The Repurposed Spy

By OLIVER DOWSON

himself away from it all, relieve his chronic anxiety, calm his deep distrust of other people. Relax.

Espionage is the furthest thing from his mind.

As a young man, with everything still in front of him, he had spent time in Brazil. Now, forty years or more later, he decides to go back. He has money, no ties, and nothing to stay at h

• Language: English
• Publisher: BKssss Publishing
• Release date: Mar 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739298821

OLIVER DOWSON

Following a long business career building and managing companies in many countries around the world, Oliver has now turned my hand to being an author. His first book, a travelogue "There's no business like International Business" was published in Spring 2022, recounting some of the unlikely and entertaining experiences he had in my business travels. His second book is a novel, "The Repurposed Spy", and Oliver is already busy writing the sequel, provisionally titled "Spies on Safari".Oliver's Number One passion is travel, and he has travelled extensively in over 140 countries, both for pleasure and business. He is also an enthusiastic amateur cook, and continues to dabble in international business matters. Evidence of these passions runs through Oliver's books. Born in Lowestoft, the most easterly town in England, Oliver moved to London when he went to university, and has lived there ever since. He studied Mathematics at Imperial College, then had a variety of jobs through my 20s, with a common theme of international business. In the early 80s he co-founded EnTech, an energy management consultancy, and then over the next 30 years developed that into a small multi-national, the first and biggest specialist energy and environmental data management company, with offices in ten countries.Now semi-retired, Oliver also provides some pro-bono support to young upcoming business people, writes articles on topics of interest , hosts the Grow through International Expansion podcast series and relaxes through cooking and travelling.Married with one son, and, so far, two granddaughters, he lives between London and Oviedo Spain when he's not travelling further afield!

Book preview

The

Repurposed

Spy

A novel by Oliver Dowson

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Copyright © Oliver Dowson 2023

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher and copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, businesses, other organisations, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Published by BKssss Publishing

https://bkssss.com

[e-mail]

ISBN: 978-1-7392988-0-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-7392988-2-1

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life

-- Honore de Balzac

Contents

3rd August 1987 7

14 September 2019 9

17th October 2019 11

Day 366 13

Day 367 19

Day 368 25

Day 369 31

Day 370 37

Day 371 47

Day 372 55

Day 373 65

Day 374 71

Day 375 77

Day 376 85

Day 377 91

Day 378 97

Day 379 105

Day 380 111

Day 381 121

Day 382 127

Day 383 135

Day 384 141

Day 385 147

Day 386 153

Day 387 159

Day 388 165

Day 389 171

Day 390 177

Day 391 185

Day 392 193

Day 396 201

Day 397 203

Day 398 211

Day 399 217

Day 400 223

Day 401 229

Day 402 237

Day 403 241

Day 416 247

Day 540 259

About the Author 267

3rd August 1987

In Whitehall’s old buildings, refurbishment is rare, and, even when it happens, subterranean areas are almost always neglected.

The room they were meeting in was barely big enough for the three of them, but it provided maximum discretion, being as far removed from the main offices as possible. There, not only walls, but floors and ceilings, especially ceilings, had ears too. The walls of the little room were covered with incomprehensible drawings and charts, the few gaps between them revealing dirty cream paintwork from another century. The continuous throb of boilers and generators and pumps vibrated the walls on all sides.

An observer would have found it impossible to differentiate between the two ‘Human Resources’ managers and the Permanent Secretary. Seated around a small and rather wonky round table, all had silver hair, all were dressed almost identically in grey suits, white shirts, plain maroon ties.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Prendergast may have risen to a position of power in the Department, but his promotions were not in recognition of him ever making any helpful comments.

This is not a matter of a little knowledge. Our subject has considerable knowledge. Dangerous knowledge. A tongue to go with it. And a penchant for proving a liability wherever and however deployed.

Well then, David, terminate your asset. It’s what you people do, after all.

We no longer terminate our own, Brian, and well you know it.

The Minister is insisting we act humanely, added the third man. And she is insisting on signing off on the solution.

14 September 2019

Terrorista capturado

Rio de Janeiro, 14 de setembro de 2019

Uma caçada internacional foi concluída com sucesso pela Polícia Militar no Rio ontem à noite. O mestre do disfarce brasileiro, Ronaldo Jonas, foi procurado em todo o continente por um mês depois de se passar por um técnico chileno, invadir a sede do governo em Santiago e manter reféns uma sala de altos políticos até ser dominado por seguranças. Ele acabou preso em uma armação policial no Hotel Windsor Guanabara, e agora está detido na segurança máxima de Petrópolis.




Terrorist apprehended

Rio de Janeiro, 14 September 2019

An International manhunt was successfully completed by the Military Police in Rio last night. Brazilian master of disguise, Ronaldo Jonas, had been sought across the continent for a month after masquerading as a Chilean technician, breaking into Government House Santiago and holding a room of senior politicians hostage until overpowered by security guards. He was finally trapped in a police sting in the Hotel Windsor Guanabara, and is now held in the top security facility in Petropolis.

17th October 2019

This is most irregular. Do we need to have a telephone conference? Are you really sure that we cannot discuss this matter using secure messaging?

No. We need to talk. The man had decided that, as he was the man, he should be the spokesperson.

Are you all certain your phones are scrambled? The CEO was vehemently opposed to any unnecessary communication of any kind with his team. Even more opposed to anything with the remotest risk of insecurity.

Confirming. Female voice 1.

Confirming. Female voice 2.

Confirming. Male spokesperson.

What’s this all about, then?

Your South America asset. He’s a liability.

Will you get him out of that place?

Of course. But that’s it. We refuse to have anything else to do with him.

We? All of you? A babble of sound as all three of the team answered at once. One woman, the one with the highest pitched voice, an acidic voice, won out over the others.

All of us. We will do nothing more. You have to get rid of him. Now.

He is useful to us. We need him.

Then you come here. You deal with him. See if you like putting your own life in danger. See if you like being attacked. The female had added fury to her acidic tongue. An explosive combination.

The male spokesperson came back on the line. You’ve seen the headlines. It was already a maximum risk scenario. After this, half of South America will be looking for him. And us. We’re in mortal danger. All of us.

I hear you, said the CEO. I’ll make a plan. I’ll advise in the morning. By messaging, as usual. No more conference calls.

Day 366

My anniversary. A whole year of enforced solitary confinement. Before I forget it all, I want to write down what happened, how I got here – that fateful month – or was it two? – that culminated in my being brought here. Mine is an extraordinary story. I’m sure you’ll agree. Travel. Subterfuge. Kidnap. Incarceration. My metamorphosis from being a reclusive yet essentially free individual to a more sociable but totally controlled being.

My story won’t be easy to write, and I may never reach the end. Not because I don’t have a lot to tell; it’s my present circumstances that give me doubts. But I’m going to give it a go. I’m hoping that documenting my reminiscences might stop me going mad, or at least not any more mad than I must be already. I expect other people would assume I’m mad. If other people could see me, that is. Or even if they knew I was here. Anyway, writing is surely better than idling around with nothing to do for hour after hour. And with nowhere to go. Nowhere I can go.

I’m all on my own here. Nobody ever comes in. No, that’s not quite true. A couple of men – all in black with balaclavas – came in on Day 127 to unblock the lavatory. They rushed in and immediately bound me to the chair and pulled a cloth bag over my head. Unnecessary really. I’m a weakling. I couldn’t have resisted if I’d tried. I think they injected me with something; when I came round, I was no longer bound or hooded, and they’d gone. They didn’t say a word. Strong and silent men in black. I haven’t seen them since. But then, I’ve been careful not to let the toilet block again.

They. My captors. The ones who brought me here, who keep me here, who both incarcerate and enslave me. But are never seen by me. Covert. I will name them The Coverts in my story, so that you, my reader, hoping this reaches you one day, will understand to whom I am referring.

But allow me to introduce myself. I have a real name. Ronald Jones.

My being locked in here has nothing to do with any pandemic. That started only after I was already installed here. I know little about it, as I’ve only been able to piece together what’s going on from titbits of information in the various documents The Coverts send me to translate and analyse. Business documents of one kind or another in Spanish or Portuguese, the languages I used to teach. I like that. It gives me something to do and exercises my mind. It gets precious little else to stretch it. And sometimes I learn interesting things. Which is good, because I have no access to any news media.

I have a computer to type on. If I am allowed to finish these rememberings, my story could make a book. I’d know how to print a book, but I don’t have a printer. I’d know how to put the file on a memory stick, but I don’t have one of those either. I’d know how to email it to the world, so others could read it, but I’m not connected to the internet. All is verboten. But the fact you’re reading this means I found an escape. Or that this message got out there. Somehow.

Some documents I’ve seen say that everyone out there in the world is confined to their homes. It seems to have been going on for months now. Like there has been an apocalypse. But, if I’ve understood correctly, people are now occasionally allowed out to go shopping, or for a walk in the park. Better than my situation here. Much better. I wouldn’t mind that other sort of confinement. I’d cope. If I was at home, I’d have a phone (even though I would have nobody to talk to, or anyone who might want to talk to me). I’d have the internet. I’d have a kitchen. I could order in food. I could even mask up like a ninja and go shopping. I could go outside for exercise! Any of that would equate to freedom. I don’t have that here.

I have a kitchen where I am now, but no cookery ingredients and, for that matter, no pots or pans either. I have a living room with a sofa. I have a bedroom with a bed. I assume both sofa and bed must be bolted to the floor from underneath, as neither will budge, however hard I push. Along one wall of the living room is a shelf, long and deep, like a kitchen working top, with the computer sat on top of it. In front, one hard chair. The one I’m sitting on now to write this. There is no other furniture. Nothing else at all. Sparse to the point of minimalist. This would probably be quite a nice flat if it had comfortable chairs and a sofa and a proper table and if the windows and door opened. Sort of ‘lived in’. Well, the flat is lived in now, by me. More accurately, ‘existed in’. For a year and a day so far. Unless it is a leap year. Is it?

There are windows, but they don’t open. For my safety, The Coverts say. Would I jump? Could I jump? Perhaps. But not quite yet. Would I try climbing down the building? Is it called ‘buildering’? I remember seeing crazies doing it……. for fun. But, no, that’s not for me; I don’t have any grip in my toes or fingers.

Those windows give me a view across an expanse of desert with the sea beyond it, maybe half a mile distant. I can’t see the ground near the building; there’s a flat roof jutting out under the windows, which makes judging height impossible. If I climbed on a chair, I might be able to see further down. That’s not something I can do, of course, as the only chair is on the other side of the room, and it’s bolted to the floor. Or possibly set into the concrete. Whatever; I can’t move it. I can’t see any other buildings, except for what looks like sheds, too distant to be sure what they are. The landscape is flat, just sand and scrub. Sometimes I see a tractor passing in the distance, down towards the sea; but there are no crops. No animals, no people. Nothing to cast a shadow.

The flat must face due North, as the sun never shines through the windows. But then, perhaps I am somewhere in the southern hemisphere, in which case I could be facing South. I’d quite like to know where I am, exactly, though given the circumstances I doubt it would make me feel any better. Was it a long journey to get here? I wasn’t conscious of most of it. I know where I left from, and how I travelled, but not where I arrived. I must be far from home. That’s obvious from the desert landscape and the weather. I might not be able to see the sun, but the sky is clear and blue almost every day. I think I only saw clouds and rain on two days in the last year. So I’m definitely nowhere near Slough. Ha.

The apartment has a door, of course. I assume that’s how The Coverts got me in here. But there’s no handle on my side of it. It is a single flat sheet of metal. High up, there’s a peephole that allows someone to look in, but doesn’t let me look out. It must be covered on the other side. Watcher cannot be watched.

My life could be worse. Well, maybe not. But I’m okay. I’m a prisoner who has committed no offence. None that I’m aware of, anyway. There were accusations and allegations. But I am a wholly innocent man. And who are my judges and jailors? Not the legal enforcers of any state, even if one or two of their number are actors of some rogue nation.

I’m not a free man, but I’m not in a cell. I have lots of space, mostly empty space. All to myself. Solitary confinement, which suits me. Most of the time. Those holding me here did at least install Microsoft Office on the computer, for their own benefit of course, but it means I can write this using Word. The Coverts installed Outlook too, but without email, without contacts and with no appointments of which to be reminded, ever, nor anything that might merit being calculated, tabulated or charted in Excel, there’s no value to me in anything in Office except Word. I suppose I could entertain myself by creating a pretty picture in Powerpoint, but I’m no artist, and anyway, to what end? Who would see it? Isn’t that the entire purpose of art? To stimulate someone else’s subjectivity? Beyond that, there aren’t any other programs or apps I can access; I used to be a bit of a whizz on computers, so believe me, I’ve looked and tried to sort myself out with access. I can think of just one trick I haven’t tested out, but I’m pretty sure it would get me into trouble. And I don’t want that to happen. The last time, I didn’t get fed or watered as punishment. The day the lavatory got blocked. It wasn’t my fault – I told them so. The Coverts only give me such meagre rations of loo paper. Even so, they blamed me.

Sometimes, I hear noises, but unless they’re the sound of my own breathing, they always seem far away. Either this flat is almost perfectly soundproofed, or the rest of the building is empty. Perhaps both things. Silence makes one’s sense of hearing acute, and the odd sound, that might be only a gust of wind in a deserted stairwell outside, drives my imagination and compounds my madness. No, not madness, I’m not going mad. I’ve only been here on my own in a silent empty flat for a year and I’m determined to keep my sanity. I believe I am being tested. One day, The Coverts will need me again. The physical bodily me. Not the AI version of me. And then I will be released.

I must remain positive. ‘Count your many blessings, one by one…..’ That was how the old hymn went. I remember it. So, my blessings. 1) I have a roof over my head, 2) a comfortable bed, 3) three meals a day, 4) on many days, work that I can do and that keeps me occupied. Oh, and 5) security. Definitely security. And it’s all free! Have I reached my Nirvana? I’m going to call it that, anyway, so that if I deviate when writing my story, you’ll not get confused.

It would be nice to have a radio, though, or speakers for the computer. Back home I could listen to the news, or interesting programmes, or interminable speeches by Fidel or Maduro, or even the Archers. I lived in Slough, but not in silence.

Meanwhile, The Coverts know they can keep me here indefinitely. Nobody knows where I am, because nobody knows that I left. Even then, when I was so-called ‘free’, nobody knew or cared that I existed either. Of course, the electricity board and the phone company or the council rates department knew. They would miss me if they didn’t get paid. But their bills are all online, all settled by direct debit, and while there’s money in the bank, none of them will make any enquiry about me. Made it easy to ‘disappear’ me. I was a nobody.

I can state that with confidence from years of experience of living at home in Slough. Since my mother died, the only semblance of anyone caring that I existed was being sent the occasional online customer satisfaction survey. I always answered in as much detail as the forms allowed. Every time I got one, without fail. I knew it was purely for my own entertainment. I was certain no human would ever read what I wrote, or, if they did, only view it in an anonymised format. Robots that read forms only recognise tick boxes and numbers from one to ten. They definitely don’t care. But then, do humans?

I wonder if the bank cares or wonders what happened to me? Again, almost certainly not. Do they notice that my pension gets paid in every four weeks, direct debits for unused electricity and phone services get paid out, but that I never go shopping, never buy anything online, never use my debit card? Very doubtful; the algorithm that monitors its customers’ bank accounts will, in the nanosecond that it takes on review of mine, simply content itself that there are in and out transactions, and that the account is in credit, with no overdraft, and skip on instantly to the next one.

Hmmm. The money in my account must be building up. I wonder if I’ll ever see it now, or what will happen to it if I stay disappeared for ever? Pity to waste the potentials of what it could do. Not that I would ever release them in normal life.

Normal life. Has anyone noticed that I never collect or open my post? Like a regular human? Very doubtful. There’s a long drop from the letterbox in my front door down to the floor, and I imagine that a lifetime’s junk mail wouldn’t reach that high. If anyone ever enquired of neighbours where I was, they’d plead ignorance, or perhaps say that I must have gone away somewhere, that I always kept myself to myself. They wouldn’t care. Be pleased to find me gone. And now, with this pandemic, I suppose that if everyone is ‘locked down’, everyone is attuned to never expecting anyone to come or go to or from their houses. Perhaps a nosy neighbour peeking through their curtains, or someone who passed me in the street when I was living there, will vaguely remember what I look like, but the most they’d be able to tell anyone is that I’m an older white male, of average build and height, dressed in nondescript clothes. There are millions of us. We are generic. After the age of fifty, no one notices you as an individual any more. I could be anyone. Or, in truth, no one.

‘Locked down.’ Indeed so. They have absolutely no idea.

But, oh goodness! Look at the time. Dinner…….

Day 367

Good morning from Nirvana. Sorry, I had intended to finish telling you about my situation yesterday, but I nodded off straight after dinner. I always do. It’s the sedative The Coverts put in my wine. At first I suspected it, now I know it. And knowing it means that rather than quaffing it down with dinner, I take the glass to bed with me and drink it there. It makes the world go away while I sleep deep. I miss savouring the complex flavour combinations of wine with food, but it avoids waking up in the morning with a cricked neck and bad back and finding I’ve spent the night on a hard chair, as I did the first few days that I was here.

In truth, I’m glad the wine is drugged. There’s not a lot to do here, as I’m sure you can guess. Empty flat; no company. Idleness tends to make one think. Thinking can be dangerous but, of more concern to me, thinking keeps me awake. The sedative in the wine ensures I get my full night’s sleep. No idea if that means eight hours, or seven, or twelve for that matter, as I’ve got no clock, and The Coverts have disabled or hidden the date and time function on this computer. All I know is that it gets dark in the evenings and light in the mornings, so I can count the days. I’m now recording them on this document, as you see, but I’m worried that sometime The Coverts might take that away too and leave me here without it, so I have had to improvise a backup. There’s no pen and paper to write with, and the plastic knives and forks they give me to eat with won’t make any impression on anything such as a bedpost here. Especially since it is metal. So I can’t carve notches. Ha! Notches on my bedpost! Not here. Not ever.

No, my backup plan involves floor tiles. The floor throughout the flat has been finished in plain matt black ceramic tiles. They’re about a foot square. I started in one corner of Bedroom 2, one of the two I’m not sleeping in. I count using a plastic fork that I got away with not returning on Day 21, which was opportune, really, as I’d just run out of fingers and toes. Every day I start at the corner and count tile by tile until I get to yesterday’s, just so I know how long I have been here. Then I move the fork on to the next tile. When I reach the wall, I start on the next row.

Since there’s no furniture, the empty floor is all mine to play with, like an enormous draughts game where all the squares are black (my fork’s black too, so I’m winning on something). I’m a bit paranoid that The Coverts are going to come in and clean up and take the fork away one day, so Plan B – or is it C? – is that I scuff the tile with my foot. It doesn’t show from normal eye level, but if you crouch down on the floor, you can just make out the mark; it’s a sort of polished scuff. Of course, if they bring in an industrial floor polisher, my scheme is doomed to fail.

Bedroom 2 is 18 tiles long and 14 tiles wide, so I finished there on Day 252. I’d hoped to be out of here long before then, so to have to start on Bedroom 3 on Day 253 proved a major disappointment. That room is a little smaller, 16 tiles long and 13 tiles wide. I recently started on Row 8. If I’m still here on Day 460, as I’m already resigning myself to being, I’ll need to make a decision on whether to move to Bedroom 1 and work round the bed, or to the living room and work round the sofa, or go back to Bedroom 2 and try to remember how many times I’ve gone back to the beginning. Decisions, decisions. I’ll probably call a meeting – to discuss it with myself.

The entire flat, including bathroom and kitchen, has 910 tiles. Mathematical genius that I am (not!), I worked out that there are about 10 tiles to every square metre. So that means this flat is about ninety-one square metres. That has not the slightest relevance to my life, but it provided something else to occupy my mind with for a few minutes of the other day. The number of tiles only becomes critical if I am here on Day 911, and I’m really hoping I’m not. 911 is my emergency number. I doubt I can maintain my sanity that long. Maybe I’ve already lost it, but I still feel fine.

You must wonder how, if I am in a hermetically sealed apartment with no food or crockery or cutlery in the kitchen, I eat and drink! And where that doctored wine comes from! And the fork! Let me tell you about my dumb waiter. Or, as I think the Americans say, ‘Lazy Susan’. But since, in this case, there’s no relationship to any lethargic female, I like to call it the Dumb Waiter, as it operates without conversation.

There is a hatch in the wall, just over the worktop. Just to the right of where I sit to use the keyboard. There’s no handle on the hatch door. But three times a day it opens, remotely operated, to reveal comestible goodies inside. It’s not prison victuals in any sense of the word. The Coverts knew I was a gourmand from before this incarceration began, and in this regard, they humour me very well. The door opening to reveal the chef’s creation for my next meal, three times daily, is my entertainment. The anticipation and savouring of meals are the highlights of each day, and about the only thing that stops me from going totally doolally.

Although the food is excellent, the service leaves much to be desired. Inflight food presentation is way better than this, even in Economy class. I can state that categorically as I had a lot of experience of airline meals over just a very short space of time, travelling in everything from first class down to what I term a coffin… but I am getting ahead of myself, I will tell you all about that in due course. Here, imprisoned, I’m catered gourmet dishes – well, perhaps not