A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [22]
It’s over after twenty minutes. Keith collects the questionnaires and returns to his desk. I turn around to see Ogilvy leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling like a matinee idol.
Keith coughs.
‘In just over ten minutes you’ll begin the group exercise,’ he says, leaning to pick up a small pile of papers from the right-hand top corner of his desk. ‘This involves a thirty-minute discussion between the five of you on a specific problem which is described in some detail on this document.’
He flaps one of the sheets of paper beside his ear and then begins distributing them, one to each of us.
‘You have ten minutes to read the document. Try to absorb as much of it as possible. The Board will explain how the assessment works once you have gone into the second examination area. Any questions?’
Nobody says a word.
‘Right, then. Can I suggest that you begin?’
This is what it says.
A nuclear reprocessing plant on the Normandy coast, built jointly in 1978 by Britain, Holland and France, is allegedly leaking minute amounts of radiation into a stretch of the English Channel used by both French and British fishermen. American importers of shellfish from the region have run tests revealing the presence of significant levels of radiation in their consignments of oysters, mussels and prawns. The Americans have therefore announced their intention to stop importing fish and shellfish from all European waters, effective immediately.
The document - which has been written from the British perspective by a fictional civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food - suggests that the American claims are nebulous. Their own tests, carried out in conjunction with the French authorities, have shown only trace levels of radiation in that section of the English Channel, and nothing in the shellfish from the area which might be construed as dangerous. The civil servant suspects an ulterior motive on the part of the Americans, who have objected in the past to what they perceive as unfair fishing quotas in European waters. They have asked for improved access to European fishing grounds, and for the French plant to be shut down until a full safety check has been carried out.
The document suggests that the British and French ministries should present a united, pan-European resistance to face-off the American demands. However, there are problems. An American motor-car company is one step away from signing a contract with the German government to build a factory near Berlin which would bring over 3,000 jobs to an economically deprived area. The Germans are unlikely to do anything at this stage which might upset this agreement. Ditto the Danes, who have an ongoing row with the French over a recent trade agreement. The Spanish, who would suffer more than anyone under any prolonged American export ban, will side firmly with the British and French, though their position is weakened by the fact that the peseta is being propped up by the US dollar.
It’s a fanciful scenario, but this is what we are required to talk about.
Keith has given each of us a sheet of blank paper on which to scribble notes, but I write down as little as possible. Eye contact will be important in front of the examiners: I must appear confident and sure of my brief. To be constantly buried in pages of notes will look inefficient.
Ten minutes pass quickly. Then Keith asks us to gather up our things and accompany him to another section of the building. It takes about four minutes to get there.
Two men and an elderly