Olivia had assumed it was all academic, at least to her. Her languages were English, Mandarin, (less so) Russian, and (even less so) Welsh. This made it unlikely for her to get an undercover posting in the places where Abdallah Jones tended to hang out. So all her flawlessly gardened memos and PowerPoint presentations about what a bad actor Jones was and how important it was to go after him had seemed free of any taint of self-interest; MI6 could throw its entire annual budget after Jones and it wouldn’t bring Olivia Halifax-Lin any more budget authority or any chance at operational glory.