THE SPANISH WAITER: TEN

The self-terjed superspy Boney finds himself in trouble.

Even the best areas of most towns have back streets, and this particular back street hidden in a Victorian remnant of old London was the most anonymous of any back street anywhere. The buildings were poky, their brickwork looking as if it might crumble at any time and the front doors simply couldn’t be opened. It was just as well, then, that it had an ugly back entrance.

There was no sign saying what it was and who lived or worked (or both) in it, but it was the headquarters of the The Firm and one figure might be seen from time to time making his way out through the aforementioned back entrance, or in by using the same back entrance, and he was Mr Smith.

That’s what he was called by the few people who knew him beyond the parameters of that back entrance, but to the shadowy visitors who called (and they were few and very far between) he was The Governor. When he was at home in the suburbs he had a totally different name and persona and his neighbours looked at him as the rather dour headmaster of a boy’s school.

Whilst at work he was connected to the world using the latest in technology. Even hos computers had computers of their own, and that’s how he liked it because his chosen route through life involved secrecy. He operated through agents who had no idea who he was. He hired and fired when necessary without needing to consult another living soul. He was his own secretary, personal assistant, csll it wht you will, and he answered only to himself.

His raison d’etre had been created by what has been widely called the cold war, when east and west, both armed with the nastiest of weapons and terribly dangerous explosives of a nuclear nature were at each other’s throats on a daily basis, issuing dire warnings on the subjected of radioactivity and testing the odd bomb in remote regions so that the other side knew they were progressing in toxic nastiness.

When the cold war slowly froze away and the possibility of life on Earth not being blasted in a multi-megaton fireball, you might have thought that Mr Smith had less to do, but that was far from being the case. He had created, along with a couple of predecessors, a labyrinth of shadowy structures that needed him. The Governor was a self-replicating weapon of state and had evolved into one that answered only to itself.

Inside the dreary building that couldn’t possibly appear to contain anything remotely important to the national and international scene and which was only known by an impossible postal code there was the Governor’s office in which was the Governor’s desk and at which sat the Governor. He might have been Mr Smith outside this paradise, but here he was The Governor and if anyone (of the few who knew of its existence) tried to call him by any other name he would have to answer to him as he was marched off to anonymity in a corner of the world where he would be occupied with the kind of nothing labour that takes all day and every day to work through.

And it was to the Governor that Gaddy Carter aka Boney answered.

Communication was far from basis though it did appear to be just that. By some jiggery-pokery a highly sophisticated chain of means (involving satellite communication and what is sometimes referred to as the dark web as well as electronic post-it notes visible only to The Governor because the whole global network appeared to terminate in one geriatric analogue telephone which had been cleverly adapted to be unique.

Boney, in Northern Spain, was worried. He was on vacation with the rest of his cell, Sparky Somerville and Murial Saint John, and they had chosen the most anonymous possible kind of vacation, a European coach tour operated by a small local company, in Portugal, where they were promised relaxation and enough sight-seeing to be veritably educational as well as an afternoon sampling of port wines with the view of buying a bottle for the Governor. It had been approved at the highest level and so they had set off, only to find they were being served in the hotel that the party overnighted at in Spain by the one man in the whole world that made Boney feel guilty.

Because he knew full well that Ivan Maybe should never have served a long prison sentence for murder when the man had only been generously trying to fix an old banger of a car, and anyway no murder had been committed. But he and the cell had had to make a quick escape from the area, and needs must. Collateral damage, that’s what Ivan had been. Unavoidable. Sad, but true.

Now the Spanish police were showing an interest in him in the shape of the hotel owner’s wife who happened to be a rather senior policewoman, and one rule for members of The Firm to try to stick to was avoiding the police at every available opportunity. The police attended to civil law and The Firm monitored international danger. On the rare occasions when the two overlapped then the Governor should be consulted. And Boney calculated that this was one such occasion. There was a danger that the Spanish police might arrest him because he and his colleagues had become separated from their papers, and since Brexit such a thing was best avoided.

“I need to consult the proper UK authority,” he told Valentina, the still attractive wife of the hotel owner and influential Spanish detective, a woman who in normal circumstances back home he would make a play for, trap in a situation she’d prefer the world to be ignorant of, and thus have power over her. But not here in Spain: and anyway, the woman’s husband was just about always within spitting distance of her when she wasn’t at work.

“Use the phone in my office,” said Tomas in the tone of voice that implied an ending of or else to the sentence.

“If I must,” grumbled Boney.

Now, he’d never had to telephone The Firm on an international line because his main function always had been making sure the homeland was safe from terrorist activities. The one advantage was he knew the number that would reach the Governor. It had been imprinted onto his brain ages before when the system had been upgraded, and it was a long number, the sort of number that it was assumed nobody would call by accident unless they were a toddler pressing numbers randomly for fun.

“What are you doing? Asked Tomas when he’d dialled his first dozen digits, “telephoning outer space?”

“It’s a special number, so stop peeping,” replied Bone, keying in the last few digits.

There was a brief series of audible clicks and then he heard the Governor’s voice.

“What is it, Carter?” he asked.

How on Earth did he know it was me? pondered Boney.

“I’ve got a problem sir,” he replied, “I’m in Spain and my papers are in Portugal and the police here are a bit sniffy.”

“It’s my wife you’re talking about!” growled Tomas. “So donlt call her sniffy.

“Sir, they’re talking about arresting me,” explained Boney.

“Then let them, and find a way of escaping as soon as you can, and then return to the UK and my office in order to collect your cards,” growled the Governor, and he slammed his phone down.

At least, to Boney it felt as though it had been slammed down.

Completely unexpectedly, a tear trickled out ois left eye and ran down his face, past his nose until it reached his chin when the collection of his cards was mentioned.

Crikey, thought Tomas, the man’s crying!

© Peter Rogerson 04.05.22

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