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Authors: Brad Taylor
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news, but much longer for people who actually cared about such things. Because of it, we now had respectable people beating a path to our door. Not that we needed the work, since we could count on a Taskforce paycheck.
I quit trying to find the neck light and shoved everything back into the duffel bag, slinging it into the closet on my side of our small office.
Jennifer came inside and took off her sunglasses, exposing the bruise around her right eye. The sight caused a confusing mishmash of emotions in my gut, making me feel guilty, angry, proud, protective, and shameful all at the same time
I said, “Want me to screen your bag? Make sure it’s clean?”
She knew what I was asking, saying, “Yeah, I guess, but this is my first trip. How could it have anything compromising in it?”
“Good point. Just force of habit. I’ll have to get used to a permanent cover. You could check my bag, though, just to be sure there’s nothing left over from my past.”
She took the backpack and zipped it open, going through the pockets, looking for receipts, business cards, or anything else that could cause a question on this trip. Our purpose was to camouflage Taskforce activities, so everything on us had to support our business, with nothing leading to the unit. It would be bad form to have an ATM receipt from a military post when you were claiming to be a civilian. When I was operational, the hardest thing was making sure my real life didn’t intrude on my cover. I couldn’t believe the clutter I’d accumulate. Just check your wallet to see what I mean. I no longer had to worry about that, because my life and cover were now the same. I was no longer ping-ponging back and forth pretending to be something different every mission.
The people who came with us were different. We would be the skeleton that the Taskforce would fall in on. We had a roster of TF operators who were included as our “employees,” but we’d only see themwhen we were tasked with an operation. Knuckles and Bull—our employees on this trip—would be the ones with the risk. Lord knows where they had been in the last six months.
In a nutshell, that was the purpose of our travel. As a company, we had to build a record with Taskforce personnel acting as employees, so we were doing what we called a “cover development” trip. Otherwise known as a “boondoggle” or “vacation on the government dime.” Basically, we just wanted to start populating air travel databases, getting our passports stamped, and collecting business cards from overseas, all of which would support that we were who we said we were. It was a really sweet gig because we’d be forbidden to do anything that wasn’t part of our cover. And it was truly necessary if we wanted to fool anyone with an Internet connection for more than five seconds. Jennifer, who was really into what our business did, had picked the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, so that’s where we were going for a week, with Knuckles and Bull as our employees.
As Jennifer worked through my bag, she asked, “How many companies are there like us?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. A lot. So many that probably only the comptroller or Kurt Hale knows for sure. None have a business like ours, though. All the other companies that I know of are just that—companies full of corporate types. We’re the only one founded and run by operators.”
Jennifer reflexively touched her eye, looking at me with a sad, wistful expression, like a child who had saved forever to buy a toy only to be disappointed in the reality when it arrived at the door, a pale imitation of the TV commercial promises.
“I don’t think anyone in the Taskforce thinks about me that way.”
I regretted my choice of words, because she was right. It would take more than some training and assessment to win them over, but she was on the way. In truth, I respected her abilities greatly, but deep down, even I still harbored a sliver of doubt. I covered it
I quit trying to find the neck light and shoved everything back into the duffel bag, slinging it into the closet on my side of our small office.
Jennifer came inside and took off her sunglasses, exposing the bruise around her right eye. The sight caused a confusing mishmash of emotions in my gut, making me feel guilty, angry, proud, protective, and shameful all at the same time
I said, “Want me to screen your bag? Make sure it’s clean?”
She knew what I was asking, saying, “Yeah, I guess, but this is my first trip. How could it have anything compromising in it?”
“Good point. Just force of habit. I’ll have to get used to a permanent cover. You could check my bag, though, just to be sure there’s nothing left over from my past.”
She took the backpack and zipped it open, going through the pockets, looking for receipts, business cards, or anything else that could cause a question on this trip. Our purpose was to camouflage Taskforce activities, so everything on us had to support our business, with nothing leading to the unit. It would be bad form to have an ATM receipt from a military post when you were claiming to be a civilian. When I was operational, the hardest thing was making sure my real life didn’t intrude on my cover. I couldn’t believe the clutter I’d accumulate. Just check your wallet to see what I mean. I no longer had to worry about that, because my life and cover were now the same. I was no longer ping-ponging back and forth pretending to be something different every mission.
The people who came with us were different. We would be the skeleton that the Taskforce would fall in on. We had a roster of TF operators who were included as our “employees,” but we’d only see themwhen we were tasked with an operation. Knuckles and Bull—our employees on this trip—would be the ones with the risk. Lord knows where they had been in the last six months.
In a nutshell, that was the purpose of our travel. As a company, we had to build a record with Taskforce personnel acting as employees, so we were doing what we called a “cover development” trip. Otherwise known as a “boondoggle” or “vacation on the government dime.” Basically, we just wanted to start populating air travel databases, getting our passports stamped, and collecting business cards from overseas, all of which would support that we were who we said we were. It was a really sweet gig because we’d be forbidden to do anything that wasn’t part of our cover. And it was truly necessary if we wanted to fool anyone with an Internet connection for more than five seconds. Jennifer, who was really into what our business did, had picked the temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, so that’s where we were going for a week, with Knuckles and Bull as our employees.
As Jennifer worked through my bag, she asked, “How many companies are there like us?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. A lot. So many that probably only the comptroller or Kurt Hale knows for sure. None have a business like ours, though. All the other companies that I know of are just that—companies full of corporate types. We’re the only one founded and run by operators.”
Jennifer reflexively touched her eye, looking at me with a sad, wistful expression, like a child who had saved forever to buy a toy only to be disappointed in the reality when it arrived at the door, a pale imitation of the TV commercial promises.
“I don’t think anyone in the Taskforce thinks about me that way.”
I regretted my choice of words, because she was right. It would take more than some training and assessment to win them over, but she was on the way. In truth, I respected her abilities greatly, but deep down, even I still harbored a sliver of doubt. I covered it
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