An Interview with the Author.

Q. In your novel Operation Fantasy Plan the CIA runs a high class brothel to entrap foreigners. Based on your experience in intelligence, how realistic is this?

A. Very realistic. Spying isn't what people think it is. Every spy operation is after one thing--ACCESS. Access to people, buildings, information, even access to what's going on inside someone's head--desires and emotions, plans and motivations. And the more important the access, the greater the extremes we'll go to get it.

For example, Naval Intelligence recently discovered that China is arming Iran with C-802 missiles. These missiles could attack American vessels in the Persian Gulf. That's important information. How far should we be willing to go to get information like that? Most Americans, would say, "It's vital. Get the information at any cost." But do we stop to realize what "at any cost" might means?

Q. What does at "any cost" mean?

A. In my novel, the CIA collaborates with the sex-slave trade in Thailand by using beautiful peasant women (sold into sex-slavery by impoverished families) to gain access vital to the United States. Would we really do such a thing? Of course we would.

But should we be exploiting innocent people to get this kind of information? Again, most Americans would say, "We don't like it, but we've got to do whatever it takes to keep our country safe." But what if the beautiful peasant women aren't women, but young girls? Or even young boys? What is our answer then? Do we say, "It's okay as long as they're not American girls and boys." Or, "As long as the CIA doesn't use too many."

In Operation Fantasy Plan, this is the type of dilemma that the protagonist, former CIA agent Peter Gaines, faces. He has to decide how far he is willing to let the CIA go to protect our country.

Q. How far has the United States gone?

A. We have a history of extremes, and not just in spying. Recently our government came clean about the Tuskegee Experiment. Nearly 400 African-American citizens infected with syphilis were told they were being treated. But in fact they were deliberately NOT treated. Instead, the government used them as human guinea pigs to study the long term effects of this fatal disease. As a result 120 wives were infected, and about 40 children.

President Clinton certainly spoke for all of us when he said he is sorry. But that apology came 40 years later when it is now convenient to be sorry. What if we still thought that information was vital? Would we go to those extremes again? Probably. Our government also performed radiation experiments on its own soldiers and on retarded children. Today we're sorry, and we've made some financial compensation to the families that suffered. But what if today we still didn't understand the effects of radiation? Would we still be experimenting on people without their knowledge? And if we've done this to our own citizens, how far would we go with another country's citizens?

Take for example the reports that we've been using tribal people in Laos to test "yellow rain," a chemical agent. If that's true, should we be doing this? If you are in favor of information "at any costs," your answer is "yes." But when a great country does these things, does it diminish its greatness?

One more example: In 1993 our government officials admitted we abandoned our own American soldiers at the end of the Vietnam war. We wanted to get the hell out of there "at any cost." So we left men behind like used equipment, hundreds of them by many estimations, and then for 25 years denied we did it. That was "the cost."

Q. What is your opinion? Should we, in some cases, get the information or act in the interest of our country "at any cost?"

A. Every nation has to protect itself. But do we compromise the ideals we hold in order to maintain those same ideals? That's what I explore in my novel, as Peter Gaines is pressed against the wall about as far as a human can.

Q. Are you the Peter Gaines in your novel?

A. In some ways, yes. I'm very concerned about the means we use.

Q. Why did you choose Thailand as your setting?

A. To me, creating a good story means putting individuals in absorbing moral dilemmas and making the setting unusual but real. The setting is very real--a brothel in Thailand. We Americans are vaguely aware of the sex-slave trade there, but we pretty much shrug it off. Even after the First Lady addressed it on a recent visit to Thailand, it was pretty much forgotten once she got back on the plane. But consider what it means to have half a million people in sex-slavery. Our country has incredible scars that endure from our own slavery and yet we turn a blind eye to a different kind of slavery--not racial but gender. Check the internet: companies in the U.S., Japan and other places, market sex tours to Thailand where you can sign up for the fetish of your choice, even killing. The war tribunals in Bosnia are addressing some lesser charges than these. Why are our companies doing business with a country that permits this? More than doing business, we are often the customers! And why isn't this being addressed more by women's groups in this country?

Q. Why isn't it being addressed by them?

A. Maybe the sex-slave trade simply seems so unreal. I've been told my book makes a good read because it puts the reader realistically inside the world of espionage and sex as we journey with a dismissed CIA agent trying to rescue a heroic young woman. The story is about what happens to both of them, and about the moral choices he is faced with when he finally understands all that he is up against.

Q. You worked for the DIA not the CIA. What is the DIA?

A. Yes, I worked with some CIA people, but for the DIA--the Defense Intelligence Agency. It's sort of the Pentagon's CIA. It's not as well known, mainly because it's thought of as a little brother to the CIA. There are other intelligence agencies such as Naval Intelligence, the ASA, NSA, and the super-super secret NRO, so secret no one would even acknowledge its name until two years ago.

Q. You were a spy.

A. Spies as we know them from our favorite James Bond movies don't exist. I was what is called an agent handler--someone who spots people with access to information we need, recruits them to spy for us, trains them, dispatches them, and collects the information. Agent handlers control the spies--who are almost always foreigners--to steal the secrets for us.

Q. Why would we trust foreigners to spy for our country when we could have Americans do it?

A. Remember, spying is about access. Even if an American wanted to be a spy, how is he or she going to infiltrate Russia or Iran or North Korea? Could you or I learn the culture--including the language, the inside jokes, the old songs, and maybe even a special dialect--then go to a country, blend in perfectly, get hired in the military or government, and steal secrets? It's not very plausible. So we're forced to recruit people who are already "inside."

That's why in the 1950's when the CIA wanted to assassinate some Guatemalans in high positions, they couldn't send Americans to do the actually killing. We didn't have the language, the culture, or the looks to get "inside." Instead we sent assassination teachers--what were then called "K" groups--to Honduras, and there they trained Guatemalans to carry out the assassinations.

In other words, why try to make Americans pass as Russians or Iranians or Guatemalans when we can recruit people who already are. Spying isn't about 007's suave moves and handy gadgets. It's about getting people "inside."

Q. But don't we have technology--satellite surveillance, AWACS, and U-2s that can get us the information.

A. As you see in my novel, electronic intelligence is limited. Cameras and eavesdropping devices are always on the outside trying to look in. Satellites a hundred miles up--you won't believe this--can read a name tag on a uniform. Truly remarkable. But it's still on the outside.

The goal of human intelligence--human spies--is to get on the inside, even getting inside people's minds. I think readers will see how that works in my book. A camera in the sky can't win hearts or turn loyalties.

In fact, the electronic age is creating new security problems. With so many secrets on computers now, nothing is safe because computers are vulnerable. We think no one can get in and read what's on our hard drive, but that's not so. We think we can delete things once and for all, but that's getting harder and harder, especially if someone places a ghost "backup" in your system. Computers are notoriously so unsecure that we don't use them anymore to store the real secret stuff. We've had to go back to paper!

Q. But then how does an agent handler get contact with foreigners who are on the "inside" and can spy for us?

A. Business gives us some of the best access possible to other countries. American businesses are everywhere, China, Russia, Columbia, Mexico, you name it.

Q. That's right. In Operation Fantasy Plan you describe a school called the Branscomb Institute where CIA people are trained in business methods, get MBA's and then recruited by IBM, Sony, Nike, and other companies. That's a scary thought.

A. I know a CIA person who went to just such a school in the Southwest. I don't know what company he got hired by after he got his MBA, but I know who he's really working for.

Q. So if a CIA graduate of that school gets an MBA and then a job with Pepsi in South Korea, he would really have two jobs.

A. Exactly. But his Pepsi job will mesh with his CIA job. It's his opportunity, as an agent handler, to make contact with the nationals who have access.

Q. Okay, if we use businesses to get inside other countries, then they are doing the same to us, right?

A. Of course. Your boss, your coworker, the person next to you on the assembly line--yeah, they are performing their daily tasks, but is that really all they are doing? That's what I mean when I say spying isn't what we think.

Q. But how would the Russians recruit an American? Take me for example. I'm patriotic. Why would I spy? For money?

A. Anyone motivated by money is at immediate risk of being detected. Take Aldrich Ames, the KGB mole inside the CIA. Why was that guy driving around in a Jaguar?

Q. So, let's pretend I have access to information, and ou are a Russian agent handler. How do you get me?

A. No need to pretend. The fact is that you do have access. You're a journalist. You travel. You interview people. You meet people from other countries. Your everyday job gives access to people and places.

Q. Okay, I have access. How will you, a Russian, recruit me?

A. Coercion is one way. You're vulnerable. I'll dig up something from your past. Remember that dirty little secret you don't want your listeners to know about? I'll find out and threaten you. What about that affair you had. Sure it was four years ago, but will your spouse understand today? Or maybe you're not out of the closet yet? You want to talk to someone about it. You need a friend. I can get to you that way. Probably everyone listening has some secret they don't want to come out.

Q. But let's say I can't be coerced.

A. That's okay. Coerced people sometimes make reluctant and unreliable spies. The better way is to appeal to your ideals, your patriotism, your religious beliefs, your anti-abortion position, or something else that is positive in our own eyes, and trick you into working for me. If I am working for Russia, and I learn you are Jewish and sympathetic to Israel, I may tell you that I work for Israeli intelligence. I'll produce identification. I'll produce other Jewish people to vouch for me. I'll ask for your help. I'll remind you of the holocaust, and suggest that you can be a part protecting Jews today. I'll remind you that since the U.S. and Israel are really allies, you're not doing anything wrong.

Q. Aren't you concerned that since some of the issues exposed in your novel might be classified, you could be damaging U.S. interests?

A. What I say in my novel may be officially classified somewhere, but it's not a secret to any intelligence people in other countries. If anything, by explaining some of these methods to Americans, they can be alert and protect themselves in this post-Cold War period where other countries want access to our businesses. Economics is more of a worry to other countries than the atomic bomb is.

Q. One final question. People say that once a person is in intelligence they are never out. It's in their blood. Is that true?

A. No. I'm out, and happy to be so.

Q. How do we know that's true? How do we know that this novel isn't just a way for you yourself to travel and have access to people?

A. That's precisely my point. We don't know who the agent handlers are, or the spies. But I'm not one of them any more. You can trust me. Really.