"Fulsome condolences for what happened to your brother.
A. J. Monkfish"
In the rubble of her life, in the rubble of that board room, after the death of her brother, Georgie Wade had searched for meaning.
She had found the card among the flowers and other sympathies.
"Fullsome condolences..."
Who was this Monkfish?
The name had been familiar to her, distantly, but it took her a while to remember that it was from one of her debriefings with the Service.
She asked Malcolm about it. Malcolm – Mr Malcolm – was her handler, her contact with the Service.
Monkfish? he said. A consultant. Or freelancer. A Middle-Man. Someone who bought and sold. Someone who had had dealings with the Noble Wade Foundation.
What dealings? Dealings with her brother?
She had, she realised, become demanding.
They had been very understanding, very supportive. Heavy on the tea and sympathy. But light on answers.
Georgie Wade did not want sympathy. And tea was not what she tasted when she swallowed.
But neither was she accustomed to not getting her own way.
If the Service would not give her answers, she reasoned, then their rivals, the Ministry would.
The catastrophe in the board room had left her family with fewer strings to pull than previously, but she was not without favours to call in. A cousin, with a boyfriend who was political, knew an advisor to the former Home Secretary. That was enough to buy her an interview.
And so here she was.
It was a small office, off a non-descript corridor, in an undistinguished modern red brick building, on a forgettable back street, near Smith Square. Not the Ministry itself, but a few deniable minutes' walk away from Marsham Street. Somewhere quiet and discrete.
There was a desk, crowded with computer monitors. And a single modern chair.
Georgie stood.
"This will have to be brief," said the man from the Ministry, "but if you would put yourself in my hands, I believe that there is something that I can share with you."
And he displayed a file:
Augustus Julius Monkfish
X-555-076789
Known aliases: J. Arthur Bait; Pascal Écrevisse; Gregory Os’Minog; Pietr Goudvis and others
Age: 50s (?)
Nationality: Unknown. Holds passports from HMUK, United States, Luxembourg, Ivory Coast etc.
Contacts: Lorrimer Sole (see file: X-555-279927)
Record of dealings (attach transcripts of filed reports):
1958, French Riviera and Tangiers
"1958?!" Georgie did not conceal her scepticism. "He’d be, what, ninety? A hundred?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," the man from the Ministry was unperturbed. "Perhaps he's a wizard, an immortal, or a devil."
"Oh, come on. I'm not a little girl."
"No? The Honourable Georgia Wade. Daddy: advisor to crowned heads and global magnates. Mummy: a distant cousin to the Queen. Raised in ivory towers. Private education. Finishing school. Net worth… quite a lot. You seem the definition of a fairytale princess."
She went cold. A furious kind of cold. Outraged.
"You've done your research."
"Isn't that why you are here? Did you expect any less?"
The fury tightened. He was right. She hated that he was right. She sucked in air rather than spit out anger.
"Please," said the man form the Ministry, "just read the transcript?"
She swallowed. And winced. And grinding her teeth she read.
1958, French Riviera and Tangiers
Background:
Agents of the Service were engaged in a routine series of investigations into a smuggling cartel, running drugs and arms from North Africa into Europe. There was the usual suspicion that the smugglers were acting as a front for a supply route for Communist and Separatist terrorist cells from either (mundanely) the Soviets, or (a rare possibility) the XXXXXXXX. Only this suspicion that "foreign powers" may be involved made the case in any way worthy of observation. Nevertheless, an overseer was infiltrated into the Service team with the standard watching brief.
The front man for the smuggling ring was one Jean Antidou (file F-044-3076700), known to us through our appropriation of files from the French police and intelligence services. Station F maintained a routine surveillance and had traced his contact to a European, later identified as Monkfish, posing as an American playboy aboard a yacht.
Actions:
Service Agents Sir XXXXXXXX and Mr XXXXXXXXX, with support from Miss XXXXXXXX (our overseer), were dispatched to make contact with Monkfish. Posing as partners in a lucrative London drug emporium, believing him to be no more than a link in the chain, they intended to use him to reach the controllers behind the organisation. At Monkfish's suggestion, Sir XXXXXXXX and Mr XXXXXXXX accompanied him on a yacht trip to Tangiers. Miss XXXXXXXX followed behind on a privately chartered fishing vessel.
The crossing itself was not uneventful. Monkfish had several other "guests" aboard including the noted American clairvoyant Mrs Boyard. This lady organised a night-time séance and is reported to have summoned up frightful images from the nether-world. Mr XXXXXXXX, reporting these events to Miss XXXXXXXX by electric semaphore, was discovered by Antidou and forced to throw him overboard where he was believed drowned.
On reaching Tangiers, Monkfish presented our agents at the home of self-styled "Caliph" Urhartu, an ancient Moorish palace in the old part of the city, and a notorious meeting place for agents of many of the major powers. Monkfish introduced Sir XXXXXXXX and Mr XXXXXXXX to one "Ali Ahandra", who claimed to be a "disciple" of the Mullah Umo, but who was recognised by Sir XXXXXXXX as the Romanian Turk Urdo Rachaman. Monkfish then retired to his yacht, leaving our agents to negotiate with "Ahandra"/Rachaman. To maintain their cover, they arranged to purchase an initial sample of opium for five thousand pounds and agreed a sum of five hundred pounds – in gold – to be paid as a sign of good faith.
Mr XXXXXXXX went to obtain this gold from the Service deposit at the British consulate but failed to return for his rendezvous with Sir XXXXXXXX. Although the gold was later recovered, with prejudice, from a local dealer and known fence no further trace of Mr XXXXXXXX was ever found. Meanwhile, Monkfish offered to advance Sir XXXXXXXX the same amount of gold from a small safe kept aboard his boat. In return he, Monkfish, would take an option to buy Mr XXXXXXXX's place in the "partnership" with Sir XXXXXXXX.
With Mr XXXXXXXX's disappearance, Miss XXXXXXXX was forced to move closer and used her skills as a disguise artiste to substitute herself for Sir XXXXXXXX's valet Manners.
Paying Monkfish's gold to "Ahandra"/Rachaman, Sir XXXXXXXX arranged, in fact demanded, that his party accompany "Ahandra"/Rachaman to collect the raw opium. To this, "Ahandra"/Rachaman readily agreed. The collection was to be from Mullah Umo's mosque-cum-fortress: several days travel by car into the desert waste to the south and east of the city.
Umo was a rebellious religious fanatic who caused occasional trouble for the Moroccan government. His main claim to celebrity was the outrageous rumour that he kept in his mosque the preserved head of an Islamic Cleric. Further gossip claimed that he would discuss theology with the relic and it was said to reply with wisdom the deceased received direct from the Prophet. Rather than Islam, however, the Mullah was reported to be a devotee of the Roman Erebunite Faction, otherwise thought to have become extinct in the 3rd Century A.D.
They departed early the next morning, but not before a troop of French Foreign Legionnaires had intercepted and tried to arrest their group. There followed a hair-raising chase into the desert, with the agents entirely at the mercy of Rachaman and his team of drivers, before they were able to elude the Legionnaires.
Rachman, quite naturally, suspected treachery from one or all of his new customers and they were guarded and closely questioned for each of the two nights' stopovers on the journey. Of course, neither Service agent revealed anything to contradict their cover. Additionally, however, Miss XXXXXXXX, contriving to overhear Monkfish being questioned, was impressed to note that he not only kept theirs and his own secrets, but in fact drew several interesting items of intelligence from Rachman through the cunning of his responses.
On the other hand, this cunning did raise questions in Miss XXXXXXXX's mind. Why, if Monkfish was, as they believed, a junior member of this conspiracy, was he probing with such skill and delicacy?
With no answers to her questions, Miss XXXXXXXX arrived frustrated at their destination.
The Mullah's mosque was indeed a fortress, an ancient and well defended stone construct, with much of its bulk sunk into the desert stone to protect it from the sun as much as enemies and to reach the deep wells underground. It was easy to see at a glance why the Moroccan government suffered the Mullah's continued existence when the effort of digging him out would have been enormous.
As they approached, Sir XXXXXXXX and Miss XXXXXXXX, kept in separate cars by Rachman, both noticed that a modern asphalt runway and landing lights had been installed in the lea of the fortress, probably quite recently to judge by the relative lack of abrasion from the harsh desert clime.
The cars drew them through heavy gates in a curtain wall and into the mosque's large forecourt. A quick count of the camels stabled in shady alcoves here led Miss XXXXXXXX to deduce that the Mullah had at least thirty and probably not more than fifty men here. Rachman took the party swiftly through the main galleries of the mosque – clearly attempting to conceal from them the large arsenal of guns and explosives - and gave them a perfunctory meal, to at least maintain the seeming of traditional welcome.
Sir XXXXXXXX, Miss XXXXXXXX and Monkfish were then drawn into the most depraved of settings, an evil and defiled sanctum within the tower of the mosque, debased by the foul smell of burning incense and old blood and there "Ahandra"/Rachaman presented the party – and their gold – to the Mullah.
Delighted by the offering, the Mullah waved away Rachman's concerns about the French Legionnaires' intervention and invited Sir XXXXXXXX and Monkfish close. Miss XXXXXXXX, in her guise as Sir XXXXXXXX's servant, of course, was expected to remain with the other functionaries. Nevertheless, she contrived to get a good view of what occurred next.
Stepping back to a black stone, obviously used in perverse and sacrificial ceremonies, Umo drew out a leather satchel and from it produced a withered and ancient skull, clearly little more than bone with an old, old leather covering. Umo placed the skull upon the altar and withdrew a step.
Miss XXXXXXXX is quite clear upon what happened next. Although it had no discernible eyelids, certainly no eyeballs, the skull "opened its eyes". They were "quite clear to see, livid and limpid at once bloodshot and somehow in terrible pain."
It was obvious to her instantly that, far from some macabre totem, this was, in fact, a device, and clearly one of "foreign power" manufacture.
Sir XXXXXXXX reports only his horror at the skull's "impossible, uncanny red-eyed stare".
At once, the relic gave out in a high and screaming voice, a series of the foulest imprecations, a diatribe it quickly became apparent directed at Monkfish.
Denounced by the skull, Monkfish's response, to the surprise of both our agents, was one of jovial good humour and indeed laughter. Merrily he confessed that he had indeed forewarned the French of "Ahandra"/Rachaman's proposed departure as a test of their skill. With this scarcely credible justification, Rachman was clearly unsatisfied and, at the Mullah's discretion, had Monkfish dragged away to the dungeon.
With Monkfish removed, the skull device seemed to become more controllable, and the Mullah proceeded to interrogate it concerning the arrangements for the deal with Sir XXXXXXXX. Although its replies were couched in faux-prophetic language ("travellers on the winds" - presumably an aeroplane on its way; "the falling of the morning star" – a time, the setting of Venus; and "the wealth from the skies" – the delivery itself), no doubt for the credulous Mullah's benefit, it was obvious to Miss XXXXXXXX that the skull was in truth a communications device of some kind, not dissimilar in function to the miniature radio that Sir XXXXXXXX was carrying concealed among his kit.
With the terms of the deal in fact already agreed in Tangiers, there was little actual negotiating for Umo to do. It was apparent to Sir XXXXXXXX that this was in fact merely for "form" and that the real power within the organisation was almost certainly Rachman himself. After concluding their business, the Mullah returned the skull to its leather bag and dismissed them, Sir XXXXXXXX, Rachman and all.
Evening was by this time falling and, after a light supper of flat bread and yoghurts, the party retired to bed. As a sign of honour, Sir XXXXXXXX and his "servant" were offered a room in the Mullah's unsavoury tower, an honour they felt unable to decline.
During the night, the agents were awakened by the sound of an aircraft landing on the runway. This was clearly the delivery of the promised opium. Slipping out of the tower, the agents investigated. While Sir XXXXXXXX watched the plane, Miss XXXXXXXX discovered Rachman reporting to a woman calling herself "Putschova", believed to be the senior Russian agent code-named "Katherine". This confirmed the Soviets' interest in the smuggling ring.
Miss XXXXXXXX instructed Sir XXXXXXXX to obtain some of the Mullah's ample supply of explosives and conceal it aboard the aeroplane together with one of the small remote-controlled detonators which they were carrying with them disguised as Sir XXXXXXXX's shaving kit. Her intention was – at that time – to destroy the aeroplane when it took off in the hope of eliminating "Katherine".
Come the morning, Sir XXXXXXXX went down to the main gallery in order to take possession of the opium. The plan being that he and Rachman would then return to Tangiers together where Sir XXXXXXXX would pay the balance of the gold before returning to England. None of this was to take place, however, for on descending Sir XXXXXXXX was confronted by what he could only describe as the "drowned ghoul of that truly damned Frenchman, Jean Antidou".
The conventional explanation would, of course, be that Antidou had somehow survived his plunge into the Mediterranean, perhaps rescued by some chance passing ship. However, Miss XXXXXXXX's account supports Sir XXXXXXXX in describing Antidou's appearance as "grey, like a corpse swollen with water and gas".
Nevertheless, whatever the reasons for his unnatural return, Antidou denounced Sir XXXXXXXX – and by extension his servant – based on the evidence of Mr XXXXXXXX's treachery on the yacht. The Mullah's men seized them both.
Rachman, discredited in the Mullah's eyes was expelled from the fortress. Certain of our men later traced him to Tangiers, but he was without the opium then, so we assume he was not allowed to leave with it.
Meanwhile, dragging our two agents to the Mullah's horrid sanctuary, the guards bound them to wooden posts – clearly present for just this purpose – to await Mullah Umo's judgement.
Miss XXXXXXXX however, was able to use the remote control for the explosives that she had previously ordered Sir XXXXXXXX to place aboard the Russian aeroplane.
The explosion drew the Mullah's men outside – believing themselves attacked – leaving Sir XXXXXXXX and Miss XXXXXXXX alone with the Mullah, Antidou and just two of the guards.
Again, Miss XXXXXXXX's special training came to their rescue. With a knife blade concealed within a flap of skin on her wrist, she was able to cut her bonds free. At once she sprung upon the nearer of the guards and seized his scimitar. An expert swordswoman, she engaged the second guard in a duel whilst releasing Sir XXXXXXXX with her free hand.
Once unbound, Sir XXXXXXXX recovered his pistol from its hiding place inside his wooden leg and shot both Umo and Antidou. The Mullah collapsed dead, but Antidou, apparently dead already, was seemingly unharmed.
Having despatched both guards by now, Miss XXXXXXXX quickly threw burning incense from Mullah Umo's black alter over the undead Antidou. Whether from mystical or mundane reasons, the flames caught and Antidou was quickly consumed by the fire.
With the Umo dead and Antidou dead again, Sir XXXXXXXX and Miss XXXXXXXX were trapped in the tower. Sir XXXXXXXX secured the lower tower door while Miss XXXXXXXX gathered the small number of rifles that she was able to obtain and they prepared to sell their lives dearly.
However, at that point Monkfish reappeared in Sir XXXXXXXX's rooms – with no explanation of his escape from the dungeon – and peremptorily obtained Sir XXXXXXXX's miniaturised radio transmitter and used it to make mayday call.
A heavily armed party of American "archaeologists", led by none other than the formidable Mrs Boyard, swiftly arrived in response to Monkfish's call for help and were able to drive off the Mullah's rabble. Presumably, the Russian agent "Katherine" escaped with the opium in the confusion.
Before leaving, Miss XXXXXXXX made a hurried search of the Mullah's sanctum but was unable to locate the screaming skull. It is her firm conviction that Monkfish expropriated the relic before making his surprising reappearance. Indeed, she speculates, obtaining the skull may have been his entire reason for involving himself with the affair.
Conclusions:
Monkfish is a ruthless and sophisticated opponent with knowledge of (and possible support from) "foreign powers". Field agents should be warned to treat with him at their own risk and be aware that, although not classified as hostile, his interests do not coincide with HM's. He should be considered a target for interrogation should the opportunity arise.
Addendum:
See further files:
(2) 1964/5, United States: XXXXXXXX, Massachusetts coast
(3) 1969, Argentina
(4) 1977, Singapore
(5) 1982, England: Manchester
(6) 1970, Mesopotamia
Priority ABOVE GOLD: refer to XXXXXXXX, Star Chamber.
