Spy Trade: A Spycatcher Novella

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Later today, Bob Oakland would wish he’d been killed in a manner that was quick and painless and nothing like how he imagined it would feel to have the blade of a penknife saw through his gullet.

A thirty-year veteran of the CIA, Oakland was due to retire in a few months and had been told that he could complete his career with pretty much any cushy job he wanted. Most in his position would have opted for a desk job in Langley: a nine-to-five idyll with ample time to dust off bass-fishing rods and prepare them for good use in retirement. Thing was, though, Oakland still had a mind that thought it was young, and no way was it going to let him pass over the opportunity to act like Wilfred Thesiger or T. E. Lawrence and trek across a desert that was hard underfoot, mostly flat, and so hot that he could feel its heat through the soles of his shoes.

The five men with him were half Oakland’s age. Four of them wore headscarves and shawls to make them look like Bedouins from a distance; though underneath the veneer of disguise they were thoroughbred Americans with military gear and weapons that were only issued to men who’d qualified to become Navy SEALs. The fifth was a Jordanian translator who was wearing jeans, a Metallica T-shirt, and Ray-Bans, and had modeled his psyche to be more American than that of anyone else in the group.

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