If you want a real spy story, here it is straight from official French sources via Israeli military. The story was apparently leaked by the French intelligence services who have the best contingent operating in Syria.
Joyce Appleby: Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination
Niall Ferguson: The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets, 1798-1848
Jonathan Israel: The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806
Jerry Z. Muller: The Mind and the Market : Capitalism in Modern European Thought