168 AMERICAN SPY
operations were the SDB running against the CIA—myself included—and
other official Americans in Belgrade?
Who was behind me? It was not HITCH. I knew he would approach the
meeting site from the opposite direction after conducting his own SDR.
Had I somehow missed a tail, or, more likely, picked up possible “target
of opportunity” surveillance that happened to be loitering in the area and
glommed on to me at the last minute? Still moving, I had less than thirty
seconds to decide whether or not to abort the meeting. My training and
experience told me that the mystery man behind me was a ghost, a false
surveillance sighting. Just bad timing and a bad coincidence, another dirty
trick cooked up by the cruel espionage gods to try and spook me. If that
were the case, I was indeed black and I could and should make my impor-
tant agent meeting.
But what if I made the wrong call? What if I had in fact picked up
SDB surveillance and led them to my meeting with the very successful,
very happily married HITCH? That would spell the end of an extremely
valuable, years-long agent relationship, the end of a critical intel stream to
US policy makers, and the end of my agent’s liberty, if not his life. I could
not afford to make the wrong decision.
Without hesitation, implicitly trusting my experience and my SE/IO
course training, I veered right off the main cemetery path and down the
muddy, overgrown footpath toward the barely visible meeting site. Through
the bone-chilling fog, I could make out HITCH silhouetted against the
aging Balkan tombstones, pacing slowly toward me in the darkness.
The man behind me was a ghost. He continued on his lonely trajectory,
down the main cemetery path, toward Sibinjanin Janka Street. HITCH
and I stood in silence in the dark for a few moments as we waited, barely
breathing, listening to confirm the man had left the area. We then spoke
softly in Serbian, for just a few minutes. I quickly fired off the most pressing
CIA requirements of the day, hoping for up-to-the-minute “breaking news”
updates that might not be covered in the documents. He provided current,
detailed answers, which I committed to memory. He then handed me the
gym bag, calling my attention to several priority documents I should trans-
late first when I got back to the station the next day. We shook hands and
silently left the BREN site in different directions, both still alert to any signs
of surveillance.