The Trial And Tribulations Of A Journalist In The Age Of The Shrinking Printing Press-Ida Thornton’s Attempts To Move Up The Journalism Food Chain Via MI6 (British Intelligence)

By Sarah Lemoyne

As I mentioned in a recent film review I have been along with Will Bradley and Seth Garth as “unofficial” mentor since he is one of the serious devotees of film noir around the office working on a major series slated for the Fall of 2019 on the 1940s-1950s heyday of that genre. One night though after work the three of us were sitting in Jimmy Thorne’s Pub across from the office when we were joined at my request by Ida Thornton. Ida was my roommate at the NYU Graduate School of Journalism and was in town for one of her now myriad free-lance assignments since she still has not obtain a by-line in this shrinking print/on-line journalism world. I did not invite her to come for any particular reason except I wanted her to meet Will and Seth, especially Seth who might have an idea how she could catch on at some publication and start paying back her student loans sometime before she faces retirement. I should mention as well that Ida is a British national, an Englishwoman which will become important in a minute. (Somehow I had forgotten that Ida was connected to the well-known English supermarket chain Thorntons and it was not to repay student loans as such she needed the money but to as her father had said after her master’s degree graduation “she had to learn to fly on her own.”)

Ida had always been full of ideas about how to get ahead in journalism in an age when the Internet and “citizen” journalism are in some ascendance. Instead of Seth or maybe me telling her something that might help get her a leg up in the business Ida regaled us for the evening, for three or four drinks anyway with her latest efforts to break-out of the dreaded free-lancer-stringer world every novice faces. Probably having seen too many spy movies, James Bond movies, she told us that she had applied to MI6, the British counterpart to the American CIA as the way to get some foreign assignments and some experience. Not so much acting the spy with “foreign correspondent” as cover as just gathering information out in the public say in Morocco, something like that. Ida is probably as patriotic for England as I am for America so the idea of governmental service for her resume was not out of hand as I had thought once about working for the Voice of America to get some experience before I heard about this job opening. What did seem strange and what kept us in thrall that evening was one of the MI6 requirements that she submit a story of her own creation about some aspect of spying, the spying industry. Something like Le Carre or Ian Fleming I assume. The purpose of this exercise apparently was to separate out the serious from the geeks, holy goofs, Seth’s tern not mine, and mad hatters who apply thinking that this is an easy job with plenty of glamour and free time from their own watching too many spy films.         

Before Ida started Seth mentioned that he hoped she had not dip back into the old time Cold War American-Soviet intelligence games since that was “old hat,” gone by the wayside as Le Carre found out when he faced a non- Cold-War world and dropped down the pecking order. Ida looked at Seth like he had two heads since she frankly admitted that she was clueless about those times having not even been born when the Soviet Union crumbled. Ida did say that she set part of her story in Central Europe since that area was still hopping with intrigue and made better backdrop that the bland EU countries. British intelligence had some back channel connections there still.

Here is how I remember Ida laying out her story:

As an ardent feminist Ida wanted to have a couple of sprightly young women central to her storyline feeling that if she used two women who were in no way trained spies like her she could in story form make her case for acceptance into the initial training program. For no particular reason other than she had gone to school there and knew some of the landmarks she had these women based in New York City. Seeking a link to the spy industry complex she had one of the young women, Clair, dating a guy, Hank, who would shortly thereafter turn out to have been a spy for the CIA. Once Clair was exposed to that information after Hank had screwed up an assignment which could have exposed a whole underground operation by one of Hank’s CIA handlers the madness began.

Ida had initially intended that Hank’s situation was so dangerous that he had to break up his relationship with Clair to protect her from some bad ass people who were after him. Of course, these post-Soviet, post-9/11 days bad ass people are either part of the international drug cartel or plain everyday rogue element terrorists taking orders from whoever would pay the freight. Confused, the sullen Clair, aided and abetted by her longtime best girlfriend Mora known since freshman college days, tries to get over Hank’s misunderstood dumping of Clair by drinking themselves silly. Meanwhile Hank has been caught between a rock and a hard place in one of the Baltic states, having worn out his welcome in Central Europe, Vienna for one, because he allegedly has something, a digital stick file filled with important information about an international terrorist ring’s plans for wreaking havoc on the world. Plans detailing the only the only way they know how wreck that havoc by blowing stuff up. The group, code-named Hummus, has it tentacles everywhere so no place or person was safe once their agents were on the scent.        

The fate of that digital stick (nice modern touch, Ida) is what drives what is at time harrowing and at others zany actions headlined by Clair and Mora after Hank falls on his sword. Falls on his sword but not before giving his Clair instructions about getting that stick (hidden on of all things a cheapjack bowling trophy which had Will and Seth looking askance at dear Ida) to Vienna and meeting a guy named Lou in the Café Mozart for the exchange. Moreover, that Hank falling on his sword, getting killed to save his sweetie ignited a barrage of gunfire Clair and Mona’s way so that they needed to get out of town in a hurry. 

In Vienna there are more madcap adventures once they are picked up in a hurry by a friendly Uber driver who will ultimately also fall down to dogged Hummus agents leaving the two young women to their own devises. The beauty of amateur spies (and the point Ida was trying to make in her story to advance her cause) was since they were clueless and bereft of any understanding of how to protect themselves against those rogue agents basically played it by ear, basically ran as fast as they could for as long as they could and see what happens when the dust settles. Even if everything turned to gross when they touched it. Ida went into a long monologue about how the truly addle-brained Mora attempted to get some help via her parents who of course lived in Jersey. (I remember how enthralled Ida was when we went down to the Jersey shores and met all kinds of strange people who fascinated her, and she would keep writing little stories about some of the characters met there for class some later published in small journals.) Naturally once they got to the supposed safe house the Hummus agents were already in place to give them hell. Ida retailed many such incidents which I think were over the top like when to protect the stick Clair put the thing in her vagina. Oddball stuff like that.

You have to know Ida to know that she could not resist bringing an MI6 agent into the mix even if only to tweak the CIA. The CIA agents on site are clucks while the MI6 agent, blonde and pretty boy Marvin, went about his chores of trying to get the dastardly stick AND protecting his two in over their heads junior spies. But even smooth as silk Marvin can’t keep the tops from spinning when Clair, although really mostly Mora, go on their own ways to save themselves (and each other collectively as well). After that safe house fiasco Clair and Mona are taken to a black hole torture chamber in order to get them to tell all. Just as the two bosom buddies are about to meet their respective makers Marvin shows up to save the day. To bring them in from the cold. At this point and I thought this was a good transition Clair and Mora don’t trust anybody including pretty boy Marvin to tell the truth or to not be ready, willing and able to get them to get the stick and the streets paved with gold as payment.

In the short haul that stance was not good because it let the upper echelon in MI6 suspend Marvin for some diddly stuff. Marvin stuffed on the sidelines meant that Clair and Mora were free to go back to New York and resume their workaday lives. Except their blood is up after so many harrowing experiences (including off-handedly personally killing bad guys) The play then turns to a rogue operation among the three. Nobody trusting anybody but nobody ready to call the whole thing off. Then guess who shows up, shows up from the dead really, courtesy of Hummus. Yes, Hank who tries to sweet talk Clair into giving him the stick. No go. Reason: and half the spies in the world must have been on the Hummus payroll because after some conversation it turned out that Hank, not Marvin, had been “turned” and was free-lancing for Hummus. He fell on his lousy sword again this time for good. Hank in bad odor Marvin is the new hero to the gals, to Clair in particular now that Hank has passed on and who is now boyfriend empty. Clair has a yen for her new paymaster Marvin and the story ends with the not unexpected conversion of the amateur spies Clair and Mora into junior MI6 agents working under Marvin. (While Clair is working under Marvin’s silky sheets which after all is plausible even in a made- up spy thriller.)

When Ida had finished, and we had asked a few more questions about the plot line Seth asked her if that story got her into the spy school. She laughed her patented Ida laugh I remember from NYU and said no way, with that story the MI6 schooling agents wanted her put into Bedlam not in some sensitive position to put many others in harm’s way.