Chapman now had two different women, under the protection of two different secret services, on opposing sides of the war.

Find out what the Germans desire, and we will know what they lack.

General Archibald Wavell, the imaginative commander of British forces in North Africa, realized that Maskelyne’s talents might be applied to the battlefield. Maskelyne was sent to the Western Desert, where he assembled “the Magic Gang,” possibly the most eccentric military unit ever formed, whose members included an analytical chemist, a

It is far easier, under interrogation, to tell part of the truth than to sustain a latticework of pure lies.

A dead enemy spy can do no more harm, but neither can he (or she) do any good.

The instincts of the spy and the thief are not so different: both trade in stolen goods, on similar principles. The value of information depends on the buyer’s hunger, but it is a seller’s market.

He traveled a little, drank a lot, and took no physical exercise of any kind (he rode a bicycle only once in his life, but declared the experience “uncomfortable”16 and never repeated it).

Each credited the other with extreme efficiency and advanced preparations, and both were wrong.

One of the most striking aspects of the countries’ intelligence services was just how little each side knew about the other.