The Spy Who Lived Inside Al-Qaeda | Morten Storm on his extraordinary life, being 'one of the worst spies' and the true cost of espionage | 4
The Spy Who
Audible
4.6 • 891 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The ex spy at the heart of our story joins host Charlie Higson to unpack his days in a biker gang, his immersion in radical Islam, his rise within al-Qaeda’s ranks, and the dramatic fallout that followed. This high-stakes espionage led to the death of his friend - one of al-Qaeda’s top commanders. In a cruel twist of fate, Morten was subsequently betrayed by the spy agencies he risked everything for, and was left to grapple with PTSD and death threats. Here, he reflects on the cost of his choices and the life he’s rebuilt in the aftermath.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wonderry plus subscribers can binge full seasons of the Spy Who early and add free on Apple |
| 0:06.8 | podcasts or the Wondery app. |
| 0:13.7 | From Wondery, I'm Charlie Hickson, spy novelist, actor, comedian, and this is The Spy Who. |
| 0:24.2 | Thank you for joining us for our final episode of The Spy Who lived inside Al-Qaeda, where I'll be |
| 0:30.8 | sitting down with Morton Storm himself. |
| 0:34.3 | It's hard to sum up Morton Storm's journey from Danish boxer, boozer and dropout to one of Al-Qaeda's |
| 0:41.3 | most trusted soldiers. This, despite being a pale, ginger-haired, six-foot-one man speaking accented Arabic. |
| 0:50.3 | To the people of Yemen, where he was based, he must have been quite the sight. |
| 0:55.2 | Then, suffering a crisis of faith, he is disgusted by plans to kill civilians. |
| 1:01.5 | It's here that three spy agencies find him. |
| 1:05.5 | What followed was a cat and mouse game of friendship, loyalty and betrayal. |
| 1:10.6 | The spy agencies cast him out, only to entice him back again with suitcases laden with cash. |
| 1:17.2 | His final mission fell apart, but not before he suspected he was to be collateral damage |
| 1:22.8 | in the hunt for another Al-Qaeda general. |
| 1:26.1 | To hear how his story unfolded, make sure you've listened |
| 1:29.1 | to episodes one to three of this season. In this episode, I'm going to sit down with Morton to discuss |
| 1:35.8 | his early days in Denmark the moment he walked into that library and found Islam, and that |
| 1:41.5 | explosive ending to his spying career. |
| 1:50.3 | I always get a little nervous before doing these interviews, mainly because I don't want to mess it all up and they storm out halfway through saying, how dare you ask me that. |
| 1:54.5 | And in Morton's case, I'm sitting down to a man who was a Muslim fundamentalist, who was desperate to go on jihad. |
| 2:04.7 | He's a big guy, he's much bigger than me. |
| 2:07.3 | So I hope that Morton and I are going to get on okay. |
... |
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