Mumbai, India

Mission: Mumbai

An 'Indian' season on channel 4?
My cousin wanting to go for a 'curry'?
The Times Travel magazine running an 'India' special?

To the untrained eye mere coincidences, a series or unrelated events meaning nothing and indicating even less.  To the covert field operative: a cleverly relayed message, a set of instructions to be followed and a clarion call to arms.

Best not to question how the powers that be manage to pull the required strings to 'make contact' but time and again they do and every time I know I work for the best.

As seems to be the way with these things the administrative duties fell to me to undertake.  Flights needing to be booked, visas applied for and injections suffered.  Bond may have had Miss Moneypenny but that was the movies and in the age of 'decentralised intelligence' (a personal moniker but one I am sure would be approved) it is evidently felt preferable to keep things spread out to diffuse any scrutiny.  Very wise and really quite brilliant.

And thus off to Heathrow.  A blacked-out Mercedes? An ever ready Aston?  That would be the movies again.  Nondescript is the game in reality, blend in, don't stand out.  No flashes of authority or need to reference a higher mission as the man at the coach office took 20 minutes to do the work of 5.  'The incompetence of others reflects the efficiency of self' is a personal mantra.  Basking in the anonymity I had so carefully prepared I felt sure my trail was cold and that those following me, walking beside me or dallying in front of  were merely going about their daily business, even if that business had them boarding flight BA199 to Mumbai.  A glance stolen here and there, a surreptitious sideways look taken in the blink of an eye confirmed my suspicions of the innocence of my fellow passengers.  'Complaceny costs', another little phrase I really have to pass up the chain.

A mere 8 and a half hours later we touched down onto Indian soil.  To anyone taking the time to notice (I felt sure there would be some) I looked the archetypal traveller (well, within reason) - all set for a sojourn around the subcontinent.  Though I lacked the seemingly mandatory dreadlocks that my research had unearthed formed a ritualistic headdress of the 'die-hard traveller' and yet to cloak myself from head to toe in 'cotton, anything as long as its cotton' I had at my disposal a plethora of well chosen phrases to fill out my new persona:

'I have come to find myself';
'India is just so spiritual man';
'I just want to be, you know?

Lacking sleep - the mind of a covert field operative rarely shuts down - I set my watch to local time and calibrated my senses to local life.  Shunning the diplomatic lane I knew I could use I instead queued with the mixed bag of natives, holiday makers and backpackers.  Handing my passport to the officious looking official at the desk I held my breath slightly - ever my passport is a road map to the missions I have previously completed - but not a glimmer from his eye, not a curl of a lip.  He had been briefed of my impending arrival I realised.  Not a stone unturned, not a corner into which the light did not shine.  I could now see the logic of my being funneled into 'Immigration Lane 8' - far from the quickest at the time.  Smooth progress raises ruffled eyebrows.

Leaving the airport I wondered if a car would be there to meet but no.  Really most sensible.  Therefore with used rupees in hand and a prepaid ticket to ride in my possession I stepped forth into the stifling heat and awaited the next sign, the next way marker on my journey.  With barely time to take a breath a head devoid of hair and a mouth devoid of teeth hove into view - balanced atop a precarious bag of bone and sinew I could tell the driver was a man of wit and wile.  An experienced asset who would not hesitate to do what it took to complete his assignment and see his charge safely delivered.  The best was being afforded me.

Driving as fast as  the little cab would carry us we stopped only briefly to attend some admin or other - the message carried by the little girl who came to the window I could not decipher but meaning - 'money, chocolate, sweets' - had I'm sure.  Such delays were temporary only and in order, I'm quite convinced, to elude any potential tails we proceeded to cover the distance to the hotel in a hail of horns, barging between buses, paying no heed to motorcyclists and squeezing through gaps of which even Pythagoras would have doubts.  Shrouded by a 30+ degree heat haze and the noxious product of more internal combustion engines than Henry Ford ever dared dream possible this was acclimatisation on the fast track.

Arriving at my hotel I deemed it wise to lie low - body and soul sometimes need time to catch up and pursuers sometimes need time to lose touch.  A room out the back awaited me - not at my bidding but again I felt the unseen tentacles guiding my path.  Away from the street and thus prying eyes it provided basic if adequate surrounds in which to see out the time before my scheduled departure early the next day.

With the alarm set for 5am I packed my field gear into the two bags which would, I hoped, see me through every possible eventuality over the forthcoming months.  Packing the night before a basic technique of the covert field operative - minutes in the morning make the difference between safe passage and awkward questions.

Awaking from my doze I lingered not a moment.  Showered and dressed with a ruthless efficiency I made my way the short distance from the hotel to the train station.  Taking the back streets as a precaution and travelling by foot I skipped over the bodies of man, woman and child still stretched out in a pre-dawn slumber.  Keeping moving while trying to discern quite which platform my train departed from meant only four or five questions as to where I needed to go needing to be asked.  Swinging onto the train with only moments to spare I caught my reflection in the carriage mirror - harassed and hot - I looked like that which I aimed to be.  A traveller...

Onwards...