When Spies Fall In Love
An excerpt from a new memoir by ex-CIA agents Bob and Dayna Baer.
March 26, 2011 — -- In 'The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story', former CIA operatives Bob and Dayna Baer describe how they met on the job in one of the most dangerous places in the world -- and fell in love.
Split, Croatia: DAYNA
I think Bob's joking when he points at the station wagon parked out front of Split airport, the one we're about to drive into Sarajevo. It's lime green with a tangerine Orangina painted down the side. What's worse, it's right-hand drive, a British Vaux-hall. Bosnia, Croatia -- everywhere in the Balkans -- is left-hand drive. It just makes no sense to me, driving a billboard on wheels in to a city the Serbs have been pounding with artillery and sniping at since the civil war started in 1992. Does he want to give them something to shoot at?
Bob catches my look and asks if it's a little too early for me. I can't tell if he means it sarcastically. But it's only six thirty, and I decide to keep quiet and let him think I'm sleepy. Anyway there's nothing I can do now. Although I don't work for him, he outranks me. And that's not to mention that I don't have another way to get to Sarajevo.
I tell myself it'll be fine. We'll part ways as soon as we get to Sarajevo. But the car does break every rule in the book. From day one, they drilled into our heads never to drive a car people will remember. You drive something plain vanilla, like a dirty, dinged-up brown sedan. People forget plain and ugly things. This station wagon is definitely ugly, but it's a car no one will ever forget. An ice-cream truck, bells jingling, would attract less attraction.
Truth is, I think Bob's a little nutty. I met him in Sarajevo the first time when Washington cabled us to meet an operative going by the name of Harold. "Harold's an alias, right?" I asked Charlie, an ex-Marine pilot I work with. We both wondered who'd agree to an alias like Harold. The only other thing the cable said was that he'd wait for us at eleven at a fish restaurant on the Zeljeznica River, ten miles outside of town.
CLICK HERE to watch an interview with Bob and Dayna.
At Sarajevo's outskirts I point to a trolley stop, telling Bob I'll get off here. He shakes my hand, and I watch his lime-green station wagon as it disappears into traffic. I don't mind when it starts to rain and I reach to pull up the hood of my parka. The fresh air and uncomplicated anonymity feel good.
I zip up my sleeping bag. If it isn't going to bother him, it's not going to bother me. After an hour the shooting tapers off and stops. The last thing I remember before falling asleep is that I haven't seen the lime-green station wagon. It seems to have been replaced by an old Toyota Land Cruiser with rust-chewed doors and a cracked windshield. That's a start.
Copyright 2011 Random House
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