Gregor took a deep breath and entered the park. His first assignment was hidden beneath his fur coat, an envelope, plain and brown and ominous. He, of course, had no idea what the envelope contained, it wasn’t his business to know. His business was to hand it over to the man who would give the correct coded message in response to his own.
Slowly, letting his breath out, he looked around.....ah, this would be easier than he anticipated. A man, the man, was standing by the fountain, just where he was supposed to be. He was wearing a brindle bearskin coat with a fox fur hat, the flaps of which were firmly tied beneath his chin. His woollen worsted trousers were tucked into sealskin boots. His hands were bare, rare indeed for a Russian Winter, but in one hand he held a pair of white fox mittens along with, and this was the clincher that he had the right man, a single red rose.
Gregor sidled up to him, without looking directly at him and seemingly joining him in admiring the sculpture at the centre of the fountain, he said out of the corner of his mouth,
“You can cut all the flowers, but it won’t stop Spring from coming.”
The man jerked his head around to look Gregor directly in the face, anger blazed from his eyes as he snarled, “I cut one bloody flower, for my girl, not that it’s any of your business, now piss off!”
That was not at all anything like the coded response he had been told to expect.
Gregor sighed, there was another fountain further along, perhaps he would have better luck there.
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