The two planes had been shot down in international air space, making the incident tantamount to an act of war. The radio chatter among the cuban pilots was released to the press. Rear admiral named eugene carroll gave an interview to c n n. Carroll was an influential figure inside washington. He had formerly served as direct of all us Armed forces in europe,. with seven thousand weapons at his disposal.
On February 24, 1996, Cuban fighter jets shot down two small planes operated by Brothers to the Rescue, an organization in Florida that tried to spot refugees fleeing Cuba in boats. A strange chain of events preceded the shoot-down, and people in the intelligence business turned to a rising star in the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ana Montes. Montes was known around Washington as the “Queen of Cuba” for her insights into the Castro regime. But what Montes’ colleagues eventually found out about her shook their sense of trust to the core. (In this excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s forthcoming audiobook Talking to Strangers, we hear why spy mysteries do not unfold in real life like they do in the movies.)
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