ZM73

    Not 0073 as in being licensed to kill, but perhaps ZM73 worked for a different department in British intelligence to James Bond. And yet ZM73 is still a field operative if that episode with ‘The Girl Who Was Death’ is anything to go by. Curtis was also a top field man, Number 2 said as much, while he was stuck in admin. It is a wonder that ZM73 and Curtis never met, but perhaps British Intelligence was keeping them apart. Everyone in the world has a doppelganger somewhere, so they say. But with ZM73 his was nearer than he could possibly have imagined. And of course it must not be forgotten that the same can be said of Curtis.
    Number 6 is seen as the hero and Curtis is set as the villain who goes about The Village impersonating Number 6. It couldn’t have been easy for Curtis, to be brought to The Village to begin with. Nadia didn’t think The Village would be like the way she thought it. It makes one wonder just how well Curtis was briefed on The Village before his arrival? All Nadia Rakovsky had to do was to get close to Number 6 in order to gain his trust. Curtis on the other hand had to become Number 6, body, heart, and soul. But just how much alike was Curtis to Number 6? Yes he looked exactly like Number 6. He was the same height, the same build. The hairstyle would have to be altered though, the hair colouring, and the moustache would have to go. But what about the walk, the voice, the mannerisms of Number 6, they would all have to be learned, and the voice perhaps altered a little. Then there’s the attitude, Curtis would have to learn to be stubborn, there must not be the least bit of change in the character. And he must learn to win at chess in seven moves. He must be as good at fencing and shooting as Number 6. Yes Number 6 was handicapped in having been conditioned to be left-handed. But all the same, Curtis must shoot to an average of 90 percent. Just because Curtis looked exactly like Number 6 didn’t make him a perfect doppelganger for Number 6, not in the true sense of the word. And then Curtis would have to study Number 6’s file, to know the little things, like he gave up sugar four years and three months ago. Because it can be the little things that let you down. The fact that Curtis wears a cream blazer and not a black one should have been one. That he has no bruise under the index fingernail like Number 6 had, and so far as Number 6 is concerned, that Susan died a year ago.
    Curtis was seconded to The Village to do a job, to impersonate Number 6, and he did that very well. However it was not simply the fact of that Polaroid picture that let him down, that the Number 6 in the photo was not wearing a cream blazer. This alone should have been the undoing of Curtis. However in the case of Number 6, it’s the little things, the little details forgotten, such as the bruised fingernail, that saved him in the end!

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