So… Are you a spy?

Am I really a spy?

This is a question I’ve been asked more times than I can count—by curious students, friends, and even strangers who get that glint of excitement in their eyes. While students will blurt out, “Wow, are you a spy?”, adults usually take the more subtle route: “So, uh, what exactly did you do in the military?”

The answer, as with most good questions, is: it depends.

Yes, I Am a Spy (Kind Of).

If by “spy,” you mean:

• Did I obtain foreign intelligence from target countries?
• Did I do this on a daily basis, following orders and fulfilling my role within the chain of command?

Then yes, I am a spy.

No, I’m Not That Spy (You Know the One).

If your version of a spy involves:

• Elaborate car chases through bustling cities.
• Breaking into buildings under cover of darkness.
• Dramatic, last-minute heroics as a catastrophe looms…

Then no, I am not that kind of spy. Very few people fit that Hollywood mould.

Here’s the reality:

• If you find yourself in a car chase, you’ve done something terribly wrong.
• And breaking into buildings? That’s soooo last century. We live in the cyber age now.

What Real Spy Work Looks Like

The majority of intelligence work isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t happen on rooftops or in tuxedos at high-stakes poker games.

It happens:

• Behind desks.
• In fortified bunkers with no windows.
• Crunching data, breaking codes, and identifying patterns that others don’t see.

Our job is simple to say but hard to do:

• We predict the future.
• We provide decision superiority to leaders so they can effectively shape the battlefield.

The real world of intelligence is about precision, preparation, and patterns—not stunts and derring-do.

From the Bunker to the Page

In Zoe Baird: Pathogens & Popstars, Zoe faces a very different reality. Thrown into a mission with little preparation or intelligence, she learns the hard way that the “spy world” isn’t as clean or controlled as the movies would have us believe. Its volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous (VUCA – look it up!) and very deadly.

Her story captures some of the grit, chaos, and hard lessons that come with operating under pressure—less Bond, more survival.

Final Thoughts

So, am I a spy?

• Technically, yes.
• Cinematically, not even close.

But the reality of intelligence work? That’s where the real stories are—and that’s where Zoe Baird’s journey begins.