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“He didn’t show up, did he?” said Carlton with a laugh.
“No, he showed up, all right,” Harvath replied, “but with somewhere between twenty to forty men. They arrived, their faces blackened with soot, just before dawn at Quimby’s I
“I assume it didn’t end well. What happened?”
“They beat the sheriff and his deputy with tree switches, and then shaved the manes of their horses. And here’s the kicker: they cut off the horses’ ears to send a message and make them worthless.”
The Old Man screwed his face up in disgust. “That’s horrible.”
“I agree one hundred percent.”
“Were they ever caught?”
“You bet,” said Harvath, “and they were all prosecuted, but they only received a small fine. And because the punishment was so lenient, some think it encouraged more resistance and actually set the stage for the Boston Tea Party less than two years later.”
“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 perso
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 wi
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 pla
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.