A few months ago, all Monica Davey knew about spies and espionage was what she had seen in James Bond movies like “From Russia With Love” and “Live and Let Die.” Now she can make eyes glaze over with discussions of espionage techniques, “call-out” signals and “dead drop” locations.
Monica’s tastes actually trend more toward literature and politics. An experienced reporter who grew up in Hyde Park and graduated from Brown University, she has covered everything from the 2000 presidential campaign and its aftermath to the Sept. 11 hijackers and how some spent their final days in Florida. But as an ultimate outsider to the world of spydom, she quickly became fascinated by what motivated one of America’s most reprehensible traitors.
In our cover story, she gives an entirely new dimension to Robert Hanssen, who also grew up in Chicago, although in an entirely different world from her own. She delves deeply into Hanssen’s upbringing in Norwood Park–there she is, in front of his boyhood home in the tidy Far Northwest Side neighborhood–and captures the psychological and social undercurrents that played into who Hanssen would become.
“When I was wandering Hanssen’s world–Norwood Park and Vienna, Va.–I kept trying to imagine being him,” reflects Monica. “I was struck by how deep secrets can be hidden away in such idyllic places. As I walked in the Virginia park where he made his final dead drop, I seemed to inhabit two worlds. Little kids played on a swing set without a care, and across the bridge, where he stuck the last package, the trees were dark and ominous, and I felt cold and alone.”
