Family of Secrets

On the night of May 19, 1985, John Walker, Jr. deposited documents containing 129 stolen naval secrets wrapped in a plastic bag at an isolated KGB dead drop near Poolesville, Maryland. Then he drove on to another designated drop point to pick up the bundle of cash, more than $200,000, that was to be his payment. There was nothing there. Disturbed, Walker went back to retrieve the plastic bag. It was gone. He reluctantly returned to his Rockville motel room, convinced he had at last been discovered by the FBI - but when there was no effort to stop or arrest him, it seemed likelier that the Russians had simply screwed up. In his nearly twenty years of treason, of spying for the USSR, this had happened twice before.