Mike Farrah is an officer with the British SAS.
He has been one for a few years already by the time we meet him in his first recorded adventure. He had been surprised as a young man just out of 'the local comprehensive' and eager to sign up for Her Majesty's Army to learn from the recruiter that he would make an excellent officer and so, after passing all the exams, was admitted to Sandhurst to begin his training. There it was learned that he was particularly good with languages, especially Arabic, and that meant heading to the Intelligence Corps.
More specifically, it was with the vaunted SAS that Farrah would make himself known after a tour in Iraq and another straight away in Afghanistan. Now, in his mid-20s, Farrah is being given a chance to answer to his 'yes' check next to the box volunteering for Special Operations work.
Farrah is the son of a Lebanonese Druze salesman who had grown up in Cairo and on one of his trips to London on business had met an English woman. They fell in love and got married and soon young Farrah came along. The boy would spend most of his summers with his grandparents in Cairo so his grasp of Arabic was truly as a native. Coupled with the swarthy Mediterranean coloring inherited from his father, he could easily pass off as an Arab anywhere he went. His bright blue eyes might be troublesome but there were covers for that.
And that is how Farrah, described as a "tall, tanned Arab with a trim little beard and moustache outlining a hard face, all cheekbones and surprisingly blue eyes" came be working for the SIS. It seemed that organization was in urgent, immediate need for a devilishly handsome operative who could speak Arabic as a native and pretend to be a multimillionaire to charm and woo and seduce the daughter of a major terrorist money-handler.
Farrah modestly acknowledged he had the looks and he certainly had the language skills but pretending to be very rich and sophisticated? He was not so sure. And being a shoe-in to literally charm the pants off a woman he had yet to meet? There he was very much not so confident.
Good Line:
- Said by Farrah's handler about those in the spy business, "We are all conmen in this game."