Summary

Serena and Max met to discuss Freedom International which would be the front for Serena’s mission. She asked Max why Shirley was fired. He didn’t know; he thought she might know. She asked if Shirley’s dismissal involved her. Max said that unexpected dismissals were a natural part of the Service. Serena didn’t believe him. She confronted him about his apparent lack of knowledge about the Service’s Information Research Department, or IRD. It wasn’t working like it was intended to and had become an arm of MI6. She heard that it could be cut entirely.

The goal of Operation Sweet Tooth was to bring in writers who showed skepticism about a utopian East and a catastrophic West. They didn’t have to be radicals or Cold War fanatics. She commented that the writers would be enraged to learn that...