Finding ‘C’

Mr Bond 

BA flight 245, “We have an announcement”.

Entering Argentine airspace from Brasil, the cabin staff walk briskly down the aisles to spray DDT or perhaps less noctious insecticide. “It is required under regulation”,we are informed, “if you do not wish to inhale, cover your mouth and nose with a handkerchief”.

There follows the descent into Buenos Aires. In early morning sunshine the Boeing 777 circles the city, as it turns capturing views down to Puerto Madero and the wide river Plata estuary beyond. ‘Is that La Boca Juniors stadium?’, I ask myself, seeing the morning light glinting on glass and recalling secret walks there at dusk.

It is half a kilometre from the plane to baggage reclaim, where the carousel is spinning cases through plastic strips. With my single leather bag, I pass by the feverish tourists and proceed to ‘Migraciones’. Already the queues for non-residents are snaking back towards the access routes. Unlike my arrival on the ‘Hanjin’, this time I have a UK government pre-registered visa in the name of Cpt Bond, recorded fingermarks and digital photograph. I follow aircrew along the restricted special visa lane and a surly immigration officer waves me through.

The next hurdle is the customs check. Those with special visas are shown no favour, but my bag slips easily from the scanner. Beyond is the final flight-side point before freedom, the currency exchange and taxi booking services hall.

Mireille is somehow already positioned at the Manuel Tienda Leon desk, speaking rapidly in a confusing combination of French and Spanish. “Oh, James, I’ve got your ticket. We’re getting the autobus”. Before I can complain, she pushes forward towards the electronic doors which open with a whoosh. Beyond are the familiar scents and sounds of Argentina. A press of drivers wait with cardboard signs, and families gather in groups with flasks and ‘Mate’. Children run, porters shout, and outside taxis hoot impatiently. And the heat - a wall of hot air gushes forward to melt the moment of arrival.

“Follow me, James, I really know what I am doing”, calls Mireille, without glancing behind her. Through the covered walkway, we arrive at the bus stop where she waves two tickets, logs her case and receives in exchange a raffle ticket numbered 006. “Climb aboard, James. This way we get the best entry to the Capital Federal”, she continues, as we sidle between the worn coach seats. “Slide that curtain back, James, don’t screen the sun; we don’t want to miss anything on the journey”.

The Manuel Tienda Leon coach pulls forward into a line of taxis, and jolts as it forces its way onto the departure road. A clock, which at one point told the time, hangs limply from its wires and swings against the dashboard. The driver breathes heavily and waves a fist at the driver of a pickup calling out ‘boludos’.

As we pass through the two motorway tolls, and the roofs of Boedo and Barracas stream to our right, Mireille turns abruptly in her seat.

“James, I haven’t levelled with you”. “You know I told you I was here for the change of PM. That is not true. And neither are you here for that purpose. The message M sent was simply to force your hand to come back to Buenos Aires”.

“What are you saying, Mireille? In that case, what on earth are we doing here?”

“James, we are here to find a missing agent. Our mission is called ‘Finding C’. And we are not to leave until it is done”.

Bond in for a shock at Heathrow

Mr Bond

Heathrow Terminal 5, the champagne bar, a dish of Balik smoked salmon, mozzarella and caviar, and glass of Lombard Grand Cru Brut Nature. At my feet, my possessions contained in one leather bag. In my lap, my trusted Panama. On the shelf to my right, the bill.

I glance at the Bremont. It has turned 2130 hours and BA flight 245 has blinked onto the overhead monitor for gate B46. I pay with notes. Now to start the long walk.

Ahead, a crowd is littered across the departure lounge. Some laze with their trainered feet across the bench; others wait expectantly as if for the arrival of a celebrity. British Airways staff trot and dive beneath barriers, preparing to perform their departure ritual. The countdown begins, first with wheelchairs and buggies, followed by the suits and shades, and finally the teaming public who scatter down the passenger boarding bridge as if their favoured seat depended on their earliest arrival.

Three of us remain. He, by his look, demeanour and case, must be a retired pilot. He seems in no rush to go anywhere. She has been motionless, but at the last minute stirs as feet clatter in the distance towards the plane. She turns and smiles.  “Alors Bond, comment ça va?”

Mireille, what on earth are you doing here? I thought you were still in Buenos Aires?”.

Dear reader, you will recall that Mireille, a French Canadian agent with MI6, stowed away on the ‘Hanjin Buenos Aires’ in her bid for freedom. On board ship, for twenty two nights we had danced to old recordings from the Golden Age of tango - Canaro, Laurenz, Biagi, Troilo, Calo, d’Arienzo, Rodriguez, Fresedo, Demare. Once in Buenos Aires, she had disappeared to Palermo Soho, only to be seen from time to time dancing Argentine tango after midnight in the milongas of Canning or Villa Malcolm.

“James, they brought me back to Blighty to keep un oeil sur toi. I’m surprised that you haven’t noticed me before. I had to report your every move”. “And now, they want me back in Buenos Aires in readiness for the change of PM”.

“Does that mean that I am off the hook?”, I reply frowning at the thought that I have been followed in London for months without noticing. “Yes James, I gave you a good bill de sante with Hammond, although I definitely got grilling from his friend, that Paul Savident. He behaves like un espion, plutot q'un boss!”

I look at her momentarily and say to myself, ‘yes, he most certainly is a spy. And I sense, quite a dangerous one at that’.

Mireille disappears to starboard, and I settle into my club class couchette with the better class of blanket. It’s ‘no’ to more champagne, but a ‘yes’ to a Martini, even if it is stirred and the olive tastes rather like plastic.

Later, trays are cleared and the lights dim. From aft, the buzz of turbofan engines. From fore, the tinny sound of the inflight movie. And then 13 hours of fitful sleep before the descent into Ezeiza Airport, Buenos Aires.

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Bond recalled to Buenos Aires

Mr Bond

‘Well, that is an end of that’, I mutter as I glance half-spectacled over my copy of today’s Times. ‘Theresa is gone.  Without Brexit; and it seems she didn’t even get the trade deal from Macri at the G20’, I continue to myself. ‘But at least she got to dance tango with Gerry and Lucia in San Telmo!’

Readers will gather that several months have elapsed since I escorted Theresa and Philip May to their Argentine tango lesson in Balcarce just before the Buenos Aires G20. Perhaps my services may be needed again by Boris and his children Lara, Cassia, Milo and Theodore in June? After all, Argentine tango is also popular in Japan.

My muse is interrupted by the ringing of the phone, an ancient black Bakelite rectangle with a bell and a dial - like everything else in my Ormond Yard apartment, just past the brink of redundancy. “Bond, isn’t it time you got a mobile, old chap?”, says the voice. “Sorry to interrupt your retirement, but we have another little job, and there’s no one else who will go to there at such short notice”. There follows a pause. “You will, of course, be paid, plus club class BA flight 245 rather than the ship. Oh, and we’ll give you a brand new mobile phone”, the voice teases. “What’s more, if you are really good you can drive the Bentley and resume residence in the grace-and-favour apartment at Santa Fe, after all they’re just catching dust since you left Buenos Aires”.

This last offer sends my mind racing back to long, lazy, sun-filled days at Palacio Haedo, the department’s almost forgotten accommodation in Argentina’s Capital Federal. Built in 1860, it is one of the oldest buildings in the city. Untouched since 1923, the year Carlos Gardel recorded 'Mi Refugio', the apartment provides home from home antiquity with Ormond Yard, but with the added value of high ceilings and tall doors leading to shaded terraces tended by caretaker Raul and his cat Cleo. Somehow HM Government managed to get their hands on the top two floors in the 1950’s and as with the Malvinas, never relinquished their hold.

“So, what have you in mind?”, I ask casually, trying not to disclose my interest. “It’s the same as ever, old chap. New PM, so new trip to grab trade from Macri...or will it be Cristina’s mob if they get back in power?”.

With first rounds imminent in the Presidential campaign, former President Cristina Fernandes de Kirchner and Alberto Fernandez lead the current incumbent Mauricio Macri by four points. Here too the perennial division: whilst the West favours the economist Macri, the people remain seduced by Fernandez socialism. The only candidate that could topple both would be Evita, long dead, but always present in the Argentine heart and psyche.

“And who will I get to show around?”, I ask with a failed attempt at humour. “Will it be Johnson, Gove, Leadsom, Raab - or one of the other tailenders?”.

‘So, you’ll do it”, the voice cuts in curtly. “I’ll tell M that you’re in”, it continues. Then the phone goes dead.

I heave myself from the chair and walk to a rain-drenched window, with its ‘almost view’ over the roof-tops of distant Whitehall. ‘Now look what you’ve done, James’, I say to myself as I turn the brim of my old panama between my palms. But deep down I feel the bubble of excitement of a new challenge, a return to Buenos Aires, and of course, Argentine tango.

‘I wonder whatever happened to Moneypenny?’, I continue. And with that, a smile returns to my face for the first time since I left Buenos Aires.