Wings of silence

Wings of silence.

A minor problem solved.

We stood silent and motionless, the moon gave enough light to see the clearing. We were in the shadows, this is our life, our “modus operandi” the shadows and the darkness our friends. Probably our only friends. We stood, Mary and I, the twin bastions of truth and of death. A barn owl glided across the clearing, wings still and silent, the ultimate night time killer, so beautiful to see, so deadly to its prey. Silent wings and incredible hearing and night vision allowed this creature of the night to hunt, kill and feed its chicks. To us it was a friendly omen, a creature that brings death silently in the night; just as we do. A good omen, as the owl shares our need for darkness and shares our ability to strike swiftly, without warning. The only difference is that we did not eat those that we kill, in a way we do kill to eat, since we only kill those we are paid to and some of the fees go towards our food. There was another difference, we do not wear white to go about our hunting, we were head to foot in black including face covering ski masks. This was a standard precaution just in case a mistake was made and our presence was noticed by some sort of security device. The trees were in full leaf, the gentle breeze moving them so slightly that only the amazing hearing of the owl would hear it. That hearing which enables the hunter to hear a mouse move in the grass twenty feet below its gliding flight path.

We waited without stress, so many years and in so many places, we had waited, just as now. Time passed, we waited then light shone though the trees and the unnatural sound of a vehicle became clear. A powerful large saloon car, as expected. We waited some more until the lights and sounds passed. Only then did we move, no words were needed, a practiced routine does not need words. The natural sounds of the countryside at night regained dominance, we did not disturb it. Fleetingly the barn owl drifted across our path, we froze allowing it to continue its hunt. We may have even aided it since our presence may have caused a few of the mice to break cover, their part in the food chain, that natural cycle of life, growth and death, reached its conclusion in the talons of the owl. We had our own parts to play in another of life's cycles. Greed, betrayal, discovery, revenge and punishment, which, since we are involved, means death. Off the record but officially sanctioned. Mary and I are the final solution to problems her majesties government want to end and then forget.

This particular problem had such mundane roots, such trivial beginnings, that it might have gone unnoticed except that the ever vigilant computers at GCHQ had recorded a telephone conversation with just a one word trigger. That word was “secret”. The conversation, between two unremarkable people, was saved in the incredibly vast memory of the main system. It was flagged up and listened to by a very keen junior member of the staff. He needed something to report and so reported it to his boss, who needed to fill out his weekly schedule and so it was mentioned at a weekly meeting of department heads. Since it was in the minutes of this body it was assigned to an agent for further scrutiny. So by chance, by accident and by bad luck for some; the long chain of events leading to this place and time, began.

The agent needed a success, her yearly review was only a month away and she needed something to secure her advancement. At twenty five years old, and choosing to live alone, she had time to devote to her career path, time beyond the normal hours of duty. So she listened to the conversation and while it would normally have only warranted a “interest” file, she decided to follow it up. She traced the caller and the listener, the caller was a junior typist in a defense department, with no authority to access any secrets. The recipient of the call was her boyfriend, an equally junior member of a media giant.

Further investigation and a covert surveillance process threw up more interesting ideas. The junior typist had not had any secret files but had seen such a file taken from her office by a manager, however junior she knew this was not normal practice. The media guy apparently did nothing with the information, it was filed away and forgotten when the latest news sensation about a sexual encounter between a government minister and a member of the royal family, obliterated all smaller events. To the media such sensation was far more important than anything else. The manager was traced and placed under constant watch, ears, eyes and all communications. A week later he was observed in a secluded car park, he was parked obviously waiting, another car approached and parked some distance away. Neither driver left the car, a unregistered cell phone was used to exchange only one word. “Clear”. The second arrival then opened the driver side window and a very small object ( later found to be a SIM card) was thrown out. This car then drove to the suspects car and parked beside it facing the opposite direction so driver window was against driver window. Packages were seen to be exchanged. Both cars then drove off. The suspect was followed and traced, he was only a line manager and the puzzle was how did he get a secret file and why was he not checked when leaving his office? It turned out that he was not checked because of his low level status. How he got the file and how he knew who to pass it on to, were puzzles that took many operational hours, and earned our previously mentioned agent, a brilliant review and a promotion. This suspect was in a relationship with the wife if a senior defense bureaucrat, she stole the file from her husband and passed it to her lover, with instructions as to where to take it. She was also in a relationship with a North Korean diplomat, a relationship that was, to her, far more meaningful and important than any other. This diplomat set up a messenger train which included the besotted and naive suspect seen in the car park. The recipient car was also followed and this led to a house in Hampstead, the trail led from there to the Korean Embassy.

Vetting of the bureaucrat checked out and he was contacted, the involvement of his wife did not seem to shock him but the fact that she had managed to obtain secret files did concern him and everyone else. These files were never supposed to leave his office. The simplicity of how it was managed stunned everyone, and ultimately led to Mary and I standing in moonlight watching a barn owl. The wife would visit her husbands office at times she knew he would be in meetings then she would take what ever was the bottom file in his out tray, knowing that he would obviously know what was the top of this pile and probably know what was in the “in tray” but he would have no reason to check the out tray before it was collected by the staff. She would then pass it to her secondary lover, the line manager, who was in the same building so even if she was searched on leaving, there would be no file to find. The line manager simply walked out with it and took it to where ever she instructed. Once at the embassy the file was duplicated and the original was returned to the out tray, by the wife. They simply reversed the outward path. Thus files were never recorded as missing.

The simplicity shocked everyone and also ensured that this was something that could not end up in a public court, imagine the press headlines! So it was decide that the wife and her Korean lover had to be found as victims of an unsolved crime or preferably joint participants in a tragic suicide pact. Mary and I were to decide that, as events unfolded. We always insisted the operational details were left to us and us only. The fewer people involved, the easier to keep information safe. We are both ex special forces, well trained and battle hardened.

We ended out waiting and walked slowly to the remote house, the nearest neighbor was over five hundred meters away. We evaded the security cameras with ease; it is wonderful what information you can get with the full resources of a national security agency at your command. The front door locks were quite modern and so we left these and used a back door, we carefully picked the lock, taking care not to leave forensic scratches or marks, the couple were in bed together, two shots at close range ended their involvement, there was no need of a silencer and neither this weapon, or the ammunition, had never been handled by bare hands, the gun was placed in the hand of the diplomat, his finger on the trigger and a third shot was fired out though an open window. Which was then closed again. This ensured residue was on his hand, this third bullet was replaced, in the gun's clip and we left again, carefully re-locking the door. A simple and efficient job. We are famous, in very discrete circles, for it. We retraced our steps back to the moonlight clearing, waited to ensure nothing human moved anywhere in the vicinity. Back to the car we had left in a pub car park a mile away. Drove to a city center multistory car park removed our masks, left the keys in the ignition, the car was to be collected later by a person we had never met nor ever would. We separated and left by different exits. Walked our separate routes home, Mary for a hot chocolate and bed, while I caught a early morning train to another city, to my own apartment and a large whiskey then my bed. Mary and I are an operation unit, with no traceable links to each other. Security is absolute. Neither of us made any report to those who required our services, the mission success would never be recorded.