Ten-strong Russian sleeper cells in suburban America, spy swaps in Vienna, a B2 engineer found guilty of selling US military secrets to China... If this has whetted your appetite for tales that could be straight out of an Ian Fleming novel, then how about embarking on a cruise with real-life Bonds and Smileys?
This month, the world's first ever SpyCruise sets sail. The Holland America Line MS Eurodam will cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on a week's Caribbean tour and the cabins will be filled with scores of ex-spooks. On board, giving lectures to a breathless public (next cruise: 13 November) are such top spy names as Porter Goss, the former Director of Central Intelligence (CIA); General Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and the ultra-secret National Security Agency; and enough former CIA and FBI officers to overthrow a government or two. And these super-conspiratorial men and women will be revealing some of their secrets to an audience of fellow travellers and innocents. And the subject matter? Current and future strategic threats, policies, problems, prescriptions and anecdotes - especially anecdotes.
If the spy-struck passengers want to avoid too many men in dark glasses with cigarettes dangling from their lips in the passageways (probably the ex-spook minders), then there is certainly enough space on this modern giant to get lost. She has 929 crew, 11 decks, a culinary arts centre, spa, saloon and enough restaurants and entertainments to cater for the 2,104 guests.
In Britain, you would never find an ex-spy popping up in public. 'One just doesn't do that kind of thing, old chap,' my favourite ex-MI5 source tells me. But in the United States, it's more of a case of Spies R Us. And you know something - I'm glad it is. It sure beats spending hours trapped on a liner with a fellow tourist explaining how they grow carrots in their backyard.
But if you miss the boat, head to Washington, the acknowledged global capital of espionage where the International Spy Museum, in a newly fashionable area
of the capital's downtown, is one of its biggest tourist attractions. That man taking you round - that nice Russian chap - is Major-General Oleg Kalugin, former head of KGB counter-intelligence, who was deeply involved in the notorious umbrella murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978.
Look out for: the live `spy operation', which engages groups in a simulated spy-hunt experience; the real Enigma, the legendary WW2 German cipher machine whose capture by the British altered the course of the war; a KGB shoe transmitter; and a through- the-wall camera used by the East German Stasi. Raincoats and dark glasses at the ready, everyone.
For SpyCruise details, visit spycruise.com. For The International Spy Museum, go to spymuseum.org. Tom Mangold is a former intelligence correspondent and author of Cold Warrior.
