The broken side-view mirror
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Of all the operations he describes, John Kiriakou says this is the one he is proudest of, and he is careful each time to say the idea was not his: "I wish that it had been my idea. It was not my idea."

The problem

An enemy country, one he says the CIA will not permit him to name, "but it's kind of obvious", was sending a new intelligence service representative to Athens. Kiriakou wanted to bump into him, and there was no natural way to do it: "this is not a guy who's going to be at a diplomatic cocktail party."

He called Gust Avrakotos, his mentor and by then a retiree, who gave him something he had done himself in the 1950s.

The approach

Kiriakou filled a book bag with books so it was heavy and bulky. He found the address, and found the car by its diplomatic plate. He walked up to it and broke off the side-view mirror with the bag.

Then he built the cover. He picked up the mirror and knocked at the neighbouring house, where a Greek woman told him the car belonged to the man next door, whom she did not know and who did not speak Greek.

At the target's door he opened in Greek, knowing the man did not speak it, and let himself be corrected into English. He apologised at length for his clumsiness and offered to pay. The man was irritated, now he would have to take it to the shop.

The glass of water

Kiriakou was still standing outside the door. He asked for a glass of water, "knowing that culturally he had to give it to me," because in Arab custom a request for hospitality cannot be refused.

The man told him to wait and went to the kitchen. His daughter, about four, was playing on the living-room floor. Kiriakou let himself in, knelt down and asked her in Arabic what her name was, how old she was, what she was playing, all of it in Arabic, and all of it, he says, done on purpose so the father would hear it from the next room.

The man came back holding the water and asked what exactly he wanted.

The pitch

Kiriakou stood up. "Listen, I'm not going to waste your time. You're a professional, I'm a professional. This is my card with my real name. I'm from the CIA in Washington. Your guy is going down, he's going to die. You can die with him or you can be on the side of the good guys." He gave a deadline of ten the next morning and said he would be sitting next to his phone.

In the Arabic-language telling the target answers him: "I admire your courage in approaching me. Very inventive. But I hate that you did it in my own home. You can leave now."

The next morning the office gathered around Kiriakou's desk. At ten the phone rang.

His interviewer's summary of why it worked is one Kiriakou accepts: "you walk into his house and start playing with his daughter", and the target concludes that a person willing to do that knows where his child is.

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Gust Avrakotos
- The Code Room And The Buried Weapons
- Asset acquisition cycle
- Kiriakou's first recruitment
