How Field Work Kept Jonna Mendez Hooked During Her Long Career in the CIA

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I’d been told to wait at the airport for an official car to arrive. There were always detailed, specific instructions in case the car was late or didn’t show up at all. Under no circumstance was I, a single, unescorted woman, to get into a “taxi.” That would be “provocative” behavior, marking me as a woman looking for trouble, so instead I sat on an airport bench and waited. All too aware of the leering stares of men walking by, I unzipped my bag and retrieved the large shawl packed by Maggie, our housekeeper and lifelong friend. I draped it over my bare arms, eager to cover my pale skin.

The next morning, I was to report to the field office. I was in my mid-twenties but already I’d grown accustomed to this routine, stopping in first thing to meet the local Chief of Station at the start of each new assignment abroad. I also looked forward to seeing an old friend, Judi.

When I arrived at the Chief’s office the next morning, he was waving a flimsy sheet of paper in the air. It was an incoming cable from headquarters, and he held it between thumb and forefinger as if it were smoking hot. As his staff settled into nearby chairs, he read it aloud, his eyebrows rising and falling as he spoke: a terrorist group member whom the Chief had previously met in another country, on another assignment, was now attempting to make contact. The terrorist wanted to meet with him. Here. Now. According to this FLASH cable, which was the highest priority level of CIA communications, this terrorist was a rogue, and the lethal, razor-sharp edge of an emerging radical Islamist jihadi group. He’d already helped to bring down an American plane and was running from Interpol and the local intelligence service. He was also only a single step ahead of his own terrorist organization, which sought to assassinate him; he had gone rogue and now posed a danger to them as well. He was seeking safe harbor, and the Chief knew, as we did, that the meeting would have to take place soon. The terrorist claimed to have information about a planned hijacking of another American airline: Pan Am. That last line was the bait. This was urgent.

The Chief immediately informed us—three case officers, an intel analyst, and one support person—that he would not attend the meeting alone. We would be there with him to keep our eyes on the bad dude who was summoning him. Above all, our job was to ensure that our boss did not leave the meeting with the terrorist under any circumstances. This guy was desperate. And dangerous. Capable of anything.

I’d been flown in to direct a photo-training operation, but in the blink of an eye my assignment had changed. As a Disguise officer, I now had only hours to disguise our Chief, but I had brought no disguise materials with me.

The Chief was tall with a scarred face and a noticeable Southern drawl. I asked a case officer to buy the largest shalwar kameez available and a pair of everyday sandals from the nearest market. I needed to make the Chief look local, understated. After coloring his blond hair black and adding a custom mustache from a disguise kit left behind by a recently departed case officer, I found a pair of outdated dark horn-rimmed glasses. I then applied a touch of Judi’s makeup to darken his complexion. I also gave him a cigar and a leather portfolio, suggesting he light the cigar and enter the lobby of the hotel like he owned the place. Once he was in disguise, the Chief transformed. He was a natural actor whose sheer size commanded respect. The goal was for him to be able to evaluate the situation, incognito, before deciding to make the meeting and reveal himself. The Chief was scared of this terrorist. So was I.

The other officers and I then got busy de-Americanizing ourselves. We removed wedding rings, got rid of American cigarettes, and changed into locally bought clothes and shoes; items we each had in our closets for moments like this, when we needed to melt into the crowd. Separately, we made our way to the hotel, a glitzy American chain festooned with crystal chandeliers, miles of marble, and a small jungle of tropical palms in the lobby. I entered the lobby as the affluent tourist I was impersonating, maintaining a confident, slightly aloof demeanor as I silently catalogued the next several steps of our operational plan. “Hope you know what the hell you’re doing,” the nervous young guy in our group murmured as we went through the door together. I was a woman, which perhaps to him meant a weak link in the operational chain. Field work had long been considered the agency’s “real” work—men’s work. I said nothing but shot him a look.

We’d arrived early to find observation points around the enormous, light-filled atrium lobby. We were all a bit jittery, a little charged up, and that was a good thing. My extensive training had taught me how to stay focused in these kinds of high-stakes circumstances; the nerves would ensure we stayed on point. It wasn’t just the Chief’s life on the line; it was potentially also a plane full of American passengers who would be at risk if this operation failed.

The initial goal was for the Chief to see the terrorist first, which would allow him to abort if the meeting did not look or feel right. The guys in our group spread out among the other casuals, some sitting and others standing at different points in the lobby and bar, some reading newspapers while others ordered drinks. I chose a rug shop just off the lobby that had glass walls on three sides. I’d have a direct line of sight into the lobby, where the meeting would take place. As I entered the shop, nodding hello to the proprietor, I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my back, even as my hands felt cold from the hotel’s excessive air conditioning.

Our housekeeper, Maggie, always ensured I had a supply of long-sleeved, ankle-length clothing in dark colors, plus numerous shawls, whenever I traveled to this part of the world, where female modesty rules, even as the heat smothers. I’d been able to put together a costume from my own suitcase: dark blue loose pants, a matching long-sleeved tunic with gold buttons, and a deep green and navy Varanasi dupatta, or stole. Still looking foreign, but, I hoped, not American, my brick-red lipstick allowed me to fit in with the hotel’s well-heeled, international clientele.

The merchant offered me tea and I began looking at his inventory of Iranian carpets—Afshar and Shiraz in particular, which were rugs I already collected and knew enough about to sound like a serious customer. While the proprietor rolled out samples from his inventory, I kept a close eye on the lobby. As the meeting time approached, I got up and walked across the vibrantly colored spread of carpets. I then kneeled on the floor to appear to be examining them while also getting a better view of the meeting site.

My heart was pounding when the Chief strode into the lobby with a larger-than-life demeanor. He sat down on a white sofa littered with silk cushions and casually began the elaborate ceremony of cutting and lighting his cigar as he scanned the lobby. That’s when I looked up—through the glass wall of the rug shop, across the hallway, and through another glass wall. Standing there, inside the newsstand, was the terrorist. He was short, about 5’4″, and dressed in a typical beige shalwar kameez. He was flanked by two huge, turbaned guards—Pashtuns, I guessed—each with a Kalashnikov slung unapologetically over his shoulder. This terrorist was being hunted, yet here he was, boldly announcing his presence with his heavily armed companions. It was a shocking sight, and the hotel staff clearly knew enough not to object to this open display of power.

As I stared across the hallway, the terrorist suddenly looked at me. We made eye contact. Eye contact is connection, recognition. It is personal. It’s also something CIA operatives are trained not to do. As our eyes locked on one another, I suddenly felt trapped inside an invisible, almost electric circuit. His gaze remained fixed on me, like a laser beam cutting right through my disguise, for what felt like an eternity. He wanted me to know that he knew. This is it. They’re going to shoot me. I was exposed, with no easy way out.

Frozen in place on my hands and knees, my mind flashed back to the Wall of Stars in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley. Made of white Alabama marble, each star is carved with care and precision, each one representing a CIA employee who died in the line of duty. Some are named, but many are not. Their identities will never be known. They died in faraway places, serving their country, often under cover. Even their families may never know the real story. They remain unseen, even in death.

With each passing second that the terrorist held my stare I felt increasingly sure I was about to die. No one would ever know what had happened to me. I was traveling incognito; officially I was not there. Then suddenly, he hesitated. He looked down and turned away. With his bodyguards in tow, he walked into the lobby and toward the Chief.

He’d made me, then moved on. As he receded down the hallway, my blood ran cold. I had never encountered what felt like pure evil before. I was stunned by its power. I felt chilled, my breathing shallow, my pulse pounding in my ears, deafening.

Lucky. This is what luck looks like.

Once the Chief’s meeting with the terrorist concluded, we dispersed, exiting the hotel one by one at different times. That evening I went to Judi’s place to have a drink. If the men were gathering to celebrate, I was certainly not invited. Nor was she.

The next day the local English language newspaper reported the terrorist’s arrest by local police. True, but only after the Chief had debriefed him on the hijacking threat. He told the Chief that he had identified four of his people in the hotel; I was one of them. Those details did not appear in the news the next morning.

Decades later I still vividly remember the rush of cold terror that ran through me as my eyes locked with the terrorist’s. It is one thing to read classified, internal reports about terrorism as part of your job; it is entirely another to be face-to-face with a man known for his ruthless brutality. Still, it was these types of ops that kept me hooked to a career that was as exciting as it was challenging. As often happened, the final outcome remained a mystery. Sometimes I would learn the result of an operation weeks after I’d played my part, but oftentimes I knew only details related to my specific contributions. Inside the CIA information is currency, both precious and potentially dangerous. At nearly all levels of the food chain, information is siloed on a need-to-know basis. I had to trust that the role I was playing was important, a necessary component of a bigger picture I would probably never see. Success earned no applause, and none was expected. That was the nature of the work, and of the job.

It was a career I loved. I was doing work that mattered, work that made a difference—making history in some small way. It wasn’t a path I’d ever imagined for myself. I was, after all, just a girl from Wichita, Kansas, seeking adventure, never dreaming that would translate into a life that was both covert and trailblazing.

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Excerpted from In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Unmasked by Jonna Mendez. Copyright © 2024. Available from PublicAffairs, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. 

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