I Confess All

‘Mister Braithwaite wil see you now,’ the secretary said in her Sloan Square accent, holding open the heavy wooden door and motioning for him to follow.

BENJAMIN PETWORTH

Benjamin Petworth stood up from the leather chair in which he had been daydreaming and followed the smartly dressed mid 60-something lady along the short corridor which led to Braithwaite’s office. It was a walk he had made on seven previous occasions. Each time vowing it would be his last. Every time his stomach as full of nerves as it was on this occasion. 

IN HER PRIME

‘She must have been a real looker in her time,’ he thought to himself as the smell of her expensive perfume trailed after the secretary as she clip clopped along the wooden floorboards of the Lyutens designed ministry building.

THE MINISTRY BUILDING

The bright corridor was lined with oil painted portraits of elderly men in suits. Men with dignified expressions who had defended the Empire and who carried family names from the rugby field’s of Eton; Rhodes, Montgomery, Halifax. 'What would those men think of the nation they had risked their lives for if they could see it now?' he mused to himself as they approached a tall set of oak doors.

AN EMPIRE BUILDER

The secretary rang a brass bell and the door was clicked open.

‘Mister Petworth is here to see you sir,’ she said to Braithwaite.

‘Do come in Petworth,’ the man said from behind his large mahogany desk on which sat a red telephone.

The secretary mouthed a friendly good luck to Petworth and closed the door behind him.

BRAITHWAITE'S OFFICE

Braithwaite had barely aged in the two years since him and Petworth had last met. The same sharp chin. Aquiline nose with the scar across it. Same slicked back grey hair. Same Edinburgh accent.

Seated on a burgundy leather chair besides Braithwaite’s desk sat a man. Younger, mid 50's. Piercing eyes that lacked warmth. A Man who you sensed could kill another with his bare hands and then go have tea and scones in Claridge’s afterwards without breaking a sweat.

MALBORO

‘This is Marlboro,’ Braithwaite said. ‘He has a proposal for you Petworth. Will you hear him out?’ 

‘Of course Sir,’ he said, hoping he wasn’t going to hear what he suspected was going to be said. Petworth was now 50 and had survived so many of these proposals on behalf of his country; Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Tajikistan, that he was now looking forward to a cushy desk job at Millbank Way with plenty of time to write what were going to be his heavily redacted memoirs.

PETWORTH ON HIS TAJIKISTAN MISSION

Marlboro stood up from the chair, smartened his tie and lay a map out on Braithwaite’s desk. In black letters across the middle of the green expanse were six letters: RUSSIA.

‘Listen Petworth, we know your feelings about this but we need one more expedition from you,’ Marlboro said in a voice far softer than would be expected considering the cold killer’s glint in his eyes.

HOW MALBORO SOUNDED

Petworth sank in his chair. They were indeed asking him exactly what he dreaded hearing most. In the seven years he had been making expeditions on behalf of his Majesty’s government he had nearly come unstuck a few times and his cover fatally blown. He’d been arrested in Kazakhstan and almost shot, caught and threatened with death in the Caucasus and had narrowly escaped a long Siberian prison sentence to name a few of the most recolectable.

PETWORTH'S LAST MISSION

‘We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t vital Petworth but you’re the only person who can get in and out for us,’ Braithwaite said having read the expression of resignation on Petworth’s face.

Not for the first Petworth cursed himself for having studied Russian at Oxford. And then for accepting an invitation to join ‘The club.’ Why did he not just take a well paying job in the city? But there was no point in arguing a way out of it. As much as he was disgusted by what was becoming of his nation and the weak men it was producing who would never fight for it, he knew he could not refuse it when it came calling.

'HOW WOULD THESE DAFT CUNTS PROTECT US?' PETWORTH THOUGHT

Marlboro continued...

‘In the north of Russia lies the city of Syktyvkar, as you no doubt know. What you do not know however is that on the edge of town is a nondescript looking factory which we believe is producing a type of hypersonic missile that we have absolutely no defence against. If they go into full production then this could re-write the map of Europe.'

‘Sir, I thought the Russians were making bombs out of washing machine parts and fighting with shovels these days,’ Petworth said sarcastically. Neither Braithwaite nor Marlboro smiled.

WINNING A WAR WITH SHOVELS

‘Petworth, we need you to go there and find out what is going on, and if necessary to destroy the place. Now don’t worry you won’t be totally alone. We have someone working on the inside who has managed to get a job as a secretary there. Her name is Svetlana Minskaya,’ Braithwaite said, sliding a photo of a beautiful dark haired girl across the desk. Her code name is ‘Zharka.'

She looked familiar to Petworth but he wasn't sure where from...

ZHARKA

That night, back in his Canary Wharf apartment, Petworth sat with a glass of vodka and lemon writing some kind of note at his desk. It read;

‘Good morning from Red Square. Today we are going to take a journey to a little visited town in Russia called Syktyvkar where hopefully we will learn some of the local language and meet some locals. Join Me!’

To be continued...