Checklist for the perfect spy

1

What makes a good spy?

I have considered this question at length, and I can tell you that the key attributes of a good spy are intelligence, curiosity and good judgment. To make an excellent spy, however…

004 paused amidst writing his mental biography to unhurriedly, and noiselessly, thumb the safety catch off the special-issue silencer fitted revolver, brace himself with absent ease at the window, draw a bead on the mark, and fire, all in one fluid motion. He was already moving (gun into the bag, mask into the coat pocket, coat into the bag) when the return fire stitched a jagged line into the ancient brickwork beside him. He thinks Just like Chinese New Year as he slips down the barely functional fire escape.

2

An excellent spy does not stand out in a crowd. Therefore, he is not handsome, nor does he have noticeably striking features; he is plain, not repulsive, not attractive, nor does he look particularly intelligent: above all, he is forgettable. The excellent spy will make you blink and pause, if you ever have the luck to find him, and that is when he makes good his escape.

A group of nervous, black-suited men careened out of the narrow corridor into a crowded thoroughfare of Venice; the gunshot had been lost in the roar of bustling people. As they looked about wildly, a slightly rotund Chinese tourist in a garishly colored Hawaiian shirt and brown slacks looked up myopically from his map, tilting his glasses, and smiled brightly at them. "Ah! You are police, yes? I need to get-to Grand Canal. You know Grand Canal yes?"

"Get lost," the leader growled, shoving the short man out of the way; the glasses unbalanced over the stub nose as he hit the wall. Frightened, the tourist scurried away, squawking in his lingo.

Five minutes of futile searching later, the leader began to scratch absently at his palms. He must have touched some sort of damned plant while looking for Giuseppe's killer. No matter. He'd do one more round of this fucking ancient warren and go back to headquarters. After all, whoever was targeting Mr. White's last known associates was bound to show up there, after a while…

"Boss? You don't look so good," one of the thickset thugs that ran with him ventured, worried.

"I'm feeling just bloody perfect," the leader snapped, then frowned when something wet dripped into his mouth, from his lip. Copper… blood? He brought his hand to his mouth, and gasped, when it came away liberally stained crimson.

Just as Andrev collapsed, choking to death on his own life-blood, the Chinese tourist was removing the shirt very carefully, in the alley, such that the transparent chest-patch from Q branch was wrapped within it, and setting it aflame with a plastic lighter. Underneath the shirt was a pale blue one, which he took a moment to smooth out and button. 004 shouldered his heavy duffel bag, placed the black glasses carefully behind a crumbling crate, now every inch the small-time Chinese businessman here on a working holiday, and mentally reviewed the next person on his list.

3

An excellent spy is sent to delicate jobs that can't be handled with all guns blazing: often, these are clean-ups, where the cannon has taken care of the big wolf, and all the hyenas are running scared, cornered, desperate, and very, very dangerous. They'll be looking for someone fitting their image of an excellent spy to kill, which is why MI6 doesn't send those on such missions. It takes a certain sort of personality who can go deep cover for months to root out all the fish that slip through the dragnet. Stable. Patient. And most of all, an excellent spy kills only those whom he is told specifically to kill. A high body count attracts the press, and the press and espionage have never gone easily hand in hand.

It was, to be precise, twenty-four days before the next mark was confident enough to go to a bathroom by himself. Just out of professional habit, 004 checked the nose and mouth of Ciavo with a little hand mirror, carefully recorked the killing syringe, put it in his pocket, and very unhurriedly and noiselessly climbed out of the unscrewed ventilation window.

The end comes to everyone in unexpected ways, 004 thought, and he felt it was really beautiful coincidence, that his name sounded phonetically like death, in the dialect of his ancestors.

4

An excellent spy is a nobody who will notice everything.

The new receptionist, one very young and slightly mousy Miss Moneypenny, stopped in the middle of describing her woes with her new landlord (a prejudiced, old-fashioned dragon of a matron, it seemed) to giggle and blush. 004 didn't need to turn around to know who had walked by; however, MI6's handsome blonde poster boy, recently (in)famous due to certain clips of close-circuit camera film sent out to major news agencies, leaned over the counter, a roguish smile on his lips. "I don't believe I caught your name, Miss…?"

"Moneypenny," Moneypenny smiled, nervously, in the star-struck manner of young women on their first meeting with 007. 004 afforded his comrade (who certainly didn't know who he was) a polite smile; blue eyes fixed on him for only a moment, before dismissing him as unimportant (the FedEx courier, perhaps).

As he unobtrusively slipped away, he heard a playful drawl, "Who's that? Does take-out do door-to-door now?"

"Oh no," Moneypenny giggled again. "Mr. Tan works here too." Apparently satisfied that 'the Chinese man' was not in any way romantically linked to Moneypenny, 004 could tell from the faint change in 007's tone that the blonde spy was beginning to lose interest.

M was alone in her office: that was passing strange: another confidential mission, perhaps, so close on the heels of the previous one. 004 inclined his head to her, in silent greeting, and prepared his protest. "Congratulations on the execution of your Venice mission, 004."

"It was no problem," 004 said, in perfect, crisp English.

"I have another task for you. I am sorry, I know that you requested leave after Venice, but this is very important." M clasped wrinkled hands before her as she spoke, glancing down at the flatscreen computer fixed to her desk.

"If it is important, then leave is no matter." 004 stifled his sigh. The problem with MI6 was, however, any matter that M would allocate to a double-0 tended to be of utmost importance.

"It's about 007," M said, quietly. "I need to know how he has acquired certain… highly classified information. Such as my address, and my security codes."

That was highly classified information indeed. 004 nodded. "I will see to it."

"Mention nothing to anyone else," M said, in a low voice. "I do not know if it was mere luck or boyish curiosity on 007's part, which I highly suspect it is; but a security leak of this magnitude cannot be ignored."

"Rest assured."

On the way out, Moneypenny, now alone at the reception, smiled apologetically at him, as if to apologize for her attention change, hesitated, then asked, "David, do you know of James?"

004 decided, given the success of his previous mission (which hinged on cleaning up the delightfully thorny mess that 007 had made of Venice and the Bahamas), that he was entitled to a little bit of minor revenge. "Oh yes. I am a good friend of Eric."

"Eric?" Moneypenny blinked, unable to follow the apparent non sequitur.

"Ah! I am very sorry. Please keep that to yourself," 004 appeared distressed. "Personal information is highly confidential, in MI6."

"Of course," Moneypenny blinked, slowly. "Oh. Oh. You mean, James has a… called Eric?"

"Miss Moneypenny," 004 hissed, looking around furtively (only slightly exaggerated).

"Of course. Mum's the word. I'll never mention it to anyone," Moneypenny promised.

A job well done, 004 thought, as he set off to the archives.

5

An excellent spy always gets a job done where reasonable. And he will always have a concrete reason for doing what he does; and there is no better reason for working than dependents.

Tailing another double-0 was difficult, but it was not as though 004 had never done it before. Personally, he thought, as he mapped out the most probable routes that 007 could have taken in the map of London that he kept within his head, always keeping at least two blocks behind, the most difficult person he'd had to tail to date was likely 002, what with his penchant for rappelling across rooftops.

It was said that all the 00s were insane in their little ways, which was why they tended to be short-lived. Confirmed bachelors, most of them (but himself, it seemed): in the dead of night, with a little too much blood on your hands, without a family to go back to and kids to pay through college, sometimes the barrel of the gun seemed a little more attractive than it should.

Eventually, he narrowed it down to an exclusive if out-of-the-way area of the West End, nodded to himself, and left.

A couple of days later, when 007 left for China, he spent a few industrious days 'snooping about', as one would call it, in a variety of different costumes, especially as a prospective, recently migrated buyer of property, set a few devices unobtrusively in several lifts, and retired to wait.

6

An excellent spy does not rely overmuch on circumstantial evidence to draw conclusions. Espionage, after all, hinges on concrete facts.

004 was not particularly surprised, the night 007 came back from China, to suddenly see (on his laptop in his East End residence) the man push another person into one of the lifts to which he had installed a tiny wireless parasite camera and proceed to kiss the person silly. Automatically, he rechecked the lock to his study, revised the sleep schedule of his wife and children, then plugged in the headphones, angling the camera to try and get a close-up of the person's features.

He was a little surprised to realize it was a man.

He was very surprised to realize it was a man he recognized, and it took him a moment to place the name. Villiers. M's aide.

Well, that could explain the security leak, 004 mused.

The camera also caught a good view of the apartment floor that the two men stumbled out to.

7

An excellent spy trusts no-one fully.

Since installing cameras in a double-0's residence would require said double-0 to be away on missions again or contain a high risk of getting caught, 004 settled instead for invading Villiers' privacy. The man was also a trained field agent, he noted from the file, though without double-0 potential, just relegated to aide and coordination duty by request. Further digging in the archives and a bit of private 'snooping' showed the reason as an ailing mother and therefore the need to have a stable, not-too-dangerous job.

The next day he was sent to Rwanda to extricate copies of certain documents before the latest diamonds field dispute erupted into a bloody war.

On his return, he dutifully gave out souvenirs to wife, son and second son, read a bedtime story to the littlest kid, kissed her on the forehead, and went into his study to check on the past week's recordings. He had deactivated the devices tracking 007, just to be safe, in his absence; Villiers', however, had several calls placed to a public phone in the country, which, on a rewind, were addressed to a very familiar, urbane male voice, mostly wry banter and arrangements to dinner.

The fifth recording was the proverbial gold nugget: "Look, I was crazy to have told you anything in the first place, M's still quite pissed over the last time you misused the information. Could you have been any less unsubtle, damnit?"

After listening to the entire series of recordings, 004 began to prepare his report.

An hour later, he paused when he saw 007 enter one of the lifts, then nodded approvingly, as his colleague, stretching out a kink in his back, froze, staring right up at the camera. He reached over to deactivate the devices as well as relocate their trace to a series of abandoned buildings scattered throughout London.

8

An excellent spy possesses both sound intuition and judgment.

004 stopped just outside M's office when he heard 007's voice raised in irritation. "...why did you order an MI6 agent to spy on me?"

"Because I'm interested to know how you get hold of certain pieces of confidential information, 007," M's voice was calm. She didn't dispute the point. 004 retreated back to the receptionist, to talk to Moneypenny about the relevant differences of the Chinese and English Zodiacs, until 007 stormed out.

In M's office, he handed the manila folder in his hands to her, bowed, and left.

On the third day of his leave, picking out groceries from the supermarket via following a shopping list written by his wife, the kids somewhere amok about the store, his expression didn't change when 007, dressed unobtrusively (for the man) in a designer shirt and faded jeans, sidled up next to him, apparently following the labels of canned mushrooms with absorbing interest. "I know who you are."

"Mr. Bond," 004 nodded. If a double-0 said something along such lines, he knew that there was little use in arguing. "Help me get the canned Redfern buttons, would you?"

007 reached for the tin of mushrooms on the top shelf, tossing it into 004's trolley. "You've reported it already?"

004 nodded, pushing the trolley along. Tea was next on the list. 007 fell into step behind him. "If you dispute the report, take it up with M."

He could sense the tension; 007 was upset. And an upset double-0 tended to be a public hazard, not to mention that his children were about. 004 idly considered the needle hidden in his sleeve, then discarded the option. Double-0s tended to be good judges of character, and his trained ears picked up the patter of small feet, behind them, followed by a seven-year-old boy latching on to his leg. As he thought, 007 relaxed, forcibly. "Dad," Ken whined, "I want frosties."

"Your mum said it was bad for you," 004 pointed out, at the same time deftly preventing Ken from climbing into the trolley using the back of his knee as support. "Where's Anne and Dave?"

"Ice-cream section," Ken reported promptly, peering up at 007. "Hi. Are you a friend of Dad's?"

"Hi," 007 returned, slowly. "And yes I am."

"My name's Ken," Ken said, with all the self-importance of a seven-year-old boy. "What's yours?"

007 hesitated, then smiled (not the genuine one, but the cool mask of an operative, charming and unreadable). "James."

9

An excellent spy understands the value of diplomacy over gunslinging.

With the children occupied in the playground, 004 sat next to 007 on a park bench. "How did you know? Villiers?"

"No. After the... lecture, I haven't been… well. He doesn't want to see me." 007 looked up, at the sky, a muscle in his jaw twitching. 004 understood: complicated relationships always seemed a little impossible, to the usual maladjusted double-0s, who had a tendency to walk away from a spat, subconsciously wary of their own capacity for lethal violence, rather than attempt to sort things out. And for someone as reputedly proud as 007, the logical reaction to rejection did appear to be an equal response. "I dug up your records and tailed you." Dryly. "I presume you did the same to me."

004 nodded absently, in clinical approval. He hadn't realized he had been followed. "And you decide to talk to me?"

"Do you know you're the only one of us with a family?" 007 asked.

004 tilted his head. "008 has an Italian background. No wife, though."

"That's what I meant." 007 exhaled. "You don't ever fear that..."

"Fear isn't a good enough reason not to have family," 004 shrugged. "But it would depend, on you. If you like chasing skirts with no strings attached: after all, married women will hardly be able to, say, insist you call them back, then it is your business. A stable relationship takes work."

"Why is it you are the only one who seems to be able to do it?" 007 shook his head.

"Ah. I am not afraid of work. Perhaps it is cultural." It took a brief moment for 007 to perceive the joke, but the laugh was forced. "You want advice. Meet him and apologize. Take him on a date. Necessary work." A quick smile, that didn't quite touch his eyes (though he did try; but of late, the few genuine smiles 004 felt he was entitled to were saved for his family). "But it does not have to be so bad. And he did not lose his job."

"Thanks to your recommendation, I heard." 007 drawled, and 004 felt that was likely the closest he could get to an apology, for the almost-scene in the supermarket.

"There's a new movie. Something about espionage and nuclear proliferation. Premiere with stars tomorrow night." 004 said, and it was as close to sympathy as he would give. 007 was young; and 004 vaguely remembered being young once, and madly in love with a sales clerk from a department store with a sunny smile and sensible shoes (only Dave had inherited her smile, sadly). "Around the corner there's an underground restaurant. Candlelight and jazz."

10

An excellent spy knows when to pull himself short.

004 was busy filing the reports on his laptop in his study when he remembered he'd forgotten to disable and remove the devices in Villiers' department, what with all the excitement over his wife's promotion in the prosecutorial offices. Being possessed of a typically double-0 curiosity, he checked the feeds, and was in time to see the heat-sensitive camera in the bedroom switch on.

Within the next moment, he was very glad that his default setting on his camera feeds after tucking his kids in was headphone sound. Shaking his head slowly, he reached forward to permanently deactivate the Villiers apartment feeds, and chuckled, noiselessly, to himself, when 007 looked up from his work, licking his lips, blinked, and smirked, at the camera, and 004 guessed that was as much of a thank-you as he could get, from MI6's poster-boy.