Opening paragraphs..................

Our meeting was not contrived.  Not by me, not by Ed, not by any of the hidden hands supposedly pulling at his strings.  I was not targeted.  Ed was not put up to it.  We were neither covertly nor aggressively observed.  He issued a sporting challenge.  I accepted it.  We played.  There was no contrivance, no conspiracy, no collusion.  There are events in my life - only a few these days, it's true - that admit of one version only.  Our meeting was such an event.  My telling of it never wavered in all the times they made me repeat it.

-John Le Carré,  Agent Running In The Field