[ EU ] Not every 00-agent gets to lead a life of beautiful cars and fast women . Tell the story of an agent assigned one of the unglamorous 00 numbers .

I made him the minute I saw him. Cheap suit, even cheaper shoes. Military haircut and two black tusks of poorly trimmed nose hair. I turned to look into a shop window. He actually came to a stop, then kept approaching and walked past me. I knew there was an alley just up the street and, if he was the agent I made him out to be, that alley would be my initiation into combat for Queen and Country. 
 
 Finding a hiding spot was easy. The alley ended in a warren of crates and cast-offs. Confirming my suspicions, my enemy had turned around and followed me into the alley. He made his way towards my position, unaware what awaited him. 
 
 I slid from my sleeve the weapon given me by my superiors in the spy trade. 12 full inches of English oak broomstick handle. Fire hardened with no smooth, rounded end on this baby. Both ends rough sawn with no sanding. Jagged slivers graced each end. 
 
 My adversary froze. I had eaten a Ploughman's lunch and the pickled onions bested my digestive system. He slipped from inside his coat a large painted wooden spoon. 
 
 He was Russian. Russian's love large spoons. They eat life up with them. But I was n't about to be a veg for his afternoon meal of spycraft. 
 
 It was on. I leaped from my hiding place and swung the first blow. He parried expertly and struck my head with his half castanet of doom. 
 
 `` Oooph,'' I moaned. It was n't the kind of dialogue I had rehearsed in anticipation of my first altercation as a spy. I realised he had the reach on me. I would have to get inside the arc of his spoon. 
 
 I jumped in after his next swing went over my head. I drove the end of my weapon deep into his portly belly. Like a Type 53 torpedo fired from murky depths, my broomstick shot out of his navel, out of my grip, and bounced off my groin. 
 
 There on my hands and knees, stunned by pain as my Russian adversary stood poised to deliver a spoonful of death, I made the bravest decision I ever made in my entire espionage career. I jumped between the Russian's legs, got to my feet and ran out of the alley screaming like a factory whistle at elevenses. 00.49 was n't meant to be a spy. 
 
 I hope somewhere on a sunny Adriatic beach, a grandson stares at his grandfather's navel and asks him how he got that crown of scars. It would be wonderful to think the grandfather would answer `` One of England's bravest cowards gave me these scars. One of England's toughest, bravest cowards.''
