Agent Running In The Field Quotes
"We were neither covertly nor aggressively observed."
"I have had a good run, this was always going to be the deal, so no complaints."
"In the time-honoured British parlour game of placing our compatriots on the social ladder by virtue of their diction I am at best a poor contestant."
"I can be headstrong and do not respond naturally to discipline."
"I am quoting from my late employers’ confidential reports on my performance and general allure over the last twenty-five years."
"My English on the other hand remains for better or worse my father’s."
"I quickly realize that my usual patter doesn’t play."
"I tell her in simulated outrage that I have never before encountered such barefaced integrity."
"I was torn, but was persuaded by her sense of national duty."
"He’s heard about you, now he’s come to get you, sure as David did Goliath."
"For more than two decades, first with Prue, and then without her, I have served my Queen under diplomatic or consular cover."
"The natural-born agent-runner is his own man."
"The impressive junior lawyer who had taken courses in counter-surveillance, safety signals and the filling and clearing of dead letter boxes had indeed accompanied me to Moscow."
"Our daughter Steff would never become the kind of diplomatic brat we had seen too many of."
"She was torn, but was persuaded by her sense of national duty."
"In Moscow, she had played the starring role in husband-and-wife setpiece charades scripted to deceive the opposition’s eavesdroppers."
"And now kindly read me my death warrant and let’s get this over with."
"I have a light touch and a welcoming nature that invites trust."
"I can exhibit the required callousness, though required by whom, and in what degree, is not stated."
"I think it’s your good right to do exactly what you want to do, for as long as you want to do it."
"I’m offering you a golden opportunity to remodel a home-based Russian outstation that’s been in the shade too long."
"I have the required callousness, though required by whom, and in what degree, is not stated."
"I am capable of fluent and persuasive argument in the short term."
"I adapt to circumstance and have no insuperable moral scruples."
"I am not by any means immune to female charms."
"I am not naturally suited to deskwork or the sedentary life."
"My guess is that Ed’s diction would pass as just about all right."
"Brexit is indeed an unmitigated clusterfuck."
"I have French, German, British and Old Russian blood in my veins."
"I am as much at home on the Continent of Europe as I am in Battersea."
"The biggest gift you can give the young is time."
"Forget his raw opening salvo. Ed was not raw. He was just deeply involved."
"Once Ed had established that in his simple bestiary I was broadly a sympathetic ear, I could have been a stranger sitting next to him on the bus."
"The fact that his opinions on any given topic were predictable before he opened his mouth did not disturb me."
"Ed was young, highly intelligent within the margins of his fixed opinions, and quick to anger when they were opposed."
"The thought that a great nation that had run amok should repent its crimes to the world."
"I didn’t always listen very carefully, and sometimes I switched off altogether."
"Badminton is stealth, patience, speed and improbable recovery."
"It is always pleasant talking to strangers in your country. Especially when they are young and handsome like you."
"If stuff is sensitive enough, I get to do the handling on my own."
"Everyone else sits with the fence halfway up his arse waiting for someone to do something. I’m doing it. That’s all."
"We play him for as long as he lasts, and once we’ve done with him we let our sister Service wrap up the Gamma network to the sound of trumpets."
"If I knew the whole truth I would tell it to you."
"You do not need to know Markus personally. He is a tenant here. That is all."
"We are a divided nation, Nat, as you will have noticed."
"I am helping the cause when I feel like it. That’s all I’m doing."
"Maybe we can make a nest egg for you in another country and one day you claim it."
"As far as Shannon is concerned, Trump is devil’s advocate for every tinpot demagogue and kleptocrat across the globe."
"I am confirming that, as Maria reported, you have excellent recall and you do not decorate your information for greater effect."
"I’m all right, thanks. Yeah. They pay me pretty decently."
"He said you were high up in the pecking order. Some sort of top cat."
"America will accommodate Britain’s needs, but only on terms. One such term will be a joint covert operation to obtain by persuasion – bribery and blackmail not excluded – officials, parliamentarians and opinion-makers of the European Establishment."
"Not all Americans are Europhobes. Not all Brits are passionate for a trade alliance with Trump’s America at any price."
"He quoted Goethe’s Faust at me. In the beginning was the deed."
"As we say in the business, he’s too good to arrest."
"Traitors who have hours ago crossed their personal Rubicon and know there’s no way back do not in my experience radiate sweet contentment."
"If Jesus isn’t going to be at the wedding it’s a washout."
"We want unconditional compliance. Yours and Ed’s. In return we offer expert handling and full support."
"That’s Florence’s view and I’m happy to share it. They were cut from the same cork tree at birth and for as long she believes that they’re fine because he’ll believe whatever she does."
"He can’t lie, Nat. The truth is all he knows."