the programme was a mix of classroom and field exercise work and then each Undercover Training Programme trainee was assigned to an experienced U/C training officer for a further two weeks intensive one to one training, with the final assessment on suitability being directly down to the U/C training officer.
*****
Greg performed with distinction during the first six weeks of basic U/C training. Sitting with the Programme Director known to him only as Patrick, he was feeling confident about the next stage of the training.
“Greg, you’ve done bloody well so far.”
Greg noticed a pause.
“I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming sir?”
“More a note of caution. We teach and practise for the real thing. For the time when you are out there alone and it all goes belly-up.”
Patrick paused and then said, “But it can never, I repeat, never get near to that sense of isolation when you are deep into your cover and you need to react to whatever goes on.”
Greg saw the look on Patrick’s face. This wasn’t just any sort of bollocking, but a genuine ‘listen to this and listen carefully’ message.
“I see you as someone a little like myself. I’m not old school, I’m a council school kid like you.”
Greg heard the polished English private school accent and Patrick saw him taking in this information and he smiled.
“Yes, funny how we seem to lose it when we’re at a posh university like Cambridge. But I can tell you there have been times when it’s been quite handy to revert to my home accent.”
As Patrick carried on talking, he now quietly spoke with an East End accent.
“Because sometimes you can use it to get your message across quite well.”
Greg felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he heard the menace in Patrick’s voice.
“Anyway, where was I Greg?” as Patrick settled back into his polished British accent.
“Well, other than scaring the shit out of me Patrick, I think you were about to tell me who my training officer will be.”
“Yes, quite right. I’ll let her introduce herself, but you are right at the top of the class, if not at the top Greg. So, I’ve given you the best U/C trainer to work with, but be aware, she takes no prisoners and you will need to work bloody hard to reach the standard she demands.”
Greg started to say something when Patrick stopped him.
“Lesson One. Don’t interrupt. Listen, listen and then listen again. The reason she’s so bloody good at this is because she is alive. So everything she says is for one reason and one reason only – to keep you alive. Understood?”
“Yes sir,” and he said it as he genuinely meant it.
He knew working as a U/C officer carried with it a high risk tariff and that mistakes could cost not just his life, but those of others. But the best U/C trainer? Wow! He had come a long way since scrapping behind the garages on the Britwell.
*****
He had been given a location and time to meet his trainer. It was The Blackfriar in Queen Victoria Street, just north of the Thames. A nice old pub close to the river. He’d been there before a few times and liked the marble in the main bar area. As he walked in, fifteen minutes early, he looked around and took note of the two men at the bar standing chatting and a group of three young women who looked like they were meeting after work. He ordered a pint of Doombar at the bar and then as the barman poured his drink, he excused himself saying he was just going to the toilet. This gave him the opportunity to look around the rest of the pub. Satisfied that he had a good look, he came back as if from the toilets and as he did, he saw a woman sitting on a stool at the bar by his drink.
“Hello Greg.”
It took him a moment to register. It was a different accent and her hair was different too, both the colour and the style.
“Fiona?”
“The very same.”
She smiled. It was the same smile as before.
She gave him some time to settle as she went on, “So you’ve done well, very well, to get here and I’ve heard good things about you from John in Berlin too.”
“Thank you,” he paused. “So, an Irish redhead becomes an English blonde with a genteel accent?”
“Greg, Lesson Two, I heard about your Lesson One, now Lesson Two is never go on appearances or accents. Look at the eyes and the hands. They are much harder to conceal even with coloured contact lenses. You can still learn a lot from someone’s eyes.”
Greg nodded and then said, “Right, before we start Lesson Three, would you like a drink?”
Two weeks of intense and at times exhausting training followed. She was a hard taskmaster as Patrick said she would be. She pushed him until he was near breaking point and then pulled him back to look at what he was learning about himself. She could be tough and ruthless and then the next moment, she looked at him in a way that made him feel like she loved him. But as the training went on, he began to see small acknowledgements from her of his work. He knew she was now rebuilding his self-confidence as he needed to believe he was not just good at this stuff, but that he was bloody good!
He kept Patrick’s Lesson One close to his thinking all the time, ‘Listen, listen and then listen again’ as he took on board all that Fiona was teaching him. He wanted to ask her about her experiences but she would always say, “Not now, later, when we’re done.”
During one of the sessions on developing a solid background cover, she quizzed him about his previous relationships and asked if he had anyone special in his life at the moment. He told about the girls who had been in his life so far and that any sort of relationship pretty much stopped when he left Cambridge. He knew she was asking a loaded question when it came to any current relationship, as it was company policy to report any relationship for vetting.
“No, I haven’t had any sort of relationship since then. There never seems to be time and there’s the hassle of the vetting and how do you tell someone ‘I work for MI6’?”
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“But presumably you’ve had sex since then?”
He had expected the question, but still felt himself shift uncomfortably when asked. He went to answer.
“Stop,” she said. “What the hell happened then? You get a little bit embarrassed and you start showing off all sorts of body language. Get a bloody grip Greg! This is not a joke. Everything I’m doing is for a reason and you need to be always on your guard.”
“But I thought you were just asking…,” he started to say.
“You should know by now Greg, I never just ask anything.”
He could see she was furious with him and he understood why. It worried him that he could so easily make such a fundamental slip. ‘I thought I had this. Stop being so bloody cocksure of yourself and sort yourself out.’
He looked back at her and she had relaxed.
“Okay, I think you’ve got the point. So let me tell you one of the best lessons Patrick gave me, ’If you want to fall in love, then it’s time to get out of U/C work.’ So for you Greg, it’s no strings, no ties and no commitment and if you find yourself falling into something that you want to be a longer term thing, then get out of U/C quickly and find yourself a nice field officer job somewhere, as you just cannot afford to have what is a massive vulnerability sitting in the back of your head. Got it?”
He nodded. She was making it very clear that he could not afford the luxury of falling in love if he was to be an effective and more importantly, a safe and alive undercover officer.
“Got it,” he said. “No strings, no ties, no commitments.”
*****
As they approached the final exercise and after another occasion when her smile and eyes lingered just a fraction longer than perhaps necessary, he dared to think that there was perhaps something there, as he had felt between them when he first met her in Cambridge. But then shook his head, ‘She’s good. Really good at this. So shut up Chambers and get on with your job.’
*****
Patrick addressed the trainees who remained after the eight week programme. There were five of them. Two of the three people he had previously known were still there, with him and two others, so three men and two women.
“Ladies and gentlemen. It may not have escaped your now advanced investigative and observational skills that there are now only five of you left.”
There was a smattering of half laughs and grins from the group.
“I did say that we would announce whether you had passed the programme at the end, however, like much within the U/C world that was only a half truth. So, here’s my final lesson to you. Not everything is all that it seems.”
He then paused and looked at each of them in turn with a smile slowly appearing on his face.
“If you are to live and operate safely within this world of deceit and deception, then remember that if you can do it around a half lie, then it will ring true so much the better.”
The five trainees looked around at each other and then to Patrick, whose smile for once actually portrayed his true feelings.
“Yes, you have passed. So well done and I wish you all well.”
With that he walked out leaving five envelopes on the desk.
After the five finished congratulating each other, Greg picked up the envelopes.
“What do you think? Pay cheques or new postings?”
He passed them out to the others and then opened his letter. It was from Fiona.
Dear Greg,
Many congratulations on passing the programme.
Meet me again where we first met.
7pm tonight.
Fiona
PS Get the train
Not much was said after that. Each of the newly qualified U/C officers said little, knowing they may not see each other again, but that if they did, it may be in challenging and dangerous circumstances.
Greg looked at his watch. He didn’t have much time to get to Cambridge. He assumed she was going to brief him on his next assignment, but why go back there? He had been hoping to get away for a week to rest and recuperate as there had been a rumour that they would all get a week off before being posted.
He packed an overnight bag with the usual preparations of rapid deployment – passport, money in assorted currencies, one change of clothes and toothbrush and toothpaste – he smiled as he thought back to another of Patrick’s Lessons, ‘Never forget dental hygiene’.
He was cutting things fine by the time he got to King’s Cross and had to run down the platform to get the 17.39 train just as it was about to leave. Less than an hour later he was getting in a cab at Cambridge station to get to the running track at Wilberforce Road. He got there ten minutes early to find Fiona sitting in a magenta red open top sports car.
“Hello, fancy meeting you here,” he said.
“Get in,” she said sternly.
He dropped his bag into the back seat and got in.
He hadn’t closed the door before she leaned across and grabbed him and kissed him. He kissed her back. Hard at first and then slowly, allowing the passion to settle between them for a moment. Then she broke away.
“Right, that’s got that out of the way, let’s go and get some dinner.”
She drove fast and sure. It was a classic car, A Triumph TR6. His dad had always loved this car but had never had the money to get anything like this. This was a properly restored and gleaming example. It was a beautiful summer’s evening and he thought things couldn’t get any better until they just did when he got into the car. God, she looked gorgeous in a summer dress and wraparound sunglasses. He had no idea why this was happening but after three weeks intense training with her, he knew better than to ask. ‘Listen, listen and listen again.’
*****
It didn’t take long to get to the small country hotel.
“Come on, dinner’s booked for eight and I want a drink and a bath first, in that order.”
They checked in under his name and the thought struck him, he still didn’t know her surname. They made their way up to the first floor to a beautiful room with a bottle of champagne sitting on the side table with two flutes. Fiona walked straight into the bathroom and started to run the bath before coming back out and taking him in her arms. This time he kissed her, slowly as they held each other tenderly, feeling their bodies touch and enjoying the moment of gentle intimacy.
“Why now?” he whispered.
“Let’s not worry about that now,” as she eased herself away from him. “Pour me some bubbles and I’m going for my bath.”
He clearly wasn’t going to get any explanation until she was ready. So he did as he was told, opening the champagne and then taking a glass of champagne into the bathroom where she was already submerged into a Victorian style bath tub.
“You seem to have got this all planned then.”
“Well I would have thought you would have learned by now that planning is a key part of any operation,” she smiled.
“So I’m just an operation then?” He feigned a look of disappointment.
“Okay, don’t go all sad on me. Yes, I really like you,” she said. “But here’s the thing, I‘ve been telling you for the last two weeks, ‘no strings, no ties, no commitments,’ so I’m being serious that we need to just enjoy this moment and then walk away. And before you ask, no, I don’t do this with every trainee, in fact I have never done this before. Call it a failure of my professionalism or just my lust and passion getting the better of me. Whatever, it is, I know there’s something there between us.”
“Now pass me the towel.”
Greg stood there for a moment, still taking in what she had said, when he heard her say again, “Towel please, I’m getting cold standing here.”
He fumbled around for her towel as he was distracted looking at her, standing naked in the bath. He held it out and wrapped her in it, kissed her and carefully lifted her out of the bath.
“Thank you kindly sir,” she said.
He then showered and changed and they went down for dinner.
They talked easily and the hours drifted by as they just enjoyed each other’s company. He felt so relaxed and she looked the same. She was radiant. Her blonde hair, not red as she had been when he first met her, falling softly onto her shoulders. They enjoyed a nightcap and then went upstairs to their room. The door had barely closed when they kissed and fell onto the bed, laughing and undressing.