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I was trying to look like I was not doing what I was doing, and that sometimes was quite difficult.

The thing is, you know what it is you’re doing, and neutrally, you think that everyone else does too.

Especially when people are looking at you, and that look conveys ‘I know what you’re up to’.

All I was doing was sitting on a park bench under a tree next to a small waterfall reading a newspaper.

That was the first giveaway.  No one stopped to read newspapers these days.  It was always about instant news gratification on the cell phone.

The second might well have been me holding the newspaper upside down, or worse, that I had cut two small holes in it so I could see beyond the newspaper without lowering it, much like the cartoons of old.

The third definitely was, that if anyone got close enough, they would see it was yesterday’s paper.  I had been running late and grabbed the wrong edition.

So, why was I sitting on a park bench under a tree beside a small waterfall, trying to look like I was not doing exactly that?

I was expecting company.

It didn’t matter who was sitting on that bench, just that they wore a pinstripe suit and a red rose in the lapel.  The bowler hat and umbrella were optional, but I was feeling whimsical.

After all, in a sense, I was a typical English public servant.

Jacobson, ostensibly the man in charge of a group if us aspiring ‘public servants’ had chosen me to run this errand.  I don’t know why. It was not my turn on the roster, and the person who should be going had been sent elsewhere.

It was unexpected and a much-needed change in what had been a very dull week.

I was five minutes early.  I had taken in the early summer afternoon sunshine, clear sky, and aromas of the outdoor gardens.  There was that freshly watered newly mown grass aroma that hung in the air.

There were quite a few other people also out for the afternoon, some strolling hand in hand, others as families with boisterous noisy children.  There was plenty of distraction and camouflage.

I folded the newspaper neatly, put it on the seat beside me, and sat back, looking towards the lake and thinking I might take a walk down and back before returning to the office.

It’s best not to look like I was scuttling back to the office after making the pickup because that was what it was.  A drop-off and pick-up in plain sight, my first and hopefully not my last.

I looked at my phone, ostensibly to check for incoming messages, but in reality, looking at the time.

One minute past the appointed arrival time.

I gave the scene before me a scan trying to look like I was not scanning the scene before me.  That was difficult.

There were three possible threats that fitted the profile of a possible threat, and I was hoping they were not.

The first, is a man on another park bench under a tree, not beside a small waterfall, reading a newspaper.  It was too far away to tell if it was an older edition.  He was glancing in my direction, able to see me without lowering his paper.

The second was a woman with a pram; standing in front, stopped and ostensibly attending to the child within, if there was a child within.  She had only arrived a minute before the appointed time.

The third was another man on another park bench not reading a paper by rather animatedly talking on his cell phone, at the same time looking in my direction.  Was he on the phone reporting, or was he talking to a friend?

Scan ended, and the target, a woman dressed to be noticed, was strolling towards me along the path in a group of about a dozen others evenly spaced, looking like there’ll were together but they were not together.

So much for anonymity.

The first man noticed the new arrival and was on alert. It could be that she stood out, the sort of woman men would give a second look.  She certainly had my attention.

This was getting to be thirsty work, and I took a drink out of the bottle of water I had brought with me.

The woman with the pram had noticed the first man on his bench stiffen and stopped fussing with the child, and started rocking horse the pram, looking at both him then me, then up and down the path, then repeat.  Was that a look of jealousy after she was the approaching woman?

Was she waiting and looking for my target, or was she waiting for a friend or partner?  She was moving towards me slowly.

The third man’s phone call ended when a woman came and sat next to him and greeted him effusively.  Distraction.

The woman with the pram was suddenly met by another woman, older, most likely a mother carrying a large fluffy toy.  Another Distraction.

First man, no longer on his seat, no longer in sight, where the hell was he?  Damn.

Target arrives, and sits, there’s not supposed to be any interaction, but the first man just hovers into sight and is now looking directly at us.

“Long time no see,” the girl said and slid over towards me, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me.  It was a fluid movement from sitting, sliding, and gathering me up in her web of deceit.

I kissed her back. I was happy to play the part asked of me.

Then she leaned back and smiled.  It was like we had known each other forever.  “My God, you have changed, Daniel, and I have to say I love it.”

She had all but taken my breath away, but not so much that the man who had been watching had moved on, assuming as anyone would that two old friends had just reunited.

All I could say was, “Wow.”

She took my hand in hers and said, “Walk with me.”

She didn’t need to ask twice.  Once up, she didn’t let go.  It was a smooth and fluid operation, and it felt natural and not forced.  I had to remind myself that j was playing a role, it was an operation, and that we were improvising.

Over my shoulder, I could see the first man had stopped a short distance away, now intrigued, perhaps to see how this played out.  If he was expecting a drop, he was not expecting two old lovers to reunite.

I leaned towards her, whispering, “Over my shoulder red handkerchief.”

“Saw him on approach.  Amateur.”  Then out loud, ” You got that dull as ditchwater desk job, where was it, treasury or no let me guess, revenue and customs?”

“That was the old me, you know, the one you said you wouldn’t be caught dead with.  No, I’m in a far more interesting home, science innovation, and technology.”

“You failed science at school, come to think of it you all but failed everything except how to wear that old-school tie.  My, and you thought you’d end up on a fishing trawler cleaning the bilges.”

“And therefore totally qualified to work for the government in something I know absolutely nothing about.  Did you get that modelling contact?”

“And a screen test.  I was going to be in the movies until I realised what the screen test entailed.  Now I just model clothes.”

The banter, the manner in which we were walking, the carefree air of two people who had nothing better to do, we were heading for the nearest cafe.  Coffee, cake, more outlandish conversation, the drop would be made, my life would have fifteen minutes of what I’d always wanted but would never get, and the job would be done.

Our new friend was already losing interest.

When I finally returned to the office, I tried to act like nothing happened and completely failed.  The thing is, I was supposed to be able to handle any situation, act in any role it took to get the job done, then go home and come back the next day ready for the next role.

What happened before happened and was forgotten.  Our lives were quite literally clean slates every morning.  There was no time to dwell on what happened or what might happen.

Except…

“You’re not the first,” Lenny, another of the team, said.  “The fact is, we all want to spend a few minutes with her.  I’m told her name is Harriet. They call her Harry for short.

Jay, listening to the conversation, said, “Larry’s furious because he had been slated for this operation, and has now missed out.  “He’s been assigned to work with her before.”

That might be the reason why he was passed over.  She might not want to work with him again.  I remembered him from training, and he particularly was prone not to follow orders or ‘ad lib’.

“Perhaps she wanted someone new, who knows how this works.  No one understands what it is we’re really doing that involved her,” Larry muttered, “but the scuttlebutt is that we’re still being tested.  How did it go?”

“Mission accomplished, potential threats taken care of, and I’ve been debriefed.  I’m sure if there was anything wrong, they’ll tell me.”

Sixteen of us had gotten through the first round of training, out of an intake of about a hundred.  That had been whittled down to six, and I was not sure if I was pleased or sad that my tenure would be determined by a situation, I had no control over.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that whatever they’d been giving us to do, we were still being tested; only these were far more life-like than training.  The question was if I ended up being in the final few, whether or not I would take it.

At the end of the day, I went home.

We had been told from the outset that this was not going to be a nine-to-five job, that we could go anywhere, at any time of the day or night, to do almost anything.  We had to be able to drop everything and simply go.  As per instructions, I had an away bag packed at ready to go.

And more important was that we should have no attachments, and one of the questions, and the main reason why the people recruited us, was because we had no families or friends of consequence.  The reason it was stressed; they could be used as leverage.

On the other hand, if we had those special people we cared about, our minds would not be on the job in hand.

I certainly fit the loner category.  My parents were dead, and I had no brothers or sisters or family of any sort, making me the ideal candidate.  I certainly didn’t want friends; they had constantly let me down in the past.

Of course, if this didn’t work out. I was going to leave the country and become a ski instructor in New Zealand, a place I doubted anyone I knew knew existed.

But until then, my small place in Brooklyn was where I could hide from the rest of the world.

Or so I thought.

I walked up the stairs to the third level, where I shared the floor with another apartment.  I ran into the other occupant the day I moved in, and he had referred to as the penthouse if only to feel better about the small space.

It was enough for me, as a temporary space to call home if and when I would be in London.  I wasn’t planning on being there long or often.

A glance at the other door, the occupant was away.  I unlocked my door and went in.  It was unusually dark, and I did not remember pulling the curtains, I usually left them open to get some natural light in the main room

I stopped inside the door and leaned against it.  There was a very familiar aroma in the room, a particular brand of perfume I had recently become acquainted with.

“Checking to see if I can notice a break and enter,” I said, at that moment to no one in particular.

If I was right, it was the woman I had met in the park who shared a fifteen-minute adventure.

The chair beside my desk swung around, and she was sitting cross-legged on it.  She fit into it like it had been made for her.  It also demonstrated a certain flexibility.

“What gave me away?”

“Perfume?”

“I will have to deal with that, something less potent.”

“Unless you want to intoxicate your target.”

“Does that mean I have you under my spell?”

She uncurled herself from the chair and sashayed over to me.  I could not take my eyes off her, as I suspect was the point.

“If I deemed you a threat, we would be in a very different position right now.”

She smiled.

“Your training officer said you were more dangerous than a cage of riled rattlesnakes.”

“My compatriots would give their right arms to go on a mission with you.”

“And you?”

“I need my right arm, so no.”

“That’s a pity.  You’ve reached the end of your training, and you’re ready.  Would you like to stay? It’s not mandatory.  Long hours, bad pay, and definitely no thanks.  I don’t know why anyone would want to.”

“Today, you almost gave me a heart attack.  It’s the most alive I’ve ever been.  How could I refuse?”

“You will be working with me then.  Undercover.  It’s going to be long and arduous, and the people who were cosying up to are very, very dangerous.  I’ve got your legend, and you’ll have a day to study it, remember every detail, and then live it.  In or out?”

“Right now?”

“Right now.  We leave tomorrow night.  There is no time to think about it.”

I shrugged.  “I’m in.”

“Good.  Everything you’ll need is in your bedroom.  Until tomorrow then.”

She took a step closer and was so close I could feel the temperature rise.  It was like that moment on the park bench.  I leaned forward slightly and kissed her on the lips briefly, eyes closed for just a second before opening them to look at her.

Whimsical.  My heart did double somersaults, and I don’t think it was meant to.

“Perhaps not then.  I think in a very small space of time, I’ve developed feelings for you.”

“I feel it too.  That’s why I want you for the job.  We’re going undercover as husband and wife, and it has to look real.  I knew from that moment on the park bench you were the one.  And you are going to have to compartmentalise those feelings.  Think you can?”

“Of course.  It’s the nature of the job.  I’ll be ready.”

“Excellent.  Change of plans.  I want to know everything about you so I’m staying.  And I’ll tell you everything about me.  Let’s see where this goes.”

I would tell you how that went, but that’s another story!

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©  Charles Heath  2024

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