158 AMERICAN SPYIn Sarajevo, immediately after learning that the Iranian intelligence opera-
tive planned to kidnap me, I called my daughters on the villa’s phone and
involved them unwittingly in my escape plan. At the time, they were in
Hawaii with Stacy, joyfully oblivious to the dire situation I was facing. After
singing me a sweet rendition of “Jamaica Farewell,” they asked me how I
was doing. I lied and told them I had a bad stomach ache and could not
leave the office. In fact, I was fine, but because of the Iranian threat, I
could not leave the safety of the villa for my daily meeting at the interior
ministry. My lie was for the benefit of the Bosnian spooks who were likely
monitoring the office phone. I’d already phoned their boss Marko—who
was collaborating in the Iranian plot against me—to say I’d come down
with some sort of stomach flu and couldn’t make our next meeting. This
monitored call to my daughters would confirm my alibi in a natural way
and would hopefully leave my enemies with their guard down, at least long
enough for me to exfiltrate Sarajevo.
I will never know exactly how much that call with my unwitting spy
kids contributed to my successful escape, but by answering their mom’s
phone that day they definitely played a role.Halloween was always a favorite holiday of my daughters. My oldest
daughter kicked off the tradition when she won “best costume” at an
American embassy Halloween party for expats in Palmera when she was
five months old. In the United States, she and her little sister would go
trick-or-treating every year with their cousins in a neighborhood known for
its over-the-top haunted houses and Halloween displays. Their uncle John
turned his suburban home into one of the best attractions in the neighbor-
hood, complete with a graveyard, rising smoke, and ghouls who appeared
out of nowhere.
Growing up as spy kids, my girls heard more than they ever wished
to know about Iraq and Saddam, as well as Fidel Castro and others of
their ilk. As a result, they saw nothing unusual about their dad wearing a
Saddam Hussein mask for Halloween. For two years in a row, I traveled