Pirate Prentice is a strange talent for—well, for getting inside the fantasies of others: being able, actually, to take over the burden of managing them, in this case those of an exiled Rumanian royalist who may prove needed in the very near future. It is a gift the Firm has found uncommonly useful: at this time mentally healthy leaders and other historical figures are indispensable. What better way to cup and bleed them of excess anxiety than to get someone to take over the running of their exhausting little daydreams for them ... to live in the tame green lights of their tropical refuges, in the breezes through their cabanas, to drink their tall drinks, changing your seat to face the entrances of their public places, not letting their innocence suffer any more than it already has ... to get their erections for them, at the oncome of thoughts the doctors feel are inappropriate
So of course when Pirate makes the mistake of verifying the fantasy with Loaf, it's not very long at all before higher echelons know about it too. Into the dossier it goes, and eventually the Firm, in Their tireless search for negotiable skills, will summon him under Whitehall, to observe him in his trances across the blue baize fields and the terrible paper gaming, his eyes rolled back into his head reading old, glyptic old graffiti on his own sockets. . . .
The first few times nothing clicked. The fantasies were O.K. but belonged to nobody important. But the Firm is patient, committed to the Long Run as They are.
Novi Pazar, anyhow, was still a croix mystique on the palm of Europe, and EO. finally decided to go to the Firm for help. The Firm knew just the man.
Early in 1939, he was discovered mysteriously suffocated in a bathtub full of tapioca pudding, at the home of a Certain Viscountess. Some have seen in this the hand of the Firm.
It's as useful to him as he is to the Firm—who, it is well known, will use anyone, traitors, murderers, perverts, Negroes, even women, to get what They want. They may not've been that sure of Pirate's usefulness at first, but later, as it developed, They were to grow very sure, indeed.
His best guess is that Mexico only now and then supports the Firm's latest mania, known as Operation Black Wing, in a statistical way—analyzing what foreign-morale data may come in, for instance— but someplace out at the fringes of the enterprise, as indeed Pirate finds himself here tonight, acting as go-between for Mexico and his own roommate Teddy Bloat.
There's now been no word of Slothrop for nearly a month, since the fumbling asses in military intelligence lost him in Zurich. Pointsman is a bit browned-off with the Firm. His clever strategy appears to've failed
No one has ever left the Firm alive, no one in history—and no one ever will.
Well: he guesses They have euchred Mexico into some such Byzantine exercise, probably to do with the Americans.
Like every young man growing up in England, he was conditioned to get a hardon in the presence of certain fetishes, and then conditioned to feel shame about his new reflexes. Could there be, somewhere, a dossier, could They (They?) somehow have managed to monitor everything he saw and read since puberty . . . how else would They know?
Everybody was waiting around for a Captain Prentice from S.O.E. (those
prickly bastards take their time about everything), who does presently show up. Slothrop
gets a glimpse— windburned face, big mean mother. Prentice takes the cylinder, drives
away, and that's that.
Pirate Prentice of the S.O.E. came back with the first hard intelligence that
there were indeed in Germany real Africans, Hereros, ex-colonials from South-West
Africa, somehow active in the secret-weapons program
Squalidozzi did show up again though, in Bremerhaven. He had just been chased
across what was left of Germany by British Military Intelligence, with no idea why.
For some reason now, she who never laughs has become the top surface of a deep,
rising balloon of laughter. Later as she's about to go to sleep, she will also whisper,
"Laughing," laughing again.
He will want to say, "Oh, They let you," but then again maybe They don't. But the Katje
he's talking to is already gone, and presently his own eyes have closed.
[Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas PYNCHON, ]
Also there, to Lloyd’s surprise, was Major Lowther, who had been in charge of the intelligence
course at Tŷ Gwyn, and had been snootily disapproving – or perhaps just envious – of Lloyd’s
friendship with Daisy.
Lloyd knew that Lowthie had been posted to the British Embassy in Madrid, and guessed he
worked for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, but he would not have expected to see him this far from the capital.
[Winter of the World, Ken FOLLET]
The argument of this post is related to the ones contained in Maps & Secret Services, The Art in the Agency and in SIS, aka MI6...A little bit of History.
Also there, to Lloyd’s surprise, was Major Lowther, who had been in charge of the intelligence
course at Tŷ Gwyn, and had been snootily disapproving – or perhaps just envious – of Lloyd’s
friendship with Daisy.
Lloyd knew that Lowthie had been posted to the British Embassy in Madrid, and guessed he
worked for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, but he would not have expected to see him this far from the capital.
[Winter of the World, Ken FOLLET]
The argument of this post is related to the ones contained in Maps & Secret Services, The Art in the Agency and in SIS, aka MI6...A little bit of History.
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