Beyond Enkription: The Burlington Files

INTRODUCTIONBeyond Enkription is the first of six stand-alone fact based espionage novels which form The Burlington Files series written by Bill Fairclough. All the books are largely based on Bill’s actual experiences some of which are described in his biography included in TheBurlingtonFiles.org website. In real life he was one of Pemberton's People in MI6 who feature in TheBurlingtonFiles series: for more about this, before reading Beyond Enkription, do check out who's who at https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2021.09.26.php.Beyond Enkription is set in 1974 in London, Nassau, Port-au-Prince and the Americas in the heart of the disco fevered seventies and the (First) Cold War. The novel is about a wayward accountant, Edward Burlington aka Bill Fairclough, who unwittingly ends up working as an agent for MI6 by night whilst undertaking audits during the day. Part of the core plot in Beyond Enkription centres around the misspelling of “Encryption”.In real life Bill Fairclough was an intelligence agent who lived a remarkable maverick double existence throughout much of his career. Covertly he specialised in infiltration and investigatory assignments while working for intelligence agencies including MI5, MI6, the CIA and Faire Sans Dire (which he founded in 1978). Overtly, he was a British Chartered Accountant and became a director of several well-known businesses (within the Barclays, Reuters and Citi groups) in the regulated international financial services sector. Before that, he worked as an accountant at Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) for 14 years until 1983.SYNOPSIS OF BEYOND ENKRIPTIONEdward Burlington’s parents, Roger and Sara Burlington have been involved in espionage since 1939. While Roger is still a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sara’s address book appears to be more like a Who's Who of NATO's intelligence services than a housewife’s little black book. Both Roger and Sara desperately wanted their sons, Hugh and Edward, to follow in their footsteps but things didn’t go to plan, given Edward’s rebellious nature.As it happened, Edward unintentionally wrecked their plans for him and unwittingly ended up working as an MI6 asset as opposed to an MI6 officer. Early in 1974 he is nearly killed not once, but four times. Indirectly it is all MI6's fault... as far as his parents are concerned. Sara decides someone high up in MI6 must pay and persuades Roger to exact revenge. Meanwhile Edward is underhandedly despatched to supposed safety from London to Nassau in the Bahamas to purportedly continue his career as an accountant.Unfortunately or otherwise, the CIA has a representative on the British Joint Intelligence Committee and is therefore already aware of Edward’s exploits and capabilities. They turn him into their asset within 48 hours of his landing in the Bahamas. Instead of furthering his accountancy career, Edward has to face more death-defying scenarios in the Bahamas, Brazil and Haiti before the year’s end.CHARACTERS IN BEYOND ENKRIPTIONWhere possible, details of the real life identities of the main characters in Beyond Enkription have been disclosed in an article entitled The Burlington Files Characters; please see https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2021.09.26.php. In real life most of those identified worked in British Intelligence or the CIA in the seventies. Also, in real life the fictional accountancy firm Porter Williams that featured in Beyond Enkription was in fact Coopers & Lybrand (now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers). Read more