The Reluctant Spy by John Kiriakou

colonel with a shot at a general’s star to an early pension and a blemish in his file that would last a lifetime.
    His misfortune, however, delivered some good news to our people: We at least knew now that the intelligence chief was a good, professional officer—talented enough to shoot down a U.S. military rising star. I gave my agent a bonus for the valuable information and began to puzzle out how we could shut down this intel chief or maybe even bring him around to our side. I cabled headquarters and requested permission to make an approach to him. Absolutely not, headquarters cabled back, stand down immediately. Burt, to his credit, was having none of it. “Screw that,” he said when I told him. “I run our operations here. I decide who gets approached in this country, not headquarters. Come up with an operational plan that makes sense and I’ll sign it.”
    I needed to be creative: Unlike the U.S. defense attaché, I wasn’t likely to run into the Mideast intelligence chief at a cocktail party. Then I remembered something I’d heard from Gust Avrakotos. Gust recalled an approach he’d made to a Soviet intelligence official in an Arab country three decades earlier. With some variations, I thought, it might work here.
    My agent got the intelligence chief’s home address in Athens as well as the make and model of his car. I dressed like a college kid—I wasn’t graying at the temples then—and filled a backpack with textbooks, notepads, pencils, and pens. When I got to the right street, I found the intel guy’s car and broke off the side-view mirrorwith my backpack. With the mirror in hand, I knocked on his neighbor’s door, excused myself, and asked the Greek woman who answered whether that—I pointed at the car—belonged to her. No, she said, it’s his car, pointing to the adjacent house. That was part of my calculation: If the intel officer happened to ask her whether she’d seen anybody break a mirror off his car, she’d give me a little protective cover.
No, but the young man who did break it came here because he thought it was my car
.
    Now the moment had arrived: I knocked on the Arab’s door and started to speak to him in Greek after he opened up. He put up his hand and said in English, “No, no, I don’t speak Greek.” He used English because it’s the lingua franca; he figured that the vast majority of Greeks my age spoke it.
    â€œOh, you speak English,” I said. “Sir, I speak English. I’m so sorry. I stopped next door and the lady told me this was your car. I was walking past it, and I was not paying attention. I’m so clumsy. My bag hit your mirror and broke the mirror off the car.” It wasn’t exactly Oscar worthy, but what the hell, I thought, my acting wasn’t half bad.
    â€œDammit, this will cost me [the equivalent of $150],” he said.
    â€œI’m so sorry. I feel terrible about this. I want to pay for the repair.” There was a pause that I filled: “You speak English with a slight accent. Where are you from?”
    He identified his country.
    â€œI’m from America,” I said. “You know, our people used to be such good friends. Inshallah, we will be again someday, once all this unpleasantness is behind us.”
    He looked at me like I was nuts.
Oh, man, that last bit probably didn’t ring true to him. Slow down, don’t move so fast
.
    â€œI want to pay you for the damage,” I repeated. “I feel just terrible.” Then I took a big step forward and asked, “May I trouble you for a glass of water?” His brow furrowed because he knew something was up. But in Arab culture, you can never deny a request forhospitality. It’s just bad manners. We’d been talking through a screen door, and the intel guy must have sensed that this stranger was playing for time, perhaps trying to get him out of the living