-The Shield Of Time, pp. 86-87.
Holbrook/Everard, eavesdropping, thinks:
"Thanks, buddy." (p. 87)
"'Who have you got?'
"'Gardener/handyman, sir. Works there. Does the roses and the gravel, shops for the cook.'
"'Smart?'
"'No, sir, practically simple-minded. A peasant from up-country, comes from some melon-patch in the north.'"
-Frederick Forsyth, The Fist Of God (London, 1995), Chapter Twenty-One, p. 545.
Holbrook is an Unattached agent of the Time Patrol. The gardener is an SAS man and fluent Arabic speaker.
By contrast, in the Young Flandry Trilogy, and particularly in A Circus Of Hells, we see Dominic Flandry making mistakes and learning by experience the need to make the enemy underestimate him.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul! And good spies WANT to be underestimated by their opponents. That improves both their chances of survival and success in carrying out missions. And I remember those mistakes Flandry made in A CIRCUS OF HELLS. Fortunately, he knew how to survive and learn from them. Ad astra! Sean
Flandry developed a good line in his Upper-Class-Twit-Of-The-Year act.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I think we see that "Upper Class Twit of the Year" act by Flandry most clearly in "A Message in Secret," where he nearly convinced the shrewd and wary Oleg Khan that he was harmless. It was Bourtai who forced Flandry to show his formidably lethal abilities!
Ad astra! Sean
And again in TIGER BY THE TAIL, where he's doing the upper-class wastrel act -- imitating a useless placeman intelligence officer -- to cover his actual investigation as an intelligence officer when the Scothans abduct him.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I thought of "Tiger" as well, and should have mentioned it in my previous note. In fact, it was because of how he nullified the Scothan threat which caused Flandry to be given the rare honor of a knighthood.
Ad astra! Sean
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