Spy Game Quotes

You don't need a search warrant to go through someone's trash. Seriously. Once it hits the curb it is totally fair game-you an look it up.

The center snaps the ball to the quarterback!" "No he doesn't!" "He doesn't?" "NO! Secretly, he's the quarterback for the other team! He keeps the ball!" "A traitor!" "Calvin breaks for the goal." "Wheeee! He's at the 30... the 20... the 10! Nobody can catch him!" "Nobody wants to! Your running toward your own goal!" "Huh?!" "When I learned that you were a spy, I switched goals. This is your goal and mine's hidden!" "Hidden?!" "You'll never find it in a million years!" "I don't need to find it as a traitor to your team, crossing my goal counts as crossing your goal!" "Ah, so you might think so..." "In fact, I know so!" "But the place I hid my goal is right on top of your goal, so the points will go to me!" "But the fact is, I'm really a double agent! I'm on your team after all, which means you'll lose points if I cross your goal! Ha ha!" "But I'm a traitor too, so I'm really on your team! I want you to cross my goal! The points will go to your team, which is really my team!" "That would be true... if I were a football player!" "You mean...?" "I'm actually a badminton player disguised as a double-agent football player!!" "And I'm actually a volleyball-croquet-polo player!" "Sooner or later, all our games turn into CalvinBall." "No cheating!

To me it was real war and my life was at stake, and I believe that all those clandestine spy games we played as children helped when the Occupation came.

Don't give it to them all at once, make them work for it. Confuse them with detail, leave things out, go back on your tracks. Be testy, be cussed, be difficult. Drink like a fish; don't give way on the ideology, they won't trust that. They want to deal with a man they've bought; they want the clash of opposites, Alec, not some half-cock convert.

You know something is wrong when the government declares opening someone else’s mail is a felony but your internet activity is fair game for data collecting.

Then why haven’t you noticed I’m not your only tail?” —Nash

His one indulgence was attending the occasional Chelsea Blues game

Eddie Drood: Is this why we become agents? To play games, to chase after secrets that are rarely worth all the blood spilled on their behalf...To end up stabbed in the back, just when you thought you'd won, bleeding out in some nameless backstreet...With most people never even knowing who you were, or what you did, or why it mattered?

You could only to your best, and hope for a strong tail wind to waft you faster to your destination. Until then, you played the game, kept your tongue civil, and spoke favorably of your enemies when either they or their spies might overhear.

Do you know, when I am with you I am not afraid at all. It is a magic altogether curious that happens inside the heart. I wish I could take it with me when I leave. It is sad, my Grey. We are constrained by the rules of this Game we play. There is not one little place under those rules for me to be with you happily. Or apart happily, which is what makes it so unfair. I have discovered a curious fact about myself. An hour ago I was sure you were dead, and it hurt very much. Now you are alive, and it is only that I must leave you, and I find that even more painful. That is not at all logical. Do you know the Symposium, Grey? The Symposium of Plato. [He] says that lovers are like two parts of an egg that fit together perfectly. Each half is made for the other, the single match to it. We are incomplete alone. Together, we are whole. All men are seeking that other half of themselves. Do you remember? I think you are the other half of me. It was a great mix-up in heaven. A scandal. For you there was meant to be a pretty English schoolgirl in the city of Bath and for me some fine Italian pastry cook in Palermo. But the cradles were switched somehow, and it all ended up like this…of an impossibility beyond words. I wish I had never met you. And in all my life I will not forget lying beside you, body to body, and wanting you.

Why do you do this?” she asked. “Do what?” “Follow me around. Look at me as if you find me fascinating. Touch me, and say nice things to me. And then, you pull away as if you did nothing at all.” She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I’ve already agreed to tell you everything I know. There’s no need for these games.

You want me to be your spy in a game of restaurant espionage? Will I need a code name?" "It's nothing morally reprehensible or anything, " Wes hastened to assure her. "Just curiosity." "I think your code name should be Tiberius," she said decisively. "I'll be Uhura." "Tiberius? As in James Tiberius Kirk?" Wes blinked, then grinned. "Oh my God, this is your version of flirting. How do you say 'I fancy you' in Klingon?

I spy something green," Sally announced. "Trees," Crina hollered, while Mariana called out, "Grass," "Nope," Sally answered. "What's the point of this game again?" Crina asked. "Mindless entertainment," Jen announced. “It's what Americans are known for.

When sorrows come, they come not as single spies – “ “— But in battalions.

What did Shakespeare say? When sorrows come, they come not as single spies – “ “— But in battalions.

The first question should always be, “What kind of game do they think we’re playing?

We are merely a pawn in a chess game played by the nations of the world. Should we not be a bigger, more important piece in the game? Are we not all capable of playing the part of the king or queen?

Their lips met with a tender and powerful force. At that point, they melted into each other and Seth felt a flush of sensations over his entire being. Hands wandered naturally, and each caress became more exciting and pleasurable. Where the body ended and the soul began was a mystery in this ancient game of combinations.

Dear God, why? Don’t do that. Why do you always have to let me see ALL the things you do? Why can't there be a little mystery with you, Evie? You pass gas, burp, eat too fast and lick your fingers. You take all the covers and then kick them off and I'm freezing. You are like, like a… like a… like a wife.

Soviet intelligence was playing a long game, laying down seed corn that could be harvested many years hence or left dormant forever. It was a simple, brilliant, durable strategy of the sort that only a state committed to permanent world revolution could have initiated. It would prove staggeringly successful.

I’m with you because you’re smart and beautiful, and you are not like anyone I know. No matter how hard things are, you throw yourself into them. During Midnight Games you walked into a cage with trained killers not knowing if your curses would work, because you knew other people were counting on you. That’s what you do. You step up.

The best way to win a zero-sum game is to be good at positive-sum games.

With that thought, I did what any sensible young woman would do. I hid behind the banyan tree and spied on the basketball game.

One afternoon Peeta stops shading a blossom and looks up so suddenly that I start, as though I were caught spying on him, which in a strange way maybe I was.

Heaven knows I am no expert, but it seems to me the terrorism game is a bit like the art trade. It has its peaks and valleys, its good seasons and bad, but it never goes away. – Julian Isherwood

A mountain of recent data on open-plan offices from many different industries corroborates the results of the games. Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They’re associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure. Open-plan workers are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and elevated stress levels and to get the flu; they argue more with their colleagues; they worry about coworkers eavesdropping on their phone calls and spying on their computer screens. They have fewer personal and confidential conversations with colleagues. They’re often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol, the body’s fight-or-flight “stress” hormone; and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others.

Inside every Positive-Sum Game, some people have more power than others. Some people make more important decisions than others. Some people decide what the rest of the group will do. Inside every Positive-Sum Game, someone is the boss.

I gather from what you have not said that he is an unmitigated scoundrel." R. smiled with his pale blue eyes. "I don't know that I'd go quite so far as that. He hasn't had the value of a public-school education. His ideas of playing the game aren't quite the same as yours and mine. I don't know that I would leave a gold cigarette-case about when he was in the neighbourhood, but if he had lost money to you at poker and he had pinched your cigarette-case, he would immediately pawn it to pay you.

This was too much. “Yes,” she shouted, “but I’m eleven.” “Oh.” He looked somewhat taken aback, standing there with the Monopoly board in his hand. Harriet began to feel sorry for him. “Well,” she said, “shall we play one game?” He looked relieved. He set up the board carefully on the coffee table. Then he went to the desk drawer and got out a notebook and a pen. Then he sat down across from her. Harriet stared at the notebook. “What’s that?” “A notebook.” “I KNOW that,” she shouted. “I just take a few notes now and then. You don’t mind, do you?” “Depends on what they are.” “What do you mean?” “Are they mean, nasty notes, or just ordinary notes?” “Why?” “Well, I just thought I’d warn you. Nasty ones are pretty hard to get by with these days.” “Oh, I see what you mean. Thank you for the advice. No, they’re quite ordinary notes.” “Nobody ever takes it away from you, I bet, do they?” “What do you mean?

Far from being repelled by the duplicity around him, Elliott felt ever more drawn to the game of skulduggery and double cross. The Venlo debacle had been “as disastrous as it was shameful,” but he also found it fascinating, an object lesson in how highly intelligent people could be duped if persuaded to believe what they most wanted to believe. He was learning quickly.

Khalid al-Hassan, the PLO’s virtual foreign minister at the time, later explained to the British journalist Alan Hart, “I was opposed to the playing of the terror card. But I have to tell you something else. Those of our Fatah colleagues who did turn to terror were not mindless criminals. They were fiercely dedicated nationalists who were doing their duty as they saw it. I have to say they were wrong, and did so at the time, but I have also to understand them. In their view, and in this they were right, the world was saying to us Palestinians, ‘We don’t give a damn about you, and we won’t care at least until you are a threat to our interests.’ In reply those in Fatah who turned to terror were saying, ‘Okay, world. We’ll play the game by your rules. We’ll make you care!’ 

I never looked forward more to anything in my life. Hours of wintertime had found me in the tree-house looking over at the school yard, spying on multitudes of children through a two-power telescope Jem had given me, learning their games, following Jem’s red jacket through wriggling circles of blind man’s buff, secretly sharing their misfortunes and minor victories. I longed to join them.

A groan is ripped out of me, even as I struggle to breathe, while the vicious gypsy who just kneed me in the balls and felled me like a tree is kneeling down and kissing me on the cheek. “Don’t come in without knocking. Stop being invisible so you can attempt to spy on me. And stop playing games with my head. I have enough shit to deal with,” she says softly, kissing my cheek again before standing and walking out.

Italy still has a provincial sophistication that comes from its long history as a collection of city states. That, combined with a hot climate, means that the Italians occupy their streets and squares with much greater ease than the English. The resultant street life is very rich, even in small towns like Arezzo and Gaiole, fertile ground for the peeping Tom aspect of an actor’s preparation. I took many trips to Siena, and was struck by its beauty, but also by the beauty of the Siennese themselves. They are dark, fierce, and aristocratic, very different to the much paler Venetians or Florentines. They have always looked like this, as the paintings of their ancestors testify. I observed the groups of young people, the lounging grace with which they wore their clothes, their sense of always being on show. I walked the streets, they paraded them. It did not matter that I do not speak a word of Italian; I made up stories about them, and took surreptitious photographs. I was in Siena on the final day of the Palio, a lengthy festival ending in a horse race around the main square. Each district is represented by a horse and jockey and a pair of flag-bearers. The day is spent by teams of supporters with drums, banners, and ceremonial horse and rider processing round the town singing a strange chanting song. Outside the Cathedral, watched from a high window by a smiling Cardinal and a group of nuns, with a huge crowd in the Cathedral Square itself, the supporters passed, and to drum rolls the two flag-bearers hurled their flags high into the air and caught them, the crowd roaring in approval. The winner of the extremely dangerous horse race is presented with a palio, a standard bearing the effigy of the Virgin. In the last few years the jockeys have had to be professional by law, as when they were amateurs, corruption and bribery were rife. The teams wear a curious fancy dress encompassing styles from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. They are followed by gangs of young men, supporters, who create an atmosphere or intense rivalry and barely suppressed violence as they run through the narrow streets in the heat of the day. It was perfect. I took many more photographs. At the farmhouse that evening, after far too much Chianti, I and my friends played a bizarre game. In the dark, some of us moved lighted candles from one room to another, whilst others watched the effect of the light on faces and on the rooms from outside. It was like a strange living film of the paintings we had seen. Maybe Derek Jarman was spying on us.

Somehow it was not the fault of the born adventurers, of those who by their very nature dwelt outside society and outside all political bodies, that they found in imperialism a political game that was endless by definition; they were not supposed to know that in politics an endless game can end only in catastrophe and that political secrecy hardly ever ends in anything nobler than the vulgar duplicity of a spy. The joke on these players of the Great Game was that their employers knew what they wanted and used their passion for anonymity for ordinary spying. But this triumph of the profit-hungry investors was temporary, and they were duly cheated when a few decades later they met the player of the game of totalitarianism, a game played without ulterior motives like profit and therefore played with such murderous efficiency that it devoured even those who financed it.

The relationship between cricket (that most English of sports) and spying (at which the British have always excelled) is deep-rooted and unique. Something about the game attracts the sort of mind also drawn to the secret worlds of intelligence and counter-intelligence – a complex test of brain and brawn, a game of honour interwoven with trickery, played with ruthless good manners and dependent on minute gradations of physics and psychology, with tea breaks.

I shrug, suddenly remembering how Adam never called me this morning, even though he said he would. “I should probably go back to Adam’s apartment to have a look at his door.” “Want some company?” Wes asks. “I can bring along my spy tool. I’ve got a cool UV-light device that picks up all traces of bodily fluids.” “You’re kidding, right?” Kimmie asks. “You know you want to give it a try.” He winks. “I’ll even let you borrow my latex gloves.” “Say no more,” she jokes. “I’m in.

I’ve now interviewed a couple hundred researchers in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and China. I visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where I met brain-injured veterans. I went to the San Francisco offices of Lumosity, the biggest online provider of these cognitive games aimed at improving intelligence. And I met twice with the guy who leads the funding in this area at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA. It’s a government intelligence agency, like DARPA for spies.

By sacrificing the public self, by shunning leaders, and especially by refusing to play the game of self-promotion, Anonymous ensures mystery; this in itself is a radical political act, given a social order based on ubiquitous monitoring and the celebration of runaway individualism and selfishness. Anonymous's iconography — masks and headless suits — visually displays the importance of opacity. The collective may not be the hive it often purports and is purported to be — and it may be marked by internal strife — but Anonymous still manages to leave us with a striking vision of solidarity — e pluribus unum.

I remember." I nod. Wanting to say: I remember everything-all of it-the question is: Do you? But instead, I stare down at my feet, smiling stupidly. Everything I do around him is stupid. Some Seeker I've turned out to be. Attempting to redeem myself,say something normal,not let on that I already know he's employed here-thanks to the raven who allowed me to spy on him earlier,I say, "So,I guess you hang out here a lot then?" He pushes a hand through his hair, as his eyes-the color of aquamarines-glide down the length of me.And damn if I can't feel their trajectory. It's like showering in a stream of warm, molten honey-dripping from the top of my forehead all the way down to my feet. "I guess you could say that," he says,voicelow and deep. "More than most, anyway." He waves a damp towel, tugs on the string of his apron, and I blush in reply. The sight of it reminding me of what I saw in the alleyway-watching him lean against the wall,his face so soft anddreamy I longed to touch him-kiss him-like I did in the dream. I study him closely,seeking traces of recognition, remembrance-some small token of evidence to assure me that, as odd as it seems,that kiss in the cave was as real as it felt-but coming up empty. "So,how long have you worked here?" I ask, returning to the topic at hand. My gaze drifting over the black V-necked T-shirt skimming the sinuous line of his body-telling myself it's all part of my reconnaissance,my need to gather as uch information as I can about him and his kin. But knowing that's not really it.The truth is,I like looking at him, being near him. "I guess you could say somewhere between too long and not long enough-depending on the state of my wallet." His laugh is good-natured and easy-the kid that starts at the belly and trips all the way up. "It's pretty much the only decent game in town." He shrugs. "One way or another,you end up working for the Richters,and believe me, this is one of the better gigs." I peer at him closely,remembering what Cade said when I was here via the raven. How he referred to him by another name. "You're not a Richter?" I ask,holding my breath in my cheeks.Despite what Paloma told me, I need to hear it from him,confirm that he doesn't identify with their clan. "I go by Whitefeather," he says,gaze steady and serious. "I was raised by my mom,didn't even know the Richters when I was a kid." Despite getting the answer I wanted, I frown in return. His being a Richter was a good reason to avoid him-without it,I'm out of excuses. "Is that okay?" He dips his head toward mine,his mouth tugging at the side. "You seem a little upset by the news." I shake my head,break free of my reverie, and say, "No-not at all. Believe me,it's more like a relief." I meet his gaze,seeing the way it narrows in question. "Guess I'm not a big fan of your brother," I add,watching as he throws his head back and laughs,the sight of that long,glorious column of neck forcing me to look away,it's too much to take. "If it makes you feel any better, most of the time I'd have to agree." He returns to me,the warmth of his gaze solely reponsible for the wave of comfort that flows through me.

Sadie had reached a part in Metal Gear Solid where the player character was spying on a female non-player character exercising in her underwear. The NPC's name was Meryl Silverburgh, which also struck Sadie as ridiculous. "Come on," Sadie said. "Meryl fricking Silverburgh in her underwear." "Maybe Kojima's into Jewesses." Sadie wondered if most gamers would be turned on by this. She often had to put herself into a male point of view to even understand the game at all. As Dov was fond of saying to her, "You aren't just a gamer when you play anymore. You're a builder of worlds, and if you're a builder of worlds, your feelings are not as important as what your gamers are feeling. You must imagine them at all times. There is no artist more empathetic than the game designer." Sadie the gamer found this scene sexist and strange. At the same time, Sadie the world builder accepted that the game was made by one of the most creative minds in gaming.

One red feather for celebration. No one yet has seen it but me. When Miss Dickinson says, “Hope is the thing with feathers,” I always think of something round—a ball from one of the games I will never play—stuck all around like a clove-orange sachet with red feathers. I have pictured it many times—Hope!—wondering how I would catch such a thing one-handed, if it did come floating down to me from the sky. Now I find it has fallen already, and a piece of it is here beside our latrine, one red plume. In celebration I stooped down to pick it up. Down in the damp grass I saw the red shaft of another one, and I reached for it. Following the trail I found first the red and then the gray: clusters of long wing feathers still attached to gristle and skin, splayed like fingers. Downy pale breast feathers in tufted mounds. Methuselah. At last it is Independence Day for Methuselan and the Congo. O Lord of the feathers, deliver me this day. After a lifetime caged away from flight and truth, comes freedom. After long seasons of slow preparation for an innocent death, the world is theirs at last. From the carnivores that would tear me, breast from wishbone. Set upon by the civet cat, the spy, the eye, the hunger of a superior need, Methuselah is free of his captivity at last. This is what he leaves to the world: gray and scarlet feathers strewn over the damp grass. Only this and nothing more, the tell-tale heart, tale of the carnivore. None of what he was taught in the house of the master. Only feathers, without the ball of Hope inside. Feathers at last at last and no words at all.

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Any prize off this bottom row,” the guy tells us, walking away to a waiting customer. “You did it!” I jump down off the counter and wrap my arms around his neck. “You won me a prize!” “Thank fuck.” His arms wrap around me. “I was starting to worry for a moment there. Felt like I was losing my man card.” I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss his lips. “Never. And thank you.” I tip my head back to look into his face. His hands slide down my back to my ass, and he gives it a squeeze. “Go pick your prize, Boston.” Leaving Liam, I head back to the counter and lean over, looking at the bottom row of prizes. I see all kinds of crap here, including really cheap-looking stuffed animals and dolls. I definitely do not want a doll. They freak me out. Then, I spy this sad-looking odd toy. Reaching over, I grab it. Liam comes up behind me as I right myself. His chest is pressed to my back. “Is that a…fucking knitted jellyfish?” I turn my head to look up at him. He’s squinting at the toy I’ve picked up. I look back down at it in my hands, and I think he’s right. It is a knitted jellyfish toy. “I think so.” It’s white and pink and looks like a little princess jellyfish. And the more I look at it, the cuter it becomes…in a weird knitted jellyfish way. “She looks like a jellyfish princess,” I say. “It looks like a piece of shit.” “Hey! You’ll hurt her feelings.” I jab him in the arm. Then, I hug her. “I shall call her Squishy, and she shall be mine.” I laugh, meeting Liam’s blank expression. “Finding Nemo? No?” I say. Liam slowly shakes his head, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Okay, makes sense. You were probably too old to watch it when it first came out—you know, when I was still in diapers and you were out serenading teenage girls with the Backstreet Boys—hey!” I squeal when he digs me in the ribs with his fingers. “We’ll watch Nemo later, and then you’ll get the reference.” I turn to the guy. “I’ll take Squishy,” I tell him, holding the stuffed animal up. “Okay, what’s next?” I hook my arm through Liam’s, holding Squishy to my chest. “Hook a Duck.” “Hook a what?” I give him a confused look. “Duck.” “And what’s Hook a Duck?” “You don’t know what Hook a Duck is?” Liam looks appalled. “No…but I feel like I should.” “You should.” “What’s so special about it?” “Well, nothing special per se, but it’s like a rite of passage. Every kid plays Hook a Duck when they come to the fair.” “Hate to break it to you, Hunter, but we’re not kids.” “Maybe not. But it’s your first time at a fair in England, and you have to play.” Liam grabs my hand and sets off, I assume, in search of this Hook a Duck game. We find one a few minutes later, and it’s closed. All shut up with the tarpaulin covering the booth. “It’s closed. Never mind,” I say to him. I start to walk away, but Liam tugs me back by the hand he’s holding. “Like a little thing like it being closed is going to stop us from playing.” He gives me a grin and drops my hand. I watch as he unhooks the tarpaulin at the bottom and lifts it just enough so that he can sneak in underneath it. “Hunter, what are you doing?” I hiss. He ducks his head back out. “Come on,” he whispers, holding the material up for me to go under. “I’m not going in there.” “Yes you are. Now hurry the fuck up, or you’ll get me arrested for breaking into a Hook a Duck tent,” he whispers. “Ugh,” I complain.

When he’d lived on the streets, the rule was live or die—there was no in between and it was as simple as that. The spy game was that simple too, and that’s why he was so good at it. But there was always someone better. Someone who wanted it more. Someone who’d get it, take it from you, and leave you lying dead in the street.

Life is not like the game of chess. There are not only black and white pieces. There are gray figures, solitary knights, and equivocal characters who never get caught.

Only one other time in his career as a spy had Henry felt as if he were thrown to the wolves. He'd nearly lost his life that first time, and he was certain he would this time. It wasn't so much that he was going to die, but the fact that everything he knew --- or thought he knew --- wasn't the whole story. All he had to do was look into the gold eyes and know that Ulrik held all the cards in this particular game. No matter what the Dragon Kings did, no matter if M15 got rid of all the traitors, no matter if the Dark Fae left Earth, Ulrik was going to win it all.

If you are determined to be an effective shield, start by working on yourself. Great bosses avoid burdening their people. They invent, borrow, and implement ways to reduce the mental and emotional load they heap on followers. In particular, meetings are notorious time and energy suckers. Yes, some are necessary, but too many bosses run them in ways that disrespect people’s time and dignity – especially self-absorbed bosses bent on self-glorification. If you want to grab power and don’t care much about your people, make sure you arrive a little late to most meetings. Plus, every now and then, show up very late, or – better yet – send word after everyone has gathered that, alas, you must cancel the meeting because something more pressing has come up. After all, if you are a very important person, the little people need to accept their inferior social standing. Sound familiar? Using arrival times to display and grab power is an ancient trick. This move was used by elders, or ‘Big Men’, in primitive tribes to gain and reinforce status. An ethnography of the Merina tribe in Madagascar found that jostling for status among elders meant that gatherings routinely started three or four hours late. Elders used young boys to spy on each other and played a waiting game that dragged on for hours. Each elder worked to maximize the impression that the moment he arrived, the meeting started. If he arrived early and the meeting didn’t start right away, it signaled that he wasn’t the alpha male. If he arrived late and the meeting had started without him, it also signaled that he wasn’t the most prestigious elder. I’ve seen similar power plays in academia. I was once on a committee led by a prestigious faculty member who always arrived at least ten minutes late, often twenty minutes. He also cancelled two meetings after the rest of the five-person committee had gathered. I tracked the time I wasted waiting for this jerk, which totaled over a half day during a six-month stretch.

Regions and Kings Eastern King Samrat Western King Suvrat Northern King Virat Southern King Bhoja King of middle country Raja   Important Ratnins/Officials in Later Vedic Period Purohita Chief Priest, in also sometimes referred to as Rashtragopa Senani Supreme Commander of army Vrajapati Officer-in-Charge of pasture land Jivagribha Police Officer Spasas/Dutas Spies who also sometimes worked as messengers Gramani Head of the village Kulapati Head of the family Madhyamasi Mediator on disputes Bhagadugha Revenue collector Sangrahitri Treasurer Mahishi Chief Queen Suta Charioteer and court minstrel Govikartana Keeper of games and forests Palagala Messenger Kshatri Chamberlain Akshavapa Accountant Sthapati Chief Justice Takshan Carpenter   Kingdoms in the Later Vedic Age Kingdom Location Gandhar Rawalpindi and Peshawar districts of Western Punjab Kekaya On the bank of River Beas, east of Gandhar kingdom Uttar Madra Kashmir Eastern Madra Near Kangra Southern Madra Near Amritsar Kushinagar Nothern region of modern Uttar Pradesh Panchal Bareilly, Badayun and Farrukhabad districts of modern Uttar Pradesh Kashi Modern Varanasi Koshal Faizabad region of today's Uttar Pradesh

the messy papers, she spied a note that stopped her cold. It was written in baby talk in bright red crayon. Ya, ya, da, da, if you’re good enough, I’ll save you, it said. Next to the note was a crinkly map leading somewhere underground. Tracy knew she shouldn’t stay here another minute alone. She needed backup. She’d call in a second, but first Tracy grabbed the map and scoured it. The map seemed to point to the basement of this house. My God! thought Tracy, trembling, could Albert be down there now? Is that where he’s holding

For instance, on one occasion Caligula was so bored at the games that, to liven things up, he had an entire section of the crowd rounded up by his troops and dumped into the arena to be torn apart by the wild animals. The Emperor Commodus took the bloodmania even further. He loved the idea of being a heroic gladiator (but only in rigged fights). To satisfy his craving, he would have the city’s cripples tethered to stakes in the arena so he could dress as a gladiator, pretend they were giants, and enthusiastically club them to death in front of the delighted crowd For all the literary and artistic wonders of ancient Rome, we also need to recognize that Roman imperial society was complex, and it is difficult to ignore a deep element of what was definitely ‘dark’. So,

Are you a pirate? Have I been boarded?” Dempsey grinned. “No, mate. I’m SAS. If we’re successful you’ll earn yourself a bloody knighthood. We’re after a Russian spy.

As with Lawrence, these other competitors in the field tended to be young, wholly untrained for the missions they were given, and largely unsupervised. And just as with their more famous British counterpart, to capitalize on their extraordinary freedom of action, these men drew upon a very particular set of personality traits—cleverness, bravery, a talent for treachery—to both forge their own destiny and alter the course of history. Among them was a fallen American aristocrat in his twenties who, as the only American field intelligence officer in the Middle East during World War I, would strongly influence his nation’s postwar policy in the region, even as he remained on the payroll of Standard Oil of New York. There was the young German scholar who, donning the camouflage of Arab robes, would seek to foment an Islamic jihad against the Western colonial powers, and who would carry his “war by revolution” ideas into the Nazi era. Along with them was a Jewish scientist who, under the cover of working for the Ottoman government, would establish an elaborate anti-Ottoman spy ring and play a crucial role in creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. If little remembered today, these men shared something else with their British counterpart. Like Lawrence, they were not the senior generals who charted battlefield campaigns in the Middle East, nor the elder statesmen who drew lines on maps in the war’s aftermath. Instead, their roles were perhaps even more profound: it was they who created the conditions on the ground that brought those campaigns to fruition, who made those postwar policies and boundaries possible. History is always a collaborative effort, and in the case of World War I an effort that involved literally millions of players, but to a surprising degree, the subterranean and complex game these four men played, their hidden loyalties and personal duels, helped create the modern Middle East and, by inevitable extension, the world we live in today.

Moving into our small American housing enclave above the city were the families of American officers stationed in Saigon, and the free-ranging game of Cowboys and Indians that we boys in the neighborhood had previously played was renamed Green Berets and Viet Cong. It didn’t actually change the game that much, except that in the past the Indians sometimes won, and in the new version the Viet Cong never did.

We were spying, pure and simple, with cover from Trinidadian leaders. It felt bizarre—unreal—to be observing what people were watching on a tiny, faraway island, somehow more like we were playing a video game than intruding on the private lives of actual people. Even today, thinking back on it, Trinidad seems more like a dream than something we actually did. But we did do it. The Trinidad project was the first time I got sucked into a situation that was grossly unethical, and, frankly, it triggered in me a state of denial

As analysis, the exhortations of the pessimists hover somewhere between pointless and trivially true. Of course dictatorships wish to spy on dissidents, just as dissidents seek to avoid detection—a game made vastly more difficult for those in power by the proliferation of digital hiding-places. Of course dictatorships wish to manipulate media of all kinds to influence opinion. In the industrial age, however, they did so boldly and officially, from authority, while under the new dispensation despots must try to impersonate the public to have any hope of influencing it. Instead of injecting slogans into the brains of the masses by means of banner headlines on People’s Daily or a televised speech of the lider maximo, they are now forced to ride the tiger of real opinion, and face the consequences should it turn against them. Pessimism tends to be the province of the disillusioned idealist and the false sophisticate. That seems to be very much the case when it comes to the loudest voices of cyber-pessimism. I have noted their cautions. Let’s move on.

The historic blame game that is the current rage. Our new national sport. Today’s blameless generation versus your guilty one. Who will atone for our fathers’ sins, even if they weren’t sins at the time? But you’re not a father, are you? Whereas your file rather suggests you should be overrun by grandchildren.

I guess now we just wait,” said Carl. “I know!” said Porkins. “Let’s play ‘I Spy’. I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with ‘g’.” “Is it golem?” asked Carl. “Yes,” said Porkins. “Maybe this isn’t such a good game after all.

Then Dave stepped through the blue portal. A moment later, the blue portal disappeared, leaving Porkins and Carl alone with the ten remaining golems. “I guess now we just wait,” said Carl. “I know!” said Porkins. “Let’s play ‘I Spy’. I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with ‘g’.” “Is it golem?” asked Carl. “Yes,” said Porkins. “Maybe this isn’t such a good game after all.

America" “Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together I’ve got some real estate here in my bag” So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner’s pies And walked off to look for America “Kathy,” I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh “Michigan seems like a dream to me now It took me four days to hitch-hike from Saginaw I’ve come to look for America” Laughing on the bus Playing games with the faces She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy I said, “Be careful, his bow tie is really a camera” “Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat” “We smoked the last one an hour ago” So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine And the moon rose over an open field “Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, thought I knew she was sleeping. “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why” Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike They’ve all come to look for America All come to look for America All come to look for America Bookends (1968)

So . . . That’ll be it for evil spy school? We’ll never see each other again?” “Not necessarily. You could come to Disney World with me.” Ashley blushed suddenly upon saying this, then turned away. “Not like a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. I just had fun with you today . . . and Disney’s probably not that great alone. Seeing as we’ve cut ties with all our old friends, I figured, as long as we’re lying low, we might as well do it together, right?” “Nefarious too?” Ashley made a face. “King of the Misfits? Nefarious isn’t exactly Mr. Fun. He’d spend all day playing video games if he didn’t have to eat or poop.

Several of our own team members had been hit as well. Most had been caught only in the arm or the leg, but that was enough to remove them from the game. They were all shouting things at our mortar base that would have gotten them detention at a normal school.

What game are we playing, then?” Alexander asked. “How about Parcheesi? I love Parcheesi!

I know!” said Porkins. “Let’s play ‘I Spy’. I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with ‘g’.” “Is it golem?” asked Carl. “Yes,” said Porkins. “Maybe this isn’t such a good game after all.

how much of our human feeling can we dispense with in the name of freedom, would you say, before we cease to feel either human or free? Or were we simply suffering from the incurable English disease of needing to play the world’s game when we weren’t world players any more?

This isn’t a game,” Erica warned all of us. “Our lives are at stake here. And maybe a lot of other people’s as well.” She slipped back into her fake persona just as Jessica came within earshot, acting like she was in the middle of the story. “. . . and then Maya laughed so hard, the soda came right out of her nose. It was dis-gust-ing!” Everyone made an appropriate “ewwwww” in response. Except Jessica, who looked around at all of us, seeming upset she’d missed something good. “What are you guys talking about?” “Sasha’s trying to make us all lose our lunch,” Zoe said. “Yuck,” Jessica declared, now seeming happy she’d missed the whole story. She looked a bit pale after her trip to the bathroom, like maybe she’d lost her lunch herself

Madness,’ said Daniel. ‘Americans. Playing spy games as the world falls apart.

It was Terese’s turn now. I sat back and let her get ready. I remembered what Win had told me about her secret, about it being very bad. I felt nervous. My eyes darted about and that was when I saw something that made me pause. The white van. You get used to living this way after a while. On guard, I guess. You look around and you start to see patterns and you wonder. This was the third time I had spotted the same van. Or at least I thought it was the same van. It had been outside the hotel when we left. And more to the point, the last time I saw it, the traffic cop was asking it to move. Yet it was in the exact same place. I turned back to Terese. She saw the look on my face and said, “What?” “The white van may be following us.” I didn’t add, “Don’t look,” or any of that. Terese would know better. “What should we do?” she asked. I thought about it. Pieces started to fall into place. I hoped that I was wrong. For a moment I imagined that this could all be over in a matter of seconds. Ex-hubby Rick was driving the van, spying on us. I go over, I open the door, I rip him out of the front seat. I stood up and looked directly at the van’s driver-side window. No point in playing games if I was right. There was a reflection but I could still make out the unshaven face and, more to the point, the toothpick. It

What should we do?” she asked. I thought about it. Pieces started to fall into place. I hoped that I was wrong. For a moment I imagined that this could all be over in a matter of seconds. Ex-hubby Rick was driving the van, spying on us. I go over, I open the door, I rip him out of the front seat. I stood up and looked directly at the van’s driver-side window. No point in playing games if I was right. There was a reflection but I could still make out the unshaven face and, more to the point, the toothpick. It was Lefebvre from the airport. He didn’t try to hide himself. The door opened and he stepped out. From the passenger side, the older agent, Berleand, stumbled into view. He pushed up his glasses and smiled almost apologetically. I felt like an idiot. The plainclothes at the airport. That should have tipped me off. Immigration officers wouldn’t be in plainclothes. And the irrelevant questioning. A stall. I should have seen it. Both

Molly!” exclaimed her father, dropping his end of the box and rushing over to her. “Are you hurt?” “N-No, I don’t think so,” she stammered, as she struggled to get up. Pa helped her to her feet. “How long have you been hiding up there, young lady?” he asked her sternly. “And how much did you hear?” Molly told him how she had crept out of the house after hearing Flora whinny, and what she had seen and heard. When she finished, Uncle William began to chuckle. “You’d make a good spy, Molly,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I can’t believe you were hiding in the hayloft all this time, and we never even suspected it! Until you fell into the haystack, that is.” “She has to learn that this isn’t a game, Will,” Molly’s father said sharply. He looked at his daughter with a serious expression. “We’re all in danger Molly. No one must ever know about our smuggling muskets, or that Richard Butler is an American spy. Do you understand that?” “Yes, Pa,” Molly said soberly. “I understand. I won’t let you down, I promise.” “Good,” Pa said briskly. “Now, I want you to go back to the house with Ethan. You can help him pack some food to take with him.” Molly nodded and started for the door. “I think you’d better use the window, like the rest of us,” Uncle William said, with a grin. “Unless you’d rather go out the way you came in--through the hayloft.” “I think I’ve had enough of that hayloft for one night,” Molly replied, smiling back at him.

On a number of occasions, Tamara joined “Che” on his sorties into the Bolivian highlands, without incident. However, on March 24, 1967, a guerrilla fighter who had been captured by the Bolivian army betrayed her by giving away Tamara’s location. Although she escaped, the Bolivian soldiers found an address book in her Jeep and came after her in hot pursuit. With no other place to hide, she made her way back to “Che” Guevara’s forces. It was considered an open secret that Tamara had been intimate with “Che” but now the troops could not help but notice what was going on. The way they looked into each other’s eyes, and whispered sweet nothings, left no doubt in anyone’s mind, but that she was his lover…. The Bolivian highlands are notorious for the infestation of the Chigoe flea parasite, which infected Tamara. Having a leg injury and running a high fever, she and 16 other ailing fighters were ordered out of the region by Guevara. On August 31, 1967, up to her waist in the Rio Grande of Bolivia, and holding her M 1 rifle above her head, she and eight men were shot and killed in a hail of gunfire by Bolivian soldiers. Leaving their bodies in the water, it was several days before they were recovered downstream. Piranhas had attacked the bodies and their decomposing carcasses were polluting the water. Since the water was being used for drinking purposes by the people in a nearby village, the soldiers were ordered to clear the bodies out of the river. As they were preparing to bury Tamara’s remains in an unmarked grave, a local woman protested what was happening, and demanded that a woman should receive a Christian burial. When he received the news of what had happened, Guevara was stunned and refused to accept it, thinking it was just a propaganda stunt to demoralize him. In Havana Fidel Castro declared her a “Heroine of the Revolution.” There is always the possibility that Tamara was a double agent, whose mission it was to play up to “Che” when they met in Leipzig and then report back to the DDR (Democratic German Republic), who would in turn inform the USSR of “Che’s” activities. The spy game is a little like peeling an onion. Peel off one layer and what you find is yet another layer.

kidding.” She pressed her body back into his. “Maybe you were, but that might be just what we need to do. We could recruit them. They don’t like Whitney any more than we do.” “Are you crazy? Even if they did decide to join us, how would we know if they were really committed to being part of us or playing the role to be a spy for Whitney?” “How did you know I was telling you the truth? Your people certainly interrogated me.” He ran his hands up the sides of her rib cage. She felt small and delicate, a woman’s softer body, so intriguing, so beautiful. He cupped her breasts and then touched his marks on the slight curves. She had a point. “Arguing with you is going to be a fucking waste of time, isn’t it?” She laughed, and the sound slid into his body, an arrow aimed right at his heart. “Yes. You may as well get used to it, honey.” 14 “You have to devein the shrimp. There is actually shrimp in the gumbo, Bella,” Nonny said. “We’re doing a shrimp gumbo so it’s necessary to use shrimp.” Pepper and

Then I stare at him for a while trying to determine what he wants. And if I want to give it to him. And then I start to panic a little. What if he wants to have an awkward conversation? Like more awkward than me? Or ask me about my sexual history? Or if I cheated on my third-grade spelling test in Mrs. Kallam’s class? Okay, I admit that last one is a little specific and not likely to come up. But I’m still a little ashamed of myself for doing it. “Would you rather eat stale pretzels or stale Cheetos?” “What?” I look at him, not sure I heard him correctly. He tilts his head in a nod, like, ‘you heard me correctly,’ but repeats the question. “Um, stale pretzels, I guess.” “Go a week without the internet or a week without coffee?” Oh, we’re playing the ‘would you rather’ game. “Internet.” I smile. “I think. Wait maybe the coffee? No, the internet.” “Play Quidditch or use the invisibility cloak for a day?” “You did not just Harry Potter me.” “I did.” “Well, I’m not sure that’s even answerable.” I shake my head and groan a little. “Who wouldn’t want to play Quidditch? But the invisibility cloak, wow.” I sigh, a dreamy expression on my face. Boyd just stares as if he’s not moving on until I answer. “Quidditch.” I finally relent. “Why?” “It looks like fun. Plus the invisibility cloak is basically spying, right? And I don’t really need to spy on anyone so it would be a waste.” “No point in being wasteful,” he agrees. “Plus I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that I’d be really good at Quidditch.” And I can’t help it. This tidbit comes out a little smugly. Boyd lasts two seconds before laughing at me.

Look at me.” Elide obeyed. The witch hissed, and Elide flinched as she shoved Elide’s hair out of her eyes. A few strands fell to the ground, sliced off by the iron nails. “I don’t know what game you’re playing—if you’re a spy, if you’re a thief, if you’re just looking out for yourself. But do not pretend that you are some meek, pathetic little girl when I can see that vicious mind working behind your eyes.

Espionage is not a cricket game

They sent spies", Gramma went on, her voice a hush, "and they look like one man, but they can split into two, then four, and so on. I've seen it before. During the war. It's a Communist trick and they taught it to the Democrats so that they could take our guns. I would have fought them off, but they already made the shotgun disappear.

Weale was in command of a detachment of forty-eight Selous Scouts, the most secretive and deadly of the Rhodesian special forces groups. The regiment was named after the British game-hunter Frederick Selous, a fact of which Weale approved: his grandfather had fought alongside Selous in the Second Matabele War. Weale’s great-grandparents had settled in Britain, but he’d lived all his life in Africa

Agents and spies playing deep and dangerous games of intelligence and counterintelligence also soon made their way to the Ritz.

Outside the United States you are Commander-in-Chief. You have more power. On a bigger playing field. Which is why most Presidencies follow a pattern. At the beginning, the President focuses on domestic issues. Then the President conflicts with Congress. And the Supreme Court. And takes some losses. Domestically, the President is not as powerful as they want to be. Outside the United States, international institutions are less likely to stand in an American President’s way. Foreign countries may resist, but that’s a different kind of game. Played with tools not available domestically. Like the U.S. Armed Forces. And the CIA. Which creates a natural dynamic: Presidents start making decisions where their decisions are turned into action. Where they can get results. Which is outside U.S. borders. As a Presidency goes on, Presidents are more likely to spend time on international issues.

He just cared about his friends. His village. And his influence in it. He cared about a very small Boss Game.

To win those Zero-Sum Games, you’ll need to play Positive-Sum Games. You’ll need lots of mutually-beneficial alliances.

The major failing was that during the last years of the Batista régime, Cuba became extremely corrupt. Havana became America’s adult playground and tourists were bringing in the “Yankee Dollar.” Construction companies with the right connections were busy building new gambling casinos and hotels. Girly shows, prostitution and gaming became widespread and people in the service industry made a good income. Those people that were involved in politics or supported Batista’s rise in wealth were raking in money beyond their wildest imagination. While the good times rolled, in the Sierra Maestra Mountains things were fermenting and the revolutionaries were gaining strength. Young people throughout the island were becoming actively involved. Older people, tired of the corruption and decadence, silently supported Fidel Castro. They may not have known what was in store for them, but they did know that Batista and his followers had hijacked their country, and they were willing to back the fresh wind blowing down from the mountains. As the revolution heated up, the Policía Nacional and Batista’s spy network headed by the Military Intelligence Service, Servicio de Inteligencia Militar, resorted to torture and executions. The newspapers always cited that the bodies found alongside remote roads, railroad tracks or ditches, were shot by unknown persons. The bombs that were heard exploding at night reminded people that these were not normal times. Political enemies of the régime were rounded up and taken to police detention centers located around Havana. Special tribunals, Tribunales de Urgencia, were set up to deal with these prisoners. Since these jails were under the control of the local police, there was little or no accountability. Notorious police precincts such as the ones commanded by Captains Ventura and Carratalá prided themselves on the torturous pain they could inflict, using extremely imaginative methods. Most Cubans feared the police and it seemed that everyone knew of someone who had fallen into their clutches, many of whom were later found dead.

In spying-and-hiding transactions, worry leads to more worry and suspicion leads to more suspicion. The very act of participating, however unwillingly, in the secret police game — even as victim, or citizen being monitored — will eventually produce all the classic symptoms of clinical paranoia.

As it turned out, Moss and the Patriots were hotter than the game-time temperature of 84 degrees. They ran the Jets off the field in a 38–14 rout highlighted by Moss’s 51-yard touchdown against triple coverage and 183 receiving yards on nine catches. “He was born to play football,” Brady said of his newest and most lethal weapon. The quarterback had it all now. He was getting serious with his relatively new girlfriend, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen (his ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, had just given birth to their son, Jack), and now he was being paired on the field with a perfect partner of a different kind. Brady wasn’t seeing the Oakland Randy Moss. He was seeing the Minnesota Moss, the vintage Moss, the 6´4˝ receiver who ran past defenders and jumped over them with ease. Brady had all day to throw to Moss and Welker, who caught the first of the quarterback’s three touchdown passes. He wasn’t sacked while posting a quarterback rating of 146.6, his best in nearly five years. Man, this was a great day for the winning coach all around. On the other sideline, Eric Mangini had made a big mistake by sticking with his quarterback, Chad Pennington, a former teammate of Moss’s at Marshall, when the outcome was no longer in doubt, subjecting his starter to some unnecessary hits as he played on an injured ankle. Pennington was annoyed enough to pull himself from the game with 6:51 left and New England leading by 17. “That was the first time I’ve ever done that,” Pennington said. Mangini played the fool on this Sunday, and Belichick surely got the biggest kick out of that. But the losing coach actually won a game within the game in the first half that the overwhelming majority of people inside Giants Stadium knew absolutely nothing about. It had started in the days before this opener, when Mangini informed his former boss that the Jets would not tolerate in their own stadium an illegal yet common Patriots practice: the videotaping of opposing coaches’ signals from the sideline. The message to Belichick was simple: Don’t do it in our house. It was something of an open secret that New England had been illegally taping opposing coaches during games for some time, and yet the first public mention of improper spying involving Belichick’s Patriots actually assigned them the collective role of victim. Following a 21–0 Miami victory in December 2006, a couple of Dolphins told the Palm Beach Post that the team had “bought” past game tapes that included audio of Brady making calls at the line, and that the information taken from those tapes had helped them shut out Brady and sack him four times. “I’ve never seen him so flustered,” said Miami linebacker Zach Thomas.

We all seemed to be playing a game called Let’s-Follow-Brewster. That was okay with me! I ran along behind him. Big flakes of snow fell on my face, and I kept blinking to keep them away from my eyes. Brewster didn’t seem to care about the snow at all. He just headed straight toward a building with a set of steps up to a door. “He’s got the scent!” Bryan said excitedly. There was a door at the top of the steps. Brewster stood by it and gave Bryan an expectant look and waited. “That’s my office,” Dusty Pants said as he climbed the steps. “I don’t think the foxes could possibly be in there.” He opened the door. Brewster headed in. I trotted up the steps to see Brewster shake snow from his fur, look around, spy a couch in a corner, and hop up for a nap. All the grown-ups laughed.

Boris, in fact, had once worked in a secret training camp in Russia, a KGB facility, called, Khalil remembered, Mrs. Ivanova’s Charm School, where Russian spies had learned to become Americans.

While there was a general consensus that I was now America’s public enemy number one, there was considerable debate about who I was working for. Each channel had a coterie of experts discussing this, and every last one of them had a different conclusion, all of which were wrong. Within fifteen minutes, I was accused of being connected to six different extremist terrorist groups, twelve hostile foreign governments, and three crackpot conspiracy theories, one of which involved the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and NASA. Even the “experts” who suspected I was acting alone couldn’t agree on why. My attempted assassination was blamed on everything from video games to Facebook to a misguided crush on the president’s daughter.

It occurred to me that being incarcerated with a gaming console probably wasn’t much of a punishment for him; in fact, it might have even felt like an improvement over his previous life. He had already spent so much time sitting on his cot staring at the TV screen that he’d created a large divot in the mattress under his rear end. He was playing Target: Annihilation, the exact same game Jason Stern had been playing, although he was significantly better at it. Jason had been struggling with level three. Nefarious was on level 638. “Hey, Nefarious,” I said. “How’s it going?” “Fine,” he said, then went right back to his game. This qualified as a decent bit of conversation for Nefarious. I had gotten an entire word out of him, as opposed to his usual “Mneh.” I figured it meant he actually liked me.

Don’t worry about me,” Nefarious said, without even looking up from his game. “I’m good here.” “Really?” Zoe asked. “Really,” Nefarious answered. “I get to play games all day and have all the food I can eat. What more is there?” “Uh . . . freedom?” Zoe suggested. “Fresh air? Not having your toilet be six inches from your bed?” “Mneh,” Nefarious grunted. “I like having the toilet right here. That way I can keep gaming while I do my business.” “See what I have to deal with in here?” Ashley asked. “It’s hisgusting.

Travels into Bokhara,

France now attacked not British India, but Russia, to the latter’s astonishment. However, the tsar’s troops inflicted a stunning defeat on the French, aided by Russia’s greatest natural ally, mother winter. A simple monument in the Baltic town of Vilnius best sums up the French retreat during that terrible winter. The front plaque reads: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte passed this way in 1812 with 400,000 men.’ The reverse side, facing Moscow, shows: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte passed this way in 1812 with 9000 men.

The love of chess was a passion Paris shared with the billionaire, who was a grandmaster and such a fan of the game that he’d named his company Caïssa, after the Greek mythological character known as “the goddess of chess.

Spies aren’t like soldiers, Field Marshal. A soldier has loyalty, yes, but at the end of the day he does what he does for a full belly and a month’s wages. Spies do it because they love the game. They love their country, or their king.

It was as if a complicated game of chess was being played, but Juliet didn't know all the rules or where anyone else was on the board. She was clearly intended to be a pawn in this game. But I am a queen, she thought. Able to move in any direction.

herself look perfect. Her long dark hair will be pulled into two tidy plaits and she will have tried on almost everything in her wardrobe before putting on her favourite floaty dress. I help Mum by laying the table. I get out the cereal and the milk and make everyone a glass of orange juice. Mum is in a rush as she needs to go to work soon. But Moz, Alice and I have all the time in the world. It’s the school holidays and the sun is shining. I have been up for hours. But unlike my sister, I haven't spent my time making myself look fancy. I'm wearing denim shorts and a faded t-shirt, my most comfy clothes. I've tied back my curly blond hair into a ponytail as best I can, but I know it’s still messy. Oh well. No, I've been up for hours using the computer, chatting to some of my friends on Facebook. I've got Facebook friends from all over the world. Whatever time of day it is there's always someone about for a chat. I can happily spend all day watching videos or playing games with my mates. Moz and Alice don't understand at all. That’s why my Facebook friends are so great. They really get me.

In geopolitics, the same information is not available to everyone, regardless of how much time they have. Intelligence is in the business of unlocking other people’s secrets and protecting our own. Asymmetric information is the name of the game. And in a world of asymmetric information, prediction is much more difficult and miscalculation much more likely.

After that we had Math Class. Pencils ready! she yelled. If you’ve got a two thousand-piece puzzle of an Amish farm and you manage to add three pieces to the puzzle per day, how many more days will you need to stay alive to get it done? Math Class was interrupted by the doorbell. Ball Game! yelled Grandma. Who could it be? The doorbell ringer is set to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” which Grandma forces me to sing with her during the seventh-inning stretch even if we’re just watching the game in our living room. She makes me stand up for the anthem at the beginning, too. Mom doesn’t stand up for the anthem because Canada is a lie and a crime scene. It was Jay Gatsby. He wants to tear our house down. I went to the door and opened it and told him, It’s yours for twenty million dollars. He said, Listen, can I speak with your mother. You said the last time— Twenty-five million dollars, I said. Sorry, said Jay Gatsby, I’d like to speak with— Thirty million dollars, capitalist, do you understand English? I slammed the door shut. Grandma said that was a bit overkill. He’s afraid of death, said Grandma. She said it like an insult. He’s lost his way! Jay Gatsby wants to tear down our house and build an underground doomsday-proof luxury vault. Jay Gatsby bought a house on a tropical island once and then forced every other person living on the island to sell their house to him so that he had the whole island to himself to do ecstasy and yoga with ex-models. He forced all the models to take pills that made their shit gold and sparkly. Mom said he’s had fake muscles put into his calves. She knows this because one day she saw him on the sidewalk outside the bookstore and his calves were super skinny and three days later they were bulging and had seams on them. Mom said he went to a place in Cleveland, Ohio to get it done where you can also have your vag tightened up if you feel like it. Then you can just sit around with your S.O. vaping all day with your giant fake calves and stitched-up wazoo and be spied on by your modern thermostat which is a weapon of the state they just call “green” because of sales and Alexa and shit and practicing mindfulness hahahaha and just be really, really, really happy that you don’t have half a fucking brain between the two of you.

P.S.2. During the day, they are drilling us on passwords we will need in the jungle in case we run into a Japanese spy dressed like a USMC. One of them was "Who lost game 4 of the 1941 W. Series?" Half the guys said "Brooklyn" and the other half said "Mickey Owen" and the third half said "Tommy Henrich". Then some fist fights happened so they scrapped the question. But I told you so.

Instead, there had already been an active conspiracy theory claiming that shape-shifting reptilian aliens from the planet Flumbo were secretly taking the place of normal human beings. The Flumbonians had been accused of being behind everything from crashing the stock market to rigging the Super Bowl to ruining the last season of Game of Thrones.

The real secrets of the room were in this back corner. Spadefish and her sisters of the Sturgeon class had been designed more as spy ships than as offensive weapons. With their endurance and stealth, they could sit off the coast of an unsuspecting country for months at a time without being detected. The sophisticated sensors housed in this room allowed her to sweep the electronic spectrum, gathering, decrypting, translating, and interpreting. During the long years of the Cold War, several of these boats were always on station, just outside the territorial limits of the old USSR, hidden but listening attentively. It had been a very dangerous game of cat and mouse. The secrets that had been gathered in this room and others on boats like it had helped to win that war. The “Silent Service” had certainly lived up to its name, and even now, few knew of its contributions to the eventual fall of the Soviet Union. Larson