What to do about Katrina, Ep. I, Act I, sc. 40
Enter Sarah
This time - I promise - there’s no long intro.
Just as a reminder, if you want to start at the very beginning of this story, then My Intro is there, and the Prelude & Scene 1 is there.
You also have the option of starting with the Intermission, which will give you the story so far and enable you to start from Scene 37, which is there.
In that scene, Tom & Sean pursued Peter on his way to what they believed is a clandestine meeting, because Sean for one is definitely convinced that Peter is involved somehow with this Katrina conspiracy. Peter confronted them, however, and resolved the issue by claiming he was meeting an informant, and offering to keep them in the loop.
That seemed to satisfy them, especially seeing as Tom got a recording of their conversation with Peter (he has a standard issue watch - the one with the microphone), so they marched triumphantly and hubristically back to Sean’s favourite Irish pub, which Tom was almost certainly aware involved him being spied on. Everyone spies on everyone else after all, which is made even more ridiculous by the fact that everyone knows this is going on. Still, if it keeps the little spooks happy, who are we to object?
Anyway, that happened in the Previously on Katrina, as I like to call it (being a big fan of 24, you know). That previously was Scenes 38 & 39, which you can catch up on there. Scene 38 was just a sweet little interlude in the safehouse in which Katrina says nightie-night to her two chaperones from the security section. She is now safely asleep, we presume.
In this instalment, then, Peter is going to have his little clandestine meeting with Sarah Bishop, who is definitely involved in something to do about Katrina…
“It’s safe to talk.”
“How long?”
“Thirty minutes.” Sarah set the timer on her watch. “You look agitated,” she noted.
“That girl is scary as hell.”
Sarah enjoyed being amused by Peter’s alarm, and barely suppressed a giggle when he drained his first glass in one. She had been looking forward to his first reaction to meeting the girl.
He motioned towards the bar for another. Sarah sat in a kind of nonchalant, half-amused silence, idly pattering her fingernails against her wine glass, until the Garçon was out of earshot again.
Of course Sarah didn’t look like Sarah, if you knew her by sight. Neither did Peter look like Peter for that matter by the time he arrived for their little debrief. In their trade, it’s something of a necessity to have little caches of minor disguises planted around the city. Not strictly full XF-points, although there would certainly be a firearm and some ready cash, but sufficient for an emergency for sure.
To any unschooled onlooker they were simply a middle-aged couple almost certainly engaging in one of those traditional French trysts, given their affected mannerisms toward each other. And French, after all, was only one of the many languages in which they were both completely fluent, if anyone entered earshot.
So this non-descript little café tucked away in a cobblestoned alley, devoid of the inconvenience of other spies, with any absence of impertinent questions or pointless surgical masks only requiring a fifty-Euro note per person quietly slipped into the doorman’s eager paws (a quarter of which perhaps would have to go to the off-duty Gendarmes for non-violation of lockdown regulations, along with a free tab for the evening, naturellement), with well-spaced out tables and a covering background chatter, was entirely perfect for their little machinations.
“Ok,” she continued. “Before you regale me with why you find her scary as hell, give me your little report about Thomas and the Irishman. How did that go?”
Peter sighed. “Of course I know why we have to engage in these reports but it does get a tad tedious at times, you know?”
“Which is precisely why we need constant reminders. Reinforce the memory.”
“Words you’ve spoken a hundred times.”
“Far more than a hundred, I wouldn’t wager.” She only sipped at her wine, in contrast to him indulging his second-rate whiskey.
“Fair enough. Ok. So I exited the Hôtel de Charost, made an absurdly conspicuous phone call to Monsieur l’Inspecteur with an annoyed expression on my visage, then hurried off down the avenue. Neither of them, I am happy to report, are even vaguely competent in the arts of mobile surveillance.”
Sarah chuckled. “Not much call for it these days, what with all the technology. Makes them lazy.”
“Sure. Anyway, I led them up some garden paths and then went all Gestapo on Thomas. He jumped out of his skin. You would’ve enjoyed it.”
She did enjoy the thought of it, for sure.
“And how did you find his little Irish friend?”
“As irritating as expected.”
“Excellent.”
Peter almost glared at her. “I’m glad you find it amusing.”
“I’m just pleased it went well. All you need do now is leave your little report up on your screen tomorrow with Tom in the room, the unredacted version, of course, then excuse yourself for the little boys’ room. Let his curiosity do the rest.”
Peter took another swig. “Ridiculous that people still fall for that trick.”
“They don’t teach them old-fashioned spycraft in MI5 these days.”
“Good. Because if they did, those idiots would be a serious problem.”
“Just don’t get too dismissive. Anyhow. Next agenda item. Have you organised the correct little intel snippets to lead the Inspector to the fire?”
“Affirmative. I’ll pass it on to him in, how long?”
Sarah glanced at her watch. “twenty-three minutes.”
He nodded. “It’ll take him a week, maybe. Ten days maximum.”
“Excellent. Extra, new item. Why do you find her scary as hell? Although I can guess.”
Peter raised his eyes at her. “Oh? What’s your guess, then?”
She smiled. “Something to do with her recognising you, possibly?”
He frowned. “That was a big part of it, sure.”
“And the other part?”
“This parallel world of hers.”
“What about it?”
He drained his second glass, but didn’t immediately motion for another. Instead, he suddenly shot her a very serious look. “I’m beginning to believe it’s real.”
Sarah laughed. “It’s not real, Peter. Get that idea out of your head.”
“But you haven’t met her, though, have you?”
“Not her, no. But I can tell you, it’s not real. It just seems that way because of the sheer detail of it all. She genuinely believes it. So everything about her manner expresses that belief.”
He sighed. “Actually, there’s a bit more to it than that. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s, I don’t know, intuition, or something.”
Sarah offered him a sympathetic smile. “Ok. Well, perhaps I can reassure you just a little. You’re not the only one.”
“Oh?”
“Jonas believes it. For a start.”
“And is this why he came up with this absurd scheme?”
She nodded. “I believe so.”
Peter shook his head and frowned again. Sarah gave him another sympathetic smile and decided he needed that next drink.
Again they waited silently until it was safe to resume talking.
“You do admit, however,” she noted, “that if she is that convincing then the chances of success are extremely high?”
He decided to switch to small sips. Monsieur l’Inspecteur, he remembered, was quite the drinker and it simply wouldn’t do for a seasoned English spy to lose his composure with a Frenchman. He gave Sarah a slightly wan smile instead of saying anything.
She continued to find it amusing. “Item next. VX.”
“Ah. Well, I haven’t heard anything yet, but Guy would definitely have been the senior on-duty officer in the section when my preliminary report came in. And I have to say I am surprised he didn’t phone up immediately.”
“That worries you?”
“A little.”
“Hmm.” She considered the matter for a moment. “Well, we’ll know tomorrow. Perhaps he had a busy in-tray. Or a meeting. No reason to get overly anxious.”
“Possibly. But it means I have no idea whether I can see you tomorrow or what time you should leave, meaning we can’t arrange anything right now.”
Sarah inhaled deeply. “Actually, it does. Whatever happens Guy will not arrive before the afternoon. So, you will leave at 11:30 and meet me at P-9 at 11:45. It will be safe to talk in the car.”
Peter’s eyes widened. “It’s never safe to talk in a car. Golden rule number whatever.”
“In this case it will be. It’ll be one of Jonas’ cars.”
Peter shook his head again. “He really shouldn’t be here. It’s far too much information and far too convoluted. And please don’t laugh.”
“I wasn’t going to. But it only seems convoluted. It’s actually extremely simple. And it’s not even an arrogant double bluff. Draw their attention to a potential connection, they look for it, and find nothing. There is no record of any association between her and him. The genealogy was scrubbed and altered eighty years’ ago, during the fog of war. The psychology works, because they are the ones putting the effort in. Furthermore, it makes the likelihood almost certain they will ask him specifically to get close to her when she’s in Cambridge, because his son and daughter are there. It will prompt them to do so.”
“I understand what you already told me, sure. But then what happens when Katrina, inevitably, gets interrogated by MI5? They ask her about her parallel world spy career – no, don’t interrupt – real or not, is not the point – and your name crops up?”
“Are you reversing the transaction now, Peter? Reminding me to reinforce the plan in our memory?”
“That wasn’t my intention. It’s just that now I’ve actually met the girl, my feelings are different and you can’t blame me for my anxieties, can you?”
“Ok. Granted. So here we go. Following the interrogation, they will come and see me tending my lovely garden, sweet as can be, and I will go through the very predictable script which, by then, I shall have rehearsed a hundred times, including the all-important insertion of the crucial clue which those amateurish junior officers from TH will happily lap up. Their truth will be that I am incidental to her story. The key target is Tom’s father. He’s the connection.”
“And his mother.”
“Precisely. The parallel world was constructed from information filtered into Katyusha’s internal world, as you know. But it’s the timeline of that information which matters. The awareness of David and Rachel came first in that timeline, preceding that of Tom, or me, by several years. That’s why Paris, from their point of view, and that’s why I am incidental, effectively little more than a continuity filler. Understand?”
Peter reluctantly accepted it, even if he remained a little sceptical. “So how, and when, did she encounter David and Rachel?”
“One of those Network functions.”
“Which function? You never told me that, and don’t give me the need-to-know response.”
“I wasn’t going to. One of David’s colleagues from Monckton attended a function in Berlin, took a shine to the girl, and followed it up by bringing her to a private diplomatic party, at which Rachel and David were present. Of course they wondered who she was, but she was a prim and pretty six-year-old and charming as any well brought-up little madame should be. And not long after that, as was almost certainly intended, their knowledge of the Network was captured, and thus, so were they. They have been compromised ever since.”
“So it was a set-up, is what you’re telling me?”
“It’s always a set-up, Peter.”
“Jonas’s idea, was it?” He took a nonchalant swig.
“Not on that occasion, fortunately and ironically enough. But if you want my opinion on the location of the original spark for all of this, I’d nominate that incident.”
Peter eyed his drink and then sighed thoughtfully. “Tom doesn’t have a clue, does he?”
She shook her head very seriously. “He hardly knows anything of what the likes of his father do at Monckton. He’d probably be horrified if he did. But more importantly, like I said, in view of all that, I am utterly incidental. And so are you.”
Peter examined the contents of his glass. Sarah studied him doing it.
“What’s your next anxiety?”
“You still want me to prompt her tomorrow morning?”
She nodded.
“I am minded to ask her how she knows me. From this other world of hers. If I don’t ask, she will notice that. My lack of curiosity will be telling.”
“Hmm. I can see your point. Ok, I’ll tell you. You’ll just have to feign surprise when you ask her. I’m sure you can manage that?”
“Possibly. She’s exceptionally sharp.”
“Granted. So, in her world, aside from my recruiting her into P6 in 1989, as you know already, and then my avoiding the Christmas Massacre, I am currently the head of the British contingent in NEA-Intel. And you are my deputy. I’m sure she’ll tell Malcolm the whole NEA story at some point.”
“And there’s nothing in that story which makes you and I overly prominent?”
“No. In fact, they won’t ever think to even ask about something that specific, because she won’t volunteer the information. If they do ask, the evasion trigger should do the rest. She’ll just make up some names. Which cannot be checked because it’s a parallel world.”
He took a larger swig. “It’s the most absurdly perfect cover story, I’ll give you that. Parallel world. Ridiculous.”
“I thought you said you believed it?”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s a nice story from what I’ve heard.”
“I think you’re just curious,” she smiled warmly once more, and it made him feel a whole lot better. Unless it was just the Ballantine’s doing its good work.
“You mean like Fox Mulder?”
She chuckled. “I want to believe. Very funny.”
“I’ve been practicing my pop culture references. There is, after all, no way I’ll ever come close to keeping up with that girl otherwise. Is there...?”
Next episode next week. When there will be a link there. And you’ll get to meet another new character. Well, two actually, from a certain point of view…
And if you are enjoying my series, and wish to buy me a coffee, that would be lovely!
Very good writing.
You're beginning to make me wonder about parallel universes...