I’m one of MI5’s top agents but my KIDS figured it out – they’re sworn to secrecy and they think it’s really cool

THE cover of one of MI5’s top agents was blown by her kids – but they have been sworn to secrecy and think their mum’s job is really cool.

The senior intelligence officer – who can only be identified as Director K – admitted her children discovered her real job after some espionage work of their own.

Alamy

Only spouses and the closest relatives can know what Director K does for a living.

But her kids worked out she was a spy for MI5 and confronted her with it – and she confessed.

In an interview with The Telegraph, she said: “My kids think what I do is really cool. My kids now know what I do. They worked it out and confronted me. I was totally rumbled.

“Normally you would not tell children early because it is quite a big secret to hold, but they are sensible and clearly quite capable.”

Now trusted with the true identity of one of the UK’s most senior spies, the kids have been sworn to secrecy.

But Director K, who is in her 40s, said she was impressed by her the children’s efforts and the early promise they are showing as future spies.

It’s not known how the top agent was rumbled by her kids.

Director K has been at MI5 for two years after transferring to the domestic agency after two decades with MI6. 

She studied anthropology because she was “really fascinated by human behaviour and how and why people act”.

The spy said: “It is really easy to think of this stuff as being spy on spy, old school movies and novels territory, Cold War stuff but it really isn’t. It impacts every area of society, potentially every individual in the UK.”

And she called for a “society effort” to protect the UK from harm.

“One of the reasons nobody in the media has ever previously interviewed a Director K is we do our work in secret. Necessarily – it’s really sensitive work,” she said.

“But one of the reasons I am talking to you now is we need a whole of society effort. 

“It is not a spy film thing. This affects everybody. In order to help people understand that we need to break open a bit more about what we can see and encourage people to think individually about what they can do.”

‘ACUTE’ THREAT

She said “from morning to night, I look at where we can do our utmost to prevent harm”.

“In the current world, threats really are diverse,” she explained.

“We are basically looking at it as a set of harms to UK national security and we focus on areas where we can have the greatest impact against the hardest threats.”

Director K warned Russia posed an “acute” threat to the West, while she described the Chinese threat as “chronic”.

“China is absolutely changing the way the world is and that presents amazing opportunities and threats for the UK,” she said.

“Russia blows hot and cold. It has lightning strikes. It can be a bit unpredictable.”

Asked how she sleeps at night, Director K told the newspaper: “If you worried about it as you went to bed or think about it as you wake up, it would be unsustainable.

“It’s not a heroic culture, it’s a very supportive one and that makes a difference.

“I do wake up worrying about my kids. It is more stuff like that. It’s about how do we actually make a difference? The stuff I genuinely worry about or wake up in the middle of the night is – this is really huge.

“The state threats, the way the world is changing, exacerbated by Covid. How do we do this properly? This is not within our gift, if it ever was for MI5. It has to be a whole of society effort.

“How do you do that most effectively? That is the stuff at 2am when I come up with another idea of how we might do this.”