Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All (15 page)

I contacted Colin, the lead advance in South Korea, and told him that he would have to meet with the South Koreans to adjust the schedule. Meanwhile, I quietly prayed during the motorcade from the university to the airport that the security plan would hold and we would get the president off the ground without incident. The stress was mounting and, combined with oppressive fatigue and the searing Indonesian heat, I feared the worst. Between the suspicious hotel guest, the indigenous threats I dealt with daily, and the ash cloud that threatened to strand the president in Indonesia if we fell even minutes behind schedule, I was constantly on the cell phone with new requests for the team.

Fortunately, the advance team assigned to the visit was tier one and they superseded expectations each and every time I called them with a
change or new request. After multiple trips and thousands of man-hours dedicated to an airtight security plan, I feared that a random mishap at the last minute could ruin what was left of the goodwill the team and I built with the Indonesians. During my trip to Paris with President Bush, a dog had rushed into the street and nearly caused an accident with the presidential limo, so I was keenly aware of the potential for a random disaster on a moment’s notice. At my request the motorcade drove quickly, and the staff moved the president briskly through a few thank-yous to local dignitaries. Despite the many complications, Air Force One was in the air minutes later. The relief and elation I felt was indescribable as the nearly yearlong advance operation finally came to an end.

But the sense of relief was short-lived. Before we made it back to the hotel, I received a phone call from one of the logistics agents at the airport. All of the support personnel in Indonesia to help implement the security plan were being told that they might be stranded due to the atmospheric ash and the military’s inability to fly us out. This was both a logistics and security nightmare for me. I intentionally placed all our personnel in hotels with layered security plans and within a short distance of our command center in the event of an emergency, and none of these locations had any rooms available. I feared that it would become widely known that the American security team was stranded in Jakarta and that we would become an appetizing target for the local terrorist groups.

I called operations and asked for permission to bypass financial restrictions on the cost of flights home as the only alternative. Although the available flight plans involved convoluted layovers, the logistics team managed to find flights home for most of the stranded personnel. The remaining staff were forced to stay on cots in rooms we had at the Shangri-La. It was not ideal, but I was sure it was secure. Eventually, we all made the trip home safely, some flying thousands of miles in the wrong direction just to get out of the country to a connecting flight.

Having now successfully “checked the box” on designing and implementing a complete foreign security advance plan in both Prague and Jakarta, and having my request for vacation time approved, I was sure I had seen my last assignment as an agent on the PPD.

On my second day of vacation I was in my basement exercising, trying to sweat out the illness I had returned from Indonesia with, when my
phone rang. On the other end was Vic, the second in command among PPD management, and he asked me if I could see him tomorrow at his office in the White House. I knew not to ask a lot of questions and simply said yes, but was perplexed as to what he could want to discuss. Ideas began to filter through my mind. I wondered if something had happened in Indonesia that I had not been made aware of.

The following day, I drove to the White House hoping that the unusual request to meet Vic in his office during my vacation was not the result of something I had done wrong. Vic and I developed a solid working relationship during my tenure on the PPD and when I sat down in his office, he engaged in some brief small talk. Then he quickly cut to the chase and asked me if I would be willing to go out again.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I had vacation time already approved and was scheduled to leave the detail in just one week for my new assignment in Baltimore. Vic told me that the president was planning to visit Afghanistan and that the trip was to be kept “dark” until we landed on the ground at Bagram Airfield. He asked me to conduct the advance and said I would have to leave the next morning. He assured me that he would notify the Baltimore field office that I was sick and that my transfer there would be delayed. I accepted the assignment and began to wonder how I was going to explain this to Paula yet again.

Paula and I had been together long enough where she could predict with incredible accuracy what I was going to tell her. I was bound to not to disclose the visit, even to Paula, so I told her I had an “assignment” and that I had to fly out of the country immediately. She cried and asked me to turn it down, clearly emotionally drained by the entire PPD experience. She felt that she had married me, not the Secret Service, yet they had taken me away from her. She was not an overly superstitious person, but she believed that after I had made it safely back from Indonesia that we had tempted fate, and she desperately wanted to avoid any other scenario where I could be in harm’s way. She was also savvy enough to know that I was not headed to a luxury resort given the top secret nature of the visit. I did my best to console her and assured her that this was the last trip, that it was all over after this, but unfortunately she had heard this all before. My daughter Isabel was also devastated that I was going to be overseas, because it was my birthday and she had planned something special.

I pondered how much more of this I could take. It was not the workload but the emotional toll it was taking on my family that was growing intolerable. I took solace in the fact that this was surely the last lead advance in a “hot zone” I would ever do and that if I made it back, it was finally over.

We landed at Bagram Airfield on a cold December afternoon, having traveled under an umbrella of secrecy from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. The base in Afghanistan was not informed of the exact reason for our assignment but was told to provide support for a visit by a “dignitary.”

I was honored to be working with our fighting men and women. Having lost my Uncle Gregory in Vietnam, I always revered men and women willing to selflessly forfeit their lives for the freedom of others. The men and women at Bagram did not disappoint; they worked tirelessly with us to ensure a “safe” war zone. When talking to the soldiers, I found it incredible how many were proud to be there but felt unsure of achieving the mission’s long-term goals. I took every opportunity to speak with the soldiers I was working with, and I listened with rapt attention as they described their experiences and the stories of soldiers who had been wounded, maimed, or killed in action. Touring the hospital at the airfield was devastating. I saw the horrifying injuries as a result of improvised explosives, and the delicate care given to our to our enemies as well as to our men. The trip to Afghanistan permanently changed my view of our country’s involvement in that war. It may be clichéd to say, but it was a life-changing experience.

Planning and implementing a security advance in an active war zone is a challenge few Secret Service agents have experienced. Preparing for incoming mortar fire, the very real danger of Air Force One being shot out of the sky, and the threat of an organized attack with heavy weapons by a determined quasi-military unit are not common threats within the United States, but they were daily occurrences in Afghanistan.

A few days into the trip, I met with General David Petraeus, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, in downtown Kabul after flying from Bagram in the back of a war-torn C-130 cargo plane. Our meeting with the general was pleasant. I found him to be very receptive to our ideas and I was honored that, given his experience in the country, he was eager to hear and adapt my ideas on how we could ensure
the safety of the president in this unique situation. We discussed some options on transport for the president should he decide to make the trip to Kabul, and although the general assured me that transportation could be secured, I was hesitant to approve it. This became a contentious issue, with widely varying opinions on the matter. General Petraeus felt it could be done, but some of his subordinates felt otherwise and the intelligence operators on the ground strongly advised against it. They believed once it was discovered that we were there, we would be shot out of the sky by rocket-propelled grenade fire upon departure from Kabul. I deeply trusted the intelligence team on the ground. They worked under extremely dangerous conditions and, sadly, the facility where I met with them was attacked with heavy weapons two years later and two heroes were lost.

The decision to let the president fly to Kabul from Bagram was going to be a defining moment for me. After a meeting with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry at our embassy in Kabul, I remained skeptical that the trip could be secured. I knew we could effectively ensure the security of the airfield at Bagram, but downtown Kabul was like nothing I had ever seen. It appeared that time had forgotten portions of the city, and law and order were nonexistent. We traveled with heavily armed teams and did not leave the US facility without heavily armored vests and in windowless armored vans.

Every location we visited was a security nightmare. There was no practical way to secure a group of city blocks that consisted of hollowed-out buildings and mazes of empty, crumbling stairwells. Securing the area would require potentially thousands of soldiers. The president of the United States is not simply a man—he is the singular, living embodiment of an entire branch of government, and any potential threat to his security must be completely mitigated. Our military partners in country had a remarkable “can do” attitude and their sense of duty was admirable, but I was unsure we could secure the visit to Kabul. This all came to a boil during a secure video teleconference call between me, my intelligence counterparts on the ground in Afghanistan, and the Situation Room in the White House.

After the Czech Republic and Indonesia, I was accustomed to being put on the spot by the White House staff, and this time I was forced to ask for more time. In the event they decided to override my recommendation to not take the president to Kabul, I began to design a plan to lock
down the city. I never before requested the level of support that I needed for this operation and was uncomfortable that involving so many military personnel whom I had not worked with before would be distracting from their war mission. Regardless, we moved forward with the plan.

The hours prior to the president’s arrival at Bagram Airfield were tense. A sandstorm made landing conditions for Air Force One treacherous, but had the positive side effect of eliminating the possibility of taking the helicopter trip to Kabul. After conferring with the White House military aide assigned to the visit, we decided to cancel the Kabul leg of the trip since the sandstorm conditions made the flight extremely dangerous. It did not escape me that all of the contentious negotiating regarding the danger of the Kabul visit was rendered meaningless due to the fortuitous intervention of Mother Nature.

I was relieved by this development, but I still needed reassurance from the White House military aide that Air Force One could safely land at the airfield, given the rapidly deteriorating conditions. The Air Force One advance team advised that it was going to be a tough landing but it could be done safely. Satisfied, but not content with his answer, I moved on to the next issue requiring immediate attention: the Secret Service advance agents who remained in Kabul to handle that portion of the visit were stranded there due to the sandstorm.

As I walked around the temporary command center trying to think through my options, I was informed that the president’s staff was adding an event to the itinerary, now that some time had been freed up due to the cancellation of the Kabul visit. The president was going to meet with a group of soldiers in a vehicle bay and I needed to inspect the room. Upon entering, I saw a group of somber-looking soldiers and casually asked why they were meeting with the president. What I heard changed me forever. The ranking officer in the group said, “Because there were more of us last night.”

He explained that during a patrol, their Afghan guide turned on them and shot multiple members of the group. The story was hard to fathom. It was stunning to hear firsthand how, in an attempt to free a country from the tyrannical grip of a savage group of Taliban cowards worshipping a philosophy of destruction and death, our men were killed by the beneficiaries of our goodwill. I was proud that these heroes would receive
their moment with the president, but it again made me question everything I believed about this war. Somewhere, mothers, fathers, wives, and husbands were being asked to forfeit a future of endless possibilities with their sons, daughters, husbands, and wives in exchange for a cause many of those we fought for not only did not understand, but violently resented.

Watching Air Force One make a treacherous landing at Bagram in a sandstorm was an incredible sight and was the first sign the personnel on the airfield received that the “dignitary” they had been expecting was indeed the president. The visual contrast of the bold blue and white paint of Air Force One descending against the backdrop of the Afghan mountains in the dark desert night created a vision resembling a polished diamond against a deep, jet-black background. As the White House press pool feverishly snapped photos, the story was released and immediately filtered through the cable news channels.

My wife e-mailed me, finally realizing what my cryptic mission had been. Her messages were frantic as she was understandably concerned about my safety. The scene was one of controlled chaos and the lack of light on the airfield made it difficult to see anything outside of the camera flashes from the White House press pool photographers. We had to keep the lighting low to avoid being a target for enemy mortar fire so, to keep the president from tripping on the runway, I took out my flashlight to light his path.