The MI5 Commander instructs inept Charlie Boyd and his fellow agent, Barbara Witherspoon, to find out who is doing the killing and protect other agents from death.
Their search for the murderer takes them across London, into the seedy nightclubs of the East End, from agent’s apartments to motels in the search for the person responsible. With numerous attempts made on his and Witherspoon’s life, Boyd evades the wrath of the killer by more luck than judgment.
Can they discover the identity of the killer before more agents are murdered? Will they be able to bring the murderer to justice?
The commander’s eyes became hard glittering points as they bored right through me, making me wince in imagined pain. They’d cause you some damage if you got in the way of those, I thought. There was no doubt about it. The commander was angry, very angry indeed. His fists were clenched and I seriously thought he was about to start pounding the desk.
He snarled in his best commander’s voice. “What do you mean, 069, you lost him? How could you lose anyone, for God’s sake? You’re supposed to be an experienced agent. You were sent to look after him, not bloody lose him.”
I wasn’t sure he wanted an answer, but I gave him one anyway. “I don’t think he wanted me looking after him, Sir. Anyway, he doubled back on me and I lost him in the mall.”
If it was possible, his glare deepened and his frown increased until his eyebrows all but covered his eyes. I cringed inside waiting for the storm to hit.
“He doubled back on me,” the commander said in a whining voice, his head wobbling from side to side. Then he went back to his Commanders bark. “It was a simple job, 069, and you fucked it up, didn’t you?”
I thought it best to keep my trap shut this time. I found I was wrong again when he snapped. “Well?”
All I could think of saying was, “Yes Sir.” He glared some more and the veins on his forehead stood out until I thought he was going to pop his clogs. However, he didn’t—he simply picked up his pen and started writing on a file in front of him. The nib scratching on the paper sounded like a dung beetle trying to get a grip of its dinner. Commander Braithwaite liked to use a pen and ink, a bit snobby if you ask me. He should use a Biro like everyone else.
“You keep this inefficiency up, Boyd, and you’ll find yourself permanently downgraded.”
Shit, I thought in dismay, anything, but a downgrade. I liked my job as senior agent for the old man, testy, grouchy, cantankerous and irascible though he was, and I liked the pay, because it let me afford things that made my life cushy.
By the way, I’m Charlie Boyd, my service designation is 069, but everyone thought it amusing to shorten it to 69, I can’t imagine why. The boss did, as well, unless he was mad at me—then he used it in full, like now. I always fancied myself as a 007 type and often imagined myself situated in the Ian Fleming stories, hero to all, saving the world from villains, and countless women hungering after my body. Unlike 007, I don’t have a license to kill because the boss didn’t think I would be able to hit anything, although they did allow me to carry a gun.
The commander was P, which was short for his code name Panda. I nicknamed him Peewee, out of his hearing, as did most of the other agents.
The Peewee nib brought me back to the presence as it started scratching on the paper again when he signed his name with a flourish. He pressed the intercom button to alert his secretary.
“Yes Sir,” Miss Phillips squawked back, her voice distorted by the intercom so it sounded like she had a sore throat.
Penelope Phillips was a good-looking woman around thirty-five years old, although no one ever seemed able to find out exactly how old she was. She had black hair and a nice figure that had men drooling. Most of the agents had tried to get into her knickers at some time or another, me included, but to no avail. I thought she must be a lesbian or an agnostic or something.
“Miss Phillips, get Witherspoon up here pronto.”
