With extensive input from Snowden himself, Suzanna Andrews, Bryan Burrough, and Sarah Ellison have the spy-novel-worthy tale of how a geeky dropout from the Maryland suburbs found himself alone and terrified in a Hong Kong hotel room, spilling America’s most carefully guarded secrets to the world.

 

Ater setting up his personal security systems and piling pillows against the door so no one in the hallway could eavesdrop, he sat on the bed, anxious and alone, in a Hong Kong hotel room. He was 29 years old that night, May 24, 2013, but he looked much younger, thin and pale, like a college kid, in his blue jeans and white T-shirt. Someone who talked to him later described him as “terrified,” and it’s easy to believe. He was walking away from everything he had ever known, his career, his girlfriend, his entire life, and now it appeared that his plan might fall through.