She Was the DEA’s Premier Crypto Detective. The Clues Led Straight to Her Own Family

The mission is a setup. The bagman is an undercover agent. Arrayed in position around the strip mall are a dozen or so heavily armed federal agents, all waiting on Lili’s command. Less than a year out of the academy, this is her first major test. She’s not just coordinating surveillance, but she’s taking “the eye,” meaning she is tracking the target so the entire unit can follow, undetected.

So far everything is going to plan, which is a relief, because Lili is desperate to prove herself. She’s an Ivy League grad and a Russian immigrant, and she was the only woman in her academy class. In the most macho, all-American branch of US law enforcement, that’s three strikes against her, even in 2014. She’s sure everyone expects her to blow it. But Lili’s a lifelong overachiever. She volunteered to take the eye precisely because it’s a tough assignment nobody wants.

“Target is on the move,” Lili calls into her radio. A dozen keys turn in their ignitions.

Lili lets the target pass by, plus a few cars for cover, then slips into the line of commuters. On the radio: chatter from the team out of sight. “Target location?”

Taking the eye is stressful. You have to stay close and not draw attention, or stay back and not lose visual, or both, and all the while be prepared for the target to get spooked. At any moment, they might rip a sudden U-turn or swerve onto an exit, trying to suss out a tail. Or pull a heat run, having been made. Then you’re in pursuit, calling in a helicopter, turning a dangerous situation more dangerous. Lili has seen it before, many times. What you want is for it to go smoothly.

“Target direction?”

Lili glances at her phone, trying to note the next cross street to report back to the team. She’s newish to Miami and doesn’t know this area well. It’s hard to know any area well when it all looks the same—a featureless landscape of wide, long blocks with medians, a strip mall on each corner at every intersection, fringed by endless palms. She doesn’t know the direction. This is why she’s consulting her phone. But the map app isn’t working. The radio is crackling with confusion. It’s not going smoothly.

The problem is this is not her phone. It belongs to her husband, Luis. He’s also a DEA agent. And this morning, while Lili was prepping for the mission and getting their daughter ready for preschool, she couldn’t find her phone. So on her way out the door, she grabbed Luis’ old Android.