The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comdismal.' Poison Dwarf tossed the brown manilla staff appraisal formdown on to the coffee-table between us. `Read it, and explainyourself,' he ordered.Reading the report left me sickened and let down by String Vest. Whenhe visited me in Bosnia, he made no adverse comment about myperformance, and his report reeked of a set-up. He went out of his wayto find criticisms of my performance and ignored all the good work thatI had done, making a great issue about my failure to wear a necktieduring the VIP meeting with Karadzic.`I find it incredible that you didn't wear a tie,' grumbled PoisonDwarf in the background.I chose to ignore him and pressed on with String Vest's vitriol. Heheavily criticised me for failing to visit and debrief DONNE inSarajevo after a crucial meeting of the Bosnian-Muslim leadership.Undoubtedly DONNE would probably have provided some useful CX on themeeting, but String Vest conveniently ignored the closure of Sarajevoairport and the impossibility of reaching the city overland. I'd had arough deal by comparison with my IONEC colleagues who were stillpreparing for their first posts. Spencer was on German languagetraining for assignment to a four-man station in Vienna. Castle, asever with an eye on his bank balance and living standards, was lined upfor a posting to Geneva where even the junior officer received asubstantial house with swimming pool and a generous living allowance,and was on a year-long French course. Barking had elected to become anArab specialist and was on a two-year Arabic course in Cairo. Fortonwas also learning French in preparation for a post to Brussels, Bartwas learning Hungarian and Hare was learning Spanish in preparation forthe number two job in Chile. None of them were yet in post, and evenwhen they arrived, they would not be expected to do much more duringtheir first six months than learn the ropes of the local community. Thecontrast with my own posting was stark but String Vest had not made theslightest concession.The report reeked of a stitch-up by personnel and had probably beenorchestrated by the devious Fowlecrooke, but I could never proveanything. My best response was just to put the incident behind me andwork hard in my new job in PTCP section. Badger was an honest andethical boss and Fowlecrooke would never dare pressure him to mark medown.I got up and left Poison Dwarf's office, hoping that he would soonthrust his way into a good overseas posting so that I wouldn't have todeal with him again.On joining PTCP section, I found the number of telephone interceptsthey ran eye-opening. Usually there would be two or three FLORIDAreports landing in my in-tray every day and that was just for theprojects I worked on. Other officers in the section, working ondifferent projects, received many reports which I did not see. Thenumber of telephone warrants MI6 had could be gauged from the size ofUKZ, the section responsible for transcribing the intercepts. Based inan office at 60 Vauxhall Bridge Road, abbreviated to VBR in theservice, UKZ numbered around 20 officers in total, of which the buxompage- 134 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com