by Danny King
So I told the Interviewer all of this. And I even told him the context of our conversation and the specific book titles we’d mentioned (Perfume and The Fourth Protocol).
I told him all of these things, but omitted the message behind the chat.
And this was a risk.
It was a calculated risk, but a risk all the same. A very big risk.
See, if Mr Smith’s job went off beam (as it inevitably would) and he lived to tell the tale, then at some point in the future he would have to tell this same tale to The Agency, with the same dates, the same locations and the same chance meetings.
If he didn’t, if he held back, he’d be as good as inviting a bullet in the brain.
So he’d tell them he’d bumped into me. He’d tell them we’d talked books. And he’d tell them he’d recommended The Fourth Protocol to me. He’d have to. Because he’d know I would have already told The Agency during my debriefing. The only way to protect yourself during the debriefing is to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you if you don’t.
But would he tell them why he’d recommended The Fourth Protocol? Would I? That was the real quandary.
It was doubtful, because he’d be dropping himself in it if he did. Losing his Agency Affiliation and all the protections and guarantees that came with it. I was in no such danger, because technically I’d done nothing wrong. After all, it was Mr Smith who’d voluntarily spoken out to save my life, not the other way around. He’d been the one who’d broken protocol. He’d been the one who’d taken a chance. He’d been the one who’d jeopardised an entire operation, not to mention his own life, to save a former colleague. No one could blame me for heeding his warning. I mean, who wouldn’t in my shoes? So he’d only dropped himself in it.
If I’d wanted to, I could’ve told them all of this and relaxed safe in the knowledge that I’d done nothing wrong.
But Mr Smith had done this thing for me. And I wouldn’t have been here now to tell this story if he hadn’t. So I took a chance for him, and for the first time in my life told The Agency a lie.
“I sensed something like this double-cross was on the cards.”
“You sensed?” the Interviewer asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“How did you sense it? Are you psychic or something?”
“No. But I have been on dozens of jobs so I’ve come to know when something doesn’t feel right. And when I saw the package the Russians brought with them and the accompanying scientists alarm bells started ringing.”
“Alarm bells?”
“Metaphorical alarm bells. Not actually alarm bells,” I clarified – pedantic cunt.
“Metaphorical alarm bells. Yes, I see,” he noted down. “So you decided to abscond from the Special Army when you saw the package?”
“Yes.”
“Because you sensed that the Special Army was being used to take a nuclear weapon into the diamond mines of Caia? And that this weapon would be detonated, eliminating the Special Army along with the mine?”
“That is correct, if a little specific. My suspicions were more general than that.”
“Nevertheless, your decision to abscond was based purely on these suspicions?” the Interviewer pressed.
“I would say so.”
“You would say so?”
“Yes.”
“Then please do say so.”
“What? Oh, yeah, my decision to abscond was based purely on my suspicions that there was trouble ahead for the Special Army and that we were being double-crossed.”
“And these suspicions were entirely of your own making? That no outside influence had a hand in planting them there for you?”
“Only the actions of His Most Excellent Majesty, his Russian paymasters and fifteen or so years of experience planted those suspicions there. That is correct.”
“Just so that we are clear about this,” he pressed. “Nobody forewarned you about the bomb?”
“They didn’t need to, I worked it out for myself.”
“Whether they needed to or not is immaterial. All I want to know is if they did.”
“No sir, they did not.”
“Not even…” I heard the Interviewer flipping through a few pages to refer to his notes. “… Mr Smith? He didn’t warn you about the bomb?”
“No sir. We talked only about books.”
The interviewer was silent for a few moments then I heard some scribbling before he spoke again.
“I see. And what happened then?”
And there, with that single white lie, book club was forced underground. And the seeds of future events were sown.
“Okay Mr Jones,” Nurse Parker said a few days later. “Now open your eye.”
14.
DOCTOR PATCHWORK
Now, I wasn’t quite so naïve as to believe that Nurse Parker actually looked like Sarah Jessica Parker, my suspicions first being aroused when she flattened my grapes and almost up-turned the bed when she perched next to me. But what I hadn’t expected was her to be was black. I don’t know why I shouldn’t have thought this. I mean this was the Caribbean after all. The majority of nurses here were black. And most of them were old enough to be our mothers, even Jennifer Lopez who did the bed baths around here, which especially disappointed me.
But Nurse Parker didn’t have a Caribbean accent. She was American, eastern seaboard unless I was mistaken, which had helped underline my Sarah Jessica Parker fantasies. But when the bandages came off and my vision as restored – albeit in only one eye – I lost them all to reality and a knowing wink from Nurse Parker.
Still, what the nursing staff around here may have lacked in catwalk poise, they more than made up for in medical abilities. They were the best – and I do mean the BEST – on the planet. This was The Agency’s own private hospital and better medical and care facilities you’d not find anywhere else outside the 22nd Century. Doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and pharmacists: they had recovery and recuperation rates other military hospitals could only dream about. I guess it helped that there was an almost constant influx of trauma patients to deal with: gun shot wounds, shrapnel, burns, breakages and shark bites. Not too many patients were brought in here to have their wisdom teeth out. And such a workload only pooled experience and expertise until the hospital’s staff led the field in patching up battlefield casualties.
Then again, for what they charged they should. My fees from Operation Solaris were covering my eye surgery and facial reconstruction. They had lain in The Agency’s bank accounts awaiting my return to Britain but I hadn’t made it – again. And so I’d called them in and used the money to save my own life. And patch myself together for next time.
“Now Mr Jones, we’ve removed what was left of your injured eye and replaced it with a plain silicone orb for now,” Doctor Jacob told me from behind a heavy old cedar desk. Nurse Parker had wheeled me here for my morning consultation and left us at the doctor’s request. The reason why was about to become apparent.
“If the orb feels comfortable, and you are happy with it, then we can have a cosmetic version made up for you that exactly matches your right eye so that no one would ever be able to tell you have a prosthetic eye. You won’t be able to see out of it, of course, but cosmetically, you will look quite normal.”
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, at the six inch gash that ran vertically down the left hand-side of my face, across my eye socket and to my ear and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank God for that. My looks are all I’ve got.”
The Doctor read between my laughter lines and assured me that they could lessen my scarring too. “With skin grafting and laser treatment, we can reduce the visible injury to a few lines or slight discolouration if you want.”
“If I want?”
“Certainly. But some Affiliates like to keep their battle scars. They find they get more contracts that way,” he explained.
“Really?”
“Yes. Lots of gentlemen prefer to h
ire – how shall we say – more robust looking employees to action their duties. Such staff can often bring a certain pizzazz to proceedings,” he said, nodding approvingly at my disfigurement.
I looked at the mirror again, screwed my face into a growl and warmed a little to the apparition who leered back.
“Yes, I suppose,” I agreed, with a renewed appreciation. “Perhaps I’ll leave it for the moment and see how things work out.”
“Excellent,” Doctor Jacob smiled, not so much as an eyelash out of place on his own face. “Your surgery credits will stay on your file for either five years, or until you sign your next contract, in which case any and all future medical work will come out of your fees from that job. Understand?”
I did.
“Good. Well, that’s the small print out of the way,” he said, rising from the desk and walking around to examine my eye at close quarters with a small penlight. “I must say it’s a most excellent rebuilding job around the socket. Doctor Silverman, I believe it was.”
“I’ll send him a bunch of flowers,” I said.
“Her. Doctor Silverman is a woman,” Doctor Jacob replied.
“Then I imagine she’ll like them even more.”
“I expect so yes,” he agreed, clicking his little light off and slipping it back into his pocket. “Of course, there are alternatives to simple replica eyes, you know. Look here.”
The doctor wheeled me over to a medical cabinet at the back of the room and pulled opened a thin drawer. Inside, several hundred eyes stared back at me although they were like no eyes I’d ever seen before.
“You can choose pretty much any design. Your eye socket will support anything in here,” the doctor told me.
There were plain white orbs, pupils as black as night, green, red, silver and gold. Some featured yellow smiley faces, skulls & crossbones, circular target designs, stars & stripes, musical notes, dollar signs and Oriental symbols. Others had silhouettes of naked ladies on them, lightning bolts, male and female symbols, bar codes, grinning devil faces and, most sinister of all, Disney characters.
“What’s that one?” I asked, squinting at one in particular.
“That’s a washing machine window. Look, there are little socks and knickers going around inside. See?”
I recognised the undergarments tumbling around amongst soap suds and bubbles and cooed accordingly.
“I don’t like it.”
“No, no one seems to. No one’s ordered that one yet,” the doctor agreed.
“Do a lot of people order eyes then?”
“Oh yes. Affiliates are always losing them,” he told me making me remember Victor Soliman and his glass eye.
“What’s the most popular design?”
“The skull & crossbones,” he told me, picking it out and handing it to me for a closer look. “It’s a classic design and Affiliates don’t seem to mind other Affiliates having it. Beautiful graphics,” he smiled, studying the eye through a magnification glasses.
“I don’t want something that someone else has got,” I told him.
“No, and lots of Affiliates feel that way too, so when we prescribe them a design, they have the choice of being allocated the copyright, which is theirs to keep for life – how ever long that lasts.”
It was then that I noticed little red stickers next to fifteen or so of the designs, a couple of which I’d had my remaining eye on.
“The stickers?”
“Unfortunately yes. All those designs are spoken for I’m afraid,” the doctor confirmed, with an apologetic cluck of the cheek.
Amongst those already taken was the vintage sniper scope view, with the little cross hairs and yardage numbering that I was going to have. It was one of the best in the drawer and reflected the image I wanted to convey – deadly, but retro.
“No sorry, someone’s already got that one,” the doctor shrugged.
And that wasn’t all. The biological hazard symbol, which would have been my second choice, had been taken too. And the nuclear symbol. And the dollar sign. And the hand grenade.
Even bloody Mickey Mouse had been taken.
“Oh. I don’t know then,” I frowned. “Can I try a few in?”
“Certainly, but why don’t you take this catalogue away with you and have a think about it?” the doctor suggested, handing me a samples catalogue then a life-sized picture of a man’s face with several pieces either missing or on flaps so that you could fold them back to see what he looked like with no eyes, ears, teeth or chin. “To help you decide,” he smiled.
“Oh,” I replied suddenly feeling I’d gotten off quite lightly, all things considered.
“Now, another thing to consider is accessories,” the doctor said.
“Accessories?”
“Yes. Because the eyes don’t have to simply be cosmetic eyes, you understand. They can also be tailored to specific requirements, if that’s what you’d prefer,” the doctor then said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, they can conceal tools, or weapons if you wish. Here, look here,” he said, moving along to open a second drawer. In here were more eyes, only these had realistic pupils and looked like eyes, only with simple lettering inscribed on each to indicate their purpose – A through X.
“Now, this one here’s a little camera,” the doctor said, picking up A and showing it to me. “It can take over a thousand digital images, depending on what resolution you set it at. It has two gigabytes of storage, a ten times magnification lens, auto focus, infrared and it’s completely water-proof.” The doctor handed me the eye and I turned it over in my hand. There were a couple of little rubber buttons in the back of it and a portal for inserting a cable, but other than that, it looked just like an eye.
“How do you take the pictures?” I asked.
The doctor smirked, almost embarrassed. “You blink. Here look, when you want to start taking pictures, you just give the front of the eye a firm push to turn it on,” the doctor said, doing just that to prompt a little click. “Then you just blink away until your heart’s content and it takes one image per blink until you turn it off. Then you just pop it out and download the pictures onto a laptop. Rather neat don’t you think?”
“Very nifty,” I agreed. “And this one?” I said pointing to B.
“Oh, same thing, only it’s also got a video unit on it so it’s got a bit less space for photos.”
The doctor proceeded to talk me through all the various eyes, giving me a little tutorial on each until I was baffled by the array of choice. Here’s what was available:
A – digital camera
B – digital camera with DV camera
C – USB flash drive with 64 GB capacity
D – audio recorder/player
E – radio transmitter/receiver
F – radio traffic scrambler
G – GPS tracking device
H – fold-out blade
I – multi-headed screwdriver
J – torchlight with twenty-four hours of battery life
K – compressed O2 (approx three minutes of underwater breathing)
L – phosphorous flare
M – smoke flare
N – one-shot mini-pistol (.22 calibre)
O – iPod
P – laser-cutter
Q – plastique charge (with detonator)
R – incapacitating gas pellet
S – empty watertight compartment (for smuggling)
T – cyanide powder (for self-use or foul play)
V – eye scanning skeleton key
W – cigarette lighter
X – ballpoint pen (blue, black and red)
The doctor spent a few minutes demonstrating each, and they all worked flawlessly, all except the ballpoint pen of course, which the doctor gave up on after two minutes of futile scribbling against the back of his notepad.
To demonstrate the plastique charge, the doctor led me across the hallway to the test range and handed me a pair of ear protectors and an eye guard.<
br />
“It comes with a five second fuse and should be enough to blow open most locks,” he said, pushing the soft eye into the keyhole of a chunky padlock that was shielded by a couple of sandbags. The Doctor then pulling on a little red cord that hung out of the eye where the optical nerve should’ve been and ushered me clear. We ducked behind a wall of sandbags twenty yards back and were rewarded with a thunderous crack as the charge detonated. Doctor Jacob looked suitably amused and on scouring the room showed me what was left of the lock. Not much.
“It won’t get you into a safe but it will get you out of a cell,” he summed up.
The gas pellet was likewise as effective, filling the room with a noxious clear vapour that comatosed the doctor’s canary in under five seconds.
“He’ll be fine. He’s been through it a few times,” the Doctor assured me.
And besides all the weapons and designs, I also had the choice of a stationary eye or a magnetically responsive motorised eye that would match the movement of my right eye.
“It’s a lot to think about,” I confessed.
“Well, with the basic package we offer you five eyes. One, a purely cosmetic dress eye with watertight compartment and four others which feature whichever accessories you’d like, either of a design of your choice or replicas of your healthy eye.”
“Oh, that’s quite good,” I said, no longer feeling quite so backed into a decision. “Well, I’ll have a look through the brochure and get back to you. Thanks you, doctor.”
“You’re welcome my boy. And if that sniper scope view design becomes available again, I’ll let you know,” he replied.
