Cryptic crossword clue
Maintaining the heat, key help to intercept agents from the south 9

The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 9 letter word ADIABATIC

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Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "Maintaining the heat" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case maintaining the heat = adiabatic.
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.
This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.

Crossword Answer definitions

ADIABATIC adjective
  1. (of a process) That occurs without gain or loss of heat (and thus with no change in entropy, in the quasistatic approximation).
  2. (of a process) That involves the slow change of the Hamiltonian of a system from its initial value to a final value.

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