Like any large intelligence agency, it has a robust section of Operations Directorate, Clandestine Teams, Analyst Teams, and even a Science and Technology section, all focused on national defense and military related topics. Unlike their brothers and sisters at the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, whose mission was focused on more general national security topics, DIA was focused on foreign militaries.
DIA Analyst Mark Savona was an expert on Chinese aircraft, and enjoyed working for DIA since joining the team some six years ago. Mark, a cum laude graduate of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, not only earned an undergraduate degree in Aeronautical Engineering, but a Master’s Degree in International Relations. He brought with him near five years of experience from Pixar Animation Studios in San Francisco, California before answering an ad he saw in Foreign Affairs. An avid poker player, fantasy football fan, and devout follower of the Washington Nationals, Mark lived the single life that many men under 35 years-old only dreamed about.
Mark Savona was also an outlier. If you were ever to judge a book by its cover, one could easily question how Mark was able to obtain a Top Secret security clearance. He wore shoulder length hair in a building full of short-cropped, conservative veterans or military members. Sometimes he wore Hawaiian shirts with non-matching pants. Some months he was able to wrap his hair back into a pony tail or man-bun, and once even returned from summer leave with a goat-tee. He was also a Human Resource Director’s nightmare, sometimes cursing or openly speaking his mind as needed.
One day last week, he surprised his supervisor by wearing different colored socks with sandals, plaid pants, and a flannel shirt without a tie. He kept the same blue blazer on his cubicle seat just in-case some big wigs from upstairs came to his Directorate area for a meeting. While others wore the Washington DC uniform of a starched white shirt and dark suit, Mark was just being himself. Being himself also landed him extra training classes. Last year, he loudly argued passionately with a supervisor about the performance characteristics of the Chinese J-31 fighter jet, which landed him in a Human Resources training class on sensitivity. Two years ago, while on probation, he argued with a Senior Executive, an SES, about working his ten hours a day by starting at twelve noon because that was when he was most productive. Why start at 7:30 in the morning if you can max your hours out at another time? It was useless government rules like this that drove Mark crazy.
These actions painted only half of his unique personality. This critical thinking and outside the box emotional intelligence was what DIA Deputy Director Calvin Burns saw in him, and was the reason he was hired. Calvin Burns was the oil in the DIA machine, and made the organization hum. His knack for acquiring talent in special places was the Deputy’s unique flair, and locating eccentric Mark was one of the greatest finds ever. For example, when many bureaucrats were clocking out for the day in the late afternoon to head home, Mark would escape work to think, then return to the office in the evening to tackle a difficult problem.
Not too long ago, it was baseball season in Washington. Mark was studying a China aircraft related problem at the office, and then left early in the day to attend a 4:05 Washington Nationals baseball game across the Anacostia River. It helped him to think, to do something different. Mark called it ‘white space’, something he learned from his creative time on the west coast. Psychologists and time efficiency experts would refer to this as allowing the subconscious mind to do its job, but Mark knew the stuffy bureaucrats would never understand the concept. Ever.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” Mark announced out loud from his cubicle, in a farm of hundreds of cubicles on a large and open office floor, reading the morning reports on his computer screen. Mark was assigned to the China desk as the resident aircraft expert.
“What do you have, Mark?” asked Robert Dooley, a cubicle mate on the China team. Robert was an expert from the DIA Clandestine Office, the team that focused on the human collection of information from another country. Ever a stoic, Robert Dooley was a man that was all about business, and that was how he acted at home. It was worse at work. Raised in North Padre Island, Texas, and a graduate of the University of Texas, Robert joined DIA straight out of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He was an expert in human intelligence, being ever so persuasive to gather information from people, or to take care of hands-on operations related business. Operations business meant out of the office cubicles that he was currently stuck in. Robert rarely smiled, but was a trusted teammate and a hard worker, respected by Mark and the China team.
“Looks like the bozo missile guys are tackling a meeting this morning to discuss a Buckley incident from last night,” Mark replied, after reading the morning report. “Very. Interesting,” Mark said under his breath, but Robert heard him.
“What is?” asked Robert.
“We weren’t invited to the meeting.” Mark was so eccentric that sometimes his sister offices did not invite him to certain meetings because they didn’t want to put up with his crap. This one was an invite-only meeting down on the 3rd floor, in the auditorium.
“I know what you’re thinking. You pulled this stunt years ago after the North Korean rocket incident,” Robert told him.
“Whatever… maybe I’ll stop in. On a different subject, I received a text in the parking lot earlier that Emily was running late on the GW. Could you pencil her a note and have her meet us in the cheap seats of the auditorium? I’m going to run downstairs.” asked Mark.
The George Washington Parkway, the GW, was a main, two-lane highway that ran alongside the Potomac River. It was a commuter nightmare because of the volume of cars, and often was jammed up due to accidents or passing motorcades. It was both loved and hated by locals. Loved because it was fast to get around outside of commuter hours, but hated because if you got caught speeding, you had to attend federal court since you were breaking the law on federal land.
“Oh, boy… yup. Absolutely. Doing it now,” Robert replied.
Emily Livingston, running late due to traffic, was another member of their China desk team, and was a liaison intelligence officer from the United Kingdom. Specifically, a she was a member of the Great Britain intelligence agency, the Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6. Military Intelligence, Section 6, supplies the British Government with foreign intelligence. Similarly, MI5 supplies the British Government with internal British intelligence. Petite, athletic, with blonde-brown hair and an attraction for fashion and acting, she came to the U.S. complete with her stunning accent. Emily was an expert in operations and human intelligence, especially towards China, and you would never know it from her outside package.
“Hang on a sec, just want to check two more things before we go,” Mark said, as he started flipping through some papers on his desk, then back to his computer. At one point, he started going through the paper newspapers, an odd site to see in these modern times of digital technology.
Mark was keenly interested in this report from Buckley AFB, and was puzzled by the incident details. He checked the other source reporting from the National Security Agency, the NSA. Found nothing. He checked the military’s Joint Staff Intelligence reports, the J-2, and that, too, turned up nothing. Mark was bothered. Perturbed was more like it. Perturbed, because it was unusual that Buckley detected a missile without any other communications or indicators, and the reports reflected no opinions from analysts. No secondary? No other indications? Mark thought.
Mark ran down a mental list of possible secondary indications that might indicate employees were working at the launch site. Did the Chinese have their kids in the day cares late? Was fast food delivered to the missile control room at strange hours of the night? Not one piece of ground or air radio communications from the launch pad? Complete silence? Mark thought about it, and it was particularly curious to him. Then, to Mark, the icing on the cake was that it disappeared in flight. What! Disappeared in flight? Never saw that before, he thought.