Best cities for spies

Former CIA ops officers weigh in

My newest story, The Spy Who Vanished, opens with Yuri Kozlov, “the Russian James Bond”, preparing to jump ship (literally) to the West. He’s in Istanbul, ferried away on a speedboat to meet up with his new CIA masters on a yacht in the Sea of Marmara.

I’d pulled Istanbul out of thin air. It seems to be one of those places of intrigue and glamour, a crossroads where East and West mingled, and a fitting launching off point for the three-part spy story. (For the record, I’ve never been there. It’s on my bucket list.)

Settings are an important part of any story, part of the skeleton that a story hangs from. Writers must think long and hard about where a story is to take place. For spy writers, there’s the added pressure of needing to move the story around: readers expect characters to be on the go, lest they end up being rolled up by the bad guys.

I thought it would be fun to ask some former intelligence officers to weigh in on which are the best cities in the world for spies. I left the definition of “best” vague so they could make their own interpretations.

You know Valerie Plame, the ops officer who was outed by a vengeful Dick Cheney when her then-husband wrote a scathing op-ed against the Bush administration. Her vote for best city for spies: Cyprus. “As Somerset Maugham said about the south of France, ‘it’s a sunny place for shady people’.” I have to agree. So much goes on there, especially in the private sector, only in the shadows. (By the way, if you want a peek into the real world of intelligence, attend a future running of Valerie’s Spies, Lies, and Nukes conference.)

Rolf Moatt-Larssen has had a career so broad that it’s difficult to describe. He put in 23 years at CIA in fields as wide-ranging as weapons of mass destructive, counterterrorism, and military support. (A real Renaissance man, he also served in the Army, at Department of Energy, and Harvard’s Belfer School.) As a Russian specialist, he unsurprisingly put Moscow on the top of his list. “The Broadway of CIA. Nothing harder, more consequential, and defining in terms of success or failure.”

Number two on his list is Beijing. “Arguably more important than Moscow,” Rolf says and for good reason: intelligence forecasting has been raising the alarm on China for years.

Third is Tel Aviv-Amman-Tehran, as a set. As he rightfully points out, “every time we try to pretend we can ignore the Middle East, we’re forced back into paying acute attention to the region.” Plus, “the level of play is so damn high.”

James “Mad Dog” Lawler (also unsurprisingly, if you know Jim) upended the table by declaring that he’s found no city to be better than any others when it comes to recruiting. He said that in his first-ever posting in Bern, he questioned whether he had the right stuff to be an ops officer. But he persevered and ended up recruiting a couple “noteworthy” assets. A posting is what you make of it. (Jim has written several novels reflecting his time working counterproliferation and weapons of mass destruction: Living Lies and In the Twinkling of An Eye.)

Ilana Berry, writing as I.S. Berry, is the author of The Peacock and the Sparrow, a spy novel that swept a lot of awards last year. She’s also a former ops officer, and her vote for top spy city? Vienna—for its historical significance.

Christina Hillsberg, ever the diligent intelligence officer, decided to ask her husband Ryan for his opinion on best spy city as he had more experience running ops in the field. His answer? Geneva—”the spy capital of the world.” I’ve been Geneva several times and can vouch that it’s international flavor—thanks to the UN—make it a veritable smorgasbord for recruitment. Christina is also an author, with a book on parenting (License to Parent: How my Career as a Spy Helped Me Raise Resourceful, Self-Sufficient Kids) and coming in 2025, Agents of Change: the Women Who Transformed CIA.

There you have it. My friends’ honorable mention include Athens, Ankara and Zurich. I’ll add a little footnote of my own on Zurich: was there for a conference. Two blocks off the main drag I found the strangest little shop, it’s front window filled with rather authentic-looking magical implements like goats’ skulls inscribed with ruins and ancient, hidebound books. In the city of bankers, go figure.

Got a suggestion for a great city for spies? Where would you set a spy novel? Join the discussion in the comments.