“So you’re my witness,” I said.
She gave a slight wry smile. “Someone has to be the last person to ever see you alive. It might as well be me.”
Though the three points where I’d thought we were most likely to get stopped were now behind us (check-in, passport control, and the gate), I didn’t feel safe on the plane. I didn’t want to get complacent. I took the window seat and Sarah sat next to me, to screen me from the other passengers across the row. After what felt like an eternity, the cabin doors were shut, the skybridge pulled away, and finally, we were moving. But just before the plane rolled from the tarmac onto the runway, it halted sharply. I was nervous. Pressing the brim of my hat up against the glass, I strained to catch the sound of sirens or the flashing of blue lights. It felt like I was playing the waiting game all over again—it was a wait that wouldn’t end. Until, suddenly, the plane rolled into motion again and took a turn, and I realized that we were just far back in the line for takeoff.
My spirits rose with the wheels, but it was hard to believe I was out of the fire. Once we were airborne, I loosened my grip from my thighs and felt an urge to take my lucky Rubik’s Cube out of my bag. But I knew I couldn’t, because nothing would make me more conspicuous. Instead, I sat back, pulled my hat down again, and kept my half-open eyes on the map on the seatback screen just in front of me, tracking the pixelated route across China, Mongolia, and Russia—none of which would be especially amenable to doing any favors for the US State Department. However, there was no predicting what the Russian government would do once we landed, beyond hauling us into an inspection so they could search through my blank laptops and empty bag. What I hoped might spare us any more invasive treatment was that the world was watching and my lawyers and WikiLeaks’ lawyers were aware of our itinerary.
It was only once we’d entered Chinese airspace that I realized I wouldn’t be able to get any rest until I asked Sarah this question explicitly: “Why are you helping me?”
She flattened out her voice, as if trying to tamp down her passions, and told me that she wanted me to have a better outcome. She never said better than what outcome or whose, and I could only take that answer as a sign of her discretion and respect.
I was reassured, enough at least to finally get some sleep.
WE LANDED AT Sheremetyevo on June 23 for what we assumed would be a twenty-hour layover. It has now dragged on for over six years. Exile is an endless layover.
In the IC, and in the CIA in particular, you get a lot of training on how not to get into trouble at customs. You have to think about how you dress, how you act. You have to think about the things in your bag and the things in your pockets and the tales they tell about you. Your goal is to be the most boring person in line, with the most perfectly forgettable face. But none of that really matters when the name on your passport is all over the news.
I handed my little blue book to the bearish guy in the passport control booth, who scanned it and rifled through its pages. Sarah stood stalwart behind me. I’d made sure to take note of the time it took for the people ahead of us in line to clear the booth, and our turn was taking too long. Then the guy picked up his phone, grumbled some words in Russian, and almost immediately—far too quickly—two security officers in suits approached. They must have been waiting. The officer in front took my little blue book from the guy in the booth and leaned in close to me. “There is problem with passport,” he said. “Please, come with.”
Sarah immediately stepped to my side and unleashed a fast flurry of English: “I’m his legal adviser. Wherever he goes, I go. I’m coming with you. According to the—”
But before she could cite the relevant UN covenants and Genevan codicils, the officer held up his hand and glanced at the line. He said, “Okay, sure, okay. You come.”
I don’t know whether the officer had even understood what she said. He just clearly didn’t want to make a scene.
The two security officers marched us briskly toward what I assumed was going to be a special room for secondary inspection, but instead turned out to be one of Sheremetyevo’s plush business lounges—like a business-class or first-class area, with just a few passengers basking obliviously in their luxury seats. Sarah and I were directed past them and down a hall into a conference room of sorts, filled with men in gray sitting around a table. There were a half-dozen of them or so, with military haircuts. One guy sat separately, holding a pen. He was a notetaker, a kind of secretary, I guessed. He had a folder in front of him containing a pad of paper. On the cover of the folder was a monocolor insignia that I didn’t need Russian in order to understand: it was a sword and shield, the symbol of Russia’s foremost intelligence service, the Federal Security Service (FSB). Like the FBI in the United States, the FSB exists not only to spy and investigate but also to make arrests.
At the center of the table sat an older man in a finer suit than the others, the white of his hair shining like a halo of authority. He gestured for Sarah and me to sit opposite him, with an authoritative sweep of the hand and a smile that marked him as a seasoned case officer, or whatever the term is for a CO’s Russian equivalent. Intelligence services the world over are full of such figures—dedicated actors who will try on different emotions until they get the response they want.
He cleared his throat and gave me, in decent English, what the CIA calls a cold pitch, which is basically an offer by a foreign intelligence service that can be summarized as “come and work for us.” In return for cooperation, the foreigners dangle favors, which can be anything from stacks of cash to a get-out-of-jail-free card for pretty much anything from fraud to murder. The catch, of course, is that the foreigners always expect something of equal or better value in exchange. That clear and unambiguous transaction, however, is never how it starts. Come to think of it, it’s funny that it’s called a cold pitch, because the person making it always starts warm, with grins, levity, and words of sympathy.
I knew I had to cut him off. If you don’t cut off a foreign intelligence officer right away, it might not matter whether you ultimately reject their offer, because they can destroy your reputation simply by leaking a recording of you considering it. So as the man apologized for inconveniencing us, I imagined the hidden devices recording us, and tried to choose my words carefully.
“Listen, I understand who you are, and what this is,” I said. “Please let me be clear that I have no intention to cooperate with you. I’m not going to cooperate with any intelligence service. I mean no disrespect, but this isn’t going to be that kind of meeting. If you want to search my bag, it’s right here,” and I pointed to it under my chair. “But I promise you, there’s nothing in it that can help you.”
As I was speaking, the man’s face changed. He started to act wounded. “No, we would never do that,” he said. “Please believe me, we only want to help you.”
Sarah cleared her throat and jumped in. “That’s quite kind of you, but I hope you can understand that all we’d like is to make our connecting flight.”
For the briefest instant, the man’s feigned sorrow became irritation. “You are his lawyer?”
“I’m his legal adviser,” Sarah answered.
The man asked me, “So you are not coming to Russia to be in Russia?”
“No.”
“And so may I ask where you are trying to go? What is your final destination?”
I said, “Quito, Ecuador, via Caracas, via Havana,” even though I knew that he already knew the answer. He certainly had a copy of our itinerary, since Sarah and I had traveled from Hong Kong on Aeroflot, the Russian flagship airline.