From the perspective of the twenty-first century, Bond was a poor archetype for a hero; certainly he couldn’t save us from the gibbering horrors of the Cold War, but only cast a shadow beneath their unblinking ground-zero glare. But we found salvation in the end, in the most unlikely place of all: if you turn on the TV you’re likely to see one of old Ernst’s protégés being held up for praise as an object of emulation. President of Italy, captain of industry, or chief executive of Enron—SPECTRE won and it’s their world that we live in, the world of the lesser evil.
Charles Stross Edinburgh, UK February 2006
GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS, ACRONYMS, AND ORGANIZATIONS
ABWEHR Foreign Bureau/Defense of the Armed Forces High Command: the German intelligence organization founded in 1921; after WWII, in order to appease the Allies, the organization supposedly focused only on defense, i.e. counterespionage [Germany]
AIVD General Intelligence and Security Office: the Dutch domestic counterespionage agency [Netherlands]
APT(N) Atlantic Patrol Task (North): standing Royal Navy patrol in the Caribbean and North Atlantic area [UK]
BLACK (Pertaining to an organization or project) Secret and off the record, except to governmental intelligence oversight bodies [All]
BLACK CHAMBER American cryptanalysis agency, officially disbanded in 1929; predecessor to the NSA; nickname for the contemporary superblack agency dealing with occult intelligence [US]
CESG Communications Electronics Security Group: a division within GCHQ [UK]
CIA Central Intelligence Agency; also known as the Company [US]
COBRA Cabinet Briefing Office Room “A”: where the Civil Contingencies Committee meets and is thus often referred to as COBRA; able to invoke Section Two powers under the Civil Contingencies Act (aka Martial Law) [UK]
THE COMPANY Nickname: see CIA [US]
COTS Commercial, Off The Shelf: computer kit; a procurement term [US/UK]
DERA Defense Evaluation and Research Agency, privatized as QinetiQ [UK]
FAUST FORCE Nickname: see GSA [Germany]
FSB Federal Security Service, formerly known as KGB [Russia]
GCHQ Government Communications HQ (UK equivalent of NSA) [UK]
GMDI Hughes Global Marine Development, Inc. [US]
GRU Russian Military Intelligence; an intense rivalry existed between the GRU and KGB [Russia]
GSA Geheime Sicherheit Abteilung: contemporary German domestic occult intelligence agency [Germany]
HMG Her Majesty’s Government [UK]
HUMINT Human Intelligence: intelligence gathered from human (as opposed to electronic) sources [All]
INTERPOL International Criminal Police Organization: created in 1923 to assist international criminal police cooperation [All]
KGB Committee for State Security, principal Soviet intelligence agency; renamed FSB in 1991 after disintegration of the Soviet Union [USSR]
THE LAUNDRY Nickname of the former Department Q of the SOE, dealing with occult intelligence; spun off as a separate black organization in 1945, no publicly known name [UK]
MI5 (originally Military Intelligence Section 5) Security Service, also known as SS, responsible for internal security [UK]
MI6 (originally Military Intelligence Section 6) Secret Intelligence Service, also known as SIS, responsible for external security [UK]
MOD Ministry of Defense [UK]
NSA National Security Agency (US equivalent of GCHQ) [US]
NUMBER TEN 10 Downing Street, London: the historic office and home of the British Prime Minister [UK]
ONI Office of Naval Intelligence [US]
OSS Office of Strategic Services (US equivalent of SOE), disbanded in 1945, remodeled as CIA [US]
POLITBURO Political Bureau: the executive organization for the Communist Party [USSR]
Q DIVISION Division within the Laundry associated with R&D [UK]
QINETIQ See DERA [UK]
SAS Special Air Service: British Army Special Forces [UK]
SBS Special Boat Service: Royal Marines Special Forces [UK]
SIS See MI6 [UK]
SOE Special Operations Executive (UK equivalent of OSS), officially disbanded in 1945; see also the Laundry [UK]
SUPERBLACK (Pertaining to a black organization or black project) Secret and off the record to all, including governmental intelligence oversight bodies [All]
TERRITORIAL SAS Territorial Army, British equivalent of the US National Guard: Territorial SAS, the part-time, weekend soldier arm of the SAS; mostly staffed by veterans [UK]
TLA Three Letter Acronym [All]
TWO-ONE SAS 21 Special Air Service Regiment; also known as Artists’ Rifles [UK]
1 Blabbing secrets to beautiful femme fatale agents is frowned upon, especially when they’re not necessarily human.
2 Not to mention outgunned.
3 He had two Gulags full.
4 Except the Black Chamber, who would say, “You’re late—we’re going to dock your pay.”
5 Gran Turismo Omologato
6 The Geheime Sicherheit Abteilung to their mothers, although everyone else calls them the Faust Force.
7 What lunar expedition?
8 Exactly.
9 Pale Grace™, Pale Grace™ Skin Hydromax®, Pale Grace™ Bright Eyes®, and Pale Grace™ Number Three® [reference footnote 13] are registered trademarks of Bathory™ Cosmetics Corporation: “It’d better be bloody worth it at this price.”
10 I briefly consider replying to the latter in the person of a highly placed agent of a secret British government agency, but the last time I did that Tony from Internal Security called me into his office and waxed sarcastic for almost half an hour before ordering me to give them back their bank.
11 Translation: “a bunch of computers.”
12 They tend to oversleep.
13 The word “Three” and the digit “3” (and non-English localizations thereof) are patented intellectual property of TLA Systems Corporation and denote the entity that, in the set of integers, is the ordinal successor of 2 and predecessor of 4. Used by kind permission.
14 And testosterone.
15 An excellent piece of casting that places Dame Judi Dench in the role, apparently inspired by real-life MI5 head Stella Rimington, who has taken to writing spy thrillers in her retirement.
16 Literally: “Professional and Ethical Society of Technological Capital Reinvested by Experts.”
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