Mad Dog - No More Heroes Ch. 05

5 - Dirty Harriet:

I'd been summoned above ground. A rare occurrence for anyone working in the bunker. The only other time I ever give up my subterranean office life was to go into the field on operations.

I knocked almost hesitantly on Director of Operations office door. There was a very, very long pause. I imagined the Director behind her desk slowly counting down from five, making whoever she was about to interview wait, building up tension. It must be a standard technique they teach on civil service senior management courses.

"Come in!"

I let myself into her office. She was sitting with her back to me, looking out through the window towards Beacon Barracks. I coughed softly and waited for a response.

"Do you ever miss it?" she asked, still gazing out across the neatly shorn grass to where a retired Westland Wessex helicopter stood forlornly on breeze blocks next to the back gate to Beacon Barracks.

"Miss what?"

"Service life," she turned in her chair to face me, "do you miss your time in the army Mike?"

"There are occasions," I admitted with a half-nod, "but working here has its compensations."

"Quite." She turned to face me and gestured to the chair in front of her desk.

The Director of Operation's name is Harriet Swann. More informally to her staff, Dirty Harriet, but never said to her face.

Swann is a tall, slim, middle aged woman. Elegant and always immaculately dressed. She might be considered good looking, if your penchant runs to authoritarian women with a taste for expensive shoes. Around the Bunker the gossip was that she was a weekend dominatrix, but that was harder to prove than her use of Tinder.

She'd served in the Army Intelligence Corps, resigning her commission as a Major and immediately joining the TSG in an executive role. It's worth recalling that Katie Hopkins was also an officer in the Green Slime. Judging by their shared

personality traits, you've got to wonder what army intel look for in their officer corps.

"Have you ever considered the way that most British of sports - cricket. and spying (which is something that we Brits have always excelled at) have much in common?" Swann asked. "Something about the game attracts the sort of mind that is also attracted to the world of espionage. It's a complex test of brain and brawn. A game of honour interwoven with trickery, played with ruthless good manners and dependant on minute gradations of psychology."

She sat back and looked smug.

"Don't forget the constant tea breaks and rain stopping play," I added.

She gave me a basilisk stare. I cursed myself silently. Sometimes I think my ability to shoot from the lip has done more to endanger my civil service career than anything else.

"On the whole Mike I've no problems with your work."

She used the diminutive form of my name. Not a good sign, She's buttering me up for something.

"Thank you."

"And your performance on the IED course was, apparently, excellent," she said.

"I had a worrying moment at the start," I replied. "There's not many courses where discovering a bomb under your seat is the opening ice breaker."

"Quite," Dirty Harriet smiled. "And the American woman, you're still in a relationship with her?"

"Yes," I answered. "She's moved to London now, she's on a postgrad course."

A masters in..." she looked at the paperwork on her desk, "Terrorism, Security and Society at Kings College, London."

She knew Mack was over here studying. What else did she know?

"And I believe you've booked the day off on Monday," she permitted herself a half-smile, "a long weekend in London to celebrate Saint Valentine's."

Dirty Harriet doesn't miss a thing that happens in her department. I remained silent but gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

"Perhaps you'd like to extend that further by having Friday afternoon off too," her smile broadened fractionally. "You could pop into HQ first thing. There's a senior army officer who wants to have a confidential chat with someone from our group. The possibility of a quick task for him and then the rest of the day would be yours."

She wasn't being nice. She was up to something. I accepted the tasking all the same.

I stood to leave, got halfway to the door, paused and said over my shoulder: "We don't have an official unit motto, but if we did it would probably be: "THE DEFENCE OF THE REALM BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY", but in Latin..."

"...Omnino necessariam defensionem regni," she told me.

Of course she knew what it was in bloody Latin. I stood and turned to leave. I was a beaten man.