Yeah James Bond was based off saboteuers not spies (specifically the unit the author was involved with). And a lot of intelligence work is just adversarial mathematics. Most spies are just ordinary people who are good at blending into the background and paying attention without seeming like it
They are also often just people who are good at listening. People who can hang out in social gatherings and get people to brag about themselves are some of the strongest assets in intelligence.
People LOVE to brag and talk about privileged knowledge they have, so a large portion of the job is pretending to be having a good time and drinking while actually taking detailed notes about what everyone is saying and comparing those notes. I nearly ended up in that line of work but the story took a wild turn and I ended up losing my inside connection.
Yeah James Bond was based off saboteuers not spies (specifically the unit the author was involved with). And a lot of intelligence work is just adversarial mathematics. Most spies are just ordinary people who are good at blending into the background and paying attention without seeming like it
They are also often just people who are good at listening. People who can hang out in social gatherings and get people to brag about themselves are some of the strongest assets in intelligence.
People LOVE to brag and talk about privileged knowledge they have, so a large portion of the job is pretending to be having a good time and drinking while actually taking detailed notes about what everyone is saying and comparing those notes. I nearly ended up in that line of work but the story took a wild turn and I ended up losing my inside connection.