assignment lausanne

Once a week, I shall post a page from the coded transcripts that I have preserved from my days as agent greenglass. Am I still in active service? Do I still walk around with a credit card in my bag that can slit people’s throats? Are my morals looser than a yellow journalist’s tongue? Do I really use champagne to wash my hair? You might find answers. Or you might not.

Date: Blacked out. Location: Switzerland

I got dropped off at the Lausanne Palace. Usually I don’t think very highly of agents who choose conspicuous meeting places. Especially when the fate of two governments rested in the smooth brown confines of my Loius Vuitton Damien Azure bag.

I knew it was wrong. Both the hotel and the bag. But I had just stepped off the beaches of Saint Tropez. My bathing suit lay on the floor of the helicopter that had flown me in. The foot soldiers had the sense to pack in a red valentino dress and a white virgin wool cashmere jacket. But of course they forgot the bag.

I walked into the Palace. My instructions said he would be waiting at the Le Cote Jardin. But then, in my line of work, nothing ever turns out the way it’s planned.

There was a message for me. He was waiting at the Suite Presidentielles. His note said he hoped it would be more comfortable for me, after my journey.

I smiled to myself. Why was I not surprised? Hadn’t everyone told me there was something about him? Je ne sais quoi!

Still I was here on work. And if I wanted rich playboys all I had to do was drop my Hermes scarf. And my razor sharp brain.

Though I was curious I must confess. As the elevator purred its way to the inside of the Presidentielle Suite, I caught myself wondering if he would be what they made him out to be.

007. Charming, dashing, a man of unimaginable wealth, wit and intellect. He knew how to fly planes. Detonate bombs. Speak in sixteen languages. And every trick in the book to make a woman go weak in the knees.

The doors parted. And he stood outside.

I’ve been taught, since I was nine, that a woman never gave away what she thought. But for once, the smoothest woman operator this side of the Atlantic was caught by surprise.

His dark blue Brioni suit was impeccable. But its clever tailoring could not hide the paunch. The face was tanned all right, but the eyes were not right. They looked red, like he’s been drinking too much of the fine Bollinger Champagne that stood the uncorked on a table behind him. The hair was too long, and combed over. An attempt perhaps to conceal the bald patch that was beginning to make itself more than visible.

He extended his hand and said, “Finally we meet.”

I smiled. My cold-as-the-Choppard-on-my-finger smile and said, “Pleased to meet you Mr Bond.”

He grabbed my hand and held it. “You are as beautiful as they say.”

“ You are too kind. I believe we have some important business.”

“ That can wait. There’s champagne on ice. And cold briny oysters. “

The only way I like my champagne is with caviar. And the only way I like my men is suave and athletic. He was neither.

I accepted the champagne and walked across to the window. I knew his eyes would take in my long legs sheathed in silk stockings. No man has ever been able to look at them, without wondering what it would feel like to have them wrapped around him.

I felt a hand run up my legs.

“ You are incredibly sexy.”

I turned. Resisting the urge to flip him across my shoulder and straight down the busy Grand Chene. It would certainly stop traffic. And the international community. And every swiss bank. Every government. Every secret service operation. Every mafia, the Russian, the Italian, the American.

But this was not the plan.

An aging secret service agent with too much information and a loose mouth couldn’t just be dealt with. He had to be disposed, in a manner that was befitting. And more importantly, discreet. So no questions would be asked. No blood would be spilt. No government would be embarrassed.

So I turned. And looked at him over my glass.

“ Don’t you want to know what business I’m here on?”

His tongue darted out as he licked his lips. Perhaps it was the oysters, or perhaps not.

“I’ve been doing it for years. Takes one look to tell me why you’re here. Her Majesty probably wants me to save her skin again. Or the agency needs me track down the Russian Mafia before they invest in a nuclear plant in Kabul. “

He knocked back the champagne and said, “But you. I’ve never seen anything like you.”

And before I could say Kamasutra, he was all over me.

His legendary lovemaking skills were either a figment of someone’s overactive imagination. Or the women in our service were just not meeting the right kind of men. Let’s just say I don’t consider trying to bite off my breasts while simultaneously pushing his groin into my thigh to be an able demonstration of the finest lovemaking.

I, of course, had paid attention to every aspect of my training, which is probably why I had mastered not just the seven sections and thirty six chapters of the Kamasutra, but also all thousand chapters of the original Kamashatra.

But first there was business to settle. The brown confines of my bag, in which nestled a single condom. Packed in its signature black and gold casing.

His eyes widened when I pulled it out. I smiled and said, “ I came prepared for you Mr Bond.”

From there it was easy. The Kamashatra doesn’t really describe how you can kill a man. But the Mare’s Position followed by the Suspended Congress, followed by Splitting the Bamboo can make even the most virile man tired. Add the Lotus like position to that, and you have him in a faint.

Top that with Spinning like a Top, and you’ll realise why sex is such a deadly weapon.

I checked his pulse. Nothing.

I slipped on my jacket. And picked up my purse. It was bothering me.

Maybe I could stop over at Loius Vuitton, before catching my flight back to France. One does like to be dressed right.

As I walked out, I picked up the receiver and said, “ The international man of mystery, is history.”

I do have a sense for the dramatic.

the files of agentgreenglass are copyright protected. please do not reprint or publish them without her permission. the consequences, needless to say, can be deadly.