That’s how I met her—in motion. I’d like to say that I started off our acquaintance by offering my thanks, but instead the first thing I said was “When was the last time you slept?” Sarah looked just as ragged and disheveled as I did. She stared out the window, as if trying to recall the answer, but then just shook her head: “I don’t know.”
We were traveling to Quito, Ecuador, via Moscow, Russia, via Havana, Cuba, via Caracas, Venezuela, for a simple reason: It was the only safe route available. There were no direct flights to Quito from Hong Kong, and all of the other connecting flights traveled through US airspace. I was concerned about the massive layover in Russia—we’d have almost twenty hours before the Havana flight departed.
I wore my hat down over my eyes to avoid being recognized, and Sarah did the seeing for me. She took my arm and led me to the gate, where we waited until boarding. This was the last moment for her to back out, and I told her so. “You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Protect me like this.”
Sarah stiffened. “Let’s get one thing clear,” she said as we boarded. “I’m not protecting you. No one can protect you. What I’m here for is to make it harder for anyone to interfere. To make sure everyone’s on their best behavior.”
“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 sky bridge 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 now that tales of my Rubik’s Cube had spread far and wide. Instead, I sat back, pulled my hat down again, and kept my half-open eyes on the map on the seat-back screen just in front of me, tracking the pixelated route across China, Mongolia, and Russia.
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 were aware of our itinerary.
We landed at Sheremetyevo International Airport on June 23 for what we assumed would be a twenty-hour layover. It has now dragged on for over seven 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 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 information, 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 note taker, 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 monochrome 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. 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.
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?”