Foxtrot 6

'Morning Viki,' I have the pastry halfway to my mouth.

'I wouldn't,' she nods at the apple Danish. 'Dirty Harriet wants to see you ASAP.'

I put the plate down and trudge off.

'This Danish is brilliant,' Viki exclaims with her mouth full.

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Chapter 7 - Dirty Harriet

Trans-Atlantic Institute for Strategic Studies, UK HQ, Battersby House, Sackville Street, Manchester, Monday, 1 July 2024

Every time I find myself in the Assistant Director (Operations) office, I get distracted by the painting behind her desk. It depicts Saint George fighting the dragon.

To my mind though, Georgie boy's far too interested in sticking it to the big lizard to pay attention to the blond tied to a tree. She's naked, well almost, there's some strategically long strands of hair that conveniently protect her modesty.

If I sat there much longer I'd have to climb up there and help her get free. It's nothing I could help, it'd just be the gentlemanly thing to do.

I'm sitting on an office couch that has delusions of being a piece of modern art. It's all chrome and leather and far from comfortable. Harriet Swann, my line manager, is perched on the edge of her desk taking a call on her mobile.

Swann is, I suppose, an attractive woman. She's long and narrow, aged north of forty, but don't press me to be more precise than that. She uses makeup skilfully to hide any of the obvious signs of ageing. And emotion.

Her hair's so black and glossy that Clairol has got to be involved in the process. It's cut in a precise bob, with a ruler straight fringe and hair at the sides hanging down to almost, but not quite, touch her shoulders.

Viki's the queen of office gossip. She's the one who discovered that Swann has an account on Tinder. She also suspects that Swann has a presence on bdsmdate.com, but apparently that's harder to confirm. I can see why people might suspect that she's a weekend Miss Whiplash though. It's just a vibe that she puts out.

Swann previously served as an officer in the Army Intelligence Corps. Recalling that Katie Hopkins also served in that unit, I'm forced to wonder what the Green Slime look for in their officer corps.

It was Viki who hung the nickname Dirty Harriet on Swann. It's stuck. Everyone in the Institute calls her that. But obviously never, ever, to her face.

She finishes the call and fixes me with a piercing blue stare. OK, so the inquisition is about to begin.

'The consensus of opinion round the office is that you have more brains than a fairground hot dog,' She interrupts my reverie, 'if that is the case, when are you going to start acting your age and not your shoe size?'

I am, to be blunt, gobsmacked. Which was probably her intention in the first place.

'Did you really just tell me to act my age not my shoe size?'

'Yes, weren't you paying attention?' she snaps. 'What the hell were you thinking, playing chicken with a bloody Russian Air Force helicopter gunship? Were you trying to vicariously live out your James Bond fantasies on the Institutes time?'

'No...'

'You realise this job was supposed to be covert?' she asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm. 'It was supposed to be a sneak and peek recce job. You seem to have turned it into a car chase from The Fast And The Furious.'

'Which one?' I ask in response. 'I mean, you're going to have to be more precise, they made a shed load of those films.'

'Don't be factitious,' she snaps, 'explain yourself.'

'You know how it goes in the field, no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy,' I shrug. 'We hadn't planned on the presence of a bloody great helicopter covering the convoy, but there it was. We'd stuck to the plan, setting up our OP outside of the restricted military area, but the 'copter was flown by a crazy man. So we made our excuses and left.'

'You're lucky that Stone's been recalled to the States for a conference in Washington,' she replies. 'He's not due to return until the middle of the week. Rewrite your mission report, omitting any reference to your car chase. Oh, and start preparing a presentation featuring as much open source intel as possible to back up your conclusion.'

'My conclusion?' I ask, 'I haven't come to any conclusions yet.'

'You should have, it's patently obvious, the Russians are withdrawing air defence systems to make up losses they've suffered in Ukraine.'

'Oh, that conclusion.'

'Yes,' she says using the speak slow and loud tactics Brits use when communicating with foreigners and the very stupid. 'Get your team to help you and I'll brief you formally this afternoon.'

Dirty Harriet raises an eyebrow and gives a tiny nod in the direction of her office door. Interview over then.

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Chapter 8 - Hard Work

Trans-Atlantic Institute for Strategic Studies, UK HQ, Battersby House, Sackville Street, Manchester, Monday, 1 July 2024

Swan opens the door and ushers those of us who make up Foxtrot Six into the meeting room like a teacher getting kids in from the playground. I take a seat and wait while the others settle down.

The meeting room. It's called Colossus after the computer built by Tommy Flowers to break German codes during World War Two. Most people think that all the code breaking at Bletchley Park was down to Alan Turing. They're wrong.

Tommy Flowers was a sensible working class lad from the East End of London who got a degree and dragged himself the GPO's career ladder. And while Turing was a tortured genius whose homosexuality and autism gained him a shed load of prejudice, Flowers overcame the glass ceilings of the good old British class system.

Colossus is a corner of the fifth floor, one wall featuring tall windows that almost span floor-to-ceiling, a bare brick wall, and two glazed office partitions. Almost all the floorspace is taken up by a long conference table and chairs. At the head of the room there's a big flat screen TV.

I notice that there's a new addition to the décor in the meeting room. A flag in a clip frame. The flag's made from red, heavy silk, with a hammer and sickle embroidered in the top left corner, with a shield, dagger and red star in the centre. The Cyrillic initials 'KGB' are big and prominent.

I lock eye contact with Dirty Harriet and jerk my thumb at the flag.

'That's new,' I announce.

'Yeah, it's a KGB battle standard, Stone got it online,' she answers. 'The idea is that it make sure nobody forgets who the enemy is.'

'It's amazing what you can get on eBay,' I point out, 'but he does understand that the Cold War ended in 1991, yeah? I mean, it was all over the media at the time so it must be true.'

'Are you sure about the Cold War being over?' she answers, 'Russia's current behaviour might suggest otherwise.'

We all sit down, littering the table with laptops, tablets, hard copies of documents, notepads and paper coffee cups. Swann stands at the head of the table with her arms folded across her chest. When It becomes clear that she has as much of our attention as she's likely to get, she begins.

'Have you ever considered that spying, something that we Brits have always excelled at, and cricket have much in common?' Swann asks, and gives those of us sitting round the table a cool glance that defies us to contradict her. 'Something about the game attracts the sort of mind that is also attracted to the world of espionage. Perhaps it's because they are both complex tests of brain and brawn. Games of honour interwoven with trickery, played with ruthless good manners and dependant on minute gradations of psychology.'

She sits down at the head of the table and looks smug.

'Don't forget interference with the make up of the team by elderly, entitled gin swilling dodderers in the boardroom,' I add.

She gives me a basilisk stare. Sometimes I think my ability to shoot from the lip will do more damage to my career than anything else.

'Or that it's a game beloved by posh boys,' Bomber quietly takes the baton from me, 'who get jobs as senior civil servants and then flog the secret of the MoD's paperclip budget to the Russians.'

'Oh, and it's a sport that, when played by people who used to be our colonial subjects, beat us all the time,' Viki announces.

'Enough hilarity,' Dirty Harriet said firmly, 'let's get on with the meeting shall we?'

It's possible that we've touched a raw nerve with Dirty Harriet. I certainly hope so.

'The project that Foxtrot Six has begun working on, investigating the potential withdrawal of Russian Buk air defence systems from Kaliningrad Oblast has been confirmed,' she announces. 'Smith and Braithwaite have brought back photographic proof...'

'Is it true that you two had a car chase with a helicopter?' VJ interrupts her spiel.'

'Ah, yeah, it's true enough,' Mike nods in confirmation, 'well Smiffy was doing the driving. It was good fun all the same.'

'Tell you what mate,' I add, 'if by good fun, you mean a gut wrenching, white knuckle ride with the potential to go very wrong with lethal consequences; consequences, I should add, that will keep me awake at night for months to come, then yeah, it was all good fun.'

Bomber and Viki chuckle and VJ looks confused at my response. He thinks that what Mike and I got up to in Kaliningrad is what intelligence work should be all about. Throw in an uber babe, an evil oligarch, and a martini - shaken not stirred of course, and he'd explode with joy.

'IF I may be allowed to continue?' Swann raises an eyebrow that's been plucked into submission, and then taps on her tablet putting the surveillance photos Mark and I took on the flat screen monitor behind her. 'Both Whitehall and the Pentagon have confirmed that this is now to be given priority as a matter of urgency. To that extent, this project has now been given an operational name: Saturn Blue.'

OK, so an operational code name means that the powers that be are taking things seriously. That's significant.

'I've talked about this with Smith at his debriefing, and at the risk of repeating myself, you will now be tasked with taking the photographic evidence that has been gained and using OSINT gather and analyse other intelligence to identify the military units that the Buks photographed belong too and where that unit is being deployed to,' she informs the team, 'using the mad skills you lot have so often boasted about, it shouldn't be difficult.'

She sits back in her chair and allows her cupids bow lips to melt into an evil smile. This is not a good sign.

'And you can expect to make a presentation by secure video link to on Friday afternoon, and it had better be good,' her smile becomes smug, 'the hard work starts now.'

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Chapter 9 - Afterglow

The Spa Pool, The Warehouse Serviced Apartments, the Northern Quarter, Manchester, Monday, 1 July 2024

Nell sat back in the warm water and let the bubbles do their work; relaxing muscles made tense by the events of the weekend. Everything fades, eventually. When she scrutinised her face in the makeup mirror, she thought that she could see signs that her black eye was fading. Of course it could just be wishful thinking on her part. But it is true, everything fades, given time.

And she was prepared to accept that she'd been wrong in her dismissal of oral sex as not being meaningful. It was rare that she admitted to being in the wrong, even to herself. But there were occasions when she did, this was one of them.

Just a blow job? She'd used that as an excuse to rationalise away what she'd been doing when that bastard hit her on Friday night. But there are blow jobs, and then there are blow jobs. What she did last night was definitely the latter.

On Sunday evening the take out delivery driver inevitably arrived far too soon after she kissed Smith. They'd ordered Chicken Jalfrezi, Lamb Rogan Josh, Pilau rice, fries and sides. It was a combination they'd ordered so many times before it almost came under the heading 'the usual'.

But somehow this time it was different. They had been flirtatious with each other, beginning as they unpacked the food and got the plates and cutlery. When she stretched up to get the plates Smith used the occasion as an excuse to cop a feel of her ass. As they ate Nell distracted him by pointing at something on TV and put an ice cube down the back of his shirt. He stole an onion bhaji off of her plate. She retaliated by throwing fries at him.

Then the TV was switched off and the evening's accompanying soundtrack was provided by classic vinyl on Smith's record player. She teased him that all the music he liked was old. But one song, I Want You by Elvis Costello summed up both their attitudes.

Smith supplemented the red wine with the Scotch he'd gotten from airport duty free when he'd been in Poland. Nell insisted on having hers on the rocks. Smith teased her for it.

'Having scotch with ice is as pointless as making love to a beautiful woman with the lights out.'

'Making love, you're so old fashioned sometimes,' she chuckled, and then a thought occurred to her; 'so when we fuck, does that mean you'll keep the lights on?'

'What's all this 'when we fuck' earthling? he answered her question with one of his own. 'It's not inevitable you know.'

'Isn't it?' she pouted, 'I think you're wrong sweetie. We are gonna fuck...' she kissed him, '...and fuck...' she kissed him again, '... and then fuck some more after that.'

'Blimey!' he gasped, 'it looks like I'm in for a long and sexy night.'

'You are, but not tonight sweetie,' she said, 'I'm feeling a little frazzled after what's gone down this weekend.'

'Oh,' Smith looked crestfallen.

'Don't worry, you're gonna get a little something something to tide you over,' she grinned, then changed the subject. 'You know what? I kinda feel like desert.'

Nell eased herself gracefully off the sofa and knelt at his feet. She applied gentle pressure on the inside of his knees until Smith took the message and opened his legs. She scooted closer and ran her right index finger down his crotch, tracing his hardening cock.

'Mm,' she purred, 'there's definite potential there.'

Nell continued to caress his cock through the denim of his jeans. It was gratifying to her the way it continued to stiffen under her touch. She kept up her massage with her left hand while using her right to undo his belt and lower the zip opening his pants.

'Someone wears tighty whities,' she chuckled and looked up, locking her gaze with

Smith's. 'And your dick really seems to approve of what I'm doing.'

She had him raise his backside so that she could pull down his jeans and underpants. She brought her lips so close to his hard cock that he could feel her breath on it.

Nell planted a kiss on the glans and followed up with a line of more kisses down the length of the cock. When she reached his balls she took each in her mouth and sucked. Judging by Smith's reaction, the way he stiffened and gasped a sharp in breath, he liked it.

She kissed her way back up his cock and when she got to his glans again she took it into her mouth. When she could feel his excitement reaching a peak, she stopped and took her mouth from his had cock.

'I want you to know, you're in charge babe,' she kept gently caressing his penis. 'I'm gonna deep throat you, and when I do, put your hands on my head and fuck my face. You don't have to be gentle, I won't break.'

Nell took his cock in her mouth, lowering her mouth along its length until her nose was pressed against his stomach. She pushed a little further down and began to gag then began to withdraw.

She got halfway up his dick when Smith's hands took a hold of the back of her head. She began to bob up and down on his cock letting him set the pace.

Nell was surprised at how gentle Smith was. Other guys she'd blown had been more forceful, even aggressive. They didn't give a damn about her pleasure, only their own.

He finished quickly. She expected that he would. From conversations they'd had in the past, she knew that he'd had a long relationship that had ended just before he came to university to begin his masters. Smith wasn't the sort of guy to chase tail or indulge himself in one night stands. Nell knew that he had a lot of sexual frustration to work out.

She washed a mouthful of cum down with his glass of whisky, downing the scotch in one.

'OK,' Nell stood, 'I guess you get to clear up. It's your turn to make breakfast, so I'll see you in the morning babe, oh, and in your dreams of course.'

She sashayed with an outrageous gait into her bedroom and closed the door. Nell listened to the sounds of Smith clearing away the remains of the take out food. She half-expected him to tap hopefully on the door, so wasn't surprised when he did.

'Nell, I just wanted to say goodnight and, ah,' he paused hesitantly, 'and thanks.'

'You're welcome sweetie,' she replied, 'and like I said, see you in the morning.'

Nell found herself smiling as she soaked in the spa. It had taken them long enough, but finally they were out of the friend zone. Now Smith's talking about dealing with the asshole who hit her. If it makes him feel good acting the part of her protector, well, so be it. But she didn't buy it.

OK, so he'd been in the marines. What was it the Brits called them? Oh yeah, the Royal Marines Commandos. What're commandos? Special forces maybe, maybe not, she wasn't sure. Whatever.

But to be frank, Smith's a nice guy. A bit geeky maybe, but not some hard ass macho type. He was gentle, caring, empathic. A nice guy. So what the hell was he going to do? Still, it's nice to think that he wants to protect her.

Her penis broke the surface of the water. Without doubt it was the result of her erotic memories of last night. It was time to get out of the tub and take herself in hand.

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Chapter 10 - Filthy McNasty

The Griffin Social Club, Blackpool, Lancashire, Tuesday, 2 July 2024

Blackpool Tower looms ominously as I park up my motorbike. I bring the bike to a halt in front of a forbidding brick box.

As a cliché goes: 'never drink in a flat-roofed pub.' It's down to the myth that these places are all supposed to be linked to violence. And yeah, there's an oppressive, threatening vibe about this particular flat-roofed pub, so I'm forced to conclude that there may be some truth at the core of the fable.

There's another cliché that goes: 'four wheels move the body but two wheels move the soul.' Some put it down to Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries, though I'm not so sure about the provenance of that claim myself. I'll attribute it to the prolific wit and raconteur Anon. All the same, it explains why my preferred form of personal transport is a motorbike.

I'm here to meet Filthy McNasty. He's waiting by his car, a maroon Ford Mondeo that had seen much better days. He's a scrawny runt. A medium medium height bloke in his mid-sixties. He has a third trimester beer gut that's out of proportion to his spindly arms and legs. The most striking feature of his otherwise unremarkable face is his salt and pepper beard.

Today he's wearing a black t-shirt with the BBC's corporate logo, but with the 'C' replaced by a hammer and sickle and the tagline: 'British Brainwashing Corporation.' I'm trying to work out if it's ironic or he's being serious about the Beeb trying to brainwash the nation. Knowing Filthy as I do, there's no way of telling.

Social clubs have a fairly strict set of rules about people not being allowed in if they aren't a member of the club, proposed, voted in and approved by the committee. Filthy opts to have meetings here with me because it's his turf, he feels like he's got the upper hand.

'You all right?' he nods to me in greeting and speaks with a strong Lancashire accent.

'Yeah, been worse,' I respond, 'you?'

'Much the same,' he replies, pauses and then bursts into a wide grin. 'I tell a lie, I met this tart via one of them dating apps, she was all right, you know, but I had to give her the elbow. She said something strange and I did a runner. 'I know it's not fashionable at the moment, but I've always been into BDSM.' Well, I could see myself round her place, soaked in sweat and frenziedly thrashing her arse with a cane while the pubs were open.'