Breaking Cover

by Michele Rigby Assad

His nonverbal behavior showed increased stress as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat and responded, “Asia.”

  “Where in Asia?”

  “All over, but primarily China.”

  I kept digging. “What type of emerging markets or industries in China?”

  “Ah, I really don’t know,” he said. “That’s why I bring in the bankers to answer those kinds of questions.”

  This was a major red flag. This was not a trick question. If you’re raising hundreds of millions of dollars for an investment, you’ll be able to tell potential clients some very basic things about the focus of the fund and the types of industries that you are investing in.

  I queried, “So who is the fund manager?”

  He said, “Denzel Pierson.”

  When I acted like I knew Mr. Pierson, Sunny got very nervous. He fidgeted again in his seat, as if the chair had suddenly gotten too hot to sit in. Then I said I didn’t actually know Mr. Pierson, but that I was curious and was definitely going to check him out. I wanted to know who he was if he was that successful.

  Sunny cleared his throat and said, “You won’t find anything about him online. There’s nothing there.”

  I decided to get a little confrontational with Sunny. This is so far outside my normal personality; I am actually uncomfortable challenging others in such an open and forthright manner. But when I’m after information and I smell a rat, it’s a hoot to assume a bolder and more forceful persona. I sat back in my chair, looked at Sunny with a furrowed brow, and said, “Well, that’s disturbing.”

  Sunny displayed significant agitation and said, “Why is that disturbing?”

  I said, “Because in this day and age, if you are running a private equity firm of this magnitude, earning this rate of return for seventeen straight years, then your name is going to be out there. For sure.”

  He said again, “Well, you won’t find anything.”

  I was really having fun now. I shook my head and offered a one-word response: “Disturbing.”

  As I dug for more details, beads of sweat appeared on Sunny’s forehead. He tore off the sweater he was wearing as the temperature in the room seemed to soar. Sweat rings had developed under his arms. He was doing such a poor job of holding his own that I actually felt bad for him, so I changed the topic of conversation, intending to return to business issues at a later time.

  Personal questions are simple to discuss if you are being honest about yourself and your background. This part of the conversation should have been pleasant and easy for Sunny, but it didn’t take long to figure out that not only was he short on details about the high-value business deals that he was drumming up on behalf of “Denzel Pierson,” he was short on details regarding his own life.

  When I asked Sunny about his background, he claimed to have been “US Special Forces.” When I asked which group, he said, “I was an Army Ranger and Green Beret.”

  I found this claim hard to believe, and I seriously doubted its validity. Someone referring to himself as a Green Beret is suspicious because that is not the group’s official title, nor is it how a member of one of the US Army Special Forces (Airborne) units normally refers to himself.

  When I mentioned having also served the US government and told him that I’d worked in multiple war zones, he got quiet. He looked at me with a cautious expression on his face, possibly trying to figure out if I was joking. I guess I didn’t look (to him) like the kind of person who’d really know anything about such dicey parts of the world. When I asked him where he served in the field, he couldn’t name any main operating bases or forward operating bases in Iraq or Afghanistan. And while he claimed to be an adviser to the Afghan government, he didn’t know a thing about Afghanistan, and he couldn’t tell me which Afghan ministry he worked with.

  Then Sunny let me in on a big secret. “I also get a paycheck from Langley,” he said with a wink and a nod. I guess he was going to cover up his lack of information about his own life with the explanation “Well, I can’t tell you that; it’s secret.”

  Sunny didn’t realize that he was telling a former undercover CIA officer who specializes in vetting people and information that he was a super-secret agent. I almost spit the pita and hummus out of my mouth. It was all I could do not to laugh. Sunny was setting his own traps and then happily walking right into them, not knowing what a spectacle this was turning out to be. His overzealous attempts to impress his audience were turning him into a caricature as he laid claim to the coolest references he could think of.

  Sunny had concocted quite the legend. He was a member of the Special Forces, a CIA intelligence officer, a private equity fund representative, a college graduate, and the CEO of his own military and logistics consulting firm based out of Houston—all at the same time. I ran the calculations, taking into account the amount of time he would have spent in college and the years he would have spent training for two separate special operations forces, the CIA’s clandestine training program, and the amount of time he’d worked for the investment firm. Having looked at Sunny’s LinkedIn profile, I calculated that if these claims were true, Sunny would have had to begin his illustrious career at the age of twelve. And this didn’t take into account the additional work experience he listed in his profile, which would have meant that Sunny had entered the workforce at the tender age of seven.

  But before I’d even run the numbers, Sunny’s terminology gave him away. CIA officers don’t actually refer to their employer as Langley, just as members of Army Special Forces don’t call themselves Green Berets. If he’d had any idea whom he was telling these tales to, he would have felt anything but cool.

  Sunny was a rookie liar, but he has probably made off with millions of dollars of other people’s money anyway. (Surprisingly, he admitted to me that he was “wanted” in Kuwait because of a bad business deal. I could only imagine how much money that might have involved.)

  For fun, I drew up a five-page assessment of Sunny and all of his claims (most of which I was able to debunk or seriously call into question). Aleksy was amused and grateful that Joseph and I were able to provide such a comprehensive assessment in such a short period of time. He obviously chose not to invest in Sunny’s fund but enjoyed allowing Sunny to pay for dinner, drinks, and the concert tickets he’d promised the potential investors.

  Like many imposters, Sunny was not particularly intelligent, so he relied on his charming personality and impressive persona to win people over. His methodology was that of a typical fabricator. First of all, he would overwhelm people with so much information that they didn’t have time to process or analyze it all. This is why scam artists are often referred to as fast talkers.

  Second, he relied on buzzwords, such as “Special Forces,” “Langley,” “Harley-Davidson,” and “emerging markets,” to grab and hold people’s interest. Next, he tried to make up for a lack of substance by projecting a certain appearance—that of a successful businessman. Sunny wore fancy designer clothes, threw around a lot of cash, and flitted around the Middle East on a private jet. Last but not least, Sunny tried to make people think they were joining an exclusive club and he was doing them a huge favor by allowing them to be a part of the wildly successful fund (i.e., the Bernie Madoff strategy).

  Sunny could have taken a few lessons from the CIA playbook. You must be able to defend your cover. If you make something up, you should keep it as close to real life as possible so you can remember the details of the legend you’ve created. It is important to be comfortable with your cover, as you may need to answer questions about it while under stress.

  And if people see sweat rings under your arms and beads of sweat on your brow, they may not buy what you’re selling. Some of Sunny’s best giveaways were his massive amounts of perspiration and his desperate attempts to redirect the conversation when asked questions of any depth about himself or his fund. It seems Sunny hadn’t gotten schooled in cover very well during his alleged stint at the CIA.

  I have to admit, I had a blast that evening.
Granted, it wasn’t the high-stakes, life-or-death counterintelligence work I was used to, but it was fun to flex my behavioral analysis muscles again.

  I guess it just goes to show you, you can take the girl out of the CIA, but . . .

  [7] “Country Comparison: Crude Oil—Proved Reserves” and “Country Comparison: Natural Gas—Proved Reserves,” The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2244rank.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2253rank.html.

  In April 2015, while working on our taxes and taking stock of our financial situation, Joseph and I had a sudden realization: We’d made such good progress in our careers as security consultants that we could probably work from anywhere in the world.

  As long as we were close to an airport, we could serve the interests of the consultancy, flying as needed to meet with clients, conduct investigations, and execute contracts. After we discussed this option with the UAE-based company, they agreed that we could spend more of our time in the United States and attempt to work from there.

  We couldn’t believe it. We had lived a nomadic life for almost fifteen years and could hardly conceive of the idea of putting down roots. I was in such shock at the possibility of living and working out of the United States, I could barely function for two days. Were we finally going home? Would we be able to live near family and friends?

  Despite my emotions, I didn’t want to do anything if it wasn’t part of the plan for our lives. We prayed for God’s direction, and much to our delight, we felt an overwhelming sense that this was what we were supposed to do.

  By June, we’d packed up our household effects and returned to Florida. We joked that although we’d had a home in central Florida since 2004, we’d only vacationed in it; we’d never actually lived full-time in the house since we had ping-ponged from one government assignment to another. That lifestyle had required an incredible amount of flexibility because we were in a continuous state of change, adaptation, and assimilation.

  Once we were home, I couldn’t believe how easy life was. Struggle had been such a big part of my existence, I had forgotten what it was like to fit in. I was used to being the foreigner, the infidel, or the only woman in the room. Now I could assimilate back to life in America and become an active member of my family again. We could celebrate birthdays and holidays together, something I’d missed for much of my adult life.

  Finally, we were going to be “normal.”

  And then . . .

  One afternoon while sitting in my living room folding clothes, I began to sing along to worship music. As I did, the following message popped into my head: Joseph, God’s going to use you to help save your people.

  The strange words obviously weren’t mine. I had no idea what God was telling us, but the words bubbled up inside of me and felt like they had to come out.

  It’s really weird to deliver a message that you don’t understand, that makes no sense to you. But I couldn’t hold it back. The words were meant to be spoken out loud. So I gave voice to the message.

  “Joseph, God’s going to use you to help save your people.”

  Joseph turned to look at me and said something like “What?”

  I let the words roll off my tongue again. “God’s going to use you to help save your people.” Then I gave him a look that basically screamed, I have no idea what I just said or what that means.

  I really didn’t.

  But we both knew this wasn’t a joke. It had to be a “God thing,” but we weren’t sure what he was directing us to do. We did agree on this: God’s call to Joseph felt very personal.

  Walking alongside other Middle Eastern believers might be considered part of Joseph’s birthright, since his family traces its Christian lineage back to the first few centuries AD. His father was a pastor, and from a young age, Joseph was exposed to his parents’ humanitarian and ministry work with orphans and widows. He also learned how difficult it is to serve other people in a country where many such activities are considered illegal.

  As a child, he endured taunts and threats from classmates. Later, the Egyptian government made it painfully clear to him that he was not entitled to the same rights as Muslims under Shari’a law.

  After graduating high school, Joseph spent a year crisscrossing the United States with nine other international students through a program called Missionaries to America. As a high school senior, he had completed the national exam used to determine students’ course of study. Based on his good test scores and English proficiency, Joseph planned to enroll in the country’s well-respected College of Tourism when he returned from the tour.

  Yet when he and his father attempted to register him for classes, they were told that when he deferred his college entrance by a year, his paperwork had been sent to another university. After going from office to office in multiple institutions and governorates throughout Egypt, they were referred to the Ministry of Education’s student placement office in Cairo. Frustrated at the tangled mess, Joseph said to the administrator, “I don’t understand what’s going on here. Why won’t you let me register in any of these universities?” With a grimace, the administrator finally said what no one else would: “You don’t understand, Joseph George Assad?”

  By referencing Joseph’s three-part name, which clearly reflects a Christian heritage, the administrator was indirectly informing Joseph and his father that the treatment he was receiving was due to his religious identity.

  Joseph pushed back, asking, “Is it because I’m a Christian?”

  The unfriendly administrator curtly responded, “Well, I didn’t say it; you did.”

  Desperate to enroll Joseph in university, his parents started looking into private institutions. But even those colleges were unable to obtain the requisite paperwork from Cairo in order to consider his application. The central office from which Joseph and his father received the verbal rejection had stamped Joseph’s education file with the words Gher maqbul, which means “not to be admitted” or “rejected.”

  The shock of being denied admission to the university sent Joseph reeling. What had he done to deserve this? What would happen next? Education was everything in Egypt, and without it, he had no future.

  The answer came from an unlikely place. A youth pastor in central Florida had met Joseph when he visited her church, and had stayed in touch with him. When she discovered he’d been unable to register at university, she felt compelled to act. She reached out to the president of Palm Beach Atlantic College (now Palm Beach Atlantic University), the school her sons had attended, and explained Joseph’s predicament. She included a video she had shot of Joseph telling his story when he was in Florida. She asked the college president a bold question: Would PBA consider giving Joseph a scholarship so he could come to the United States to get his education?

  Her entreaty paid off, and Joseph was offered a full-tuition scholarship to attend the college. The youth pastor’s church rallied around him too, providing money for airfare, books, and living expenses until Joseph could begin to support himself. He had never forgotten the church’s generosity.

  Not surprisingly, given his parents’ example and the assistance he himself had received, Joseph and I had helped several Middle Eastern Christians over the years with financial support, educational scholarships, and advice. We’d helped desperate converts find refuge before their families could kill them for “rejecting” Islam. (According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2014, fourteen out of twenty countries in the Middle East and North Africa criminalized apostasy, or abandoning one’s faith.[8] Eighty-eight percent of Muslims in Egypt and 62 percent of Muslims in Pakistan supported the death penalty for people who leave Islam. A majority of Muslims in Malaysia, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories share this view.[9])

  We also tried to help Christians who were under pressure to become Muslims. In one case, Muslim neighbors were trying to force a Christian family to convert to Islam. When the family
refused, the neighbors beat the husband to death. We provided financial support to the mother and her four children, who were taken in and protected by a local Christian ministry.

  Joseph and I had promoted philanthropy that advanced the legal, cultural, and economic positions of Christian minorities in the Muslim world. We’d designed microeconomic projects to promote food security and economic stability among Christian farmers and agriculturists in North Africa. But none of these projects were on the scale that the message I’d received seemed to suggest. We’d just have to wait and see what God had in mind for us. As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait long.

  About a month after returning to Florida, I felt a strong urge for Joseph to contact a friend with whom he had worked in the human rights and religious freedom sector. He had kept in occasional contact with her through the years.

  Weeks went by and we got busy. Joseph forgot to call. Yet the “feeling” that we needed to make this connection grew stronger each time it popped into my head. It got to the point that it was driving me a little batty. I told him, “Please, Joseph, contact your friend. You need to speak with her now.”

  Joseph finally sent her an e-mail in mid-July. We quickly discovered that the urgency I felt to make this connection must have been spurred on by the Holy Spirit.

  She responded to Joseph, saying, “You could not have contacted me at a more critical time.” She had just been brought into a special project by Hollywood producer Mark Burnett. Mark had been seeking ways that he and his wife, actress and producer Roma Downey, could support persecuted Christians in the Middle East. They began by funding projects to support families displaced by ISIS. But soon it came to their attention that some Iraqi Christians felt they could no longer remain in the Middle East. Several groups asked for help finding countries willing to give them refuge from the genocide.

  Mark and Roma assembled a small team to support this work. They didn’t create a company or an NGO; it was simply an ad hoc group of people with shared passions and “get it done” attitudes, people specializing in advocacy, education, marketing, and fund-raising.