[JasonADrury]

It's certainly not the usual "investigative report" style I'd expect with Christo on the byline.

Perhaps it's an attempt at making the report less dry? I don't think it worked.

The unnecessary dramatization just feels a bit off:

>in the deadpan vocabulary of Russian intelligence, “legally deported.”

>But now the agents had failed to deliver, and one had been arrested. It was time for Alimov to take matters into his own hands.

>he had chosen the date revered by Russian spies and soldiers — Defender of the Fatherland Day — for his maiden undercover trip abroad

>the “main adversary,” as Russian intelligence jargon refers to the United States