Chapter 4: The Worlds Worst Spy
Maxwell "Max" Morgan had always believed he was destined for greatness. A devoted fan of spy novels and action movies, Max styled himself as a suave, cunning agent in the vein of James Bond. His reality, however, was far less glamorous: a small-town private investigator who mostly tracked cheating spouses and missing pets. His dream of international intrigue seemed forever out of reach—until the day he stumbled into a genuine espionage operation.
It all started when Max, on yet another unremarkable case involving a stolen lawn flamingo, accidentally intercepted a dead drop meant for an MI6 operative. Inside the package was a cryptic note and a strange, high-tech device that Max immediately mistook for a top-secret spy gadget (a prototype stapler). His overenthusiastic attempt to "decode" the note—using a toy cipher wheel—alerted the agency to his involvement.
MI6, desperate to maintain the secrecy of their operation and short-staffed after an internal scandal, decided to bring Max in under the guise of recruitment. "Better to keep him close than let him blunder around," reasoned Agent Eleanor Bishop, the seasoned handler assigned to babysit him.
Max's first "mission" was to be a test: observe a suspected arms dealer at a charity gala and report back. Simple, right? Not for Max. Determined to emulate his fictional idols, he arrived at the event wearing a white tuxedo jacket and sunglasses indoors. He ordered a martini—shaken, not stirred, of course—and spent most of the evening winking at women who were either agents or oblivious civilians.
Max took it upon himself to pursue when the arms dealer slipped away. He followed the suspect into the kitchen, where he mistook a line cook's cleaver for a concealed weapon. A chaotic chase ensued, ending with Max setting off the fire suppression system, drenching everyone in foam, and accidentally capturing the dealer when he tripped over a tray of hors d'oeuvres.
Despite the fiasco, Max was hailed as an "unconventional genius" by the media, who had no idea he was a clueless amateur. MI6, however, was less impressed. "He's a walking disaster," Bishop muttered, though her superiors insisted on keeping him in the field for fear of what he might do unsupervised.
Max's missions only grew more ridiculous. On a surveillance job in Paris, he mistook a pigeon for a trained messenger bird and caused an international incident by chasing it into the Eiffel Tower's restricted zone. While infiltrating a high-security laboratory, he activated every alarm by trying to "improvise" with duct tape and a hairdryer. During a high-speed car chase, he insisted on using an old sports car equipped with a malfunctioning ejector seat that launched his shoes instead of him.
Yet, somehow, Max always stumbled into success. His knack for chaos often exposed hidden plots or distracted villains long enough for the real agents to clean up the mess. Over time, his unorthodox methods gained him a strange sort of fame within the agency. Some called him a lucky charm; others referred to him as "an apocalypse in a bow tie."
For Max, though, it was the adventure of a lifetime. He never realized how much work went into covering for his blunders or how many people secretly rolled their eyes when he called himself "the world's greatest spy." To him, every mission was proof that he truly belonged in the glamorous world of espionage.
In the end, Max Morgan might have been the world's worst spy—but in his heart, he was a legend. And for MI6, he was an endless headache they wouldn't trade for anything. Well, almost anything.