Morton - The Birth of a Spy
The most frequent question I get asked is whether Morton is real? Or is he just a character I created on wet weekends? I had no idea when I set out that Morton would be called by the Daily Mail “Morton is smarter than Bond” or The London Times would find his life and actions “compulsive”. Or that he would continue to attract followers in languages all over the world. Now he is out there in space – his adventures continue to e-books.
He is as real as the spies who helped to create him. Their spycraft is his. His adventures are set against their ultra-secret world and reveals an unprecedented insight into devices and operations that until now have been those of the CIA, MI6 and other intelligence services who operate against the background of the most critical international events in the world. Morton is of their world.
So how did he come about? He turned up on that day when I had stood on the Allenby Bridge with the Mossad spymaster, Meir Amit. He had just finished reading my non-fiction book, Gideon’s Spies, about the work of his service, approving it with his words “It tells it like it was – and like it is”. As we sipped coffee at a stall near the bridge he said “why don’t you create a novel with a genuine spy”?
As simple as that Morton was born. Meir Amit recounted some of his own adventures in the secret intelligence world and introduced me to other of his spies: Rafi Eitan, the man who captured Adolf Eichmann; the man who led a jet squadron to destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor. From their secret world of intelligence came a succession of agents, analysts and spy catchers. All would give Morton flesh and motives.
His adventures have taken him around the world. To encourage you to read them I have written this profile of Morton as he is today.
MORTON: The Super Spy
Morton is at the cutting edge of the new world of secret intelligence. He explores the frontiers of espionage. He identifies and responds to terrorism, economic espionage, drugs, the theft of secret computer technology that can launch a cyber-war. He works against a background of satellites and other state-of-the-art hardware which by themselves cannot counter the threats the world faces today. The evidence is there on the liquid-crystal display map on his office wall.
On the organisation charts Sunday newspapers like to try to piece together and publish about the intelligence world, he is the one of the empty spaces. He takes his anonymity seriously. Likewise his background. Back in the mists there is a mother who died in a road accident, a brother killed in the Iraq War.
It is easy to understand why women find him attractive but no one has yet conquered him. He is a challenge – and relishes it. No one realises that in his private world, sex is a precious commodity, something he will neither trade nor diminish. That this has led to misunderstandings, even whispers, is a burden he carries. Women who attempt to lift it find they have taken on more than they expected.
Morton is in his mid-thirties and with a double degree in criminology and psychology he knows more about evil than most people. At their simplest- and most complex – his skills were honed on the right to violate all the rules of critical enquiry to reach the basic truth. Those who work for him have passed the hardest of all tests, loyalty.
He violates no duty, compromises no principle. His one hobby is rock climbing, enjoying the physical satisfaction of having complete mastery of his body, of knowing the risk is self-imposed and threatens no one but himself. On each climb he extends himself to the extreme limits of muscular control.
While he is no weapons freak, he can kill with his preferred weapon of choice – a Tibetan throwing knife. In its handle it has a micro-chip that guides it like a small missile.
For Morton, action cannot wait for certainty. Motive and deception are at the centre of his endeavours. He creates situations – experiments, if you will – which seek to draw fact out of darkness. He applies the art of informed conjecture.
His work as a roaming trouble-shooter had been born out of intelligence failures in the Middle East and Iraq. A far-sighted United Nations Secretary General had seen the need for a small independent strike force. He had persuaded the big eight world leaders to provide necessary secret funds.
Morton’s already matchless record in secret intelligence had made him the only choice to lead the small compact force, Hammer Force. He had asked for, and been granted, unchallenged say on targets and how they were dealt with. There was also the unwritten understanding he has full and immediate access to presidents and prime ministers – to anyone – with no questions asked. He reports to the UN Secretary General only on a strict need-to-know basis.
No outsider is admitted to his headquarters. From there, when the call comes – as it always does – he moves onto the world stage.
On one case he would work with Israel’s Mossad. On another he would be in Germany working with the BND Secret Service. A third would find him in London assisting Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. Next time it would be France to work with the DST. Then it could be on to Tokyo to assist Japan’s PSIA solve – or prevent – a crime.
He can move with equal freedom among them all to resolve problems they cannot solve alone. In the age of New Spies, Morton is the ultimate deterrent.
By the time we meet him, we know he has served his time in those streets that have no names. Part of his success is that he understands national characteristics – the quirks and methods which makes one nation’s terrorists/criminals different from another.
His credo is simple: if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. His skills are honed from breaking the rules of
critical enquiry to find a solution.
His strength – inner and outer – is there as he moves from one high drama to another. Now he is yours to meet.
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Tuesday, 19 June 2012