British Intelligence Headquarters (the “Circus”), London:
“Come in, Linkworth.”
“Yes sir. Good to see you, MMM.”
“Don’t mumble, man, speak up.”
“No, sir, I was just using your new title. Remember, now that the Americans have a new intelligence czar, the PM insisted on a higher title for you. So M became MMM.”
“Oh, right. Anyway, what is this super-sensitive information about anyway?”
“Well, MMM, --“
“Out with it, man! Don’t hesitate!”
“Well, sir, one of our doubles in the henchvillain community, Professor Manyarms, has reported from Parodiopolis that a woman calling herself Baroness Zemo has sent no fewer than 24 highly-powered henchmen and women into the past to do dirty work. This appears to be the same Baroness Zemo who was tied to the Parodiopolis Federal Reserve gold theft, the petroleum manipulations, the bandwidth futures squeeze, the credit default swap panic and the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation takeover. Rather a nasty series of capers.”
“No Baroness of ours, at least, what?” MMM expostulated. “She actually was some American from out of the Wild West, as I recall. Dewmist or Dewdrain or something?”
“Dewdrop, sir. Elizabeth Sweetwater Dewdrop. Claims to be Baron Otto Zemo’s granddaughter, although the Almanach de Gotha hasn’t bought it yet. Cheeky girl, I suspect.”
“Baron Zemo . . . Zemo. We had a lot of run-ins with him back in the big one, didn’t we?”
“Almost legendary, sir. Never captured the blighter, though. Always got away, like a comic book villain. Don’t quite know what he was actually about, though. Too far in the past. Might be in the archives.”
“Well, I suppose the cousins will be dropping by for some help soon. Terrible timing. We’re stretched to the limit as it is.”
Linkworth continued. “I took the liberty of looking up which of our chaps had some success against the original Zemo. Had to go back into the paper archives, too old for the electronic database. The file was almost illegible, but it indicated that somebody named Wilton had the most success against Zemo. I ran the name against the pension list and got two hits.”
“Go on.”
“The first was a Sir Mumphrey Wilton, with a rather large bag of initials following his name. Claims to have foiled Zemo multiple times. But the problem is, the records show he was over one hundred years old at the time. There’s a gentleman of that name working with the Lair Legion as you know, probably his grandson, also named Sir Mumphrey.”
“Mumphrey? With an M? Must be some mistake, Linkworth. I dare say there was a Sir Humphrey Wilton, and Records fouled up the name and mixed his records with those of other agents. Mumphrey indeed!”
“As you say, MMM.”
“Don’t hum at me.”
“Then we have the other candidate, a special agent throughout the war, Roger Wilton. Amazing record: in Norway just before the German invasion, Vichy just before Laval’s ascent, Italy at Monte Cassino, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Prague and the Nazi Redoubt at war’s end. Funny though, there’s no indication of what he did. Even more curious, he was placed into cryogenic suspension right after the war.”
“That’s our man,” MMM declared. “Clearly he was top level, too critical to entrust his exploits to the written record. He must be the one who scored all of those successes against Zemo. And like a true patriot, he froze himself until Queen and country again required his services against his nemesis.”
“I wouldn’t be quite certain of that, sir. I was referred to Dame Ilene Watson –“
“The head of records during the cold war?”
Linkworth responded, “Quite, sir. She was rather leery of Roger Wilton. Not quite certain that he was an asset to our side.”
“Is she suggesting he was a double agent?”
“No, sir. She had never met the man, and she had no more recollection of his records than what I described a moment ago.”
“The woman has a photographic memory,” MMM harrumphed. “There must be something.”
“She did have one piece of information, but it is rather tendentious. It was from Sir Percy Andros –“
“Andros? That traitor? The one who took his leave from the Queen’s arboretum and sailed off on a Polish tramp freighter to Leningrad?” MMM was unusually upset.
“Quite, quite. A completely unreliable source. Nevertheless, Dame Ilene was rather insistent that I take account of Sir Per – sorry, Andros’ assessment.”
“Which was?” MMM growled.
“Roger Wilton was the greatest hope of the Axis. A man so incompetent, so ignorant of tradecraft and so inexpressibly clumsy that we had to freeze him to insure the safety of the realm.”
“This from one of those Cambridge commies who brought this country to the brink of Bolshevism? Taradiddle. I want Roger Wilton defrosted at once; we’ll get him briefed, send him over to the cousins, and let him have at this bogus Baroness. It’ll probably be over in two weeks. And I won’t have to pull a single man out of Iraq.”
“That course of action might be seen as a trifle impetuous, sir.”
“Balderdash. I’ve made my decision, carry it out.”
Playing the part of Baroness Elizabeth Zemo (when she gets back to this story):
J. JONAH JERKSON
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