Unsung Hero: King Helaman's Servant

Helaman 2:6-9

One of my favorite unsung heroes of the Book of Mormon, the Servant of Helaman. This dude seriously rocks. As the first undercover government agent mentioned in the Book of Mormon, we know about his methods only that he is described as 'having been out by night.' While the scripture doesn't specify, he clearly had 'go out by night' more thanto do so more than once in order to infiltrate such as secretive gang unit as the Gadiantons. And somehow he manages to obtain 'through disguise' information about their plans to assassinate Helaman and throw the government into chaos.

After which point the narrative jumps immediately to where he manages to intercept Kishkumen en route to assassinate Helaman with not a moment to spare. He gives him the secret gang sign / password, and Kishkumen confides his plans to murder Helaman. He accomplishes what one might call, in our world, a total James Bond moment of perfect timing. It would be interesting to know if Kishkumen 1) knew Helaman's servant personally before this moment, from his infiltration of the gang, 2) If he knew OF him before this by word of mouth, or if 2) He simply seized upon what he saw as an perfect method to infiltrate the palace, via the King's personal (and obviously trusted and highly placed) servant.

I personally think it is a combination of all three factors - Kishkumen has already successfully sneaked in and out of the palace once before during his previous successful royal assassination, so he clearly has a route. But he's a clever little bugger, so I can definitely see how having an inside man would appeal to him. And maybe they sealed off his old route - but since he was 'on the way' as it were, I doubt he had no plan of entrance. But, having met Helaman's servant and seeing what looked like, for whatever reason, a better way, Kishkumen seizes the opportunity, confides his plans, and asks him to lead the way.

Which leads us to the next event in the severely edited for scripture version we have, verse nine. Somehow, as they are skulking along on the way to murder the King, Helaman's servant manages to turn the tables and stab Kishkumen. First of all, Kishkumen is a seriously bad dude. Think, Jet Li. As a successful assassin and founder of a robber/murderer gang (which has in turn been taken over by the smooth-tongued Gadianton) I doubt he was some pansy rollover type who was easy to knock off. Which again reinforces that Helaman's Servant = James Bond.

The scriptural verse does provide the rather gory details that Kishkumen was stabbed 'to the heart' and that he fell dead 'without a groan.' Now, anyone who's watched any action films knows that it's extremely difficult to kill people with such pinpoint accuracy that they are dead before they can make a sound. If they don't get off a shout of alarm (which Kishkumen apparently didn't) they at least have a death groan or wheeze or rattle - unless the killer is SO pinpoint accurate that they die instantly and silently. Which is hard to do with a knife. With the Vulcan death grip, maybe not. But with a dagger? Probably only James Bond - and Helaman's servant.  Which again reverts to the theory that he was a prototype undercover government agent, because that kind of skill does not get developed scrubbing floors.

After Kishkumen's death, Helaman's servant sprints off to Helaman to report events, and to call in the SWAT team for gang unit roundup. But clever Gadianton has already become alarmed by Kishkumen's late return, and orders the gang to split. It's somewhat reassuring that King Helaman's SWAT team equivalent were not totally incompetent in rounding up criminals, and the scripture notes that Gadianton and Co. left 'by a secret way.'  Gadianton's ability to infiltrate and take over the gang started by Kishkumen (unless it was HIS all along...hmmmm), his operational planning awareness (WHY isn't Kishkumen back yet?!) and his forethought in having a secret route to skip town planned all along all serve to foreshadow why this particular bad guy will prove the downfall of the entire Nephite nation.