Just on the Spanish side of the French border sat the village of Port-Bou. It was the spiritual beginning of Spain's Costa Brava coastline and the place travelers transferred from a Spanish to French train that would take them down to the Cote D'Azure or all the way into Paris. Technically, it resided on the French side of the Pyrenees mountains that roughly defined the border between the two countries but, due to one of many quirks of the lines separating European nations, it stayed in Spanish hands and, excepting the Spanish Civil War, experienced remarkably little fighting for the last several hundred years.

It was a small town populated with a people that weren't distinctly French or Spanish and, as such, either nationality felt comfortable residing there, something made significantly easier since European Union rules had opened the borders to any member state. One of these transplants was a man named Rémi Delaflote. Rémi lived in a dwelling generously described a house but, more accurately, a shack, on the yellow limestone cliffs of the Mediterranean Sea. There he overlooked the water and, except for a few old fishermen inhabiting similar dwellings, did so alone. Much to the frustration of local developers, Rémi, unlike the fishermen, somehow had enough money and influence to prevent them from taking over the land and building hotels and apartment complexes for rich young Arabs and aged British tourists. In return for saving their homes, the fishermen gave him the only thing he asked for: solitude and few interruptions to it.

As far as Rémi knew, he had lived on his cliff for a little over five years. His passport said he was just north of thirty, but prior to occupying the shack, he had no memory. One day, he woke up in his home with a pack of cigarettes, a French passport, and an ATM card with the pin number written on a yellow sticky note attached to it. After withdrawing money from the account, he purchased as many newspapers and magazines as he could find and read them all, regardless of the language printed.

He was initially curious about what had happened to him. Rémi read about extreme trauma and its effects. He studied any medical journal he could get his hands on but the more he learned the more he began to wonder if he really wanted to know why his memory was gone. The first two years had passed quickly and, for whatever reason the cause, he began to enjoy his solitude. As far as he was concerned, he had enough money to eek out an existence in his shack, eat, and be otherwise left alone.

So of course it came as an unwelcome surprise when a sleek black Mercedes sedan bumped up the dirt road and stopped in front of the hammock in which he lay reading a trash novel. He was ashamed to admit it, but he found the story of the young teacher in the American west being forced into a life of prostitution to repay her brother's debts rather enthralling. He reluctantly set down the paperback and righted himself to face the vehicle and see who wanted to bother him. Rémi was tall for a Frenchman and built like a footballer, traits that worked well in the past when various real estate developers had tried to muscle him and the fishermen off the land.

Out of the Mercedes stepped two men who looked like drug dealers from one of the discos in Cannes. They wore matching black slacks and shiny button down shirts open at the top to expose gold chains that snaked through the tufts of their hairy chests. It might have been the clothes playing tricks on Rémi's eyes, but they looked like twins. What they didn't look like was any different than the previous thugs he'd had run off in the past. The only exception this time was there had been no advance threat to his safety if he didn't relocate.

"Que voulez-vous," Rémi asked suspiciously, standing up to reveal his full height. The men seemed unimpressed.

"We know you speak English," said the driver in a thick French accent. He took off his sunglasses and eyed Rémi like a large piece of meat hanging in a butcher's shop. "Perhaps you should use it."

"Fine. What do you want, then?"

"It's time Rémi. You're being re-activated."

The operation, as Magic Hour described it, seemed to involve a tour of the city, followed by a harbor cruise on a historic tall ship, then a dinner at a posh yet budget friendly restaurant. Slider delivered the orders to Standby who made the arrangements and stood in the long lines at each of them, waiting for the more senior agents to arrive.

The tour was conducted by Slider himself, walking Magic Hour in a giant loop through the Barri Gòtic, over to the Olympic Village, past the beach where they stopped briefly to marvel at the tan topless Latin women. Then into Port Vell, and up Mont Juïc so Magic Hour could get a lay of the land. By the time they had reached the top of the hill however, the tour had already left the harbor and, though both agents were disappointed – and the government out fifty Euros – they decided to do it another day and rest before dinner.

Magic Hour took his leave of Slider in the lobby to nap for a few hours in his palatial suite, but Slider could never sleep well during the middle of the day and opted for hotel bar instead. The bar in the Hotel Gravina was just off the main lobby and decorated in enough Ikea to please even a twenty-something Brooklyn couple. At each of the five tables were three Swedish Modern chairs that alternated blue and yellow. The bar looked like expensively finished particleboard, but particleboard nonetheless. Behind the counter was an unimpressive assortment of American gins and whiskies and a few local bottles of wine. Slider approached the counter, holding a small roll of Euro banknotes in his hand.

"Hola," greeted the bartender in the faux-polite way hotel staff routinely addressed guests.

"Hola," returned Slider, searching for the drink that would do the trick. She was pretty, in a masculine sort of way, though he wasn't sure if it was her features or the androgynous dark blue slacks, light blue collared shirt, and dark blue vest that was the uniform for foodservice staff. He imagined her in a short skirt and blouse and was sure she would be pretty enough, though probably still tougher looking than he. She looked at him expectantly for his drink order. Nothing was jumping out at him so he ordered what had become regular drink for the hot summer months in Spain. "Un vino blanco, por favor?"

"La vina de la casa," she asked.

Slider paused for a moment as he translated what she said in his head. "Si, gracias."

"Un momento, por favor," she said before disappearing through the double doors into the back. Slider nodded and took a seat at a table that had an abandoned copy of the International Tribune on it. The headline proclaimed that the British and the Spanish were still fighting over Gibraltar. He found himself distinctly uninterested, refolded the paper, set it down, and almost jumped out of his seat when he found Standby sitting across from him.

"Hola," Standby said.

"I'm going to put one of those little bells on you so I know when you're coming," Slider said trying to regain his composure.

"Sorry." Standby picked up the menu that sat wedged between the candle and the salt and pepper shakers at every table and glanced at it. "It's nice how they print everything here in both English and Spanish. It makes things easier."

"Yeah," Slider said sarcastically. "Just what we need. If it gets too easy, these 'special operatives' won't even need us."

"Bollacks," Standby coughed. Before he worked for Slider, he'd spent a year in London and continued to use the slang he picked up as though he were a native ignoring the fact that he was from a suburb of Los Angeles. "Those guys may be good at whatever it is they do, but without us, they couldn't flag down a bloody taxi."

"Right," Slider said, wanting to believe him. The bartender re-appeared from the back with a glass of wine that was already bleeding moisture in the humidity. She placed it in front of Slider. "Un Euro y cinquenta."

Slider blinked for a moment as he figured out what she was asking before he fished out a two Euro coin and placed it in her soft hand. "Gracias," he said. She gave him a sort of smirk that told him – in any language – that he wasn't as smooth as he thought.

"Perdon, por favor," Standby said, calling after her. "Un mas?" She nodded politely and again disappeared into the back room.

"Look," Slider said. Standby eyed him quizzically. "You need to be Johnny-on-the-spot with this operation. This guy could be our ticket to a nice simple assignment in Prague. And we both know how much you like those Eastern Europeans."

Standby thought about his time in New York and smiled, recalling the daughters of Polish butchers in the East Village. Only the best got assigned to Prague these days. Anyone the Agency didn't want to have to pay a pension to was assigned to Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or somewhere as unappealing and death guaranteeing. Every year via email, the Agency published its most requested posts and every year Prague and Sydney topped the list. Sydney was more for those who favored the warm weather, but those who fancied themselves spies of the older school all requested Prague as though the Soviet Union was just waiting to spring back into action.

"It might help if I knew what the mission was," Standby said.

"And you know that you only get told what you need to know to get the job done. Speaking of which, shouldn't you be standing in line for our dinner reservations?"

Standby sighed. His recruiter had been erotically vague about what he would be doing as a junior agent and he now understood why. "The place doesn't open until seven and you guys said you didn't want to eat until ten which means I don't have to be there until nine. I've had the place cased for two weeks now. The lines never change."

"Yeah, well, it never hurts to be safe. And get him a carton of Lucky Strikes while you're at it."