The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comThereafter every spare half-hour from the classroom was spent observingthe house to build up a detailed picture of the daily movements of theoccupants. The best place for the listening device would be in thekitchen, where the family socialised. But more detailed information wasneeded. One evening I jogged round to the house and found that it wasempty. This was my chance. After checking that nobody was watching, Iclimbed the fence bordering Stanley Park, scrambled through theshrubbery and up to the hedge at the back of the house. Nobody was athome next door either, so I scuttled the few metres of open ground intothe cover of the lean-to at the back of the house, sending a startledcat shooting through my feet and under the windsurfer lying nearby.Crouching in the shadows for a few minutes, I listened for any sign ofcompromise. There was silence, so I stood up and peered through thekitchen window. After my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I sketched thekitchen layout in a notebook. Just as I turned to make my exit Inoticed that the key had been left in the door. Recalling Ball's words- `just don't get caught' - I turned it and pushed the door open. Myintrusion into a stranger's house was amoral and illegal but in theeuphoria of the IONEC it seemed totally justified. Ball rewarded myefforts with full marks on the exercise.We worked long hours down at the Fort. Training started at 9 a.m. and atypical day would involve several lectures, small-arms drill or selfdefenceclasses, an exercise in the afternoon, more lectures, thendinner, perhaps another evening exercise and then we had to write upthe exercises going into the middle of the evening. Socialising in thebar afterwards was obligatory, so often we would not get to bed untilthe early hours. To compensate for the long weekday hours, we finishedjust after lunch on Friday afternoons and were not expected back at theFort until mid-morning the following Monday. All of us lived in centralLondon, so we normally shared lifts back into town. For the first fewweeks of the IONEC I rented a room from an old Cambridge friend, butrealising early in the course that MI6 would be a lifetime career,getting on the property ladder became imperative. I found a one-bedroomgarden flat on Richborne Terrace in the pleasant but slightlydilapidated Victorian suburb of Kennington. It was in poor decorativeorder and the garden was sorely neglected, but it was as much as Icould afford and I was very proud of it. Every weekend was spentdigging, planting, painting and sawing.I was enjoying the social life in London too. One day Julian, anEnglish friend I met in Argentina, invited me to an evening of indoorgo-kart racing in London to celebrate his birthday. Having spent somany hours tearing up my mother's garden in my home-made go-kart, Ifancied my chances in a race and so was looking forward to the event.The track was built in an old bus depot in Clapham. Julian had invited30 or so other friends and amongst them were some very pretty girls.One in particular I noticed imediately. As we milled around sorting outhelmets and awaiting our heats, I could hardly keep my eyes off her.She was tall, almost five foot ten inches, and had blue eyes and longshiny dark hair which she often caressed and pushed back from her facewhenever she laughed. She had cinched-in the waist of the baggyoveralls issued to us with an old school tie, accentuating her slenderwaist. I watched her race in one of her heats. She drove like an oldgranny popping down to the supermarket for a tin of Whiskas and soonthe leaders were bearing down on her to lap her and the race marshallspage- 47 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com