When this story hits the airwaves, it's

going to transform people's opinion

about CIA and the depths to which CIA

will dive to collect intelligence that

protects Americans. So, one of its own

officers became a spy reporting our

secrets to a foreign adversary. My wife

and I were included in an operation to

bait the mole to make a mistake so that

the mole could be found and disclosed.

Your wife is here today and you've never

told this story before, have you? No.

And your curiosity right now is a major

issue with CIA because they don't want

the world to know who those people are.

It's a dangerous game.

Well, obviously my research team tried

to figure out who it was.

So, was this the mole?

Married CIA spies Andrew and Jeehi

Bustamante were tasked with unraveling

one of the greatest intelligence

operations in modern history. Their

untold story shows you how to build

trust, manipulate, and thrive under

pressure.

What actually happened?

A foreign ally contacted CIA and said,

"You have somebody inside your

organization sharing information on

operations, officers, assets to an enemy

country." They deployed us to the

country and crafted a new identities,

new aliases so that we could build new

sources of intelligence and try to find

the mole. And we were really successful

in doing that. Nobody felt like they

were in imminent danger, but then that

changed. My presence in the enemy

country became known. I called Jeehi and

said, "I'm coming home early." And from

that, I knew that something was wrong

because it is very real that you can be

disappeared by a foreign adversary.

Or worse, being captured and the

president can plausibly deny that you're

CIA. So, I had to try to escape the

country, but everything went wrong. And

what happens next? A horrible story.

So,

this is the first time I'm setting you

at home a challenge when you listen to

this episode. Can you figure out which

country Andrew and Jeehi were undercover

in as spies from what they say, but also

our team here figured out that the mole

in the CIA was one of these three

people.

Can you figure out from what they say

which person was the mole? It might make

sense for you at this moment to

screenshot these three faces and the

details below so you can remember their

profiles. And by the end of the

conversation, I want you to comment

below which country you thought Andrew

was undercover as a spy and which one of

these people was the mole within the

CIA?

Let's do this. Listen, to my regular

listeners, I know you don't like it when

I ask you to subscribe at the start of

these conversations. I don't like saying

I don't like it being in there. None of

us like it.

It's frustrating. Do you know what's

also frustrating? It's also frustrating

when I go into the back end of the

YouTube channel and I see that 56% of

you that listen frequently to this

podcast haven't yet subscribed. And so

many of you don't even know that you

haven't subscribed because I see in the

comment section you say to me, you got I

didn't even realize I didn't subscribe.

And that actually fuels the show. It's

basically like you're making a donation

to the show. So that's why I ask all the

time because it enables us to build and

build and build and build. And we're

going for the long term here. So all I'd

ask you is if you've seen the show

before and you like it, help me, help my

team here, hit the subscribe button and

we'll continue to build this show for

you. That's my promise. Thank you to all

of you guys that do subscribe. Means the

world to me.

Let's get on with the show.

Andrew,

you've never told this story before,

have you? No.

I have never told the story of my own

operational background. It's been It's

been something that CIA has forbidden

for a long time.

And what's written in this book has

taken you a long time to get approved by

the CIA. Correct. So all CIA officers

sign a lifetime secrecy agreement. And

that secrecy agreement gives CIA the

right to to approve or disapprove any

operational elements of our background

that are still classified and that fit

under this very kind of narrow rubric of

sources and methods, sources and methods

of active intelligence collection.

Because of my time at CIA, my work at

CIA, and the sensitivity of that work, I

just kind of assumed I would never be

able to talk about it. And then all that

changed with the first Trump

administration. What was the CIA's

response when you said that you wanted

to talk about what you're going to talk

about today?

Well, that's what's interesting. They

had two different responses. When I

first submitted the request in 2019 to

CIA to write about my operational

background, we went through kind of some

normal bureaucratic back and forth and

they ultimately said, "Yes, you can

write about it in in detail." And then

in 2021,

when we submitted the manuscript and it

was complete, the world started to

change. In 2022,

uh multiple major issues uh erupted

between major adversaries of the United

States and CIA came back and and removed

their previous permission. Uh they

basically said that in light of current

geopolitics, everything in the book was

now reclassified. How did you get the

CIA to change their mind so that you

could release this book and talk about

what you're going to talk about today?

We engaged with an attorney, one of the

top attorneys in the space of classified

information and publishing information.

So, the attorney believed that because

of the effort that my wife and I had put

into the book, CIA would back off. And

ultimately, that is what they did. When

we threatened them with a First

Amendment lawsuit, they came back and

said, "We don't want to go down that

road. We think we can collaborate on

this. We'll approve your book and you

can move forward."

Why do you think they didn't want you to

publish this book and the story to get

out? When this story hits the airwaves,

it's going to transform people's opinion

about CIA in two big ways.

First, they'll understand that CIA is

not what the movies portray it to be.

It's not superhuman spies who go out

there like James Bond or Jason Bourne

who are one man against the world.

That's not how espionage works.

Espionage is a team sport. You have

wins, you have losses. The second thing

is they'll actually they'll start to

understand the depths to which CIA will

dive to collect intelligence that

protects Americans. Inside this book we

talk about a mole that actually

penetrated CIA that CIA has never

acknowledged. Inside this book we talk

about new tactics that CIA learned from

terrorism and then used against our own

most strategic adversaries. I don't

think people recognize that CIA is

morally ambivalent to how it executes

espionage operations. The goal is to

keep Americans safe. When you say in

this book

you disclose that there was a mole

within the CIA. What does that mean for

someone that doesn't know what a mole in

the CIA is? One of the worst things that

can happen to an intelligence service is

that one of its own officers

becomes a spy for a foreign adversary.

That is what I'm referring to when I

talk about a mole.

And you were involved in that operation

to find the mole within the CIA.

Correct. More specifically, my wife and

I were included in in an operation to

kind of ferret out the mole, to bait and

and tempt the mole to make a mistake so

that the mole could be found and

disclosed. And your wife is here today.

Correct.

>> And we're going to bring her in and talk

to her as well. But for that for anyone

that doesn't know your backstory, which

would be pretty remarkable thing as

you've been on this channel now a few

times. Um could you give me a a

whistle-stop tour of your professional

background up until the point that you

met Chee Hee. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm

from a rural place in in Pennsylvania.

Uh I was like the only brown kid in a

white high school, but I ended up going

to an air a military academy. I went to

the Air Force Academy. And from the Air

Force Academy I go into the Air Force.

The Air Force teaches me how to fly.

They teach me a foreign language and

then they teach me about nuclear weapons

and nuclear missiles and I serve as a

nuclear missile officer in the Air

Force. So CIA picked me up uh and in my

first my first day on the job in CIA is

the day that I met my wife. Um, she was

sitting in the back of the classroom. I

of course worked my way to the front of

the classroom. And uh, and from there

our training just kind of overlapped and

we we became close. Well, G is here. So,

I'd like to hear his version of events.

Was there any inconsistency in the story

he told?

What was your perspective? There's

always another perspective. Are you

allowed to date in the CIA? Oh, yeah.

It's encouraged um, because

it's really hard when you're

keeping so many secrets

to date somebody outside of the CIA and

not be able to tell that cuz we had

friends who did that who did that. You

have to keep your whole life secret. So,

you're lying to them about where you're

going and what you do and

>> day. Day to day. Every single day. So,

you're building a relationship

and lying all the time. And it's really

difficult. So, if you date within the

CIA,

you know,

if you're in different divisions or

whatever, like maybe you can't talk

about everything in detail, but you at

least know what's going on. You know why

somebody's going TDY or where they're

going for a training um, session or We

can explain to each other. Like, "Hey,

I'm going to go work with the Spanish.

I'm going to go work with the with the

Canadians." Mhm. But, when you're dating

somebody on the outside, you can't say

those things. So, it becomes I'm going

on a business meeting. I'm going on a

trip. Crazy. And we've had many friends

who have had relationships explode or

melt down because the the partner starts

to ask very logical questions. We had

one good friend of ours who was an

outsider who was dating one of our good

friends who was an insider. And she

pulled me aside one day and she was

like, "You know, he goes on all these

business trips, but he never takes any

suits."

She's like, "I think he's cheating on

me." And I was like, "No, he's actually

going to a tactical training course

where you don't need to wear anything

except BDUs, but I can see your

concerns." So, you have to walk your

like there's a lot of walking people off

a cliff because they start to come to

the wrong conclusion

about what their actual partner is

doing.

What's your journey into the CIA? Mine

was kind of an unexpected journey

because I went into social work working

with survivors of torture from other

countries, with refugees, with

assignees. But before I got that job,

I'd actually I'd spent my entire last

year of grad school going to job fairs.

And I wanted what I really wanted was to

work for the federal government for like

the larger mission for the United

States, for like the people of the

United States. But then nobody was

calling me back. And I was like, okay. I

was like, I'll just submit an

application, like an online application

to CIA, which I thought was funny. And

then a few months later I got a call

back. She was like, come to the

information session. So I went in like a

random hotel with these like nondescript

signs outside. And you walk in and

you're like, I don't know if I'm in the

in the right place. And then they close

the door and they're like, welcome to

the CIA recruiting session. And you're

like, oh, this is so bizarre. And um Did

they tell you what your role is? Cuz I

know there's several different roles in

in the CIA. Mhm. Targeters began

uh during the war on terror.

And because what they initially did was

target individuals for capture or kill

for the military. Okay. So, what what

does that mean? They targeted people for

capture or kill for the military. So you

would Yeah.

find the person to capture or kill

>> Yes. in a foreign country. Yes.

And so, because, you know, everybody

else is doing their job of

you know, logistics or weapons or

fighting or strategy. So the targeter

position was really important because it

takes time to to go through all this

data to piece together this puzzle of

who is important, who is important to

capture, who's important to kill, and

how do you get to them? The how do you

get to them is the piece that like

everybody else wants to know, but they

don't really have time to do that in

their other jobs. So, they carved out

this targeter role so one person can do

all this research and identify in the

you know, terrorists

were really fascinating because they had

how their organizations were structured.

And so, you really needed somebody who

could look I mean it's like a like

targeting the mafia, right? Like

everybody has a role. Like there's a big

organization, everybody has a role. It

is in your favor if you're target if

you're going after them to find out who

who's who. Who's who, who's connected to

who, how can you get to different people

cuz you're never going to be able to

just get the top person right away. So,

how do you get there, right? And you

became a targeter. Yes. So, your job was

to figure out who to capture and kill.

Or capture or

>> Or kill.

And what was your role in the CIA? How

is your role different? Can you explain

it for a layman? Yeah, so where Gihi was

trying to find the individuals that were

of interest, my job was to learn what to

do after a targeter identified those

individuals. How do you actually meet

the person? How do you befriend the

person? How do you win their trust? How

do you collect their secrets? What's

known as a a field officer, an

operations officer, a case officer.

Those are the different terminologies

that we use internally. But you

essentially have every case is kind of

handed over from person to person. So,

raw information, sometimes open source

information is handed to a targeter who

creates a profile, a dossier, a

targeting package who hands it to an

operations officer who goes out and

actually makes that first contact. And

then when first contact is made, we pass

all the information back and it goes

back to all the same people to build the

next package for the next target. So,

Gihi would identify the individual and

then your job was to

fly overseas, go undercover, and make

first contact with that individual to

extract intelligence from them. And not

at first. By the time that CIA started

utilizing us as a tandem couple. A

tandem couple is a term that means a

married, truly married, CIA trained

couple. When we started becoming a

tandem couple, that's how we were a

one-two punch in for operations. Prior

to that, we were in separate offices and

separate divisions doing separate work.

So, we got along and we were

complementary because I understood the

challenges of her job and she understood

the challenges of my job, which made

both of us better

working with our counterparts in our

different offices. So, where where does

the story begin?

Andy.

You know, you you wrote this book to

tell a story. So, I'm asking you the

question. We usually I'd I'd I'd hazard

a guess where to start, but where does

this story begin?

From my perspective, the story really

starts on uh on I think it was a winter

day when we were both called in to a

counterintelligence office

that was a massive

oak table. It was a It was a senior

executive leadership type of room.

But, there were only three people there.

It was she, it was me, and it was the

leader of what's known as Falcon House,

which is this group of specialists

inside of CIA focused on one particular

adversary, an adversary that we've had

to code name Falcon to maintain

confidentiality with CIA. And so, Falcon

is a country, basically.

>> Falcon is a country, correct. And that

leader

revealed to us that they believed there

was a penetration, a mole,

that was inside of Falcon House, inside

of CIA,

and that they needed us to agree to do

an operation so that the mole will make

a mistake here. Cuz if the mole makes a

mistake here, we'll find him. But, we

can't have you be here cuz if you're

here, the mole will find you. And then

we don't know what happens if the mole

finds you. So, we're going to send you

across the world

to go work in this other country, Falcon

being the country, while we here as the

experts in Washington D.C. try to find

the mole.

And that was privileged information that

neither of us as junior officers ever

thought we would hear.

And I think that I know for me, I was

kind of giddy with excitement and G, he

was a little bit more apprehensive with

this can't be real.

But that was for me, that's where the

story starts is when these two people

her and with her anxiety disorder and

and me with my kind of lackluster CIA

career

when we got pulled into this office that

was clearly outside of our league and

invited to do this operation um

without that first meeting, Shadow Cell

would have never happened.

So, from that moment onwards, how long

was it before you flew to the foreign

country in question?

And what was your objective when you got

to that foreign foreign country? So, I

guess it's like a sub-objective to find

the mole. And there was another main

objective which was going to help find

the mole. You got it. Yeah, I mean

you're using great terminology. There

were primary objectives and secondary

objectives. And the primary objective

was to build a new set of reporting

assets, a new source of intelligence.

Several new sources of intelligence in

Falcon, the actual country. And to to

help you frame what Falcon is, there's

only a handful of countries that are

true stark adversaries to the United

States. Every one of those countries has

limited to no diplomatic relationship

with the United States. That's how

hostile they are.

Any one of those countries could be

Falcon. The reason that we have to code

name the country is because CIA in

today's geopolitical world has has

demanded we don't disclose the name of

the country. So, we call it Falcon. What

are the United States adversaries where

we don't have any

relationship with them? There's

obviously like North Korea, there's

Russia, there's Iran we know of. Are

there any others? Cuba. Cuba. Mhm. Yeah,

there's and those are

um there's a mix there of countries that

we do have a relationship with, but it's

not a warm relationship versus countries

we have no relationship with. So, we

have no relationship with North Korea.

We have a cold relationship with Russia,

right? We have a cold relationship with

China. We have no relationship with

Iran. So, they're all considered hard

targets, but at various levels. Okay.

So, this the objective is the primary

objective is to build a new team in this

country.

But, the sub objective is in building

the team, you're going to find out,

hopefully, who the mole is because the

mole is going to make a mistake. The

mole's going to try to find us because

the mole's job is to prevent CIA from

collecting secrets about Falcon cuz the

mole is working for Falcon intelligence.

The mole is working for that country.

Right. The mole is part of the CIA, but

working for the adversarial country.

Bingo, which is the worst combination

you can have. Um so, some of the most

famous moles in history are Aldrich

Ames. Aldrich Ames was a CIA penetration

that worked for the Russians. Robert

Hanssen. Robert Hanssen was an FBI

penetration that worked for the

Russians. So, these are famous moles in

history. We were essentially being told

that these earth-shattering 1990s era

moles

were were still relevant, but now in

2010-ish,

there was a new one

that had made its way into CIA. And And

that's a big deal. So, it was a very

exciting reveal for me because it meant

that we were not just doing something

that was relevant and interesting inside

of CIA. We're doing something that is

quite possibly the most important work

that can be done inside CIA at this

moment in time. How did the CIA know

there was a mole?

There's a lot of complexity there that

is part of why they didn't want us to

write this book. But, what they have

allowed us to disclose is that a foreign

ally

contacted CIA and said, "We have

collected intelligence that suggests you

have a mole. You have somebody inside

your organization who's a turncoat, a

spy for somebody else. So, a foreign

ally warned CIA. Otherwise, CIA would

have had no idea. Okay, and foreign

allies are people like the the United

Kingdom, Canada, Canada, Australia,

Australia.

So, you can imagine the disruption that

that would make. Not only did we did CIA

proper not know they had a mole. It took

an ally to tell us.

And then when the ally told us, we have

to assume that the ally is sharing as

much biographical detail as possible.

So, they're telling you the name. Hey,

Bob is a spy in your organization. But

now that CIA officer is an American

citizen protected by American rights and

privileges.

And CIA obviously has no information to

show that that person's a spy except for

the word of some foreign ally, which is

still in the law in the eyes of the US

government, a foreigner is a foreigner,

ally or not. So, even if it is the UK or

Canadians telling us so-and-so is a spy,

until we have our own body of evidence,

we can't prosecute. That person can't be

fired, that person can't be discharged,

that person can't be sued, that person

can't be arrested. So, now CIA has this

mess

where they are actively losing

information,

actively losing

intel because of this mole.

>> Because of a mole, but they can't take

any action because they have to now

build a legal case against the mole to

prove that that person's actually

breaking the law. So, the ally that

calls the CIA and says you've got a mole

in your ranks,

they named to the person. Most likely.

Most likely they would have never made

the the notification without also

sharing the name, which is a courtesy we

do to others as well. If we come across

information that we know an MI6 officer

has been compromised or a Canadian's

CSIS officer has been compromised or an

ASIS officer in in Australia, we will

share as many biographical details as

possible. And did you share the name

Did when you were called into the room

that day, did they share the name with

you? No.

It's hard for people to wrap their minds

around the culture at CIA, and I get it

because how do you wrap your mind around

an organization you don't know? And the

only exact the only insight is from

movies. So, culturally CIA is a is a

group of

people who value secrets.

And that need to know is very important

inside those walls. It's just something

we toss around like movie jargon

outside, but inside CIA need to know is

very, very real.

And you are only briefed to the minimum

that you need to know.

So, inside of this tiny group of of spy

hunters, which is known as the the um

counterespionage group, CEG, inside this

very small group, they have the need to

know basically everything. And then as

you go out in rings from that group,

they reduce the information they share.

So, they might know the name, but then

when they share it to the next ring,

they just say, "Hey, there's an officer

who's in this office." And then it goes

to the next ring, "There's an officer in

this division." And then it goes to the

next ring. So, the the people talking to

us as senior leaders, the people talking

to us knew the minimum we needed to know

was that we were going to build new

operations,

but we were also going to be most likely

targeted by an own threat inside CIA.

That was why it mattered to us.

Interestingly, that decision is why we

had a First Amendment case with this

book at all because CIA was knowingly

putting our lives in danger of a foreign

adversary

by intentionally creating operations

that would tempt that mole to disclose

our identities. That was one of the

things I was thinking when I was reading

the book is you knew that you were being

sent to a adversarial country, and you

also had the knowledge that

working amongst you was a mole who was

revealing secrets about the CIA and

potentially yourselves to that foreign

country. Correct. So that foreign

country could have

pop

could have killed you. Absolutely. And

and that's the second kind of cultural

element that people don't understand

about CIA.

You don't really turn down an operation.

If you're invited

to take part in an operation,

you have the right to say no. But if you

say no, you're committing career

suicide.

Gihi and anybody who reads the book will

find this out. Gihi was

a stellar officer on a phenomenal

trajectory, doing incredible things.

Kind of really charting the course for

what targeters have become today.

For me, I proved to be a not very good

case officer.

And if there was anything I was really

hoping for, it was a second chance. So

when we were pulled into this meeting

and they said, "Hey, here's this

exciting opportunity. Here's an

operation that we're

we're literally inviting you to this

executive suite to invite you to this

operation. And we're going to put you

together and we need you to do this."

That's not That's not a situation that I

was going to say no to.

I think you considered saying no, but

for me,

it was it was a they knew me well enough

to know I was not going to turn that

down. Yeah, I mean, I think when you

have anxiety, you consider saying no to

everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> You're always thinking about the risk,

but I think that What was the risk that

you were thinking about? It is very real

that you can be disappeared by a foreign

adversary, that you can be

you know, killed by them with no

explanation, that you can be just

put in jail and then you never get out

because the government's not necessarily

going to come to your aid. And if they

do, it might be still maybe 20 years

before you're out of their prison. Every

sworn officer has plausible deniability,

meaning the president can plausibly deny

that you don't belong to whatever

organization you are claiming to belong

to. So a CIA officer

arrested in a Russian prison

can can avoid all questioning and say,

"Hold on guys, I'm actually CIA. You

caught me. Good job. Now please send me

home. Don't have a diplomatic incident."

The president has the right to say that

person is not CIA. Yeah. That person has

never worked for me. I don't know who

that person is. Uh that their American

passport might be verified, but but they

are

legally in your possession of of uh

you know, legal requirements. So, we we

don't really know who they are. So, so

just to clarify then, you

were being told you were going to be

flown, both of you, to a foreign

country. Mhm. An adversarial foreign

country. And you were told that there

was a mole amongst your your ranks that

was feeding information to the foreign

country that you were being flown to.

So, we they actually stationed us

in a neighboring country that was

friendly.

But we knew that Andy and anybody we

worked with would have to go into

Falcon. So, they flew us to a country

>> Falcon being the adversarial country.

the adversarial country. So, we actually

lived in a third country called Wolf.

But we were operating in both Wolf and

in Falcon. So, the danger was still

there. And then that's when Jihi's

targeter mind set in. And that's when

she started thinking through, "Well, how

could our operation be reverse

engineered by Falcon

and actually find us? And if we can

think like the enemy, we can stay one

step ahead of the enemy." So, the whole

idea of going to Wolf and building our

team from the very beginning, Jihi

started to architect how we could do

that in a way that would foil the

foil our aggressors from being able to

even discover our existence. And what

was the objective when you So, you've

got this sub-objective, which I

understand, which is to find the mole.

But the main objective is just to spy as

usual and collect information on this

adversarial country. Yes and no. The

main objective was to collect

information, but the spying as usual is

the part that was a no.

CIA specifically told us they didn't

want us to do

the standard spy MO. Mhm. Spying has

really been the same since the days of

Egypt, the ancient Egypt, right? You

find somebody who gives you information

about something that they have access to

and that's it and that's spying. Then

you turn it into a report and you pass

it up to somebody who reads it and they

make a decision.

They wanted a new a new kind of

mousetrap. They they wanted a new way of

doing espionage.

And when they deployed us to the

friendly country, that was their only

request was whatever you do there,

coordinate it with the local leadership

and then don't tell us because we have

to make sure that the mole doesn't learn

what you're doing.

That's going to be how we tempt the mole

to start probing around and asking

questions that are outside of the norm.

That's how we're going to reverse

engineer this and find the mole. So we

need you to go do something new and we

need it not to be standard. And don't

tell us. And don't tell us but tell your

leadership in the friendly country. The

the CIA leadership in the friendly

friendly country.

>> Correct. Yes. Okay.

>> Because the And he's going to tell or

she's going to tell them. No, so it's

completely compartmentalized. So

>> Need to know. Right. Because if we kept

all of our operations

um centered in Wolf, then in our in our

friendly country, then the mole would

never know what we were doing. So we

would be gathering intelligence which

would then be further compartmentalized

to maybe a specific office where like

one or two people at headquarters might

know about one particular operation and

then one or two people might know about

another operation. But it's because not

all of Falcon House would know,

the mole would not have access to any of

these new inform any of these new

intelligence sources and that's what was

really important. That's why they wanted

us to rebuild because he currently had

access to all of the legacy intelligence

sources. Okay.

>> So if he wanted to, you know, pass any

information to Falcon from all of our

legacy sources, he could. But, if he

doesn't have access to our new sources,

he can't pass any of that new

information on. And now, here we are,

we're able to gather more intelligence,

and then hopefully, if we're lucky, we,

you know, we strike gold on finding out

who he is or who he's working with or

other things. But, yeah,

compartmentalization was the is the key.

So, we were really very, um,

you know, uh, kind of siloed in Wolf.

I'm trying to understand how you doing

what you were doing was going to help

the CIA discover who the mole was.

One of the things in in

double agent operations, which is what

you're talking about when you talk about

a mole or a penetration, a double agent,

meaning I'm a sworn officer of CIA,

but then I've also agreed to work with

the Russians, the Chinese, the North

Koreans, the Cubans, whatever. That's a

double a double agent.

Double agent operations are very

difficult to maintain in long term

because if my information isn't relevant

to my foreign adversary anymore, if the

if I'm collecting secrets on Cuba,

but I'm being paid by the Russians,

the Russians may not care that I keep

collecting secrets on Cuba. So, they

might cut me off. And then all of a

sudden I'm a double agent, culpable of

crime, but without protection from

another country. So, when you think of

your Edward Snowdens, when you think of

some of your famous turncoats from the

United States, they flee to the country

that they were working for, ultimately.

So, if you don't have that escape path,

then it becomes very, very stressful and

scary for for a double agent.

So, what CIA was counting on is

the mole who was reporting our secrets

to Falcon,

if we could create new operations, and

that mole didn't have access to those

new operations, then the mole would

start to stretch. They would start to

make mistakes,

ask questions they shouldn't ask, steal

information, try to hack onto systems

they shouldn't get onto. And that's all

stuff that CIA can use to build a legal

case to arrest that person. But without

knowing, without having something that

that person has to stretch to collect,

they're not going to make a mistake. So

our job was to create something new so

that the mole would make a mistake that

CIA could track and that would build a

legal case that would allow CIA to

arrest an American citizen for

espionage.

Did the CIA have access to the

information the mole was sending back to

the enemy country? No.

That's one of the most dangerous parts

about double agent operations. We often

We have a lot of nicknames, a lot of

inside terminology, but we usually call

it the keys to the kingdom.

When you have a foreign penetration,

you have the keys to everything in that

foreign country's

um all of their secrets because you have

access to an intelligence officer who

can pull anything. So our double agent,

our mole, had access to essentially

everything related to Falcon that CIA

had. So CIA didn't know what he was

sharing, what he wasn't sharing, how

much he had been sharing, or even how

long he had been sharing it.

But they suspected he was sharing

something. Because there was something

that our ally picked up on.

Something that allowed them to identify

the person and communicated back. So you

land in this friendly country next to

the enemy country.

And do you have to adopt new aliases,

new names, new new stories? Do you have

to pretend that you're normal people

living a normal life?

You do. Um there's different ways that

you can craft it. So

um

Geehee's job as the targeter was to find

our targets in Falcon. A big part of

what we had to do when we got to Wolf,

our friendly country, was do whatever

the leadership there told us to do. So

CIA crafted everything for us to land in

the friendly country. Once we were in

the friendly country, then we had to

start crafting new identities, new

aliases, so that we could travel out of

the friendly country and into Falcon.

Into the enemy country. Mhm. But while

living in Falcon, we were, you know,

Chewie and Andrew Bustamante, newlywed

couple. Where we worked was covered.

Where did you work?

It's under cover. We we still can't

disclose it.

>> Yeah. Like as far as this enemy did you

like run a when you were in the enemy

country working

were you like running like a like a

coffee shop?

Or is it Yeah, when going into Falcon,

there were different um you had to have

a a different cover and a different

cutout. And we would use what's what

you're referring to is called commercial

cover or commercial activity. Meaning we

would act as if we were part of

commercial business going into and out

of the country. But you'd use your

normal names? No.

No. We This is one of the other things

that's really fascinating about the book

and one of the reasons that CIA pushed

back is we get to disclose whole new

levels of tradecraft that have never

been talked about in previous books.

So the tradecraft that we use here is is

something that the Brits actually call

um dry cleaning.

And what that means is we would clear

our path before we would go into Falcon.

So we're in a friendly country and we

need to go into a hostile country. In

order to go from the friendly country to

the hostile country, you can't go

directly. Because if you go directly,

the hostile country can track you back

to your friendly country. And then they

can send a team to to hurt you if they

need to in the friendly country. So

instead what you do is you create a

cleansing route. So you travel from the

friendly country to a neutral country.

And in that neutral country, you'll

change identities and then travel into

your target country. So now if the

hostile country tracks you, they track

you back to a neutral country and they

have no idea that you originated from a

friendly country. But if you go from a

friendly country to a neutral country,

when you get to the neutral country,

do you need like a new passport and

stuff? Because that neutral country,

presumably they they don't know that

you're spies. Correct. So, do you have

to have a new passport to then get on a

plane to fly into the Yes, and it's what

we would call a passport swap. And

there's different ways of doing a swap.

You can carry your own swap. You can

have somebody meet you to do a swap. You

can have a cachet where you hide a swap.

But that's the benefit of always using a

consistent

cleansing route because you can always

go back to the same neutral country. And

from the hostile country's point of

view, every time they track you, you

always go back to the same place. So,

they start to build a pattern of life,

what we call a pattern of life, where

they believe you're originating from

this country. When in fact, you're not.

So, you you you land in this friendly

country. You're making your way into the

hostile country.

What was your objective? What were you

trying to do in that hostile country?

The first thing we were trying to do was

find targets. Okay. And

we knew that as we found targets and

built targets, we would also need to

support the operations against those

targets. And there's a logistical

element to espionage where you need to

have encrypted phones. You need to have

satellite satellite phones or SIM cards.

You need to have money. You need to have

specialized gifts. Like there's there's

a there's a logistical supply chain that

needs to be built. Specialized gifts.

So, um things that are appealing to a

target that they may not be able to get

themselves. Gold bullion, high-end

liquors, child pornography,

uh foreign currency, whatever they need,

your job is to make sure they have a way

of getting it. Child pornography? Some

some targets, especially in the in the

world of drugs and uh and terrorism and

weapons,

they they feed off of the strangest

things.

So, the CIA CIA would supply that

pornography? In a way, um we would more

like facilitate the transfer. Some other

friendly country might actually be who

acquires it. So, for example, Germany

might actually uh have a raid where they

where they carry out a raid against a

pornographer and they have

terabytes of porn, right? And then the

UK might have a case where they need

porn to pay an Iranian.

So, now they can trade with BND, so the

BND can use this cachet of porn and they

can give it to the Brits who give it to

the Iranians and that can be a currency

of types.

Again, morally ambivalent, the goal is

to protect your people at the end of the

day,

right? So, when it comes down to it,

that's the same way CIA works. If we're

giving gold if we're giving

minted American gold coins

to an evil person in North Korea,

do we really care if it's keeping

Americans safe?

There are some people who would say,

yes, and there are other people who

would say, whatever the price is, let's

keep Americans safe.

So, tell me about what you did then. So,

you what was your what did you

accomplish while you were there and what

is the you talk in the book about using

terrorist tactics to build your

operation there. Can you you run me

through what is it what it is you

accomplished there and the role that

both of you played? So, I'll start it

and I'll let you take it over. But, the

the the book's title, Shadow Cell, is

really about the cell model and the

terrorist cell model that we recreated

in our friendly country so that we could

execute operations against our hostile

country

that mirrored tactics and techniques

that terrorists had used to foil

Americans for the last 20 years in the

global war on terror.

So,

what Ji and I learned is that CIA was

not very good at beating terrorists.

America was not very good at beating

terrorists. That's why after 20 years of

fighting in Afghanistan, we left and we

gave it back to the same terrorist group

that we went in there to fight.

We had learned a lot from fighting that

adversary, but we were the only country

in the world fighting the global war on

terror. The Russians, the Iranians, the

Chinese, the Cubans, the North Koreans,

none of them engaged in the war on

terror. So everything we had learned

from Al-Qaeda,

we were the only ones that learned it.

So we found that to be kind of a

competitive advantage. So we started

building our operations modeling our

operations off of the way the terrorists

structured their cells.

And we called our cell in Wolf the

shadow cell.

And we had to find the people, recruit

the people, and train the people inside

our cell. Our actual CIA peers, we had

to get them to learn how to run the same

model. That's really what the book

explains is how we built that and what

those people did. Because espionage is

not about one superhero overseas, it's

about a team of people doing incredible

things. And were those people on the

ground in the friendly country next to

the hostile country? Yes. And so did you

when you recruited these people to build

this team,

did you recruit them from America or

were you recruiting them within side

that friendly country? Inside of Wolf.

Everybody who was in the cell was

already working in Wolf. And the word

cell basically means team. Team. Right.

Team. So you built this team it in the

friendly country next door to the enemy

country and this team consisted of how

many people? Right. So James was our

senior most Yeah. case officer.

Tasha, Luke, and Beverly were our second

tour case officers. So they were more

junior. That's why they were hungry but

but still kind of uh

flexible. Whereas James was in James was

at a place in his career where if this

didn't work, his career would be tanked.

Mhm. And then Jihee and I were not case

officers. We were kind of the I was the

the mission planner if you will and

Jihee was the targeter. And then uh

Diana was our linguist, Will was our

tech support. And we had that was our

that was our cell. That was our little

group of people that would sit in the

bullpen. Now, it's important to note

that

none of them and

this was their primary mission. It was

our primary mission. For all of them,

helping us was just something they were

doing because they believed that if we

were successful, it would be good for

them. They had primary missions to do

all sorts of other things.

Oh, okay.

And were these people locals?

They're all Americans

and they're all Americans assigned to

Wolf. So, they're all American CIA

officers, all sworn officers that are

assigned to our friendly country in

various different covers to do various

different primary missions. Okay.

And how did you guys like communicate?

Did you like meet up for like dinner?

Like this stuff.

How does it work?

Yeah, I mean all of our communication

and hangouts were in the office because

we couldn't really be seen outside

together. We had a

we had what's known as a SCIF, a

specialized compartmented

information facility.

So, it was a it was a hardened

soundproof office that we could have

meetings in.

Couldn't the adversarial country like

watch you walking in there in the

morning?

The adversarial country arguably didn't

even know we were in Wolf because every

time they tracked anybody's travel, it

would take them to a different country.

Oh, so you were just people going to an

office. Yes. So, you could be doing

anything in there. Correct.

>> Yeah, and it's an office in a large

office building. So, we could really be

going anywhere. Okay, fine. So, it's

hard to track.

So, what was your what was your first

mission together as a as a team? Like

what were you what were you doing in the

enemy country? What was your objective?

To you were finding you were working as

a targeter to find interesting

individuals and then Andrew you were

predominantly trying to make contact

with those individuals. Sort of what my

because I couldn't as the node of the

of the cell, the node is a term that

we're using to say, I was the piece that

was exposed to CIA. So, the mole, if the

mole went hunting, the mole would find

me. I was the one that was exposed.

Okay. So, for me, it was important that

I actually didn't meet with any of the

targets that we had in Falcon. My job

was to go to Falcon to start sourcing

the information that she would use to

identify those individuals. Like, what

does that mean? So, uh whether it's

something stupid like a phone book or a

thumb drive, uh whether you're picking

up a dead drop from somebody else. So,

consider in Falcon, we would have

already had other case officers carrying

out operations. Yeah.

So, we might have a case officer who was

able to extract information from a

military database. And that military

database has all the weapons engineers

for Falcon's Air Force.

That case officer That spy. That spy

Mhm. That spy can collect a thumb drive.

Yeah. And then they can put that thumb

drive in what's known as a dead drop. A

dead drop would be something that you

hide anywhere in the in the country, in

a city, wherever.

>> Also, like in a bush. Yeah, like in a

bush.

I would then go into Falcon, and I would

go to that dead drop site, the bush.

>> So, you're going to the enemy country.

Right.

>> You'd go to the the bush. And take the

thumb drive and bring it back by our

cleansing route to Wolf, where I could

give it to Jihi. Jihi could then extract

the information from the thumb drive,

and now she has a list of all the

engineers who are part of the

enemy country's Air Force.

And then from there, she has a starting

point for her information to start

finding targets. Now, as she finds

targets, that's when we tap on our case

officers. James,

Tasha, Luke, Beverly, and we say, here's

somebody that we think would be

susceptible to you because you're a

middle-aged woman, you're an older man,

you're a younger man, you're a younger

woman. Right? We think that these people

might be susceptible to your interests,

your backgrounds, your voice, who knows

what. And we need you to target them.

And then we would send those

those spies into Falcon to meet the

targets that Jihi found.

Okay.

Uh okay, got you. So, the game of

espionage is not an easy game. It's a

fun game, but it's a it's a chess game,

not a checkers game. So, there's a lot

of moving pieces and a lot of moving

parts, and um for me it was always very

exciting, but I also understand that it

can be very difficult to to express it

well.

Was there ever a time when you felt most

at risk?

When you were in that hostile country?

At some point, it

my presence in Falcon, in the enemy

country, became known

to the local government in the enemy

country, and they dispatched a

surveillance team to track me. It was a

major turning point in our operation. We

kind of went from a place where we felt

like we were winning to a place where we

wondered if we were losing. We went from

a place where I felt very safe to a

place where I felt like I could

immediately be apprehended, and then all

the worst thoughts start to creep in.

Not necessarily about being shot.

Oftentimes a CIA officer being shot in a

foreign country is a welcome

experience, because being shot at least

means everything ends.

The worst is being captured and being

interrogated and being used for

diplomatic leverage and being used for

policy leverage and being being forced

to do

uh you know, into brainwashing and

propaganda videos. Like, that's a much

worse experience than than a clean

death.

You said earlier that it would have been

the mole that was exposed to your

presence and that knew that you were in

this enemy country. So, was it the mole

that told the enemy country? That's what

we believe. We don't have the evidence

to prove it, um but what CIA's

conclusion as well as the conclusion

inside of our own shadow cell is that

our operations had reached the place

where they were significant enough that

the mole took a risk

to find out that I was the exposed

member of the cell, and then the mole

reported my name to the hostile

country's police force.

So, you're now inside that hostile

country, the enemy country, and they

know that you're a US spy.

Was there a day when you realized that

they knew that you were a spy? Yes.

Well, there wasn't a day that I realized

that they were

that they knew I was CIA. There was a

day that I realized they were

surveilling me

as if I was a threat.

When you travel, when any business

person travels to a hostile country,

they're almost always surveilled. Their

hotel rooms can be rifled through.

There's There's people called bumbling

surveillance or watchers who will

usually follow you.

I'm not sure what your travel looks

like, but I can almost assure you that

if you travel to Russia, if you travel

to China, if you travel to Cuba, you had

a watcher. You had a surveillance team

Really? that was watching you.

>> Me? Yeah. Why? Because you're wealthy,

you're successful, you're an influencer,

you're of significance. At the very

least, they want to make sure that some

petty criminal doesn't hurt you in their

country cuz that could be a big deal.

>> Thank you. But

Please continue to surveil me. But at

worst, they could also be scraping your

cell phone to pull all of your contacts

off the cell phone so that they could

then reach out to any of the contacts

that you have on your cell phone. They

could scan and duplicate your hard drive

as you go through secondary or go

through immigration in a foreign

country. They can scan my hard drive as

I go through immigration? Absolutely.

We can do that here in the United

States, too.

What? So, if I land in the United

States, like they How do they do How

would they do that? So, there's a

There's

There's different authorities that exist

for different agencies. So, here inside

the United States, one of the

authorities that we give to our border

patrol is the authority to essentially

scrape data off of all of your

electronic devices. So, if you're uh

deemed a target of interest, and if

you're moved into what's known as a

secondary screening, they will separate

you from your bags. They'll actually

open your your bags. They might even

tell you to unlock your cell phone or

unlock your laptop. And then from there

with with technology that's proprietary

and technology that's also currently

commercially available, they can scrape

and scan your hard drive. Cuz I've been

through security before in various

countries and sometimes when I get to

the other end, there's a letter in my

suitcase. And the letter in my suitcase

says, "Hey, we had to go through your

bags for some reason."

>> If you had a technical If you had a

technical device in your bag along with

that letter, there's a good chance that

it was cloned.

But I didn't give them my password.

Sometimes they don't need your password.

Really? Oh, yeah.

How are they going to get into my my

laptop without my password? There's

ways.

So, yeah, there's password generators,

there's password cracking codes. Your

password is the I mean, I have somebody

I could call right now and within about

30 minutes we would probably have all of

your passwords that you use for all of

your devices in your personal home.

That's the end of the podcast, isn't it?

Good luck WITH THE BOOK.

CUZ I'M GOING TO HAVE TO ASK HIM FOR MY

PHONE.

AND THIS IS A BIT OF A TANGENT, BUT IT'S

AN IMPORTANT ONE. SO, WHAT devices do

you guys use if you have that knowledge

that it's really easy to break into

devices? Do you use the same devices

that I use? Yeah, I mean, for me I

assume that once you If you become a

target of interest, there's nothing you

can do to protect yourself. So, I use

devices that are actually easy to crack

and clone because I don't want my device

to get broken.

So, that when

the Chinese or the Russians choose to go

through some backdoor on my Android

system, my Android doesn't shut down.

Whereas, there are more complex systems

like a Glacier phone, where if somebody

penetrates your Glacier phone, this the

whole phone will shut down and you'll be

without a phone. Is there any phone or

device that's safe?

I would argue the answer is no. No. I

would say no, also. Because anything

that you create that claims to be safe

becomes priority number one for all the

adversaries out there cuz they know if

they can be the first ones to crack that

phone or crack that hard drive or crack

that operating system, then they have

the competitive advantage over everybody

else. Yeah, it's possible for something

to be safe for a short period of time,

but eventually it's going to get

cracked. They'll find a back door or

they'll figure out how to open it. And

it's not just foreign intelligence that

wants to do that, it's also all of your

criminal syndicates, it's all of your

dark web syndicates, everybody wants to

do it. So, whenever I see anybody come

out and promise that they have got the

new hardest device,

I just I don't believe it. It might be

hard, but that doesn't mean it's

impossible. Yeah, there are levels of

security, but nothing is 100% secure, at

least when it comes to technology. And

so, we just assume

that it's not secure. And so, you just

treat your device in that way. You know,

with whatever level of security is

convenient and makes you feel secure,

but knowing that at any point somebody

could just hack in from, you know, they

could hack in remotely, they could, you

know, scrape your drive when you're

going through immigration or if you're

in a hotel room, somebody comes in. I

mean, it's always possible.

>> steal your encryption key from somebody

else that you are having an encrypted

chat with. They didn't have to target

you. Do you use like cold storage? I.e.,

do you use like a a hard drive that's

not connected to the internet or

something? We will air gap. With what?

>> Air gap. Air gapping is cold storage,

like what you're talking about, where

you take something off the actual cloud,

take something off the internet, and it

just lives in a stand-alone server.

Whether that's a We have drives that we

save our information to that are that

are air gaps, they're not connected to

the internet, not connected to a cloud.

They're only connected whenever we

choose to transfer information. Um so,

we'll do things like that to keep our

information safe. But, the I think the

most important thing is that

if you

if you show, if you make yourself easy

to be hacked,

then you'll actually get hacked less,

because you're not a risk. They can see

what you have, they understand that

you're not important, and they move on

to the next target that's more more uh

clandestine or trying to hide.

Okay, so you you out, going back to the

story, you figure out that you're being

surveilled. How?

Just like the the whole idea of a

cleansing route through a third country,

that's a a piece of tradecraft that has

never been exposed before. I actually

get to teach a number of people, I get

to teach in the story how we do what's

known as a surveillance detection route.

So, the the core of surveillance

detection is understanding something

that we call multiple sites, multiple

sightings over a period of time. So, I

need to see the same person, the same

vehicle, the same face, the same

profile. Profile meaning, you know, tall

tall Caucasian male, mid-50s. I need to

see the same profile several times over

a period of time where I'm changing

locations.

So, what happens inside Shadow Cell is I

identify one car

that follows me through multiple turns

and then falls off, only to come back on

later on. That's kind of my first

indicator that there might be something

going on. So, then I go through this

route, a predetermined, preplanned route

through a city. And the only reason I'm

doing that route is so that I can drag

people along with me to see if they're

going to behave like surveillance. And

from that route, I find that it's not

just one car, it's actually two other

cars. And when I get out of my own

vehicle to walk on foot, there are very

specific people who then follow me on

foot. And then in the third part of the

surveillance detection route, I find

that same people who are following me on

foot are also the people driving the

cars that are following me inside

vehicles. So, most surveillance

detection routes are executed in this

very prescribed, very specific process

so that you can see who's actually

following you.

And you did that. You discover that

there's multiple people following you in

multiple vehicles.

And when you discover that, it's

terrifying.

>> Yeah, I was going to say you

>> It's absolutely terrifying. But, it's

comforting

because you know they're following you,

but they don't know that you know that

yet.

So, they still think that they are

discreet. They still think that that

you're operationally active, meaning

they're following you because they

expect you to commit espionage. They're

following you because they expect you to

meet with a source, do a dead drop,

acquire some kind of equipment that you

shouldn't have, right? They're waiting

for that. If they don't see that, then

they don't get the evidence that they

need. They don't win.

>> So, you go straight to a strip club or

something.

>> Exactly right. You go to a strip club,

you go to a library. I went to an arcade

in this book, and you go somewhere to

just waste their time. Because as long

as I'm collecting their information when

I come back to my friendly country, and

I meet with my shadow cell teammates, I

can now tell them this license plate is

a surveillance vehicle, this profile is

a surveillance vehicle. If you see a

woman or a man wearing these types of

clothing, this is a surveillant, right?

And we can

now we can build a database back in Wolf

that shares the surveillance team

members in Falcon. Were you scared when

you figured out that you were being

followed? I was terrified. I was

terrified because I had so many thoughts

going through my head from how did I

[ __ ] up

to what if I don't go home? I'm trying

to think about what they're going to do

as their next step. How long are they

going to follow me before they just say

[ __ ] it and just wrap me up?

Are they even going to wrap me up? Wrap

me up meaning meaning apprehend me,

capture me. Do they already have

evidence that shows that I'm committing

espionage, right? I haven't committed

espionage on this trip yet, but have

they seen me on a previous trip doing a

dead drop, retrieving a dead drop,

dropping a cell phone, taking a battery?

Like

what what do they know? I don't know

what they know.

And then you've got all this panic, and

at the same time you have to recall

3 and 1/2 hours of very specific

activity across a city to run an SDR. An

SDR? A surveillance detection route. You

have to recall I turn left on Front

Street. I go two blocks, I turn right on

22nd North, and then I turn left on an

alley. You have to recall this thing

that you memorized, that you work

through, and at the same time that you

have this spike of adrenaline panic. And

you were on your own? I was on my own

for that operation. So, you you go

through this route through the city that

you is predetermined for you to go down,

and presumably this particular route is

designed in such a way where

it gives you opportunities to expose

them.

You realize that you are being followed.

What do you do in that exact moment? The

first moment that I realized it was

true,

I had this

realization, this moment of fear and

vulnerability

where I just it was a very it was a

moment of self-loathing, where you just

you realize that you're not as good as

you think you are. And you realize that

however this happened,

you're the only one to blame for what

comes next.

In that kind of moment of humility,

I actually called Jihi.

In our alias identities that we had

built for these operations, we had

what's known as a throwaway phone or a

disposable telecommunications. And I

called her

and I gave her a coded message to let

her know

that

something was wrong. Cuz I wanted her to

know that something was wrong so that

she could take it back to the cell so

that they could start their systems on

their end to protect me if I did get

arrested, if I did get wrapped up, if I

did get shot. You gave her a coded

message? Via cell phone. What is that

coded message? Um the I think I just

called you and said I'm coming home

early.

>> Mhm.

You said you you called her and said I'm

coming home early. Yeah, which is a bad

sign because you would never come home

early from an operation ever.

So, as soon as I heard he was coming

home early, I knew that something was

wrong.

>> Take me into your world at that time.

The phone rings. I get the call on my

phone, my burner phone, and which was

unusual anyways. I mean, I always had it

because that was part of our like

communication plan was for us to do that

when we were apart. So, a burner phone

is a secondary phone that you just use

for these kind of things.

>> That's just for this. It's never used

for anything else. It's not connected to

a name.

Um and that's what keeps it anonymous

for us. And so, he calls and he says,

you know, "Hey, I'm coming home early."

And I'm like,

"Okay." Because you can't like if if the

line's being tapped, you can't be like,

"Oh my god, what's going on? Like, are

you okay?" because somebody's listening

to it. It has to sound like we knew that

his alias had a fiance. I was the

fiance. So,

you know, it was totally natural for

anybody listening in to to hear him say,

"Hey, I'm coming home early." So, then I

had to be like, "Oh, that's really

exciting. That's great. You know, I

can't wait to see you." And he's like,

"Okay, I love you." And then that's the

end of the conversation. And that's all

I get.

And so, after that's all I get from

Andy, I go back to the office. I'm

starting to look like scour all of our

cables. I go talk to James. Like, have

you heard anything? Like, is anything

happening? You started to scour all of

your cables. Yeah, so, you know, we have

our all of our databases, uh you know,

all the CIA databases. So, you know,

there's reporting that comes in all the

time um that you're, you know,

especially regional reporting that

you're privy to. And so, you know, I

talked to James because he was he had

more access than I did to things all

things Falcon. And so, I was like, "Have

you heard anything? Is there anything

weird going on?" And he said, "No." And

so, I started just kind of looking

through all of my stuff to see, you

know, was there any reporting that was

of somebody being captured or somebody,

you know, something going wrong? And

there was nothing. Um and so, Andy and I

have um

we created on our own just a it's called

a combo plan, a communication plan,

where you know, if anything ever

happens, you know, whether natural

disaster or, you know, espionage faux

pas, like we had a system of

communication where

you know, I wait 8 hours and you know,

check this

fake email that we share that's not

attributable and then he gives me a sign

of life and then we have these timings 8

hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours

where all I need from him is a sign of

life to know that he's okay. And then

that also gives us the opportunity if it

were a natural disaster for example, to

put, you know, I meet me at this

location. So that that's an email

address that Andy emails. Yeah, so

>> Close. It's an email address that we

both have a login to and you create a

draft email inside of it. Oh, okay.

>> Also learned from terrorism. Also

learned from terrorism. Okay. Oh, is

that what terrorists do? Yeah. So they

create a draft email, they just leave it

there and someone else logs in and looks

at it. Yeah, so there's it's never sent,

so it never goes over the internet

really. Yeah, so we had this

communication plan in place, so even

though I was concerned and I couldn't

find anything to discover what was

happening, I knew we had this

communication plan in place. So I knew

that at some point he was going to give

me a sign of life and I couldn't do

anything

until that point. So you're you've

discovered that you've been discovered

by this adversarial country, you call

Jihi, you let her know that you're

coming home early, then what you do?

Then I have to plan my escape. So

another thing that people that movies

don't show you is that

when in the first effort to escape is

always self-rescue. It's always on the

part of the field officer alone to try

to escape. There's no Navy SEAL team,

there's no evacuation helicopter,

there's no high-speed

boat or or classy yacht just waiting for

you. You have to get yourself across

the country's border yourself

before you can hope for any kind of

e-back from there or what we call an

exfil.

So I knew knew it was on me to come up

with some evacuation plan. And I had to

come up with an evacuation plan that

wasn't going to let the surveillance

team know

that I knew I was under surveillance.

And you're still in the car at this

point? I'm I'm in between the car and on

foot uh

de- depending on where I am in the

surveillance detection route, right? It

was Surveillance Detection Routes

generally break into three phases. It's

in the first phase that you suspect that

you're under surveillance. It's in the

second phase that you confirm it. So,

it's in the second phase when I confirm

I am absolutely under surveillance.

That's when I contact G and G, and

that's when I start coming up with my

own self-rescue plan.

And then the third phase? The third

phase is a collection phase. You know

what you You know that you're under

surveillance. You know that you've

communicated to somebody that you're

under surveillance. And now the mission

becomes collect as much information as

you can about the surveillance team

before they realize that they're being

collected against. So, you you see this

car behind you, multiple cars behind

you, and the same people following you

on foot. Are you writing this down, or

are you just trying to memorize it?

>> At first, it's all memory. Um and we

have a methodology for trying to

memorize this stuff. We actually talk

about this in the book as well. You

start to come up with short codes to

describe the people.

Um and the codes that you come up with

mean something to you, but they wouldn't

mean anything if they were if they came

out in an interrogation, if they came

out in writing. So, like for you, I

might call you black t-shirt.

A black t-shirt means something to me.

So, if I see black t-shirt behind me

three times in the next 45 minutes in

three different parts of the city, I

know that I have an image for what black

t-shirt means. But when I write down

black t-shirt, nobody else knows what

that means.

When I see a woman, it was cold uh the

the season that I was carrying out these

operations. Um I saw a woman in

earmuffs, so I would call her earmuffs.

I saw a guy in a bomber jacket, so I

called him bomber jacket. And you just

recall these people. You You You blue

sedan, yellow SUV, right? White taxi

cab. You You start to come up with these

nicknames that mean something to you but

don't mean anything to anybody else. And

then when you get back to a place where

you can document your notes in detail,

you have a reference point to document

in detail. So, I start by memorizing.

When I got towards the end of my third

phase of surveillance detection, I

actually wrote down my notes

in the book it explains I went into a

like a clothing store

and then I started making notes in the

clothing store. Presumably, if somebody

came in and arrested me at that moment,

what they would see is a bunch of notes

about clothing. Earmuffs and black

t-shirts inside of a clothing store,

that's not espionage. But then when I

was able to actually get back to

to Wolf with my cell, then I was able to

deconstruct what black t-shirt meant.

Black t-shirt meant blackmail

with a goatee

approximately 165 65 lb 5 ft 11 in

38 years old.

So, how do you get from phase two of

your process of figuring out if you're

being followed to the arcade?

Like what was the Why did you go to the

arcade? So, I went to the arcade because

I was trying in a surveillance detection

route, one of the things that you're

actually trying to do is called bore or

lull your surveillance.

You never want to In movies, it makes it

look like you're trying to to ditch your

surveillance team. You're trying to lose

your tail. That's not what professionals

do. What professionals do is we drag the

tail. We keep the tail with us for as

long as possible. And one of the things

you do is you make yourself very

predictable. You move very slowly. You

hang out in public places, which makes

it very easy for them to observe you. I

was actually going to the arcade to try

to collect more information about my

surveillance team, but I was trying to

give them time and space so they could

observe me in a public setting.

It It backfired because what actually

ended up happening is that when I went

into the arcade, they lost me. They lost

sight of me, which put them into a

position where they started panicking to

try to find me, even though I was just

sitting inside the arcade.

I mean, it doesn't sound like it

backfired if they lost you. That's a

terrible thing when they lose you

because when they lose you, they start

to panic and they start to assume either

they made a mistake or you're a trained

officer.

If you're a trained officer, if that's

the conclusion that they make, they can

come in and arrest you. If they lose

you, then they start to make mistakes.

And when a surveillance team starts to

make mistakes, it means that they might

stumble across you. They might have two

different surveillance people find you

at the same time. And for for them,

that's a scary thing because for them,

they're trying not to be identified.

They're trying to be discreet. They're

trying to not be seen. So, when they in

this case in in the story that that we

share in Shadow Cell, when the

surveillance team broke into a

starburst, a starburst means they went

they broke ranks to try to find me in

the arcade. When they broke ranks to try

to find me, they presented themselves to

me in the arcade face-to-face. And it

was in that moment that I realized

they know that I see them

and I know that they see me

and

this is bad. You locked eyes with them.

Which you're never supposed to do.

You're never supposed to do. You're