All her life Alex has been trained by the Junior Intelligence Agency to fight terrorists, prevent wars, and save lives. Despite all of this training, however, she finds herself unprepared for the challenges posed by her next mission. Not only must she chase down the Director of a powerful and extensive organization while avoiding capture by his men, but she must confront her feelings for the pilot of her spy plane, Blake, and make decisions that could have an effect on the future of science, the agency, and her position as a Special Agent for one of the best-kept secrets in all of history.
With the battle at the castle still fresh in her mind, Special Agent Alex has a host of new challenges. Is her partner a traitor? Is her supervisor lying? And why has DIRECTOR stalled with no end in sight? Still reeling from the aftermath of the last few months, Alex finds herself stuck in the middle of an agency turf war, unable to save her friend or herself. Unsure where to turn or who to trust, she must decide for herself how to finish the mission and get everyone home safe. This is her last chance to discover the truth about the Junior Intelligence Agency, and to decide whether the path chosen for her is the one she's really wanted all along.
Special Agent Alex has been preparing since the age of six to deal with the unexpected. Six languages, piloting, and weapons training are only a few of the skills she's learned at the Junior Intelligence Agency, a top secret organization where kids go to become the next generation of covert operatives. She's been on missions before, but never one like this. DIRECTOR is out of her control. What began as simple reconnaissance has become a multi-agency concern, and Alex and her pilot, Blake, are right in the middle of it, surrounded by secret agendas, conflicted superiors, and a tangled mess of deception. Can Alex trust the people calling the shots, and can she accept the consequences of finishing the mission? Or will her doubts and principles corrupt her judgment?
In this seminal work, published by the C.I.A. itself, produced by Intelligence veteran Richards Heuer discusses three pivotal points. First, human minds are ill-equipped ("poorly wired") to cope effectively with both inherent and induced uncertainty. Second, increased knowledge of our inherent biases tends to be of little assistance to the analyst. And lastly, tools and techniques that apply higher levels of critical thinking can substantially improve analysis on complex problems.
Experience an insider's tour of the corridors of the Central Intelligence Agency's campus buildings in this spectacular book. Filled with stunning photography, this volume describes the evolution of the CIA headquarters in its first 50 years, from scattered offices in Washington to the Langley campus. This book was produced in cooperation with the CIA Fine Arts Commission.
"A sophisticated, deeply informed account of real life in the real CIA that adds immeasurably to the public understanding of the espionage culture—the good and the bad." —Bob Woodward Jack Devine ran Charlie Wilson's War in Afghanistan. It was the largest covert action of the Cold War, and it was Devine who put the brand-new Stinger missile into the hands of the mujahideen during their war with the Soviets, paving the way to a decisive victory against the Russians. He also pushed the CIA's effort to run down the narcotics trafficker Pablo Escobar in Colombia. He tried to warn the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, that there was a bullet coming from Iraq with his name on it. He was in Chile when Allende fell, and he had too much to do with Iran-Contra for his own taste, though he tried to stop it. And he tangled with Rick Ames, the KGB spy inside the CIA, and hunted Robert Hanssen, the mole in the FBI. Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the Central Intelligence Agency, where he served for more than thirty years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the CIA's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering, all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this book also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers: covert operations, not costly and devastating full-scale interventions, are the best safeguard of America's interests worldwide. Part memoir, part historical redress, Good Hunting debunks outright some of the myths surrounding the Agency and cautions against its misuses. Beneath the exotic allure—living abroad with his wife and six children, running operations in seven countries, and serving successive presidents from Nixon to Clinton—this is a realist, gimlet-eyed account of the Agency. Now, as Devine sees it, the CIA is trapped within a larger bureaucracy, losing swaths of turf to the military, and, most ominous of all, is becoming overly weighted toward paramilitary operations after a decade of war. Its capacity to do what it does best—spying and covert action—has been seriously degraded. Good Hunting sheds light on some of the CIA's deepest secrets and spans an illustrious tenure—and never before has an acting deputy director of operations come forth with such an account. With the historical acumen of Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and gripping scenarios that evoke the novels of John le Carré even as they hew closely to the facts on the ground, Devine offers a master class in spycraft.
Call me naïve, but when I was a girl-watching James Bond and devouring Harriet the Spy-all I wanted was to grow up to be a spy. Unlike most kids, I didn't lose my secret-agent aspirations. So as a bright-eyed, idealistic college grad, I sent my resume to the CIA. Getting in was a story in itself. I peed in more cups than you could imagine, and was nearly condemned as a sexual deviant by the staff psychologist. My roommates were getting freaked out by government investigators lurking around, asking questions about my past. Finally, the CIA was training me to crash cars into barriers at 60 mph. Jump out of airplanes with cargo attached to my body. Survive interrogation, travel in alias, lose a tail. One thing they didn't teach us was how to date a guy while lying to him about what you do for a living. That I had to figure out for myself. Then I was posted overseas. And that's when the real fun began.
