S1E21 End Of Times

THE BLURB: Everything must end - including a CIA career. While John had planned to make a lifetime career of the agency, circumstances dictated otherwise. So, to a large degree, did his new immediate boss-from-hell. In this episode, John begins to suss out a new, post-CIA life just over the horizon. The problem will be getting out of the CIA in one piece. SHOW NOTES For more great podcasts like Dead Drop, please visit https://costardandtouchstone.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It's a Coster and Touchstone production.

• 0:03John Kiriakou?

  Mary Margaret had this management style that was so tough as to be brutal. And it seemed to be clear to everybody that I worked with that it was a response to her own lack of operational experience. It's one thing to be a demanding and tough boss because you put in the hard years on the ground in denied areas, you recruited some of the most sensitive sources, you had been a briefer of presidents. She had none of that, none of it. She was a paper pusher from headquarters. It was my understanding at the time that she had had one overseas tour, also as a

• 0:46John Kiriakou?

  paper pusher, never working outside the office, and that her overseas tour was in a Western European country. We're fighting a war in Iraq at the time, we're fighting a war in Afghanistan at the time, we're engaged in combat in Somalia at the time, and she was very happy to volunteer us, but she had never done any of that difficult time. In fact, four months after I got to this domestic post, we got a cable from headquarters saying that everybody who wanted to work in Iraq has worked in Iraq. We've cycled through everybody. We need volunteers, or we're going to start ordering people to do 12-month tours in Iraq. Things were not going well for us in Iraq by this time.

• 1:31John Kiriakou?

  There was no worse assignment on earth. It was a mistake to invade Iraq in the first place, everybody knew it, and we couldn't staff it. I had a conversation with Catherine, and I said, "For appearances, I should volunteer, but I don't want to go." And because Mary Margaret really doesn't like me, I know that if I volunteer, she'll write a secret message back to headquarters saying, "Kiriakou volunteered, take him." But if I don't volunteer, she'll say, "You should take Kiriakou because he hasn't even volunteered." She said, "Yeah, for appearances, you should volunteer." So I volunteered to go to Baghdad. I don't know why I wasn't chosen. Glad that I wasn't chosen.

• 2:11John Kiriakou?

  I had worked in Iraq on what are called TDYs, a TDY-based temporary duty. But I put in my time in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I did my part, and I had the medals to show for it. I had wanted to forge some kind of makeshift relationship with Mary Margaret. Frankly, because I had to. I needed to have and to keep this domestic assignment because it was the only way that I would get to see my sons. That was essential for our relationships, but also for legal reasons, having to do with custody. The problem was, Mary Margaret had no intention of forging anything whatsoever with me. She had every intention of doing whatever it took to make me just go away from this job that I needed, and even from the agency itself.

• 2:55John Kiriakou?

  Perhaps it was time to move on. Nothing lasts forever. But for a thousand different reasons, if I was gonna leave the CIA, I would need to do it on good terms, not bad. On my terms, not Mary Margaret's. Like I said, although Mary Margaret worked for a spy agency, she really didn't know much about spying or about the day-to-day act of being a spy. She certainly didn't know how spies operate, or how spies fight back when they have to fight back. Well, now I had to fight back, and in fighting back, I'd have to do it using Mary Margaret against herself. Or, more precisely, I'd have to do it using Mary Margaret's considerable corruption against her.

• 3:38John Kiriakou?

  And as you'll hear, well, there was plenty of that to go around.

• 3:50John Kiriakou?

  Hi, I'm John Kiriyaki. Welcome to Dead Drop: What Makes a Spy Tick. This is another episode in our series, What Makes This Spy Tick? We'll get back to Mary Margaret and where the nitty meets the gritty momentarily. First, though, we want to say thank you, again and as always, for listening. It all starts with that. Thank you also for being proactive listeners who like, share, comment on, and review the podcast on whatever platform you're using. That really does help us reach more listeners.

• 4:23John Kiriakou?

  Mary Margaret must have had a skillset or two that caught the CIA's attention when they hired her. Whatever those skillsets were, they couldn't compete with Mary Margaret's capacity for personal corruption. That, it turned out, was bottomless. Now, every station chief has a great deal of discretion when it comes to his or her operational budget. When I was in Athens, we spent like drunken sailors because we had results. You can't spend that way in a domestic assignment. For example, you don't need to do a three-hour or four-hour-long surveillance detection route if you're working in an American city, because nobody's going to be following you. They don't have the guts, because the FBI's following them, and the FBI's going to tip

• 5:08John Kiriakou?

  us off, "You're being followed," which happened every once in a while. There were a couple of chosen teachers' pets who had virtually unlimited budgets. One of them was an officer by the name of Andrew Warren. Andrew was a nice enough guy. I worked with him three times. I worked with him at headquarters, I worked with him at this domestic assignment, and I worked with him in the Middle East. And we became friendly, if not friends. He's actually the guy that threw my going-away party for me. It was a nice gesture. Andrew was one of the chosen few. Mary Margaret loved, loved, loved Andrew Warren. The reason she loved Andrew Warren, number one, he was black, number two, he was a convert

• 5:52John Kiriakou?

  to Islam, and, number three, he spoke Arabic. He had an unlimited budget. I was actually reprimanded one time because I spent five bucks at a Burger King, and she said, "What kind of cover stop is that?" I said, "It's a legitimate cover stop. I stopped to get something to eat." And she says, "Well, I'm not approving this five dollars." I said, "Fine. I'll just pay the five dollars. I don't care. It's not like I'm out buying antiques or something." Andrew had an unlimited budget. Andrew went on to, from that assignment, directly to another Middle Eastern assignment, where he was the chief of liaison in a large station. It's a good assignment for somebody who... Lose going places.

• 6:33John Kiriakou?

  After three years in that position, he took one of the station chief positions that I had been offered in two thousand two. And one day, a woman called the chargé de faire, the acting ambassador, and she said, "One of your people, Andrew Warren, raped me last night." She said, "He drugged me after a party at his home, and when I woke up, I was naked and in bed." She said to Andrew, "What are you doing?" And he said, "Nobody sleeps under my silk sheets for free." The chargé de faire had the presence of mind to send an eyes-only cable to CIA headquarters. The CIA cabled Andrew and said, "Hey, Andrew, we were going through your file,

• 7:14John Kiriakou?

  and we realized that you forgot to sign up for the mandatory class on whatever. So fly back, take the class, it lasts two days, and then fly back." Andrew got on a plane and flew to Dulles Airport and was arrested there by the FBI. In the meantime, as soon as he got on the plane in the Middle East to come home, the State Department's Regional Security Officer, the head of security for the embassy, went into Andrew's house and found Andrew didn't just rape this woman. He raped twenty-three women. And we know that it was twenty-three women because he videotaped every attack so he could enjoy them again later. They also found a filing cabinet stuffed with classified documents, which is a violation of the Espionage Act.

• 7:59John Kiriakou?

  And they found a hundred thousand dollars' worth of luxury watches. They speculated that he had been embezzling CIA money for years and was buying the watches for himself. Only one of the other twenty-two women agreed to testify against him. Andrew was promptly fired by the CIA. Now, mind you, he was Mary Margaret's protege. She was cultivating him for something really great. They promptly fired him. He moved back home to Norfolk, Virginia. And then one day, as he was awaiting trial on these multiple sexual assault charges, somebody called nine-one-one and said that there was a naked man walking down the street and carrying a gun.

• 8:41John Kiriakou?

  SWAT was called out. Andrew ran into a local Holiday Inn Express lobby, completely nude, held the gun to his head. There was a standoff, and they were able to disarm him. They went into his house, and they found crack cocaine, they found meth. He had lost his mind. In the end, he took a plea deal to these rape charges and he was sentenced to six years and four months in a federal prison in Kentucky. He got off easy, very easy. I lost touch with whatever it was that he was doing for years. And then I Googled him about a year ago and he popped right up. What do you think he popped up for? He decided to go to graduate school in Jordan and get a master's degree in Middle Eastern

• 9:26John Kiriakou?

  Studies. While he was studying in Jordan, he converted to Islam. The CIA loved, loved, loved that this up and coming young black guy who speaks Arabic, he became a Muslim, he's going to make his career in the Middle East and he's going to be the best officer we've ever had. I found when I Googled him that he had converted back to Southern Baptist faith. His father was a Baptist preacher and he became the assistant preacher at a Southern Baptist church in Harlem where he raped an 88-year-old woman. This was Mary Margaret's pet.

• 10:05John Kiriakou?

  After Mary Margaret completed her assignment, she was named Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Why? Because John Negroponte was the Director of National Intelligence. They were joined at the hip and so John appointed Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret immediately violated the Espionage Act by giving a speech covered by the Washington DC National Security Press in which she inadvertently, apparently, revealed the CIA budget. The CIA budget has been classified at the highest possible levels since the CIA was created in 1947.

• 10:46John Kiriakou?

  She just laid it all out there and then said at the end, "Oh, my bad, sorry about that." She was in that position for a couple of years and then something happened that, and it's minor, it made me realize that no, I had not been underestimating her. She really was as bad as I thought she was. An old colleague of her came out with a book. It was one of these, "I've been out of the CIA for 25 years, I'm gonna write a memoir" kind of books by a former senior intelligence service officer for whom she had worked years earlier. He obviously was trying to throw this book together at the last minute and just get it published. So he asked her for a quote about Afghanistan.

• 11:25John Kiriakou?

  And the quote by former deputy director of national intelligence and longtime CIA station chief Mary Margaret Graham was, "War is what it is." And I remember saying to my wife, "Another pearl of wisdom from the brilliant mind of Mary Margaret Graham." Mary Margaret should have known that Andrew Schofer had a problem with forced sex. There were credible allegations that he was involved in sexual misconduct when we were stationed in the Middle East. Catherine actually raised these allegations through the chain of command and was told, "Andrew gets results, mind your own business." So I told her, "You did the right thing raising this, because at least it's on the record."

• 12:12John Kiriakou?

  In all fairness, Mary Margaret wasn't the only factor motivating a post-CIA life for me.

• 12:19John Kiriakou?

  Catherine and I had gotten married, she was pregnant with our first child, and my other boys were getting a little bit older, they would be teenagers soon, and I really needed to start saving money for college. And I knew that I was gonna have to go overseas again. I had to, if I had any prayer of ever being promoted again, I was gonna have to go overseas for long stretches of time. I went back to headquarters at one point, and I had to go for a day of meetings. I happened to be standing in the elevator lobby. Somebody had taped a flyer up at the elevator lobby advertising a class that was being offered, "Raising Your Children in a War Zone." And I remember thinking, "I'm not taking my children to Baghdad. I'm not doing it." I didn't quit that day, of course, but in the back of my mind, that's what pushed me.

• 13:04John Kiriakou?

  I couldn't have done this child custody visitation thing without my mom and dad. One day, it was a Wednesday, I called my dad in the morning before I went to work. I said, How's your day look today, Dad? Oh, I went over to the old house yesterday and the basement is starting to smell a little musty. I'm gonna take a dehumidifier over there. My dad had Parkinson's disease, so he trembled and his balance was not good. I said, Dad, I'm coming home day after tomorrow. I'll take the dehumidifier over to the old house. Quote-unquote, "The old house" was an absolutely stunning, it's called a, an arts and crafts four-square bungalow. It was a big, brick house in what was then called the Chicago-style.

• 13:47John Kiriakou?

  Gigantic front porch, the perfect place to grow up. It was built in 1910. Sometimes the basement got musty. It was an old house. So I said, "Don't take the dehumidifier over, I'll take the dehumidifier over, I'm coming home in two days." That afternoon, at 5 o'clock, just as I was leaving the office, my cellphone rang and I see that it's my mom. So I said, "Hi, Mom, what's going on?" It's not my mom. "Hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm a neighbor of your parents." "What happened?" "Your dad fell down the steps at the house on Fairfield, but he's conscious." "He's conscious, is he injured?"

• 14:28John Kiriakou?

  And she said, "He's injured and there's an ambulance on the way, I'll be there as quickly as I can." I ran back to my apartment, I told Catherine what was happening. In my distress and crazed state, I packed a dozen pairs of underwear and no pants. And I jumped in my car and I got to Pittsburgh, which is a seven-hour drive, in four and a half hours. Catherine called me on the way and she said, "What's the latest?" "He's unconscious, his skull is fractured in two places and he's being lifelighted to Pittsburgh." And then she said to me, "You took all of your underwear and no pants."

• 15:08John Kiriakou?

  "Honey, I don't mean to sound harsh, but I'm gonna pack a black suit and a black tie for you." And I said, "Okay." So the whole time, I am driving like a bat out of hell. I get to Pittsburgh at 11:30 PM. I go to the shock-trauma unit, they buzz me in, my mom's in there beside herself. What happened was, she got home from work at 4:30, my dad is just standing there in the driveway with the dehumidifier on a dolly.

• 15:39John Kiriakou?

  She said, "What are you doing?" John said, "He's coming home in two days. He'll take the dehumidifier over to the house." And he said, "John wants to play with the kids. He doesn't want to spend time taking the dehumidifier over. Let's just do it right now." They drive the mile over to the old house. You know how these old houses are. There was a back door that went straight down into the basement. And it was rather steep. My dad goes first. And my mom says, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me go first. I'll lift it and you steer it." And the last words that he spoke were, "Stella, I promise I won't fall." And as soon as he said the words, he went backwards and he landed on his head.

• 16:22John Kiriakou?

  The cellar floor was made of concrete and he fractured his skull at the back. And there was a compression fracture over his left ear. And my mom said that blood squirted out of both of his ears. He never regained consciousness. She screamed, she ran to the neighbor. The neighbor called 911. The house is empty. There are no telephones, no nothing. The neighbor called 911. The ambulance came. They determined immediately that they couldn't do anything for him. So they put him on a helicopter and flew him to Pittsburgh. I get to shock trauma at 11:30. My mom is in the room with him. I'm holding his hand. I can feel his Parkinson's tremor. His hand is shaking.

• 17:04John Kiriakou?

  And then right at midnight, his hand just stopped shaking. The doctor happened to walk in at that moment. And I said, "I can't feel his Parkinson's tremor." The doctor said, "Well, I need to examine him. Do you mind stepping out?" So I went into the waiting area with my mom. The doctor came out and said, "His injuries are very severe. He's bleeding on his brain. And the blood is so pressurized that it's literally forcing his brain down into his spinal column."

• 17:35John Kiriakou?

  I said, "When are you gonna do the surgery? What surgery?" "The surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain." "I don't think you're understanding me." And I said, "Are you saying that he's dead?" "I'm very sorry." "My mom just collapsed." "My brother was in Los Angeles." "I called him." "I called my sister in Minneapolis." "I said, 'He's dead.'" "He's brain dead." "We decided to keep him on life support until they could fly in." "I had to call Joanne." "I was gonna pick up the kids instead of Friday, pick them up the next day." "So that when we took him off life support, at least I'll say goodbye." "The next day was just, whoa, man." "It was a whirlwind." "I picked up my brother at the airport." "I picked up my sister at the airport."

• 18:19John Kiriakou?

  "Then I drove to Ohio and picked up the kids." "There was a social worker that the hospital had." "So she kind of briefed us that when they unplugged the machine, "he could live for weeks." "He died in 15 minutes." "We barely had time to run back into the room." "My mom had been diabetic for 25 years." "She was so distressed with my dad's death "that it aggravated a case of diabetic retinopathy that she had." "And in the next three weeks, she went blind." If you're enjoying Dead Drop, and of course, we hope you are,

• 19:04John Kiriakou?

  then while you're waiting for new episodes, I'd like to suggest another great granular story podcast from the Costard and Touchstone family. Just the photographer with David Swanson does for photojournalism what Dead Drop does for spies. Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Swanson tells you stories his amazing news photos just can't. What it felt like being in all those dangerous places, like war zones and natural disasters, doing his job, taking pictures. Having been to a few war zones myself, I can tell you this. Just the photographer will put you right there, on the ground, right next to David. Inside his head, in fact. It's a hell of a podcast and you can find it wherever you find your favorite podcasts

• 19:49John Kiriakou?

  or at costardandtouchstone.com. There's a link in this episode's show notes. In fact, you'll find lots of great story podcasts at Costard and Touchstone, like The Donor, a DNA horror story, The Hall Closet, Sage Wellness Within, and the How Not to Make a Movie podcast. Who knows? Your next favorite podcast might be just a click away. Now, back to Dead Drop.

• 20:15John Kiriakou?

  I literally lost my entire support structure. The terms of our divorce and the child custody arrangements were that I had the children, starting at 6 o'clock on Fridays to 6 o'clock on Sundays. I had to work from 9 to 5. I would run as fast as I could to the local airport, jump on a plane to Pittsburgh, get off the plane, rent a car, speed to Warren, Ohio, get the kids, and then drive to my parents' house. I couldn't do it. By then, it's like 8 o'clock. There happened to be a quirk in the plane schedule. This was US Airways when it existed. There was a quirk in the schedule. If I could get off at 4

• 20:58John Kiriakou?

  instead of 5, I could get this earlier plane, which actually would get me to Warren in time to pick up the kids at 6 o'clock. I went into Mary Margaret and I said, "These are the terms of my divorce and my child custody agreement." I really had to fight for legal joint custody, even if I didn't have physical joint custody. I had legal joint custody. I didn't have physical because I couldn't physically get there every other week. I said, "We work 9 to 5. If I work 8 to 4 every other Friday, I could get to Pittsburgh in time to get my kids." She said, "Huh, but 8 to 4 is not 9 to 5, is it?" Mary Margaret, "I risk losing my children here." "You should have thought of that before

• 21:42John Kiriakou?

  you came here, Mr. Big Shot." I can't say that I was shocked by Mary Margaret because I wasn't. She had called me big shot for a reason. I did have powerful friends above her in the pecking order. In fact, the guy that I was working directly under was very reluctant to ever challenge me. He said as much. Mary Margaret would order this guy to yell at me, to write me up for this or that bullshit reason, but then he would tell Mary Margaret that he couldn't because I was the best connected officer in headquarters. One day, this guy pulled me aside. His exact words were, "Mary Margaret has ordered me to fuck you, but I know that you have wasta at headquarters." Wasta means political friends.

• 22:27John Kiriakou?

  "Fuck me for what reason?" I asked him. "Dude, she does not like you," is what he said. I said, "I'm not afraid of her." And I remember Catherine saying, when I told her about the conversation, "They're gonna make a move against you. You can't just pretend that this isn't happening." Once again, Catherine was spot on. Something very definitely was happening. I went back to my office. I was working with a woman whose career was stuck in neutral, only because Mary Margaret didn't like her. If Mary Margaret didn't like you, you were finished. So, this woman knew that I was going to meet with Mary Margaret and I got back to the office and she said, "How was the meeting?" And I said, "Ha, listen to this."

• 23:12John Kiriakou?

  And I told her what had happened. And she said to me, "Do you remember..." And then she said the name of a woman we used to work with. "Oh yeah, blonde. We worked together, I'm gonna say like 1990 to 93." "Right, she resigned in 93 and she went to work for Deloitte and Touche. And they're looking for somebody with a CIA background right now." I said, "Deloitte and Touche, isn't that an accounting firm?" "Yeah, it's one of the big four accounting firms, but they do some kinda spy work." "I'll give you her number." So she gives me this woman's number. I call her and I said, "Hi, I don't know if you remember me, but..." And she says, "Of course I remember you." And I said, "I was talking to our mutual friend and she said that you're at Deloitte."

• 23:54John Kiriakou?

  And there might be an opening in whatever unit you happen to be in. Oh my God, you are the perfect person. We've got a unit at Deloitte called Competitive Intelligence, where we spy on Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Accenture, IBM, BCG, et cetera, et cetera. We try to steal their pricing models, their formulas to determine discounts, their client lists, and if we can steal their best partners, essentially recruiting them like we did at the CIA, we do that as well. And you're gonna make at least double what you're making now. Oh my God, that sounds like so much fun. So she said, let me put you in touch with our partner.

• 24:38John Kiriakou?

  He happens to be in New York. My head was spinning because to tell you the truth, I thought that I would retire from the CIA after 30 years and live happily ever after. I really did. This whole idea of leaving the agency happened so quickly, I almost didn't have a chance to process it. Catherine was so incredibly level-headed that I said to her, give it to me straight. Should I just tough this out and not be promoted for the next three years? And then move on to some shit assignment? Because Mary Margaret's gonna trash me in my performance evaluation? In which case, it's gonna take me three more years to get back on track again? Or should I bolt?

• 25:20John Kiriakou?

  And she said, this job sounds so good. If it's real and they're telling you the truth, you can't pass it up. I took a day off work and I went to meet this partner in New York. He had been a 20-year CIA veteran. His deputy was a 10-year CIA veteran. They had both moved to Deloitte. It turned out that the whole team had six CIA people in it, a retired Secret Service guy, and a retired FBI agent. It was perfect. I interviewed with him. It went gangbusters. And he said to me, I'm gonna give you a paper application. You couldn't apply online back then. They weren't that sophisticated. I'm gonna give you a paper application.

• 26:05John Kiriakou?

  I want you to fill it out and be absolutely honest, especially when they ask about any association with law enforcement. If you had a speeding ticket, you've got to write the speeding ticket down. I've had two speeding tickets, one in Brooklyn and one in Ohio, because I was late picking up the kids. I wrote it all down. HR called me. They flew me to Washington. I had a day meetings in Washington. And then the New York guy called and said, I have a formal offer for you. And he told me verbally over the phone, I said, I'll take it. So I was able to go into Mary Margaret Graham's office and say, I quit and there's nothing you can do to hurt me. My words to her were, the only thing I want from you is a review that accurately reflects my performance here. That was it.

• 26:50John Kiriakou?

  All I wanted was for her to tell the truth on my performance evaluation. I just assumed that she would do something to harm me after I left. And in fact, she did. I had very important, high ranking former colleagues call me after I left to say that she had issued something called a burn notice against me. There was even a television series called Burn Notice that ironically, I was the script advisor for. Burn Notice is an order CIA wide that nobody can ever have any contact with you again, and you're banned from ever being rehired. In the meantime, Mary Margaret's trying to save face. She knows that I have friends and supporters among the staff. She makes this station wide announcement that I'm leaving.

• 27:33John Kiriakou?

  Her words, because I accepted more money than God had. She had no idea what I was going to make. And that she was granting me some exceptional performance award and a medal. They mint these medals all the time. They don't mean anything. But she was issuing me a medal for my performance. But she and I would be the only people to see what she was actually going to write for my performance. It's one thing to say in the break room, oh, John was so wonderful. We're giving him this medal. And then to just screw me in writing where it counts. The next thing I know, I'm summoned to her office. It wasn't just her. It was her, the deputy station chief, and the chief of operations. The chief of operations was a weakling. Ironically, now I see him in the green room at Fox News, some regularity.

• 28:19John Kiriakou?

  At first, the first time I ran into him, we were both going on the Tucker Carlson Show, and he was hoping that I didn't recognize him. And of course I recognized him. He looks exactly the same as he did 20 years ago. And I remembered his name. And he's like, "You know, uh, you know, I was ordered to be in that meeting. I didn't really want to be in that meeting, but it was 20 years ago. Don't worry about it." I go to the meeting. It's the three of them versus me. She was as confrontational and as bitter as she had ever been. That was when I threatened her with the Washington Post. At the top of this episode, I told you about a few of Mary Margaret's personnel and espionage issues. There was another bit of her corruption that came into play here. I had been developing a sensitive source.

• 29:01John Kiriakou?

  These things take time, months and months, sometimes a year, sometimes two years. But Mary Margaret wanted me to use a shortcut in order to recruit them. She said, "Why don't you just take him out and get him a blowjob? And get a blowjob for yourself, too." "Are you out of your mind? First of all, I would never in this lifetime or any other ever do such a thing. Not only is it illegal, it's unethical, and it's disgusting. It doesn't matter if I'm doing it operationally. It's wrong, wrong, wrong, and I won't do it." Her answer? "That's why you don't get results." As I sat there facing Mary Margaret and her two underlings,

• 29:45John Kiriakou?

  I reminded her of that conversation and how it might play in the Washington Post. I said, "What would the Washington Post say? What would the Congressional Oversight Committees say? They would have your head." And she shouts, "Insubordination!" That might have worked two weeks earlier, because insubordination is grounds for dismissal. And I said, "You don't scare me. Step outside, please." I go outside and her secretary looks at me. I look at her and she says, "Rough day, huh?" I said, "I'm not afraid of her." In a whisper, she says, "We're all pulling for you out here." We were screaming at each other so everybody could hear this fight. I'm out there like 20 minutes. She opens the door, she says, "Come back in."

• 30:30John Kiriakou?

  "What exactly do you want?" Oh my God, I said, "Are you fucking deaf?" "I want a performance evaluation that accurately reflects my performance." "I'm just asking you to tell the truth." She says, "I'll call Rob." That was the guy that I was working for. So I take a cab back to the office. Rob said to me when I got there, "She already called." "Tell the truth, Rob, because I'm on a rampage right now." A couple of hours pass, I'm just sitting there twiddling my thumbs. And he hands it to me and I read it. And I said, "This is acceptable. Thank you." I signed it, he signed it.

• 31:12John Kiriakou?

  He and I got back in a cab, went back to the station, and she signed it. My last conversation with Mary Margaret was a classic of sorts. She approached me as my next to last day ended. "You have a big day tomorrow," she said, her voice a triple shot of stevia. "Packing and whatever it is you have to do, why don't you just take the day off?" Well, my spidey senses were tingling, I told her, "No, thank you." But she insisted, literally. She said, "I insist you take an admin day and we won't count it toward your vacation." "I don't think so," I said, "Thanks anyway."

• 31:54John Kiriakou?

  "There's always a chance that someone might send a cable to headquarters and then accuse me of committing time and attendance fraud." "You know, like Mary Margaret." "Count on me tomorrow," I said. And the next day, my very last day as a CIA officer, I went to the office and I worked a normal day. I went to some meetings, I sat in on a seminar, and I had coffee with a guy from Jordan. I finished my day, turned in my badge, and I walked home, happy to start the next phase of my new, very exciting and much better paid and treated life. Except, my old life wasn't done with me yet, not by a long shot. Whether I knew it or not,

• 32:39John Kiriakou?

  whether I liked it or not, that old life was going to suck me back in.

• 32:46John Kiriakou?

  In the next episode, things get good and then they get messy. I'll tell you about my time at Deloitte and Touche, the best job I ever had in my life. That is, the best job I ever had after being a parent, working at Deloitte and Touche. I loved working there. But while my circumstances were soaring, I was a beta's circumstances were plummeting further and more deeply into darkness. Zane was a terrorist, no two ways about it, but he wasn't the terrorist or the man that we thought he was. Plus, he gave us good, actionable intelligence. Our problem, no matter how much we tortured Zane, he was not going to

• 33:26John Kiriakou?

  become the terrorist mastermind that we wanted him to be. Our problem, now that we had tortured Zane, and agreed with ourselves that he should never be free ever again, not because he was a terrorist, but because we had tortured him and he could tell on us, now that we made that mess, what were we gonna do with Zane and all the other broken prisoners like him? Did I mention, things were about to get messy? If you want to hear more from me, please check out my two other podcasts. There's Deep Program with Ted Rall. That drops Monday to Friday at 9:00 AM Eastern Time on both YouTube and Rumble. And there's also Deep Focus, which drops about twice a week on

• 34:08John Kiriakou?

  YouTube. Until next time, thanks for listening. I'm John Kiriakou. Dead Drop is written by John Kiriakou and Alan Katz. Costart and Touchstone Productions produces the podcast, and John Kiriakou, Alan Katz, and Nick Mechanic are its executive producers.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  This podcast, it's a Coster and Touchstone production.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.