Press Release: The Company We Keep by Robert & Dayna Baer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tammy Blake
The Crown Publishing Group
Phone: 212.572.2542
Email: TBlake@randomhouse.com
The riveting memoir of real-life Mr. and Mrs. Smith:
Two CIA Opps who survived the world’s most dangerous regions – and fell in love against the odds – now reveal the human side of life
in “The Company.”
THE COMPANY WE KEEP
A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story
By Robert Baer
Bestselling author of See No Evil (inspiration for the Oscar-winning film Syriana)
and Dayna Baer
“The best true-life spy story I’ve ever read.”
– David Ignatius, New York Times bestselling author of Body of Lies
“Heart stopping…will make you ask, who needs Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?”
— James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of State of War
“The lights flicker off, and I lie there in the black. Just as I close my eyes, a machine gun fires in the distance, from the direction of the green line. An angry fusillade answers. A rocket explodes in the direction of the airport. I wonder if this isn’t the start of something serious, like a Serbian attack on Sarajevo. I don’t hear a sound from Bob’s room and can only think he’s sleeping through it.” —DAYNA BAER, from the prologue
He was a legendary CIA operative whose story would be brought to life by George Clooney in Syriana. She was a rising star within The Company, a specially trained, gun-wielding “shooter” who was tapped to serve in some of the world’s riskiest places. When Bob and Dayna met, she thought he was nuts: he rarely seemed to play by the book, while she followed her training to the letter. But they had plenty in common: rocky marriages, tattered family ties, and the inability to feel at home in civilian life. Both a heart-stopping ride through intriguing locales and a deeply human look at a career that requires unflinching deception, the Baers’ stranger-than-fiction recollections are now brilliantly captured in THE COMPANY WE KEEP: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story (Crown Publishers, Hardcover, ISBN 978-0-307-58814-2, $26.00, on sale March 8, 2011).
The first book authored by married CIA field operatives, THE COMPANY WE KEEP is an eye-opening tour of what it’s like to live as a covert op. For most of the men and women in their line of work, it’s a career that shatters any sense of normalcy. For Bob and Dayna, working together became their lifeline in regions of the globe where loyalty and easy answers are elusive. Writing in alternating chapters, they trace their rise to master-spy status, culminating in the realization that leaving The Company might be their most challenging mission yet. Along the way, readers get to revel in rapid-fire action. With settings that range from cosmopolitan Paris to faction-laden Tajikistan, scenes include:
• Early days in their careers, worlds apart but on a course that would bring them together for a lifetime. While Bob was being driven by intelligence officers deep into the mountains between Syria and Lebanon, Dayna was inside a Company training ground, honing her craft with shootouts in the pitch dark and 80-mile-per-hour car spinouts.
• Disillusionment and betrayal in the war on terrorism. At times thrilled by her work in Athens and Cyprus, Dayna nonetheless felt the toll of surveillance routines, while Bob was forced to betray carefully cultivated friends in the Middle East.
• Romantic sparks in Sarajevo. It wasn’t love at first sight; their marriages had crumbled, and so had their interest in love, much less a relationship built on honesty and trust. But after their five-hour drive to the ravaged city of Sarajevo—during which they barely spoke to each other—these independent masterminds were unwittingly forming a lasting partnership.
• What news headlines never told us about Iraq. Years after Bob’s ill-conceived strategy of starting a coup in Iraq, he and Dayna prepared to slip across the border ahead of America’s invading forces. Bob planned to meet with Iraqi royalty, good friends of his. Their trip was delayed by one day—just long enough for his friends and their family to be wiped out by American cruise missiles. Bob and Dayna would have certainly been dead too.
• Their daring decision to “make it home,” attempting to break free of the rogues, mobsters, and clandestine warriors who had become their best friends and worst enemies. Ironically, their first home after turning in their badges was no middle-American suburb. In the beginning, the Baers opted for Beirut.
• Mission accomplished: adopting an infant Pakistani daughter. The journey culminates in a Christian slum in Islamabad where, after tense courtroom negotiations (Bob’s books and a tape of Syriana were reviewed by the judge) the Baers made the ultimate commitment: parenthood.
From black markets to Hizballah safe houses and winner-take-all fallout of Russia after the cold war, THE COMPANY WE KEEP is a backstage pass to history in the making. Along the way, Bob and Dayna Baer deliver an unparalleled portrait of an extraordinary marriage—and the players whose undercover lives affect us all.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
ROBERT BAER is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: See No Evil (which was the basis for the acclaimed film Syriana), Sleeping with the Devil, and The Devil We Know. He has become one of the most authoritative voices in American intelligence and frequently appears on major news outlets. Before leaving the agency to settle down with Robert, DAYNA BAER was herself an accomplished CIA operative.
THE COMPANY WE KEEP
A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story
Robert and Dayna Baer
Crown Publishers • Hardcover • ISBN: 978-0-307-58814-2 • $26.00 • On Sale March 8, 2011
