Secret service agent

“ A Secret Service agent is always careful to choose a character with which he is fully familiar. One is certain to meet, sooner or later, men in the same walk of life; and unless one be well primed, one is bound to be "bowled out." I knew there would be South African mining men at Monte Carlo. ”

“ Kaleidoscopic Changes in Secret Service Agent's Life—Called to Norwegian Capital for Orders—Enforced Idleness—A War Gambler—Huge Credits—Twisting the Tail of the British Lion—Averting Possible War—Frenzied Finance—A Colossal Bribe—Topheavy Argument—Newspaper Influence—A Good Bargain for England—Millionaire in Three Days.
The life of a Foreign Secret Service agent in wartime is one of kaleidoscopic changes. He never knows where he is likely to be from one day to another, nor the class of company it may be his lot in life to associate with. ”

“ A Major’s Commission. In command of the Telegraph Department. Major Thorne, I congratulate you.”
“That commission, General Randolph!” exclaimed Arrelsford, his voice rising, “let me explain how she——”
“That will do from you, sir,” said the General, “you have made enough trouble as it is. I suppose you claim that this is a forgery, too——”
“Let me tell you, sir,” persisted the Secret Service Agent.
“You have told me enough as it is. Sergeant, take him over to headquarters.”
“Fall in there!” cried the Sergeant of the Guard. “Two of you take the prisoner. Forward, march!” ”

“ For every German spy or would-be spy in America, there was an agent of the Secret Service, equally resourceful, and more likely to succeed, because, no matter how clumsy his adversary seemed, he never made the mistake of underrating him. ”

“ And we have to be very certain of a man’s integrity before we even consider him.”
“I understand all that,” said Willie, “and I have no idea of trying to become a Secret Service agent offhand. But even the best men you have, had to make a start somewhere. I am willing to start at the very bottom, to do anything that would connect me with the Service, so that I could learn about your methods and study your problems. Mr. Sheridan thinks that maybe there might be a chance to work as an office boy. ”

“ A Secret Service agent, although making no friends or acquaintances, always makes it his business to converse with and study his fellow travelers. Following my usual habit, I went out of my way to cultivate the acquaintance of the Japanese, particularly Huraki. ”

“ Espionage has been brought to a fine art in many countries, and complex organizations for its practice exist. Information may conceivably be collected with comparative ease by trained agents, but it is when it comes to disposing of that information that the troubles of the secret service agent begin. ”

“ Obviously, the work of the spy, no matter how dramatic it may appear in its co-ordinated whole, must, in respect of its various separate acts and phases, be bared of all dramatic or arresting incident. Were the opposite the case, woman, a natural actor, would find herself in the most congenial of elements. Anything more sordid, however, or more commonplace than the general phase-work of the spy, it would be difficult to imagine, and it is precisely for this [25] reason that woman as a rule fails as a secret service agent. ”

“ Secret Service agents are human beings. And the real glory in Service work is not in battling computer crime—not yet, anyway—but in protecting the President. The real glamour of Secret Service work is in the White House Detail. If you're at the President's side, then the kids and the wife see you on television; you rub shoulders with the most powerful people in the world. That's the real heart of Service work, the number one priority. More than one computer investigation has stopped dead in the water when Service agents vanished at the President's need. ”

“ I venture to predict that Lord Northcliffe will go down in [Pg xx] history as the one man amongst men who has done most towards the winning of the war and the safeguarding of the future welfare of our beloved British Empire.
Regarding the chapters in this book which recount actual experiences of Secret Service work, I can assure my readers that nothing has been divulged which touches even the fringe of the important secrets that every Secret Service agent would proudly guard with his life. Those things are sacred and would never be intentionally divulged. ”

“ Most people who interest themselves in the detailed working of Secret Service show greatest curiosity regarding the actual characters assumed by its members when in foreign countries.
A Secret Service agent should never assume a character he is not absolutely familiar with, both inside and out. It is possible to act up to a certain pitch, which will carry a certain distance, but artificiality is never safe. The stunt that is most in favour with the Intelligence Departments of all nations is journalism ”

“ In each were selected numerous acting agents who received small periodical payments for services rendered. Such sections acted under the supervision of a Secret Service agent, the whole system being visited from time to time by agents higher up in the service, who paid over all monies in cash, collected reports, and gave further instructions. The favourite cloak or guise to conceal identity was usually that of a commercial traveller. ”

“ He is [158] in reality on the outside rim of some gigantic movement the penetration of the inmost workings of which is being sought. Naturally he consents and enters the public service as an "agent of record."
In France, it is well established, each great newspaper has a spy who is in receipt of occasional tips from the proprietor. His duty is to watch editors, writers and reporters, their movements, the quality of the people they visit and how they spend their spare hours. ”

“ Yet such men and women as these who have striven, laboured, fought alone, and won through against inconceivable difficulties and immense odds, possibly to the permanent ruin of their health or financial status, are, although it seems inconceivable to believe, more often than not overlooked and passed aside by the nation; unobservantly pushed into the cold burial vaults of ungrateful forgetfulness!—the fate, alas! of many an active Secret Service agent, no matter how patriotically loyal, how brave, or how successful he may have [Pg xxvi] been. ”

“ When he had finished, he requested the express agent to return to him the dummy package of marked bills which he had given him to put into the safe. Any one else in the world would have hesitated to have the safe opened, and would either have removed the dummy envelope when he took out the packages of money, or would have left it; but not Mooney. He had set out to do every detail in this undertaking with precision and order, and he did not intend to leave any item unaccomplished. ”

“ To stand is the attitude of discomposure. One thinks more calmly sitting down. You have my permission. So—Now we will proceed. I will outline in the briefest words the situation. Herr Hammersley, an agent of the Secret Service Department of the Imperial Government, is intrusted with the receipt and delivery of certain secret messages. He receives them, but is requested by Herr Rizzio, also an agent of the Secret Service Department of the Imperial Government, on authority of indubitable credentials, to relinquish the message to Herr Rizzio. ”

“ It must be more than a coincidence that Secret Service agents often find themselves in the middle of a small crowd where the pick-pocketing fraternity are undoubtedly represented. Be as careful, polite, and inoffensive as possible, quick-tempered, irascible irreconcilables will at times attempt to pick a quarrel. ”

“ This flight of fancy provoked something like a faint smile on Mr Verloc’s face. Mr Vladimir retained an imperturbable gravity.
“But, as I’ve said, you are a lazy fellow; you don’t use your opportunities. In the time of Baron Stott-Wartenheim we had a lot of soft-headed people running this Embassy. They caused fellows of your sort to form a false conception of the nature of a secret service fund. It is my business to correct this misapprehension by telling you what the secret service is not. It is not a philanthropic institution. ”

“ Espionage is carried on both in peace and war, but the conditions under which secret service agents work differ to a very marked extent according to the state of affairs between the two countries. In peace-time, though many countries maintain secret service agents in other states, yet these same agents can expect no assistance from their Governments in the event of their being detected. ”

“ The sheriff was a little red-haired man. He looked up as we came in, and turned over quickly a telegram which he had, apparently, just opened and which was lying on the table before him.
Mooney at once addressed him.
“My name is Jarvis,” he said, “of the United. States Secret Service. I suppose the Department has advised you that I would be in here this evening.”
The little man jumped up at that.
“Ah, yes!” he said. “I have just gotten a telegram. Have a chair.”
He thrust the telegram across the table towards Mooney, went around, and closed the door. ”

“ After the establishment of the Republic the spy police was reorganised and a special brigade of secret-service agents was formed whose object was—and still is—to spy upon all those political sects at the head of which stand pretenders like the Duke of Orleans, or Prince Napoleon, or the late General Boulanger. At any grave political crisis in France these political sects display more than their usual energies, trusting more or less, as they do, in the star of their particular candidate, and at such times the corps of spies become correspondingly active. ”

“ The romance of war in its most thrilling form is exemplified in this narrative of the adventures of “The World’s Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents.” Much has been published upon the subject of espionage, and the memoirs and secret histories of the courts of Europe give us instances of men and women who have gained favor and money, if not honor and glory, by selling back-stairs gossip concerning their fellow creatures ”

“ If you EVER state that you intend to kill the President, the Secret Service will want to know and record who you are, where you are, what you are, and what you're up to. If you're a serious threat—if you're officially considered "of protective interest"—then the Secret Service may well keep tabs on you for the rest of your natural life. ”

“ These are expert workmen that we are dealing with. They won't move till their plans are all ready. They don't wish to get hold of me for five minutes and let "Mac's men"—as lacking due respect for President McKinley, they call the Secret Service agents of my country—catch them red-handed. They are only laying their plans as yet. ”

“ Spying is against an Englishman’s notion of fair-play, but to such an extent have the other great Powers carried the operation of their various Intelligence Departments that to the Foreign Office the secret service has become a most necessary adjunct. ”

“ And you, sir, a citizen of high standing and repute, were detected in the act of transferring many of these important papers to a spy, thus periling the safety of the nation. You were caught red-handed, so to speak, but made your escape and in a manner remarkable and even wonderful for its adroitness have for years evaded every effort on the part of our Secret Service Department to effect your capture. ”

“ It shows how the Secret Service leaves nothing to chance, how it watches and waits, how it plays enemy agents upon strings so long as they are useful, and grabs them when they have ceased to be useful or have become dangerous. ”

“ But on out-of-town trips where the route is decided on and made public only a few days in advance, buildings are not checked either by Secret Service agents or by any other law enforcement officers at the request of the Secret Service. With the number of men available to the Secret Service and the time available, surveys of hundreds of buildings and thousands of windows is not practical. ”

“ He writes: "It is an undisputable fact that our Secret Service has at all times been recruited from men of unblemished personal honour who would not descend to any act which in their view was tainted with meanness."
No sane, thinking man would condemn Secret Service agents as following a dishonourable calling. ”

“ He had trembled before the woman in the garden a moment since; the stone walls of the house were no more rigidly composed than he in the drawing-room now. It came to him that there was nothing left but one great battle in that room unless they shot him from behind door or window or portière, giving him no chance. If they did confront him openly he would show them that if he had chosen the Secret Service and the life of a spy he could fight and die like a man and a soldier. He held some lives within the chamber of his revolver, and they should pay did they give him but a chance. ”

“ Secret Service.—In practically every civilized country, there is always a department of the government charged with the duty of espionage, either diplomatic or domestic. Its officials work in secret, and certain sums of money are placed at the disposal of the head of the department, and expended as he may think lit, without having to render any specific account of them. ”

“ My best agents, when I had charge of secret-service work, were as much entitled to respect as were my officers in the Criminal Investigation Department when I had charge of that branch of Police work, or as our military who 'spy' the German trenches from aeroplanes. Others again take up that sort of work for 'filthy lucre sake,' and yet others from all sorts of motives, some praiseworthy and some contemptible. Spies differ as much as parsons or doctors, and no general rule can be applied to them. ”

“ Some day, however, a big thing will happen, about which there will be no leakage beforehand, and then the affrighted and indignant British citizen will turn on his faithful band of thirty and rant and rave at them for their want of capacity and performance. The fault will be the want of a perfect system of Secret Service, properly financed. If plots are to be discovered in time—and already there are some whisperings of coming danger—they can only be discovered through information coming from those associated with them. ”