Professionalism is an imperative in the world of International espionage. I don't have it. Every day, all the other operatives in my department stride stiff-necked into the Director's sound-proofed, electronically screened office and carefully place their latest mission reports on his massive wooden desk. They stand at perfect parade rest while the Big Guy hmms and ahhs over the file until he dismisses them with a terse, perfunctory comment on how neat their paperwork is. For myself, I usually drop a worn old 'Return of the. Jedi' Trapper Keeper in front of him and flop into a chair trying to light a cigarette using a pack of matches with the phone number of some very important Eastern Bloc contact scribbled on the inside. Outside, Bob is desperately trying to explain to the pizza guy that no, he did not order a large anchovy and green olive pie, and that this was a highly restricted government area and could he please leave. Bob never liked me much. Actually, that last bit was a complete fabrication. I've never actually seen my office. My methods in the world of international intrigue are neither conventional nor gentle, and my colleagues (who are all named Johnson) have never really understood how I manage to maintain the highest efficiency rating in N.A.T.O. Neither do I, actually. Frankly, I'm just lucky they don't count off for spelling. Somewhere, I'm certain, the U.S. government maintains a huge, multi-million dollar thinktank, full of lots of men with very important sounding degrees, whose sole job it is to correct the spelling of operatives' mission reports. So without being blessed by the muses with the gift of good spelling, to what can I attribute my success in the spy biz? You just read it: the words 'spy biz'. Most of your N.A.T.O. operatives are stuffy, professional types who are too concerned with filling out all the right forms and not concerned enough with having a good time - Yuppies with guns. Additionally, their ties are all too tight and it cuts off the circulation to their brains. For real espionage work, I personally advocate a loud pair of Bermuda snorts and a comfortable t-shirt. For formal affairs, wear a clip on. The problem with most of these guys is that when a "real" operative stumbles across a big-time conspiracy he gets flustered and screws up. "My God!" he thinks, "I don't have a proper KVR-3620-2 form for terrorists trying to steal 600 pounds of plutonium!" At the thought of having to improvise paperwork and actually be creative(!) most operatives faint dead away on the spot and are run over by the terrorist getaway truck. That's it, I suppose, creativity and a relaxed attitude. If any of you Mr. or Mrs. Johnsons out there are reading this column, I would suggest spending less time thinking about incarceration, bullets, and paperwork and more time thinking about those enormous bonus cheques you get at the end of a job well done. I personally find it much easier to gun down a fleeing assassin when I'm thinking about buying a very fast sports car, than when considering whether or not the man might actually be innocent. Don't bother me with technicalities, he looked suspicious. Another suggestion: get a new alias. Paranoid drug lords and hit men are much more likely to shoot a Mr. Johnson or Mr. Smith than a Mr. Heiferthumper or Mr. Gruntie. Studies show! Trust me! Some common misconceptions about the average spy: It always cracks me up when I see James Bond or Napoleon Solo on the tube, looking thoughtfully at a painting on a gallery wall, "This is truly a wonderfully exquisite rendering of neo-cubistic classicism, Mr. Villainous, but to a trained eye such as mine it is obviously a very clever forgery. You see, the neo-cubists had only horsehair brushes available to them and from this microscopic bit of came] hair see imbedded in the paint, I can easily tell that this is not an authentic Renault." When did these guys have time to learn all that!? Especially after having to go through twelve years of charm school!? Real spies know virtually nothing about art--we spend all our time learning to remove coffee stains from the very important, classified files that we weren't supposed to have in the first place. That, or fabricating uncopyable keys so the pizza guys can get into the Pentagon. Real spies aren't culture buffs. Well, my girlfriend is kind of an exception--but she's British. Case in point: I recently had an opportunity to be dragged by the nose hairs, by my girlfriend, down to tour the Louvre (a reasonably well-known museum I read about once). With the aid of powerful electric shock I managed not to fall asleep and got to see hundreds of famous works of art by dead French people. The coffee shop was okay. When I want to tell if a piece of art is a forgery, I flip it over and check to see if it was made in Taiwan. Barring that, I cut off a hunk of it and send it parcel post to someone who cares. "Yes Mr. Larson, that half of the Mona Lisa you sent me was indeed authentic..." Common misconception number two: Spies are not always dashingly handsome or stunningly beautiful. Being a spy, I've had the opportunity to meet several people in my own line of work, and to set the record straight, let me say that there are some real woofers out there. Fat spies are seldom encountered, however, as their expanded surface area makes a great bullet attractor. In fact, some of your old hands in the business are so thin that they can lose enemy pursuit simply by turning sideways, thus rendering themselves invisible. The leading cause of death among N.A.T.O. department heads is falling through street grates. Fat female spies normally carry large caliber handguns, so I won't comment further on that. Common misconception number three: Spies are seldom fluent in more than twelve languages. The State Department. spends more on Bantam House Foreign Phrase Books than the combined economies of the entire free world. This is a highly classified matter, however, because congress doesn't want anyone to know why we can't agree on a balanced budget. To combat this inconsistency, the director of the C.I.A. has had these items listed in the budget as "$780,000,000 ... for snacks." Incidentally, with 780 million bucks worth of, say, pork rinds, the U.S. army could completely bury the entire Middle East to a depth of nine feet. In my opinion this is a much more worthwhile investment than using the same amount of money to purchase a toilet seat. By the end of next year the Defense Department should have completed plans for the new B-21 stealth backhoe to deliver our pork rinds to their targets. Common misconception number four: The big one. Spies are never awarded obscure, lifesaving gadgetry from the 'Q' department. If we want that stuff, we have to go down to the Sharper Image-and it all comes out of our own pockets. Even then, it's hard to instill fear in the perpetrator of a vast international conspiracy by waving your Secret-Executive- Brief-Case-Billiard-Table in his face. Fact: Every good spy has his own fax machine (Thank you, honey.) More classified stuff next time. Back to Shadis #17 Table of Contents Back to Shadis List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master List of Magazines © Copyright 1995 by Alderac Entertainment Group This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com