The Weekly LitWit Challenge 7.4: Spy story (Updated)
The winner of LitWit Challenge 7.3: 14 months till the end of the world is dindin. Congratulations! Please pick up your prize at the Customer Service counter at National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. Their number is 8974562.
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Photo: Saffron Sassafras Saoirse Schmitz Z. Safin with her luggage.
You are a spy from a foreign country. (You can be female or male, with all the undercover skills.) Your cover has been blown and you are in mortal danger. You hop on the first available flight and it takes you to Manila. You have no money and no friends in this city. All you have is a suitcase of designer clothes. You need to lay low until Control gives you the signal to surface. You have to find a place to live and a way to support yourself for at least one month. What will you do?
500 words or less, due Saturday, 29 October 2011 at 11.59 pm. Three winners will win copies of the movie tie-in edition of John LeCarré’s spy classic Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 25th, 2011 at 11:06
It was in late eighties that I last stepped on Manila soil. It was not acutally Manila soil if you want to be specific about it but rather Subic soil. But the thing that I remember well
was the heat. Dry, hot, thirsty heat that makes you think of a cold shower in the middle of the day.
I was trying to act like a mildly intoxicated tourist that had one too many inflight drinks. I had shaved my head bald before the flight. It was a mistake really because now in this conservative city the customs and immigration people are taking second and third looks at me. Maybe it was more to confirm if the guy in the passport picture was really me. The passport is legit although not in my real name. You can always get real fake documents if you work for the U.S. State Department.
“Mr. Donald Stevens!” called the petite Immigrations lady.
I had to smile a bit and raised my eyebrows in reply. Sometimes you forget your cover name.
“Yes?” I said in reply.
“Why are you visiting Manila?” she asked.
“Vacation primarily.” I answered.
“How long do you plan to stay?” she was smiling but her eyes were straight and unflinching.
“Until my vacation money runs out!” I answered nonchalantly.
No emotions in the eyes as she stared at me for 2 to 3 seconds before she stamp my passport and returned them to me.
“Thank you.” As I smiled and moved on to the Customs people. Looking over my passport, she gave me the standard 30 days entry visa. I really hate this city.
The last time I was here a $10 bill in the passport before going to the Customs stalls was a ticket for a no fuss entry. I wonder if it is still the same as I slipped a $20 between the pages of my passport. Inflation for the past 20 years means that grease money also increased right?
I had nothing to conceal really in my carryon luggage but why go through the hassle of removing your underwear in front of some lady right? Today people in my line of business did not need to carry incriminating evidence anymore. Everthing now is sent and received via encrypted documents over air molecules. No more microdot or miniaturize film spec stuck to the inner soles of your shoes. Thank the heavens that those were from decades long past but not forgotten.
I looked at the Customs people scattered over several stalls. Looking for someone who was maybe bored or nearing his lunch time break.
There, stall #3.
Went to a stall with a guy that had his uniform khaki shirt tails stuck out at the back. Pants are creased and marked from several days of rewearing it. Looks really lousy for someone who meet foreigners. Why can’t these people at least be presentable or just hygienically neat.
“Do you have anything to declare?” he asked with a plastered smile.
“Nothing.” I replied smiling my half intoxicated smile.
“Can you open your bag sir?” still smiling his practiced smile that was repeated every 3 minutes that it looked stucked on his face.
He had a small wooden stick that was maybe used in a past life as part of a kid’s drum set. He was poking it systematically inside of my bag. Front, back, under and at each corner of the bag looking for something that his manual says may be hidden in certain corners of any bag.
“Sir can you hand over your passport?” he asked still not looking at me.
“Sure, anything wrong?” I asked.
He just smiled as he went over the pages of my passport. His fingers were fast as it folded the $20 bill as he turned the passport pages. He could have been a magician for all I care.
“You came from Thailand?” he asked knowing very well that he had already answered his own question.
“Yes. Part of my Asian countries vacation swing” I answered in my touristy manner.
“Sir you are aware that there is a law against bringing in counterfeit products? “ he asked looking at me with his smug eyes.
“What do you mean? These are my travel clothes.” I said.
“Well from what I see, most of your clothes that have designer labels are fake.” He smiled at me.
“How the hell can I determine fake from real ? My wife buys the clothes for me for Christ’s sake.” My voice was starting to rise.
“We need to confiscate these fake items from you and you need to pay a fine for Intellectual Property Rights violation or serve time if the court so decides. Please follow me to the side room.” He said calmly as he picked up my luggage and motioned me to follow him.
Prison time? Great. At least I can hide for several days with free food and lodging. Not to mention security. Need to inform Scott though.
I was aware that people were looking but not looking at us as we made our way to the Customs office.
I followed him as he made his way through several doors and inner offices.
Finally he stopped at a door marked “PNP Aviation Security Office – CIDG Section”.
He gave me back my luggage and motioned me to enter the office. He was apparently not going with me.
He smiled and started to walk away but stop and turned again.
“I think you dropped this.” As he gave me my $20 bill.
“Bribery brings 6 years imprisonment here.” He smiled again and walked away.
Well maybe some things had changed?
I knocked on the door and entered the office. There was no one in it except for…
“Pete, how are you doing? Sorry I could not meet you up front at the tarmac. You know someone might make me out. Not sure who is who nowadays.” Said Scott Brun of the US Embassy’s Cultural Exchange Office.
“Hi Scott. It’s Donald for this trip Scott. It’s Donald.”
October 26th, 2011 at 07:41
I’ve been told to wait. I’m good at waiting, it’s 80 per cent of what I do. In this game, waiting can spell the difference between a clean getaway and a bullet between your eyes.
Ricki Tarr is not good at waiting, which is why I am here in Manila. The good part is, I don’t have a bullet between my eyes. The bad part is, it’s been anything but a clean getaway.
***
Three days ago, Peter told me to wait at the cafe in Monmouth. Get a cup of coffee, read a newspaper. Pretend like this was just another day, like I was just another woman passing the time in between dropping the kids off at playgroup and picking them up again. Peter — beautiful, chilly, dangerous Peter, head of Scalphunters — told me to dress the part. I don’t know what women wear when they drop their kids off at playgroup. I don’t like children, and they don’t like me. I wore a jumper, a tweed skirt, sensible shoes.
I’d been waiting an hour when Ricki walked in, and I knew it was all going to hell. I knew I would be using the gun strapped to my thigh, because Ricki was there, and Ricki had always had poor impulse control.
The Russian envoy arrived not ten minutes later, and he took up a seat by the front window. He signalled the waitress for a coffee, and when she turned her back he fished something out of his left inside jacket pocket. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Wait, Peter had said. The Russian looked around nervously, his eyes darting back and forth across the faces of the people around him: an old man, a young couple cooing at each other over flat whites, a woman around my age absorbed in a crossword puzzle. I felt him glance at me, but I had long before drawn my face into the harried, sullen mask I had seen on so many married women with children old enough for playgroup. His glance passed over me. He dragged the napkin dispenser closer to him.
Ricki moved — Ricki who can’t be arsed to wait — and the Russian froze.
When it was all over, the old man was dead, and so was the Russian. I remember dragging Ricki out with me, the blood pumping out of his shoulder staining my jumper, Peter’s Citroën screeching down the street to collect us as three Russian agents bore down on us from the opposite direction.
Control was furious, of course, and nothing Peter said or did could save us. “No excuse for sloppiness at the Circus,” I was told, and although I knew how to wait, was good at waiting, I was part of the sloppiness, even though I was just trying to fix the mess that Ricki created.
It was over quickly, just hours after the incident at the cafe. Peter handed me the ticket and the suitcase himself, his cold gray eyes lingering on Ricki’s blood still sticky on my hands. “You’re a right mess.”
“And you have a talent for stating the obvious.” I was tired, and I didn’t know then that I had broken two ribs.
“Go now. Don’t come back until he calls you. Don’t draw attention to yourself.” He was angry with me, and I couldn’t understand why.
The envelope he handed me was thin. “I don’t suppose he’s giving me a bit of the slush fund.”
Peter snickered. “You’re lucky he’s giving you anything at all.”
***
When I finally get to Manila, the pain in my side is much, much worse. But I’m a tough broad, I battle through it. I smile at the immigration officer as he examines the German passport for Ilse Müller, a woman who has my hair and my face and my eyes.
I slip easily into her. Ilse Müller does not have children to drop off at playgroup. She is tall, dark-haired, has a good body, knows how to use it. She recognises the flicker of desire in the man’s eyes, it’s universal, she understands it. It’s something she can use.
Ilse Müller flags a taxi to the priciest hotel she knows, and she doesn’t have any money. She lets the skirt of her dress ride up just enough on her thighs for the taxi driver to get a good eyeful, and she feigns distress when she can’t find her wallet. She puts a warm hand on the driver’s arm, she’s so sorry, could she have his name and contact details. He smiles at her touch, no, no, it’s all right, these things happen, welcome to Manila.
Ilse Müller strides into the hotel like she belongs there, makes for the nearest ladies’ room. When she opens her suitcase, she surveys the contents, reads Control’s intentions in each item. While she waits, he wants her to be an expensive whore, this one she can handle, he’s given her the tools.
She chooses a Vivienne Westwood number in nude lace. When she sees herself in the mirror, she looks almost naked. Right then. She pushes out of the ladies’ room and without a moment’s hesitation, straight into the men’s room.
A gentleman in an expensive suit is hurriedly arranging himself back into his trousers.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise –” Ilse is looking helpless, confused in her nude lace dress.
The man (early 50s, graying hair, Filipino but educated in the West) smiles, buckling his belt. “That’s fine. We all make mistakes.”
Ilse turns to leave, dragging her suitcase behind her. But she turns back, fixing him with that dazzling smile.
“Would you like me to … wait?”
***
(Well, that was fun.)
October 30th, 2011 at 07:52
thank you! will pick it up next week (side trip!)