238 SEPTEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
Up Front
O
n a clear, cold winter’s day, my boyfriend Andrew* drives
me to a gas station on Route 123 a little before dawn.
I kiss him, then leave him standing there, raw and
stoic, in the empty forecourt, his hands thrust into his
peacoat pockets, as he watches me climb into the warm
camaraderie of a crowded beige van.
Jokes masking our nerves, we drive through the familiar gates
at Langley, step out of the van and into the blacked-out bus
that will deliver us to the Farm—a simulated Truman Show set in
a fictionalized country called the Republic of Vertania (ROV),
where we are to undergo the most demanding espionage training
on Earth. We are to play the roles of first-tour case officers
assigned to the U.S. Embassy in the ROV city of Womack. We
each have training names—aliases to protect our identities from
one another. But other than that, everything feels real. There is
an actual embassy building, with an American flag fluttering outfront, on an actual town square with a wooden gazebo. There’s
a cable news channel, like CNN, but reporting the news of this
fictional universe: Prime Minister Cartwright did this or the Sons
of Artemis blew up that. There are diplomats visiting from
neighboring countries, including a North Korea–style rogue state
called the Democratic People’s Republic of Vertania (DPRV).
Every citizen of the ROV, every newscaster, every bombastic DPRV
diplomat, every person we interact with in this giant game of make-
believe is played by a CIA operative, assigned to the Farm for a tour
as an instructor. And every one of them has a thousand stories—
like that time a highly sensitive source brought a six-piece mariachi
band to a covert meeting in a midnight back alley. They have
pro tips, too, not covered in the training curriculum, like carrying
Rolaids to make signal marks on brick
because it’s less incriminating than chalk in
case of capture and search.Vanishing ActAt the age of 24, Amaryllis Fox was fast-tracked to undergo advanced operations
training within the CIA. That meant disappearing for six months on a top-secret base
and bidding farewell to anything resembling a normal life.