“So again, the message this group is sending now, is what? That the Federal Reserve is a tyrant like King George and they’re going to handle it by kidnapping and murdering people until it is shut down?”
“Or until they’re caught. But I think I may have an idea as to how we can catch them.”
CHAPTER 13
YORK COUNTY
VIRGINIA
Lydia Ryan remembered the first time she had ever seen Camp Peary, the nine-thousand-acre military base near Williamsburg, Virginia, referred to by CIA personnel as “the Farm.” She, along with twelve other recruits, had been transported there on a crisp fall morning in a white passenger van with blacked-out windows to begin their CIA training. Out of those twelve, only five would make it all the way through.
Much of the curriculum harkened back to the heyday of the CIA’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, and was heavy with paramilitary instruction. From weapons and explosives to parachuting and land navigation, there were times when the recruits questioned whether they had signed up for a career in intelligence, or the military. The tradecraft, which would form the bulk of what they’d be learning, wouldn’t come till later.
The first month at the Farm was all about what the recruits were made of and how badly they wanted to be there. It was a particularly sadistic version of boot camp and involved nothing but physical conditioning and hand-to-hand combat. Every exercise, whether it was a run, a timed rucksack march, accelerated PT, or even the obstacle course, was designed to get as many students to drop out as possible.
Instructors yelled, berated, and constantly got right up into their charges’ faces telling them that they didn’t belong at the Agency and should aim for something easier, like the FBI.
In preparation for the yearlong Basic Operations Course, Ryan had searched for any information she could find on what to expect and how to make it through. There was next to nothing available, so she read a stack of books on the rigorous selection processes for the Navy SEALs, the Army’s Special Forces, and the British SAS.
What she learned was that they were all very similar. The idea was to stress trainees to such a degree that no matter what they encountered in the real world, they’d be able to adapt and overcome. While the SEAL, Green Beret, SAS soldier, or CIA operative unquestionably plied a physical trade, success or failure would always come down to their mental mettle. If you steadfastly refused to quit, you rapidly narrowed your options to only winning. That was the type of personality a sovereign nation could put millions of training dollars into and then drop into the field, confident that those operatives would see their assignment through.
Ryan’s intelligence, determination, and physical abilities were quickly realized. Her beauty was simply icing on the cake. Even without makeup, she was a striking woman, not someone who naturally blended in and was easily forgotten. That fact, though, could be dealt with. Ryan could be taught how to mask her good looks. On the other hand, taking a less appealing woman and trying to make her as attractive as Ryan was next to impossible without plastic surgery.
There was also an intangible aura about her, a magnetism that couldn’t be taught. In short, she was a one-in-a-million recruit whose gifts weren’t fully apparent until she began the Basic Operations Course. Once her talents were on display, it was up to one man to make sure they were noted and leveraged to their maximum potential. It was that man that Ryan had now returned to the Farm to see.
In addition to being a lead instructor for the Basic Operations Course, Bob McGee was also a spotter. Before she arrived, he had read Ryan’s file cover to cover, just as he did the files of every other recruit being considered for eventual placement in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service.
The NCS was charged with a myriad of missions, including the collection of foreign intelligence and the development of clandestine human intelligence assets. But it was the planning and execution of covert operations that most interested McGee.
A former Delta Force operative who had joined the CIA after leaving the Army, McGee was tasked with flagging prospective candidates for a secretive branch of the Clandestine Service called the Special Activities Division (SAD). Based on her jacket, Ryan had looked pretty good on paper, but it wasn’t until he saw her in action that he appreciated how good she really was.
There was no way, though, that he was going to put his stamp of approval on her without making sure she was completely up to the task. So he had made it his personal mission to push her harder than all the others.
As recruits were prohibited from sharing personal information with each other, they were left with little to talk about other than their training. McGee’s treatment of Ryan quickly became the hottest topic of conversation in the short window they had for R&R each night.
Most of the students believed McGee was a woman-hater. The prevailing wisdom was that somewhere in his past some woman had crushed him so badly that he now reveled in torturing female recruits. Ryan was an obvious choice, as she was the best-looking in class and either reminded McGee of the woman who had jilted him, or she somehow made him feel inferior.
A couple of other recruits, one an undergrad psychology major, had a different take and likened McGee’s behavior to that of kindergarten boys who pull the hair of the girls they secretly like. None of them, though, suspected that Ryan was being tested for something bigger than a junior NCS officer, not even after she was removed from their ranks and the Basic Operations Course altogether.
She was moved into the CIA’s Special Activities Division, which handled tactical paramilitary operations and covert political action, as well as destabilization efforts, psychological and economic warfare.
While the paramilitary side of SAD drew primarily from Tier One operators such as the SEALs and Delta, there was a tremendous amount of danger on the political action side and its members needed to be highly skilled. Once McGee was convinced that Ryan had the right stuff for SAD, he had her approved and transferred into a tailored training program, which he personally oversaw. As such, he became her mentor at the Agency and the person she had always been able to count on for good advice, as well as less-than-stellar career counseling.
During her problems with Phil Durkin, it had been McGee who suggested saving a lot of time and trouble by just putting a bullet in his head and dumping him in a quarry somewhere. Ryan didn’t doubt for a moment that McGee was serious. He had never liked Durkin and he liked him even less for preying on his star student. In fact, though she couldn’t prove it, Ryan suspected that it was McGee who had made Durkin’s wife, Brenda, aware of her husband’s sordid advances.
Stopping now just outside her mentor’s office, Ryan raised her hand to knock on the door, when McGee’s voice boomed from the other side. “It’s open.”
CHAPTER 14
Bob McGee was a tall man in his late fifties who ran four days a week and spent the other three in the gym. He sported a thick mustache, which, like his wavy hair, had somehow managed to escape the ravages of time. There were some who said that the only thing stronger than the forces of aging was McGee’s vanity, along with a bottle of hair color he kept hidden away somewhere.
When the door opened, he looked up from his desk and saw Lydia Ryan standing in his doorway. “So this is how it ends,” he said with a smile. “Well, at least they didn’t send a stranger. I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I offered you half the money, would it?”
Ryan shook her head and smiled back. “You should have disappeared when you had the chance, Bob.”
“And give up all of this?” he asked, sweeping his arms out and taking in his tiny office. “Not a chance.”
She laughed and they met in the center of the room, where he gave her a big hug. Once they were done saying hello, he offered her one of the chairs in front of his desk while he took the other. “What’s so top secret that we couldn’t discuss it over a secure phone? This isn’t about that jackass Durkin again, is it? I told you, you should have shot him and dumped him in a shallow grave.”