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The spy who crossed me

All television news channels and computer news websites have carried the story of a Russian father and daughter hospitalized after being poisoned by some mysterious nerve agent in Salisbury, England. Every report has the U.K. government outraged and indignant that such an incident could have taken place on British soil.
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All television news channels and computer news websites have carried the story of a Russian father and daughter hospitalized after being poisoned by some mysterious nerve agent in Salisbury, England. Every report has the U.K. government outraged and indignant that such an incident could have taken place on British soil.

While having sympathy for those in hospital, the target was no Ordinary Joe, but a double agent who had been convicted and jailed in Moscow for disclosing names of other spies to British authorities. A spy-swap landed him as a free man in the U.K. after a portion of his sentence was served, but he must have lived every day knowing that those he betrayed would seek revenge.

Ian Fleming served in Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, and later created the James Bond character, based on his own experiences and imagination; it became one of the most profitable movie franchises ever. James Bond worked for the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and for decades movie screens have been littered with corpses of his adversaries in the deadly world of espionage. Each movie attempts to outdo the previous one to find some dastardly clever way to eliminate the enemy agent.

The present outrage and indignation from the U.K. government seems quite bizarre; they appear aghast and gobsmacked, but we’ve all watched James Bond movies, and what transpired in Salisbury is surely life imitating art.

Bernie Smith

Parksville