The remarkable story of the last American spy of the Cold War: Aldrich “Rick” Ames, the most destructive traitor in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency Tim Weiner, David Johnston, and Neil A. Lewis, reporters for The New York Times, tell how the barons of the CIA could not believe that its headquarters harbored a traitor. For years, the Agency was baffled by a wily Russian spymaster who played a high-stakes chess game against the Americans, deceiving the CIA into thinking that there were other moles—or no moles at all. It took nearly eight years for the CIA to share the full facts of the scenario with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Once they knew those facts, the men and women of the FBI tracked Aldrich Ames day and night for nine months before they arrested him. They tell their story here in astonishing detail for the first time. The interviews are entirely on-the-record. There are no pseudonyms, anonymous quotes, or invented scenes. The men betrayed by Ames were real people, and the stories of their lives are the true history of the espionage game in the waning years of the Cold War.

本作は単なるスパイ記を超え、人間の業と組織の盲点を抉り出した一級のノンフィクションです。冷戦末期、一人の裏切り者がいかにＣＩＡの誇りを粉砕し、多くの命を闇に葬ったのか。ニューヨーク・タイムズの名記者たちが綴る言葉には、事実のみが持つ冷徹な重量感と、人間の脆さに対する鋭い眼差しが宿っています。 実名証言に徹した取材は、虚構を排したからこそ到達し得た真実の恐怖を突きつけます。チェスのような情報戦の裏で、エリートたちが慢心ゆえに真実を見失う過程は、歴史の闇に埋もれた悲劇を鮮烈に蘇らせます。一人の男の裏切りがもたらした破壊の連鎖、その深淵を覗き込むスリルに、読者はページを捲る手を止められないはずです。