Sublime

We’re impossibly young to have the fate of the world in our hands. But such is the way of the Agency. By thirty-five, any operative worth their salt has gone hard enough at their job to erode their cover. My chief explained it to me once in training: “You could sit in a closet for twenty years and your cover would remain pristine, but you wouldn’t

He’s referring to Operation Merlin, a botched effort from a few years back that’s just been leaked to the press. In a bid to entrap the Iranians into building a nuclear weapon in contravention of the ban, we apparently arranged for an asset to pass them plans for a contraband firing mechanism, sneakily—or so we thought—adapted to render the system

At their best, Agency officers are charged with a different kind of defense: the act of listening, learning, building relationships, cultivating trust. It’s soulful work, investing in a relationship with the adversary.