Target Assessment Dossier

Requirement: early warning of a change in export licensing for dual-use radar components. Four redacted lives. Select the developmental you would spend six months on — and be prepared to explain the three you would not.

• Subject A

  Access high

  Deputy director of export licensing, 52. Recently passed over for the top chair. Drinks at the same club as the minister. Mortgage is fine. Children at expensive schools. Speaks bitterly of 'people who never wrote a real memo.'

• Subject B

  Access low

  Junior translator in the trade ministry, 26. Volunteers at three conferences that she is 'open to interesting projects' and asks how one 'really' gets a scholarship abroad. No unique access. Instagram is a travelogue.

• Subject C

  Access high

  Air-defense engineer, 41. True access to the radar stack. Devout, debt-free, no obvious vice. A cousin was arrested last year on a political charge. The cousin is the only lever anyone has found.

• Subject D

  Access indirect

  Journalist covering the defense budget, 38. Charming, well-sourced, always solvent in a way the salary does not explain. Offers introductions unasked. Knows your 'consulting' cover by the second drink.