The year is 1982, late spring:
1) Willie, in wheelchair, is now Head of Training Section, running the
Field School and liaison with the MoD for special ops training of new
recruits. Mike is SB 1
2) (first overlap with real life) Dalgetty's empire building has peaked
with Matthew Peele's sponsorship in the consolidation of Operations
Directorate and Intelligence Directorate in a combined Directorate of
Operations and Intelligence. Dalgetty is the first D/Ops & Int.
3) Peele has been promoted laterally out of the SIS to become the
Coordinator of Security and Intelligence in the Cabinet Office (and a seat
on the JIC). In this capacity, he is alternately offending everyone in
the intelligence community, and being ignored by them. MI 5 is in a huff
over what it perceives as anti-Security Service bias by him; GCHQ simply
ignores him, the SIGINT service viewing him as simply too technologically
'out of it' to coordinate *them*.
4) (overlap number 3) Thatcher (remember Geoff Ross' comment about `Your
new lady as No.10` in _Who Needs Enemies_) is, of course, a huge
intelligence service booster. Special Section is better off than ever
before; up not merely to three but five officers, one posted permanently
at one of the Sovereign Bases in Cyprus, another in Singapore. But:
5) Because of the Salt III fiasco, Tower-Gibbs has resigned as 'C', and
retired from intelligence life. The new 'C' is a personal appointment by
Thatcher, the former head of the Soviet division at GCHQ (aka J Division,
or Special SIGINT), a tall, donnish sort who appears utterly inoffensive
but, of course, is rather more formidable than that (I'm basing this
character on someone real, but who is better unnamed). As a pure
intelligence type, special ops are not something he has a great sympathy
with, so much of the pressure for SO work is coming straight down from
Downing Street.
6) Burnside has ben shunted sideways after the Salt III fiasco. He's been
moved to one of the peripheral stations in the Spanish speaking world
(just what Dalgetty always wanted). All but a broken man, Burnside has
remarried Belinda, and is marking time to an uneventful eary retirement (a
perk offered by SIS to officers who have served in hazardous duties -
overlap no.5) between a barren home and a patchwork of low grade agents
along the South American Atlantic coast. And then one day, he gets a
tickle from a middle-grade political sources... Because, you see, it's
1982, Burnside has been relegated the Head of Station Buenos Aires, and
the Argentines are about to invade the Falklands.
I figure the episode would be called 'Out of Harm's Way'.
The story probably goes like this: the Falkands invasion blows up in
everyone's face. Burnside's report has been ignored by Dalgetty, and
anyway it was unconfirmed by other sources, especially SIGINT which
located the elite unit most likely to lead an invasion as still being
based on Argentina's western border (overlap no.6). Burnside finds the
opening for a special op., (I haven't figured out what yet), but can't get
clearance to mount it from Dalgetty, for numerous obvious reasons. UK
intelligence is hopping after the invasion, so he's allowed to request
additional officers for the station. Burnside uses this opening to
approach Willie to find him someone out of the field school with SO
training to take the job -- claiming they're extra staff to handle the
coast-watching network. Burnside uses his new staff and Willie's help as
'controller' using a makeshift ops room in a Buenos Aires safe house to do
the job.
Success, glory all round, except for Dalgetty who, it turns out,
suppressed not only Burnside's reports but anything else that conflicted
with the Foreign Office party line he and Peele were trying to ingratiate
themselves with. Willie gets booted upstairs to Director Support Services
(training & technical development), Dalgetty is eased out and replaced
with Wallace, and Burnside is brought back to Collingstone House as the
Ministry of Defence liaison officer, overseeing things like SAS and SBS
'underlabourers' and staff secondments for the SIS. Burnside and Cain
serve out a last couple of years to retirement. Wallace stays on as D/OPs
& Int, with a technocrat as C, a manic hawk as Prime Minister, and scene
is set for....
Sandbaggers: The Next Generation.
Or something like that.