“Congratulations, Mongoose.” Cheetah straightened up in his armchair and looked over the Secret Guard lieutenant standing there at attention. “I have examined your report on Operation Mockingbird. Six men rescued – great job. The Service thanks you.”
“His Majesty’s servant, sir!”
“At ease, Lieutenant. Sit down, this is no parade ground. So the retreat from Mindolluin happened under the emergency option?”
“Yes, sir. The last man I’ve watched – engineer Kumai, number thirty-six on our list – got into a stupid mess the day before the planned escape. The local warders turned him into chopped liver, and I had to fix him up real fast; to be honest, first I thought that there was no hope. I did save and extract him, but this completely exposed me: the snitches reported the healing, and… In other words, your boys from the backup team showed up just in time.”
“Yeah,” Cheetah grumbled and looked at the shabby walls of the safe house with visible disgust, “quite in time… Two dead bodies, three wounded, Her Majesty’s entire Secret Service is frantically looking for a Mordorian spy: a swarthy man with small scars around the mouth. Meanwhile, the police is looking for an escaped convict of the same description… I think, lieutenant, that it’s high time you changed climates; get packing to go South, to work in Umbar.”
“Yes, Captain, sir!” “Here, examine this dossier. Baron Tangorn, Faramir’s Umbarian resident before the war. We have reasons to believe that he is doing the same thing we are doing – looking for Mordorian experts and documents for his prince; there are indications that soon he’ll show up in Umbar. Your task is to capture Tangorn and get all the information concerning this Ithilienian venture out of him. His Majesty considers this operation to be of exceptional importance.”
“May I treat him harshly to get the information?”
“It won’t work in any other way; judging by this dossier, the baron is not the kind to buy his life with the secrets he’s been trusted with. In any case he’ll have to be disposed of after the interrogation, since we’re formally allied with Ithilien, so this whole story must not become known.”
“How will he come to Umbar – in an official capacity or?..”
“Most likely ‘or.’ You have an important advantage: it appears that Tangorn doesn’t know that he’s being hunted. He may even stay openly in a local hotel, at least at first, and then his capture will not be a problem. But the baron is an old hand; if he detects something amiss, he’ll disappear in that city like a frog in a pond.”
“Understood. Will I operate independently, alone?”
“Independently, but not alone. You’ll have three sergeants – choose them yourself, out of our people. If you find him quick, that should be more than enough. But if you spook him…”
“That can’t happen, Captain, sir!”
“Anything can happen to anyone,” Cheetah responded in annoyance, involuntarily glancing at his foot. “Anyway, while searching in the city you may not ask the local station for help, which is a great pity: they have a lot of manpower, and, more importantly, excellent contacts in the local police…”
“May I know why?”
“Because we have information that the Elves are very active in Umbar and there’s a strong pro-Elvish underground there. Under no circumstances may Lorien find out about your operation – this is the strictest order – and I’m concerned with leaks: our people are in the shortest supply, and all the resident spies in Umbar are regular people…” Cheetah hesitated a little and finished in a humdrum sort of tone: “You will have a G-mandate, just in case.”
Mongoose looked up at the captain, as if to confirm what he heard. So this is what ‘His Majesty considers this operation to be of exceptional importance’ means. A G-mandate allows a member of the Secret Service to act in the name of the King. In overseas operations this can be necessary for only two reasons: to give a direct order to the ambassador or to depose (or eliminate on the spot) the local chief of station…
Part III – The Umbarian Gambit
He was a self-made counter-terrorist, “part soldier, part copper, part villain,” as he liked to say, and he belonged to the fabled generation of his trade. He had hunted Communists in Malaya and Mau Mau in Kenya, Jews in Palestine, Arabs in Aden, and the Irish everywhere.
Chapter 36
Umbar, the Fish Market
June 2, 3019
The shrimp were excellent. They sat on the tin plate like battle-ready triremes on the dim morning surface of the Barangar Bay: spiky rostrums in the tangle of rigging (feelers) threatening the enemy, oars (feet) hugging the body, just like they should in preparation for boarding. Half a dozen per portion – can’t really handle any more of these genuinely ‘royal’ shrimp that barely fit in the palm; besides, the tangy juice that gave such a charm to the sweetish pink flesh was biting his out-of-practice lips and fingertips. Tangorn glanced at the awaiting tray with large coal-fried oysters: heat had split the large mossy stones a bit along the seam, shyly showing their swarthy contents; the effect was charmingly obscene. Say what you want, but nowhere in the world can they prepare seafood like they can in the small taverns around the Fish Market, not even at the fashionable restaurants on the Three Stars Embankment! Pity the sea slugs are not in season… He sighed and tackled another piquant juicy shrimp, listening absent-mindedly to his companion’s chatter.
“…surely you can agree, Baron: your countries are just a tiny peninsula on the far north- west of Arda that’s way overestimating its importance. Moreover, it’s inhabited by paranoiacs who have convinced themselves that the rest of the world can think of nothing else but how to conquer and enslave them. Please! Who the hell needs your sickly toadstool-studded copses, your snows that don’t melt for half a year, or that foamy brown sourwater that you drink instead of wine?”
Not that this dope’s elocutions insulted Tangorn’s patriotic sentiments (especially since most of what he said was true), but such statements sounded very strange coming from a high- placed official of the Foreign Ministry of the Umbar Republic; particularly so considering that their meeting was the official’s idea. The baron was not very surprised when this morning the appropriately obsequious proprietor of the Lucky Anchor hotel where he was
