So, here is the Cliff Notes version: Dad was a British
intelligence officer who, when will was in primary school, went off to Iran
around the time the Shah was ousted and never returned. Will’s mother died when
he and his sister were in high school. When it was time, his sister went off to
college and a reasonably normal life while Will opted for the French Foreign Legion,
eventually becoming one of their elite paratroopers. After 5 years, he went back
to the UK for university. Unknown to Will, a colleague of his father had been
watching over him and after graduation offered Will a chance to get back at the
bad guys like those who killed his father, so he joined MI6. Being lethal, stealthy,
creative, and, best of all, utterly ruthless when focused on a goal, Will was
brought into the UK’s ultra-super secret Spartan program. Spartan is unique in
that candidates are brought in one at a time and they either quit or die during
training. Many had tried, but Will was the first to survive a training program
that might make a SEAL wet his pants. The real unique aspect of the Spartan
program is that there is only one active Spartan at a time – until he quits or is killed.
Think of James Bond and the 00 program, only there is only one 00 agent - an
agent who gets only the toughest assignments. His handlers are Alistar, a
dapper and highly experienced MI6 agent and Patrick, a more course CIA agent.
Both, essentially, answer to no one other than their respective President or Prime
Minister, which means Will is given a very long and loose leash.
On to Spycatcher. The NSA has an electronic eavesdropping
tool called Hubble that seems to operate well outside of the bounds of the
Patriot Act. Hubble analysts piece together a potentially devastating terrorist
plot out of Iran, but they are lacking in details like where, when, how, and
most importantly, who is running it. Bits and pieces from Hubble identify
Harry, an aging Croatian (or was it Serbian?) arms dealer operating mostly out
of Sarajevo. Harry points Will on the trail of Lana who had been horribly
abused during the Balkan War, but had been rescued by a shady Iranian who goes
by a code name of Meggido – a highly placed operative in Iran's Revolutionary Guard and the guy the NSA thinks may be behind the coming
attack. Will’s goal is to us her as an intermediary to draw this Meggido out
for capture before this massive attack takes place.
Will, Lana, and Harry jump around much of the former
Yugoslavia, Paris, London, Scandinavia, and the NE corridor of the US in an
intricate cat and mouse game of who is leading whom around. Dunn gives us a detailed
insider’s look at pursuit and surveillance, tradecraft of letters that tempt
the recipient into a mistake, and a significant running firefight in the snows
of upstate NY that damn near explodes off the last quarter of the book; if you chose to read this book, when the chase heads well past NYC, make sure you have no obligations or interruptions because if you do, you'll probably just ignore any and everything else around.
A foundation philosophy of writing is to write about what
you know best. And in doing so, authors frequently interject personal
experiences into their writing. Dunn’s bio on the jacket liner says that as an MI6 agent, he was “trained in all
aspects of intelligence collection and direct action including agent running
and debriefing, deep-cover deployments, small-arms, explosives, military
unarmed combat, surveillance, anti-surveillance, counter-surveillance, advanced
driving, infiltration and exfiltration techniques, and covert communications.” The
bio further states, “During his time in MI6, Matthew conducted approximately
seventy missions. All of them were successful.” If even 10% of this book
is autobiographical, Dunn must’ve been someone you didn’t want to have on your
trail and, for sure, not someone to piss off.
Do some of the circumstances seem a bit over the top at
times? Of course they do. That’s part of the reason we read this genre - to see how people handle unfathomable challenges. That
won’t put me off. So, for the foreseeable future, it looks like I’ll be leap frogging between Will Cochrane and Walt Longmire.
East Coast Don
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