VITA  1985

Once I quit crack, I had to get out of the CIA.  Nothing made sense.  I started a lawn business.  Hedge clippers, weed whackers—the noise kept my head on.  Unfortunately, my former contact showed up, thinking this was a cover.  I wrote him a year’s contract—mowing, trimming, fertilizer.  He thought it was code and fed the numbers to the Chinese.  They made a missile shield and paid me like crazy.  
I branched out—annuals, gravel, landscaping.  The Pakistanis wanted a piece and Tehran piled in, both using aerial photographs of my clients’ yards.  Ultraviolet transmogrifications produced state-of-the-art early warning systems.  I was proud—three countries taking their co-ordinates off my zinnia borders.
Everything was coming up roses until the gopher infestation.  Tehran bombed Canada, and my only option was to rejoin the Agency.  Fortunately my old pusher still ran personnel.

THE END