The Spy Who Never Wanted To

The wartime spy who never wanted to be Smiley

---

I felt so betrayed, used, violated. I saw that our relationship had been a farce. I was humiliated in my community. I felt so much anger. Three years later, Martinez is channelling that anger in court. Earlier this month she filed a personal injury lawsuit in Miami, charging the Republic of Cuba with rape. Her suit is believed to be the first ever to charge a sovereign nation with rape. Even though she is seeking damages, Martinez knows it's unlikely she will ever receive any money, but the truth is, she doesn't care. She wants her day in court.

This is a country, this was a man, who has no conscience. Like many good spy dramas, Martinez's nightmare started as a fairytale. It was in that Roque swam from Havana to the US Naval Base at Guantanamo and requested political asylum, telling US officials he was a former air force major disenchanted with Castro's Communist regime. His story passed muster and within months he was living with relatives in Miami.

Flying for the Brothers, marrying Martinez - it all worked to make Roque's infiltration of Miami's Cuban community convincing and complete. No one could have guessed that it was all a double cross orchestrated from Havana. Martinez met Roque at her church.

Women were chasing him left and right, she says, but being deeply religious and active in her church, she stayed back.

When he finally made a play for her, she fell in love with him. He wanted to settle down. He told me he was a pilot who had deserted and, given his high profile, I had no reason to doubt him. They dated for three years and married in Martinez says Roque was the ideal husband, doting on both her and her two children from an earlier marriage. Before taking the "final plunge" into Control's scheme, Leamas makes Liz promise not to look for him, no matter what she hears.

Then, after getting Control to agree to leave Liz alone, Leamas initiates the mission by assaulting a local grocer in order to get himself arrested. After his release from jail, he is approached by an East German recruiter and taken abroad, first to the Netherlands, then to East Germany, en route meeting progressively higher echelons of the Abteilung , the East German intelligence service. During his debriefing, he drops casual hints about British payments to a double agent in the Abteilung.

Meanwhile, Smiley, posing as a friend of Leamas, appears at Liz's apartment to question her about him and to offer financial help. In East Germany, Leamas meets Fiedler. The two men engage in extended discussions, in which Leamas's pragmatism is contrasted with Fiedler's idealistic outlook. Leamas observes that the young, brilliant Fiedler is concerned about the righteousness of his motivation and the morality of his actions.

Mundt, on the other hand, is a brutal, opportunistic mercenary, an ex- Nazi who joined the Communists after the war out of expediency, and who remains an anti-Semite. The power struggle within the Abteilung is exposed when Mundt orders Fiedler and Leamas arrested and tortured. Fiedler and Mundt are released, then summoned to present their cases to a tribunal convened in camera. At the trial, Leamas documents a series of secret bank account payments that Fiedler has matched to the movements of Mundt, while Fiedler presents other evidence implicating Mundt as a British agent.

Meanwhile, Liz, who had been invited to East Germany for a Communist Party information exchange, is forced to testify at the tribunal.

Called by Mundt's attorney as a witness she admits that Smiley paid her apartment lease after visiting her, and that she promised Leamas that she would not look for him after he disappeared. She also admits that he had said good-bye to her the night before he assaulted the grocer. Realizing that their cover is blown, Leamas offers to tell all in exchange for Liz's freedom, admitting that Control gave him the mission to frame Mundt as a double agent. But when the tribunal halts the trial and arrests Fiedler, Leamas finally understands the true nature of Control and Smiley's scheme.

Liz is confined to a jail cell, but Mundt releases her and puts her in a car that will take her to freedom; Leamas is at the wheel. During their drive to Berlin, Leamas explains everything: Mundt is, in fact, a double agent reporting to Smiley. The Queen, who had had a lot of ruling to do that day and for the last sixty years, lost patience. She turned away from the boy and the moving sack, back to her own plans. Second to the right, and straight on til morning, are not real directions, though Peter thought they were.

The truth was that by now the path to Neverland knew Peter by heart, and was always drawing him home, like a compass point to true north or a ghost to the place he was murdered. Peter flew with an easy grace, even with the sack in his hand. Sometimes he tossed it about with the fairies, just for sport, but Peter thought he was being most responsible.

He made clear that any fairy who dropped the sack would have to answer to Ninja Star. It was a piece of great good luck that the bag only started squirming and making loud, distressed sounds as they were flying over Neverland. The sack had been quiet so long, Peter had forgotten what was in it, and was startled enough that he dropped it.

Ninja Star and zir team flew very quickly to catch it, but only succeeded in slowing it down, so the sack fairly tumbled to the stones and bones below. Ashley Horowitz, daughter of Karen, daughter of Tracy, daughter of Margaret, daughter of Jane, daughter of Wendy, came out of the sack rolling and pepper—sprayed Peter Pan in the face.

For a moment she thought she must have made a terrible mistake. There she was on the island of nightmares—even worse than Grandma had described it—but the boy before her could not possibly be Pan the destroyer, Pan the thief in the night. He was sitting on the blackened shore and weeping in bewildered pain, as if he was terribly young and crying for the very first time.

Then she remembered that was how he got you.

The Spy Who Never Was

She took a step back, and lifted her pepper spray in steady hands. When he rose to his feet, she knew it was him. He was not exactly as her grandmother had described him either: She was older, too. She was past the age when he was meant to be exactly her size, and now here he was looking down at her. The bones of his wild, lovely face had stronger, sterner angles than in the pictures: He was not a little boy anymore. It was horrible to see those curling, crowing lips part, to show he still had all his baby teeth. Peter smiled more widely, his tiny teeth like little pearls gleaming in his changing face.

He advanced and Ashley backed up, wielding her pepper spray like a weapon. Quick as a flash he drew and thrust. Margaret had been nothing but old family history to her, a story in a book. But so had he. Peter drew in his lip a little, startled and hurt, as if it was the very first time he had ever been hurt although the tears from his last bout were still wet on his cheeks. It made sense that he would remember her. She had been the first. It was unmistakably the same place, but it was changed like Peter himself: There was a quality about the silent darkness that Ashley recognized from being a little girl, too scared even to get out of bed and reach the light switch.

The whole island was like a huge bedroom for a scared child, in which morning would not come again. The silence was broken by some terrible rustles and slithers. Ashley turned fast at the sound and found Peter gliding beside her, a few feet off the ground. Her grandmother had made sure she always had pepper spray under her pillow.

Ashley wished now that Grandma Tracy had told her to always dress for an abduction. Bare feet and glittery pink pajamas were not exactly ideal for a trek through Neverland. The rock was just the same. The lagoon stretched around it, black and viscous, like tar with ghosts moving in it. It took Ashley a moment to realize that the grey shapes, their ragged fins dragging the surface, their hair like clogged seaweed, were the mermaids who used to toss bubbles to each other and sing.

Peter flew over to hover above the lagoon like a huge dragonfly. Peter twisted in midair until he was floating on his back, kicking at a breeze. A mermaid reached up out of the waters to touch his heel: That was what Grandma Tracy had seen, the spring Peter had come for her. That was what had scared her so badly. The beginning of this. The mermaids swarmed in the waters about his feet like goldfish wanting to be fed.

Ashley, who was a kind—hearted girl, resisted the impulse to push him into the lagoon. A lot fewer girls dream of being mothers. Some of them want adventures of their own. You will have to forgive Ashley. She did not know Peter very well yet. She began to know him better when he tilted his head back to grin up at her. I would not have you think Ashley screamed out of fear.

The wartime spy who never wanted to be Smiley - Telegraph

In fact, she screamed because Peter had seized her up and was flying with her through the trees. Hang gliding is a bit alarming at the best of times. When your hang glider is a flying boy criminal, it is most unnerving indeed. They zoomed over the trees of Neverland, wind rushing in their ears. Ashley soon ran out of breath to scream.

All you have to do is think happy thoughts! He began to let her go when a furious tinkle from Ninja Star, like a dinner bell in a panic, gave him pause. No, ever so much more than twenty! He managed to catch her before she dashed out her brains and broke every bone in her body on the rocks below, but it was a very near thing. Peter made play with his eyebrows. The treehouse was very cold at night, and Ashley could hear the mermaids howling like wolves in the moonlight.

Peter seemed to drop off instantly to sleep, but Ashley had no plans to escape her captor.

For one thing, she had no idea how to get back from Neverland, and for another, she had no desire to have her head bitten off by a wild beast. She huddled under a blanket of flowers and leaves, and tried to sleep. In the morning Ninja Star woke her by tinkling about her head like a glittery mobile alarm clock. Ashley thought longingly of home, and flyswatters. She also noted that Ninja Star looked pretty sure of what zie was. Fairies, as you and I both know, only ever feel one feeling at a time.

Ninja Star spent ninety—nine per cent of zir time feeling fierce. Ashley chose her next words with care. Ashley was left with rather a dilemma. On one hand, these were the survivors of Neverland, the battle—scarred companions of Peter Pan, fierce and deadly warriors. On the other hand, they were about three inches high and glittery. From then on Ashley trained most mornings with the ninja fairies on the shore. She tried her best, but I confess sometimes Ninja Star despaired: Nevertheless, it cheered Ashley up. She was a girl who liked to keep busy. She was also growing more used to Peter.

He had a way about him, it must be admitted. If Peter awake fails to charm, Peter asleep is a heartbreaker. On the third night in the treehouse he woke Ashley crying and shaking in his sleep. Wendy had loved him. Ashley could not hold him, but she did her best. She stroked his wild curling hair until he was quiet. He was playing a game of leapfrog from one toadstool to the other. Peter spun on his toadstool and Ashley found herself staring down the length of his blade.

Peter sheathed his sword and performed a cartwheel in midair. She turned on her heel, and then found Peter hovering before her. He was very irritating that way. Would you like to go on one of my missions for the Queen? I am afraid to tell you that Ashley was not what you might call a trusting soul. Of course she did not believe him, but she did see an opportunity.

Shall we have a bet, between us? The social niceties should be observed. Little things like using the correct fork, dropping a deep enough curtsy, and not breaking into the royal boudoir while wearing pink pajamas. Ashley found herself rather embarrassed before she realized that the Queen was responsible for her kidnap.

The Queen had taken the break—in with great aplomb, sitting up in bed and reaching for her spectacles with one hand while waving away her killer butler with the other.

Post navigation

A little thing like being accused of a criminal act was hardly going to faze her. I would like you to apprehend the person who has invented this device to multiply the mass of objects by ten. The Queen rubbed her royal brow.

• The Bluest Eye: A Novel (MAXnotes Literature Guides)
• Mortal Memory
• My Magic Book of Poetry
• Epistemologia de Spinoza (Portuguese Edition)
• Israeli Historical Revisionism: From Left to Right