My tradecraft class was held in a nondescript office building at a strip shopping mall in Falls Church. Rubino told me to arrive at 9:00 sharp. From the outside, there was no hint it had any connection with the United States government. Above the front door were the words INSURANCE BUILDING, and on the first of its six floors there was, indeed, a small insurance underwriting business to maintain the illusion. The building was on the edge of seediness: rusting metal pillars, venetian blinds askew, peeling paint. Out front, there was a small parking lot, but I had been instructed to park in the underground garage so my arrival would be invisible. The building was used to shield the identities of people under deep cover, but it seemed to embody the inner decay of the agency itself. These people had no trouble, nowadays, passing for insurance agents.

The elevator had buttons for only the first and second floors. I pushed “2,” as instructed. The door opened a few moments later onto a bleak hallway, with faded yellow walls and a gray linoleum floor. At the end of the hallway was a closed door; sitting in a chair by the door was a security guard.

“I’m here for an appointment,” I said awkwardly. “My name is Truell. They’re expecting me, I think.”

He took my driver’s license, punched a code into a lock and disappeared behind the door. As I waited, another elevator arrived from the parking garage. A man wearing a government security badge around his neck emerged. He inserted the card into a security device next to the elevator buttons. Another car arrived promptly to carry him to the upper floors. The second floor of the “Insurance Building” functioned like an air lock, shielding the real work of the building from contamination.

The security guard returned and handed back my license. “This way, sir,” he said, holding the door open.

Beyond the door was a bustling village. There was a bulletin board with notices for the CIA credit union; a reminder for people traveling overseas to get their malaria shots; announcement of a support group for new mothers; even a sign-up sheet for the office yoga class. The people in the corridors defined American ordinariness: women with frumpy hairdos, men with potbellies, a diverse mix of faces that were dignified, reserved, like those of people you see at a military base. These people were not “clubbable,” to use an expression beloved by the CIA old boys of an earlier era. One of the ordinaries approached me. He was short and fat, with thinning white hair. He was wearing an old gray suit. The fabric of his white shirt was straining at the buttons, and the zipper on his trousers had begun to pull apart. He looked like a guy who might be the ticket taker for a Celtics game at Boston Garden.