EXTRACT 1 FROM MY MEMOIR

The Spy Who Fell to Earth: My Relationship with the Secret Agent Who Rocked the Middle East

FROM BACK’S COVER

SHORTLY AFTER MIDDAY ON 27 JUNE 2007, A MAN PLUMMETS FROM HIS FIFTH-FLOOR LONDON FLAT. DID HE JUMP OR WAS HE PUSHED?

He is identified as an Egyptian millionaire who has been living in the UK since the early 1980s. His name is Ashraf Marwan. But that is only part of the tale, for Marwan was also an international businessman and arms dealer, married to Mona Abdel Nasser, daughter of the legendary Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser.

A few years before, I blew Marwan’s cover, unmasking him as a top spy who had been working for Egypt’s biggest enemy - Israel. But there is a twist that even the most audacious fiction writer might baulk at. Soon after I exposed him, Marwan made contact. We met, became friends, and then kept in touch for almost five years.

The day before he plunges to his death, Marwan phones. He is anxious and shaken and he asks for an urgent face-to-face meeting. We schedule it for the next day. It never takes place. Around the time we are due to meet, Marwan’s body is found in the private rose garden below his flat in central London.

This is the story of what came to be known as “The Marwan Affair,” which shocked the public and the intelligence community. It is based on diary notes; together with messages I sent Marwan over the years, they tell the inside story of my relationship with the spy some call the greatest secret agent of the twentieth century.

The photograph shows 24 Carlton House Terrace in London, where Ashraf Marwan lived and later fell to his death under mysterious circumstances. The balcony he fell from is on the top left. The Photograph is by Heathcliff O’Malley.

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