In Character: Claire Tavington

Another character blog, this set roughly around the time that I'm currently writing in the book, featuring a British spymaster ( or spymistress, if you will....)

***

My husband was used to my keeping secrets.

He accepted it as part of my profession. There were things I could never tell him. I'd simply say that my day had gone well, or poorly. That was it. That was all I could say. He understood. He'd talk about a surgical procedure, or how colleagues were doing. He understood I couldn't say a word about my work, or my colleagues. I couldn't confide if I had been in a bad spot, or if an operation had gone wrong. I couldn't share my successes with him. All I could do was say it had gone well, or poorly.

I miss him terribly. Peter has been gone a year now. Cancer, that malevolent bastard of a disease... took him from me, took him from the children. The children are all off making their own lives with their own families... leaving me with an empty home. No wonder I've put my energies into work.

I've made it to the top of my profession. I've got the best piece of real estate at Vauxhall Cross. That's the headquarters for MI6. I'm the director of the Service. I've spent thirty years in service to my country, risking my life, waging a secret war in the shadows. Wherever my country needed me to go, I went. Now I run the whole outfit. To be honest... I miss being in the field.

I've been used to expecting the worst, hoping for the best. I couldn't have expected this.

A few hours ago in Israel, an explosion went off. Early estimates have the casualties at over twenty thousand people.

Now the riots are starting across the Middle East. The Syrians are mobilizing their forces for war, prodded on by those bastards in Tehran. The Israelis will respond, no doubt. And that'll drag the rest of the region into war.

How do we stop it?

That's what I've done my whole career: keep two sides from going over the brink. Gather together information. Act to thwart war. Sometimes to prevent war, violence had to be used. That's the life I've led, the life I chose.

I've got people on the ground. Devon and Stryker are there... they've seen the fire, the smoke, the death... the crater... with their own eyes. They're at ground zero of this crisis. And I should be there with them.

I can't help but think... that someone is manipulating both sides... and they're succeeding.

I could see Kristin Scott Thomas, Miranda Richardson, or Helen Mirren as Claire