Aside from the nutty stunts, skydiving hijinks, explosions and shit ... Yes, Steele is every bit like Bond
Steele had known Russia as a young spy, arriving in Moscow as a 26-year-old with his new wife and thin diplomatic cover in 1990. For nearly three years as a secret agent in enemy territory, he lived through the waning days of perestroika and witnessed the tumultuous disintegration of the Soviet Union under Boris Yeltsinās mercurial and often boozy leadership. The K.G.B. was onto him almost from the start: he inhabited the spyās uncertain life, where at any moment the lurking menace could turn into genuine danger. Yet even at the tail end of his peripatetic career at the service, Russia, the battleground of his youth, was still in his blood and on his operational mind: from 2004 to 2009 he headed M.I.6ās Russia Station, the London deskman directing Her Majestyās covert penetration of Putinās resurgent motherland.
And so, as Steele threw himself into his new mission, he could count on an army of sources whose loyalty and information he had bought and paid for over the years. There was no safe way he could return to Russia to do the actual digging; the vengeful F.S.B. would be watching him closely. But no doubt he had a working relationship with knowledgeable contacts in London and elsewhere in the West, from angry Ć©migrĆ©s to wheeling-and-dealing oligarchs always eager to curry favor with a man with ties to the Secret Service, to political dissidents with well-honed axes to grind. And, perhaps most promising of all, he had access to the networks of well-placed Joesāto use the jargon of his former professionāheād directed from his desk at London Station, assets who had their eyes and ears on the ground in Russia.
How Ex-Spy Christopher Steele Compiled His Explosive Trump-Russia Dossier
Ex-MI6 spy who penned Trump file is 'real life James Bond' with strong views on Putin
