Leaving London, on the last leg of my trip back to Turkey, I met a newly hatched, not quite ready for prime time CIA agent (purely my supposition, of course). He was one of the last people on the plane, and he sat next to me. At first he was quite chatty, and I decided to be social for once and asked if he was on his way to Istanbul or travelling on. He said he was staying in Istanbul, and in response to my other questions, said it would be his first time there, and that he planned to stay for two years--hanging out! (Rich kid's vacay?) So then I asked if he had already learned about the residence permit process, which has gotten much trickier in the last few months. He said, no, but his "friends in the consulate would help." Then he ended the conversation by putting on a neck pillow and eye shades and falling asleep (snoring, I might add) for the rest of the flight. Fine, whatever, dude. But I realized something, from the neck down, he looked normal in a "I- wear-punk-rock-t-shirts-but-don't-know-the-music" kind of way. From the neck up, he looked like a young, conservative, religious Turkish man. In the customs area of the Istanbul airport, I saw him breeze through the diplomatic staff line, and the pieces finally came together. Aha! This one doesn't quite have his cover story down yet, and probably is too excited not to talk at all about his first job. I can only hope that he doesn't cause too much damage to the rest of us in his part of the CIA machinations.
