Operation Agapornis

Jessica Smythe entered the conference room and held the door for the tall slender brunette that followed her. Those sitting around a large oval table quickly ended their conversations and stood.

"Ah, good, everyone's here," Jessica said as she led the woman around to the two chairs that had been left unoccupied for them. Turning to the women in the room, Jessica said, "For those who haven't had the privilege of meeting the Director of the KSN in Scotland, I'd like to introduce you to Sophie MacGregor."

Starting with the woman next to the visitor, Jessica said, "Betsy Finnegan, our chief of security, you've met earlier." The two women shook hands and exchanged greetings. "And next to her, Cheryl Cooke, our training coordinator."

"I look forward to observing your staff in action, Cheryl," Sophie said as they shook hands.

"You know Christina, of course."

Sophie smiled widely and waved across the table, "I'll give you a big hug later, Tina."

Moving on to the next woman, "Allison Smith, our fabulous recruiter."

Sophie leaned across to shake Allison's hand. "Great work you've been doing Ms. Smith."

"Our communications guru, Kiara Anand."

"Nice to finally meet you in person, Kiara," Sophie stated.

"And this is..."

"Agent X, I presume," Sophie took Abigail's hand in both of hers and held them. "I've looked forward to meeting you, dear. Let's talk later."

"Well, if everyone will take their seats, we'll go around the table with our usual updates and then Ms. MacGregor has some updates for us from Glasgow."

The women settled into their seats to begin their weekly staff meeting. The security chief detailed the recent upgrades to the Gretna Signals Station tunnel which were being made to accommodate more than one golf cart at a time to whisk people under the border. She also updated the group on the interrogation of the MRU mole who had been caught spying at the KSN regional office in Amsterdam. Sophie was able to fill in additional details they had been able to uncover through their sources within the Regime, and she assured the group that the infiltrator had been caught before any real harm had been done.

Kiara's briefing centered around the new codes that Major Taylor had recently sent by courier through the tunnel. They were still in the process of modifying their transmitters to be able to accept the new programming.

"And how is Major Taylor these days?" Sophie asked Jessica.

"Christina will have some information on that in a bit," she replied. She and the elder Hallewell exchanged grins before their attention turned to Allison Smith.

"We have eight candidates beginning training in two weeks," the recruiter said. "Three are slated to take up roles in safe houses in the homeland, two will be sent to the Continent, and the others will be utilized here in Scotland where needed."

"I could actually put a person to good use in Headquarters if you had anyone to spare," Sophie said.

"It takes a little over a month to run them through the basic training," Cheryl stated. "I think we have a girl in the new batch that might be quite an asset to your organization, though. We can talk to her while you're here if you'd like."

"That would be great, thanks," replied the KSN Director.

"Before we hear from Christina, I know you wanted to be briefed on Hummingbird...." Jessica said to Sophie.

"Yes, your new source!" Sophie cut in. "I've seen the intel and I understand your reluctance to transmit any info on the source itself. The Hummingbird intel on MRU troop movements has been a great help to our organization over the past two months, and before I hear more I want to share with you some of the successes we've had in areas you may not have heard about."

Sophie went on to tell the committee about some of the operations the new intel had allowed them to conduct, and also how carefully the information had been guarded. The KSN chief had many years of counter-espionage experience and knew the importance of safe-guarding sources and using their information wisely. Everyone at the table was relieved to hear the efforts that had been made to keep their informant's intel secure.

"So, who do we have to thank for this wonderful information? Someone high up in the MRU, for sure," Sophie guessed.

"Well, yes and no," Jessica said with a grin. "The KSN agent gathering the intel is none other than Christina's grand-daughter, Joanne."

"What?" the Director glanced over at Christina. "That's a breach of protocol. Joanne is a Minder and could be putting Cecil Court in jeopardy by performing fieldwork. How could you allow this, Jessica?"

"Peter is running this operation," Jessica shot back. "He's the one on the ground. Are you going to second-guess him?"

"Well...no...I mean, how did..." Sophie stammered. She was well aware of Peter’s experience and standing in the Network. If he hadn't volunteered to stay in England and work undercover he would surely be the one holding her position in Glasgow.

"I'm sure you remember the big to-do a couple of months ago when Olivia Wright went missing," Jessica said.

"Yes, of course, she was going to run but then our people convinced her to stay to protect her husband. I think that was a good call. Better the devil that you know, and all of that..."

"It was Joanne who convinced her to stay," Jessica added. 

"Oh really? So what are you telling me, that Olivia Wright is Hummingbird?" Sophie asked.

"I am," Jessica replied.

"She doesn't know it though," Christina interjected. "Jo is sending information that she's gathering simply by being close to the Wrights. Peter plans to recruit Olivia as an active source when he feels the time is right. For now he thinks it's best that Olivia believes the KSN has only talked to Jo that one time. He's worked up some scenarios that could be used to 'recruit' them both at the same time, or even Olivia first and then Joanne, to cover the fact that Joanne has been in the KSN the whole time. Peter wouldn't be running them, though. That would be delegated to one of his people to protect Peter's cover."

"That all sounds plausible," Sophie said. "And you're certain Olivia doesn't suspect Joanne is with the Network and is passing misinformation to her?"

"After the intel you've been getting, I don't see how you could even ask that, Sophie," Christina answered.

"And what about you, Tina?" Sophie fired back. "Last I heard you had retired to Long Riston, and now I find you're here on staff?"

"Oh you know, once you're in the game you never really get out. Besides, I'm helping X run Operation Agapornis." Christina looked across the table to Abigail and winked.

"Agapornis? I haven't seen any reports on this, is it a new Op?" Sophie asked, obviously perplexed at not having knowledge of an operation by that name being run.

"Oh, it's one of our most top secret operations, Ma'am," Abbie spoke up for the first time. "We've been running it for close to two years now; since Joanne started her senior year of college, actually. It was Christina who came up with the initial idea." Everyone turned to look at the elder Hallewell.

"Yes, well, I had started to consider what I would do with Leather Bound when it came time for me to retire," Christina began, addressing Sophia directly. "Not that I had intended to do that any time soon, mind you," she added with a grin. "My daughter has her stores in Long Riston but she's such a country girl I couldn't see her taking over the London store, not to mention the Network activities. The only person I had ever really considered handing Leather Bound over to was Joanne."

The seasoned intelligence agent leaned forward and rested her arms on the table. "It was about this time that Peter was preparing to take X to Gretna, and I could sense the change in his mood when he'd come over to use the transmitter. After it was done it was weeks before I saw him again. During that time, Jo had spent a weekend with me doing research for a school project, and as I sat there watching her work I realized what a strikingly beautiful young woman she had become. I thought how nice it would be for Peter to meet someone like her, and that led me to think about how nice it would be for Peter to meet Jo."


"Joanne was going to be graduating and I felt I had to act or she'd be off to who knows where to start her life. Mind you, I was not strictly considering Peter's well-being anymore but thinking about the Cecil Court operation, too. I'd had a good run in the Court but I knew I had to think about passing it on to Jo sometime soon or she might be set on a different path and not be in a position to take it over."

"So she contacted us with her idea to have her grand-daughter take over the book store," Jessica broke in. "The question was, would she also work with the Network? Christina had a good idea of where Jo's political sympathies lay but she wasn't one hundred percent sure. We decided to contact one of our scouts who teaches at Essex and ask her to feel Joanne out. Her report was very encouraging, and we sent Allie out to talk to her. Once we had her hooked, it was just a matter of reeling her in."

Abigail lifted her hand to break in, "I took over from there, Ma'am," she said as everyone looked her way. "As both a trainer and the person most recently close to the Major, I was assigned to oversee Jo's training, personally." Abigail looked at the women around the table and said, "I guess it's fair to say that I wasn't completely on board with the operation when Joanne was first brought in." This comment received more than a couple of snickers. "After-all, I wasn't about to fix Peter up with just anyone, even if this person was Christina's grand-daughter. I really had it in my mind to make her fail if I didn't like her."

"Obviously she passed," Sophie interjected.

"Well, let's just say she's an incredibly fast learner, and the more I worked with her the more I liked her, and the more I could see how good she would be for the Major."

There was a short silence in the room, and then Sophie raised her hands and said, "And? Don't hold back now, what's the mission status?"

After the laughter in the room had died down, Christina said, "My sources tell me they've been dating regularly since Olivia's 'ordeal'."

"And these 'sources' are reliable?" asked Sophie.

"Oh, I still call and gossip with my old friends in Cecil Court. You can't get more reliable than those ladies. They see and hear almost everything." 

Jessica looked at the clock on the wall and then leaned forward, "Okay, plenty still to do today, is there anything else to discuss?" She looked around the table at the others and said, "Right. Let's get back to it then." Turning to Sophie, she said, "X and Cheryl can show you around the training facility if you'd like."

"That would be great, but first I'm going to give my friend a big hug." She held out her arms as Christina approached.