This podcast, it's a Costerton Touchstone production.

I'm John Kariaki. Welcome to Deadrock, What Makes a Spy Tick? In this episode, we're going to

continue the story of what makes this spy tick. But before we get there, I want to, as usual,

say thank you, a heartfelt thank you,

and ask you to do us the kindness of commenting on, reviewing, subscribing to, following,

and or liking the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to it. It really does help us reach a bigger audience. Our story so far, having been recruited into the CIA by a CIA legend, I am more or less

golden-boyed through the early stages of my CIA career.

Not a bad way to start.

The good news, I became the agency's go-to guy for anything and everything on the subject of Bahrain.

The bad news, that threatened to hamstring me by tying me down to a Middle Eastern backwater.

Fortunately for me, though, that backwater was right next to Saudi Arabia,

where terrorists blew up the Kobar towers.

That killed some of the U.S. military personnel who were housed

there and wounded a lot more.

After some time spent back at headquarters in Langley and with my marriage beginning to unravel,

I longed for another foreign posting.

When I left Bahrain, I was excited to get back home, see my family, I had a newborn son,

my other son was three, I missed them terribly, I wasn't exactly sure what I was going back to.

I expected to go back to Langley and work on Iraq. Nobody had made that promise to me, but it just seemed the logical thing to do.

The Cobar Tower bombing took place on June 25th and I went back on August the 1st, 1996.

My work at the bomb site lasted the day after the bombing, and that was it.

The Saudis were in control. The FBI was really the

...