215 The final choice he was made to board a non-stop flight to Moscow on June 23, 2013. To remain in Hong Kong once a criminal complaint was leveled against him would have meant that, at the very minimum, Hong Kong authorities would seize him and the alleged stolen property of the US government in his possession. Even if he was released on bail, the Hong Kong authorities would almost certainly retain all the NSA and GCHQ files he had gone to such lengths to steal. He also would not be allowed to leave Hong Kong and possibly denied any access to the Internet. As he demonstrated by his subsequent actions, this option was not acceptable to him. Once the U.S. criminal complaint was unsealed on June 21, 2013, which became all but inevitable after his video, his only route out of Hong Kong went through two adversaries of the United States, China and Russia. China, as far as is known, did not offer him sanctuary. According to one U.S diplomat, it may have already obtained copies of Snowden’s NSA files, and did not want the problem of having Snowden defect to Beijing. In any case, if it had not already acquired the files. It could assume it would receive that intelligence data from its Russian ally in the intelligence war. Whatever its reason, China did not use its considerable power in Hong Kong to block Snowden’s exit. Nor did Snowden obtain a visa to any country in Latin America or elsewhere during his month- long stay in Hong Kong. As in the oft-cited Sherlock Holmes’ clue of the dog that did not bark, Snowden’s lack of any visas in his passport strongly suggests that he had not made plans to go anyplace but where he went: Moscow. His actions here, including his contacts with Russian officials in Hong Kong, speak louder than his words. Snowden chose, if he had any choice left at all, the Russian option. Just as he believed Chinese intelligence could protect him in Hong Kong from the United States, he could assume that the FSB could protect him in Moscow from the Uni