# The rooftop double agent

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The rooftop double agent," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-rooftop-double-agent/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*A 2001 operation in which John Kiriakou flew out monthly to impersonate a station chief in meetings with a recruited double agent, and after the hostile service ordered the agent to kill him, frightened the man on a hotel roof rather than confronting him.*

- **Year:** 2001
- **Kiriakou's cover:** Impersonating a station chief who could not risk the meetings
- **The agent:** Reporting each meeting back to a hostile embassy
- **The order:** To kill Kiriakou at their final meeting
- **Outcome:** Imprisoned since spring 2001

Kiriakou gave this account to explain a clip of himself circulating without context, in which he insists a frightened man accompany him to a hotel roof. His summary of it is exact about the distinction: *"I wasn't going to throw him off the roof. I wanted him to think I was going to throw him off the roof."*[1][2]

## The arrangement

In 2001, having been evacuated from Athens for his own safety and put on a job training Middle Eastern intelligence services that left him bored, he took a call from a friend who was a station chief in the Middle East.[2] The friend had recruited a double agent and could not safely meet him: *"the guy's insisting on meeting only with the chief. Can you fly out here every month and pretend to be me?"* Kiriakou agreed on the spot.[2][3]

The agent was working for *"one of our gravest enemies in the world"* and did not know that Kiriakou knew it. After each meeting he went directly to that country's embassy and reported what had been said.[3]

## The order to kill

The hostile service eventually instructed the agent to kill Kiriakou at their final meeting. *"Headquarters freaked out and I was like, 'Relax.' I said, 'The guy's afraid of his own shadow. He's not going to kill me. He should be worried that I'm going to kill him, frankly.'"*[3][4]

What followed was, by his own description, largely mischief on top of a plan: *"I just kind of wanted to scare him a little bit."* He took the man into the stairwell and told him the meeting would happen on the hotel roof rather than in a room; the agent was *"genuinely petrified"*, and when Kiriakou finally laughed and told him *"I'm just pulling your leg. You don't really think I'm going to throw you off the roof"*, *"He started crying."*[4][5]

He closes the account without elaborating on what came between: *"one thing led to the other to the other. And he's been in prison since the spring of 2001, and he's going to die there."*[5]

## See also

- [The Jerusalem bluff](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-jerusalem-bluff)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. 2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle, at 46:51. Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle/
2. 2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle, at 47:23. Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle/
3. 2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle, at 47:56. Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle/
4. 2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle, at 48:28. Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle/
5. 2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle, at 48:59. Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-11-john-kiriakou-a-shocking-new-alliance-emerges-in-the-middle/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-rooftop-double-agent/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt