The FBI agent tapped his pen against his blank notepad.
“And to be clear, Fend is no longer employed by the CIA?”
Caleb Wilkes’s smile looked fake now. Annoyance in his eyes. “Again, that’s correct. He’s no longer with the Agency.”
“Why did you guys recruit him, if he wasn’t up to your standards?”
“We recruit a lot of people. Sometimes you don’t know who can handle the pressure until you put them in the cooker. A lot of them don’t make it through. But we funnel most of those to other CIA roles, if they’re fit for those types of assignments. It would be a waste not to. Security clearances are expensive, and take a long time.”
“But you didn’t do that with Fend?”
“What? Send him to another CIA role?”
“Yes.”
“No. Not with him.”
“Why not?”
“He wasn’t suited for other roles.”
“Why not?”
“He just wasn’t.” Wilkes’s eyes narrowed.
“When’s the last time you spoke to Max?”
“Years ago. Just before he left our employment.”
“And what exactly is your position here?”
“I can’t say.”
“How is it that you remember Max Fend so well if he was only here for a month, over a decade ago?”
Caleb tapped his temple. “Memory like a steel trap. It’s a gift.”
Flynn wasn’t getting anywhere. He decided to take a chance. “Can I ask you a question? Did you happen to see that motorcycle chase — the one in D.C. yesterday?”
“Of course,” Wilkes said. “It’s been all over the news.”
“What did you think of it? Like, as in, what is your professional opinion?”
Wilkes stared at Flynn for a moment and then said, “It was a competent group. Professionals. They were able to evade law enforcement in one of the most highly secured areas in the world. Then they disappeared. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”
Flynn stared into Wilkes’s eyes. His investigative instincts were colliding with his sense of interagency propriety. The FBI agent in him won out.
“Did you plan it?” He watched Wilkes’s face carefully during the response.
Wilkes laughed. “No. I definitely did not. While I said that I couldn’t have planned it better, and that might be true, I would like to think that I’d have planned it differently.”
“How so?”
“I wouldn’t have made the escape so… public. That’s against everything we teach here. If we make the news, we’re doing something wrong.”
“So you think the people who did that wanted Max to make the news?”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged.
“Do you know if Max Fend ever worked for any foreign governments? Foreign companies? Or acted as a foreign agent in any capacity?”
“No, I told you. He was only here for a month.”
“What about after the CIA?”
“You are asking about what Max Fend went on to do after his time here? That, I wouldn’t know.”
While this CIA guy may have been a well-trained liar, Flynn had been a federal investigator for over twenty years. He had a great built-in lie detector, and he was pretty sure that Wilkes’s last answer was a whopper.
“Look, Wilkes, I’m just trying to make sure he wasn’t involved in anything that I need to investigate further. We had an incident at Fend Aerospace that involves billions of dollars in technology. And there’s evidence of foreign interference — as in industrial espionage. It might even have national security implications. There are foreign nationals who’d love to get their hands on that technology.”
“And you think Max Fend was helping them? The son of the owner of the company?”
“You’d be surprised how often family is involved in crimes against each other.”
Wilkes said. “No, I wouldn’t, actually. But look, I’m sorry. I just don’t have anything for you. I’ve told you all I know. Max Fend did not work for the CIA.”
Flynn rubbed his chin. “Alright. Between me and you, I thought it was a long shot anyway. I see no reason to keep digging. Thanks for your time.”
“Of course.”
They stood, and Wilkes walked him out to his car.
“I appreciate your help today.”
“No problem. Always glad to help the FBI.”
Special Agent Jake Flynn drove west along I-64, towards Richmond. From there he would take I-95 north and head towards the FBI’s Manassas office. Flynn planned to make a quick stop there before catching a flight to Jacksonville in the afternoon.
He went over the interview in his mind, getting more and more frustrated as he replayed it. Flynn had met guys like Wilkes before. Spooks. Some of them really thought they were better and smarter than everyone else. Like they were the only real cowboys, and everyone else in law enforcement was just pretending.
Guys like Wilkes thought they had license to manufacture a false reality when it suited their needs. It became hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t. They were good at it. After all, it was what a professional spy did for a living.
If the CIA had Wilkes teaching at the Farm, he probably had decades of field experience. Every lie he told was likely mixed in with just enough truth to convince Flynn to believe him.
But Flynn couldn’t believe everything he had just heard. He didn’t believe that BS line about having the memory of a steel trap. What kind of asshole says something like that? Wilkes had a certain level of familiarity and interest in Max Fend that was way more than he should have had. There’s no way a guy like Wilkes would have wasted his time talking to the FBI about some washout. Max Fend was more than Wilkes was letting on. Flynn could feel it.
His phone rang. He looked down at the caller ID. Steve at the DNI’s office. Perfect timing.
“Jake, it’s Steve.” His voice sounded funny, like he didn’t want to talk too loud.
“Hold on, let me pull over.” Flynn pulled off at an exit and parked in a gas station. “What’s up?”
“I looked into what we had been discussing yesterday.”
“Yup. And?”
“Something isn’t right.”
“Really? Can you go into it?” He didn’t want to say the name if it was that sensitive.
“In person.”
Flynn looked at the clock. He would have to forego his planned stop at the FBI’s DC field office in Manassas.
“I’ve got to catch a flight this afternoon, but I’ve got a little bit of time. Can you meet me for coffee? I can be up there in a few hours.”
“Text me when you get here.”
The drive took two hours. I-95 was backed up around Dumfries, but no more than usual. They ended up meeting at a little coffee shop in Springfield, Virginia.
Steve said, “So I checked the personnel file for Max Fend — or I started to, anyway.”
“And?”
“The system that the DNI network uses will trigger alerts if I look at things I’m not supposed to. But I know this much: he worked for one of the intel agencies. If Max Fend had never worked in the intel world, I wouldn’t have found anything on him. But there’s definitely a DNI personnel file on Max Fend.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know. But I could see the classification level of the file. And in this case, it was above what I’m allowed to access. Way above.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. I’m afraid if I dig any further it’ll trigger an audit on me. We don’t want that. I’ll get in trouble… or get both of us in trouble.”