Spy Secrets you can learn in The COIL
Just how secret is MI6 today?

THE COIL tells you. Always one of the most clandestine of any nation’s services, MI6 (British foreign intelligence) revealed little about itself until the last decade. In fact, it was so covert that few knew such basics as where London HQ was, how to apply for a job, or the identity of “C” — jargon for the chief of MI6. Times have changed so much that its sister service, MI5 (counterintelligence), which was always very hush-hush, too, has posted a website for visitors — http://www.mi5.gov.uk/.

But don’t expect MI6 to do the same anytime soon. Even though the agency has managed to hold out against cyberopenness, it’s still been forced to air many of its once-treasured secrets. In THE COIL, Shelby Potter, fictional head of covert ops, gives his irritated opinion of what he considers the sorry state of his beloved MI6:

“With its commanding position above the Thames River, MI6's new headquarters in Vauxhall Cross, south London, looked to Shelby Potter like a bloody birthday cake, not a place for the raw business of foreign intelligence. Potter not only disliked the angles and setbacks, he found the honey-colored concrete and green glass damned offensive. The only thing good was its location — isolated at the south bank end of Vauxhall Bridge. Potter had indelible memories of the unmarked London high-rise that had been HQ for decades, where so much was sacrificed and accomplished. In those heady days, security identified it to the nosey public only as the Ministry of Defense. But then, until just seven years ago, the government had denied MI6's very existence. All of that had changed by 2001, when MI6's chief, Sir David Spedding, died. It was announced in the gossip rags. The poor bloke. He might as well have been some bloody air-headed socialite.”

For more insider intel about MI6, read THE COIL, especially Chapter 28. For further reading about MI6, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/935140.stm.

Intelligence agencies often use ingenious adaptations of everyday objects to hide spy equipment. In The Coil, MI6 Officer Simon Childs uses a subminiature camera concealed in an English shilling to photograph vital banking records under highly dangerous circumstances.

To discover whether Simon succeeds in a daring escape with his camera and film, read Chapter 19 of The Coil. For more about spy tools, visit http://www.cia.gov/cia/information/artifacts/index.htm

A "covert operation" is any mission that falls between the extremes of diplomacy and war and is designed to be untraceable to the originating agency. Within an operation, a "movie" is a direct lie for a specific purpose; it must be so skillfully acted and orchestrated that it appears unquestionably real.

In The Coil, Professor Liz Sansborough plays critical roles in several "movies," including one in Paris’s legendary American Hospital. But then, she’s not only a former CIA officer, she’s also the only child of the Carnivore, the infamous Cold War assassin.

For Liz’s description of a movie’s vital elements, and to find out whether she succeeds in her deception, read Chapter 12 in The Coil. To visit the American Hospital, where everyone from Rock Hudson to the late duchess of Windsor have been treated, go to http://www.american-hospital.org/.

Spying has often been called the second oldest profession, but not only because hieroglyphs prove it dates back to prehistoric times. Women in intelligence services around the world complain of being expected to use sex to extract information or to "turn" an enemy operative into an "asset." Men complain less, but are occasionally also called upon to service for their country. Among other names, they’re known as Juliet and Romeo spies.

At the beginning of his covert career, MI6 operative Simon Childs was tricked by a beautiful Juliet agent. Because of her, a vital mission into Bosnia turned deadly.

To learn the truth about Simon’s fatal mistake, read Chapter 43 of The Coil. For a brief history of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, visit http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~bosnia/doc/history.html