the operative.

Patrick bristles as she– the agent– shows him her badge, a shiver of fear traveling up his spine, forcing his shoulders back and his head straight. He wants to ask what this is all about, but he remembers Sebastían’s advice: don’t say anything more than you have to. He releases a breath and tries to maintain the smile from before. He can do this.

“Patrick is fine,” he replies, as mildly as he can muster. He follows her eyes to the confessional, and lets out a rather genuine laugh, despite the situation. 

“I wouldn’t want to give myself an unfair advantage,” he jokes, leading her towards the back office. He offers her a seat on the couch, Patrick occupying the chair across from it. “What can I help you with, Agent…? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name on that badge. You’ve really mastered the whole flipping-it-open thing. Very impressive.”

It’s very peculiar how a small hunk of metal can change a person’s whole demeanour. Sure, maybe it had something to do with the insignia etched in it but there was still something funny about it. “Right, Patrick it is then,”  She smiles back at him.

Following in toe, she laughs at his joke. “Although us not making direct eye contact arguably might be better for all parties,” she says following him through the church and towards a small office tucked away in the back.

Surrey. If they put him in a safe house there, Jack didn’t picture himself being able to walk about, go grocery shopping. In a way, that was good. Less of a chance he’d run into his own parents in the tomato aisle. Parents who thought he was on mission in Scotland or whatever they’d been told.

To Jack, Surrey was sounding like a very good idea.

If he was thinking only about himself.

“Georgie,” he began slowly, raising his head to look her in the eye. “This is going to sound completely mental, but.” Did he even need to say anything more? She’d been in this line of work too long, just like him. “If you remove me now, even for a day, we’ll be throwing away years of progress. Years.” His fingers twitched, like the jerky legs of a dying spider, as he thought of what he was suggesting. What they’d been so close to giving up. “Be honest with me, Georgina Ya Wen King. What would you do if the roles were reversed?”

Eye contact was incredibly important. They spent entire months perfecting it during her C.I.A training. A person’s eyes could either give them away or, shield so much. Maybe Jack’s training too had given him the ability to emulate prying eyes. Or maybe Georgie was just off her game. She’d never admit that. 

His glance alone felt like she was in the middle of a deposition. Not only was she frustrated with the situation at hand but, her inability to pick a side and give him a straight answer. “I know that Jack,” she answers, trying to subdue any trace of emotion from her eyes.

“I can imagine that living out of your suitcase must get tiring. And you’ve chosen a lovely place to put down roots, of course,” Violet remarked, politely. 

“Can’t stand hotels,” Algie added, emphatically. “Violet here’s always traveling, aren’t you? Jetting off to Beijing or Rome or Los Angeles or who knows where. I don’t know how anyone does it.” Violet took a sip of her water with a wry smile.

“Well, the Featherstonhaughs find out roots in Gloucestershire —,” he began in response to Joanna’s question, and Violet, sensing his usual long-winded and thoughtfully embellished chronicle of his family history, chose to step in. “We’re both lifelong Londoners. I grew up in Chiswick, Algie in Kensington, and we’ve lived in Belgravia for almost fifteen years now.” She smiled at the American. “And where are you from, originally?”

“Oh believe me, I’ve seen more than enough of Heathrow for a lifetime,” she laughs lightly. “Oh yes, it feels perfect I just can’t wait to see what it’ll look like when it’s finished,” she adds. She wonders if she’ll ever actually get to live in it, maybe when she retires. 

Again her attention pans back over to Algie. He seemed to play backseat driver to almost every conversation he participated in. Though in his passive commentary he was always keen on talking about his wife, something Georgie could definitely use.

Patrick is feeling particularly blessed on this sunny Sunday morning. The first service went better than usual– which is to say well– and the second felt alright, too. He didn’t stumble over a verse nor forget a hymn, and though he’s been at this for over a decade, that is still considered a rather large feat. To top it all off, Sebastían had delivered good news to his iPhone this morning: a hundred immigrants had found a safe place to live, thanks to Patrick’s help– and God, too, really. Props to the big man upstairs, as well.

“Of course,” Patrick replies. He’s even smiling as he greets the newcomer. She’s a little too well-dressed to be from around here, but perhaps she’s new to the area. He figures it best not to ask. Instead, he offers out a hand for her to shake, and imagines that he looks like a rather convincing priest today.

“Are you hoping to give a confession?”

She doesn’t know if his smile is supposed to comfort her, because it does the exact opposite. It seemed silly to be scared in a church but the echoey silence and what felt like the presence of a million spirits sent shivers down her spine.

“Sure, you could call it that,” she says with a casual shrug of her shoulders. Just like her movie counterparts would, she pulls out her gold Interpol badge for the priest in front of her to see. “I’ve just have a couple questions sir— or father rather,”

Much to Violet’s surprise when he had first begun, Algie’s little enterprise flipping houses had been surprisingly successful. Clients seemed all too willing to let him spend their cash: the old money were trusted him because he was one of their own and the new money saw in him what they aspired to me. If only he had possessed a speck of ingenuity, it could have become a real business instead of a hobby that occasionally raked in a tidy profit.

Recently, however, an ideal project had fallen into his lap: some American looking to resurrect a ramshackle Edwardian with ‘nice bones.’ Algie had been besides himself with excitement, and quite insistent that she come to lunch to meet the client.

“The pleasure’s all mine. And please, do call me Violet,” she smiled warmly, shaking the woman’s hand firmly. “Algernon tells me the house is a real treas—”

“A Koh-i-Noor in the rough!” Algie interjected, enthusiastically, gazing at his wife with the same lovestruck expression he had worn for twenty years. Violet, meanwhile, tolerated him with the mild to moderate fondness she had shown for just as long. 

“Of course,” she agreed, patting his arm before turning back to their companion. “So how long have you been in London?”

A pleasant smile settles on Georgie’s features. Violet Featherstonhaugh. She’d seen pictures; grainy CCTV shots, through telephoto lenses— all paled in comparison to her actual beauty. Now she fully understood how Jack had taken to his target so quickly. “Violet,” she says politely.

As Georgie looked between the two of them it was evident Jack was right, she had him whipped. Though Georgina was in no position to comment, to her left she saw love and to her right she saw tolerance. She momentarily felt bad for Algie, but the conversation was almost instantly flipped back to her.

“Uh.”

Maybe Filipp had miscalculated in his knee-jerk need to avoid the problem. Geneva—hell, even Berlin—was too far. He’d been hoping to lie low in Tottenham for a while, or maybe skulk in the suburbs. His hopping on a plane to a Brexit-unfriendly country was going to piss of…

Makarovich?

Oh, you colossal idiot.

Jack took a deep, quick breath, steadying himself by reaching across the table to put a stalling hand over Georgina’s phone. “Hold on a second.” God, her phone was hot as a torch. Or maybe it was his palm getting clammy. “Slow down. Pulling me out completely is not good.”

Yes, it is.

You want out. You’ve wanted out for years.

“Makarovich would never okay a leave of absence. And we can’t afford me taking my eyes off him.” Think of the dead man in the river. He didn’t need to remind Georgina of all people. Look at what the Floreses did to his son. “Can you get me out of London with an option to return? A story I can sell to the king of scum. Uh, like the Continental Hotel is on fire. Or Armoury’s trying to headhunt me. Fuck.” His glibness was falling apart like a piñata dunked in a river. “You’re a Company woman, Georgie. Can’t you arrange for a heart attack? That’ll take care of Featherstonhaugh nice and easy.”

Maybe this was her fault. Maybe the whole situation would have been avoided had she been more attentive, done more recon. Or maybe, she was of the habit of overreacting at the slightest threat. An edge she had lost after losing too many friends.

Normally she would have dug her heels in and made her word final. Though her stubbornness  may just be the reason they’re here in the first place. “But leaving you in a compromising position is?” She rebukes. Again she slumps back into her seat.

It’s now clear to her that she miscalculated just how under Makarovich’s thumb he was. She would’ve suggested another extremity he could’ve been on his knees for that would have awarded him the luxury of weekend vacations but, decides to bite her tongue.

As Georgina rapidly cycled through the checklist of things that could go wrong, plastic surgery began to seem like a good idea. Jack already had a face that blended in with an army of Slavic criminals. That was actually pretty insulting.

“Getting out of town is doable,” he said, trying to sneak a peek at what action her two phones were getting. He was all-too-desperate for news of the outside world. Interpol, his family, her family, who’d won the latest Great British Bake-Off. What Harry and Meghan were upto, even.

“The words ‘I’m under orders from Mr. Makarovich’ have become my passport to anyplace.” Giving Violet a wide berth for the time being was also a smart idea. He didn’t think his strait-laced colleague would appreciate the details of that encounter. “You got any suggestions for places to hide out, Georgie? I could do the legwork on someone you’ve wanted to keep an eye on. The further away from Ooty’s London, the better.”

She perks up at the word doable. Though rushing into anything was deadly, she felt panic quickly encroaching. Asking him to move for the time being would never be a rash decision, within minutes of this very conversation she could have a safe house ready and waiting for him.

“That’s good, flexibility is good,” she says before unlocking her phone once more. With the frenetic energy of teenager she tapped away at the digital keys of her work phone. Their chief often left Georgina unanswered, so she was ditching the chain of command in lieu of a prompt and dependable response.

“House flipping,” Georgie said, her words ripe with skepticism. "House flipping,” replied the sysint specialist who seemed incredibly proud of his discovery. Then before she knew it she was on a plane to Langley, Virginia with one of the most unbelievable sales pitches she’s ever come up with. But she stepped out of the conference room with a big cheque from Uncle Sam and a new identity.

They were paying for her cushy apartment and now letting her an exibortant amount of money to let the husband of target convert a dilapidated house with Edwardian “charms” into a palace. Joanna Murphy— a once Georgina King, had crossed all her Ts and dotted all her Is and now was officially an owner of a home just outside of London proper. 

Georgina’s faux-apologetic tone made Jack let out such a loud laugh that even the barista looked around. Somewhat sheepishly, he slunk to a table near the back of the café. It broke their line of sight of the laundromat but better some petty larceny than being recognised by a passer-by. Come in for a peppermint mocha, leave with a WTF expression on their face.

Her prompting made the encounter with Ooty Featherstonhaugh flashed past his eyes like a Kodak reel. Tone it down for Georgina, avoid a disaster, or tell the full story?

“I’m not going to discuss how Zenit Saint Petersburg is doing with that idiot, forget Pushkin,” he began, attempting the easy question first. “Of course, he went to Harrow and Oxford, so we’re talking about an idiot who’s really well-versed in Pushkin. But for the idea of tapping him to turn on his wife… it’s too slippery. He’s like a wet codfish. He looked devoted to that woman. All yes, dear and very well, dear.”

He wondered, briefly, if Georgina enjoyed Monty Python. What she did when she wasn’t chasing monsters.

“And I’m not saying I’ve ‘been made’ or whatever you Americans say.” Hands flat on the table, he leaned forward in his seat, trying to impress it as deeply as possible. “Everything’s fine, Georgie. I’m still in the clear. But, and this is a very small but here, I went to the same school as Ooty. Alumnus meets, overlapping years, the club of posh public school gits who also go to Oxford. Given a chance, he’s going to remember.” There it was, that uneasiness pulsing through Jack’s veins like sludge. “But it’s too early to pull me out. I’ve got fuck-all nothing on Makarovich or the Triumvirate. You have to keep an eye on Ooty, Georgie. He is not going to be the reason this operation goes up in flames.”

For someone who’s entire life hinged on not blowing his cover, he was suspiciously good at being paid attention in a crowd. Though can’t hide the gracious smile that creeps upon her face at the sheer boisterousness of his laugh. She follows him to their hidden corner, promptly setting a timer on her phone in an effort to combat a potential laundry heist. 

She listens intently as she would on a real meeting. Though if it were, there’s no way she would have chosen the most conspicuous location of inside a coffee shop...she would have at least done it outside.  She bites her lip and nods. “Okay I trust your judgement, both about his analytical capabilities and devotion to his wife,” The point was dead for now but that didn’t mean she’d stop pushing for an in with the armoury.

“Spotted, compromised, exposed—” she interrupted with a patriotic raise of her finger before leaning further back into her seat maintaining the distance between them. She lets the silence rest uneasy in the air for a beat, eyes training on his features as if the right answer was written across his forehead. “Plastic surgery,” she says staunchly, hoping to slice through the mounting tension with an ill-timed joke. 

“Always wanted to ride a moped,” admitted Jack, as they strolled out of the laundromat. He bumped Georgina’s shoulder as they went, saying, “You know, to cancel out being the kind of person who carries around a hip flask. Because that’s who this job has turned me into. Who you’ve turned me into,” he added more pointedly. “As my handler, you’re fully to blame.”

There was a coffee shop across the street—perfect for keeping an eye out for potential laundry thieves—and Jack gallantly held the door open for Georgina. “So the other day, I run into someone I know from school.” He tried to make it sound like the light-hearted anecdote that she’d asked. “Fellow we called Ooty. Ooty Featherstonhaugh. Turns out he’s married to Armoury’s favourite middleman. Even asked me if I’d like to discuss Pushkin sometime.”

“I can have that arranged,” she jokes as they jovially start down the sidewalk. “I’m sorry to hear you feel that way, if only there was a competent HR team you could report me to and potentially get your life back on track...oh well, doesn’t hurt to dream,” She says lackadaisically, imagining a perfect corporate world.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but thank god for red tape. Of course,” added Jack slyly, “you’d know what it was first-hand if you even had a girlfriend to declare to HR.”

Georgina was, by all accounts and mandatory office Christmas parties, straight-arrow but the mental picture was pleasant nonetheless. He just barely caught himself before the thought went too far. (Stop, just stop. This is real life. Not a subtitled porno.) The answering nod he gave Georgina was a little too quick and enthusiastic.

He’d completely lost the handle on having a conversation that wasn’t fifty percent lies.

(He thought back to how Georgina was a dyed-in-the-wool Company agent. Seventy-percent lies, if you threw in all the times he made MI6 sound like a great place to work, in an attempt to score one for the home team.)

“I’m always up for coffee if you’re buying,” he told her. “Especially if we’re making it a little Irish.” Ducking down, he opened the washing machine door and shovelled its contents into his laundry bag. He held it up for Georgina to see and quipped, “All we need are some balaclavas and we’re going to look like diamond thieves. Pretty sure that pays better, too.”

There’s a joke to be made about her multitude of girlfriends and how they weren’t shuttled about on a certain someone’s Lolita Express. But ultimately the guise of a straight and narrow, loveless, Georgie aligned far better with the leadership role. So she simply rolls her eyes to illustrate the point— ok Jack, you can shut up now.

She occasionally thought about how different it would be if Jack knew her from her early C.I.A days. Where she was still perpetuating the recklessly fun agent with little regard for the system, and a desire for school yard popularity in the work place. In all honesty, they probably wouldn’t have gotten along. I’m supposed to be funny one.

“It’s a shame this outing can’t be written off as a company expense, I’d tell you to go wild if that was the case.” That’s not to say she wasn’t given a very fancy expense card but it was no black Amex. “I’m assuming that means you’re one to walk with a flask?” She asks and watches as he stuffs his articles into his bag then offered him a parental two thumbs up when he held it up for her to see. 

Fancy purse on one shoulder and nondescript, black, ‘why-yes-I-do-work-for-the-government-thanks-for-asking’ duffel bag on the other, she replies to his quip “Or alternative art thieves with black turtlenecks escaping the scene on Mopeds, heard that too is a fruitful career,” 

“Oh my god.” Jack pressed a fist to his temple, suppressing the urge to melt through the floor. “It was a Freudian moment. Ugh, it feels good to be able to use big words—not important—leave me alone.”

Still, he was laughing as he said it. Filipp could seep into the way he thought and the way he talked, but Jack would always have Georgie to remind him of what was real. The machine in front of him beeped, and he dallied for a moment in collecting his laundry.

“I can’t shoot all the bad guys. I’m just the driver. Death by cop on the other hand…” He let the thought trail off, the tantalising revenge fantasy they’d both basked in at some point or another. This job had a way of skewing morals sideways. Shaking his head, he added, “Don’t worry, Georgie. The apartment stays clean. The most damning thing I’ve ever had in there was an eighteen-year-old hooker.”

“Right, right—” she says stifling her laughter in reaction to him. “Good ol’ Sigmund, I guess we’re just lucky I’m not your mother hmm,”

She has to laugh at the oddity of the situation. She can count on one hand the amount of other agents she’s gotten along with as well as she has with Jack. And even less so, ones with whom she’s fostered their relationships in a laundromat. 

“So...” she pauses, arms crossed over her chest; feinding deep thought. “does that make me your scape goat then?” she asks glancing over at him. As she predicted, he wasn’t incompetent not that not keeping sensitive material in your apartment was a particularly difficult task. His reassurance is met with a raised brow. “Now I’d ask for Jack or for Filipp but regardless, Interpol HR is nothing but red tape so I don’t really care,” she shrugs before standing up straight and grabbing her purse. 

“Italian cotton, yeah?” Jack pulled a face like he’d never seen it up close on Georgie before. “Ever considered switching to something that doesn’t soak blood up like a tampon?” A beat. A wince. “Sponge. I mean, sponge.”

Shaking his head ruefully, he plucked at his jersey. “But you got me. It’s to keep anything but Adidas in the closet. Last week, Gregor—this is the drug guy—crashed for two nights at my place because the London police were looking out for a hit-and-runner. Shooting him in the head myself would have done the job, but I thought you might want the pleasure.”

A misstep. An uncharacteristically Filipp thing to do. But, what she assumed was a commonality of Jack. If she really wanted to, she could have shot him back at deadpan expression. But seeing him wince, just added to the pleasure that put a smile on her face. “Nah, tampon was a good analogy— I might just write it in your file,”

As she listens, she casts a precautionary glance over his soldier to make sure the other straggler hadn’t overheard. “How sweet,” she says with a hands over her heart in mock admiration. “I appreciate the sentiment but I believe they pay you to shoot the bad guys, and me to tell you which bad guys to shoot,” That isn’t to say she didn’t shoot her own bad guys, just not enough for her liking. 

There was something to be said about being back in the states. She felt like Georgiana again. Though never particularly fond of the west coast with its Hollywood hills, gridlock traffic and Erewhons— all this exuberance and million dollar face lifts were a welcome change of scenery. She could sit along the pier all day and watch all those who passed her— she also could write it off as recon but that’s not the point.

It’s be awhile since she’s stepped foot in a church, some how its steeple glared down at her as she simply stared back at it through thick black frames. For once she didn’t look inconspicuous, as church goers poured out of the doors and parted around her. It almost felt wrong to start an interrogation in the house of god but she had reason to believe even the man upstairs turned a blind eye to what when on inside.