A pair of former Russian spies gave me eight months of exclusive interviews, a riveting and heartbreaking tale of defection to the USA and betrayals by the American intelligence agencies that promised to protect them.

Want to know about the corrupt state of affairs in Vladimir Putin's Russia? The ongoing turf wars between the CIA and FBI? What happens when the U.S. recruits a pair of defecting spies?

Then you'll want to read my piece in Newsweek: The Almost Americans.

I'm scarcely amazed that a husband-and-wife team, formerly employed by the FSB, found themselves fleeing Russia, pursued by corrupt government officials and the mob. But what I do find amazing is the strange set of circumstances that confronted them after they volunteered to work for the CIA.

Their saga takes them from Moscow to the Dominican Republic to Northern Virginia to Philadelphia to Portland, where the U.S. government left them stranded.

And, as it happens, took measures to deport them.

This would have meant imprisonment, or worse.

So what happens?

You can read about it here.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a follow up story posted on the Newsweek site about an unlikely bunch of American patriots who have offered to help the Neumanns.