The Foreign Service Journal, October 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2014 41 FEATURE For 24 hours, the most heavily fortified building in Colombo was compromised by a monkey. BY CHR I STOPHER TEAL FLYINGMONKEYS IN THE EMBASSY Christopher Teal is an FSO and a former member of the FSJ Editorial Board. Aside fromColombo, he has served in mostly monkey-free environments, including Santo Domingo, Lima, Guadalajara andWashing- ton, D.C. He is now consul general in Nogales, Mexico. He is the author of Hero of Hispaniola: America’s First Black Diplomat, Ebenezer D. Bassett (Praeger, 2008). T he embassy was on the verge of being overrun. Sri Lanka had not seen activity like this since the Tamil Tigers were defeated a few years back. Everyone had hoped for a return to normalcy, but now this. e details were sketchy, as they always are in the fog of war. All that anyone knew was that an intruder had entered the chancery. At rst it wasn’t clear if it was just one, or there were many. e Marine Security Guards were on high alert. General Services and Regional Security O ces set up a rapid-reaction task force to poke through closets and rip out ceiling tiles to nd a trail and look for clues. Should everyone be evacuated? RSO rapidly banged out an embassywide warning message: “Ground Floor Locked Down—Please Exit/Enter thru Post 2.” As the brave GSO and RSO team continued their search and peered into the darkness of the ground oor ceiling, a closet door behind them swung open. Out the intruder casually strolled, not one bit surprised to see a teamof men standing at the base of a ladder in the hallway. ey turned Christopher Teal