Top Secret

Teaching English on the premises of a weapons making facility is a new experience for me. Initially, I thought that the company I teach at in the mountains on Tuesday evenings was just a dull industrial park and whenever I enquired as to what jobs my students do, I usually received frosty responses of, "Nothing that interesting."
I have tried to gleam more information about what goes on at the company by snooping around the building 10 minutes before my lesson. But it is mostly vacuous and bland inside, revealing nothing of interest. All the doors that line the long corridors are closed and as you pass each one there is often a low murmuring of voices. Being naturally nosey, I sometimes shove my eyeball over a key-hole hoping to see what on earth is happening behind these secret doors.
I have been teaching there for one month now, and the company has been shrouded in mystery.
That is until now.
As usual I signed my name in the security man's register at the entrance and drove through the industrial complex which housed many large gas cylinders, low-rise huts and office-blocks covered in tarpaulin. I parked my car outside the building where I teach and walked in. Once I assembled all my teaching materials on my desk I waited for my students to arrive. I was in the process of scratching my arm-pits when I heard a soft mumble from next door. I stopped scratching in order to hear this sound more clearly. It was a woman's voice and she was speaking English. I pressed my ear to the wall and discovered this voice belonged to an American. It was hard to understand what was being said but I heard her say things like "goals" and "objectives in the up-coming quarter."
It sounded like a boring business meeting until the American woman's speech was cut short by a gravelly voiced American man. His contribution made this meeting a lot more interesting.
"I don't give a shit how it’s done. Just do it," he barked.
My eyes suddenly turned to the size of saucers and my mind was polluted with images of me tape-recording this meeting and sending it onto the Russians. I felt that my interpretation of this meeting being riddled with political secrecy was premature. For all I knew they could have been discussing the fastest way to transport a crate of pig-shit to a compost heap in Hong Kong.
One of my students – Tomio - entered the room finding me pressed up to the wall cupping my ear. He sat down without a word, leading me to believe he expected this type of behaviour from me. I reassured him that I was quite sane and that I was merely interested in the meeting taking place next door.
"Ah. That meeting," he said with knowing wink.
I said it must be quite important if there were Americans present.
"Yes. Very important. Top secret meeting," he giddily revealed.
I asked why it was top secret.
"I cannot tell you because it is top-secret," he bluntly said.
"Oh, go on," I said.
"OK then," and he began to tell me about this top secret meeting.
Tomio’s swift acceptance to inform me about the meeting after my gentle prodding made me seriously consider a job in a police interrogation unit. It was probably less to do with me, though, and more to do with Tomio being a compulsive gossip.
It turns out that the company manufactures weapons and supplies them to the American army. Items such as laser guided missiles, radars for battle-ships and rocket launchers.
I was wildly excited by this disclosure. I'm a bloke, of course I would be.
No longer would I be teaching English inside a boring industrial complex, I would now be teaching English inside a mysterious layer that created an arsenal of destructive high-tech gadgetry - and I was teaching the guys that made them! I suddenly had a notion that I held some influence over these doomsday scientists. They learnt the English that I taught. Perhaps I could get them to write a small thesis on the benefits of world peace, leading them to reject their jobs of war and take up building bungalows instead of missiles. I was ejected from my reverie when Tomio smacked his fist on the table and sternly informed me that our discussion was to be kept secret. Our seal of confidentiality was broken, however, when another of my students, Kazuhito, walked in and Tomio said, "I've just been telling Sam about the top-secret meeting next door."
Kazuhito stopped abruptly as he was about to sit in his chair. He gave Tomio a look of maximum hate.
"Yes. He was just telling me that you supply weapons to the Americans," I said.
Kazuhito nodded in recognition to my statement but wished to disclose nothing more. He only gave Tomio another glance of loathing. To help matters further, I jokingly confided to the pair that I was a British spy and that Tomio's information was very helpful for MI6. They didn't find it funny.