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    The Secret Agent
    The Secret Agent
    The Secret Agent
    Ebook28 pages27 minutes

    The Secret Agent

    By Vincent Gray

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    About this ebook

    It was difficult to fathom Sheldon. He did come across as a hard line Leftist or Marxist. This was confusing for me and for the others. Was he phony or was he genuine. I could honestly not tell at the time. Anyway, whatever misgiving we may have had regarding his Leftist credentials, we were awe struck and quickly fell under his spell as he gave us an impromptu lecture on environmental activism. He spoke about ‘guerrilla gardening’ which involved planting seeds of indigenous trees in any open space within towns, cities and suburbs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVincent Gray
    Release dateAug 20, 2017
    ISBN9781370331505
    The Secret Agent
    Author

    Vincent Gray

    As a son of a miner, I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I grew up in the East Rand mining town of Boksburg. I matriculated from Boksburg High School. After high school, I was conscripted into the South African Defence Force for compulsory national military service when I was 17 years old. After my military service, I went to the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating with a BSc honours degree I worked for a short period for the Department of Agriculture in Potchefstroom as an agronomist. As an obligatory member of the South African Citizen Miltary Force, I was called up to do 3-month camps on the 'Border' which was the theatre of the so-called counter-insurgency 'Bush War'. In between postgraduate university studies I also worked as a wage clerk on the South African Railways and as a travelling chemical sales rep. In my career as an academic, I was a molecular biologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, where I lectured courses in microbiology, molecular biology, biotechnology and evolutionary biology. On the research side, I was involved in genomics, and plant and microbial biotechnology. I also conducted research into the genomics of strange and weird animals known as entomopathogenic nematodes. I retired in 2019, however, I am currently an honorary professor at the University of the Witwaterand and I also work as a research writing consultant for the University of Johannesburg.

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      Book preview

      The Secret Agent - Vincent Gray

      The Secret Agent

      By

      Vincent Gray

      Copyright © 2017 Vincent Gray

      Smashwords 2017 Edition

      This book is a work of fiction. All the characters developed in this novel are fictional creations of the writer’s imagination and are not representations or depictions of any real or historical persons. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

      All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

      ISBN: 9781370331505

      1

      In the July school holidays of 1965 when I was ten years old we went on a family holiday to Sodwana Bay in the Land Rover that my dad had just finishing rebuilding from scratch. At night while he was working on the Land Rover in the garage I would join him, passing him tools and generally speaking his head off. I knew he loved my company and he listened attentively to what I had to say. I don’t how many times I said to him ‘I love you daddy’, and he would always answer: ‘I love you too Hannetjie’.

      My dad was the only person who was allowed to call me Hannetjie. Everyone else had to call me Hannah.

      We left Hotazel at 2.00 am for Sodwana Bay but later that morning our Land Rover broke down in Springs. It was a disappointing anti-climax to the start of our holiday. Here we were stranded seven hours later at ten in the morning in Springs of all places. The generator had burnt out and we were informed by the motor spares shop that we would only get the new generator at about midday the next day. So for the next 24 hours we would be stranded in the central business district of Springs while we waited for the delivery of a new generator.

      I was surprised to hear that Springs was a city. As a ten old little girl the prospect of spending the next 24 hours sitting in the Land Rover which had come to standstill in one of the main streets in the central business district of Springs seemed like an

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