Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story

by Jack Devine

  Our first step was to assemble a staff. From the start we made a decision that would shape the direction of our company and our business model. Rather than hire people with a narrow regional focus or a particular technical expertise, we recruited very smart generalists who had advanced degrees from top universities, understood international dynamics, had traveled and lived abroad, and had a track record of high performance. Many of our staff have served in the U.S. government in various demanding foreign policy and national security capacities. We wanted people who could communicate with business clients at the senior executive level and ride herd over our eclectic network of intelligence contacts all over the globe.

  When we started, our network relied for a while on former American intelligence officers. After several months of using these sources, I realized that no matter how much I liked them, it was important, for reasons of substance and economics, to go directly to the sources on the ground. We soon created a leaner organization by working with local contacts who had direct access to the information we needed. We quickly came to understand that there are seasoned in-country intelligence assets and investigative companies of various sizes and shapes all around the world. Many of our sources came from the local intelligence, legal, media, and law enforcement fields. As we worked more closely with these people, we realized that each one of them had his own network of contacts, which created a multiplier effect for us.

  Finding the local intelligence collectors, vetting them, and establishing relationships is what in the CIA we used to call “developmental work.” Our network has been painstakingly assembled over the past decade with a firm eye on quality and accountability. We have learned where to look for in-country contacts and how to manage them once they are brought on board. Many former senior intelligence and police officials around the world have set up consulting firms that themselves rely on a pool of contacts and reliable sources in the private sector. At TAG, I made it a habit of joining a number of international associations, where I was able to establish lasting relationships and friendships with a wide range of diverse operators. It is probably no overstatement to say that this core group of several hundred contacts represents tens of thousands of sources around the world. Our network also includes all types of specialists, such as forensic accountants, who follow complex money trails, and a corporate psychiatrist, who can analyze the personalities involved in a business dispute and identify which buttons to push and which to avoid. We have used Navy SEAL and Delta Force reservists for global security. Today there isn’t a location in the world where we can’t put together a tailored network of resources.

  Another resource for identifying reliable sources in far-flung places is the Council of International Investigators (CII). Membership requires more than simply paying annual dues, and candidates are vetted carefully.

  One additional valuable aspect of CII membership is the council’s conferences and events, at which you can make contacts and get to know potential sources. In October 2012, I participated in a CII conference at a game drive lodge in South Africa, not far from the border with Botswana. It provided an excellent opportunity to catch up with a number of investigative and intelligence contacts worldwide. Some of these experienced private investigators, or PIs, work with us on our foreign cases, obtaining detailed due-diligence records and commentary about individuals and companies of interest to us. This trip also allowed me to meet several of our more sensitive sources in Johannesburg and Cape Town outside the confines of the conference. Most of these sources specialize in the African continent and the Middle East and cover highly compartmented and complicated competitive intelligence issues.

  One of the fascinating guest speakers at the conference was the renowned game tracker Ian Thomas, who has taken his lifetime of experience hunting lions and has made it a metaphor for the business world. His talk reminded me of certain aspects of the “good hunting” theme, especially his belief that we can learn much from the hunting approach of lions, which is deeply rooted in teamwork. The lioness’s pride (social group) is designed for survival in the bush. Each member of the pride has a distinct and crucial role to play in order to ensnare its prey. Teamwork is likewise a key ingredient of good hunting in clandestine operations.

  When we reached Cape Town, Pat and I took a side trip to the Mulderbosch Vineyard, which we helped a client evaluate in the run-up to its purchase several years ago. It is located in an amazingly picturesque location in the wine-growing Stellenbosch Valley. The general manager, Chrianto, and his wine expert, Lucinda, treated us to a traditional South African braai (barbecue), which included thick ostrich steaks and wildebeest sausages. These delicacies were accompanied by a wine-tasting session under a large oak tree overlooking the estate. The wines were exquisite, especially the Chardonnay. The taste of the wine and food was enhanced by knowing that The Arkin Group had had a role in its acquisition.

  On occasion, a new client will wrongly assume I can reach into CIA files and pluck out classified data. I’ve never gone back to foreign intelligence contacts for information, and I have never contacted people who I know are CIA assets. To the contrary, TAG’s network has been built through challenging cases and the development of new foreign sources.

  When traveling, and when circumstances permit, I like to pay a call on local friends as a courtesy and to pass on my well wishes. On a trip to Europe, a highly skilled woman operator was most gracious in coming out to meet me despite her hectic schedule. For an hour we chatted about times past and the challenges facing the world today. We also chatted about the Agency flap in Paris in the mid-1990s that placed a strain on the relations between French and American services. It was good to learn that in the aftermath of 9/11 we had returned to our more traditional, close relationship with our French allies.

  I wasn’t anticipating or looking for surveillance. However, I did sense there was something odd in the environment, but I let it go, since this was not a clandestine meeting or a confidential discussion. Sometime later, when she was back in the United States, she noted that during the Paris meeting she, too, had thought she detected surveillance, by a French couple seated nearby who were intently trying to eavesdrop. We both had a good chuckle about it. I suspect this was not the first time some of my old friends and foes decided to keep an eye on me, even though they know full well my interests nowadays are commercial.

  I had had that same sense that I was not alone when Pat and I were passing through London on vacation some years earlier. Pat and I were browsing in a Camden antiques market when it began to rain. Rather than the typical light London drizzle, this was a New York rainstorm, so we quickly ducked into a store with a one-room showroom and wooden chairs hanging along the walls. Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness jumped in right behind us, with two bodyguards in tow, although I did not recognize him immediately. There is indeed a sixth sense that gets honed in the spy business, the feeling that something is wrong even if you cannot immediately spot the problem. This was one of those moments. I instinctively stayed clear of him and did not extend any greeting. I soon realized who he was. For his part, he, too, had spent a fair amount of time in the clandestine world and must have felt something was not quite right with his fellow rain dodgers. For a good twenty minutes, he looked at one end of the hanging chairs, and I looked at the other. There were only a few chairs on each wall, but somehow we both knew that we were not going to have a discussion, even if a bolt of lightning hit the front window. The shop owner must have been convinced that surely one of us would buy a chair, given our intense interest in them. To avoid any misunderstanding, I reported the encounter through appropriate channels. The answer I got back was, “We know.”

  When starting TAG, right away we had two important cases that helped get the operation up and running. One client was a multinational company that had been massively defrauded by local construction firms in Asia. For good reason, the client suspected that it was being undercut by a competitor in collusion with the local government. We uncovered, deciphered,
and analyzed a raft of documentation and found evidence of fraud. Then we cultivated local sources who helped us understand the reputation and business practices of the construction firm. Our client filed a lawsuit, which was ultimately resolved in its favor.

  The other was a sensitive case for a mining company with an extensive manufacturing operation in Asia. The client’s concern was that it had made a significant infrastructure investment in an area that had become embroiled in civil unrest—a local insurgency, labor strife, student revolutionaries, and unpredictable government rulings. Rather than pulling up stakes, the client had us use strategic intelligence to help it stay in front of events and respond quickly to the unexpected. We put together a network of people on the ground to monitor events and anticipate developments, then passed regular briefings through operatives in Manila and London to ensure operational security. The retainer was substantial in both these cases and allowed us to build our staff quickly.

  Another early case that mostly featured Stanley’s talents involved his representation of the Russian-born banker Natasha Kagalovsky, who headed up the Eastern Europe Division at the Bank of New York and was one of the most prominent Western bankers in Moscow. The bank had placed her on leave on the grounds that the FBI suspected her involvement in a Russian money-laundering scheme. Although Kagalovsky was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, Stanley’s initial efforts to negotiate with the bank on her behalf were rebuffed. Looking to create some leverage, Stanley flew to Moscow to meet with a Russian human rights lawyer, who agreed to bring a case against the bank there. Once it was filed, Stanley held a press conference in Moscow with more than a hundred Russian journalists and said he was seeking justice for his client, who had been mistreated by the Bank of New York only because she was Russian. The Bank of New York settled with Kagalovsky shortly thereafter.

  Less than a year later, in February 2001, I found myself reflecting on Russian counterintelligence yet again after the FBI discovered that one of its own agents, Robert Hanssen, was the second mole. I had known of a second mole during my final years at the Agency, and had carried this troubling secret with me when I walked out of headquarters. I’d felt a deep sense of regret that I hadn’t been able to help apprehend the traitor. All this came flooding back when FBI agents apprehended Hanssen at Foxstone Park in Vienna, Virginia, while trying to tape a garbage bag full of classified data to the underside of a footbridge. His only comment was, “What took you so long?”

  Robert Hanssen became an FBI agent in 1976. Three years later he contacted the Soviet military service GRU for the first time and offered his services. He spent more than two decades as a spy for the Russians, working under the pseudonym Ramon Garcia. His relationship with Russian intelligence agencies shifted over the years among the GRU, the KGB, and its successor, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) depending on his sense of a personal threat to his own well-being and his warped mental state. In the mid-1980s he became part of the FBI’s sensitive unit designed to identify Russian spies in the United States. It was an ideal spot for a mole.

  During his time working with the Russians, Hanssen did immense damage to our national security. His treachery may have exceeded that of Aldrich Ames. He passed on the identities of our most valuable and sensitive Russian agents, including the CIA penetrators Valery Martynov and Sergei Motorin, who were unknown to Ames. All these agents were later executed. Hanssen also compromised sensitive MASINT (electronic intelligence).

  One of Hanssen’s more aggressive acts was to compromise the FBI investigation into Felix Bloch, a seasoned State Department official who was under suspicion of being a Russian agent. Bloch had been spotted by French intelligence in 1989 passing material to a known KGB operative. Eight days after that pass, Hanssen alerted the KGB that the FBI was onto Bloch. The KGB officer told Bloch, “A contagious disease is suspected,” after which Bloch broke off all further contact with the Russians. While Bloch wasn’t prosecuted, the State Department fired him and denied him his pension.

  Regrettably, by 1998 the FBI had come to believe that one of the CIA’s top-notch counterintelligence officers, Brian Kelley, was the Russian mole. Although I was abroad in the late 1990s and had no visibility into this investigation, it is my understanding that the FBI came to the conclusion that Kelley was one of very few people who could possibly have known about Bloch and the KGB meeting witnessed in France, and that therefore he must have been the one who leaked it to the Russians. For whatever reason, they never turned the mirror inward and looked at who at the Bureau might have known about it, even though by then Hanssen had raised a number of security flags that might have attracted suspicion. Kelley had worked for me earlier in his career. He was a stand-up officer and the last person one would have suspected of spying for the enemy. He had none of the security warts that Hanssen and Ames had. Nonetheless, the FBI put him and his family through the ringer during more than two years of surveillance, wiretaps, and interrogations. Kelley said that during one four-hour interrogation session in 1999, he told his FBI questioners, “Your facts are wrong. Your conclusions are wrong. Your underlying hypothesis is wrong”—to no avail. None of his colleagues who knew him well would have ever included Kelley on a suspect list, as officers had done with Ames.

  Hanssen was eventually compromised in November of 2000 by one of the CIA’s Russian sources. While the file didn’t include his name, all the telltale indicators were there, including audio of a voice that the FBI agents were able to recognize as Hanssen’s. From that point forward, the Bureau undertook a very careful investigation of Hanssen, placing him under full-time surveillance. It even smartly had one of his FBI subordinates, Eric O’Neill, download information off Hanssen’s Palm PDA, which contained damning evidence of his espionage activities.

  In July 2001, Hanssen pleaded guilty to fifteen counts of espionage-related charges and was sentenced to life in prison, where he remains today in Florence, Colorado. The supermax federal penitentiary where he serves his time is the most secure prison in the country, which houses the worst of the worst, including serial killers, Mafia and drug cartel heads, al-Qaeda members such as Zacarias Moussaoui and Umar Abdulmutallab, and domestic terrorists Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski. It is a fitting home for the perpetrator of the worst counterintelligence disaster in U.S. history.

  When Hanssen’s life was investigated in great detail, the picture that surfaced was of a true oddball who had many traits similar to those of Ames, including being the son of a difficult father. Hanssen had a split personality that vacillated between religious zealotry and sexual deviation. Despite his professed religiosity, he had a quirky sex life, to say the least. He made it a regular practice to videotape his sexual activities with his wife, Bonnie, and proceeded to share them with his neighbor, eventually even transmitting these sex tapes via closed-circuit TV.

  For his lifetime of spying for the Russians, Hanssen received only $1.4 million in blood money. While this is not an insignificant amount of money, its value is diminished considerably when you consider that it was spread out over approximately twenty years by his Russian employers. By all accounts, the money did not fundamentally change Hanssen’s middle-class lifestyle. If he had altered his behavior, it could have been a tip-off to his FBI colleagues. The limited role that money played in his actions is important to keep in mind when evaluating his motivation for betrayal. For Ames, deep psychological dysfunction was the real motivating factor. Both Ames and Hanssen had a deep-seated resentment of their superiors for not recognizing their misperceived brilliance and talent. This was the imperative behind Hanssen’s aberrant behavior. This powerful psychological issue, along with his distorted sense of self-importance and narcissism, drove him to become a highly damaging Russian mole against his own country. In its simplest form, it provided an opportunity for revenge and for inflating his ego. Interestingly enough, many of these same vulnerabilities are what CIA operatives look for in sizing up potential targets in foreign governments.

 
* * *

  Seven months after Hanssen’s arrest, with the business Stanley and I had created starting to take off, I set up a meeting with Ken Sagat, a talented lawyer and client with whom we had worked on a number of cases. It was September 11, 2001. As I arrived at our downtown meeting location in a taxi, I noticed a long line of Town Cars pulled to the side of the street, with drivers talking frantically on their cell phones. It was clear something troubling was happening. I asked my driver to turn on the radio, where it was reported that a Cessna aircraft had smashed into one of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. I was saddened by the inevitable loss of life, but I imagined a very different scenario than the one unfolding. If I had known it was a commercial aircraft, I would have drawn a very different conclusion. Sagat and I reflected on the tragedy and then headed to a nearby coffee shop to discuss a commercial matter in Brazil. We sat down next to a large glass window, one of the worst things you can do in a terrorist setting. Over the next hour, we were in an oblivious bubble as the second of the Twin Towers and then the Pentagon were struck by commercial aircraft. The day would end with four planes hijacked and nearly three thousand people killed in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. We were finally shaken from our conversation when the South Tower collapsed in a thunderous cloud. Executives in expensive suits staggered into the coffee shop covered with dust from head to toe. All around were scenes of sheer terror. Then the second tower fell. It immediately was clear that this was a major terrorist event, and my mind went back to the fatwa that Bin Laden had put out in 1996. I couldn’t help wonder if this was his doing. I still did not know what specifically had happened, however. I spotted a bank of pay phones and placed a call to Pat, who told me about the horrific scenes she had just seen on TV. As I walked up the FDR Drive with thousands of other New Yorkers, looking over my shoulder to see those two buildings gone, I knew that life would never be the same for any of us. This event would have an enormous effect on the political, economic, and military life of our country. The full impact of September 11, and the actions taken in Iraq and Afghanistan, and all the actions taken here at home, will not be fully understood for generations to come.