“I’ll call you back on this number in 20 minutes.  Set the call up.  But first, send me the report.  I’m sure you know the email address, if you know my name already.”

“Alright.  In twen…”

Sylvia hang up.

Ugghhh!… just talking to him makes me feel dirty.

Twenty minutes later, she called the number she’d dialed earlier.  She’d finished reading the report his lordship had emailed her.

“Do you have her?” she asked, without exchanging greetings.

“Your manners are atrocious,” the man said harshly.

She heard a click, and then a connection apparently switched on.

“Hello?” she heard the voice of a woman.  Wary, cultured.

“Authenticate,” Sylvia asked quickly.

“Zulu, echo, bravo, 86438,” the woman answered, after a slight pause.

“You?”

“Alpha, tango, tango, 34601,” Sylvia responded.

“Not my handler.  The back-up,” the woman observed.

“I don’t know how to break this to you… you’re handler: he’s dead,” Sylvia answered softly.

“I guessed as much.”

“You were sacrificed.  I only pieced it together many years later.  I’d just joined the service when all this started, and I didn’t even know I was the back-up.”

“Don’t worry.  I knew the risks,” and then the woman paused.  “It was a highly delicate operation.  And my handler warned me about the risks I’d be taking if I had any part in rescuing those people.  Including his government’s involvement being disavowed if things unravelled.”

She sighed heavily at the memory of what had happened.  She continued, “You’re taking a huge one now.  I’m guessing this call is not secure?”

“No,” Sylvia admitted.  “But I have my reasons.”

“We all do what we must.”

Sylvia smiled.  “Yes.  Yes, we do.”

She breathed in a calming breath.  Here we go.  “I read your report.  Very thorough, but I’m also interested in what’s not in it.  Anything you chose not to disclose.”

“Which aspects?”

“How you came to find out about a group of people one wouldn’t otherwise suspect as working in concert, using the intelligence networks of some western powers, to track things, like shipments or air freight, or people.”

“You know who I am?”

“Yes. You used to be married to a man who run one of the largest industrial companies in your country.  You were also one of our double agents, able to reach behind the iron curtain.”