“Go, you idiot, while you still can.” Victor Godeanu, a high-ranking officer in Romania’s secret service and advisor to President Nicolae Ceaușescu, is only ostensibly addressing this survival tip to a wild bear he wants to spare while out hunting. In reality he is talking to himself. In 1978, with his espionage activities for the Soviet Union in danger of being exposed, he makes a risky move: during negotiations for the ransom of Romanian-Germans in Bonn, he offers himself to the US embassy as a defector.