Do you expect me to blog?

Every man under thirty has one story about the one time he has, however briefly, felt a tiny bit like James Bond. This is mine.

I was walking home with a friend who, for reasons that will become apparent, I shall not name. Let's call him Quentin. Quentin and I were rounding the corner as we came to his house, and I prepared to bid him a fond farewell.

"What's that outside your house, Quentin? New car?"
"Shit. Ben, keep walking. Don't make eye contact."

I'd suspected something different was happening as soon as I saw the car, but this confirmed it. The car was shiny, sleek, and black. It certainly didn't look like his family's car, a slightly beaten up estate. Although the engine was off, it seemed to be full of men in black suits, blacker sunglasses, and with suspicious bulges under their arms. I did as Quentin advised, kept walking, and didn't make eye contact.

As you can imagine, I had some questions, four of them to be precise. They went: are those men government agents, are you wanted by them, are we in great danger, and dear Lord, what have you done. The answers, Quentin explained to me as we continued to walk further away from his house, were yes, yes, maybe, and it's complicated. Quentin had, he explained, "Done some stuff for the military. It was a long time ago, and it all went rather wrong."

"What happened? What did you do?"
Quentin, someone who until five minutes ago I'd thought of as being roughly as macho as an oestrogen sandwich, grinned a grin at me that was new, dangerous and worrying. "If I told you that..." he paused for effect, really relishing the opportunity to say this line, "I'd have to kill you." He relaxed a little, and continued to tell his story. "Thing is, everything got way out of hand, and the government don't really want any inconvenient reminders of their failure there."
"And they know who you are?"
"Looks like it. Look, all of this..."

And then the most terrifying sound cut him off. The one sound, at that time, neither of us wanted to hear.

The sound of a car motor starting.

It was one of those magical moments. We shared a look that spoke volumes - not in a throbbing homoerotic tension sort of way - and instantly knew what we had to do. We split up, him leaping the nearest fence and heading into the gardens, while I continued along the road at a somewhat faster pace...

I won't go into the events of the next hour because I quite simply haven't the time to narrate everything. But suffice to say that I've learnt several new skills, and those skills include snapping a man's neck as silently as possible, using passers by as human shields, and humming the mission impossible theme no matter how out of breath I am feeling.

Also, I'm now wanted by the government. So if this blog suddenly stops, you know where to find me...