The Unexpected Spy

by Tracy Walder

  “Los Angeles!” I said, and waved my arms, smiling.

  This was better than I’d hoped as Santa Ana, a city in Los Angeles County, was only ten minutes from my parents. The fact that I was being sent to a resident agency was odd, though. Usually only experienced agents were sent to resident agencies, as they were small units, less supervised but highly active.

  Once the class was dismissed, I approached Bart at the front of the room.

  “Can I ask you something?” I asked.

  Bart tilted his head, eyes rolled toward the ceiling with impatience.

  “I can come back another time,” I said.

  “Schandler, do you know why I’m irritated with you right now?” Bart straightened his head and looked me in the eye.

  “Hmmm, can’t say that I do.” It was anyone’s guess. Maybe my teeth were too white and he had issues with the glare.

  “Your cheering over Los Angeles was in poor taste considering not everyone got their first choice.” Bart nodded once, as if to add force to his words.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. Most people got their first choice. And most cheered much louder than I had.

  “Think about other people, will you?” Bart said.

  “Yes, sir.” I looked down at my envelope. “Can you just tell me why I got a residence agency? Do you know what I’ll be doing there?”

  Bart picked up his binder, which was on the podium, closed it, and mumbled to me as he walked away, “You’re in counterintelligence.”

  And that was the end of the conversation.

  No one was in the room. I opened the envelope again and read the paper.

  No matter what had gone down at Quantico, in the end, the FBI got it right by putting me in a resident agency in my hometown. I needed a safe home base where I could start the work of changing things for women within the FBI.

  FOURTEEN

  THE GIRL

  Orange County, California September 2004–August 2005

  Hate speech is protected by the U.S. Constitution. But threatening to hang and kill people is not. I was doing a rotation in cybercrime when someone started making death threats on the internet to members of a black sorority. Immediately, I focused in on bringing down this idiot. In my mind, he was worse than any jihadist in al-Qaeda. Statistically, the person who makes these kinds of threats is most likely to be a white man who was born and raised in America. In other words, he’d have had many opportunities and ways to not become a hating, racist moron.

  It didn’t take long to find the address from which these messages were being sent. The guy I was then working with, Todd, and I drove to the house in my FBI-issued vehicle: a boat-sized white Buick with black-tinted windows. Like something a drug dealer might drive. Todd fiddled with the radio and talked about a movie he’d seen the night before with his girlfriend. She’d come into the office one day, and I was struck by how much she and Todd looked alike. Both had honey-colored hair, square jaws, and tight, compact bodies. So far, Todd had seemed like a fine partner in that he wasn’t too bossy or controlling. Since he was more senior than me, Todd was in charge while I was learning the ways of cybercrime.

  Our suspect’s suburban bungalow was run-down, with peeling paint and dead shrubs. The lawn was mowed, however, and the cement walkway appeared to have been swept. Also, there was a plastic floral wreath hanging on the front door. Someone was trying to make this feel like a happy home.

  “I’m going to let you take the lead on this.” A wooden toothpick bobbed in Todd’s mouth as he spoke. I knocked on the door, and Todd tossed the toothpick into the dead shrubbery. I watched it sail.

  “Wood. Biodegradable,” he said.

  A stout woman with neatly shorn brownish-gray hair opened the door. If you put an apron and a bonnet on her she might have looked like Old Mother Hubbard. She smiled, her eyes blinking. Todd and I, in suits, couldn’t have looked very threatening. And she, with her cheeks folded into little cherry tomatoes and her crinkle-edged eyes, was probably not the white supremacist we were looking for. More likely she was the walk-sweeper and plastic wreath–hanger.

  “Hello.” Even her singsong voice was Mother Hubbard–like.

  “Ma’am.” I smiled and flashed the FBI badge that was clipped to my holster. “We’re with the FBI. Can we ask you a few questions?”

  “Oh!” Her shoulders rose a little, as if she were excited. “Is it about them?” She pointed her chin and eyes to the two-story stucco house across the street.

  “May we come in?” I was still smiling at her. Once we were in the house, I could probe deeper. It’s much harder to get someone out of your house than it is to dismiss them in the doorway.

  “Of course.” She leaned her head out a little, as if to see how many of us there were, and then stepped back and opened the door wide.

  The inside of the house reflected the outside. Tidied, neatened, but run-down. Order above aesthetics.

  She sat on the floral sofa, and I sat on the chair beside her. Todd remained standing, his body positioned where the living room and hall met. If anyone wanted to run, they’d have to go out a window.

  “Do you live alone?” I asked.

  Mother Hubbard told me about her lovely nineteen-year-old son, whom she called A.J. He worked at a Quiznos sandwich shop and always helped around the house when asked.

  I explained that threatening emails were being sent to a black sorority and that I had traced the server to a computer in her house.

  Mother Hubbard brought a hand to her mouth. She looked genuinely surprised.

  “No!” she exclaimed. “It couldn’t be A.J. A.J. would never do something like that. He loves all people! He even mows the lawn of, you know, those people across the street.”

  I sensed that I didn’t want to know what she had against the neighbors across the street, so I didn’t ask.

  “Has he fallen in with some new friends lately? People who might influence him?”

  “I swear to you on my Bible,” Mother Hubbard said. “My son would never, ever do anything as awful as that!” Her eyes were glassy, as if she were about to cry with sincerity.

  “Do you mind if we take a look at his room?” I asked.

  Mother Hubbard walked Todd and me down the short hallway. The thin hollow door had a patch mark in the middle where maybe it had been punched through and then repaired. She opened the door. I walked in, and Todd remained in the doorway with Mother Hubbard behind him. Hanging over the tightly made bed (one of Mrs. Hubbard’s morning chores, I presumed) was a giant Nazi flag: bright red, with a white circle, the center of which had a ruler-sharp, black swastika.

  Todd and I looked at each other. I glanced back toward Mother Hubbard, who flashed a closed-mouth smile at me. She was either one of the dumbest people I’d ever met or one of the most cunning.

  “Is A.J. at work now?” I asked.

  “Yes, he’ll be there until three thirty,” she said.

  “Is it the Quiznos next to the Shell station?” Todd asked.

  “Yes, it is,” Mother Hubbard said.

  I drove fast, as I was worried A.J.’s mother would tip him off before we got there.

  “Well, that was a devoted woman,” I said.

  Todd did his singsong imitation of her voice and said, “Not my son! My son would NEVER do something like that!”

  I pulled up as close to the front door as I could get.

  “Why don’t you go in and get him to talk to us out here?” Todd said. “No reason to make a scene at work.”

  I got out of the car and looked back at Todd. Why not make a scene at work? The guy was posting statements online saying he wanted to hang black sorority women. A scene at work seemed like an underwhelming response to the gravity of his actions.

  Todd waved his hand as if to shoo me in. He got out of the car, and I stepped into the Quiznos. It wasn’t hard to pick out A.J. with his blond, closely shorn hair; neckline acne; and stooped shoulders. He was working with an older woman and a girl who couldn’t have been older tha
n sixteen. There was a line at the counter. I walked to the front of the line where the young woman was ringing up a sandwich, flashed my badge, and asked if she could send A.J. out to speak to me.

  The woman’s mouth dropped open. She finished the transaction. Then she turned around and said to A.J., who was putting a layer of meat on 12 inches of bread, “Uh, you need to go outside and talk to this lady right now.”

  A.J. looked over at me. I flashed the badge. The other customers, strangely, all focused on choosing their ingredients and didn’t seem to notice. A.J.’s face reddened from the neck up, like a rising elevator of blood. He abandoned the sandwich and came outside. Todd nodded toward A.J., and the three of us went around the corner so we were at the side of the building, alone. A.J.’s shoulders were even more stooped now. He was taller than both of us, skinny as a piece of licorice.

  Todd lifted his hand, thumb up and pointer finger out, making the shape of a gun. He waved that hand in front of A.J.’s face and gave him a stern, angry lecture. Anyone watching this would have thought he was a furious father laying into his kid. But the situation, as I saw it, called for much more than an older man giving a young man the what-for. This kid should have been arrested. And charged. We knew from his posts, and from my research, that he was a lone wolf in his crimes. So we wouldn’t have gotten a chain of white supremacists out of him. But still. A finger wagging? This did not sit well with me.

  Back in the car I was silent. Enraged. I felt like I’d fallen into the position of the obedient wife who let her husband mete out the punishment he felt was right for the occasion.

  “You don’t think we should have arrested him?” I finally said, just as we were pulling into the rooftop parking lot of our small office.

  “So he could go to prison and learn how to be a real criminal?” Todd got out of the car and waited for me.

  “He already is a real criminal,” I said. At this point my anger had turned inward. I wished I could have a do-over so I could arrest A.J. myself; let Todd try to unarrest him!

  “You keep watching him,” Todd said. “I guarantee he’ll shut it down.”

  It seemed to me Todd couldn’t guarantee anything of the sort. Yes, I’d keep watching A.J. And Mother Hubbard, too, that sly, plump woman who loved her son. And, maybe, I’d keep an eye on Todd as well.

  Todd had no problem arresting the next suspects we approached just a couple of weeks later. At five in the morning, Todd and I met at a Starbucks a few blocks from the suspects’ house. The single Starbucks employee, a sleepy-eyed boy, opened the door, let us in, and poured me my venti dark roast with no room for milk or sugar. Within a few minutes, the 12 other agents we had called for backup filed in as well. Everyone had on a bulletproof vest with an FBI windbreaker over it. I got a second cup of coffee while the others lined up for their first. Armed with caffeine and Glocks, we huddled around a table so that Todd could debrief the group. No one else was in the shop. The employee was trying to do the work of filling napkin dispensers and wiping down tables, but he was having a hard time keeping his eyes off us. Todd only spoke when the employee was behind the counter, out of hearing distance.

  The couple we were going to pick up was illegally downloading and then selling theatrical release movies. They lived in a neighborhood of large, two-story, three-car-garage homes. We didn’t expect them to have firearms or to shoot at us, but you never know when one’s fortune is at stake and prison looms. Hence the vests, the extra bodies, the methodical planning of the takedown.

  At 6:00 a.m. exactly, we were in our positions surrounding the house. Every window and door was within sight or reach of an armed agent. Todd and I were at the front door. He knocked, and then we both turned to our sides, out of the range of gunfire if it were to explode through the frosted glass.

  There was no explosion. Instead, a shirtless, middle-aged man who had more hair on his belly than on his head opened the door and looked out.

  Todd flashed his badge, did the talking, and detained him while I went to find the wife.

  She was in the bedroom, standing at the end of the bed in a white cotton nightgown. Her hair was a tangled nest around her head, the way most long hair is after a full night of sleep. The woman’s belly jutted out. I had seen her in social media photos all over the internet, and we’d staked out the house, too, so I’d seen her through the windows. I’d even watched her getting in and out of her car. Fully dressed in fashionable swing dresses and drapey tops over leggings, she had hidden this pregnancy beautifully.

  I flashed my badge, announced my reason for being there, and then recited the Miranda warning as I handcuffed her. The woman stood, wobbling slightly.

  “You’ve got the wrong people,” she said quietly. “We didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

  “I’m going to have to pat your belly to make sure it’s just your belly,” I said.

  She was tearing up. “It’s a girl.”

  Her belly was hard, taut, and there was a small shifting, a kick, as I ran my hand over it.

  “Did you feel that?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” I had to smile.

  And then she started fluttering her eyelids, as if she might pass out. I sat her on the bed and called to a guy named Jose, who was in the hallway outside the bedroom. He leaned his head in.

  “Can you stay with her while I get her some orange juice or something?”

  Jose came in, and I went to the kitchen. Large, sunny, and white, it was like something out of an ad in a home magazine. There was an open bag of bagels on the cutting board. I took a knife from the holder, sawed one in half, and then went to the fridge to find cream cheese. It was exactly where I keep it: in the butter shelf, a tub of the easily spreadable, fluffy stuff.

  There was no orange juice, so I poured a glass of water and took that and the bagel, wrapped in a paper towel, into the bedroom.

  Jose stood by as I re-cuffed the woman so her hands were in front of her, allowing her to eat the bagel. We both watched as she ate, teared up, sniffed, and took another bite. Occasionally she muttered, “It wasn’t me. I swear.”

  Later that day I visited Todd at his desk.

  “Hey,” I said, and I waited for him to look up from his paperwork.

  “Hey.” He finally made eye contact, his pen poised above the papers.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t put me only with women—or the people you think are harmless—during these arrests. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with the bad guys. I mean, I’ve dealt with the worst.” After what had gone down at Quantico, I wasn’t about to bring up the CIA and the fact that I’d debriefed some of the most notorious terrorists the world has ever known.

  “Alcoholic dad?” Todd asked.

  “No, not at all,” I said.

  “Okay. Whatever.” Todd shrugged and looked back at his papers.

  The next time we barged into a cozy domestic scene like that was when we went after a plastic surgeon for insurance fraud. Essentially, he was giving breast jobs to women and charging the insurance companies for lumpectomies or other noncosmetic procedures.

  It was early morning again. As we swooped into the house, his wife screamed over and over again, “I’m calling the police! I’m calling the police!” She waved her cell phone in the air and then dialed 9-1-1, punching the numbers with great drama and flair.

  “Ma’am.” I stood beside her.

  She was panting into the phone as it rang. “I’m calling the police!” she shouted.

  “Ma’am, we are the police.” I scanned the room for Todd but couldn’t find him. I wanted him to see that, once again, all the guys assumed that I’d be the person to attend to the woman and none of them had even glanced her way.

  “I’m calling the police!” she shouted again, then looked at the phone, as someone at 9-1-1 had clearly answered. “Yes, there are people in our house!”

  “The FBI,” I said. “Tell the person that the FBI is in your house.” Everyone, other than she and her husband, was wearing a windbreake
r with FBI printed on the back in 3,000-point font.

  “I want the police,” she said to me. And then she shook her head, confused, and hung up the phone.

  “Tracy,” Todd called me over to where he stood with the plastic surgeon. The doctor had been half naked when we arrived and was now in a shirt, sweatpants, and even a pair of shoes.

  “You want to take this over?” Todd seemed to finally understand that I wanted in on the big action, the challenges.

  I cuffed the doctor and read him his rights. Then I led him to the backseat of my car so I could take him to the federal courthouse.

  The entire ride there, the plastic surgeon blathered out everything he’d been doing, how it worked and how much money he’d made doing it. He blamed the insurance companies, the current administration, and the cost of malpractice insurance for his wrongdoing. It was everyone’s fault but his, he claimed, as he went through his history of bilking the system. I wondered how anyone this dumb could have ever made it through medical school. Did he think I was just a driver? I had Mirandized him! I was in a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun. Everything he said to me would be written up as soon as I got to my desk.

  I didn’t interrupt. I simply repeated the facts he gave me in my head so I could commit them to memory.

  And I drove as slowly as possible.

  * * *

  There were three tracks of ongoing work for the duration of my time at the FBI. The first was going through the cases of Jeannie, who was about to retire. Jeannie, who showed up late and left early, seemed to have simply abandoned her work. None of her cases were closed. And none were actively open. Going through her files meant that I’d read through each case—often five inches thick with papers—and follow up on every lead, every suspect, every witness, and every victim. This could take anywhere from several hours to several weeks. Usually it took a couple weeks. All of it was work Jeannie should have done herself, continuously. Sometimes, as I was sorting through her piles of unfinished business, I imagined Jeannie in her home. I’d pegged her as a hoarder, unable to throw anything away, deeming every ATM receipt, every recyclable water bottle, every newspaper, every Amazon box, every sheet of bubble wrap, every take-out pizza flier as having potential value one day. She’d have to buy red Solo party cups and paper plates because the sink was so overflowing with dirty dishes that there was no access to running water.