Recently, I sat down and watched Red Sparrow with a friend and DI remembered a couple of Q posts concerning Sparrow Red (pic related). The movie has been mentioned before in the notables, but I do not think anyone actually dug any further or watched the movie.
Basically, a Russian ballerina in the present day goes into a spy program after an injury that ruins her career. Throughout the movie, the audience is sort of left wondering if she's actually working for the Russians honestly or trying to subvert them. Her mission is to find a mole speaking with the CIA.
In the end, the mole turns out to be a high-ranking Russian Intelligence Official. He admits it to the main character and then gives her the choice: either turn him in as the mole and continue supporting Russia or turn him in and then take his place as a mole using the newfound trust she'd have.
She ultimately chooses neither. Instead of turning him in, she sets up her uncle who put her in the spy program. Her uncle is killed during a spy exchange via a sniper.
Now, that being said, it says "Sparrow Red" which means to me it's supposed to be a reversal of something, perhaps a concept or theme or the plot of the book/movie. Maybe, instead of a Russian spy, it was an American Spy within the CIA? A black hat turned white?
I dug a little more into the author, Jason Matthews and I found out something.
"Jason Matthews is a retired officer of the CIA’s Operations Directorate. Over a thirty-three-year career he served in multiple overseas locations and engaged in clandestine collection of national security intelligence, specializing in denied-area operations. Matthews conducted recruitment operations against Soviet–East European, East Asian, Middle Eastern, and Caribbean targets. As Chief in various CIA Stations, he collaborated with foreign partners in counterproliferation and counterterrorism operations. He is the author of Red Sparrow, Palace of Treason, and The Kremlin's Candidate. He lives in Southern California."
http://archive.is/zZZaF
Okay, so the author is an ex-CIA Operations Directorate. (Nobody ever quits the CIA, though).
He's apparently spoken well of the Gina Haspel, POTUS's CIA Nominee:
"Jason Matthews, a former ops officer who wrote the best-selling spy novel that was turned into the film "Red Sparrow," told NBC News:
"You want a carpenter to be the CEO of your furniture factory. She knows the patois, she knows the recruitment cycle. We've had some good directors and some less good directors, but they've never actually recruited an agent. Gina has.""
http://archive.is/qKvR3
Now, I decided to do a wikileaks search on Matthew's name. There was much that actually pointed to him save for one:
https://wikileaks.org/hackingteam/emails/emailid/223781
It's the CEO of the company Hacking Team discussing Jason Matthews's book and how the CIA operates.
"Off topic, and I apologize for that, but VERY very fascinating.
"In making this assessment, the CIA relies on four basic human motivations, described by the acronym MICE: money, ideology, conscience and ego. Some agencies in the U.S. intelligence community, perhaps not realizing that MICE is already a plural word, insist on adding an S to the end for sex."
Please excuse my digression."
I decided to look into Hacking Team and Found some more interesting things. Here are additional links, and pic related.
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Not too long ago, a mysterious Saudi saved them by investing a bunch of money into them.
Below are additional links. Going to dig more, but help would be wonderful.
http://archive.is/hPZmK Wiki
http://archive.is/T0vRi - hacking team
http://archive.is/zTRbR - Foreign Policy.com
http://archive.is/9GfLa - The Spy Who Turned Me
http://archive.is/4rbeB - Hacking Team Is Still Alive Thanks to a Mysterious Investor From Saudi Arabia
http://archive.is/mUI9H - How Government-Grade Spy Tech Used A Fake Scandal To Dupe Journalists