FOUR
64 Victoria Street, the home of the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence service is a fascinating building. Previously it was the location of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens; however, these were brushed away in the 1850s and replaced by large industrial units that included a glass factory, a vinegar works and even a gin distillery.
In 1983, the building was brought by Regal Properties Plc., which formed a cover for MI6 procurement service in the UK. Regal Properties developed and built a large office block scheme for which an ‘unknown’ government agency occupied.
The building is heavily influenced by the Vauxhall Cross style of architecture from the 1900’s which was when MI6 was first formed under the leadership of Captain Cunningham, who is better known as ‘C’.
During excavation of the site, the remains of a medieval pub (The Vine) came to light. Within their building, this was re-constructed and formed the main food and drink area for the staff who work in MI6.
Thus, when secret service say they want to meet in ‘The vine’ they actually mean the pub inside 64 Victoria Street.
On the Fifth floor there stands a room so secret that less than a dozen people have access to it. It is known as ‘The Dutchman’ and is named after one of the playing fields in Eton School.
At the head of the table sat a woman, Her name is Lady Joan Sawyers. She has a face that has seen it all. She opened the meeting and immediately leaned back against a wall. Surprisingly, she was smoking a cigarette, a Czech cigarette. Health and safety has not yet entered the inner sanctum of the secret service. Joan is a middle-aged woman; she nods at only Tony who is looking sombrely at the rest of the attendees. They are all sat around a long conference table.
Their attention is drawn towards an elderly man at the other end of the table. He is sitting on a rather lavish carving chair; it almost looks like a throne. He looks ill from the years of stress having worked with MI6, MI5 and GCHQ. He is aware the room is looking at him. He likes the power and the position that this gives him. He is a man in control of his own destiny.
He reaches over to a bottle of mineral water, unscrews the bottle and pours out water into a glass. He takes a large sip and then forcefully places the glass down onto the table. The noise reverberates across the room and signals to everyone that the meeting is to begin.
Around him are four other lieutenants - the inner circle of the intelligence service. Joan Sawyers, Paul Almond, James Armstrong, and Robert Tremor. Intermingled amongst the group is Tony Eden, Bill Smiley, Irene Haydon, and Morag O’Brian.
The room is silent and all that everyone can hear is the never-ending ticking of a loud clock.
Tony looks up to find ‘C’ gaze fixed on him. Then his attention drifts away to the others in the room. Power shifts around the room as his attention floats like a torch in the night.
James Armstrong handsome and urban is frowning with tension as thoughts drift away from the Russian station. He pulls out a pen and begins to scribble notes down into his little black book.
‘C’ begins the meeting by giving his daily overview of activity. No one interrupts. That would be political suicide. Then each of his lieutenants provide an overview of their areas.
Suddenly there is silence and Paul Almond, introduces Tony Eden. Tony pulls a pen out of his jacket. He hands a copy of a file out to everyone.
He introduces himself.
‘I would like to outline our plan to ensure Mr Smith and his friends and our cousins are able to get our visitor returned from his holidays in France as soon as possible.’
Tony goes onto highlight that the planned visit of the Chinese President would be the opportunity to bring China back into our camp and stop their unilateral activity undermining British interests in the Middle East.
He outlines that in order for this mission to be successful the service would have to work closely with MI5 to ensure nothing leaked out and that PC plod did nothing too public.
At this point Joan interrupts Tony.
‘I wish we could have done more, to prevent the service having to dirty itself and not get involved in domestic issues,’
The way she said domestic was as if she was saying she had shit on her shoe.
Tony carries on.
‘Questions anyone’? Says Paul hoping no will ask questions
‘We have done all you could, Joan’. Says ‘C’
The audience listen and await ‘C’ verdict
‘We cannot control what Ministers say, think and plan, so I don’t think anything could have prevented us being involved
The clock suddenly gave an acrimonious chime as it sounds the hour. A hint of bitter amusement glides across Joan’s face as though she has been waiting for this wrong little note to make his move.
‘Well if no-one has anything extra to add Tony will get his troops into place.’
‘C’ nods and the rest of the table nod with him.
Opposition would be fruitless.
As they leave, ‘C’ calls Paul over. At that signal, Paul signals for Tony to come over too.
When Tony joins them, the two men finish their sentence and there is an awkward silence. Paul rescues the situation by attempting a few social niceties
‘And how are you Tony, are you missing ones usual work, ones friends and cousins?’
‘Oh I think I manage pretty well actually reply’s Paul’
‘That’s good to hear’
‘C’ looks at his watch thus signalling the end of the conversation and prepares to walk away.
At that point his PA enters the room and signals to him that he has another meeting.
‘That is my call then’
‘Well done everyone, I think we have a cunning plan.’
‘C’ smiled and so did Tony and Paul
The two men are left in the room
‘So how did you feel that went?’ enquires Paul?
‘Fine except for that bitch’s comments, when will she ever learn Paul!
If this works out well we could all do well, and don’t forget ‘C’ is due to retire next year, I don’t think there is the appetite for another woman to be in charge of the service do you?’
‘Do you fancy a visit to the Vine’?
‘It’s almost coffee time, and I have a few suggestions to make’.
Tony had little option but to follow his control.
FIVE
Stuart returned from the pub about three o'clock in the afternoon. It was the end of May and summer was finally on its way despite months and months of rain, snow and hail. Scotland was funny that way. A day could start sunny and by lunchtime, it had rained, snowed and turned back to being sunny once more. There was no country in the world like it.
Although the day was warm, Stuart felt cold. Cold to the bone. One of those feelings that you feel no matter how warm it is, you still feel cold and shivery. In fact, Stuart would have felt this way even if he were in the Sub Saharan desert.
Stuart was pretty well sickened with his life. He had been six months in his new job and he was already fed up with it. If anyone had told him a year ago that, he would have been feeling like this, he would have thought they were joking. However, here he was, in the pub having bunked off from one of those dreaded training conferences that was supposed to help you communicate and ‘up skill’.
We have all been on those type of courses where some very enthusiastic overly eager trainer outlines how they are going to change the way we work for the better. They use the usual buzzwords thinking they are original and new. Yet we all grown inside ourselves wanting to pretend with or hands that we have just blown our head of each time the “facilitator” stands up and talks. Usually the phrase ‘that’s a good question’ comes out, quickly followed by ‘now tell me what the group feel’ or ‘let’s park that till later’.
Why they kept sending him on these useless courses was beyond Stuart. If only they realised that a good boss is differentiated from a bad boss by the way the boss makes their staff feel.
Stuart’s boss thought training courses run by HR was the answer to everything. What would really make him interested in is job was if his boss got of her lazy fat arse and contributed something to his work. Instead, she was more interested in looking after herself and taking care of her career.
The other day he heard her use the term ‘getting behind the troops’. That was almost too much, which resulted in him losing it. That is why he was on this brain numbing training course on communication and accepting ‘diversity in the work place’.
The trainer or “facilitator”, was even worse. She had gone on and on. He had to fight the temptation not to fall asleep after just half an hour. By 10 O-clock in the morning, he was ready to leave. All he had to look forward to was the morning coffee and a rather large fruit scone. By lunch, he had lost the will to live and had bunked off early. Instead of going back to the office, he decided to grab a pint or two.
Stuart hated his job and the people he worked with. Half the time he felt like extracting a nasal hair with the garage pliers would be more entertaining than listening to the gossip he had to hear at work. Most of the time the gossip made him sick especially the egotistic, self-important types.
The other day, for example, William who works in Finance, walked up to David who sat a few desks from him. David was drinking his morning cup of tea as he did every morning at 10:15. As usual, he was dunking his favourite bourbon into his drink while he was opening his post.
William came up to him and said ‘Hey David, be careful with that letter opener, or you will give yourself another circumcision’.
David faked a laugh. William however thought he was so funny while the rest of the office just looked at David as though William had just confirmed how much of a prick he was. Then most of the office spent the rest of the day gossiping about poor David and how much of a prick William was, but no one did anything.
Stuart had been brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne, but when the mines closed down his family moved away when he was just four and he had never been home since. So here he was, living in Edinburgh, which had become his new home and he counted on stopping there for the rest of his days working as an account manager in the banking industry.
When he first moved here having left one of the big four accountancy companies in London he had gone out to see the entire tourist sites, drank in the trendy bars and restaurants. After a while, Edinburgh started to become a bit of a disappointment. By the end of his first month of living here Stuart started to get tired of seeing sights, and in less than three months he had had enough of restaurants, theatres and nightlife. He had no real friends to go about with, which probably explained a few things about him.
What annoyed Stuart the most about people was their annoying gestures. For example, the other day Stuart was introduced to Helen a friend of David’s from work. Not only did she talk too much but also she did that annoying think of pointing at her wrist while asking for the time. In his head, Stuart screamed. I know where my watch is lady, where is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is eh!
Despite how much he tried to avoid people plenty invited him out but they did not seem of much interested to him. They seemed more focused on what was going on at work, the trams or X Factor or which political party had gone back on its word. They would ask him a question or two about where he came from or why he moved to Scotland, and then get on their own affairs.
Later that afternoon he sat in the pub having consumed a few too many pints. He left a bit wobbly but still in control of his faculties. On his way home he picked up the Edinburgh Evening News and read the headlines about China was tightening controls on the internet. The Chinese sure knew how to control their people he thought. From all accounts, China seemed to be challenging America and the west for control of jobs and livelihoods.
Stuart remembered reading somewhere in one of those financial magazines which did the circulation from one desk to another that China owned almost 1/3 of American businesses and a consequence America was vulnerable to another double dip recession as China pulled out of America and used cheap labour from Africa and South East Asia to produce good American grown product.
That said, Stuart thought that every nation deserved their turn in the sun. The interesting thing though was that in 1415 China was the most advanced forward thinking nation in the world. Then it decided to turn in on itself having decided it had discovered everything it needed. This resulted in terminal decline with the west the main benefactor. Now though it was the west that was in decline and China was now the rising star.
It is funny how things change, thought Stuart.
However, what Stuart had been reading is the Chinese seemed to be playing an honest game with the west and the nations of the Middle East. What you saw is what you got. This was more than could be said for most of the G8 nations these days. Since its formation in the 1970’s they have set about driving its ruthless neo-liberal agenda, opening up new markets for the Coca Cola’s and IBM’s of the world and privatizing everything in its path, spreading capitalism across the world under the cover of supporting the developing world.
Another article that Stuart had been reading felt that China was the only barrier between peace and the west’s drive to secure the energy reserves of the world using its military. This had been seen in Iraq, Libya, Mali and even Egypt.
Stuart daydreamed with the idea of getting a job in China. It struck him that the Middle East and China would be an exciting place to work and live in.
With his daydream at an end, he finished off his pint and began to head home.