This podcast, it's a Costerton Touchstone production.

There was one point in Athens, before I left Athens, when I was on an operation with one of my colleagues, he tapped me on the chest just in a friendly way.

And then he said, hey, and he tapped me harder.

You're not wearing a bulletproof vest.

And I said, you know what, man, I just don't give a shit anymore. No, I'm not wearing a bulletproof vest. And I said, you know what, man, I just don't give a shit anymore.

No, I'm not wearing a bulletproof vest.

I'm John Kiryaku.

Welcome to Dead Drop, What Makes a Spy Tick. This is another episode in our series,

What Makes This Spy Tick, What Makes Me Tick, What Made Me Do the Thing for which I gained all that

notoriety. That's our goal in telling you this story on this granular level. It's one of the

wonderful things about podcasting. This medium gives storytellers

like me the absolute freedom to tell our stories completely without any outside interference.

And because of the way podcasts are distributed, there really is a direct connection between me

and you. To that end, I thank you from the bottom of my heart

for all of your very kind reviews, ratings, likes, and shares.

Please keep it up.

You doing your part really does help our little podcast grow.

Now it's time for me to do my part.

Not too long after my family returned from Athens to the United States, as the dust was

still settling around us, I developed some photos that I'd shot in Athens. They were just ordinary

snapshots. Well, they were ordinary snapshots when I took them in late June 2000, just a few weeks before we left Athens in such a hurry.

My parents had come for a visit, and at one point I took a picture of my mom standing with my two sons outside the house that the embassy had rented for us.

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