by James Quinn
She smiled at him. “Hello, Mr Gorilla,” she said.
He nodded and let her enter. He was playing the professional agent runner, being courteous; a drink, perhaps? He did not invade her space. Instead, he perched himself chastely on the edge of the bed and she took the only chair in the room. Between them was the no-man's-land of the carpet.
“How are you, Lisbeth?” he asked finally. “We were worried about you.”
“We or you?” she asked, acknowledging his naivety.
“Well, both,” he said and blushed. How did she do that? Was that a trick of spies, or just of beautiful women?
She smiled again, but this time with more melancholy. “I seem to have a penchant for falling down stairs, or walking into doors, or having bicycle accidents with trees. Do you see a familiar theme, Mr Gorilla?”
Grant said nothing, only stared at her.
“I know what you are thinking. Is this a ruse? A ploy? Is she a double agent? I have had had much time to think about all of these things while I have been lying in my hospital bed! He came home that night. I don't know why, he didn't even speak. He just came up to me and began to hit me. That is all I can tell you,” she said innocently.
“Is it safe for you to be here? Will he suspect?” he replied.
She laughed bitterly. “I am in probably the most dangerous city in the world at the moment, working as a spy for a foreign power, so I think I am beyond being safe, Herr Gorilla. Besides, he is bored with me now, so he will ignore me for a while. He rarely comes home of an evening anymore, only at the weekends. We are quite safe.”
“Maybe we should think about stopping for a while, pause things…” suggested Grant.
“No!”
The force of the rebuke stunned him. He was silenced.
She took a breath, calmed herself and said, “I need to do this. This is the only control that I have. I want to bring him and his corrupt system down any way that I can!”
Grant knew from his agent-running training that it was important, vital even, to encourage an agent's motivation. Find that one thing that drives them and feed it. For EMERALD, it seemed to be the thirst for revenge against a brutal man.
“Okay, I just wanted to be sure,” he said. “I have some ideas about how we can get you what you want.” In truth, he had no ideas, but now didn't seem the time for negative thoughts.
She looked at him for a long time and then said, “I know what I am. I'm a traitor.”
You're beautiful, thought Grant.
“I'm a failed wife, an abused wife and a victim of my husband's brutality. I'm a coward.”
You are brave, thought Grant.
“I am broken, Mr Gorilla,” she said, the tears making the green eyes glisten.
I will fix you, help you heal, he thought.
“Jack,” he blurted out. He felt the weight of relief off his shoulders. He hadn't realised how much he had wanted to share this with her. The speaking of his real name, out of context and in this sub rosa environment jarred him nonetheless.
“Excuse me?” she said, confused by his outburst.
“My name is Jack. I would like… I want you to call me by my name for once. My name is Jack.”
She looked at him for a while, stared, tried to read his face. Then that smile came, that beautiful smile and that soft voice. “Jack?” she said, as if considering this request. “But of course you are… you are my Jack.”
She stood and he followed her lead. She came to him, tears running free and then cautiously he reached out his arms and he held her, giving her the comfort of one human being to another. Not spy to spy, not agent to agent runner, but human to human.
“I don't know if I can go on with this. I don't know if I am strong enough, but I want to – no, I have to!” she said, trying to control the tears.
“You are strong and you can. I will help you through this,” he said, and whatever else agent runners and liars say to the vulnerable to get them to do their bidding.
That afternoon, they made love for the first time. It was not to be their last.
It was tentative at first, almost delicate. Then, as passion increased, so did their confidence with each other's bodies. Neither of them were virgins, but for that night, that first time, they lived out the first flourish of sexual contact.
Their kissing was how it was meant to be; with lips, tongues and passion, neither of them wanting to withdraw. Their eyes and fingers explored each other, wanting to discover new horizons of the skin. He mounted her and when he entered her slowly, she gasped at the size of him. For a moment she trembled, fearing that this man, this Gorilla, was going to be rough, an animal. And in the fullness of time, their mutual passion would bring them to that lovemaking. But for here, today, he was slow and gentle with her, their bodies entwined and moving as one. When they climaxed, it was mutual and they were looking in each other's eyes as it happened.
They lay back and let the early afternoon darkness surround them like a cloak. They lay on their sides, her back to his stomach. His hand caressed the sand dune shape of her hip and his eyes focused on her raven hair. He wished he could see her green eyes, watch them sparkle in the night. They talked for hours, her more than him.
“I came from a very ordinary household. My father was a difficult man; very controlling, very strict in his thoughts, my poor mother used to placate him as much as she could. In the end, I think she gave up trying and admitted defeat. He tried to control the way she thought and what she did and then, when my mother died, he tried to do the same to me. My father believed in the Communist delusion and when I did not follow his ideas as vehemently as he would have liked, I was branded an anti-party whore!”
“I rebelled against his authoritarian ways. I took a lover, my first lover, who also happened to be my teacher. He was much older than me. I won't say that he took advantage of me, because we both took advantage of each other. When my father found out about the affair, he had me committed to a sanatorium for six months. My diagnosis was that I had a personality disorder, or at least that is what they told me. I prefer to think that I had an anti-authoritarian disorder.”
They made love again and this time, Gorilla rested his head between her legs and explored her beneath the covers, his tongue starting in long, deep strokes before flicking faster until her hips bucked into his face. At the point of orgasm, she grabbed the pillow next to her head and screamed into it, such was the intensity of the waves of pleasure that his tongue had created. Lisbeth lay back on the bed spent, her thighs trembling and her body drenched with sweat. Grant moved himself up her body, his cock throbbing hard, allowing him to slip easily into her wetness.
“Oh God, yes… more,” she moaned and he thrust inside her.
The waves of pleasure started again for her as he moved in and out of her in short strokes, then, as her hips ground into his, he moved in deeper, longer and harder strokes causing the metal-framed bed to rock and creak. When they came, they came hard; Lisbeth first and then Gorilla, their bodies drenched and exhausted at the end.
“So how did you meet your husband?” asked Grant. It was a subject that he was tormented about. He knew that it would be hard to hear as her lover, but as her case officer it all helped with getting to the heart of his agent's motivations. But the moment he spoke the words, he instantly regretted it. He felt her body tense against him, her back to his stomach. It was as if a blade had touched her throat.
She sat up in bed and reached over for a cigarette from the table next to the bed. “Why do you ask me such things?” she snapped.
“I want to know about Elisabeth, want to know her thoughts, not EMERALD's.” He watched her closely as she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply.
“I think I am attracted to cruel men,” she said simply, as if that explained everything. “Perhaps I am both a victim and an addict of abuse? I do not know, I am not a psychologist.”
She thought for a while and then answered. “I met him like most people meet – randomly. Although, thinking b
ack over the years, I think maybe now it wasn't as random as I first thought. We knew each other vaguely as children, our families came from the same town. It was nothing unusual.”
She stared out of the window for a while, collecting her thoughts. “The end of the war changed things for everyone. We ended up with people that we wouldn't normally look at. I was no different. I was vulnerable. He was connected to the right people and was focused on what he wanted to do with his life. It was a whirlwind; he paid me attention, he was knowledgeable, he showered me with affection, something that I had been missing for a long time. We married quickly. It was the post-war dream.”
Grant hid in the darkness of the room. “Did you love him?”
“You're assuming that I don't love him now?” she said, mocking him.
For that brief second, Grant saw a flash of cruelty in her eyes, even in the darkness. No, it was more than that; a hint of pleasure was in the barb that she had sunk into him. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. He calmed himself. “Okay. Do you love him now?”
She gazed off into the distance again, trying to remember. “I think I fell for who I thought he was, who I wanted him to be. Then very quickly his mask began to slip and the real person came through and I saw that he was cruel, selfish and cunning. The first time that we slept together, on our wedding night, I knew that it wasn't right. He repulsed me and I think he picked up on that instantly.”
“Okay, okay… I don't need to hear any more,” he said quickly, turning away from her.
She whipped her head around and snarled. “Oh, but you do, Mr Gorilla, you absolutely need to hear my story. The real question is, are you doing it for your MI6 masters, or are you doing it for yourself these days?”
Grant flushed, ashamed. He lay back on the pillow, stared up at the ceiling and listened to his lover.
“When it seemed likely that our marriage wasn't going to be consummated that night, he did the only thing that a domineering sadist could do – he raped me. It wasn't to be the last time in our marriage. The only saving grace was that it was quick. I don't think he did what he did to me out of lust. It was simply about power, control, to make himself feel strong. After a while, he just ignored me. I had served a purpose and played the dutiful wife that gave him an air of respectability on his climb up the career ladder at the SSD. I'm sure he has mistresses. I pity them. The only times that he comes near me these days is to take his… frustrations… out on me when things are not going so perfectly for him.”
“I would never do that,” said Grant, his voice was almost a whisper.
“I know you wouldn't,” she said. “That is not you. But I have a question to ask you.”
“Ask away.”
“Do you want me as an agent, Mr Gorilla, or as a lover, Mr Jack?”
He pulled her close to him, she giggled and they kissed. “I'm greedy, I want both,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Their affair became a secret version of their already existing covert life, but this time they were hiding not only from each other's countries, but also the people that surrounded them. Very quickly, they became aware of the battle that was within them and it became less about Vogel and the Stasi and Masterman and SIS – and became more about how to keep each other alive and still hide in the shadows.
Once a week, they would meet in a safe house that SIS had, under an assumed identity, rented in Mitte in East Berlin. For the first hour, they would conduct their covert relationship; she would pass him confidential material and he would conduct a professional debriefing of his agent. And what an agent!
EMERALD was quite the exceptional spy; she had picked the lock of her husband's desk at home and had photographed Top Secret documents pertaining to the Ministry of State Security and his personal diary. She had bugged the room of her husband's study and recorded telephone conversations. She had even, while playing the contrite and dutiful wife, infiltrated a 'bug' concealed inside a paperweight, a wedding anniversary gift, into the office of Ulrich Vogel and which, subject to some minor glitches, had provided real-time intelligence about the comings and goings inside her husband's department. All these she had passed covertly to her controller, Gorilla Grant.
Once Grant had completed his professional responsibilities, only then would he disable the recording devices in the apartment and they could relax. They would spend the afternoon, and occasionally an early evening, together in bed. Grant knew the rules about having an affair with an agent, of course he did, but he also knew that the spymaster was not yet born that didn't occasionally submit to his baser instincts.
Their lovemaking had become more confident and forceful. Lisbeth had found her long dormant passion for sex and enjoyed it once more, while Grant, at first afraid of hurting her, had become more dominant and physical with her. Their physical compatibility only increased their arousal and allowed them to be even more adventurous. They were both insatiable. They would lie entwined in the bed, in a dreamlike state, slowly stroking each other; sometimes as a prelude to passion, sometimes just to hold each other.
“Tu me manques, mon amour,” she said to him one Tuesday afternoon as they lay in bed. It was raining outside and bed seemed the best place to be before reality came knocking on their door.
“What is that?” he asked sleepily.
She rolled over to him so that their faces were touching, her raven black hair brushing against his cheek. “It is French, it means I am missing you, my darling. It's what I feel when I am not near you.”
He smiled to himself and then mumbled, “Tu me manques, Lisbeth.”
“Excellent work here, Grant,” said Markham. “Masterman is very proud of you, as am I, especially as this is your first agent. I admit that I was a little unsure about whether we should give you the case officer role initially, especially as your recent experience was of the more… shall we say physical aspects of our trade? But I am glad to have been proven wrong, so well done, young man!”
Markham and Grant were walking around the grounds of the Olympic Stadium, the home of the SIS Berlin Base. It was late afternoon and the air was warm with the summer heat.
“Thank you, sir,” said Grant, slowing down his pace so that Markham could keep up.
“And no problems so far? Not after that little trouble from that brute of a husband?” asked the SIS Berlin Base chief.
Grant shook his head. “So far, so good, boss. EMERALD is providing slow and steady product for us and she seems to be taking easily to the secret world. Her tradecraft is first-rate.”
“And no more silly doubts about her being a double, or a playback, or whatever the ridiculous terms they use these days are?” said Markham, waving his hand dismissively.
“Not from me. She's passed every test we've thrown at her.”
“Excellent! I understand that EMERALD and her husband are attending more GDR dinner parties and functions?” enquired Markham.
“That's right. There has been an upsurge of invitations over the past few weeks. I suspect that Vogel is trying to smooch and suck up to more influential people – the political class,” said Grant, trying to sound professional and keep his personal opinions out of the conversation.
“Yes, he does rather seem an ambitious, if brutal, chap,” replied Markham. They walked around the circumference of the athletics track, being careful not to get in the way of a few amateur sprinters that were using the grounds. “All this copying and bugging her old man's personal notes and files at home is all very well, but… Now, don't look at me like that Gorilla, it's all very good stuff for a fledgling spy. But I do feel that she is being underused in what we are asking her to do.”
Grant was unsure where this was going. He was protective of his role as a case officer and of the general welfare of his agent as a matter of course, so he decided to play along and see what the SIS man was after. “Okay, so what do you suggest?”
“Well, I would like EMERALD to maybe listen out for some political gossip at these dinner parties and the like. A good agen
t can pick up all kinds of chit-chat. Would she be ready for that?”
Grant thought about how Lisbeth would handle it and answered honestly. “She listens well, she blends in perfectly without becoming the centre of attention, and she can remember details and nuances like no other. It would be perfect for her.”
Markham decided to push it a little further. “Perhaps she could also do a bit of talent-spotting for you, too? See if there are others in her circle who might be amenable to an approach, maybe even become a sub-agent for EMERALD. How does that sound?”
Grant shrugged. “I have a contact with EMERALD in two days' time. I'll bring it up then.”
“Excellent! Can I give you a piece of advice, Jack?” asked Markham, his manner fatherly.
They had stopped by the pathway; one way led to the car park, the other back to Markham's office. Grant suspected this was going to be the end of the conversation.
“I always think that we are too dismissive of our agents' feelings. They are, after all, human beings and not robots. I remember back in my early days we were positively encouraged to be as beastly as possible. It's a balance between who they are – I mean they are just bloody codenames after all – who they think they are and who we want them to be. Ultimately, they work and are paid for by us. In six months' time, this agent will be forgotten and you will have moved on to the next one. So, take some advice from an older man. Take care, Jack old boy, take care.”
Jack Grant watched the old man walk away and sighed. Forgotten? No! Not for him, not for Lisbeth. To him, she was a lot more than just a codename and more than just an agent to use.
