Undersea Prison by Duncan Falconer Read Free Book Online Page B

the Intelligence Corps, the first documented proof of his existence. After a year training as an analyst in a camp outside Dover he volunteered for and was accepted on a posting in Northern Ireland. This was during the heyday of the campaign against the IRA, in the late 1960s and during the 1970s, and after showing great promise he was trained and eventually operated as a tout maker, one of the most dangerous jobs in the MI field.
    It was during this period of Jervis’s life that he began to display some extraordinary gifts. For example, he had a photographic memory and was able, after single and often fleeting observations, to quote countless vehicle registration numbers as well as each vehicle’s make and colour. But his greatest skill was an ability to piece together seemingly unrelated or only remotely connected pieces of information. The sum of these talents made him a most useful operative. He was posted to London where his skills developed further and were applied to Cold War diplomatic counter-espionage with impressive results. After his success in piecing together a particularly complicated surveillance operation involving Russian mini-submarines and Eastern European diplomatic staff in Scandinavia he came under the gaze of the head of MI6.
    Despite Jervis’s rough edges he began to make his way up through the ranks. He was unlikely to see promotion above his current post but as head of ‘special operations worldwide’ Jervis had reached far higher than he could ever have originally expected. He had earned his position despite his reputation for mischievousness which some of his peers interpreted as disrespect. His high proportion of successes, however, ensured a long career ahead of him despite the misgivings of his many detractors.
    The last man to step into the bubble was Gerald Nevins, department head of the South-Eastern European Section and Sumners’s immediate boss. After a quick look around to see if everyone was present he closed the triple-skinned door and turned a locking lever until a green light appeared at one side, indicating the room was sealed.
    Nevins ignored the remaining armchair and, looking quite solemn, chose to stand at the back of the room. Folding his arms across his chest he gave Sumners a nod.
    ‘Gentlemen,’ Sumners began and then took a moment to clear his throat, sipping from a plastic water-bottle he had brought with him. ‘Pardon me.’
    Sumners was an experienced briefer but had never before addressed a group made up exclusively of such senior personnel.When he’d been walking up the stairs from his office on the floor below he hadn’t been able to help thinking how this was not just a briefing but a personal assessment.These sorts of things always were. They placed a person under the microscope, something which could be both a good and a bad thing. Giving a briefing not only put on display a person’s eloquence and ability to address their superiors comfortably. It also exposed organisational, analytical and presentation skills as well as conciseness of expression and general bearing. If a person made a hash of it, especially in front of such an eminent audience, it could have detrimental effects the next time their name came up for review. People always remembered bad briefings.
    Success at this stage of Sumners’s career was more important than ever to him. He did not possess what would be considered by his peers as the best of pedigrees and it was growing late in the game for him to make a significant step up the ladder. He was the son of a British Army colonel who was not from the right regiment and Sumners himself had not gone to the right university. Jervis might well be proof that pedigree was not everything but Sumners did not possess any of that man’s extraordinary skills either. However, because of current world instability, specifically the threat from international terrorism, further promotion was not out of the question by any means.Years ago it had been