Jonah Said is an agent with the Department.
That is the only name I have found for the small agency, part of the British Intelligence community. What exactly its mandate is remains an interesting secret but it seems to be given some very unpleasant and nigh-onto impossible tasks. It is run by General Monteith, "a squat terrier of a man" known for his personal "formidable religious conviction" and a tendency to overdramatize as in the case of Said when he did not do as Monteith wanted and was pronounced by that man as having gone "over to the dark side". Even more so when he referred to Said as "his bluntest instrument - an unstoppable force and an indestructible object".
Said does not talk about himself very much and even less to others about his work but at one point he does a bit of soul-searching concerning his vocation when he stated, "Yes, I'm a spook: separate from others, a secret warrior with a streak of rebellious obedience; my activities governed by the 1994 Intelligence Services Act. My earliest childhood memories, ones that pre-date the spider hunting that logically followed, are of long afternoons listening to my sisters' calls as they searched for me - watching from hiding places and refusing to be found - relishing the power that concealment brings. I've done it all since, all the courses run by the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre at Chicksands - close observation, conduct after capture and resistance to interrogation - and while I'd rather believe that it's possible to live a life without deception and lies, a life without concealment, the fact is I'm a professional deceiver."
He is "the polyglot son of a Palestinian scientist and a black English barrister", the latter being his mother who would go on to such prominence that she would be named a Peer and take her place in the House of Lords. Said remains on good relations with her but would never consider using her for his advancement.
In fact, getting ahead is never something Said considers with regards to his line of work, shown by the fact that at one point he most definitely throws it all away to be with the woman he loved and spend more time with his young daughter from a previous marriage and to write a memoir. That was all at the end the first recorded adventure and the second has him back working for Monteith.
Said has an interesting feature that decidedly identifies him - he has one glass eye. He was deprived of his original orb in a nasty explosion while serving the British Army during fighting in the Balkans in the 90s. We know this about him because in that first adventure, he is sent off on his mission without it, having misplaced it "along with the contents of my stomach in the back of a black cab .. in Edinburgh a few hours before my flight". When some time later it is shipped to him, he slips it in, blinks twice, and proclaims, "I can see!"
Good Lines:
- A mantra of the Department, and a truism in all Intelligence work: "the more you pay someone the more you can rely upon them to tell you what you want to hear".