The covert operator tortured and threatened to kill the descendant of one of the original families.

Certainly, since the professional soldier generally had the deepest contempt for the covert operator, they probably would be a bit disgusted.

"Huge amounts of time I'd be sitting at a table, and my image of myself was as a complete covert operator," he says.

So he kept his operators covert, except for his continual ad campaign to convince people that Hell was in fact a fun place.

"For years I was a covert operator, and in the intelligence business you're not supposed to be terribly open."

The names of the covert operators in the story were changed to protect their identities.

Now history has to confront his legacy as a covert operator.

(The names of all the covert operators mentioned in this story have been changed.)

That means the covert operators have to steal real secrets.

The spotlight makes the former covert operator an ideal international target for eradication by terrorists as the symbol he has become.