"Are you sure you're up to doing this, Koval?"

The voice was officious and crisp, offering a no-nonsense demand that required a no-nonsense response in return. I sighed and stared across the expansive table at my in-house handler, Tamsyn Stryker, who merely stared back at me impassively. Admittedly, it was part of the job description as an MI5 handler to be inscrutable, yet I thought that Stryker was being extra inscrutable that day. She raised an eyebrow as though she thought my answer was too long in the making.

I gave her a curt nod before I replied - "I understand the implications of the case, ma'am."

Stryker snorted before she said - "Cut the 'ma'am' crap, Mykhailo. It makes me feel old. And don't you dare say I am old."

She paused and gave me one of her cutting eyebrow raises again - not that I was going to do anything to contradict her. At a youthful-looking fifty, she was at least twelve years older than me, yet even that age gap did not mean much to me. I'd dated men that were her age and been quite happy with that age difference.

"Let me rephrase that, Koval," she said, reverting to my surname again. "Are you comfortable with this latest job? Have you researched your cover?"

"Yes," I said and smirked slightly. "I haven't had to do too much in the way of intensive background research. Some of my family are in the catering business. I used to help out at the restaurants when I was a youngster."

"Making your way through political science courses. I know. I am more than familiar with your files," she said before she gave me a level - and slightly withering - look again. "I guess what I'm trying to say is - are you ready? After that accident... after your last job?"

There was a thickening of the tension in the air as I stiffened slightly. I hadn't been expecting that subject to be brought up at all. My last case had gone badly, to put it mildly, although how badly, I wasn't certain.

The truth was, I could remember nothing of my last mission at all and only relied on the words of my handler that it had gone south of Valhalla. The fact that I had a bout of amnesia that no amount of force nor analysis nor hypnosis could break could convince me otherwise or even be able to contradict Stryker's statements. It was weird that that was the only thing in my life that I couldn't remember - in all other aspects, I had a photographic memory.

My handler sighed and leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled in front of her pursed mouth. Stryker gave me an appraising look but though she looked happy with what she saw, she still had a rill of concern in her gaze that seemed genuine. It was the most emotion that I had seen in her expression in a while and that unsettled me a little.

My handler and I could not be described as being close friends, or even friends at all. Instead, we were merely associates and had had nothing more than a working relationship for a long while. She was aware of my capabilities and my proclivities - if my sexual orientation could be called as such.

My handler before Stryker had made it known that he was not too happy with the fact that I was gay and had made his discomfort clear from the offset. This was despite the fact that I had displayed zero interest in him - largely because he hadn't been my type. For my own safety, he'd been relocated elsewhere.

Stryker sighed, closed her eyes and said - "This has the potential of being a dangerous case, Mykhailo."

I smirked a little at the return to my forename. By rights, she should also have referred to me by my patronymic as well, yet I was in England, and not in Ukraine. I had never insisted upon the use of patronymics while I was in England, even though I had actually been born in the country and only Ukrainian by descent.

"I have done dangerous cases before, ma'am," I reminded her blandly.

I smirked when my handler cracked open an eye at me again and impaled me with a sharp and lopsided glare.

"I am well aware of this, Mykhailo. But then you weren't operating under a cloud of amnesia. You are compromised. Be careful. Show me you still are the same old Agent Koval and things will go well," she said and a cloud of darkness passed over her face.

She hesitated in such a way that made me feel unsettled, as though she knew something that I didn't and I didn't like that. I almost asked her to explain her reaction yet she didn't give me the chance to form any sort of question at all.

"The truth is - the higher-ups here are watching you. Very closely," she advised me. "As your handler, I can tell you that much. As a due warning. Though to say more would be breaching protocol."

I nodded. I knew all about that protocol and had adhered to it all of my working life. It could be tiresome yet it was imperative when working as an agent of MI5. One breach of protocol, one slip of the artificial mask, and the cover was blown. I would be in danger, the mission would be in danger and people could get killed - me included. I'd known the danger when I'd signed up all those years ago and had never stepped out of line - from everything that I could remember. What I couldn't remember about the last case is what worried me.

I sighed and schooled my reeling thoughts before I smiled at Stryker.

"I will be fine," I assured her. "I am descended from Cossacks. We thrive on danger."

That made her laugh - a rare sign of humanity from my handler, though I hadn't entirely been joking. I was descended from Zaporizhzhian Cossacks and had found myself displaced in England, due to a default in birth.

"You will go deep undercover," she said. "Your background in the service industry should serve you well. You are familiar with different kinds of fish, no?"

I smirked again and said - "My family owns fish and chip shops all across London and Essex, ma'am. There's not much I don't know about fish."

"You've probably eaten more fish than I've eaten hot dinners in other words," Stryker said and she seemed satisfied at last. "Right. You're starting tomorrow. Be safe. Be lucky."

I merely nodded my head sombrely at her; it was her way of wishing me luck and dismissing me. I was used to her quirks by now. It was oddly comforting and mollifying to hear the words now, even though I could still read some sort of hesitancy in her eyes.

"One more thing, Koval. Your identity," she said and threw a package across the desk towards me.

I frowned and took a look at the top document - a fake passport with my photo attached as well as the name - Oleksandr Kovalnik.

I looked up at her in surprise before I asked - "Oleksandr? You do realise you've given me my dad's name, don't you?"

Stryker merely grunted and inclined her head as though she didn't care all too much. Perhaps she didn't.

"And Kovalnik? That's a bit too close to my real surname, don't you think?" I asked and my anger had started to coil in my stomach at the ineptitude. "Are you trying to get me killed?"

"If you're as good an agent as you seem to think you are, Koval, then you'll stop that eventuality from happening. Won't you, Koval?" Stryker asked yet I could tell by her tone that her question was rhetorical.

I glared at her yet Stryker merely gave me a blank face in return. I cursed as I knew that getting angry and objecting further would only cause trouble for me. As such, I stood and again bowed my head towards her in a form of goodbye, before I turned and left the room. I closed the door quietly behind me and began making my way down the corridor. A voice from a partially open door in another office reached my ears, and only the mention of my name made me pause by it.

"Goddamned Koval's going out in the field again," the voice said derisively.

"Already? Has he remembered anything yet?" asked a second voice which I recognised as John Russell's - my section head's - voice.

"Not that I can determine," the other voice replied.

"Good. Can't have that fellow racing around with all that information in his head," Russell said glumly. "He got too close last time. "

"Are you sure it's wise to send him out again? What if he remembers?" the second voice asked. "He won't. We've seen to that," Russell replied with a derisive snort. "This case is too different to the last for him to remember anything."

The other person snorted with his own derision before he said - "Are you sure? I don't see any difference at all!"

"This case involves organised crime," the section head said. "A different matter entirely. And he's not even in London for this one."

"Bloody near enough. Bloody Romford, if you please. Might as well be bloody London," the other voice snorted in continued derision.

"Yes, well," Russell replied with a sigh. "Be that as it may, this will be the undoing of our man Misha. You'll see."

I frowned at that. His use of my diminutive name - Misha for Mykhailo - seemed patronising at best and derogatory at worst. I also didn't like the implications that their conversation involved.

"Be that as it may," the other voice mimicked. "I still think it dangerous to send him on this mission."

"Too late. It's done. As I've said before, you worry too much. It's all sorted. Or will be. Finally," the section head said.

I moved on quickly when other agents began working down the corridor towards me - though they were walking together, they weren't speaking. A couple of them gave me suspicious glances as though they wondered why I had been loitering beside an unmarked office door with no real reason to be there. I moved on as quickly as I could and stopped only once to pick up the package filled with case files that were my due.

****

I hadn't been lying when I'd told Stryker that I'd prepared for the job. I already knew what the mission entailed - infiltrating a local organised crime gang based in Romford with tendrils reaching out over London and Essex - and possibly further. The gang was led by a billionaire mafia boss who went by the name - Zakariah Quantrell.

He ran a crime syndicate out of a chain of high-end fish restaurants with a flagship restaurant based in Romford, where the boss himself plied his nefarious trade. Rumour had it that illegal drugs and gun running had been the norm - until lately when people smuggling had become a main concern.

That people smuggling led to those illegal aliens 'finding' work in the fish restaurants, bedding down in nondescript rooms in the back of the establishments, working for peanuts and potentially gaining illegal entry into the country with false paperwork and visas. That, of course, constituted a crime against national security as any number of murderers, rapists, terrorists and who knew what else would find their way into England illegally - thereby jumping the queue that legal applicants had to wait for.

My family, when relocating from Ukraine to England - via legal routes - had opened restaurants and fast food branches. I also hadn't lied to Stryker when I'd said I'd helped out in many of them, therefore the cover as a waiter or bartender would come naturally to me. I'd already done deep research in other words.

What I did have to find out was the extensive network of criminals and people smugglers - names, faces, phone numbers etc - via my associations with Zakariah Quantrell himself and his direct minions. That meant integrating myself into their lifestyle as much as possible - preferably without blowing my cover.

I hadn't blown it before - in the cases that I could remember. In the case that I couldn't - well, that was anybody's guess or at least was my guess. It seemed that a lot of people who weren't me knew more than I did about what had happened. Or so I assumed from the things I'd seen and overheard that day.

****