BETRAYAL IN THE BALKANS 25to Sarajevo of my own free will and would not hold the agency liable if my
physical appearance was altered by an explosive device. (As you will see,
lawyers have taken much of the fun out of being a CIA officer.)
Finally, I had to meet with a young CIA psychiatrist, who was tasked to
determine whether I was psychologically fit to travel back to the war zone.
A recent graduate from an Ivy League medical school, the attractive blond
doctor tried to get a handle on my motivation.
“You must be either crazy or suicidal to want to go back there!” she
declared, apparently oblivious to the nature of the agency’s mission.
“If you knew my ex-wife the way I do,” I countered, “you’d realize that
my suicidal tendencies are perfectly normal.”
This argument did the trick, since I obtained her official blessing (and
her secure phone number) and thought I was finally on my way to Sarajevo.
I soon learned that no one at headquarters had a clue how I was sup-
posed to infiltrate Sarajevo. So, I decided to travel to Split, Croatia, on my
own and improvise from there. I knew the country and the language, and,
besides, that approach had always worked before.
Meanwhile, my team, which was to have included several armed secu-
rity escorts, had now dwindled down to two officers: myself and John Garcia
(not his real name), a gregarious senior commo (communications) officer
who’d already proved his mettle in hot spots like Somalia. John managed
to get his hands on an encrypted briefcase satellite phone, and the two of
us made travel arrangements to leave that night for Europe.
At Washington’s Dulles airport, John’s wife of ten years came to see
him off. With tears in her eyes, she kissed him goodbye and begged me to
bring him back alive. I smiled and promised he’d be back. I was hoping I
wouldn’t let her down.
John and I talked all night on the flight to Zurich and discovered that
we had a lot in common. We’d both been born and raised in the Amer-
ican Southwest, loved Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Terlingua album, and regularly
craved real Mexican food. More importantly, we both had families who
meant the world to us.
After arriving in Zurich, we killed time by strolling around the Old
Town, then spent another sleepless night at the airport Hilton. The next
day we flew across Italy to the balmy Adriatic coastal town of Split, Croatia,
a hub of activity during the war.