The spies next door

There are probably national security reasons that make the story of the busted Russian spy ring less amusing than it appears at first, second, and third glance.

But, look, comrades, if you’re going to run a network of sleeper cells with agents working so deep undercover for so long that they probably have to remind themselves every day that that they’re spies, and you don’t want people to snicker when the operation’s compromised and the details come out, try to run it in a way that if what you did sounds like the plot of a movie, it’s a Hitchcock movie and not one by the Coen Brothers.

I mean, really?  A femme fatale with a Facebook page on which she practically brags she’s a spy?

 

“Anna” only shares her profile information with people with the proper security clearance.  If you know “Anna”, add her as a friend but don’t give your real name and use the password Morning Glory.

Interested in: Assets

Looking for:  “Networking.” ;-)

Activities:  Espionage, cryptography, keeping up with the gossip from back home in Vladivostok.

Favorite books:  The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad,  The Human Factor by Graham Greene, anything and everything by John Le Carre.

Favorite movies:  The Third Man, No Way Out, Salt.

Come to think of it, though, Hitchcock would have had some sinister fun with spies so determined to blend into their suburban neighborhood that unmarried agents living as husband and wife have children together and become obsessed with landscaping--"They couldn't have been spies. Look what she did with the hydrangeas."---and secret stashes of money buried in the woods outside a small town populated by eccentrics.

That’s our local connection, the cache of cash in the woods:

The complaints state that in 2004, one of the defendants, known as Christopher R. Metsos, received money from a Russian government official in New York City, then drove up to Wurtsboro and buried a portion of the money in a field. In 2006, two co-defendants, known as Patricia Mills and Christopher Zottoli, traveled to the New York area from Seattle, drove up to Wurtsboro and dug up the money. Law enforcement had installed a GPS device in the car Metsos used to drive to Wurtsboro and captured Mills and Zottoli digging up the money on video surveillance.

Locals took the news that there’d been spies in their midst in stride:

Lynn Manto, owner of Lynn's Flowers on Sullivan Street, called the revelation "crazy," but not surprising for a place rumored to have had mob links. Old mine shafts and railroad tunnels nearby offer many opportunities for hiding, she said.

"If you're going to run or hide, Wurtsboro's the perfect place," she said. "This is a place you can disappear or make people disappear."

Not sure what Hitchcock would have made of her, whether he’d have had her knowing where all the bodies are buried---and going out to check on them now and then---or have given her her own mob connections the spies threaten to expose with their blundering.

The character actress he’d cast in the role would depend on which direction he went with her.  But I know whom he’d have had playing this part:

Charlotte Strohsahl, when asked about the spy allegations, said nothing surprised her at her age. The 71-year-old Wurtsboro resident had just one concern when she read about the network in the newspaper and saw news reports.

"I'd like to know, where's the money?" she said. "Can we all go look for it? Did they find it?”

The Siren’s probably ahead of me on this one.

Thelma Ritter, right?

Photo from “Anna Chapman’s” Facebook page via The Huffington Post.

Comments

[Ken Houghton]

"If you're going to run or hide, Wurtsboro's the perfect place," she said. "This is a place you can disappear or make people disappear."

Bradbury did a story about that decades ago: the guy who gets off the train in a small town and wanders into the woods with a local, both planning to commit "the perfect murder" on the other--and both deciding not to when the other reveals his intent.

(Someone else will remember the title.)

[Gary Farber]

The "two people trade murders to make for perfect murders" gambit has been used a number of times in mystery fiction in all media, but one of the more famous is Strangers On A Train, which is really a Patricia Highsmith novel. (Of "Riply" and her own childhood murder fame.)

See particularly and particularly. I shan't risk the danger of checking TVTropes.

[actor212]

She could debrief me and strip me of my secrets in a heartbeat.