The story which follows was created by our nephew, Alex, this summer while he was visiting Prague. I just wrote it down. The main ideas are his. I added a few flourishes and some of my own ideas.
Discovering Agent B
It was not so many years ago that I became strangely entangled in world espionage. Oddly enough it was only several months ago that I became aware of it. I live with my husband in Prague. We lead a quiet life. He works. I look for work. We listen to jazz. Our friends invite us to drink beer. Sometimes we accept. We search for our greater purpose and look for answers in the clouds.
This past summer we were visited by our nephew, a young man living with his parents in Maryland (he will remain nameless for security reasons). He goes to high school and visits his relatives abroad during the summer. He is intelligent and quite perceptive. While he was visiting us, he noticed some odd goings-on in our house. He conducted an investigation (quite thorough and dangerous from what I can tell but I would never want that to come to his mothers ears!) and this is what he told me:
“Several years ago,” he said, “in a land far away, you acquired something of great value, although you weren’t aware of it. This priceless thing is what brought you to the attention of some very powerful actors who now control what you consider ‘your life’ And, I said ‘acquired’ but this is not quite correct. It would be better to say that this thing was bestowed upon you.”
I racked my brain to figure out what he was talking about. He encouraged me to sit down, gave me a drink and began from the beginning.
“Many years ago, as you were just graduating from college, you were attacked by a madness to own a cat. You felt that it was just an extension of a general longing you had had for a long time. However, I can tell you now, that was not the case. You were actually attacked by a madness emanating from a source other than yourself. Now I can’t explain exactly how it was done. There are still things we do not know, but it would appear that they are able to do these things.”
“Who are able to do what?” I asked.
“Don’t interrupt me please. So, you had to get a cat. However, to their consternation you had some of your own ideas which they had not forseen. One of these ideas was that you needed TWO cats. This did not fit their purpose at all and they weren’t prepared for your obstinacy. Needless to say they failed in their objective.
“For some years they let you be. For one thing, the madness didn’t work quite so well on you anymore as you already had two cats. For another, they looked far and wide to find a person as appropriate as yourself to work their business upon. Unfortunately they failed in this also.
“So, three years later they began trying again in earnest. You may remember your sudden desire to take home every kitten you saw. Your relatives surely do. However, once again, they found that you were not as receptive to the madness as they had hoped. You never acted on your desire. They actually placed the precious ‘thing’ quite near your house, but for some reason you never walked by or looked at it. They were about to give up when one of their lowliest stupidest informants let drop a piece of information that caused your downfall and sealed your fate.
“He, quite innocently, yelled one day in the middle of the morning that he couldn’t believe that your close friend had many times been to see this precious thing when you hadn’t even been within 100 feet of it. He had been gathering background information as it was usually quite useless in cases such as these. However, here was a nugget of gold. Not only had your close friend seen this thing, but she was also incredibly talented at getting other people to buy things for themselves. So, all they had to do, they realized, was spread the madness a little to encompass her and she would do their business for them.
“And they were quite right. The very next day she called you and told you there were some incredibly cute kittens at the local vet’s office who needed homes. She told you that she knew you wouldn’t get another cat under any circumstances, but what was the harm in just looking? So, you set out together to see the cats. They were indeed very very very cute. The madness worked so powerfully on her that in the end she even paid the kitten’s vet bills and gave you the cat as a gift.
“When you got home with the cat an hour later, he immediately hid. You felt that this was normal – as he had been homeless for four months and seemed afraid of people. However, it gave you time to recover from the madness and begin to wonder what in the world had come over you. And it gave him time to contact his people and let them know the mission was accomplished.”
“Him who? What people? What are you talking about?”
“OK. Here we come to our first major difficulty. Sit back down! You must recover from your amazement. Plainly, your third cat, BoBo as you call him, is actually an internationally renowned secret agent. It would be more respectful to call him Agent B… but for now, as you are more accustomed to it, you may continue to call him BoBo.”
Silence reigned for a stunned moment.
“As you know, all government research is not publicized. It has been several decades since government scientists discovered the secret of communicating with certain species of animals, dogs and cats among them. Dogs, they soon found, were too honest and loyal to be of any benefit to the government and they discontinued their work in that area. Cats, however, were something completely different. Sly, selfish, generally unconcerned with honesty and loyalty but very trustworthy if the rewards were sufficient. Also, cats generally dislike any change in their commanding officer – so once a cat has done one job for you it will work for you for the rest of its life. This is one reason that kittens are so important.
“While the government found cats to be very helpful, they were also confronted with a range of problems that the secret service had never dealt with before. For example, cat agents are very particular about their human ‘owners’.” For them to live and serve faithfully they must have a certain positive chemistry with their ‘owner’. At the beginning when the secret service disregarded this seemingly ludicrous demand, the results were disastrous. When they realized how important it was, they began trying to figure out how to predict this chemistry. They couldn’t keep on introducing cats into households and then removing them after a short time – it was expensive and emotionally draining for the families and the agents, not to mention that it began to arouse suspicions amongst the populace (not any correct assumptions, but they were damaging enough). So, they began a line a research in which they brought together as many people and potential agent cats as they could. Incidentally, this was the beginning of public animal shelters. They tried not to accept dogs, but public pressure was such that…ack! I get off track.. where was I?
“Oh, yes, so they began to research the chemistry between potential cat agents and people. They found that certain families of cats had the same kind of chemistry with certain families of people. Therefore, if they found one good fit, they knew that all the relatives of that person would also fit. They also found at around the same time that certain strains of cats were particularly talented at certain things. In your case, these two findings added up to the fact that your family was found to have excellent chemistry with one of the most talented cat agent families.”
“How did they find that out?”
“I’m sorry but that’s classified. Any how, Agent B, errr I mean BoBo, comes from a long line of very talented agent cats. Your family has excellent chemistry with him. How they came to choose you was easy. You lived in New York, were young, mobile, able to travel overseas. You also have a characteristic very rare among those people found to have good chemistry but absolutely indispensable – you are the type of person who would travel around the world WITH your cats. At the beginning, they thought your other two other cats might be a liability. Even among people willing to travel with a cat agent – there are very very few that would travel with three. But you lived up to their every crazy expectation: when the time came you packed all four of your cats onto the plane to Prague.
“Just as a side note, you know when they cancelled your flight that night? While you were waiting for the plane, Agent B got emergency notification that he was needed in Westchester. They had no other choice but to cancel the flight.
“You thought he was just afraid of people. Actually he is incredibly brave but he needs the personal space from you to be able to do his work. You thought that you were crazy when you looked every place in the apartment but you couldn’t find him. You were right. He wasn’t there. He was just out on assignment.
“Kind of strange, huh? Well, think about it. It really explains a lot of things. Did you ever wonder why it was Peter who moved to New York, instead of you moving to Prague, before you guys got married? Actually it’s quite obvious – Agent B still had work to do in New York. And do you know why the Radio in Prague offered Peter that job when they did? Simple. Agent B was transferred.
“Do you wonder why BoBo always hides when people come to your house? He doesn’t know who they work for. Until he is completely sure they are safe, it would be folly for him to show himself. Who knows who might recognize him?
“Do you wonder why you and Peter had such a desire to get a fourth cat? Also simple. Agent B needed a body guard. Think about it. Pippin and Kisco aren’t cut out for it. They were born in the suburbs. Never really been outside on their own. Pippin is very smart but far more interested in kaleidoscopy and refraction than the vulgar physical sciences. Kisco is a princess and prefers sunbathing in the shade to the effort involved in moving in the sun. But Krolik! He is big, muscular, active, not terribly intelligent and he can be completely vindictive. Perfect body guard for Mr. B.
“Do you remember that time you went up to your parents house and took Mr. B with you? You didn’t see him for the entire week. Think about it. It was just after the Clinton’s moved to Westchester.
“If you think, I’m sure you’ll see how it all fits in. During the floods in Prague, did you see a lot of BoBo? How about the time that Mrs. Bush visited the Radio?… Anyway, I’ve got to get going. You should get some rest. You don’t look so well. Maybe we can talk about it some more later.”