Hide-and-seek is for kids. We don’t teach hiding. We teach moving.
They brought me to a university that looks like an ordinary campus, except for the palm scanner at the gate. The admissions committee played the recording of my deal with the ministers and gave me nine out of ten. I asked what it takes to earn ten. The rector said: “A self-taught man never creates a masterpiece.” Then came the “Ghost Test”: twenty-four hours running from hunters.…
I took him on as a student. Just the two of us, no classmates: easier to see what he’s worth without a safety net. Envelopes with fragments of truth and lies, three actors in a mirrored hall. I told him: “Truth here is just another tool.” Then: “Tomorrow you’ll be prey.” At midnight I began the hunt.
I pressed play on the recorder. “In less than two minutes, he secured a pipeline and a new agent inside our ministry.” Passing score is eight. He got nine. The rest he’ll learn in training.
He returned to the gates, where John waited with coffee. “We don’t teach hiding, we teach moving.” But stepping over the threshold, the hero understood: he hadn’t just entered a university. He had entered a web, where every move is tracked, every choice dissected, and any word might one day cost his life.
Read the complete story in “Putin’s Double in USA.” This page contains only a short excerpt; the book has the rest.
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