Qip - Industrial Espionage

You know when you think of spies
You don't think of parents with little kids

One of the neighbours told us
They couldn't possibly be spies
Just look at their hydrangeas
These were expert gardeners
Caring for their lawn
And maintaining their garden

We have followed
A very thorough
Phonetic training
To erase any trace
Of our mother tongue
The language monitored
For loan translations
The deadly traps
To be avoided
At all cost

In the moments of stress and emotion
Split seconds of panic and heat
Have I aroused suspicion?
Did the mask fall?
Have I compromised the mission?
How much do they know?
Did my body language betray me?
Did the mask fall?
Has the search begun?

Well Steve, if you pardon the cruel joke
You already put your foot in it bad time
You should have known
But if you don't watch your reactions
The enemy will
An attitude consistent with your cover
Indignation
Resigned dignity or willing collaboration
Might have saved you
But here you are
A courier already out of the job
And the close search just beginning

Now you can trace all those serpentine failures
One after one the houses of cards fell
We got locked in a domino effect
The leaks of know-how soon became evident
Revealed another hard truth about this milieu

There was a time
We were second to none at this game
Lived up to our name
Pretending, hiding a narrow escape
From the bad self and the bad world
A decade ago a young family disappeared
To make a place and legend for us
They will haunt us some day
Before we go to hell for this
Empathy is secondary to the objective

Now you can trace all those serpentine failures
One after one the houses of cards fell
We got locked in a domino effect
The leaks of know-how soon became evident
Revealed another hard truth about this milieu

There was a time
We were second to none at this game
Lived up to our name
Pretending, hiding a narrow escape
From the bad self and the bad world
A decade ago a young family disappeared
To make a place and legend for us
They will haunt us some day
Before we go to hell for this
Empathy is secondary to the objective

In this job a false step
Often means torture and death
We knew the risk
But we were just about
To learn it the hard way
And when we finally emerged
From that tunnel
It was clear we were left
On our own in the palm of their hand

They already knew who we were
Then we got turned