Juan Moisés De La Serna - The Spy

I don't know how many times I had run out of food because I didn't remember where I had left the money, even though I had it written down in my notebook, the one I carried everywhere, only that sometimes, I forgot to look at it as well.

This memory, seems that it only worsens, how can this happened to me? I was always told that I had photographic memory ! Just one look at the message and I was able to retain it to mentally translate it before any computer, and after years and years of secret work, I had managed to repeat each written report, to put together a personal file.

My memory … if I have been able to show off something in my life, it's of having a good memory. Cultivated every day with many hours of study and reading, because although it may not seem like it, languages need to be practiced continuously to keep them fresh.

How many hours have I spent studying each of the languages I know, or well, did I know, or who knows if I still know them.

That is something that surprisingly I think I have not lost, the ability to understand other languages, on television sometimes I put one of those international channels, and I understand it without problems … it's like what they say about riding a bicycle, “Once learned, never forgotten, regardless how many years that you go without practicing”.

Something that has helped me a lot to progress in my career and arrive, strangely, to know more secrets than many presidents, since they only wanted results, and we were a few who knew what to do in each case.

My task as a mathematician had changed over time, and I went from translating messages from others to creating complex models to encrypt my own. It was no longer about coding one or two words for the field agents, security should be maximum for all government documents, and they asked us that if there were leaks, the stolen documents couldn’t be read by our enemies.

And from there, without expecting it they moved me to intelligence, well, until now I was working for one of their sections, but then it was knowing all the secrets.

Everything that the government denies or is silent, I was the first to know, and codify it.

There was a system within the system, an exclusive coding for ultra-secret documents and messages, as colleagues liked to say.

These, in no way were to be deciphered, so the work was sometimes strenuous, and the demand even greater.

It was no longer about knowing where the positions of the enemies were, their advances, and even their field agents, now they knew each of the tactical and intimate details of the relevant people of the enemy regime, their family, their lovers… A huge amount of information classified as vital and that should not be available to any other than the authorized person.

That seemed to me nothing more than a curiosity, something like those magazines that only serve to pry into the lives of others, but little by little I became interested, not so much for people and their relationships, but for certain issues that were hid from the public voice.

But yes, I was very clear that I never, never should say anything, since my life was at stake.

It never occurred to me to comment on any of those papers, despite their seriousness, and then I saw on television such absurd news about it, a chemical accident, a fire started without apparent cause, a plane that fell inexplicably.

I do not know how people can be so calm seeing these absurd justifications, if they stopped to think they would realize that that, more than news, is misinformation nationwide.

So many implausible stories to cover some government operation or a frustrated attack, and nobody stopped to think how strange that sounded.

Maybe everyone would rather look the other way, and not ask anything, feeling safe like this, sometimes I have heard that "naive people are the happiest" to refer to when you ignore what is happening around you, that gives you a False feeling of happiness.

Hundreds and hundreds of interventions on American soil with the same result, “Neutralized Agent”.

At first I did not know what it meant, but it became clear to me that neutralized meant eliminated, because when that word appeared in the reports, there were no more news of that agent again.

All the spies were classified, and we received periodic reports of their follow-up, what they did, who they talked to, who they had relationships with … until one day, they were neutralized, and from there nothing.

Sometimes reading the newspaper that they left on the porch every morning, I started to think if what I read would be true or not. Some news seems so false, I wondered if it was a government thing.

Although I have been disconnected from all that for some time since I retired, I am sure that the government has continued to do what it believes is best for the country, or at least we were always told so, “Freedom is not something that you have by right, it is something that is achieved by force ”, from time to time our superior in the academy reminded us.

At first, after I retired, I cut the most absurd news from the newspapers, an oil platform sunk by a tsunami, a gas explosion in an Alaska region … unconnected things, which make no sense whatsoever, and I tried to guess what had really happened.

When I was active, I didn't have to guess, I knew, exactly who had done what, how many dead, and how it was justified. And as absurd as the news that covered that was, no one seemed to wonder about the truth of what happened, even the relatives of the deceased were "at ease" with the "official version", without questioning anything.

A few months after I retired, I had so many cuts, and so little idea of what really happened that I abandoned it, since it was impossible to know for sure what was behind each news, or if any or several of them were related.

Now, when I read the newspaper with those kind of news , which are clearly absurd, I simply smile and wonder what the government will have done this time?.

In fact, I have noticed something strange with all those spy stories, I understand that it was necessary to keep the enemy under control, but sometimes I think that, if there were no real threats at one time, strangely our government intervened to "stir things up" and the others must answer.

I do not understand much the sense of losing the peace and tranquility that a calm season can offer, but it seems that to someone at the high spheres, that seemed boring, because at that time they always took advantage to annoy the enemy and make him react.

Many and many stories not always with a good ending, that made me wonder if there were other interests behind, the army arm dealers are always the most interested in the government being one way or another on alert, intervening in small or large wars; but then there are the military, who would have no reason to exist in a peaceful country; and then the politicians, who often base their discourse on patriotic sentiment, against the enemies, without them, what would they say ?, or how would they justify the expenses?

Each and every one of them wanted one thing, to have a high level of action and intervention against the enemies, although this was changing over the years.

Allied countries became strategic objectives, new enemies arose, and paradoxically, enemy countries of a lifetime, became key allies in the area.

Despite my access to information, I couldn’t see the whole equation and understand the movements involved. There was a lot that escaped me, although I had more information than any of the generals of my government.

Be that as it may, if it were a chess board, it had gone from being a simple pawn, to being a tower, a safe place for government secrets, but far from the central figures of the board, the ones that really make the decision… And speaking of chess, with this memory issue, I don't know how I can manage to play every day.