No, not the genius superagents who are alleged to have poisioned Alexander Litvinenko, outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, using tens of millions of dollars of radioactive isotope polonium-210 that left a trail from one end of Europe to the other.

Because, if you want to assassinate someone you should:

1. spend $50-100 million just on the weapon because bullets are just so passé
2. choose a weapon that can be easily tracked over buildings, cities, and oceans… even to specific apartments and couches in Germany for ______ sakes
3. select something that’s dangerous for you too because, well, who doesn’t like a bit of radiation poisoning?

No, if that was truly an assassination attempt, and I have my doubts (I believe it could have been nuclear material smuggling gone wrong and that Litvinenko could have been one of the smugglers and killed himself by accident), these agents are far too smart for a mere commoner like myself to comprehend.

The greatest spy ever is undoubtedly former WestJet vice-president Mark Hill.

WestJet is Canada’s second largest airline and Mark Hill decided to run a corporate spying operation on our largest, Air Canada.

Essentially, he used a confidential Air Canada employee password to snoop around their website and steal flight schedules and private data so he could plan WestJet’s routes to maximize their profits and hurt Air Canada.

This wasn’t the most brilliant part, however. That came later when he boarded an Air Canada jet wearing a WestJet denim shirt and a leather jacket with a large WestJet logo on the back.

He sat down beside this nice man who said he works in, “…international corporate intelligence,” and who introduced himself as an ex-CSIS agent (CSIS is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service — our spies responsible for foreign intelligence gathering).

This “ex-CSIS agent” (really a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police staff sergeant and private detective for Air Canada) was reading a book, “The Art of Deception,” by Kevin Mitnick. He easily struck up a conversation because apparently Mark Hill was very cocky and was making fun of Air Canada while sitting on their airplane wearing a WestJet logo and he liked to talk.

The private eye proceded to watch him pull out sheets of paper from a manila envelope and enter confidential Air Canada data into his laptop.

So let me get this straight. You’re running a spying operation yourself, you’re sitting on your target’s property making fun of them while wearing your company’s colours, a man who introduces himself as an ex-spy who currently works in corporate espionage sits down beside you reading a book about about deception and you decide to open up to him and let him watch you enter private Air Canada data into your computer… on an Air Canada plane?

And for that, Mark Hill, I dub you the world’s greatest spy.

[Source: The Gumshoe and his target at 30,000 feet by Brent Jang]

UPDATE: From the University of Victoria Alumni 2003 Legacy Awards page:

WestJet Airlines vice-president and co-founder Mark Hill, BA ‘85, accepts his Distinguished Alumni Award. Mark says his studies of military history and strategy at UVic helped him to develop WestJet’s highly successful business plan.