The Christmas Pudding Lie

by P. B. Phillips

  “I’ve had a great time. Thank you all.”

  The three gents silently raise their glass to Anna. She senses that the mood of this evening is business. “So I guess that the time is now to speak of Lady Banks.”

  Again the tree gents in silence raise their glass to her hoping that she will oblige them.

  She proceeds, “Mycroft, do you remember where we left off? If I recall, we were about the initiator and his role in preparing the novice Lady Banks for Lord Banks.”

  As if on cue, both Dodd and Mycroft turn to Sherlock. The elder Holmes takes his seat next to Anna on the settee. She wonders about his lead. He looks hard on her,

  “Imagine a herd of gazelles grazing upon the savannah. A hyena lays in wait, hidden in the tall rushes, looking for the next meal. He observes, peers, gazes, appraises patiently. Then a gazelle, more than likely a young thing, isolates itself, strays outside the ring or perhaps just slips behind a mere step. Bang! Viola! Lady Banks is now his.”

  With intensity set in his soulful aquamarine eyes, he tilts his head and asks without words if she follows.

  “Jesus Christ, Marlowe, that’s a blood curdling image. Is that what this is about, bloody murder?”

  Sherlock stares silently into her black pupils. She stares intently back at him and says, “Go on then.”

  He does, “After a recruiter marks a potential Lady Banks, the initiator moves in.”

  Anna begins to feel anxiety creeping in. She tries to defuse her alarm, “Oh it’s like a two man tag team.”

  Mycroft reestablishes a serious tone, “It’s never as open or as amateurish. Its ruthlessness is real.”

  “Point taken,” she concedes.

  Sherlock says, “Let’s move on for the night moves quickly to the east. While we may use words such as mind games and con game, keep in mind that this is not a game. And there is no game plan as such. There is no book of rules, for in espionage, there is but one rule, the end justifies the means or as the say today ‘whatever.’”

  Anna inhales deeply. Holding her breath she imagines that strings of information have taken flight about the place. She feels a bit helpless for she is not yet able to tie these random strands into a discernable pattern. She has that sick feeling again like having swallowed a pit. She straightens her back and squares her shoulders. She taps her feet, right foot left foot. She must be patient. For just once in her life, she must just listen.

  Sherlock continues on. “The ‘means’ so to speak are what we call ‘psych ops.’ The job of the initiator is to prepare the mindset of the intended Lady Banks. The most common ploy is a play on vanity, for the weakest link is the ego. It is the stumbling block in our evolution. Egos are the vessels of vanities. Who among us has not fallen prey to vanity? Forearmed as he is with the scout’s profile on Lady Banks, the initiator determines which path of pride to exploit.”

  She interrupts, “Path of pride?”

  Sherlock continues, “Yes, for example, a mark thinks of herself as the homecoming queen, the initiator will play to her physical beauty. Even the feminist is at risk. The initiator lauds her independent spirit, lauds her strong will. There is no escaping the vanity trap unless…”

  Anna mutters, “Vanity, vanity all is vanity.”

  Sherlock loses track of his thought with Anna’s color commentary. He pauses a moment too long.

  Mycroft jumps in to fill the void. “It’s the subterfuge that matters. For example, a common posture of the initiator is that of Good Samaritan. In the world of spooks, initiators are referred to as John the Baptists.

  The trap is carefully crafted. Rule one, it must be familiar. Two, it must be simple so as not to arouse any whiff of danger. A typical scenario is as simple as a punctured tire on the mark’s car, the handy work of the initiator. The discovery of the flat tire casts Lady Banks as a helpless victim. Her subconscious automatically puts her into stress mode. She becomes vulnerable.

  Out of nowhere, comes the Good Samaritan to help the damsel in distress. In an instant, the initiator is in. He goes from stranger to friend with the one act that he staged. The deception is ever so clever: the more simplistic, the more innocuous the approach, the better the return. ‘Psych Ops 101...’”

  Mycroft fiddles with his ponytail. With everything in place, he resumes, “Another example is as innocent as getting directions to an unfamiliar destination. Lady Banks’ unconscious inner feelings of uneasiness in a strange place are high. She could use a friend about now. Enter the Good Samaritan. He gives her what she needs, directions and a feeling that she is not alone. The object is to make Lady Banks feel indebted.

  The helpful stranger offers ‘I’m going in that direction, I can take you.’ The subtle nature of the ‘psych op’ here is easily missed. In his offer, he implies that Lady Banks and he share the same destination and more so, he assumes the lead. The plan is to plant the seed that this is someone who is in the know.”

  Mycroft pauses. Anna jumps in now “So are all Lady Banks needy souls?”

  Mycroft waits on his mates. Not a word from either. So he fields the question.

  “According to the profile, the answer is yes. Here’s the thing, Anna, profiling greatly reduces the chance of error in the selection process. And it also facilitates the take over. Knowing the profile, you can standardize your ‘psych ops.’ The two constants in the take over are; keep it simple and keep it familiar.

  Another scenario, simple and familiar, Lady Banks is working in the university’s library. The initiator enlists Lady Banks’ help in finding a book. The initiator’s contact is in context. It is simple and familiar. But yet the result is complex. With one motion, the initiator goes from perfect stranger to indebted acquaintance.”

  Mycroft pauses again. He looks directly at her. He raises his eyebrows to ask silently if she follows. Anna has her hand over her mouth. Her eyes reflect her disquiet. She is unnerved by the cunning involved. She recognizes that Mycroft waits on her. She remains uncharacteristically mute. She simply nods her head to indicate that she follows

  Mycroft smiles softly, “A week may pass before the next encounter. The approach must be in the same context as the first. Seeing Lady Banks in the library again, he plays to his ineptness. He may comment in passing that he is struggling with an assignment. On the surface it appears that he is the needy soul. The subtlety of the ploy here is that the initiator does not ask for help. On the contrary, his intention is to get Lady Banks to volunteer. Lady Banks takes him under her wing, thus feeding her needy ego, her voracious vanity. Lady Banks operates under the false mantle that she is in control. But the fact is that she is now being fitted for her puppet strings. And the puppet master readies.”

  Anna sighs as Mycroft pauses again. She is anxious. She is possessed by parallel images in her own past. She refuses to look directly at her three companions lest they see her internal struggle. The hovering darkness outside unsettles her further. The sudden sound of Sherlock’s voice, however, pulls her back from the menacing abyss that is her mind.

  Sherlock fills out the picture. “Besides Good Samaritan and the helpless sod, the initiator can also be devious. I mean to say that there are also sinister methods of entrapment. Simple and familiar remain the constants, however.

  For example, the initiator pretends to be a student at the university or perhaps, a coworker in a large business of faceless employees. The initiator approaches Lady Banks at the canteen, the library, someplace very open, public and convivial. Within this context, at a very subconscious level, Lady Banks sees the initiator as open and convivial. He will arrange for accidental encounters. Eventually he becomes a familiar face. She even expects to see him. She may even anticipate his coincidental encounter for she is alone, isolated and with out her traditional links.

  Then one day the initiator approaches Lady Banks with a problem. He has a rental agreement or an application for a job or credit card, something familiar and something simple. He asks Lady Banks to help him with the reference section. He needs
three references who have known him for five years. The initiator tells his tale of woe. He is new to the area. He is sure that he can get two of his mates to sign. Will Lady Banks be the third signature? Lady Banks has to exhibit some sense of reservation, for his intention is to compromise her. He beseeches her. Lady Banks agrees.

  In that instance, in something as simple as a signature, the initiator ropes in his mark. Lady Banks is compromised. She is now his accomplice in crime.

  It’s a mind game. He will plot a series of deceits to strengthen his bond with her, or rather his hold on her. He will ask her to lie to the boss about his absence from work. Or he will ask her to write up an assignment for a class. He is an old friend now. She has helped him before.

  And so in this case, it is subtle intimidation, an implied threat of blackmail and the fear of exposure that traps another young woman into becoming a Lady Banks.”

  Sherlock pauses here. With his two hands he brushes the soft white fuzz that encircles his fine head. He pulls at the collar of his shirt. He gets up. He puts his hands in his pockets. He jingles the few coins therein. Three pairs of eyes follow him to the sideboard. He rises up the ruby red Shiraz and turns to the company employing them to join him. Dodd gets up to join him. Anna decides her legs need stretching too.

  She comments to Sherlock, “Another shot of courage?”

  Sherlock raises his arms to suggest that his intentions are innocent. The three gravitate over to the fire pit, where Mycroft stirs the embers to catch a new log. All eyes are on the reemerging fire. The flames begin to spit and lick. Sherlock moves away from the rising heat. He moves to the far wall and looks pensively out the leaded glass window. His mind drifts momentarily as shadows of moonlight cut across the front courtyard with its abandoned fountain. He cleans the lenses of his spectacles. Staring out into the clear night, he takes up where he left off. The sound of his sober voice turns the rest of the company in his direction. He goes on,

  “The Lady Banks trap is so skillfully laid, so intricate in design that it really becomes next to impossible to break.”

  Anna pipes up, “Or is it that Lady Banks is really stupid?”

  Sherlock struggles for a moment to consider her choice of words. He attempts an answer.

  “That’s your call in the end. I’m more inclined to weigh the cunning of the spook. In any case, the very weaknesses that the scout identified, the very flaw upon which the initiator played, Lord Banks will capitalize on throughout their relationship. For example, Lady Banks’ low self-esteem will become the very means used to manipulate her. Lord Banks will perpetuate this sense of low self-esteem to enhance his own superior image and to secure his hold. Am I making any sense?”

  Anna moves to the perimeter of the room. She is lost in thought. She tries to fit together the strings of information. She ultimately answers, “Yes, I realized that on my walk along the Thames with Mycroft that this is a pernicious process.”

  Sherlock adds, “There is yet another dimension.”

  She stops her pacing. At this point she doesn’t know if she wants to hear anymore of this story. It is too upsetting. Or is it too revealing? She takes up her seat again. She looks over at Sherlock with confusion and trepidation.

  Sherlock resumes, “Lady Banks’ profile invariably plays to Lord Banks’ profile. The other side of this coin of deception is the spook’s ego. Spooks thrive on deception. It fuels an inner cold-hearted ruthlessness. They are the hunters. Spooks are by their very psychological profile, control freaks. The more they are in control, the stronger they feel, the more self-righteous they become. It is their psychological flaw, if you will.

  A spook operates on the premise of the greater good and that he and only he knows what the greater good is. And furthermore, only he can insure the greater good. A spook never thinks twice about the sacrifice of the innocent. ”

  Anna is somewhat shocked. “Wow! Now I understand your caution, Dodd, about the faint of heart. And I see that it is late. I have kept you all too long. Do you want to call it a night? ”

  Sherlock’s watery blue green eyes look tired. But he goes on.

  “Just one more thought before we quit. The one word to best capture the work of the initiator is 'destabilizer.' The initiator is par excellent, the agent of destabilization. No matter what the initial ploy, be it sugar and nice or just out right nasty, he aims to destabilize. His objective is burnout. And we can pick it up tomorrow when we travel to the sea. That is, if we are still on.”

  Anna’s eyes find their sparkle again, her lips puff and she answers, “I’m game if you are.”

  Sherlock gleefully concludes, “Good tomorrow we’re off to the sea.”

  Mycroft interjects yet another possibility, “Dodd what are your plans? Are you still going on to Paris? Maybe Anna would like to tag along. Let me know what’s decided in the morning. Count me in whatever. I must beg off now. I am knackered. I bid you all a bon nuit.” Mycroft walks out through the kitchen to his cottage.

  Dodd explains Mycroft’s reference. “Indeed, Anna, there is a flat on the right bank I fancy. I hope to show it to you.”

  She answers, “Really? Oh for sure. I have to see it.” She looks over at Sherlock to see his reaction and suggest, “We can do both can’t we?”

  She leaves the two rooks to resolve the logistics while she goes about the business of cleaning up, even though it’s not her place. She collects saucers, cups and glasses onto the wooden serving tray and makes her way into the kitchen. Sherlock rearranges the food and fruit onto one tray.

  Dodd eyeing the remains of champagne asks his senior sage, “A nightcap will finish off the bubbly quite neatly, join me?”

  “If I must…it would be a mortal sin to waste so fine a gift of grape.”

  Dodd fills three flutes of crystal. “I think that I’ve crossed the line old man.”

  Sherlock, bewildered, believes that the sea air, the wine and the late hour might be getting the best of Dodd’s faculties. He asks with wonder in the timbers of his voice, “Pardon my lapse here, Dodd, but what is your worry?”

  Dodd corks up the remains of the Shiraz. He stashes the port. In a hushed tone, he laments, “Damn it Holmes, I can be such an ass. I didn’t think this through. I imagined that this undertaking was going to resolve matters. Now I fear that I am making matters worse than they were.”

  Sherlock thinks he understands, “There are always consequences, old man. I’m sure that the contra forces won’t take kindly to having their inner demons exposed. But you have to ask yourself what is Anna to you; a distant memory and what about her right to her legend? That is what this is about? Or is there something more? As to the spooks, if you like I can have Mycroft call central and ask if we are on anyone’s radar.”

  In a more hush tone he adds, “It’s not too late, the sleeping dog lays still.”

  The ruddiness of the port drains from Dodd cheeks. He has to find a chair. With head in hands he mutters, “Dear god, never for a moment did I think ahead about fall out from the contras. But that will have to wait. No, my only concern is Anna. And to answer your question at one time Anna was everything to me.”

  Sherlock’s head jerks. This is a surprise. He never imagined. He pursues it casually, “But of course I should have known that you two were close.”

  Dodd goes on, “No it was nothing like close. Although I did think that we might have been?”

  Sherlock is ever so curious now, “Did she share your feelings?”

  Dodd thinks for a moment, “No…I don’t really know. But something she said last night made me wondered if maybe there was a flicker of a flame.”

  Dodd waves his hands in the air to indicate the folly of the whole idea. He returns to the now. “I am afraid too much time has passed. I don’t know this woman. Maybe I never knew her. She is frail, edgy and quite distressingly defensive. My worry is that she’s not up to it. She should have stopped us by now. She should have seen where we were going with this. Her conspiratorial mind is too keen not to
have the plot by now.”

  Sherlock remains still. Dodd worries on, “I can’t bear the anguish on her face that ‘whiter shade of pale’ that shrouds her being when we talk of Lady Banks. I don’t think she gets it. I’m going to call the whole think off.”

  Sherlock presses Dodd. “We are upsetting the wasps’ nest. You no longer feel obligated to reveal that which has been hidden from her?”

  Dodd just shakes his head in the negative and wrings his hands. Sherlock moves in close. He places a gentle hand on Dodd’s shoulder. He whispers, “It is your call mate. But I would think it through again, and if necessary again. I for one, and I am sure Croft will agree that Anna has been on the offensive, in every sense of the word.”

  Sherlock speaks directly to Dodd’s worry. “Surely, Dodd, old man, you expected these mood swings? No emotional connection would be a worry. In the time that I’ve shared with Anna, albeit fleeting, I found her fresh, aware and always curious.

  In the end, you will find that she knows more than she lets on. She is here to check her facts with ours. She is working out the mechanics of it at all times. I suggest that we let her call the shots. Which is what, she will do no matter what, as you very well know. This is a woman who in the face of terrorists’ bombings of London proceeds alone straight to London.”

  Dodd shrugs his shoulders. He gets up and begins pacing in ever shrinking circles. He gives voice to a haunting thought, “All these years, every time Anna crossed my mind, I believed that when the time came, I would step up and accept my responsibility for my actions or lack thereof. But now in the moment I don’t have the heart or is it courage?”