Top Secret
By luigi_pagano
Sat, 28 Mar 2020
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4 comments
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Phew, that was a close call. I very nearly blew my cover when Uncle Jeremy's wife, Lottie, looked towards me as I was making my way out of the bar. I wasn't sure whether she had recognised me but I immediately returned inside and exited through a back door.
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Since my early teens I have been fascinated by reading about the derring-do of secret agents like Sidney Reilly, the ace of spies, Mata Hari and more recently the fictional character of James Bond.
Though not wanting to emulate them, I was flattered by my tutor at Uni who suggested that having a first class degree in languages could enable me to embark in a diplomatic career and he could introduce me to useful contacts. I never imagined that it might involve espionage.
Before I could say Jack Robinson I had signed the Official Secrets Act and become a small cog in the large wheel of the security world.
Uncle Jeremy always remarked on how clever I was at ferreting-out information by my persistent questioning but he would have been flabbergasted had he known where that particular skill had led me.
◊ ◊ ◊
◊ ◊ ◊
My first assignment represented my baptism of fire and should have been very simple. GCHQ had intercepted a conversation between suspected Russian spies suggesting a rendezvous in Portofino.
I was sent to that attractive resort that I had previously visited and knew very well.
All I had to do was track the main contact, observe how many more people would be joining him on the clandestine meeting and report back.
From the description I was given, it was easy to identify the wolf in sheep's clothing: it was an individual in tweeds and brown leather brogues pretending to be a typical Englishman. He was sitting on his own at an outside table of the restaurant with a copy of the Times.
The fly in the ointment that upset our carefully planned operation was the inopportune arrival of my relatives and the exceptional eyesight of Aunt Lottie's who could spot things a long way off and saw me straight away.
The commotion that ensued alerted my quarry who thought prudent to abandon the intended get-together and go.
I had to resign myself to the fact that my mission had failed but could not reveal my presence and decided to be incommunicado to avoid embarrassing expIanations.
I removed the SIM card and battery to disable my smart phone and be unreachable by my uncle who thought I was in Nepal, having received a postcard that my boss had somehow managed to be despatched from Kathmandu.
I removed the SIM card and battery to disable my smart phone and be unreachable by my uncle who thought I was in Nepal, having received a postcard that my boss had somehow managed to be despatched from Kathmandu.
I sent an encrypted report on a burner phone to headquarters and was instructed to return to England,
I could then reappear in some guise or another and pretend that I had changed my occupation once again. A freelance photographer maybe. I am certain that uncle Jeremy would be his usual unflappable self and say cheerfully, “Good old Jessica, always versatile”.
© Luigi Pagano 2020
See also https://www.abctales.com/story/luigipagano/incident-portofino
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Comments
It's like a mixture of Bertie
Permalink Submitted by drew_gummerson on
It's like a mixture of Bertie Wooster and James Bond....
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Now I want to know about the
Permalink Submitted by onemorething on
Now I want to know about the man in tweed...I like the way this could potentially move to a different tangent of stories now. Rachel x
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