148 AMERICAN SPYcaptured by the Iranians in Sarajevo, although it would have provoked a
few laughs before the real fun began.
My confidence was briefly put to the test when I heard a woman
sobbing from a nearby office. Was that Stacy?
A tough-looking officer then entered my room.
“Mr. Roy,” she said, “I suggest you cooperate for the sake of your wife.
She’s not holding up well, and she will pay the price once she confesses. I’m
talking prison time.”
By now I’d convinced myself it was not Stacy’s voice I’d heard coming
from the adjoining room and that our arrest and interrogation were both
part of the training.
“Ma’am,” I replied, “after she’s sent to prison, will Stacy be allowed
conjugal visits?”
The officers were not nearly as amused as I was.
After a few hours of interrogation, discomfort, and intimidation, we
were both released on our own recognizance. You can probably guess what
kind of look Stacy shot me as we stumbled out of the office. We never
returned to Hogate’s for happy hour after that eventful day.
I am not going to get any further into describing the training or the
methods we learned in the SE/IO course, since I consider those to be the
CIA’s “crown jewels” of tradecraft. Suffice it to say that by the time of my
first TDY to Yugoslavia, I was 100 percent confident in my ability to detect
surveillance and securely meet my sensitive agent(s) on the dark and dusty
back streets of Belgrade.Stacy and I added a second beautiful baby daughter to the mix during our
eighteen months in DC. Since Stacy had been fully trained in surveillance
detection and could help me operationally, she and our daughters were
authorized to join me in Yugoslavia. In October 1989, the four of us made
our way from Dulles International Airport to Belgrade via a tiring, circu-
itous, and expensive route, thanks to a US government policy requiring us
to fly US-flag carriers for official travel.
In the late 1980s, Belgrade was a dismal and depressing Eastern Euro-
pean capital with a rather aggressive and hostile local population. Our