For reasons of security I resided in a private nursing home in England. It was comfortable and pleasant and I was well looked after. I had a medical condition that made me sensitive to sudden noise. On one occasion I was sitting by the window deep in thought, and was startled when the door opened to my room. A young woman brought in a tray with food and coffee. She apologised and said she was thoughtless, she made general conversation while placing the tray on a nearby table.

My movement due to her abrupt entrance was fortuitous as just then a teargas bomb came crashing through the window and narrowly missed my head. I dropped to the floor as glass splintered and teargas starting filling the room. I heard more glass shattering as a man in a breathing mask leapt through the window. The young woman screamed and the intruder shot her twice with a handgun. As she fell to the floor dying the intruder turned toward me to fire. Before he could pull the trigger the door burst open and more men with breathing masks entered. I could hardly tell them apart as a short round of shots were made and each tried to avoid fire. Eventually the fighting stopped and the intruder lay sprawled across the floor dead.

I was choking on the smoke when one of the men rushed towards me with a protective mask, and as I felt the straps cling to my face I drew air sharply. They briskly lifted me from the floor and took me into the corridor. Members of staff hurriedly took me out to a waiting car where I was transferred to a covert military hospital.

The attempt on my life was part of a terrorist plot, and for me was not a new experience. I was in the process of breaking one of their codes and it was imperative to them that I failed. How they found out was a mystery, but the mission was futile, not only because the intruder had been killed, because I was terminally ill with just a short time to live.

On arrival at the hospital I was approached by someone who said they knew me. They stated my name, James Foreman, as if I needed reminding, and looked bewildered when I informed them that was simply my name. I said this because I never knew my origins. The woman who was to become my mother was rescued by the secret service during a raid in some foreign clime. She was just fifteen years old and her parents were killed in the skirmish.  Her father worked for the Government hence the secret service. The European woman I was with also died. I was six weeks old, and for reasons that only came to light recently, Mary kept me with her the whole time.

In his Will her father left everything to Mary, and through her generosity I had provisions for my early life. Later she adopted me. I took on the family name, and had the honour of taking her beloved and belated Grandpa’s first name, James. Henceforth I became known as James Forman.