Queen of Cuba
An FBI Agent's Insider Account of the Spy Who Evaded Detection for 17 Years

As a spy prepared to give away America’s biggest secrets after the 9/11 attacks, an FBI agent raced to catch her.US government officials knew they had a spy. But it never occurred to them it was a woman—and certainly not a superstar Defense Intelligence Agency employee known as “the Queen of Cuba.”Ana Montes had spent seventeen years spying for the Cubans. She had been raised in a patriotic Puerto Rican household: Her father, a psychiatrist, was a former colonel in the US Army. Her sister worked as a translator for the FBI and helped break up a ring of Cuban spies in Miami. Her brother was also a loyal FBI agent.Montes impressed her bosses but in secret spent her breaks memorizing top-secret documents before sending them to the Cuban government. She received no payment, even as one of her missives could have brought her the death penalty.She also listened to anxiety-relief tapes, took medication, and saw a psychiatrist. She dreamed of a normal life where she could work a job she enjoyed. She dreamed of getting married, and even had a man in mind: a defense analyst on the Cuba account for Southern Command. He had no idea that, three times a week, Montes pulled a short-wave radio from her closet and received encrypted messages from Cuba.After the 9/11 attacks, Cuba wanted Montes to continue her work. They couldn’t know the FBI was already on to her. Retired FBI agent Peter J. Lapp explains the clues—including never-released information—that led their team to catch one of the United States’ most dangerous spies.