I try to read widely, but I do have a few favourite subjects, espionage being one of them. I’ve been an avid consumer of anything to do with ‘spooks’ since I gained my first degree in Middle Eastern History way back in the Stone Age! In fact, there was a time when I even thought about working with MI5. But they never approached me and so I’ve had to rest content with my books.

I say this because it will help you understand why I was so pleased to be given a copy of ‘Soldier Spy’ for my birthday. ‘Soldier Spy’ we are told is ‘the true story of an MI5 officer risking his life to save yours’ and it is a compelling read even though I do wonder why Tom Marcus’s bosses at Thames House are so happy to let him describe his operational history in such detail.

In some ways, Marcus was a surprising ‘spook.’ He had a very unhappy childhood, was never an academic and the outcast at school who ended up joining the army at sixteen. But he clearly has very special qualities because he went on to become the youngest member of the armed forces to pass the selection process for Special Operations in Northern Ireland before being recruited into MI5 as a surveillance officer on the frontline.

And he did this whilst worrying about the effect of his work on his family the strain it placed on them, not least because of his poor wages. Indeed, in one very poignant passage he reflects on an operation which could have resulted in him being beheaded. “I had to bring more money in,” he writes, “otherwise the people I should be protecting first would start to suffer: my family. Then an awful thought drifted in - if SHARP PENCIL and his crew had managed to kill me my family would be financially better off because the service would pay them a high six figure sum as compensation for my sacrifice.”

In many ways then, Marcus lived a very unusual sort of life. His was no hum drum existence and he is clearly a remarkable man. How many of us for example would remember a name and IP address of 11 random numbers after a few drinks and a casual glance at a piece of paper being handed over in a noisy pub? Indeed, Marcus seems to acknowledge that he was especially designed for the job when he writes: “Some people join the service out of a sense of duty, some out of wanting to some good by removing evil I did it because it’s all I know. I’m a hunter of people and I’m damn good at it.”

But for all his special qualities Marcus reveals one thing about himself that reminds me that he is no different to the rest of us: he needs to feel loved. And he found this love when he met his equally remarkable wife Lucy. As he says: “Being married to someone who was trained to kill in the Special Forces training ground of Hereford is the perfect recipe for happiness.”

Marcus had an abusive, unhappy childhood and as a result there was a time when he thought love was utter ‘rubbish.’ But truth has a habit of catching up with every one of us even, when we are covert operators who think it’s a ‘load of baloney.’ And that’s because we have all been created in the image of a loving God. It may be an exaggeration to say ‘all you need is love,’ but it’s no exaggeration to say we can’t live without it. “And why would you want to?” God says.

Rob James is a Baptist Pastor broadcaster and writer who currently operates as a church and media consultant for the Evangelical Alliance Wales. He is available for preaching and teaching throughout Wales and can be contacted at [email protected]