Donovan St. Claire wandered the brightly lit metallic halls of ESPION headquarters. He kept his eyes staring straight ahead, but it was through his peripheral vision that he spied through the glass picture windows of each room as he passed by. Without missing a beat, his brilliant analytical mind was able to process everything he saw and make conclusions on what was occurring that he would estimate to be about 98.5% correct. This was what having a 185 IQ, a photographic memory, plus 20/10 vision garnered you… knowledge of your surroundings above and beyond anything other people would believe you were capable. It wasn’t just once that lower-level agents whispered to each other that the man in charge had ‘ESP’… but in truth, St. Claire was just more perceptive than perhaps anyone they’d ever met. Had he been a fortune-teller rather than the head of an espionage agency… he’d have been one of the best of all time. It also didn’t help quell the whispers that they were working for an organization called ESPION… supposedly chosen by St. Claire himself. “ESP”… “ESPION”… the similarities were there and his ability to read a situation only strengthened that belief. Donovan of course knew he had no hocus-pocus to speak of… but the idea of it certainly helped keep the youngsters in line.
Each room that he passed held a field agent working on whatever paperwork or computer-work they needed to complete. What the outside world has never understood is that 90% of your time working in the espionage field is spent behind a desk doing research, analysis, and writing reports. People had been misguided by the entertainment industry into thinking that being a spy is constant thrills and excitement… but the truth is just the opposite. Being a spy is just like playing tournament poker… incredibly long stretched of boredom interspersed with mere moments of absolute terror. Donovan had spent forty years living that life… and it was always amusing for him to walk these halls and see his youngsters experience that boredom firsthand.
Marcus Rewi was at his desk manipulating satellite images for a site in the Swiss Alps that ESPION discovered was stockpiling warheads for some reason…
Carl Archer was buried underneath two hundred and eighty separate newspapers from around the globe that had gathered on his desk for the past two weeks while he was on assignment. Part of being the so-called “expert” on the world’s politics was that Donovan made him read every daily newspaper from twenty different international cities cover-to-cover…
Elz Taszyck was writing a three hundred page report on what went right and what went wrong during a mission recently when she led a group of field agents into the Czeck Republic to recover documents that had been lost due to the death of another agent in the field…
Jason Paquin was memorizing the detailed specs for the new stealth bombers the United States government had just recently activated for their military… memorizing them down to the number of rivets it took to hold the metal ship together…
These were just some of the agents that he had at his command. As a former commander in MI6, and a liason to the United Nations… Donovan St. Claire was a smart choice to head up the ESPION agency… the intelligence branch of the U.N. – a branch that most people didn’t know existed. This was of course exactly how Donovan liked it… which is why he populated the agency with numerous men and women that you’d ordinarily not find working for a group such as this. Agents with shady pasts… agents with backgrounds not necessarily in espionage… agents from numerous countries and with numerous years of experience. St. Claire could read them when they appeared before him, and he would know within 5 minutes whether they would be able to work for and with him. ESPION required special agents… and Donovan took pride in finding them. The ones that populated this hallway were some of his best.
He eventually made his way back to his office… one flight below the agent’s offices. As he threw open the door to his suite, his secretary, Maria Navarez handed him three files rubberbanded together that had just arrived via fax… and the look on her face told him all he needed to know. The U.N. had another mission they needed his work on… or more precisely, his agent’s work on… and he nodded to her once and carried the files back into his inner office. He shut the door behind him, pulled out the leatherbound rolling chair from underneath his large mahogany desk, then sat down and began to read.
Another day at ESPION was beginning again…
Each room that he passed held a field agent working on whatever paperwork or computer-work they needed to complete. What the outside world has never understood is that 90% of your time working in the espionage field is spent behind a desk doing research, analysis, and writing reports. People had been misguided by the entertainment industry into thinking that being a spy is constant thrills and excitement… but the truth is just the opposite. Being a spy is just like playing tournament poker… incredibly long stretched of boredom interspersed with mere moments of absolute terror. Donovan had spent forty years living that life… and it was always amusing for him to walk these halls and see his youngsters experience that boredom firsthand.
Marcus Rewi was at his desk manipulating satellite images for a site in the Swiss Alps that ESPION discovered was stockpiling warheads for some reason…
Carl Archer was buried underneath two hundred and eighty separate newspapers from around the globe that had gathered on his desk for the past two weeks while he was on assignment. Part of being the so-called “expert” on the world’s politics was that Donovan made him read every daily newspaper from twenty different international cities cover-to-cover…
Elz Taszyck was writing a three hundred page report on what went right and what went wrong during a mission recently when she led a group of field agents into the Czeck Republic to recover documents that had been lost due to the death of another agent in the field…
Jason Paquin was memorizing the detailed specs for the new stealth bombers the United States government had just recently activated for their military… memorizing them down to the number of rivets it took to hold the metal ship together…
These were just some of the agents that he had at his command. As a former commander in MI6, and a liason to the United Nations… Donovan St. Claire was a smart choice to head up the ESPION agency… the intelligence branch of the U.N. – a branch that most people didn’t know existed. This was of course exactly how Donovan liked it… which is why he populated the agency with numerous men and women that you’d ordinarily not find working for a group such as this. Agents with shady pasts… agents with backgrounds not necessarily in espionage… agents from numerous countries and with numerous years of experience. St. Claire could read them when they appeared before him, and he would know within 5 minutes whether they would be able to work for and with him. ESPION required special agents… and Donovan took pride in finding them. The ones that populated this hallway were some of his best.
He eventually made his way back to his office… one flight below the agent’s offices. As he threw open the door to his suite, his secretary, Maria Navarez handed him three files rubberbanded together that had just arrived via fax… and the look on her face told him all he needed to know. The U.N. had another mission they needed his work on… or more precisely, his agent’s work on… and he nodded to her once and carried the files back into his inner office. He shut the door behind him, pulled out the leatherbound rolling chair from underneath his large mahogany desk, then sat down and began to read.
Another day at ESPION was beginning again…
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