NUMBER SIX

CODENAME: ANANSI NANCY

STATUS: ACTIVE, ON DUTY

LOCATION: MOSCOW, RUSSIA

One of the things that I love about this job is that sometimes you can use one problem to solve another.

The Boss gave up on the idea of seducing Feliks and sent me to find out if the man had any other pushable buttons. That’s where I’ve been this year. Working my way into his inner circle. It’s been a long op.

While I was working on that the Met Police caught Maxim Leontev, London based Russian mafia kingpin, on child prostitution charges. Someone jumped the gun on the arrest and they had to let him out on bail. He fled to Moscow.

Turns out Maxim and Feliks were best friends at school. They’ve been close ever since. No politician in Moscow will touch Maxim for fear of pissing off Feliks and no criminal will touch Feliks for fear of pissing off Maxim.

So we’ve got a politician who hates us protecting a criminal that we can’t extradite. He could stand trial in Russia if anyone would take our evidence seriously but they won’t because of Feliks.

I made my way up Feliks’ greasy pole, no, not like that, Number Seven. It was mostly by being charming, competent, and a reliable interpreter. I found out why Number One had no luck. Feliks is gay but he’s also monogamous. I know. I thought they’d died out too but he’s serious about it. He’s had the same boyfriend since compulsory army service when they were both 17. The only other person who gets to see him naked is his wife and that’s only because they’re trying for a baby. She’s the boyfriend’s sister.

They’d be a cute trio if one of them wasn’t horrifically corrupt.

And we were right about Feliks’ homophobia. It is partially a performance. What he really hates is people being affectionate in public. Or naked in any non-bathing context. He thinks the proper place for affection is at home, in the dark, with the lights off.

You’re wondering where the gay porn comes into this. We’re not the only people who noticed that Feliks was protesting too much. There’s a long standing rumour that he made a gay porn movie when he was young and broke.

I so wanted it to be true but my research proved that it wasn’t. What I did find was a minor Latvian porn actor with the stage name of Felix XXX who looked a bit like young Feliks. Made two films and then dropped out of sight. So I thought why not make it true?

I set up a studio and I borrowed some money from Maxim to make some porn. I didn’t tell him what sort of porn. I hired some pretty young things that looked like Feliks’ staff. I took the lead role myself, of course.

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I was all set to go. I had a film made with Maxim’s money and apparently starring Feliks. I started a rumour that Felix XXX was back with a stunning new film and I started distributing it via Maxim’s contacts.

After a couple of weeks, with the rumour mill at full speed, I sent a copy of it to Feliks’ boyfriend with a nice card signed by Maxim.

Feliks was on the warpath. He wanted to prosecute Maxim for distributing the fake film but if he did that not only would more people hear about it but it’ll look even more like it’s him. And there I was, ready to point to a bunch of charges against Maxim for child porn, all with wheelbarrows full of evidence. He can prosecute Maxim for his crimes in London and sell it as a moral crusade. All he has to do is to agree to work with Scotland Yard.

He could even use it to make him look like an honest politician, not afraid to go against his friends, a man of principle.

I was actually in a meeting with Feliks and the British Consul when I got the message about Number One. I just hope Scotland Yard sends someone really persuasive or all my work was for nothing.

#

'Not for nothing,' said Seven. 'You got to make a porn film. I’ve never made one. Well, not on purpose.'

'Wait a minute,' said Four, 'There’s an actual porn star who looks like Feliks but you, who look nothing like him, took the lead role?'

'Felix XXX only did porn to raise money for certain medications and surgeries. I hear she now goes by Felicia and is quite a popular cruise ship singer.'

'Did you go with CGI or…' said Two.

Three interrupted her, 'Of course he went with a mask. He loves those things. You must have seen the way he does that full face tear off thing at the end of every opp.'

'I’m a showman,' said Six, looking wistful. 'I really should have been on the stage.'

'Yes you should,' said Seven. 'In Amsterdam. Do they still do those live sex shows in Amsterdam?'

Six scowled. 'What about you, Lucky? Where were you?'

'Don’t call me that.' Seven reached for the full glass of Tequila that Six had poured for him.

'I bet it was somewhere glamorous,' said Four.

'Definitely more glamorous than Bristol,' said Three.

'Even Bristol is more glamorous than a Cartel compound in the middle of a sweaty fucking jungle,' said Five.

'I was on a yacht,' said Seven.

'See,' said Four. Seven would have objected to her tone but, as someone who’d recently spent a week travelling by cargo container, she had every right to object to the amount of time he spent on super yachts and charter planes.

'Being tortured,' said Seven. Hopefully that would shut the others up.

'Glamorously tortured?' said Five. Or maybe not.

'Incompetently tortured,' said Seven.

Number Two interrupted him before he could go on. 'Best kind of torture,' she said.

'I was in Monaco…'

'Ooooooooh,' said Four and Five in unison, cutting through the rest of the sentence. At this rate he would never get to the punchline.

'If you don't want to hear about me being incompetently tortured by a fat old man wearing tiny swimming trunks I can stop,' said Seven. That caught the attention of Number Six.

'If you lot don’t stop interrupting Lucky I swear I will make you regret it,' said Six.

'Don’t call me,' Seven started to say but decided that while he had the floor he might as well finish the story. 'Never mind. I was in Monaco.'