Day 279 – Writing Exercise

…

We’ve all been there.

When you’re sitting around the table with ops and the briefing teams, you trust that they have researched the subject and checked the details, so when you go in, nothing is left to chance.

Trust.

Except in my experience, you sit there listening to the plan and hearing the confidence they have and the level of detail, and you think, what could go wrong.

For the first few missions, I trusted nothing would go wrong, and it didn’t.  Not majorly anyway.

Then one did, but we were trained to deal with setbacks and disasters mostly from last-minute changes or a single missed detail.

Too many missions, too long in the field, too on edge, approaching burnout

Then the trust turns to hope.

But it’s not until there’s a problem you can’t solve – not immediately – and you get into a situation where the training is there, but it goes only so far.

For me, it was capture.

Berlin, three months ago, in the wrong place at the wrong time, there’s only so much you can do or say before the heavyweights come in.

A foreign agent in a place where he should not be, captured and unable to firmly convince the interrogators they’ve made a mistake, ends up in a dark, damp cell, at the end of a week’s conditioning.   Weeks of sensory deprivation and psychological torture.

Before the real interrogation starts.

My breaking point in training was thirty-six days.  We were at sixty.  My mind was swivelling from the overwhelming desire to give in, then to looking for a means of escape.

On the sixty-first day, I was being dragged from the cell to the interrogation room.  The guard team leader had used me as a punching bag before ordering his men to scrape me off the floor.

It was one hundred and thirty-three steps to the interrogation room.  We made one hundred and seven before a figure in black shot the three; then, as the interrogators came out to see what was happening, they were shot too.

Then a whispered in my ear, “Can you run?”

“Try to stop me.”  I didn’t think I could, but that’s what the person in black wanted to hear.

We ran.  Six more guards died.  I made it to a paddock where a helicopter was waiting.  I was literally thrown on board and took off whilst the person in black and the crew member were still climbing aboard.

That was all I could remember.

…

I woke up in the Department C training centre hospital, my handler, Dr Hawkins, sitting across the room doing what I thought was the Times cryptic crossword.

He had sent me into hell, and at least once during each of those sixty-one days in captivity I had devised a new way to mete out a long, slow, excruciating death to him and anyone else who created that fiasco.

The thing was, i knew sooner or later a mission would go south.  We all knew that our number could be up at any time.  After all, we were doing stuff that was technically illegal, and often impossible.

We would do the same to them, that they did to us.  It still didn’t make me feel any better.

He peered over the paper, then put it down.  “Ah, Vance, you’re awake.  Good.”

Like nothing had happened.  To him we were machines: come back damaged, we got sent to the repair shop, sent out for a test run and then back into service.

You didn’t quit and you didn’t retire.  I hadn’t yet discovered what happened to you if you could no longer work.

Right then, looking at his cold, expressionless face, I didn’t want to.

…

Debriefing, deprogramming, call it what you like, was as bad as what came before it.

I may have seemed normal the moment I woke up, but I’d been in captivity for sixty days, and he wanted to know what they had done.

I tried to help.  Unfortunately, all it did was make me cynical, hyper-vigilant, and desperate to prove that I wasn’t broken.

Three weeks, four, Hawkins drew a line under the mess he created and gave me a return-to-light-duty lies ticket.

I could go back to work, but nothing too complicated.  Those were the dream jobs: cushy surveillance, observe and record.

It didn’t require briefing teams, just ops one-on-one with a purple folder.

The brief:  stationed in a quiet, rain-swept Scottish seaside village.  The assignment was, if anything, laughably simple: to observe a low-level embassy clerk suspected of leaking minor logistical data decades ago.

It was purely meant to decompress me, and ease my way back in.  I read the file, threw what I would need in my backpack, along with a few dog-eared paperback spy novels and headed to Port Crudon, the village by the sea, to join the winter tourists.

Instead of a hotel room, I had a small cottage.  The day I arrived, the air had the mixed aromas of sea salt, damp wool and peat smoke.

Parked outside and sitting in the battered Volvo, the sort of car an absent-minded professor would own, I looked out through the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers at my new home.

My grip on the steering wheel was so tight my knuckles were white, and I was consciously flouncing my breaths, in four, hold four, out four, a CBT technique Hawkins had given me to combat sensory flashbacks.

That wasn’t the worst of it; I had acquired a hyper-awareness of everything around me: the number of fishing boats in the small harbour, seven, the precise angle of the rear-view mirror, the ticking of the analogue watch.  The silence that surrounded me felt heavier than the noise.

I hadn’t told him the true nature of what I was experiencing, or I’d still be back in the hospice.

It took five minutes to get out of the car.  Gull’s Rest was an apt name.  There was a dozen on the roof, watching him.  A small, whitewashed cottage with a slate roof, it overlooked the rocky shoreline.

Home away from home.  That’s how it was described to him.

He assumed the neighbour to the left was out, and the one on the right had a light on.  And was that a gentle brush of the curtain?

Before going in, I did a sweep of the perimeter, something that was instilled in us and automatically done without thinking.

Escape routes up and down the road, the houses nearby and who, if anyone, was in them, and how far to the village itself, and most importantly, a cafe where he could have breakfast, and a restaurant for dinner, a shop for supplies.

And the pub for a drink.

He grabbed his duffel bag, and after another intense stare up and down the road, he pushed open the squeaky gate, noting the picket fence was leaning in places and in need of repairs, and passed through.

The front door was solid and recently repaired.  The key was under the flowerpot, as advised, and the door opened silently.  It belied an external facade that looked neglected.

He shook his head.  There are no conspiracies.

Just the same, the scan of the cottage was instinctive and compulsive, checking the floorboards for weight traps, examining the door and window locks, possible entrances and exits, and sight measured the drop from the bedroom window to the ground.

I stopped when I realised I was checking behind a painting that hadn’t been moved for years, looking for a hidden microphone.  I forced a small laugh and said quietly to myself, “Relax, you’re just a tourist now.”

But was I?  I sat down and looked around.  Could I ever be just a tourist?  I swallowed and could still taste the copper and adrenaline left over from those sixty days of captivity.

A sharp, erratic knock at the door broke the silence and my thoughts with a jolt.  On my feet in a second, reaching for my gun and realising I didn’t have it, a momentary sense of utter shock was replaced with adopting a defensive stance.

A deep breath, exhale, then I opened the door.

It was an elderly woman huddled under a faded wool tartan shawl, holding a steaming ceramic bowl.  She shivered slightly, emphasising the cold air that rushed past her and inside when he opened the door.

“My name is Gable, Molly to friends.  I feel we will be,” she said in thick, warbling Scottish dialect.  “It’s cold, late, and you will be hungry.  I brought some hot cock-a-leekie soup to ward off the coastal chill.”

She ended it with a lopsided smile.

Habit taught you things you never stop doing, and as she spoke, I discovered a threat assessment.  He lopsided stance meant she’d been in an accident and possibly limped; she had thick cataract glasses that made her eyes impossibly large, and her hands had a slight tremor after she handed him the pot.

A harmless, eccentric local.

He smiled as he took the soup and thanked her.

“Come for the sea air?”

“Rest.”  He almost added recreation, making him sound like a soldier, or worse, a spy on sabbatical.

Gentle interrogation.

“We all need that every now and then.  You’ve come to the right place.  Perhaps we’ll run into each other.  Its a small village.  She smiled and left, definitely displaying a limp, slight but there.

He put the bowl on the table, quickly checking for foreign objects out of pure habit, and then had a small taste.  It tasted delicious, and best of all, hot.

It was a shame he didn’t have any bread to go with it.

…

The next morning, after a fitful night and a battle to light the fire in the bedroom, I got to work.  Dressing casually and looking touristy.

My cover story was that I’d been a manager in a large factory on stress leave after a breakdown.  It was almost true, the breakdown part anyway.

I walked to the village’s only pub, The Rope and Anchor, aptly named, as the inside was a collection of anchors and rope knots, and pictures of sailing ships adorning the walls.  Despite the hour, I ordered a pint.  I was not the only one and received a few dismissive looks.  I doubt I was the first southern stranger to wander in.

Mt Target, old Arthur Pindleton was already there, propping up the bar, hunched over his pint, and didn’t bother looking up when I stood beside him to order mine.

He looked like the frail, retired embassy clerk, a man who looked like he couldn’t copy a grocery list let alone state secrets.

Of course, I could be wrong, and appearances were deceptive.  And my mission was to watch him.

I went over to a corner by the windows that looked out over the street where I could see everyone coming, going, and padding by.

He sees a man with a plot and a bucket of tools walk over to the shop opposite.  A window cleaner.  He potters, then goes inside to fill the bucket, and a chat with the owner

Business is slow.

When he returns, he sees the man glance towards the pub, and I instinctively shrink back.  Moments later I could hear the squeak, squeak followed by the tap-tap of the squeegee.

I could feel a flash of fear running through me.  My mind instantly went back to the damp concrete floor in Verlin, the blinding overhead light, and the precise Morse code tapping on the pipes outside his cell, U-R-M-G.  Compromised

For a moment I couldn’t breathe, and panic was setting in.  My vision blurred.  Jesus.

I gripped the edge of the wooden table, glanced at the old frail clerk and then back at the harmless windows cleaner.  I shook my head and relaxed, quietly laughed to myself, just loud enough for the bartender to glance at me in concern.

I smiled in his direction, and he went back to polishing glasses.

I whispered to myself, “It’s just a squeegee, Alec.  You’re not losing your mind yet.”

Just the same, it was once said during training that sometimes it was the little things that could bring you down.

I looked at the barely touched pint, shrugged and took a dip.  It had to be residual effects from the last mission, and it was up to him to bury the past and believe not everything was part of a conspiracy.

…

That would have been the case if…

His mind had been finely tuned to trust no one or anything.  There were no such things as coincidences, and over the years he had proved that time and time again.

And if it just been the window cleaner, he would have eventually dismissed it.

Unfortunately, it was not.

On his third pint, noting that Prindleton only stirred to take a drink and spoke only when he needed a refill.  He spoke to no one else, and they didn’t speak to him.

An oddity in itself, unless being English made them all ostracise him.  For that matter, they didn’t approach me either, simply because I was new, and new in a place like this usually attracts attention.

That it didn’t, ran another red flag up the pole.

I looked out the window and saw a Royal Mail delivery van.  I looked at my watch, an old surveillance habit, and it was 11:14.  Then, as it approached the intersection to turn, the driver stepped on the brake three times.

Something in my mind clicked.  The three flashes were the Stasi-era emergency abort signal, the one he had recently used in Berlin.  And if that didn’t set his mind down a dark path, the 1114 was the exact registry number of the ambulance used by his captors to abduct him.

He laughed inwardly.  As if the postman was an ex-KGB operative.

I had to stop looking for ‘clues’.

It had to be that exact moment that the pub’s background music started up, filling the eerie silence with an odd assortment of atmospheric jazz, pleasant, drone-like, and utterly forgettable to the average patron.

An employee’s playlist, except…

His heart missed a beat.

The track that was playing right now included a subtle, low-frequency hum, the exact white noise frequency used in the sensory deprivation tank where I spent two gruelling weeks.  It was meant to trigger a mild panic attack.

What the hell is going on?

I went over to the bar and ordered another pint, desperately trying to not show how badly my hands were shaking.

I stayed until Prindleton went to the fish and chip shop and then went home.  I went to the bakery and bought a loaf of sourdough to have with what was left of the soup.  It was delicious.

When I got home and went to cut some slices, the flour dusted on the crust had been scored with a specific crosshatch pattern.

I shook my head, closed my eyes, then hoped I wasn’t seeing what I thought it was seeing: the story was a replica of the grid coordinates of the Berlin Safehouse where I was tortured.

I mean, seriously.  It was just bread.

He shoved it in the toaster.

…

Just as the sun set, I called it a day.  I wasn’t going to watch Prindleton 24 hours a day.  A man could not drink that much and then go out all night doing spy stuff.

If he was a spy, those days were over.

I just managed to get the fire on in the lounge room and think about what I was going to do for dinner.  Go out, perhaps the fish and chips shop.

That thought was arrested by a knock on the door.  When I opened it, it was the Gable woman, different oversized jumper, same glasses, same lopsided stance, and a grin, perhaps knowing she was irritating me.

“Mrs Gable.”  I thought I’d better address her properly.

She had another porcelain container.  “Lamb stew.  Went crazy making food.  There is enough for you, so I brought it over.”

“I can cook.”

She rolled her eyes, or her best attempt at it.  “Most, no, all of the men I know can’t, or do not want to.  I’m happy to cook for two again.”

“You’re not married?”

“Not anymore; the lying, cheating bastard took off with my younger sister.  She can have him.  It’s a lot quieter without him.”

I took the bowl.  “Thank you.  It’s greatly appreciated.”

She smiled.  “Storms are coming.  Keep an eye on the weather when you’re out.  It can get nasty very quickly.”

“I will.  Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome.”

…

After making more toast and dismissing the crosshatch grid as my imagination going wild, I turned in and started my surveillance early.

Something was not right about Prindleton.  Years of observing and reading body language told me Prindleton was not quite what was portrayed to be.

The fire kept the room warm, and as comfortable as the bed was, I didn’t sleep.  My mind was not going to let go of the coincidences.  One or two, maybe, but four.  That was stretching it.

Still half asleep, I heard the radio cut out, having left it on to use the classical music as an aid to sleep, followed by three short clicks, the old Soviet dead drop confirmation signal.  Faulty wiring?

I was up before the sun came up and left just as dawn was breaking.  No movement from one neighbour, but Mrs Gates, she was up, and I could swear her eyes were boring holes in my back.

Could she have been a spy back in her younger days?  There was something about her I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

The lights were on in his cottage, and there was movement behind the curtains.  A half hour in that early morning freeze had me so that I nearly missed him leaving, and that stride to the front gate was not that of a retired Embassy clerk.

He left the cottage at precisely 08:37 am, and if I thought about it, it was the same as my cell number when in captivity, but perhaps it was just a cruel mathematical coincidence.

Mental notes to store away.

I followed a fair distance from him so it would not look like I was following him.  I followed him to the cafe.  He ordered a coffee and a croissant and sat near the door.

After a few minutes, I followed him in and ordered a coffee but not a croissant.  I sat a few tables away.

I did my usual scan and noticed the man sitting at the corner table.  Nothing unusual about him, other than the usual office types: young, eager, new suit.

Keen to make his mark.

Except…

After he turned the pages, I could see a distinct hand-drawn symbol in the margins, the same duress cypher my captors used in Berlin to signal an impending execution.

I felt my heart go into overdrive.  I told myself it was my fractured mind connecting dots that weren’t there, that it was a textbook post-traumatic flashback.

The coffee had gone cold, but Prindleton was on the move.

Next stop the grocery store when something else caught his eye, the knots used to tie up the grocery crates were the same one his captors used to tie his wrists months ago.

If I wrote everything my mind was telling me was an omen, or that I was suddenly living in the middle of a living nightmare, Dr Harrison would have me thrown out in a heartbeat.

I could not tell anyone he was seeing ghosts, but there had to be a reason why I was seeing this stuff.  It had to be my mind playing tricks.

This went on for a week, in various locations, but each signifying an event that all led back to that period in captivity. It was almost a form of mental torture in itself.

By that time I was almost at the end of my tether and finally realised it was Mrs Gates keeping me from completely immersing myself in the conspiracy.  She brought hot food. And then during the day, she asked me over for a cup of tea and cake on the pretext that she hated dining alone.

She didn’t invite me to dinner, though.

At the end of that week, Mrs Gates did not turn up with food, and I missed her. I always felt better after she had gone.  My paranoia hit fever pitch, so I decided on a course of action.

I followed Prindleton to an alley behind the pub today’s; he had used it before, and it struck me that it was for clandestine movements that no one else knew about.

I was going to break protocol and confront Prindleton directly.  A street back from entering the alley, he went straight; I turned left.  And ran.

Three minutes later, it was standing in front of Prindleton.  Or whoever it was, because this was not an old man.

“What’s going on here?”

He looked startled when I stepped out from the corner and neatly barrelled into me.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“This is some sort of operation the department is running.”

“You’re mad.  I have no…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the black car stop just back from the entrance to the alley.  I stepped forward, and suddenly the man fell backwards, blood staining his shirt, the result of a sniper shot.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

It was a set-up.

…

I disappeared up the alley, shouting and footsteps behind me.  I had five minutes before they reached the cottage.  I could get there in two.

One minute later, I found the digital recording device behind the bathroom window, a high-end, department-issue digital recording unit.

Then I found three others.

This wasn’t a mission; it was a stress test to test the first stress test.  And based on all my reactions, if I were calling the shots, I’d be put in an asylum.

Only with me it was a little more complicated than that.  I vaguely remembered Harrison telling me about stress triggers, and that I might experience some, all very explainable considering my last few months, and that he expected me to report them at the end of each week.

I didn’t, for obvious reasons.

Jesus.  I felt like a cornered rat, and for a second, I didn’t know what to do.  I was astonished that I had lasted this long.

The horrifying truth dawned on him in that moment: this was never a decompression assignment.  The entire village, the civilian anomalies – it was all a controlled environment constructed by his own department.  They weren’t trying to heal him; they were stress-testing him to see if his psychological breaking point in Berlin was permanent, using his own trauma triggers against him.

He slid down the wall, laughing almost hysterically at the absurdity of it, echoing through the cottage, so close to cracking.

Except…

The kitchen door swung open.  What he believed was one of the department’s sweep team operatives stepped in, uniform immaculate, weapon drawn.  But instead of shooting, the operative kicked the door, pulled off a highly realistic silicone throat piece, and spoke in a familiar voice.  “Keep laughing, Alec, make them think you’ve completely lost it.”

Maya.  Last he was told she had died in Berlin.  He hadn’t believed them; she was too good an operative.

“Haven’t got much time, but you’re not the only one in this chicken coop.  They’re stress testing all the top agents to see how much they can take before they break. They tried it on me.”  She smiled.  “You were saved by some deft cooking.  I’ll explain later.  We have to go.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here.”  She held out her hand.  “Come.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2026