The majority of the covert-action operations around the world that I describe were orchestrated to be plausibly denied. Covert action is, by its very nature, designed and orchestrated to remain hidden from public scrutiny. Reporting a book about the shadow world of CIA covert-action operations requires determining first who can be trusted and then how to fact-check their stories. He checked it for safety and climbed back on his horse, and we rode on. In the chaos of the action his shirt came untucked and I noticed he carried a SIG Sauer P320 semiautomatic pistol at his back, near his buttocks.

He asked if she needed further assistance, which she declined. “There you go, ma’am,” my source said to the breathless rider, handing the reins back to her. I knew he had a background with horses, but it was extraordinary to witness how quickly and intuitively he brought a dramatic and potentially dangerous situation under control. My source, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) paramilitary operator, leapt off his horse, positioned himself in the wide path, and deftly grabbed the reins of the thousand-pound animal as it charged by. A figure on horseback rounded the bend, the terrified rider hanging on for dear life as her horse galloped out of control, reins dangerously askew.

Halfway into our outing, as we were riding along in the otherwise quiet forest, we heard screaming-unmistakably a woman’s voice. One interview took place on horseback up in the mountains, an off-the-grid location where that particular source felt comfortable speaking. Some interviews took place in sources’ homes, others in the anonymity of roadside diners. In reporting this book I sat for hundreds of hours with sources who recounted to me situations of sheer pandemonium and chaos entwined with the human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope. This is a nonfiction book about complex individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs.

Annie jacobsen cia