Looking On The Bright Side

Whilst still in London, after that magnificent funeral for Lady Thatcher, I took the opportunity to lunch with my CIA colleague, Matilda Hatt. Tilly recently, and much to her chagrin, had been given a senior desk job at the CIA's London Station. When we last had chatted, Tilly had sounded morose, and I was bent on cheering her up.

We met at The Grill at the Dorchester. Tilly had just arrived when I entered. I was humming "Always look on the bright side of life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Wanted to set a mood, as it were.

Turned out, I didn't have to. Tilly was in really good humour, and was taking immense satisfaction in the fact of the sentencing that day of three would-be jihadists, Irfan Naseer, Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali. This unholy trio had been previously convicted of 12 counts of committing acts in preparation for terrorism. Tilly had  been instrumental in uncovering the plot, and when she successfully located eight "rucksack" bombs, along with notes that Al Qaeda had instructed said bombs were to be used in crowded areas of London, well, the whole ungodly plan came to a sudden and abrupt halt.

"Your lot," Tilly said, "also achieved a definite plus. As I have it, the curtain has come down on Raed and Chiheb show."

Tilly was referring to the just uncovered Al Qaeda plot to derail a train going from Toronto to New York, with one Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier being the "masterminds" behind the scheme. I put the term 'mastermind' in quotes because these two were anything but. They had been identified very early on, and recounting this opened up a whole avenue of similar actions and therefore achieved the objective of looking on the bright side of things.

To wit: The 2007 Glasgow Airport attack  where the car bombers had not foreseen the security posts, the botched Times Square bombing, and several instances of suicide bombers in Afghanistan who have prematurely blown themselves up while sharing a last, tender embrace. No doubt it is this sort of thing that really, really irritates senior Al Qaeda operatives.

I weep for them. Not.

All in all, a successful luncheon. Tilly had also inquired about the health of my editor -- her sources of information were still working well -- and I brought her up to date. When I informed her that he had recently somehow managed to twist a back muscle, and therefore was spending a lot of time lying down, Tilly said that the editor was also in need of cheering up, although seeking expensive medical help was not always the best route to take. As she put it, "I mean it's a known fact that the least costly treatment for any illness is lethal injection."

I said that would undoubtedly cheer him up immensely.*

*It didn't. --Ed.