Finally, finally start of Devil's Lunch - edits no doubt

 Bishop’s teeth would rattle when he unquestionably became edgy, and practically spat them at me some times when his temper took over—I’m Boy, by the way—Bishop’s spittle was almost an ugly code for they would adhere to his orders and the Major and his team would disappear otherwise as he went into another rant.

He likewise included me in his diverse theories as if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I told Bishop to knock it off as the entire project was a laugh and I was sick of it being pumped at me.

The myth of the Major and Scooter on more occasions than I needed hemmed in by a few pints meant I drank better than usual listening to Bishop but then I dreamt about their driving around the jungle filled with someone else’s cash as if was a treasure and by the sound of Bishop, he and they revered it; so what made it all finish up and why did no-one get the treasure?

It was Bishop’s favourite tale, although he’d been further connected to it than he ever wished to spell out and blanked off pains as the material drove him increasingly closer to his narrative but I ruminated on who issued the directives as Scooter drove the Major around the jungle with bundles of notes with no-one paid off according to Bishop?

Who ever protested about not getting money and who paid them or weren’t they paid?

I didn’t find out until it was virtually too late that Scooter was a short and long range killer who attended the Major in his murder group. Now I could speculate on how that impacted upon their banking patrons and did anyone search for executed bodies if you disagreed—Bishop had me really dreaming about this stuff but it made no sense and most seemed to be a story?

Against the treachery and scenes emanating from DUA and his team seeking ego-enhancement and the cash to go with it made me wonder what had been going on in Malaya?

Thinking back to the boat, some of this was taking place as the team faced losing more than their lives until DUA decided and then money suddenly turned up in a safe and again in the 'V' boat, but who placed it there skilfully and when?

When was the boat paid for and by whom?

It was all a fascinating act as they cut your soul up and then announced itself rising through the floor and not downward into it unless Mr Hoo demonstrated his magic but for my part I would identify the buddy who put out an undertaking on me and stop him; probably in the UK and that was the idea but why a contract on me?

Still, I’m caught in West Africa now and he is secure in the UK.

I am surely not in any position to impede his breathing but looking anew at minor mercies; freezing now lives with my ex-girlfriend who could give ice an education but thankfully she is thousands of miles away and realising I have no money—although also an extremely limited lifespan if she but perceive it—had finished threatening me?

There was never any money anyhow, which peeled off her ‘for profit lawyers’ and her, as nothing ever happens out of nothing unless you do trust in ‘free lunches’.

Looking at what the pair of us accomplished in that frozen apartment, I have never figured out why she turned off the heating before I reached home and later protested about the chill—she perched there all the time in the glow.

Again to manipulate and cause arguments she would turn it off so I would react and when I didn’t, she became even more incensed and invariably told me I could find a better job that paid more whilst showing no propensity to actually earning herself.

She might have dreamed of future glories and who to thrive off and run, but again studying Mr Hoo, I doubted that he was any different… the future… or the history would undoubtedly let us all appreciate.

Mr Hoo dreamed of former triumphs, but you couldn’t interrupt Mr Hoo from seeking to repeat them.

All his and our glories were old and there was no overlooking the fact that our souls could be that old as easily?

Who ever put Mr Hoo on a mission with his destructive tendencies so dumbly seen? Was he seeking to show us a God who you required an aircraft to locate or a Devil who resided on earth and served the Ministry of Defence…? Or a failed CIA Agent.

That was perhaps a challenge we would never resolve since the answer would never originate from Mr Hoo, but probably from our bodies lined up to fail with him as he entertained his mechanistic death games?

Waiting in position for misery as everyone betrayed everyone else looked the most immovable solution to this forecast.

We had scant choice—being the Devil’s Lunch.

It did look liked Mr Hoo fancied an early opportunity from the death menu and wasn’t interested in Genocide by Chocolate from the sweet trolley.

The challenge that kept appearing like gone off broccoli however was why and why now and why had this whole bunch been set for an egotists’ delusions—it made no sense and Benny wasn’t on a loose rein he was out looking for Santa Claus.

Benny tried at several occasions to warn off the pirates when we assailed them and that had simply developed after he burst fast and loose and brought to light the night club in Grand Bassam and who did he communicate with? We finally threatened him with a bullet in the back of his head but that would have improved his thinking and he still didn’t know close he’d come some more airways.

As affable as when he wanted to be, Benny; when he wasn’t sniffing around so much for women, was on his hands and knees yet still needed a muzzle, lead and his legs tied together before being allowed out with a dog mask on although he still thought he could pole vault on his middle regions to get to women.

He was the most amiable of crooks and lifted us out of so many fixes the rest of the bunch got us into with their mouths and attitudes that you tolerated almost all of what now seemed to be an escape from being a good Italian boy who did what Momma told him…? As long as it had nothing to do with lorries getting lost?

He found crime acceptable until he lost one trailer too many and included the goods of a mobster’s daughter in his losses and that seemed to make him unacceptable and thus developed into an unwelcome visitor in all the most salubrious places apart from those accepting credit cards which now had pictures on each new issue saying ‘my name is not Benny’?

He trembled if anyone looked at him, and Benny watched Irish’s hands. They’d stopped trembling, but still the odd quiver in his fingers when he was near Benny’s throat?

Once again we’d hit the nitty gritty of Benny endangering the team so many times he challenged Mr Hoo for the right to die.

Benny saved us so many times in the past days and he was still alive, which said something of our restraint as he blew things.

We existed because of Irish and we would have been long dead suffering from a dose of both Benny and Mr Hoo otherwise… if… yes, if…? Irish hadn’t moved in and shot his way out and now we had warned Benny as much as we could that anyone of use would put a bullet in his skull if we decided!

A different kettle of gone-off fish might be Scooter, however he’d run out of excuses for his chance of not joining the Major for a long deep swim?

The pair of them took failure to the level of an idiot Officer in the Major’s case, but in fact he did nothing more than be an idiot who followed orders and ran when he could take the money and go which he then invested in himself and his glass although who made him into this kind of gutless animal apart from the Ministry of Defence and Bishop wasn’t there to answer those questions and like Mr Hoo, blanked out all he didn’t want to hear and lived in his own world!

DUA previously led his life in a Scottish Regiment and then found himself into another career for British Rail which led to him watching car-parks and watching on one occasion a Government Minister’s daughter in arresting positions and thus forged his way to his next position and title plus the nickname of DUA.

DUA would say to you he never had a name; denied serving in a Highland Regiment with the MOD hiding his involvement in a man hanging from a perimeter fence, but that was his deal with Algenald Matthews as his name passed into the files and settled there; never to escape?

His often thought and impetus was; what runs around, sucks around—just manage not to inhale.

Perhaps that was also his interest in existence, although he did his best not to exist in anyone’s eyes?

This approach suited the Defence Minister as he struggled to get others to take over the previous Government’s hidden assets, including the cloistered cells under the Basketball Courts in Kensington, but alas no-one ever appreciated his inherited obligations and in his thoughts considered him something of little value except perhaps as a toilet for disposal?

The early UK Government did engage itself in a portion of American activities that left residues for later British Governments who suddenly retreated from the leavings of the previous Establishment.

However, it left the infrastructure in place and thus allowed Algenald Matthews his urgent concerns and a way to solve them.

He considered DUA was the ideal chap to handle this and fully close them down.

Restrictions were removed until in reality there were no restrictions and things continued as before.

Infuriating the Americans seemed the current Government’s preference, from what Algenald could understand but closing the cells down was something no-one would authorised!

Want not, dread not, was another of his safety thoughts however making it someone else’s problem illustrated good politics—so just accept the payment and establishing clearly it wasn’t through the US and that also illustrated good politics—they were becoming very efficient at tracking money and that was again part of policy and that the cells stayed open if they needed someone to start the overcrowding.

It was a time for a progression for the Lady and with the prospect I would wake up I handed over to Mr Hoo. He could generate another war while I dreamed.

Great, if he allowed me peace, and I thus departed to my pit; woken a moment afterward by Mr Hoo—who I think enjoyed disturbing me after I’d dived off—I am sure bits also knocked off me as he swung me like a typhoon hitting a babies’ house.

“They’ve just struck a US tanker off the Ghana Coast. Some kid didn’t make the strong area. Wanted to be a hero and observe what they achieved. They spotted him, murdered him, and stretched him up by his feet as a lesson. We have approval to reach for them without being nice at all. No more beaver-boxing anymore, although World War 3 is out. We are ‘Gold Go’ so we are official… you don’t kill US people on US ships—we are shooting duck.”

Letting the signals from Mr Hoo make their progress into my sleep addled head, the notion once again touched me that Mr Hoo sought immortality and my rejoinder, I think, exemplified my expectations and those were long words and thoughts from me were a lot shorter and I don’t know where the corruption set in!

“Mr Hoo, the US has been shooting ducks for longer than I can think of?”

Turning over, I let Mr Hoo observe my best features—taking it from the tail.

Thinking about it subsequently, it was a shame they’d also offered the duck a matched-barrelled shotgun to attack with since it then blasted us every moment it passed over and so quickly after Mr Hoo’s words—what was going on?

Information must move on but they were using the information in tracking us somehow, but how?

Mr Hoo with his Gung-Ho approach of shoot one, kill fifteen was still back in Vietnam.

Someone should have progressed and established a safety catch for him before they armed him up but that didn’t diminish a fact and the fact was that they showed they knew where we were, when we no idea of what was happening or where we were?

They first attacked us around Cap Spartel.

They didn’t expect Mohammedia and nor did I as Mr Hoo and whoever he was talking to in Langley left us mentally behind in what was going on but not the attackers so we had the luxury of their company near Fuerteventura and around the Punta Elbow but nudge, nudge only works with the HMRC and their trained Control Freaks.

They were lingering at Nouakchott before reaching us at Conakry—We finally gave up counting the raids, although they struck us opposite Monrovia and we moved our backsides like a reluctant damsel on her initial score to run elsewhere from there although only Mr Hoo knew who we were running from and to where!

When we finally formed at Grand Bassam they were waiting and hit us with four or five attacks before it died down for a few days, but those ducks had still circled us for 2000 miles and I am damn certain that Mr Hoo knew who and how! I would shoot Bishops, not ducks.

If I could get my hands on Bishop now, I would wring his neck, but Mr Hoo was the fifth horseman of the pyroclast and seemed to cherish the idea of a fiery death!

The issue with recalling Bishop was it mentally transported me back to the UK and how this shit hit me and Bishop sat in the middle like a fat spider who’d disposed of all the insects.

I wouldn’t forget Bishop and his plight, no matter what, but yet again I was mentally back in London again and freezing my backside off!

Perhaps I wondered why she troubled with an iffy guy like me, even though once she believed there might be capital in the house—an illusion if ever there was one—she remained but with those regular phone calls to her mother night and day until she realised the Bank owned the flat and I couldn’t earn enough to pay for her.

Obviously with a housing market as flat broke as myself, her attitude changed; the heating went off and the calls to mother rose like an earthquake but to change the subject, yet again, I’m called Boy these days! Originally born as Ralf and that according to my mother was from an effort which led in a way to my birth name as she called me ‘Rough’ after the birth.

Subsequently, I learnt a lot more about myself from the arguments with my girlfriend and a cold snap freezing both my arse and my bank account.

The nickname which stuck arose after my girlfriend conveying to her mother her feelings about me tried to mimic my voice, saying, “and I don’t know what the Boy wants?” Thus endearing herself to me by that comment which stuck to my cold blockaded rear like a frost, as everyone now calls me Boy.

God knows what she’d decided she’d control with that insult, but I’m grateful she didn’t invent any other insult that stuck as I’m sure a few others were available at the time.

Owning your own property in those days supposedly meant you were on the way up; in my case it meant on my ‘uppers’ and a desire born of ignorance as the banks became richer and the house owners poorer. It sounds stupid now with the banks ripping off endowment mortgages at 16% interest, but desperation to own a property took over when the mortgage people kept asking why my wife didn’t turn up for meetings so they could get her details and refused to believe I wasn’t married and buying a property.

I eventually told them we were just engaged, although now they wanted details of my fiancee; no doubt to sell her banking services, as if they weren’t happy to just exploit a single, footloose guy. They wanted you in concrete boots those days so you couldn’t escape as the debt interest rates rose like water in a flood over you!

She was never more than someone to pick up as I couldn’t get steady girlfriends because of my lack of money, but I craved someone to get a mortgage with. Finding a property was easy, but I made sure it was my name on the mortgage and the deeds.

She wasn’t getting her claws into this as she had already given up her job working in a supermarket on the tills and made sure no-one else was paying for her but me and I could have lived with that if we’d a life and she hadn’t kept trying to treat me as a money box and take over my life—innocent I know but my life was shit anyway and this, for a young guy was too much!

Later I learnt she only been working four hours a day, living off her mother who was semi-happy for her to live off me for a change but considered her daughter under her control for the rest of their lives and that was something else I never realised as my parents were both dead and my mother gave up trying to control me.

I thought I would never rush into a relationship again although that was a lie as I would learn again although there was no love lost between myself and Mr Hoo in our relationship and later someone else would beat the shit out of me and then loved me for a time.

The previous night to show she was still alive she had rung her mother however it was so cold in bed she used my warmth later which produced chills in more respects than one as it was like making love to a deep freeze.

I finally crawled down the next morning into the dawn, having tried to beat the alarm clock into submission but creeping down the stairs into the icy provinces below froze me from the waist down however I had no feeling left there anyway—yes it didn’t make a blind bit of difference to my lower extremities.

I left the freezer door open for central heating.

It was so cold the freezer thought summer holidays were early this year?

The Postman instead of trying to smash his way through the letter box skidded on the ice and tried to smash his head through the door instead.

At least my girl-friend wasn’t up for making the first call to her mother to prove I hadn’t strangled her in the night; intriguing though the thought presented itself?

I needed a shower, and if it hadn’t been for sex last night—may all your leaving presents be better—it was like washing one long icicle.

Morning for me summed up an existence or premature death that I hadn’t realised had already occurred however the Funeral Director would remind me on my arrival when he checked whether I was still holding the cheque for my burial in frozen hands within the coffin but now stained whitewashed magnolia stared back at me as I sat on my dismal toilet.

It didn’t tell me I would meet unusual killers, but rather that an incomplete diet was not a wonderful idea for someone who doesn’t have a lot of time in the morning.

The toaster from the charity shop matched the visits from the ancients who knew how to repair most of the stuff we still possessed, or should I say we still kept in our museum but once again it shut down so breakfast was both short and long as I ate a German cum Polish sausage which I then used the remains of to open the frozen front door.

I’d looked around for my shoes earlier, which now appeared on my feet without any of my help I’m sure whilst my back was sending messages home, but luckily, I was out.

I wrapped my raincoat around me like an experience. Was I as ready as I would ever be to meet the day? Time would tell?

Dirty rain, dirty streets and dirty habits if I’d had the money, time or inclination, awaited me, but who waltzes around the drainpipes singing when the local Council can drown you at a Bus Stop?

Crowds lined up for the bus by the time I arrived. They looked like an anaconda’s stomach after a wonderful meal with the length of this queue meaning four buses arriving at once with one stopping and the rest carrying on was obviously planned.

I just spotted the driest piece of ground available to stand on and prayed for them as they waited to get drenched by the bus that did stop.

So many people in the queue were muttering it looked like preparation for a mass suicide or a bible reading.

What did get up my nose, feet and half my trousers was that the Council resolved that the middle of the road should be clear of water so they cambered it?

All the water therefore ran down to the failed drains with the bus often roaring off as no-one was at the stop or still breathing if they were.

They had developed a swimming pool at the bus stop!

Reaching the miniature tower—yes, even that was on the cheap and from a bygone age when they couldn’t determine whether to develop a modern building or just fill a hole in the city landscape to rent out was another achievement. Finally, they had managed both and the ideas were crap.

Still, at least the lift didn’t perform music; just sex and drugs at night and neither coming my way although most would have been frozen?

I made it through the door a minute before the owners arrived with their clipboards and a hard stare for me but they had hard stares for everyone.

Well, I did shut the lift door in their faces.

Now they moved onto the next poor bugger.

A theory of staff relations with this crew was that when one of the guy’s religious doctrines obliged him to be home by sunset, they demanded he start at four thirty in the morning so he could achieve his day and free overtime before he took off. That was usually at a rate of knots!

The Manager’s name was Bishop, and we got on well with both being ex-services.

I was at that time a Financial System troubleshooter and I still remember the interview with Bishop.

“You know Accountancy?”

“Yes.”

“You understand Systems?”

“Yes.”

“You appreciate Insurance?”

“Yes.”

“Your ex-Royal Navy?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, start in the morning.”

The shortest interview I ever had and later I often felt it was one of the worst.

Bishop didn’t waste time or effort and screwing up would have me out the door in seconds and bouncing.

In various ways it didn’t matter because it lined me up for more than anyone would want in their dreams.

In creating their other masterpieces, the Israeli Insurance Brokers made a guy who looked after the systems, redundant with three month’s notice and no-one to replace him with.

They bought him, along with a company they’d taken over,

Moved him down to London and discarding him.

Happiness would assuredly be an overstatement for his opinions on them after that!

After he moved, we discovered you couldn’t enter any payments into the Insurance Company Ledgers nor reconcile balances for everyone, with no notion of what profit was being produced as he hoisted them with their own petard and right up the yardarm.

Bishop and I as good Monkeys writing Shakespeare banana’d our was around the processes; creating fantasy using paper and spreadsheets to offer a snapshot of the owners position and exposure.

I dug into the client files with Bishop warning me to keep everything under my hat as some clients would be a little unhappy if they knew I was seeing their financial affairs.

That Thursday, Bishop and I were again experiencing a hairy toilet brush day.

I’d just turned up out a second system time bomb and I recall telling Bishop, “We have a headache here, Bishop?”

“What issue is that, Boy?”

“The complication is it moves backward into the original postings.”

“What is it doing, Boy?”

“It is passing through the General Ledger; moving entries between accounts so they don’t match the original journals and deleting previous payments. It working backwards—shit—for the forthcoming Accounts and Audit?”

“How deep is it travelling, Boy?” asked Bishop.

“No idea, Bishop. We’ve put statements in the Lloyd’s Client files so John can argue with them over his 20 pints; I can at least get hold of a paper copy of the statement and try working back manually; finding the pattern, but that settles nothing.”

“What does it provide us with, Boy?”

“A point of how far it’s passed backward. At the moment, we don’t know who has paid; who owes us, and we can’t produce paper statements for John any more. He can’t go money collecting unless I can get the data before it disappears and manually produce statements.”

“What now?”

“I take previous statements; check if they’ve paid and update them with anything I can find.”

“Have you done this before, Boy?”

“Last time it was a hotel group; taken over by a firm of gamblers with the Auditors producing their own accounts as they didn’t trust the group accounts?”

“How could they do that?”

“Laws were different then, Bishop. Auditors produced their own accounts if they didn’t trust the client’s accounts.”

“Sounds like good training. Go for it.”

And just when you think it can’t become worse, or better, halfway through the day, a beep from the mobile declared the final grading from my girlfriend who had been working up to leave for some time and making my life hell into the bargain which she did that anyway for control and I rarely noticed.

I suppose she thought I would throw her out and ease her conscience however the message was the same—this house is too cold—she was returning to mother—god help mother; although the goodbye had a delightful sound to it.

Well, at least the place would be mine again and without supporting her, the heating would burn its heart out all night and go off during the day, which seemed far more logical to me as I’m the one going to work.

She still assumed I had property and after she flew the frozen nest, I received several threats and lawyer’s letters appearing until they both realised the market and I were lifeless and they died out.

There was nothing left behind—if I still had one, or was it still frozen on the toilet—for me, the lawyers or her to grasp to include me in his machinations.

My buying the flat presumably subsided the entire housing market, allowing nothing from everyone, even if I hawked it?

I nevertheless couldn’t figure out how an Israeli firm; an ex SBS gentleman and some Scottish deviant had made me, an ex-Royal Navy guy and IT Specialist number two on a dhow heading for the west coast of Africa, but it happened and it just goes to show you cannot trust your neighbours.

Yet as the images of the chill, damp, humidity hit back at me and I wasn’t talking about her—maybe the West Coast of Africa isn’t so awful, although I didn’t perceive what would transpire.

II

Roger Turner enjoyed coming home to see Antonia—complete with brandy—it established his evening and determined when time off from work move to gratification?

Roger always doubted whether he classified Antonia and himself as lovers or lodgers, but the thought never left him that they blended.

They made love on a Saturday night like clockwork—perhaps best way to characterise it, but a secure marriage in his mind prevailed amongst all the uncertainties that he faced.

Antonia didn’t consider other men. She adored her home, her family and autonomy to continue her own life and she’d never told him anything different.

He sought to be there if anything developed and was on the phone otherwise, but something troubled her and she wouldn’t reveal anything about it, which disturbed him to a degree although he never pursued the ‘master of the household’ game.

Now he relaxed in the garden, partially aside from business, and started his round of checking calls as he watched Antonia move towards him with large brandies and from a distance telling him of her day as he cut off his last call.

He’d met Antonia following her legal career failure.

Still raw when he found her, he realised enough to allow her rawness to soothe and just remained a companion.

It went on for a lengthy time as he adored both her and his deals with the demands they both made.

Eventually something occurred between them and not perhaps on a Saturday night although it suggested the only purely actual manifestation these days but glancing up he smiled and softly murmured, “Antonia, you are a charming respite from the week’s exertions.”

“You are telling the brandies, Roger, I am up here.”

“Get down here,” he said, opening his legs for her to sit on, “I need nourishment and only you, my lover, can grant it.”

“In the shape of two large brandies?”

“You are worth more two large brandies.”

“I doubt that on a Friday night but tomorrow; maybe?”

“It is great to have the headaches of the moment over.”

“But are they over, Roger?”

He reflected for a moment…?

His children, now mature enough to neglect but perhaps he left Antonia, Albert and Cookie to run too much so he just needed to earn money, appreciate life and relax but the one in the woodpile were the concerns with the hijackings.

Until now, what he believed to be a hobby was calling for more than an interest in model glue to fix?

Managing the oil tanker hijacks had been an interest with a healthy financial reward, although there were always issues with team projects as the operations became more complex.

Given an opportunity he wouldn’t have required the incompetence of Algenald Matthews: the arrogance of Sasha Gomez with his Russian women, or Mark Stephens but he needed Alfred Stephens with his Nigerian corrupt contacts for the oil tankers and Mark was Alfred’s associated baggage just as the women were Sasha’s baggage but Mark carried his own baggage around with him which he frequently picked up off the streets or in bars.

The apprehension for Roger however was they were targeting US tankers and thus attracting US interest, which he could do without; Sasha’s trouble with those Russian women also kept him in the Press.

Why Sasha had targeted US tankers and not just anyone’s tankers was something he still couldn’t understand either?

III

Simon Askew feared what had propelled him into a career he didn’t crave and made him responsible for a Secret Confinement he couldn’t reveal.

The UK was breaking International and UN Laws and not to allude to UK Laws, which it was hiding from parliament.

If it turned into public knowledge suddenly he would turn into overt observation as they set him up—if it developed, and that was something he feared with the Politicians involved?

DUA and his handling unit would likewise be in the headlines, but helping the people in the units beneath the basketball court wouldn’t arise as he was roasted on the right wing newspapers.

The knowledge of such a base in Kensington would hasten house prices down and that would engage the Government’s attention as it affected their own equities, yet maybe a secret organisation in Kensington might prove a bombshell for the Press as they wanted to find a week when the D Notices arose.

For himself he’d slipped away to Algenald Matthews’ department as his Security PA, but Simon believed himself an enduring mark for picking up an exceptional awareness of DUA’s more secret Government enterprises, and that unsettled him—knowing too much was never a good idea.

Simon had several moments in his career, and eventually another event with his rapport with a CIA Agent.

Often mailing each other they were, as most associates are, na?ve in revealing too much.

His friend emailed about him about a young woman he became in love with and Simon as a companion extended his strongest hopes for the relationship whilst he ran checks as colleagues make on the young woman who turned up as a Chinese Agent involved with a very Senior US Army General.

Well, what was a supportive ally to accomplish?

He called his acquaintance about his liaison, saying he would keep mum about it in the warmth of co-agency, however what could his friend offer for his neglecting to perform his job and advise his employers about it.

This created an increasing friendship until one day a contact call arrived from his acquaintance’s employer, “You’ve interfered in a CIA action; precipitated the death of a double agent; wiped out a vital leak of dis-information to China, thus wiping out years of planning, and you’ve hurt this Agency.”

They finally left Simon with an alternative? Either pass information they demanded to the US or they would crush him and therefore Simon belonged as a ‘double agent,’ of the CIA, and if Simon thought his career had gone bad, he didn’t have the experience to know how dangerous it would become?

Their last orders were to approach DUA, who ran the Secret Team; get him to put a unit together who would leave for West Africa and end the tanker piracy on the ground.

This worried Simon, whose boss wasn’t concerned in events outside of his present position, and warned him to focus on the UK after other foul-ups involving Simon.

Simon rang Matthews asking for a word, “sir, Sir Nicholas has rung asking for your cooperation on something troubling the PM.”

“What is that, Simon?”

“Sir Nicholas said these hijacking attacks in West Africa are bothering the PM and Sir Nicholas, who wishes his part to be anonymous, has informed the PM he will request you to set up a unit to help clear up the problem.”

This left Matthews in a dilemma, but most things did so it was barely a fresh expression in his career.

He could not turn down the PM’s ear as it was the only part of the PM’s anatomy that functioned regarding Matthews, apart from his footwear, however this sounded like a setup….?

“Simon, they must not think I’m connected. Will you contact DUA; explain the situation and say I’ll approve it under ‘Vote XML’ and whatever sub-vote applies. Tell him to look at it so we appear willing but above all else risk little.”

“Yes, sir.”