A Letter I’ll Never Send

On February 18, 2001, a team of special agents arrested Robert Hanssen—A.K.A. Ramon Garcia, Gray Suit, and Gray Day—the most damaging spy in FBI history. It happened just blocks from his home in Vienna, Virginia, moments after he loaded his final dead drop under a footbridge in Foxstone Park. He had spent 22 years betraying his country.

In the months leading up to that moment, I was sent undercover into a newly created section at FBI Headquarters, tasked with bringing him down. My success in identifying and clandestinely extracting a smoking gun led to Hanssen’s arrest and his swift guilty plea to multiple counts of espionage.

I was lucky to have survived.

In the years since Hanssen’s arrest, I have debated, discussed, written about and agonized the case that propelled me into the spotlight, opened countless professional doors, and resulted in too many sleepless nights to count. Universal Pictures made the movie Breach about me to great critical acclaim. My bestselling book Gray Day recounts my experiences opposing Hanssen from an insider’s perspective in the eye of an investigative hurricane. I have sat for countless interviews, starred in documentaries and TV shows and recounted my experiences on stages across the globe. Part of me remains trapped in room 9930 at FBIHQ.

Robert Hanssen died on June 5, 2023, in his tiny cell at the United States Penitentiary “Supermax” in Florence, CO. He was 57 when he was arrested and 79 when he died. That’s 22 years spent alone in a seven-by-twelve-foot cell—perhaps atoning for his crimes, perhaps raging against his downfall. I’ll never know. I never got the chance for that final, cathartic conversation—the one we both owed each other.

Now, on the anniversary of his arrest, I’m writing a letter I will never send—to the man who, for better or worse, shaped the course of my life. I hope you’ll read it and take it as a warning: don’t wait until opportunity passes you by.

If you’d rather hear me read it, scroll down and hit play.

Dear Boss,

Looking back, I never thought our lives would intersect in such a profound—and perilous—way. All those years ago, when my FBI supervisor, Gene McClelland, arrived unexpectedly at my apartment on a Sunday morning, I had no clue that the “spy” he wanted me to catch was you. You were just a name—Robert Hanssen—an unfamiliar figure in an investigation so secret I was told little more than, “We think he’s a mole, and we want you to go undercover in his office.” I stood there, half-dressed and wholly stunned, forced to answer one question: In or out?

I said yes.

At the time, I didn’t know who you really were—“Ramon Garcia,” “B,” or any of the other names you used in clandestine communication with the KGB and SVR. You certainly were never “Robert” or “Bob” to me, and you insisted I call you “Boss” or “Sir.” It wasn’t until I read your file and started to share space with you that I truly understood the magnitude of your betrayal and the weight it carried for the FBI. You had joined the Bureau in the late 1970s, working in counterintelligence, ironically gaining access to the very secrets you later sold to our Cold War adversaries. You were sharp, devout, and incredibly guarded—yet wholly driven by something beyond simple greed.

When I first met you in that cramped, windowless SCIF—Room 9930—my gut churned with anxiety. You eyed me from behind your desk, took one of your countless ballpoint pens, clicked it relentlessly, and sized me up as if I were just another inferior who’d never measure up. A worthless clerk, you called me. You had no idea, of course, that I was there to catch you—that behind my wide-eyed interest and half-nervous jokes, I was memorizing everything you said, everything you didn’t say, all the ways your routine might be manipulated. You unknowingly taught me Hanssen’s law: “The spy is always in the worst possible place.” Yet you never realized you were in that very place—under the watchful eye of an undercover operative who was as determined to stop you as you to continue spying.

Still, for all our friction, you made an impression on me—so much so that I sometimes called you my “unwitting mentor.” You had a searing intellect, and your theories on security flaws within the FBI’s systems were not wrong. You threw out your opinions like sharpened knives, dissecting every vulnerability in the Bureau’s data platforms. It was an irony: you, the greatest mole the FBI had ever known, pointing out the very weaknesses that you exploited.

The day I stole your Palm Pilot was, in my mind, the turning point. You prided yourself on your methodical habits, carrying that bulky electronic assistant in your pocket as if it held the keys to the universe. To you, it did—metadata, drop schedules, hints of your next move. My objective was simple: get that device from you without you realizing it was gone. If you had known, you might have killed me right there. My heart hammered so violently that day I thought I’d give myself away. But I succeeded. You went to the firing range with a couple of agents, and I slipped your Palm into a tech team’s waiting hands. By the time you returned, we had copied enough of your secrets to seal your fate. In that moment, I learned that espionage can be as physically draining as any action sequence—it’s the sweat-soaked race against time that weighs you down.

I can still hear your voice in the SCIF moments after I returned your Palm to your briefcase beside your desk, calm yet suspicious, inches from the truth. You accused me of entering your office without permission, your gaze drilling into mine. I laughed it off, left you fuming behind your desk. Had you realized what happened, I might not be here writing this now.

The night before you were finally arrested in Foxstone Park on February 18, 2001, I’ll catch you later was the last thing I said in your presence. Maybe you didn’t grasp my parting line as the dark joke I intended. I wish, in the years that followed, I’d gotten the chance to have a final conversation—one that might have dissected the ultimate “why” behind your actions. For despite the damage you caused our nation, it’s impossible to ignore that you changed my life forever. The undercover operation to stop you opened more doors in my career than I can count. I was propelled from an anonymous undercover “ghost” to a speaker, an advisor, a lawyer, and a cybersecurity strategist—someone whose entire profession revolves around lessons learned from your betrayal.

When you passed away on June 5, 2023, I felt no triumph. Instead, I felt regret and loss. You were one of the most pivotal figures in my life. Our twisted mentor–nemesis dynamic fueled so much of my personal and professional evolution, yet it also left me with jagged emotional scars. To this day, I can’t forget that one moment I was convinced you would kill me—your suspicious eyes, your hand so close to the gun at your hip, the knowledge that I was inches from losing everything if I made one misstep. I’ve come to understand that as PTSD, and it lingers long after your passing.

I wanted one last face-to-face, Boss—a final confrontation to lay my questions on the table: What drove you to betray the country you claimed to love? Did you ever feel remorse for the agents you outed and the secrets you sold? Was the adrenaline rush of espionage all you ever truly sought? I will never have answers now. With your death, that window forever closed. And so I’m left only with my own hard-won wisdom: We must never let inertia keep us from seizing crucial moments. Hesitation cost me that conversation—my chance at closure.

Maybe you would have finally confided the deep truth you hid from every FBI interrogator. Maybe you would have shrugged it off, telling me again that “the why doesn’t matter.” Either way, we both deserved that exchange, even if it had no neat resolution. Your final “gift,” I’ve heard rumored, was leaving my name for the Russians to consider recruiting. You saw a shadow of yourself in me—someone who had the skill to be an extraordinary spy. It’s chilling and strangely validating, a final sign of respect from my biggest foe.

In the end, I’ve had to make my own closure. I spent years considering, analyzing and agonizing over those months in our cat and mouse game with the highest stakes imaginable. My book Gray Day is part admiration, part condemnation, exposing your treachery and genius in the starkest terms. You are gone, but I remain, still answering questions about you all these years later. People ask why you did it. My best guess? You wanted to feel important, to be the best at something only you controlled. And you were the best, in a twisted way—two decades of espionage so damaging and cunning that no one else has matched it.

Still, you left behind a stronger FBI, ironically enough. Your infiltration forced changes in security protocols, ushered in a new era of cyber- and insider-threat awareness, and propelled me into a life of public speaking, writing, and advocacy on national security. By betraying the Bureau, you empowered it to evolve. By threatening my life, you sharpened my resolve. And by opening the door to your SCIF, you changed mine forever.

That is your legacy in my story: the friction that made me stronger, the threat that transformed me into a better agent, the betrayal that propelled me to a new path. I wish we could have talked about it all—yes, even in a bare prison room under fluorescent lights—but that letter, this letter, will never reach you. You died alone in that tiny Supermax prison cell. I’ll have to remain content with the lessons you left behind. And in the end, perhaps that’s the final paradox: the spy who ruined so many lives and haunted me with fear also provided me with the platform to shine a light on espionage, cybersecurity, and the dangers hidden in the worst possible places.

Farewell, Boss.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re reading.

—Eric

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