I had never gone on a cruise before, never harboured any interest. But when I caught wind of Spy Cruise, I was deeply intrigued.
A lecture series by covert operatives? Spies on a boat? My one reservation – and it was fleeting – was along the lines of “I hope al-Qaeda doesn't find out about this ship.”
So I bought a ticket. And that's how, last week, I found myself chatting up American spies in the Caribbean.
I was targeting one in particular: Michael Hayden, a man who has probably forgotten more state secrets than most spies will ever know.
The Air Force general acted as president George W. Bush's eyes and ears while heading an ultrasecretive electronic-eavesdropping agency. Then he was made head of the Central Intelligence Agency, a job that is like being the president's brain – and covert fist.
Once at sea, it wasn't hard to buttonhole Hayden, a featured Spy Cruise speaker.
“I'm as much of a civil libertarian as the next guy, frankly,” he told me when we sat down together. He argued that the CIA had been very restrained during the war on terror. “The little voice in your head says be careful whatever you do – you're going to have to live with the consequences the rest of your life.”
He was so affable I had to keep reminding myself that spymasters are the most Machiavellian men on the planet. In Langley, Va., he would have helped decide who gets killed in Waziristan and Yemen – the badlands where CIA drone planes blow up presumed terrorists with Hellfire missiles. Recently retired, Hayden had traded his four-star general's epaulets for civilian shirt sleeves.
When we docked, I went on a guided horse ride through a rain forest – the general, I heard, swam with dolphins.
Casino Royale
My unofficial maxim for Spy Cruise was this: “All work and no play makes Jack Bauer a dull boy.”
The Eurodam was built two years ago by the Holland America cruise line. She's an engineering marvel, 12 floors tall and a quarter of a kilometre long. In her belly, there are high-end restaurants and bars galore, and she's home to a pool, library, gym, spa, disco and a full-size basketball court.
Her diesel engines propelled us so gracefully that the sensation of sea travel was an afterthought. How smooth was the ride? While winning at blackjack in the ship's casino, I stacked my chips into precarious towers. Nothing rattled their foundations … nothing nautical at least. It was left to the pretty card dealers from Eastern Europe, women with oddly rhyming names like “Galyna” and “Sabina,” to cut down my stacks.
Still, there was always this discombobulating to-and-fro aboard the Eurodam. I wasn't seasick – it was the weird pitching and rolling from mindless mirth to serious security seminars and back again.
Days were spent chewing over topics along the lines of the growing Iranian hegemony in the Shia Crescent. Evenings were spent savouring shiraz, sucking back “sake-tinis” – delicious – and watching showgirls strut onstage. Even as I eyeballed the Eurodam's ostentatious luxury, my mind's eye kept imagining the specific kinds of brute force being employed in some of the world's failed and failing states.
Spies among us
So who signs on for a Spy Cruise?
Our group numbered just over 100. We were woven into the fabric of the Eurodam's 2,000 passengers, most of whom had no idea we existed. We were given lapel pins – a U.S. Secret Service insignia embedded into an American flag – so we could identify each other as friendlies.
