Prologue: The spy and the scribe -- The dark horizon -- Denial and deception -- "It was all sadly absurd" -- The Bay of Goats -- The new world -- "We were all making it up as we went along" -- Unprecedented trouble -- What you do when you do not know -- Sufi mystics and walking zombies -- A beautiful operation -- The butcher's bill -- Guerillas warfare -- The black cloud -- "How far were we prepared to go?" -- The god's eye view -- No middle ground -- The keys to the castle -- The right side of history -- "Someone is always watching" -- Lethal and legal -- Face-eating baboons -- The useful idiot -- Ring-kissing and kneecapping -- The enemy of intelligence -- "We are on the way to a right-wing coup" -- The glory gate -- Human intelligence -- The morality of espionage -- Epilogue: Autocracy in America

"... Tells the gripping, high-stakes story of the CIA through the first quarter of the twenty-first century, revealing how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror--and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The struggle has life-and-death consequences for America and its allies. The CIA must reclaim its original mission: know thy enemies. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance"--