The Pretender Read online

  The Ramada in New Rochelle wasn’t JEH by a long shot, but it was a lot closer to the spirit of the place than the streets on which I’d been working with great satisfaction for about a decade. And that’s where I was sitting (specifically, in my cubicle) as I stared at that blank FD-638. I stared at the form in my daydreams … and then in my nightmares. Steve Salmieri, chief at the Undercover Safeguard Unit, had a vacancy for a Supervisory Special Agent, a slot reserved for highly experienced UCs. Steve had said, “There’s no one more qualified, Marc. You’ve been out there long enough. Down here, you can make a contribution to the program nationally.”

  And he continued with more of what I took to be stroking. You—only you—know what UCs need, operationally and emotionally, blah, blah, blah. True enough, I agreed on that point, but Steve had been infiltrating the Weathermen and La Cosa Nostra while I was still in law school, and I knew to take his praise with a few grains of salt, and I wasn’t surprised to learn a few years later that he was using the same blandishments with Mark Pecora, an agent with extensive UC experience infiltrating outlaw biker clubs, the Pagans, and the like. Mark was the other main candidate for the opening.

  As I turned the 638 over—and over—in my hands, literally, and in my mind, figuratively, I attempted to persuade myself to submit it … then to tear it up … back and forth. The truth was, after ten years of nonstop full-time UC work, I had recently been taking some risks on the street that I knew were unwise. On the (somewhat) unconscious assumption that I was invincible, I had been preparing less and less for UC meets. Winging it, bluffing, ad-libbing. (Some ad-libbing was almost always called for, of course, but not as a substitute for adequate planning.) It had floated to the surface of my perceptions that this could only lead to a not very happy ending. But I loved the work. This was my calling. I had found, in this arcane vocation, the one job at which I could truly excel. I thought I could have been a good—even very good—tinker, or tailor, or soldier … but I was a great spy. One of the best. (Yes, an undercover is a spy; the terms are synonymous. Whether in the criminal world or in my next UC decade, the world of counterespionage, the job is to cross enemy lines, gather intelligence, report it, and try to get out in one piece.)

  I knew that the timing for a change was right—the cartoon hook was poised to yank the obsessed actor off the stage—and the headquarters job was virtually custom-tailored for me, but there was another issue, another way I might be able to convince myself and Steve that the timing was in fact wrong: I was in the middle of a Group II investigation (bizarrely, perhaps, this op’s official TITLE has faded from memory, and I now think of it as simply “The Fort Lauderdale Case”).

  Steve heard me out … made some phone calls … haggled … then called back a few days later. My section chief will authorize a waiver. If you’re selected, you come down here and start the new job … and you continue working the Group II. But, when it’s over, that’s it. No more UC roles! I would be the only supervisor in the FBI, now or ever, also working as an active undercover agent. No minor concession that. I was out of excuses. I said okay, if I’m selected, I’m your guy.

  A final factor in this decision: Despite my love of UC work, my dream assignment—a dream that coexisted side by side with my love of the mean streets had long been a posting overseas, preferably to Paris or Madrid or Buenos Aires, intended to cap off my career—it had eluded me for four years. Application after application had been turned down in favor of less qualified (from my perspective) candidates. Often candidates whose linguistic skills were limited to English. What they did have, however, were … positions in management. They were GS-14s or above—supervisors. In order to go home to Paris—the city of my birth—or to get to any other U.S. Embassy job, I would have to bite the bullet and join them in the labyrinthine bureaucracy. (The Hoover building itself is literally labyrinthine—an actual labyrinth, with countless elevator banks leading to innumerable halls, many of which suddenly come to a plasterboard dead end. The design seems deliberately calculated to foster the corresponding mind-set.)

  * * *

  Three months after I had agreed to apply for the Safeguard Unit job, it happened. Steve called again. Congratulations, Supervisor Ruskin! Steve meant well, but the words fell somewhat flat, grating as they did against my inherently anti-authoritarian inner self. I got the nod thanks to the diversity of my UC experience, from Wall Street to heroin dealing and a lot in between. Damn that diversity! The thought of turning down the promotion did cross my mind, but I really did believe I could make an overall contribution to the Bureau’s vital UC program. What’s more, the ongoing sting would significantly ease the transition. It was a good case that required me, case agent Joe Buzcek, and my UC girlfriend Christine Ridless (whose role also encompassed being my cute and bubbly blond administrative aide and secretary) to fly down to Fort Lauderdale once a month. That schedule would continue as promised.

  On the Bureau’s organization chart, Safeguard was slotted under “Headquarters,” but we didn’t actually work out of JEH. Knowing this made taking the job easier. Another factor that made taking the job easier: Although in practice this unit was operational—a subsection of the Operational Support Section—it was technically “management” and I would therefore receive credit for “Headquarters Time,” thus possibly furthering my ambition to land a job overseas. At the same time, I was working day-to-day in a pleasant commercial space, reasonably far from the palace intrigues and onerous upper-management oversight of JEH. Yet, as my duties called for liaison with many of the entities based inside the walls of JEH, I had ample opportunities to visit, network, and familiarize myself with the beehive, without being chained to one of its myriad cubicles. While on the one hand assuming a role where I could impact the FBI’s undercover operations nationally, I was simultaneously penetrating the opaque walls of the FBI nerve center, its central nervous system, if you will.

  * * *

  At Safeguard, I was initially one of six supervisory special agents, three veteran UCs and three psychologists. Then, after a year and a half, Acting Unit Chief. There were several motivations for setting up a more accountable framework for UC operations, of which this unit was a major component: a few operational debacles, some lawsuits, all finally prompting the Attorney General’s office to issue new guidelines for UC work.

  Comfortably ensconced at the covert off-site, I focused on the Unit’s mission: vetting prospective UC agents and then training the lucky few chosen for the job; supporting individual undercover agents nationwide; and enhancing the FBI undercover program itself. As the unit’s name reflects, it was created to safeguard undercover agents in the field—to serve as their safety net and to provide a source of last resort. And as to training, the recently inaugurated Undercover Certification Course was rigorous and serious.

  My friends at the Starlight Lounge, all veteran UC agents in full covert disguise from attire to facial expression, were guest instructors in that course, now enjoying a beer in the faux social club in Hogan’s Alley after a night of practical exercises. Whimsically recounting anecdotes from the streets and meets, the way other professionals on the outside might describe landing a big sales contract or negotiating a real-estate deal. Casual observation—and my casual description—of these guys in the Starlight Lounge might imply that UC work is playacting. Not quite. It is acting, but by this point in my career I had decided that the agent’s scam on the street works best if it touches something real in his or her makeup—method acting, if you will. (Some years earlier I had met Michael Dennehy, the primary UC agent who played the sheik in ABSCAM. His brother is Brian Dennehy, the gruff character actor. The thespian streak runs in that family.) Nor is UC work playing. Some of those whimsically recounted tales were about life-threatening situations.

  UCs tend to have big egos. Perhaps it’s even mandatory, this conviction that we can put on and take off the mask on a moment’s notice, that we can penetrate and then infiltrate any criminal enterprise, up to any level, with “controllab
le” risk and little psychological exposure. In film and fiction, UCs work long-term deep-cover investigations, develop seemingly close personal relationships with terrorist masterminds, Mafia bosses, cocaine cartel leaders. And then they are back home, sleeping soundly, satisfying healthy appetites, even-tempered, all’s well that ends well … So the big ego is mandatory but also dicey, because events may crack the façade on a moment’s notice, and there we are, hung out to dry.

  The Bureau learned the hard way. Following a successful two-year UC op targeting the mob’s pornography business in Miami, UC Pat Livingston was arrested for shoplifting. He was fired. The denouement? A well-publicized and embarrassing—for the Bu—segment featuring Pat on 60 Minutes. Following on a lucrative—for Pat—lawsuit against the Bu and BuManagement. His was one of the related lawsuits that motivated the chiefs to set up Safeguard.

  Hoover was not fond of the undercover technique. He foresaw what few others did: the personal toll that such work would have on the individual agent. Not simply the physical risks of injury from violent action—they are part and parcel of the lawman’s occupation—but the mental anguish, the contamination from overexposure to diseased minds.

  So there is a need for careful vetting and recruiting and training for UC work, and then there’s the need to monitor UCs in the long-term cases, operationally and psychologically. The driving force responsible for moving Safeguard beyond the “good idea, someone should do something” stage was Steven Band, a Special Agent with a doctorate in psychology and a true believer in providing a helping hand to undercover agents floundering behind enemy lines. Steven and a small team of psychologists conducted research to identify the risks inherent in working undercover, as well as to develop a profile for the personality traits associated with the “ideal” undercover. To identify those individuals who could successfully perform the arcane and unique tasks, and then egress unscathed.

  One can imagine a fictitious Performance Appraisal Ratings System: Rate employee’s ability to perform the following tasks: Lie to strangers. Gain the confidence of individuals in order for them to make self-destructive decisions. Work irregular hours in the company of hostile and ruthless individuals, perhaps with limited contact with family and friends …

  Steven’s team highlighted the psychological hazards inherent in such UC work, developing a “process [that] challenges the myths promulgated by popular culture portrayals of undercover operatives and inoculates, or protects, UCEs against the adverse impact of undercover stress” (FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, August 2008, p. 2).

  * * *

  For the personality evaluations, the Safeguard creators used standardized psychological tests, the FIRO-B, MMPI, etc., but developed their own scales and ranges to identify what they had determined would best suit the prototype of the “ideal UC.”

  The preferred personality traits included the following: extroverted, even charismatic; comfortable in social environments; a facility in earning the trust of others while at the same time cautious and somewhat skeptical in evaluating the motives of others; requiring minimal positive feedback. Overall: lots of characteristics associated with the ability to operate independently, a respect for rules (without an obsessive dependence on them), tolerance of stress, a reasonable degree of cynicism. Just because you’re a bit paranoid doesn’t mean you won’t be a “normal” UC.

  By the time I was assigned to work at Safeguard itself, I had been “safeguarded” (as it came to be referred to in UC agent slang) almost twenty times. By retirement, UCs such as Jack Garcia and myself had volumes of files, the weight of which made for a running joke whenever we showed up. (Steven Band had conducted my first assessment during the start-up of COMMCORR. This was before they had the covert office I was later to occupy. Steven flew up to New York and grilled me in the back of a van. When he took off his suit jacket, I was bemused. Imagine, a psychologist with a 9mm and two spare magazines in the belt pouch.)

  Undercover agents being undercover agents, the challenge became how to conceal any issues that could result in an unsuccessful “safeguarding.” For the “regulars,” the hundred or so full-time FBI UCs nationwide, Safeguard assessments were perceived as having significantly dissimilar outcomes: providing a helping hand in a time of need, or an obstacle to continuing in covert roles. The recommendation of “time assigned to routine agent work upon completion of the current Group I” would have been a dreaded result, to be avoided at all costs.

  * * *

  Perhaps this is the time in my story—ten years into UC work—to discuss my personal dark side, as I have encountered it. On a level of which I was not consciously aware, the personally taxing consequences of the previous decade may have put me on the road to Safeguard. In San Juan, pre-undercover, I had undergone a transition that set the stage for the rest of my FBI life. Initially overwhelmed at being a “combatant” and potential target of the Machetero terrorists, frightened at what would be the lot of an FBI agent taken prisoner, I developed a stress level sufficient to provoke strong doubts about my recent career change—assistant DA to FBI agent. And then I arrived at the critical determination, come what may: I will not be taken alive. The conviction released me from the stress. One fine moment, three months into my assignment in San Juan, I came out of my cocoon for good. I’ve described the scene: when I advanced, revolver drawn, on the shadow men in the cul-de-sac. That nighttime confrontation sealed the transformation. “Epiphany” is an overworked term, but that’s what this was. My usual equanimity returned. I had a calm confidence that I might die fighting but I would, at all costs, remain in control.

  It was in this same spirit that I received the counsel from my San Juan buddy Mike Castro some years later. A former Green Beret and big-city cop, the five-foot-six, hardcore UC projected the strength of a six-foot-five heavyweight. I was surprised when Mike told me he used his BuPistol, registered to the FBI, in UC ops (not a covert, untraceable handgun, such as my old Walther PPK).

  What if the bad guys see the serial number? Run it by a crooked cop or someone?

  “If they’re reading the serial number,” he replied, “you’ll already be dead.”

  Alas, that conviction not to be taken alive and the equanimity it conveyed couldn’t cover everything. Couldn’t come close. I don’t have nothing but rocks in my head! The moment in San Juan provided the mental and the emotional foundation for a uniquely hazardous career, but laying a foundation is only the first step. In COMMCORR, working deep cover in the stress of the chaotic exchange floor (even given no real perceived physical risk), taking on the chin the hostility of my employers, juggling the long hours consumed by working two jobs, in effect, as well as the sense of isolation—frankly, Jameson’s Irish Whiskey became an all-too-regular friend. Less than a week following the fifty-subject takedown of RUN-DMV—an episode particularly loaded with the emotionally charged confrontations with the subjects, as mandated by my supervisor Craig Dotlo—I arrived at my girlfriend’s house in Paris. Half a bottle later, I awoke long enough to fall down a flight of stairs. No injuries, miraculously, but after that: no more whiskey. Ever.

  Of course, my desire to succeed as an undercover, to prove myself, to be the best, was still immeasurable. Those who are not cut out for covert work, yet try it regardless, are pushed by this urge into making operational errors—they simply make too many mistakes, a little slip in preparation for a meet, unconvincing haggling, an impromptu slip of the tongue, an unconvincing reaction to an unexpected turn, sheer panic (remember Steve Kim, who froze at Holyland and could have gotten both of us killed on the spot). Any of these will almost certainly dead-end the case, at the very least.

  With me, it was different. With me, the greatest risk of all was emotional entanglement, an occupational vulnerability of which I was, at the time, totally unaware. No one had ever warned me, but regarding which I subsequently counseled innumerable rookie UCs. Regardless how high one scores in the “Strong Independent Character” trait on the Safeguard tests, the emotional ties that ev
olve day-to-day behind enemy lines take their toll. And I’m not talking about falling in love, which really would be catastrophic, either personally or for the op, or both. I’m talking about ordinary emotional ties. That’s what happened in RUN-DMV, which eventually featured (thanks to my zeal to succeed) a core of subjects whom I would see on almost a daily basis for two and a half years. And I allowed—no, I encouraged—bonds of friendship to develop. In my narration of that op, the name Julio Dominguez came up briefly. Julio was an easygoing Dominican runner with an understated sense of humor, a pleasure to be around. Almost anyone would have that reaction to Julio, he was just that kind of engaging guy. His feelings toward me were such that he invited me to his wedding. One doesn’t invite casual acquaintances to a wedding. Close friends, yes. It wasn’t a big wedding, and I didn’t go. I knew it would be inappropriate: I had gone well beyond gaining his confidence. I have to be in Miami that week, Julio, I’m really sorry but I can’t make it. That was fine, no hard feelings, we’ll miss you.