The Team House - Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team | Kyle Vonwinkle

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

Kyle Vowinkle looks back on a 25-year FBI career that took him from counterintelligence and SWAT in Los Angeles to the Hostage Rescue Team, JSOC deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some of the Bureau’s most high-profile crisis operations. We also discuss HRT selection, the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt, the Alabama bunker hostage rescue, and the leadership lessons behind his new book, Shaping Chaos.Find Kyle here: https://www.kylevowinkel.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-vowinkelGrab Kyle's book here: https://www.kylevowinkel.com/bookToday's Sponsors:GhostBed ⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 10% off! Quince⬇️go to: https://www.quince.com/housefor free shipping and 365 day returns For ad free video and audio and access to live streams...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouseTo help support the show and for all bonus content including:-live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video-early access to shows-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________GRAB JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featuredJack Murphy's book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseSocial Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 – Start01:27 – Growing Up in San Diego & Wanting to Serve05:38 – A Rebellious Kid Goes to West Point07:55 – Discovering the FBI While at West Point09:17 – Military Police, Korea & Guantanamo Bay10:14 – Taking Back a Rioting Refugee Camp13:17 – Learning to Lead While You’re Scared14:35 – Leaving the Army & Applying to the FBI18:41 – Counterintelligence & FBI SWAT in Los Angeles21:38 – Manhunts for Cop Killers23:31 – Working Security at the Golden Globes26:07 – FBI SWAT Raids a Las Vegas Strip Club28:34 – 9/11 & the FBI’s Immediate Response30:18 – Training for FBI Hostage Rescue Team Selection33:11 – Inside the Brutal HRT Selection Process36:09 – Failing HRT Selection Because of His Ego41:13 – Coming Back a Year Later & Making the Team42:29 – The HRT New Operator Training Pipeline45:34 – Marine Corps Scout Sniper School47:20 – What Exactly Is the FBI Hostage Rescue Team?50:20 – How HRT Began Working With JSOC52:07 – The First Full FBI Embed With Task Force 27556:17 – Going on Target in Mosul59:03 – Capturing a Senior Al-Qaeda Leader in Tal Afar1:05:23 – Operation Brass Balls in Ramadi1:07:26 – HRT Operations in Afghanistan1:09:21 – Raiding by Zodiac on the Euphrates1:10:53 – A Deadly HRT Standoff in Puerto Rico1:19:57 – Leaving HRT for the Crisis Negotiation Unit1:25:56 – The Tension Between Negotiators & Tactical Teams1:27:49 – Negotiating With Somali Pirates1:32:56 – The Boston Marathon Bombing Manhunt1:35:00 – Hundreds of Rounds Fired in Watertown1:40:16 – Negotiating the Surrender of the Boston Bomber1:47:58 – The Alabama “Bunker Boy” Hostage Crisis1:55:07 – Discovering an IED Inside the Bunker’s Speaking Tube2:00:40 – The Kidnapper Issues a Final Demand2:03:42 – HRT Launches the Hostage Rescue2:10:31 – Leaving Operations for FBI Leadership2:14:28 – Shaping Chaos & Lessons From a 25-Year FBI CareerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

and it goes south from there. So the atrophy come, the assaulters come vehicle right up the front, and it's a shootout. The rounds start coming both ways. We're shooting him. They're shooting. And we have one of our guys who got shot really badly at the porch. He gets two right underneath the vest.

He goes down to a knee. Same guy, Witt, then is right there at the window. He stands in front of the window to obscure fire. fire fires the guy while two other guys go grab him, move him off the porch, you know, get him around the corner and they start providing him, you know, medical care until the ambulance can pull up. So there's a longer like 20 minute firefight going back and forth. He then at one point shoves, opens the front door, shoves his wife out. It's like holy moly, there's another person inside. Yeah. Hey folks, welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy and we're very happy to

have in studio our guest today, Kyle Winkle. He is the author of Shaping Chaos. It's a new book about leadership, but also it infuses some actual lessons from your career. He spent 25 years at the FBI and very interestingly served in both the hostage rescue team and the crisis negotiation unit, probably one of the very few people that have served in both of those outfits. There's only been a handful of us. Yeah. Crazy enough to make that switch. And, you know, Kyle had, he went to West Point, spent time in the military police, then went to the FBI, H.R.T, J-Sock deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and some other stuff also present for the Boston Marathon bombing aftermath and the Alabama Bunker Boy rescue that H.RT and CNU participated in successfully rescuing a kidnapped kid. So there's a lot to talk about here. And thanks for being on the show, Kyle.

No, thanks for having me. Yeah, fortunate, surely to be part of some exceptional teams and some exceptional work. Yeah. Well, so take us, you know, to the beginning. Tell us a little bit about, like, where you grew up and what kind of, like, interested you in, at first, the Army. I grew up in San Diego, right next to Miramar, you know, Top Gun, Jets, Roaring Overhead. Cool. My dad is a naval aviator in Vietnam.

So very patriotic city. And they grew up in the 80s watching, like, Rambo, you know, Red Dawn and Rocky. You know, love those movies. Much so my brother and he was older. Like we would dress up and play Army. Oh, yeah. We went to the old, like, surplus stores, bought Camoufl Fatigues. And imagine doing this today.

Like we, 14-year-old boys wearing full camo, plastic guns, we had spray paint black, so they looked real. We'd cam up our face and we walked down the middle of the street to the canyon. You know, four or five dudes. you know, people call the police. We never get out of our house. Yeah, yeah. So we kind of loved playing army, if that makes sense. Even though we're in a Navy town with a Navy dad,

they went in the reserves after his, you know, active duty time. And obviously, I wasn't alive when he was in Vietnam. But I grew up in that community, and my dad really modeled that service to country. But I was kind of a rebellious kid. I argued a lot with my mom. I was in handcuff twice, put in police, gotten five car crashes.

So that's your introduction to law enforcement. Exactly. And my dad, he had actually worked for Sandy OPD for a couple of years and crashed the out five of my parents' cars. And I was not a good kid. So when I mean, did the Army come about because, you know, a judge or maybe your dad were like, yeah, you're, you know, destined for military service? Good question. No, my parents definitely thought I could possibly end up in jail because I would sneak out of the house and like, we would never do any things seriously or long, but we're like snuck in the community pool and, you know, swam at like midnight on like Sunday night. Again, doing no destruction.

Did destroy some pumpkins one Halloween. That was the first time I got handcuffed. You know, we took somebody's pumpkin and destroyed it, which you should have done. And, you know, a cop took me back and cuffs to my parents. And thankfully, it was ever written up. Sorry, Mom and Dad. So that was my first time. The second time was Senior Ditch Day.

You know, the cops came to Senior Ditch Day and, you know, broke it up. So I was never placed in detention or I should say never taken in custody to jail, but just on site. And I, my brother was two and a half years older, and he went to West Point. He got in. And it wasn't until I visited him like my sophomore year of high school. And I saw the Academy Grounds. And more importantly, I saw the cadets and like the discipline. the kind of tribe the military was, the cohesion, the morale, and that dispried the core.

And I, that's when I decided I want to be part of that. Because I really was kind of a wayward youth, like I said. So that was really the impetus for me to apply. But again, it's pretty foolish. How dumb as I, that's the only school I applied to was West Point. Again, my mother and father could have throttled me. And I, you know, just barely got in, got my congressional nomination. And it was because I visited my brother and seeing, again, the cadets.

in the campus. And so this is in the late 1980s. Yeah, 1989, I reported. And how did you take to West Point in that regimented way of life? Not good at all. Because actually I remember had teachers even tell me during the parent teacher conferences senior year telling me and my mother, there's no way Kyle is going to make it at West Point. Because I was actually the class clown too.

So not only I'm rebellious, but I want to make people laugh. when I go to West Point, and it was a total culture shock. And I knew it was going to be regimented, but I didn't know that it's so regimented, like your toothbrush has to be pointed one way in the door, and your toothpaste lid has to be pointed the other way. Like it's down to that level of detail. Again, understandably so now in the hindsight,

but then as a punkish 18-year-old, I couldn't stand it. So actually, I got to trouble several times. We had Army Navy Week as like the biggest week of the year. The closest West Point ever gets to a real college is that week. because everyone's so kind of pumped up to beat Navy. It's the biggest football game in the year, of course. Their biggest sporting event for West Point, for sure. And we had a jock-stap rally on the plane of West Point.

The superintendent had told us, don't do it. Well, of course, me and like 200 of my classmates go out there anyway. It's like midnight, so no one's going to see it. No public's going to see it. But we go up midnight on Thursday, you know, and we do a quick, you know, go Army chant, beat Navy. And then I've run back, and I was tackled and caught. and I got the regiment on board

like a really serious disciplinary like 60 area tours we were marching back and forth that's the system they had and it was just brutal so yeah the first semester I was again not a good cadet because I didn't like being told it to do

and I just kind of rebelled against authority how long did you have to spend every night marching well they only let you do five hours a week so it was only like two hours on a Friday and three on a Saturday but you'd have to spend like an hour or two preparing all your stuff because you'd have to brush, shine your brush, shine your shoes. So even though it was only five hours, you really ate up like

seven or eight. And then you couldn't like go out even off campus, right? When you're restricted, you're doing the area tourist. You just have to sit in your room. So you can march off, like I said, you get five every weekend. So what did that work out? We got 12 weekends, but that sucked. Social life is not a positive aspect of West Point. And from West Point, you branched into the military police. Oh, and why don't you tell us about kind of your introduction to the FBI while you were at West Point? So there's another cadet. There was a law enforcement tactics club there, and the cadet's dad was an FBI agent.

And obviously I'd heard about the FBI growing up, kind of thought it was cool. And, excuse me, that dad took us and fellow members to the FBI range one day. We went shooting. I thought, wow, this is really interesting how the FBI runs a range, now the military runs a range. Then a few months later, we went to the tactical emergency vehicle operation course, Tevok and Wallkill, New York. The FBI driver trainer used to be there, and we got to drive cars, you know, super cool, you know, driving cars fast and, you know, skidding around. And it just was like a light bulb on me, a light switch, like the military is so regimented and it need to be. and I also thought about the officer career path was not, you didn't get to be, you know,

shooter per se or really do the fun stuff for that many years as an officer career. But I learned you could be an FBI agent your entire career. You never had to go higher, you never had to move, transfer either. You could stay in one place, do one job for 20 years, and that really appealed to me. So I decided at West Point, I'm going to try to go on the FBI. So that's why I chose, or I branched military police, trying to make myself more competitive in my subsequent bureau application. And so how did you like, I mean, in retrospect, being a military police officer?

It was not my favorite job. I enjoyed the people I worked with, but the mission, you know, patrol in the streets and enforcing, you know, road regulations, I didn't enjoy that at all. I did get to deploy. I was with the first Caval Division at Fort Hood most of my time. So we got deployed a full eagle, the 30-day to Korea. It was really enjoyable. I went from Pusan all the way up to the DMZ. And that was my first deployment overseas and then went to Gitmo for six months with the Haitian and Cuban refugees. And that was kind of interesting because there was one when the president said they're not going to let any of those refugees back into the states.

Was this like the Muriel boat lift or is it after that? It was after that. Yeah, because that was Cuba. Yeah. But there's similar, like, it was like 20,000 refugees separated in several camps. And I was the first lieutenant. So I had a camp of maybe 2,500 Haitians. And when they got news of that, like riots broke out. Like, no shit.

We had to evacuate our positions inside the camp. They were sharpening tent poles. And they had little juice cans. Remember those little orange juice cans, like four or five ounce? They were filling them with rocks, throwing them at soldiers. That was the first time I had to lead an element. like into harm's way. And I was so nervous because we again, we'd evacuate our positions. The Haitians are running amuck. We had, you know, hard perimeter units established in Humvees

with Mark 19s and 50 Cal. So they weren't exiting the camp, but we still had to go back and take control the camp. So, you know, all the junior lieutenant's myself, we're all looking at another, like, what are we going to do, you know? And then, you know, the battalion commander, of course, makes a call, we're going back in, go get all your riot gear on and your troops, and you're leading your platoons back in. That was the first time of America, like, putting on that heavy riot gear, which is super heavy, too. Like, talk about none. Not that any gear is ever comfortable, but it's just really difficult to maneuver and lead, and I remember the troops were looking at me, and I was nervous for the first time, like, sincerely thinking, crap, like, this is on my shoulders now.

everyone's lives is in my hands and I don't know what I'm doing I don't know how to take back at a camp you know and we just said we're going to get out of line right and just we had our sticks no weapons right because we're not taking weapons at the camp

and just formed a skirmish line and there's just shields and sticks yeah shield the sticks and just one step at a time and they're throwing shit at us and thankfully it wasn't serious melee like we weren't getting into a fistic house but I was definitely nervous that we were first about to enter

Have you ever heard the story about the MPs that got into something similar down in Panama? No. It's kind of like I, like for some people, it's an urban legend. This really happened. I think it was a Cuban refugee camp in Panama. Okay. And they revolted. And the MPs got sent in, you know, to kind of squash it.

And some of those guys, I wish I could remember the exact unit. I remember their nickname was the Wildcats, that was the platoon. And they described it like, they were like the Roman Legion because these like volleys of rocks were just coming and just pelting, like mess them up real bad. So they kind of got pushed backwards, as I recall. And then that night, the MPs went in there with Second Ranger Battalion and they all had baseball bats and axe handles and got their satisfaction. Tuned them up. Tenfold from what I've been told. Yeah.

I've not heard that story. That's, I know some people who are there. That's no shit. True story. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So what was the result of that, you know, for you?

The camp riot? Learning, right, that leadership is about projecting confidence even when you're not confident inside, right? And I say leaders lend to their nervous system. Right? Because everyone looks at that leader, even if you're second or first lieutenant, all the 30 troops were looking at me to be composed. Right. For me not to be highly emotional and to make decisions and be right there with them. I'm standing there right side by side and I'm not showing any fear even though inside. I'm tiny bit nervous. So that was the most important thing I realized is that it's okay to be a little bit nervous, but for your troops and for the mission, you've got to stay composed. Yeah.

Because you lend your nervous system to everyone, and they're going to feed off you. Yeah, yeah. And if you're... You start panicking, they will, yeah. Yeah, you know, it runs like wildfire panic. And same thing, too. If it's calm, cool, collected, then generally they'll be calm, cool collected. So I take it, you guys got the camp under control.

We did, yeah. We marched in there, and as soon as we got within 10, 15 feet, you know, they scatter. And they're big talkers when we were, you know, outside the fence. So as soon as we came in, then it was, it wasn't that rough to take it back over. So as you're kind of like ending your time in the military, you're already thinking about the FBI. Absolutely. Yeah. So what was like the application process like for you?

Well, I even went to night school. You know, I gave a master's degree. Was that required? No, not required, but I just want to make myself more competitive. I went to Ranger School. I wanted to toss myself there and jump school. So those were good. I, at least to me kind of testing grounds to kind of prove myself and see if I like that

kind of special or higher, you know, level units. And I really did. And then I applied at like the year three and a half mark, you know, you have a five-year commitment for West Point. And the bureau accepted me, or excuse me, the Bureau sent me a letter of rejection. And again, I'm a master's degree, West Point, successful officer. And I was stunned, right? Because I've been, really preparing for like five years when an FDA agent. And I was afforded by process through the San Antonio FDA office. And so the next afternoon I could get off. I drove down there, personally to the applicant

coordinator. And I just said, how can I make myself more competitive? And she said, oh, what's your name? Kyle Von Winkle? She goes through. It's like paperwork back then. She finds my application. Oh, here you are. You were placed in the least competitive pile of paperwork. You should have been placed in the most competitive. So literally, had I not drove the two and a half hours there, kind of challenged that, you know, verdict that I wasn't competitive enough.

I never would have had this career and I never would have done anything. That's crazy. Yeah. So thankfully, I was able to fix the clerical error or she was able to fix the clerical error. And, yeah, I got in four years, nine months, started Kwanico. Wow. And so this was 2001-ish? 98, I got out.

Okay, okay, gotcha, got you. So 98, you were going through the FBI Academy. And was it what you had hoped it would be? Yeah, really top-notch intellectual people, but compared to, you know, Ranger's School or at West Point, it really was not physically... It wasn't the physical challenge you were looking for. It wasn't as physically challenged. And I knew that it wouldn't be exceptionally physically challenged. I was hopeful it would be even more. well I remember we had you know the physical fitness test is a baseline like very easy I don't 16 minutes two miles maybe even 17 minutes for basic new agents and you know that before you get there you have to pass the PT test before you get there and everyone takes the day one the PT test and this guy failed he did like 20 minutes or actually didn't even finish like the last lap and so the end of day

one training right this is his first day at Quantico so my classmate said hey let's go cheer on you know John, he's going to finish his last lap. And I said, well, why are we going to cheer him on? He failed the PT test. He knew the standard coming in and the guy's leaving. He's going to be kicked out here, deservedly so. And I got like a disagreement. Like, I'm all for cheering other people on, but he didn't meet the standard. But that was kind of the mentality of some people. Because the Bureau invests a lot in you to get there and they want to keep there. But he was kicked out rightfully. Yeah, yeah. But just introduction to different, you know, mindset. Yeah. Yeah.

More of a gentleman's course, the FBI Academy. But yeah, 16 weeks. Really good farmers training. I enjoyed that. What do they call it? Is it Hogan's Alley? Yeah, Hogan's Alley has the most robbed bank in the United States of America, the Bank of Hogan.

Because almost every day, you know, mock or, you know, actors are staging mock, you know, bank robberies and the New Ages respond. It's really kind of fun to go and observe and watch the... That's like the FBI's bred and... butter, right? It's bank robberies. Well, not the red and butter, but it's just the, uh, the violation we kind of start off with the bank robberies really got a kind of name on the board. Uh, and then you got assigned to LA? Yes. So I was super excited. I, you know, was going to work, uh, violent Colombian gangs. So Quantico on week six,

they say it's a blind monkey throwing a dart at the assignment board, right? Because you get to kind of put in either the 56 offices where I'd like to go. But then the joke is it's a blind monkey, just throws it, and you get whatever. But I got LA. It was my top 10, so I was happy. And I got Colombian gangs. And I was like, perfect.

I want to kick down doors, put these, you know, Colombian gangsters away for a while. And literally, day one, I sent a, I show up in L.A. I'm super excited. And I go see my, you know, assistant special late in charge.

And he says, Kyle, congratulations, you're working counterintelligence. I said, what? I was told, I was working call me in gangs. He said, nope, needs the Bureau. I said, Roger that, you know, I'll do whatever. So it took me like six months to figure out of work

a case and find the bathroom. What kind of CI cases does L.A. have. So L.A. has a lot of defense, you know, industrial... Aerospace. And, yes, some universities there are doing some research, and you know, a lot of foreign

entities are trying to collect on that advanced research. So actually, there's a lot of good work in L.A. I really enjoyed that counterintelligence work in L.A. And I joined the tried out for the L.A. SWAT team there with some great professional there. So we did all the high risk arrest warrants in L.A. And it got to some pretty cool gigs. We, for example, before I go on, do you just want to explain to folks out there when you say the L.A.

SWAT team, it's the SWAT team that belongs to the L.A. field office. Correct. Because when people think of SWAT teams, they probably think of cities. But the FBI has their SWAT guys also. Yes, there's 56 FBI field offices across the United States. Actually, each one has their own SWAT teams for those federal warrants. And then I think it's nine offices. It's a regional or enhanced SWAT team.

So they get extra training days, extra resources. And L.A. was one of those enhanced teams. So we would travel more and help support like other field. The little ops like Phoenix maybe to do a larger arrest operation. We'd send a team from L.A. to go support them. So I was on L.A. And a very good reputation. Former H.R.T.

A guy was the team leader there. And actually, I wanted to try out so badly. You had to be an agent for one year in the office, right? And the tryouts were like 11 months and two weeks. Right. So I was like two weeks shy. And I go to see him. I said, hey, there's my background.

I've always wanted to be on SWAT. I want to go to HRT eventually, but I want to do my time. You're in L.A. SWAT. And here's my background. Can I try out? And he says, how much time do you have in? 11 years. He says, well, I'll see you next year.

Like that quick. And that's fine. That's the standard. I was a standard. So I had to wait another year. But I enjoyed L.A. It was a great bunch of guys. And we got to do some cool arrest, manhunts for some cop killers.

That was my first time going on those. And that's one of the more heightened emotional operations when you know you're going after someone who's already not just committed homicide. He's killed a cop. And so those were the ones that you really almost get emotional

thinking about because, you know, you want almost revenge and you got to revenge because, you know, it starts a cloud of the judgment. Then you get too emotional. There was an LAPD officer who was, I think it was LAPD officer was killed and we're supporting them doing another, you know,

going out other target locations, trying to find this guy. But I remember that, I was first time, another time I just remember you got to control the emotions. You let the motions control you, and that's when you make mistakes. Cloud your judgment. Were you normally trying to like scoop these guys up when they're in their bed down site for the night?

They're going to sleep. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Ideally, if it was a super high risk, we could get a nighttime service warrant, which means we'd go in like 3 or 4 a.m. But sometimes we couldn't get that. So we'd go right at 6 a.m. Gotcha.

But that meant, you know, 3am. You know, we meet at the Raleigh Point 3am to do the briefing. We're rolling at 5.30. So we are literally knocking on that door at 6 a.m. And most people, the criminal type, are still asleep at 6 a.m. And so, I mean, if the guy is a violent felon, a cop killer, they won't let you explosively breach or mechanically breach the structure? No, we can mechanically breach. Okay.

Explosive breaching in the FBI is reserved solely for HRT. Gotcha. Okay. So when I was on H or T, actually, it was a breacher and used explosives, but not on the L.A. Shopping for a mattress can get overwhelming fast. Too many options, too many opinions, and no clear way to tell what's actually right for you. That's why Ghostbett built our online mattress quiz. It's quick, it's simple, and it helps narrow down the right Ghostbid mattress based on how you actually sleep.

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And what was the, you wanted me to remind you about the Golden Globes? Oh, yes, this was kind of fun. I forget the exact mission. It was just to provide security at the red carpet for the Golden Globes. I think there was some vague or heightened threat. that year. So we go and we're they rented us tux tuxedos, right? So there's like there's 45 guys on the team and we were spread out but it's super cool like I don't know to me being at the golden gloves and even though we're on the sidelines just being there was neat and then there's a retired

agent who is working security for the variety after party. So it's after we're done like we've done our official gigs and he invites hey you guys want to come anyone who's coming to the you know after party. I said well heck yeah let's let's go. So me and several guys went in there. And I'm so, like, so, like, pumped up and excited to be here thinking, like, this is cool. Like, you know, my young FBI agent, and they walked through the door, and then Courtney Cox walks right towards me. I thought, holy, holy moly. And she goes, excuse me, where's the bathroom?

You know, talk about ego, you know, going from, like, cloud nine to cloud zero. Because I just thought that she was like, a waitstaff, right? My tuxedo, even though it was random. ice tucks. It was nowhere near a level tucks. Another funny story. This is a marine buddy of mine. He's so funny. He and I were chatting,

you know, this girl and she goes, what do you, what, she was asking us. She like wrote screenplays or something. And she goes, what do you ask us? Excuse me. She said, tell me about you two. And my buddy Bruce goes, well, you

write movies about guys like us. but it's still like one of the great lines ever heard just so i'm like falling over a laughter and then her boyfriend apparently sees us you know talking to her girl and we didn't know she had a boyfriend at the time but he comes over and you know Bruce is talking to the girl and uh she goes oh this is my or he says oh my name's john i'm her boyfriend and he goes oh nice to meet you jay you know intention says the wrong name and he goes it's john and he goes whatever Bruce had a couple of drinks and so it. So nothing happened.

There's just some funny banter with the Hollywood type. So we left, but that was the Golden Globes party. Any other crazy L.A. stories that you can share? There's a lot of good operations that we did out there. We were a pretty active team. And we did a nice Trojan horse one. We were in a FedEx. That's cool.

Van, although it was several hours, you know, we're waiting on Target and, you know, all kidded up and it's hot. And it couldn't be running because, you know, it alerted neighbors. And that was pretty good because we had to wait until the target was home. Then we opened up and then go rush. So we got to do some cool daytime ops. So the most of them were zero six the morning. But that was definitely interesting.

And other ones we hit, we went to Cheetah's strip club in Vegas. I wouldn't know an establishment like that. I trust what you're telling me, though. And this is kind of interesting. So, again, we drove from L.A. to Vegas. And I forget the exact charge, like embezzling and some other issues. But they wanted to do it when they were the least amount of customers. And you know, the least amount of customers.

And strip clubs are on noon, you know, like a Tuesday. So we drove up there. And we're fully in FBI attire. and we go and, you know, raid the place and there's dancers on stage. And we're, you know, I'm just talking about surreal. Like there's a naked girl, you know, on stage.

Reality, FBI, put your hands up, up. And then, you know, guys are talking about scattering to the winds because they're caught, you know, litter with some of their pants down. It's super awkward seeing the reaction. But, hey, we're, and we're going after the owner of the club. we weren't going after the patrons or the dancers at all, but we had to secure them and, you know, search them. You know, even the dancers have got a path down quick,

make sure there's nothing. I'm sure. Underneath there as professionals as we could. But I remember going to the bathroom and, like, seeing the trash can full of, like, condoms. And I was, like, so disgusting. So you guys hit it because there's, like, all kinds of prostitution going on in this place? Yeah, but they, it was something with the books and the taxes and embezzling from the office.

So we wanted to. get those records before they destroyed them. So it wasn't really on a prostitution angle. That makes sense if that Uncle Sam's coming after you over those back taxes. Yeah, you can't. Don't be, don't be cheating Uncle Sam. And there was a bigger criminal case. Sorry, I don't remember more of the details of it.

But yeah, obviously a federal case, it's got to be pretty significant numbers. Yeah, yeah. Watching go. That was pretty unique. Well, not every day you walk into Cheetahs and see FBI agents raiding it. then the 9-11 attack happens while you're out there in L.A., I take it. Yes, I was in my home, you know, getting ready for work, 615-ish, whatever.

The first plane hit, I saw it. I thought, oh, my God, what a horrible accident, right? I didn't put it together right away. And then I saw the second one hit, and then I knew this is no accident. You know, we're, of course, under attack. And so it was a few times that I hopped in the car and ran, you know, code, license irons, all the way from, I lived in the San Bernard Valley down in Wilshire, you know, driving on the shoulder, hauling ass to get to the office because nobody knew what

was going on all. We thought our whole nation was under attack. So the first thing I did is said, hey, start walking the perimeter of the federal building. So we're in our attack year just walking around, talking everyone driving up, like, what's your business in the federal building? We're closed today, you know, turning people away because of the attack. So that first few weeks we were just running leads every you know neighbor was calling about oh the guy next to me speaks Arabic so

okay do you have any you know evidence of criminal activity or terrorist you know activity no but we had to follow up on every one of those after the attacks you guys were working like 20 hour days right like they had you busy yeah but it was fun like nobody complained or bitch you know

but it's like when you're doing a mission that you know is righteous yeah yeah like the the hours invested. I mean, we got on a better cycle probably day five or six. You know, because you can only surge for so long, like a true 20-hour surge. You're going to burn out everyone. So I think we got 12-hour shifts after that. It wasn't too bad. And how did you go about applying for HRT? So you have to, you know, submit an application and then they interview your colleagues, co-workers, your bosses. So you have to

get vetted even before you're allowed to try out. And I had two buddies on the SWAT team, Mike and John, and they were both interested in trying up for HRT as well. So we started out working out together. We literally mapped out workout plans, and we switched off like I would do Monday's shooting. And Tuesday, John would do, we'd go to UCLA, run the stairs. Wednesday, we'd do pool drills because we wanted to mimic every single thing, at least that we knew. That was the church's selection.

and we wanted to practice it before and replicate as much of the stuff as it could. So when we went there, right, we were ready. So we trained together for over a year, like two a days. Wow. And on the weekends, it was brutal. But necessary, right, to get your body in that kind of shape for selection. You don't have to be an Olympic athlete, but your body has to tolerate an exceptional amount of physical strain. And the more or the less your body is physically stressed, right, than the more mentally

you'll perform. So that was our obviously thought process going in. We talked to other people that tried out. So read Danny Colson's book.

I saw on one of your previous podcast in the background, no heroes. But that and Chris Whitcomb's book called Zero really drove me to try out for HRT. And that's one of the reasons

that I wrote this book just to share these kind of unique, fascinating stories and talk about some extraordinary people that I was fortunate to work with and read about them and those two.

books and that's also what drove kind of all three of us to try out. And looking back on it, like, do you think that was a smart way to train? Did you over-train, under-train, train on the wrong things? Yeah, actually, overtrained, they do a lot of dips at H-R-T selection. Like a lot of dips. It's like one of their crazy unique. And he really likes dips, I guess. Yeah. And so we did a ton of dips. But I did so much that I needed elbow surgery. So I definitely. overtrained on the dips because everything you do

as you know is with your hands, whether you're faster up and shooting, climbing, rocking, everything, you're using those hands. And yeah, to this day, I've had seven surgeries on my elbows. Five on the left, two on the right.

I'm starting to get it. It's called like golfer's elbow. Have you ever heard that? It's like tennis elbow, but it's kind of the opposite. Yeah, the ulnar nerve. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, so I had oldar nerve

transposition surgery twice. on this once here and then I tore the distal tendon. Yeah, my body's broken up. That's what you. You're telling me my future. Yeah, well, you look better than I do.

So what was, other than the dips, what was HRT selection like? It was absolutely brutal. And Whitcomb does a great job talking about it in his book. You know, the it was the lack of feedback which I found

not troubling, but we all crave feedback, right? Especially where you pour your heart and soul. Yeah, am I doing good? Am I doing bad? Yeah, and you compare yourself against the other people who are trying out with, but you don't know, maybe do they all suck or are they all really good? Because you're, you know, paired off in running groups. And like, I remember when I looked around when you first, like, course, it's 3 a.m. Wake up or like in the gym at 4 o'clock for that first PT test.

I just remember looking around and thinking, this is the room that I want to belong to. like these are the people that I want to but I really I felt I felt ordinary among extraordinary because everybody was extraordinary so like the first time my life I felt like man I'm not special at all like truly I am just baseline I never worked so hard to be average that HRG selection right because everything you're giving max effort you know and just the you know first PT test is you know max pull-ups sit-ups rope climb the two-mile run And then the eight flights of stairs with 35 pound vest and then 55 pound RAM. And it's all timed and you don't make any of those cuts.

You're gone. And that's just the first hour. You know, that's just your taste. Like that's nothing. And how long does the selection go on for? It's two weeks. Okay. Every day is brutal.

Every day is 20 hours and they intentionally disrupt the sleep cycle. So even though you have on paper four hours of rest, They flashbang you. They can wake you up, and you have to write reports. So I remember one time, you know, we're sleeping in cots in these tents, and they throw bangs in, it's like right next to my ear, like between me and the former seal, and we're all, fuck. And then we had to go watch, like, and it's just to mess with you, waste your time.

Like, we watched like five minutes of the telotubbies, right? Remember the cartoon show? And then they said, okay, now write a 302 is an FBI record of an interview. Now, go write a 302 of what you saw on the video. So, like, you're barely, you know, keeping your eyes awake. Now you can remember this horrible cartoonish thing. The yellow one said to the red one. Blah, bra, bra, bra.

Yeah, and it's just horseshit, right? To mess with your mind and to sleep depraud you. So that was, that's really hardest. And then physical activity after physical activity, there were like two to three, like absolutely grueling physical events. Because this pattern, you know, if Delta, as you know, that are back in 83 and were founded, Delta came, they treated help with that selection process. So it's brutally, but it's fair, and everybody's got to go through it.

What was the hardest part for you? Well, the hardest part was not making the team. And again, it's rigorous, right? People get hit with unlucky injuries and, you know, don't make the cuts or, you know, there's peer evaluations too, which I liked, because then that helped. cut people as well. But I'll tell you what happened to me or I should say what my mistakes were. I don't know if you've never did the Marine Corps Weaver. Yes. And you know, there's logs go up and over.

The Army has those two. Yeah, it's not that hard on an obstacle. Right. But it's just part of the whatever, 10 obstacles and we're running the Marine Corps obstacle course at Weaver. And there's former Navy SEAL. He's a former Bud's instructor. He's standing there. And I'd heard of him beforehand. But I'm not saying anything. I'm not talking to him. You don't talk to the instructors during selection, but I go through the weaver, and then he says, stop, you know, Blue Five, you wear Penny's number. They don't call you my name. Blue Five, do the obstacle again. You missed a log. And my brain, I'm thinking, if you missed the log, you would have fallen off. Yeah, unless you have, like, a six-foot wing span, there's no way to miss a log in the weaver.

Like, literally. So my mind is, like, trying to process, like, it can't be. Or maybe I did. So I said, sir, can you tell me which log? I missed, I'm confused. Blue 5, do the obstacle again. Right? So I basically challenged right an instructor. I should have just done it again. But I was sincerely confused, but no excuse. I was kind of calling, I shouldn't say call him out,

but I was trying to understand what the problem was, but that's not your job as a selectee. You're just supposed to follow instructor. Well, I mean, from what you're describing to me, I mean, you're kind of like exhausted, sleep deprived. You're kind of cotton-minded at that point. 100%. Yeah.

100%. So that wasn't devastating. The devastating thing was it came to the shooting event. They had, again, he did lots of shooting the whole time. And at the end, there's a steel plate competition, all the selectees against one another. And I loved to shoot. I was competitive shooter, USPSA, went to three gun nationals. Like that was my wheelhouse and my forte. So I was feeling confident. I get to the finals and I missed one of the steel plates and the guy beat me. So I was pissed. right so we'd go back and we're reloading magazines for the next thing and it's just a selectee is there only like i think eight of us left at this point and out of the 40 that started and i said to him hey bobby i'll bet you a paycheck i'll beat you next time right cocky kind of stupid and again dumb and my ego talking selection also not really the place for that yeah not at all yeah yeah yeah and around the corner

was an h o t operator listening so he heard that and he said oh my god this volicle cockle guy thinks he's, you know, God's gift to shooting. So that got around, you know, like wildfire and if there's any doubt, and they all, you know, obviously the team talks and, you know, compatibility is one of the key criteria. And they said, well, if there's a question mark and there's a question mark in a mind, we're not going to take him. So, yeah, that was feedback I got those throughout of, and talk about, right, two full weeks of essentially 24-hour days, being evaluated, monitored, and it comes down to two, 30 seconds, where I open my mouth when I shouldn't have. And so what did they tell you at the end of the course?

Well, you get very little feedback initially. It's maybe like three or four weeks. So first I was just happy to finish, right? And me and my LA buddies flew back and we were super proud. We were three of the, maybe it was 11 that finished. I could be off of my numbers because I had to try it second year. Anyway, we were proud to finish and we thought we all did well. I thought I did well.

I knew I did pretty well physically, and I thought shooting did decently, and you do your rest in arrows too. And so I thought I decently showed. I didn't really think about those two events at all, right? The time I opened my mouth, they didn't, like, pop out of, like, super horrible events. And then you get a call from the H.R.D. commander, you know, if you make it,

and if you don't make it, you don't get a call. So my two buddies, John and Mike got calls. one day and they both quickly call me. Kyle did you get a call? Nope. And so you find out by not finding out. Right, right. And that was brutal.

And then, you know, I worked, you know, I had a couple of back channels and they're very slow, you know, to reveal information. But that was eventually kind of the word I got back is you can't be open your mouth, question this director, you can't be, you know, thinking about yourself. And I realized they're right. Like, you got to put the team,

and the mission above your ego. And that was really humbling, and I needed it, to really think back to why I have the aptitude for this. And I did, I just got to control my ego and not do stupid things when you're so tired, when you're so drained. And put the team first always. How long was it before you were able to go back? Well, it took me months, just personally professionally.

I was devastated. Right, having invested so many years into this. And I remember talking to a boss in L.A. and ASEC, and he could see I was depressed, like six months later. And he said, well, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know. And he said, well, you went around that roller coaster or the merry-go-round, and you tried for the bass wrong,

and he missed it. It happens. So are you going to be able to look at yourself in the mirror if you don't try one more time? I don't know why, but that just stuck, and I sort of looked myself in the mirror. That's what you needed to hear at that moment. Yeah. And I said, I'm going to do it.

And so I started all, not all over again, because I didn't let my fitness go all at the window, but I started back to two a days and that grueling preparation. So I went back a year later, year and a few months, and thankfully, you know, learned to keep my mouth shut. They called you back this time. And yeah, I got the call. And yeah, I was fortunate to be among a group of exceptional people. So what was the HRT training pipeline like once you get there? So we have OTC course, we call it knots, new operator's training, is eight plus months.

So it's a long pipeline because we do everything, right? Lots of CQB, lots of farms, lots of repelling. you know weapons of mass destruction god i hated that wmd stuff because of the the uh bear suit they have you wear yeah yeah uh yeah what another thing in the back that breather system the respirator respirator yeah just heavy stuff and like it's so unrealistic like we're fast roping and you know 95 pound of gear and you can only operate really for like an hour and then okay you're sweating so much you're not mission capable much at a certain point yeah uh because that stuff's just so heavy and unwieldy and then we did dig their protection uh like drivers training with the moab utah that was super

cool so yeah basically the whole spectrum of skills go diving in key west really enjoy like i've probably some of my most enjoyable things because you're just training right you're just getting these skill sets and you're not on the team yet so you don't have all the pressure being on a team and and you're still in that learning mode and you're going to expose to, oh my God, there's something so cool, explosive breaching and jublear assaults. You got to do free fall.

If you're on the jump team, yeah, I didn't, I wanted to go put my name in that, but only like... Is that how it's subdivided? There's like a jump team, a dive team. So it's gone through several iterations, but there used to be just a dive team, they used to be just, of course,

the jumpers, but now they're spread out among the got three teams. So every team is supposed to be, theoretically mirror images of one another. But only, again, on that team is a handful of guys, maybe not on the exact numbers, but there's 18 guys in a team, only a third of them maybe will be free fall

because that's such an extra investment of time. Especially to be good at it. I mean, it takes a lot of time. Yeah, so our senior guys have thousands of jumps, but that's the other ones who don't send all the guys to that. But yeah, select, go to all that stuff, the free fall, I should say. What was your favorite part of the pipe?

pipeline. I've really enjoyed dignitary protection. Like we protected the FBI director and the attorney general. I don't know why. I enjoyed and we worked at the Secret Service, like even, and this is later on, the team got to go like Republican National Convention, Democrat National Convention, and just kind of seen behind closed doors going to the White House. That was just unique access when you did the dig pro stuff. But I didn't really love the mission set, you know, taking a bullet for another guy, but we were actually the cat team. So we were the counter-salt team for Secret Service. So right, when the Secret Service wouldn't get in trouble, HFT is their backup. So we would go to the state of unions, all those other high profile events. And so we got to work

and train with them at their Beltsville, Maryland locations. That was kind of interesting too. You'd be like prepositioned right there, ready to go. Yeah, exactly. And afterwards, when you graduated, they sent you to Scout Sniper School. When did that come about? Well, again, it's just like everything all needs at the Bureau. I wanted to be in a summer. altar, as we used to say, eating Oreos in the talk while the snipers are out freezing their asses off. I wanted to be eating Oreos. And I know I'm not that patient of a guy.

And, you know, even though I enjoyed shooting, my most of the 12-1 rifle, but not necessarily a scoped heavy bolt gun. But nonetheless, the H.R.D. gods said you'll be a sniper. So they sent the snipers to the Marine Corps Scout sniper school right there at Colanico again great instructors but man like the stocks I got caught you know almost every time never it was like snowing and we had like all the white on and I assume I remember like one objective I can trying to find confirm the target and you know I'm poking my head up and I'm trying to be slow and you know I just don't have the sniper skills him I

sincerely tried and like the guy instruct the Marine Corps instructor later said Kyle you look like a pong ball, bopping your head up, trying to confirm the target. And it was really that moment to realize I'm just not suited for this. Even though I'll do my best, I'm going to try. I just knew long term I was not going to be a good sniper. And what team did they put you on? So I was on the blue Sierra was my unit. So we had six great great guys.

good all good shots and, you know, three cypress are repairs, basically. Oh, and so I guess like at this moment, just to take a quick pause for folks out there to talk about what HRT is. We've been having this whole conversation, but for people who have no knowledge, then go back in time and watch an old team out, two team house episodes with Danny Colson, who's like the founder of the unit. So that's actually a really good place to go and get more information. But when you got there, you know, in the 2000s, what is the FBI hostage rescue team? Why does the FBI have this unit? So it's created back in 83, right, for the Olympics. And so the Department of Justice and the FBI had a counterterrorism team on par with Delta to be the

civilian equivalent in law enforcement. Because it talks about in the book, but it's such a great story I'll share it again, is that the Attorney General was touring Delta Force and looking at the layout of their gear, and he goes, where are the handcuffs? And I've heard the story about Delta says that we don't use handcuffs. That's what they said in 83 or 82. And that was, at least for the Attorney General, a light bulb, like, we need guys that can arrest individuals and prosecute them and put them through the criminal justice system. So that was one of the main reasons it was created to have a entity that could operate at the highest levels, but yet take them into U.S. custody and U.S. court system. Yeah, and I think that's what makes H.R.T. kind of a fascinating unit to me that I don't want to compare them directly to J-Soc. They're different. They have different missions.

But H.R.T can do a lot of those types of things up to and including hostage rescue missions and also have the like infiltration capabilities that we discussed earlier. but at the same time all you guys are cops. You can investigate cases, you can write reports, you can take the stand and testify against the bad guys and make the arrest. Yeah, that's what makes us so unique, well, not just make it so unique, but different is that we're an older age group too, right? Your average FBI age is like 30. So we're not as young, maybe as nimble,

but we have that season experience because you have to be an FBI agent. first prior to coming on ETRT, at least have three, it used to be five years, well, an extra three-year minimum, I think still, you successfully demonstrate those skills of an FBI agent because that is the core. You're still, even though an Eritory operator, you're still an FBI agent. They need to be able to investigate and prosecute targets. And that's why it was such a good blend with J-Soc, right? Because J-Sococ is the best at finding, fixing, destroying the enemy.

the Bureau is really good at investigating criminal networks and dismantling from an investigative angle criminal network, whether it's Lacosanostro or Colombian gangsters. You know, Al-Qaeda is kind of very similar, right? They still have leadership structures. They've got to funnel money around. And that was, again, why the Bureau, H.R.T was melted with J-Soc to embed us to help support J-Soc with that. And from what I've read at least, I mean, that relationship continues. I believe there were some FBI guys with the Maduro raid.

Yeah, there's H.RT guys there in that first Tilo. So, yeah, the HOTD continues to work with the guys. And that's because they need to arrest the guy, right? Yeah. Put handcuffs on them. Yes. And because it's chain of custody, too, for evidence. Right.

Because being in Iraq and Afghanistan, that was like not the Holy Grail, but we were there. God forbid if we, you know, find a piece of paper has a U.S. phone number on it. Oh, yeah. Picture of your house. that we could, you know, satcom that very quickly, back to FBI, and we could have an agent at that house, you know, within an hour, you know, from finding something on target, you know, it's pretty remarkable capability that we would help bring the target.

There's that other operation in Libya years ago where the Delta guys grabbed the guy off the street. And I believe HRT was along with that, or a couple guys, couple liaison. No, there were two HR operators there with them. 100%. Yeah, I know what them very well, yeah. Yeah, so it's pretty interesting. what you the the unit gets into both domestically but also internationally like you guys they

there's some sort of like um is like legal mechanism for like rendition yeah foreign transfer custody it's a rendition we helped bring the back from it yeah you helped bring uh maduro and some terrorists al-Qaeda guy back wrong to justice uh so when you got to believe boot team, were they already, like, in this rotation where they're deploying overseas with J-Soc? No, that did not start yet. We were, again, there were some individual one-offs that H-R-T would work with some of the other units to do individual missions, but there was no full-blown deployments.

And it was actually my partner and I, he was fellow West Pointer, fellow tabbed, empty officer. And we were the first two selected to go. be embedded with 275. And it was McChrystal and the FBI deputy director said, hey, let's try this out for a full rotation. And I think we're picked because we had the military background, we at least could speak and understand the military language.

We also were experienced agents. And we definitely checked our egos at the door. Because you know what's like overseas. And everybody wants to go on target with J-Soc. It's like a circus, right? inside the tent, people are just dying to get in. But you got to prove yourself and you got to add value. And so we sat there for three weeks in Mosul. And like, I remember asking like, what are we doing? Because they don't want to take us on target. And we said, hey, we're, you know, we're technically,

exactly proficient. We're not going to slow you down. And we do bring some capabilities to which you guys don't have. For example, Maphis was one of them, the mobile automated fingerprint ID system. Maphis. Oh, that was before we got the cogent? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So the Maphis is like 30 pounds, but we would carry it, of course. And then we could scan fingerprints, and then it would be linked to the FBI database. So if anyone had planned an IED or construct an IED and all of our thousands of prints, we could have instant match. So that was finally like the key that opened the door after three weeks and again, us living and working at the fob, you know, trying to be of assistance without getting in the way. What was your conception of why you were there versus

what theirs was? Well, understandably, we're just a little bit reluctant because, hey, we have two FBI agents here with badges and notebooks and they got all the cool gear, but we haven't trained extensively with them. And are they looking at us? Like, I think that was the initial thoughts, which I totally understand, and we come there kind of hat in hand, like, we want to go on target with you. Everyone wants to go on target with us, right? But it was because of that Maphis... They thought you guys were like

internal affairs. Right, yeah. I don't care what you guys. You know, short of a war crime, I don't care what to do. We're not here to look at you guys at all, and we can help, you know, with the Maphis and also if there's a connection to a U.S. target, that was our two key element. And it's true, right? We wanted to

have that kind of connectivity back to the states. if we find an imminent threat that need to be communicated to the FVI, we can have agents there at someone's door ASAP, we'll bring that to the target. We're not going to get in the way. We'll stand the corner. He tells us to stand the corner. And, yeah, thankfully, the first mission turned into a second mission,

turned into the third mission. And they ended up, again, kind of fully integrated us towards the end. And towards the end, it was really cool. Abu Taha was like the second or third. in command of al-Qaeda at the time. We're the very top-tier individual in Mosul. This is Talafar in 2005. It was pretty dicey and, you know,

not fun as you know. You literally, I think we may have crossed each other in the tarmac. Yeah, probably. Because we relieved 275. And so, yeah, we were going Missouil, Tel-Far, all that stuff. No, literally, we were probably in the airfield at the same time. Yeah, probably.

Yeah. Yeah, out on Missouille, the airfield. Yeah. Yeah. But that was, yeah, I'll never forget, well, back it up to when he first flew in in the C-130. That was my first corkscrew experience, you know, the deep dive pilot shooting out chaff. I'm holding on. And I obviously jumped out of 30 or so C-130s, but, man, I'd never done that corkscrew.

And I remember looking over at my partner thinking, man, this, that's no joke. We're in, we're in the shit. And I was the first time we'd at least overseas. I remember being shot at. was that one of the Missoule Day Hits? Yeah, so tell us, like, as you started getting attached to these operations and going out with 275, I mean, what was that like? It was, like, surreal, right?

Because I was former Army guy, MP, but, you know, I understood a little bit about Rangers having got my tab. That was one cool thing. I will say, you'll appreciate this being a 375 guy, is some of the younger guys hadn't got their tab yet, right? They were, whatever, E3 is just waiting or maybe they got injured or something. And they were, everyone was always busting their chops back in the pop. And I'd say, well, I got my tab.

How about you? But it was all good natured, you know, ribbing back and forth. So we actually, you know, by the end of it, we're truly integrated. It was really wonderful to see, especially after that, breaking down those barriers, understandably. So that me and my partner, we really kind of forward. that template for future embed operations across Jh-HOC, police for FBI personnel, kind of the model, doing that sensitive side exploitation on target.

So we did basically the battlefield interrogation with the MAPHIS. We did the MAPIS first to run the prints, get that going. Then we'd hop into to bit on the, you know, MAMS or everyone on target to try to paint that intel picture. Because I kind of painted and reviewed myself as almost as a forward-deployed kind of S-2 to help with that intel picture

and help with following targets. Because that was one of the, they seemed to me one of the highlights kind of felt like we really proved our value is, you know, we got some lieutenant, you know, an IED cell maker, and I persuaded him to take us to his captain, who was just like two blocks away.

So I remember walking through the streets and where I'm leading, I mean, still behind the front element, but, you know, I'm holding his flexicups down the middle of the street. But literally, it's me with him. And this is the whole task force following kind of this.

bath and I was super proud to kind of contribute to be far of that. Doing those kinds of missions at night and the streets are just a little too quiet. Oh yeah. Well, you know, like when the dogs would howl or then when you hear the morning prayers. Oh, that scares the hell out of you when it goes off at like 3 a.m. Yeah. Spooked me to know him because I never get used to the morning prayers because they're so loud. Well, I guess you and your partner did do a good job of like building the bridge, building the relationship because when we got there with 375, I don't, not that I was privy to everything,

but I don't recall any sort of friction. Like those guys, the HRT guys we had, we're always coming out with us. That's excellent. So you had two guys with you? As I recall, yeah. Excellent. Yeah.

Well, why don't you tell us about the Talafer mission where you guys rolled up that bad guy? Oh yeah. So this is Abu Taha. I remember this is daytime, and he was a senior ranking, you know, kind of guy. And it was, you know,

probably like noon or one and you know normally you're half racked out and but we got the uh notice and so everyone's everyone's super excited because they hadn't found his location yet so we're doing daytime hit and everybody is kind on edge because he fought before and like all the big guys he said he'd never be taken alive he'd kill himself up so we're really worried about him having uh as soon as i'd best on uh they roll out and The streets, you know, going during the day is such a durrant animal than a night. And as soon as you roll out of the fob during the day, you know, you're worried about an IED or sniper or anything. And thankfully, we didn't do too many daytime missions, but that one were...

It's about like an hour and 10, 20 minutes from Missouil to Telafar. Yeah. And then that city was really dicey at that time. Both of them were, for that matter. Yeah. So we thankfully didn't run any issues. We go on target. he's there with like his girlfriend so there weren't any other fighters there so think of it was a quick grab but the coolest thing for me is we're riding back and i talked to him on target just a little bit just confirm in him you know and you know that was like one of the greatest calls ever when he self identifies and jackpot like you know that's just like an electric fine feeling because he was such a high value target that's why we were there right to get the HPTs so that was an awesome call then we go back and this is when i need this moment so there's that deployment and

personally and professionally was we also interrogators are back in the rear at the fob and we'd built such a good relationship with him the lead interrogator said hey Kyle you started the bit with him I want you to continue interrogation with me here and him with Abu Taa here in the rear so for him to ask you know an outside entity not DOD but an FBI agent to conduct that initial interrogation on HVT with him. That kind of showed we proved our value and our worth. Was this at that little black site we had there on the compound? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, I sure do. Yeah. So we were in the same. We probably slept next to one other. Yeah, we had contractors there doing the interrogation. And I don't know who else may have been involved, but I do remember, I think it was actually a husband and wife team.

There was. So, I want to say the guy's name is Jay, but that's not his real name. He was like the boss, and there's a husband and wife beneath him. Okay. Right? I don't know the chain of command. Yeah, yeah, I know the husband and wife. I know exactly the time.

Yeah. It's such a small world. Mm-hmm. I can picture him right now. Yeah, no, I definitely spent some time in that facility. Wonderful, wonderful accommodations that they were. It's good living. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think they did do a pretty good job of out processing civilians when we picked them up, which happened quite a bit. Sure. But, yeah, I wouldn't want to be a bad guy held in that place. Yeah, that would not be cool. Not at all. And so you did subsequently four more rotations with 275. They kind of kept you...

Three total, yeah. Oh, three total. Two in Iraq, one up against you. Oh, okay. Okay. And that's pretty interesting that they kept you with that battalion, that relationship. Yeah, forged such a great relationship with them. And yeah, same company, Seiko each time. So I loved it. They loved it. And really, that way, you know, the more we work with someone, the more comfortably we are with him. So I, then the subsequent rotations, I went and did the train up with him.

Oh, cool. Even beforehand, I did the couple weeks with him, you know, me and the other E.R.T. buddy. So by the time we went to Ramadi, we were fully, and you'll like this Ramadi story because only a fellow, I think Ranger appreciated it. They have, how do I say this?

A homemade phallic symbol, which is quite large, you're replicating the male and genitalia. The Rangers had this? Yeah. Okay, I believe it. And they would, on target, try to stuff in someone's backpack.

And then it was like, oh, you're carrying a dick on target? Like, what are you? Why would you carry it? But you never, you never were won it in your backpack, but they would on target when you weren't paying attention, sticking your backpack. So it was like a running gag, right? And you wouldn't want to get caught with it because, oh, it's extra weight too, right? But it was really realistic. Like, someone put in like a lot of time and effort in this.

So it was really kind of funny and good, you know, anything to break the attention. but I'll never forget we come back maybe on the second or third mission when my buddy Witt they'd put it in Witt's backpack right and oh my god we just like howling laughing he didn't realize so we're back on back on the Fob and Ryan he pulls it out and like oh god we're just dying laughing and then that night we walked down remains the morning we're walking to the jock and I see outside the jock is McChrystal's backpack literally says McChrystal right and I said he wit let's go get it and put it in his backpack.

Don't think he'll love it? And Witt looks at me and he said, Kyle, either will be the funniest gag ever. Yeah. Or we're on a plane home tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. So thankfully, he was the more judicious, senior smarter one and says,

Kyle, we're not doing it. But we thought about it briefly for a moment, but it was just good, good humor. But to me, it's a sign, though, that they like this, respect this because they're having fun of this. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I mean, they're not going to, like, pull pranks on, you know, their leaders or their co-workers if they don't like them. Right. Yeah. It was all good fun. I guess you guys didn't have one of three, seven, five. We didn't have a fake dick, to my knowledge. But there was plenty of reindeer games that got played for sure. And, oh, so in Ramadi, tell us, what was this Operation Brass Balls?

Speaking of genitalia. Yeah, that task force commander, a later. became the seal theme six commander uh we were planning a daytime raid i say we the task force that we're supporting of course and we're going to do a remain overnight which those in themselves and most of your audience those are remain overnight you go out through the target and you literally stay there till the morning because we suspected or we've seen intel these two you know bad guys are meeting at this market and so we'll go out there and evening at this market and so we'll go out there And then we take over someone's house, which is always kind of risky because you don't want any violence.

You don't want to let. And then if someone potentially innocent, too, right, we're just picking a random house that we think has the best kind of footprint to hide us for the night. So I always felt a little bit bad for these people. But nonetheless, we go in there and thankfully they're cooperative. But I basically talk to the guy most of the night, just asking them in questions, hey, they're no one around us going to hurt us. anyway and then like you know that was a long night just waiting there waiting there waiting there thankfully no one came but then we roll out on foot to this market because they're only maybe 300 yards away and as soon as we start moving out gunfire erupts and I fuck and I got a translator with me

and we hit the dirt but I was not in a position I couldn't because I guys in front me couldn't engage So we moved around and then finally get to the market. And the two guys would, they kill them. So thankfully it was resolved. But that was another daytime rate, as you know, it's kind of harriest. Yeah, yeah. Most put you on edge, especially coming out of a local's house. That was a little nerve-wracking, but thankfully it all ended well.

And then what was it like doing that job in Afghanistan? How did that differ from Iraq? So there went Kandahar, and I was a senior tactical rep in country. So actually we had, I think, eight different tackle assets kind of underneath me. So I had four right there in Kandahar, but still very similar. But now we're supporting multiple units. So I was supporting two different, at least my team was. I was only going on target with one.

But yeah, Kandahar Mountains and, you know, going after the HVT. So very similar to Ness to C and bit on target. it really mission didn't change. I just had additional responsibilities for the other tactical assets. And they were split up across like different units? Yes. Yeah, the Bureau was constantly

evaluating rightfully. So like which units to support? Especially as a war effort went on. And everyone saw with JSTOC has this. We'd like FBI agents assigned to us. So it was towards the end there, this is like 09, I think Afghanistan. like numerous units are requesting FBI support,

but just like any specialized, and they with smaller numbers, we couldn't support that many elements. Anything memorable from that deployment? I remember when he first landed within that first 12 hours, you know, when you first get there, I was hoping to have a night off, and of course we have a mission.

Well, because they wanted, I take it back. Like, I'd arrived with the ADVON, and it was still the previous unit, and the HRT guy wanted me to go with them, So yeah, that was just a, that was a sucky first day, you know, hiking up 9,000 foot, whatever they were with the rocks. I remember passing a couple of guys that actually had to take the rocks off because it was such a steep climb. But, yeah, thankfully there was no, we did a cool water mission in the Ramadi, sorry, backing up to Iraq. We went on Zodiac except the Euphrates.

That was kind of cool. Oh, yeah. That was really cool because that was unique. Not many times, at least that Siko had ever done anything. on Zodak's before at D-Preeties. Yeah, this was, as I recall, this happened because they wanted to find a new infiltration technique. Yes. Yeah.

That's the guy what it was. Yeah, so I was all that. What was that like? Super cool. We work with Zodak's and do dive training, too, so I wasn't like... You're using your ranger school training there, getting the paddles out. Yeah, we had motors on the back for the first part, but towards the end, we paddled. But yeah, that was definitely kind of freaky.

going on the river because, well, first I'd never been on the Euphrates or any of those waterways in Iraq, but it's kind of like a street, but on the water. So you sell the occasional dogs howling, but thankfully, for the most part, it was not too many houses, like there are not too much population along the waterways. So thankfully, we didn't encounter anything on the infill. And then on target was normal target. We grabbed the guy and then brought him back on the boat. So overall it was just a different unique insert, which I kind of love just being in the water, feeling the wind against your face. Yeah, that hot, you know, Iraq air even at night where it feels like you're staring into a hairdriar. Yeah, you're inhaling oven fumes. And then backstate side,

you did make that transition from sniper to assaulter. And you want to talk about Puerto Rico? Yeah, so Puerto Rico actually was a sniper. That was my last mission. There's a militant, separatist guy down there, Filipperto Rios, and he previously shot at the FBI and was a fugitive. He hit a guy at an agent in the face. He robs him banks, so like $7 million. And he'd been on the run for like a decade. But he was kind of folk hero. On a small island. Yeah, but he's a folk hero of them, right? Because he's kind of anti-big government. Right, right.

He has this weird, you know, kind of cult-like following, and he's deep in the woods. And we had intel that, you know, he found him. So an HRT, we went to Puerto Rico, I'll say it, like, twice a year. Because lots of criminal activity down there, and they're higher risk, and it's in this rugged hillside. So we were going to do an aerial insertion and then hike to it. And so the snipers,

the first element goes up, I was on the second sniper team, or I should say the relief team. So the first team goes out, they set positions, and they're watching for a couple days, then they confirm he's there. Then on that night, though, he's walking around, and they think that he may have seen one of their infill tracks or routes as he was walking around. So it's the afternoon of day two. So they call potential compromise. So they launched the daytime assault.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. And it goes south from there. So the ATRQ comes, the assaulters come vehicle right up the front, and it's a shootout. Round start coming both ways. We're shooting him. They're shooting.

And we have one of our guys who got shot really badly at the porch. It gets two right underneath the vest. He goes down to a knee. Same guy Witt then is right there at the window. He stands in front of the window to obscure firefighters at the guy. Well, two other guys go grab him, move him off the porch, you know, get him around the corner. And they start providing him, you know, medical care until the ambulance can pull up. So there's a longer, like, 20-minute firefight going back and forth.

He then, at one point, opens the front door, shoves his wife out. it's like holy moly there's another person inside which we weren't you know aware of so now we think it's just him a few more rounds exchanged and now we've relieved my team the sniper team relieved it so we're out watching and i remember and the heat just sweltering the sweat dripping down and i'm looking through the glass and you know after a few hours even though we're alternating that's tough and again i'm not cut out to be the sniper and you're You start to see things like, is that a shadow? Is that him?

Wait, no, I've got to blink the eyes. You know, when you're on glass for that long, your eyes start to go. Yeah, and even though we're switching off every 20 minutes or so, I don't care how good you are. After a couple hours, even doing that, my eyes are just shot. And I'm ever thinking, I'm not extra mission. Or not, I'm questionable. My ability to identify the target because I would see a shadow and I, oh, that's not him. but I didn't see muzzle flashes.

So I obviously can't take a confirmed shot. I remember that was a few times I got a finger on the trigger, but I wasn't comfortable taking a shot because, right, you always got a dead on your target in his backstop. And even though we didn't think it all in the side, didn't want, obviously, a horrible mistake to happen. Right. Which we've had, you know, in the past.

And so I didn't shoot thankfully, or didn't even, or I should say, never saw anything that warranted. it warranted it. But I remember that was another kind of needle in the adding to like, or not, it's just a camel, kind of broke the strawboard camel's back of me not wanting to be a sniper. And just after that, it came back and said, yeah, it's just not cut out. How was the firefight resolved? So the next morning now, so it goes silent right after the-

So he's barricaded inside the house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're basically sorry, right around the house. and we finally got a robot like the next morning like timeline, Zaggart, maybe it was later that day that's not exactly, but we finally get a robot and we, because now we have no, we're trying to call him out,

trying to give commands, nothing, no response at all. And one of the guys thinks he'd hit him when he was, he saw a glint of his outline when he opened a refrigerator door, he was backlit by the refrigerator light. And he took a shot. So he did say, I think I,

So they're thinking like maybe bled out. Yeah, maybe bled out now because now it's been so many hours. So send the robot in. Robot sees him. He's on the ground. And the robot, you know, has a claw and it kind of rotates him over. And his hand is rigor morse. His hand goes like this.

And in classic HRT fashion, one of the guys watching the video says, Oh, I think he has a question. Yeah, that operator did get him. That was the end of that. But we didn't know it. I mean, until many, many hours later. You guys are cops following procedures. I'd have been like throw approximately 100 flashbangs into that house.

Yeah, leveled out. Yeah, yeah. Done screwing around at that point. I did love that ROE overseas. Yeah. Because there wasn't my... Yeah, well, I mean, not to be like flipping about it, but yeah, the FBI doesn't use hand grenades.

Like, that's not a thing, you know. Although we... I'm overseas. That was the only time. Oh, they let you carry. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. I don't know if that was officially Bureau policy.

Let me just caveat that. But we carried them. I don't think they're going to come after me now. And tell us about Detroit. Yeah, Detroit was a Ruse operation. There was a criminal who was connected to them. I want to say,

forget which terrorist network, but he was, he and his four other conspirators were meeting an FBI undercover agent. So we set up in this warehouse and that we were going to rest in the warehouse right away from his home and in our controlled environment. So he comes in and we've got perfect position set up with cover and we've got a canine and we've got it wired for audio and video. and they come in there right where we want him. The undercover gives a signal he's out of the way. So we come out, yeah, FBI hands up, you're going to rest, you know, show us your hands. And then four guys immediately complied. Get your knees.

I can go face down. He goes down, but then his hands are in his pockets. Everyone else has their hands spread out on the floor. Show us your hands. Show us your hands. He doesn't do it. Team leader says, all right, we're going to release. the canine and then he walks up or it moves up with the canine handler and says you have three

warnings we're going to release canine or release canine show us your hands so no doubt's clearly communicated he doesn't respond and he releases freddie freddie is their canine and freddie goes in grabs his arm and then he with his other arm pulls out a pistol of course from his pocket and he shoots at us shoots at freddie and so freddie took a bullet for me and the other seven guys there. You know, we eliminated the threat. But Freddie, even though we had, you know, H.R.D. helicopter standing by and they, the medics had pre-coordinated with the vet, like, but they had already been to the vet hospital.

Everything was set. He was literally in the helicopter within, like, minutes of being shot on the operating table within another couple minutes, and they couldn't save him. So, uh, the canine handler, Stan Wadis, uh, or a canine handler. He wasn't Freddy's at the time, but he did a tribute to Freddy. I haven't the book, the graphite drawing. And Freddy's one of canine heroes that he was like so many other canines gave their lives to protect their teammates. So I want to remember Freddie. What kind of dog was he?

A Belgian Melanwal. Yeah, yeah. Just a great ferocious dog. And he loved being part of the team. Like he loved, like we get kidded up. Like he knew that was his job and he loved being with us. And that was a painful day. Yeah.

No, I'm sorry. As, you know, it sounds like, you know, you're firing at a cyclic rate here as an HRT guy. What sort of caught your interest about, well, frankly, leaving HRT and going to the crisis, or the, yeah, the crisis negotiation unit? Very tough. It was my wife, a lot of pressure. We were going to. It's the opt tempo. Yeah, because we were gone, especially the deployments years, like 50% of the time.

I had two boys at the time, and I loved it. Like, those missions and the people were extraordinary. Again, I truly felt like I was just average. I never worked so hard to be average just to be on that team. And I love what we did and what we got to do. But I took a massive toll on my family and my body. Sure. I've had 11 surgeries and it's just a cumulative effect.

And my wife and I were going to Hawaii and we're like packing the car up, ready to go to the airport. And we got alerted for a mission. And it's like December 23rd, I think. So we're going for Christmas. I said, honey, I got a mission. She goes, what are you doing? And this is what we train for, right? That's where we live for.

And I said, the team needs me, and I need the team. And she goes, well, this is going to be one of your last missions. You're going to have to decide. And so that was really like a knife, deservedly so in my heart. And I wanted to still, like, do a job at an impact, but it wasn't as risky because my wife, like, she, I don't know about you, but, like, I didn't worry that much. Like, I either knew it was my time that I was going to get taken out or not, because you know you worry about it too much, it'll occupy the time. So I feel like it didn't process it, but my wife every night is thinking about it. Yeah.

Think about it and just torture her. So the cumulative effect of all and my body is breaking down. I could totally put the seven surgeries on my elbows. So that, all right, I'm going to transition. These guys are incredible what they do. You know, we, you know, the tenants. of a hostage rescue speed surprise bounce of action right i love that and we persuaded intimidated through the dominating rooms well negotiators they slow things down they talk about emotion right words for

their weapons so it's a totally different way to look at a crisis and totally different way to solve problems so i really like that creative angle because now i've learned there's really two ways more than two ways to look at how to solve crisis and try to persuade others to influence them not through force sometimes you have to when i get that and that's right and dandy but if we can avoid that or if i can avoid this is how i viewed it if i can avoid sending my teammates back down or enter in a house where guys are going to shoot them right i'm going to do everything my power to do that to protect them so that was kind of a reasons and background and did you have to apply for that unit also go through specialized training and so on. Yeah, so there's a two-week negotiation course

for FBI negotiators, a basic one. And so I'd go through that and then the unit chief of, so you previously had Gary Nestor on, the first FBI CNU unit chief. So this is actually three, one or two people after him. I'd met with him several times as, hey, I'm interested in coming the unit and you know kind of near in the end of my time and so we we talked I talked to the other and I knew that I had known those negotiators for years because you deploy with them right and so got more and more integrated did some training with them and thankfully uh you know they then accepted me into the unit so there is a uh application process you get to apply but I kind of had the end okay just because I was there and I had done it so yeah but I enjoyed I'm really uh I relish kind of that

mental chess game now. Yeah, I mean, the two weeks, I mean, that must have been just an introductory course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just the first introduction course. You start taking like, like psychology courses. I mean, what's the background of one of these guys? Yeah, so we worked with a behavioral analysis unit as well. But yeah, there's several like extracurricular activities and training that you would do.

So like we sent guys in that unit to the London. metropolitan police negotiated training. So they sent me there for two weeks. So I did that for two weeks. Then I went to other one-week courses. You really learned how to effectively communicate. And more than that, like be a good listener. Because I know I wasn't like the best listener. So this is fascinating. When my middle son was 11 years old after I'd been in CNU for a year, he said, Dad, you speak to us differently after you've been. in a negotiator. I said,

shut up, kid. No, I didn't say that, but I was, like, just stunned that my 11-year-old son was so observant. Yeah, yeah. That picked up on it. I didn't consciously, I'd choose the way I was speaking.

But, yeah, through the communication, you know, training through the drills. And we did a lot of role playing, a lot of exercises of fake negotiations. Like, also, like, we did have, you could call in to help with suicide hotlines and do other techniques to help you, learn to empathize with people. So it really takes you at least two solid years. And the normal,

I was kind of lucky, because normally you'd be a field negotiator like field SWAT. You normally be that for five or six years and then come back to CNU. I was very, very fortunate, lucky to just do it in there. If I recall correctly from reading some of these books, there are historically at the FBI, been seriously big tensions between the negotiators and the HRT guys. Well, you go back to, right, Waco. Yep. And unfortunately, massive disconnect between the two. Like, they weren't even co-located.

And tactical didn't listen. The negotiators didn't really see the need or value to it. Because tactical thinks like tactical, right? They want to use, and of themselves as the tool. Yeah, yeah. It's quicker, right? You're more efficient and the job's done. And I understand that from a tactical perspective.

but now if we can resolve it, if we can get like the branch of venues, if we can get even what, they've got 25 kids out, like the negotiators saved 25 kids' lives. Right. Like that's remarkable, right? Those 25 people now, and I could be off on the numbers, but living like the rest of their lives due to the negotiators. So the fact that that disconnect, like that bothered me,

and there were significant changes the FBI made after that. So I made the critical answer response group to the umbrella to house both. And they did work together, but there still remains, and even probably to this day, a little bit of tension between the two, because they just think differently. And unless you've been in both worlds, right, they each speak different languages. And one of the reason they took me is that unit chief said, I really want and need someone who has a HRT background so that we have more credibility with HRT. So really his decision too

And Gary Nestor also Recognize that too And he brought on the first From reach your T guy But it's very rare Begin bridging that gap there I'm sorry To bridge the gap

Yeah To bridge the two Actually absolutely to bridge that gap And you got involved In some like pretty high profile operations as a negotiator Yeah first The big one

Well Michael Scrantmore Was a big kidnapping case he was kidnapped by Somali pirates for two and a half years. And that was the first time I'm negotiating with a pirate. But yeah, I'm negotiated with pirates, kidnappers, and terrorists. So they sent to, were you like working with like a SEAL Team 6 over in Somalia and trying to work that? So we did work with those guys. This was exceptionally long case.

And those guys are great. I remember like a year into it where the pirates demanded, well, first off, he was kidnapped. and then Jesse Buchanan was saved like two days later. Yeah, yeah. And so his ransom, or, yeah, Michael Someror's ransom was $20 million. And like, it was like comical. Like we support the mother, right? The U.S. government doesn't pay any ransoms, but we support the mother.

So I'm right there with the mother. Marlis, fantastic individual, like super stoic, awesome. But she doesn't have $20 million. She's not even realistic. Some. So the first, like, year was really difficult trying to find. like a reasonably even bargaining position with these pirates. Where did they snatch Michael up from?

What was his deal? He went to Somalia to write a book about piracy. Oh, shit. And his bodyguard driver turned on him. I guess he got the experience to write the book. I mean, there's that. Probably not the way you wanted it. So how did you guys resolve that one?

So there was a great idea. So he was taken aboard the Naham 3, which this time when he was fishing vessel that they had also hijacked They had several other prisoners on board. And they, like, had killed the captain. The captains are, like, the freezer. Jesus. So these are, you know, brutal individuals.

And there were some sicken assets. This is one of my trips down to Damneck. Because we're, this is before there was, like, a true fusion cell. Now there's a hostage recovery fusion cell, which is great. But this is before that. So we're just on our own kind of collaborate and working together. But they invited us down. and Bants and me

my kind of mentor in C&U anyway, I thought one of those brilliant ideas ever we had SIGN coverage and he was fishing on the side of the boat like every day around three three-ish and they said well what if he jumps in

can you swim? I said yeah he was a surfer he was California surfer I said I'm you know almost guarantee he'll swim and so they started developed a plan. I won't go into too much details we can figure out pretty easily what their plan was. And again,

where I loved, like, we, at least FBI headquarters, we said, we've got this brilliant plan. We love it. Fully supportive. Like, let's do it. We're going nowhere in negotiations. We can't get around for the $20 million. And then, like a week later, right? So now we're spinning up. NSC

level is considerate. He jumps off the side and tries escape on his own. Oh, so you guys didn't have like, like coms, like even clandestine. We tried to get a message to him, and we literally were crafting the message and putting it, it was en route to get to him within like a few days, we think. So literally, he didn't know it.

And I can't play it. Right, yeah, you had no idea. Yeah, we were pretty close. You get him the message and the boys would have had an incredible mission there. There was a, years ago when everything was really going south in Libya, the SWIF. the Swiss government arrested a member of the Gaddafi family. Okay. And so the Libyan government responded by arresting two Swiss businessmen in Libya.

And they were being held near the coast. And they let these guys, they're on house arrest. It wasn't that bad. And they were being allowed to swim in the Mediterranean. Okay. Go out there, go for a swim. And the Swiss Special Forces guys got tasked like, hey, figure out how to get these guys out. And they came up with a plan that they'd rent the sailboat.

come down the coast, jump off the opposite end of it with rebreathers, and then come and grab these guys. They'd have oxygen tanks and rebreathers for them, put them on that, and then swim back to the boat. And it never got approved for political reasons. You know, I think the Swiss probably paid some money and got the relief. But, I mean, it's interesting. Like, maybe they could have pulled it off.

Yeah, again, I think, because the main thing is if you're comfortable in the water, right? and him being a surfer, I felt. That was one of the things because one of the guys had maybe like a heart condition or something and he didn't feel that he could swim underwater. Yeah. That was part of why it didn't happen. Yeah, that will mix your plan. But I love it. I love the creativity.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Outside the box thinking. And like, it would work and it's relatively low risk by comparison to fast roping operators onto a boat. Yeah, yeah. Border assault. Yeah, yeah. And then you got involved in the aftermath and your aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Yes, so on Friday, of course, the bomb goes off, and then Thursday, Vera released the pictures, and the bombers are identified, and they go kill the MIT police officer, and there's a big fight out in Watertown. And so I was flown up Friday morning from Quantico as the kind of senior FBI negotiator, even though there's much more senior to people than me.

But we, you know, actually we had Mark Thunderclaw's a different location in Boston. He was with H.R.T. hitting another location. But I was at the Watertown Mall. And if you remember when he was identified, people went on the media. Like his uncle said they're a losers. These guys are horrible. His aunt went on and like she said, oh, they're set up by the police. right. Yeah, yeah, she was a nutty. And then his wrestling coach actually went on CNN and spoke

positively about him. So even though no one thought there'd be negotiated resolution, I didn't think being negotiated resolution, right? But it's my job to be prepared just the case. So I called the wrestling coach, spoke to about an hour, learned his nickname and some background details on him. And I said, thanks, maybe we'll see you tonight, Friday night, you know, as we're getting said here. This is the younger cousin. Yes, the younger brother. the brother. Yeah, the two brothers. The younger one. Did you guys know that the older one had been

killed yet? Well, yes, we knew because he read him over him, but that wasn't the public released yet. Gotcha, got here. Which is kind of key point later I'll get to. So I'm at the Watertown Mall, and remember, the city's, the nation's on edge, right? Because after the

firefight with the police, the younger brother drove over his older brother, and then fled, and then the city's on the lockdown. They're looking for him. find him. City goes off lockdown at 6 p.m. Friday. Homeowner goes in his backyard, sees blood on his boat. He calls 911. And then hundreds of officers

self-deploy to the backyard on Franklin Street. And we all heard it like on live television. Yep. You heard those hundreds of rounds. Get the bear cat up. Yeah. And I'm like a quarter mile away. And I thought, man, I've been in Fallujah and Mosul and Tauphar and I haven't heard that since being overseas. And I thought, oh,

thank God it's probably done though at least you know the guy's killed because we're staged like there's thousands of us probably 2,000 in arsenal mall that was the law enforcement staging area and hr t was there uh we heard that and again kind of relieved thinking okay good it's all done with we'll get to go back home and then i see the hr t like s3 running towards the team which is like a hundred yards away in the parking lot so i thought man that guy never runs right like i literally thought he he's only running because they got the mission so i run over there and she's sure enough, they said, H.R.T. This is eight guys. Go deploy and take charge of the site. It's total chaos and mayhem. And so I was there with a team leader. And I said, hey, I'm a negotiator.

I said, hey, why don't you let me hop in? And he goes, Kyle, we're not going to need a negotiator. And I said, I get it. And this is a guy I'd work with, thankfully for eight years. So I was able to gently push back. And this is exactly, I think I was just in the right place, the right time with the right background. I said, I think you should take me just in case it's better to have me and you know I'm not going to get the way than not have me and need me. He goes, all right, all right, hop in the last vehicle. So it's like gentle nudge, but yeah, yeah, very glad I did. And then my two other negotiations partners, they follow in a separate vehicle, so like ninth in the convoy. And we drive short distance, but then we're hit by all the other traffic.

So then we got a dismount. And now we're climbing defensive. and my two partners will just say they're healthy negotiators. Mark and Vance just great guys, but they can't scale fences. And so I'm now all alone, but we're at this site now. And meanwhile, the barricade had come up. They tried to flip them out using the arm, which is a good idea. Is this when he's hiding in the boat? Yeah.

Gotcha. So he's still in the boat. Hundreds of rounds are fired. Someone says, sees fire. They hold their fire. Massachusetts State Police Barquette comes up, tries to flip him, with its arm out of the boat, but he can't, it doesn't have enough leverage. They command them to come out, come out.

It doesn't have any effect. And that's right then when we arrived. And the team leader, I'll call him Big D, just did a magnanimous, awesome job, like, instilling order into the chaos. This is in Patriots Day, actually did a decent job with it, because it was, it was a horrendous, like, talk about the perimeter 360. And the Boston PD was pretty overwhelmed, I think. Well, this isn't even, yes, in Boston PD, this is out of their jurisdiction. Right. They were there and then they don't have jurisdiction there.

So, imagine like, like, literally 40 different agencies from Massachusetts State beliefs to, I saw Department of State guys there. What? With a vest and a gun. I thought, what did it was Department of State? Like, I didn't say anything verbally, but, like, my mind, like, what fuck are you doing here? Yeah. So it was, like, a circus of all circuses. And obviously, I've been in a few circuses.

But this was, like, total mayhem. because there is no command and control, the 360 perimeter, every use, and they not only missed him, they missed the boat. It's embarrassing the professional law enforcement to say this, but there are rounds that are walking up seeing in like the garage behind him. Jeez. And I thought, what were you people shooting at? Right? Because we're responsible every round we fire as the APHs. So Big D, then he still instills order. into the chaos. Just great job, but did it without like being a jerk, but, you know, definitely

taking charge. Yeah, yeah. Like, I've rarely seen someone, I've never seen someone do it so well. Just an amazing job. And he says, all right, we're going to deploy some 40 mic mics, but some CS gas. Well, well, flashbangs. Oh, sorry. Into the boat. We got overhead. MSP, Massachusetts Police helicopters got fleer. So we can see a warm body, but there's no response. So we know there's at least one of warm body, but we don't know if he's, he's, And the fear is that there could be more explosive devices. Yes. So as much as he killed four people and seriously wounded, 250 others, I wanted him dead as much as anyone.

But remember, at the time, we didn't know, is there another terror cell in New York City or another bomb waiting to go off in D.C.? Right. So our goal is to take them alive for that reason and that reason alone, right? What other intel is out there risking American lives? but the desire, the thirst for vengeance was palpable. And that's why I think those, so many officers kind of fired and sympathetic fired also. So anyway, Derek does the team leader does flash bangs, no response. And now we're kind of all just sitting there, at least I'm thinking like, man, what are we going to do next?

Right? Right. Every level of lethal force. And normally a pyramid, as you start with physical presence, then you go verbal commands, then you go physical force, then you go lethal force. Well, now we've started the top. We have nowhere to go. And word comes down.

The FBI director said to negotiate. And then I heard on the radio, Kyle, you're up. And for a moment, I thought, man, this sucks. I don't have my two partners. And I'm not concerned of my safety, but I'm concerned that every word I'm about to say is going to be scrutinized and questioned every word I don't say. For sure. and I got 400 officers here

Listen to my every word Along with FBI headquarters And God knows who else I've read And CNN's down the street So I had to take As I start walking to the house Because I thought I'd get a second story advantage point I'd literally pause though at the entryway

And they just like three deep breaths And they said You can do this, right? I've been in shooter situations before Go do your job It just took me like five seconds but again just that quick kind of self-pep talk and then went up and then put my hands against the window said my name's Kyle I'm with the police I'm here to talk with you and for 10 minutes it's like silence

so I'm trying to not sound like a parrot and it's really hard when you're having a one-way conversation with someone you don't even know and I said hey you can't hear me like you know bang on the floor like move the tarp just let me know you're alive and I'm trying to like frame the conversation as for perspective. I know you're probably hurt, scared, confused, demonstrate empathy. I'm talking about this path to influence in the book, but I'm using these steps, which we learn as negotiators. And then finally for 10 minutes, he says, water. I said, perfect in my mind. And I said, I've got buckets of ice cold water for you. Yeah. Outside the boat. You got to come off the boat to get the water. And he said, I can't move. I said, you got to move. And like,

Headquarters is calling for updates and thankfully by now Vince and Mark had arrived and they're next to the team leader so now they're coordinating and uh unseen as well so he actually called me and I saw my phone ring and well Vince why are you calling me? I'm right in the middle

of this he said good job you know bring up the coach oh yeah thanks I hang up on him he calls back I hang up again he calls back he'll hey idiot Kyle I'm going to be your coach via the phone just put me on you know mute But I was so myappically focused

I didn't think about it, son. I kept him like, you know, way back there. And he was real quiet, but he gave me a good input at a couple points. And after like 20 minutes, I brought up the coach, which I should have brought up earlier. But I said, hey, I spoke with your coach today. I spoke with Coach Payak. And he wants to see you come out of this alive.

And then when I said his nickname, that was like the magic moment. I said, I know who you are, Jihar. I know who you are. And he's like head. bolted up from the bottom of the boat. First time I saw it like a physical reaction from him. And so that he knew that I knew who he was.

And then that's kind of what opened the door to him moving. He said, I can't move. So you've got to pull yourself, move. So he moves like an inch. I can't move anymore. I said, finish the match. You got to finish the match. And I said, I also wrestled.

All right, I wrestled in high school. I know what's like to be alone on the mat. And so that connection point of the wrestling and again, me doing my homework, prepared priming myself for that moment which no one thought was possible but that resulted in you know hour and a half later he's on the side of the boat and he's at one leg over this is probably that iconic picture you know and he's got the lasers on him and he's got just his right like knee and back or the right knee and below is inside the boat and he says he's hurt badly he can't move that leg over

and i said you got your eight feet above just move it over and just kind of fall the grass and then we'll get you in medical care you'll get to see all the people outside the boat that love you. You get food, water, medical care, all those good things. They stay in the boat and you die in the boat. Those are some things I was using to encourage him off. Anyway, he said, I can't. And he, like, falls forward. Like, he's almost losing consciousness now. And then he comes back up. And I said, come on, get off, you know, move your foot over. He says, I can't. He, like, falls forward. Was there some prohibition against you, like, grabbing him by the sleeve at this point? Well, what's going through our mind is, is this a trap or is he truly, like, exhausted?

Yeah, yeah. And so I'm talking to my... the team leader and I said I think he's I believe him from my perception I'm a pretty good view of him and now he's a compliant subject he's listening to me like I had him lift up his shirt to show that he has no nothing on his chest and he's following my directions I said I think we should go grab him he said all right so talk him through this explain what's going to happen so big D again talk about magnanimous job he doesn't have pick H or T guys to go put the cuffs on him he picks six locals And he says, I'm going to go up with you guys, but I want you guys to have the honor of cuffing him. Like, that's true leadership.

Yeah, he's willing to step into the background. And give, again, the credit honor to others, which I'm just so magnanimous. Just what a great leader. And he knew, you know, H or T, we're going to fly back the next day. But this is the local's arrest, kind of Boston's arrest to make. So he walks up with him, I talk him through it. Hey, you guys are come listen. By the way, you see the red dot on you laser?

Yeah, listen to me. and you'll live if you make a fur to movement we're going to kill you we're going to shoot you right where the red dots are so it's very clear like laying out the consequences for noncompliance and i said do you understand yes then i said okay they're going to move forward they move forward basically yanked him off cuffed him they used sean collier's cuffs the MIT police officer that he and his brother killed and then shoveling the ambulance and then deemler's they how you ride with the ambulance sure because we've got transferred custody. You know, now he's in officially FBI custody.

And then like headcores is calling me. I talked to the boss quick as assistant director, explaining, hey, we got him. He's alive. Is he conscious? Well, he's going in and out of consciousness. And it's like a 10-minute ride at the hospital. All right, you're going to be met by two FBI agents there.

Take him into surgery and they'll take him from you in surgery. Got it. You know, hung up. And then I sit back down, you know, next to him. And he reaches out and grabs my hand. and the bomber asked me, how's my brother? Is that the first time that came up?

Yes. So now I'm in a dilemma. Do I tell him, you ran over your brother, you killed him? Or do I withhold that information, knowing that we want to know about the more bombs on the other stuff, we have a lot more questions for you.

I don't want to ruin rapport or also tell them a lie. Later, come back and make the Bureau look bad. So I said, I'll chuck on them for you because I didn't want to have a good answer. I didn't want to lie on, but I didn't also want to tell him the truth yet. And then we got the hospital and escorted him into the surgery. Pretty cool. Two FBI agents and like surgical gear, you know, guys wearing the badge around his neck. And actually, I recognize one of the guys from headquarters I seen before just nodded and they took him in surgery. And that was the end

of the Boston Marathon bombing. Wow. And that cat is chilling in Supermax. now, isn't he? He got the death penalty, but of course he's appealing it. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, he's sitting in Supermax. That's a wild one. Yeah, that was crazy. The other high profile operation you

were involved in, or one of them as a negotiator, the famous Bunker Boy Rescue. Boy in the Bunker was one of the most challenging FBI kidnapping operations in our history. Yeah. Great. D' D'Range guy goes on a school bus, kills the bus driver, very heroic bus driver. I should back up, like, this guy goes to the bus, is pointing the pistol of the guy, you know, from the same distance us here, and the bus driver, Charles Poland heroically refuses.

He says, you're not going to take the kids off my bus today. Like, what a, just incredible. Yeah, balls. Balls and says no. And he's, you know, it's like a three-minute video from inside the bus. truly difficult to watch, but I've watched it 100 times, and he does end up kill him. But just, I always like to mention that because true the American hero there, trying to defend his kids. And he grabs the first kid next to him and takes him, Ethan, to his underground bunker,

which he'd spent over a year for pairing this layer. And he had IED, his additional weapons in there. And it was all set up for this confrontation with law enforcement. Yeah, did he have some kind of like grievance with the town or something like that? Well, he hated government. Especially big government. And he'd had multiple interactions of law enforcement. And he was an injustice collector, is what BAU described.

He had a pending charge of brandishing a weapon to be in court like the next day. So we think that was the final trigger which led to this. But he had a series of assaults and domestic abuse. He was horrible. Yeah, it's probably pointless for me to apply my logic to it. But I'm thinking like, okay, you don't like the government. So you kid off a school bus. how does that work?

Yeah, and that's a great way to put it, and I try to tell people with that, because I get asked this all that time, you can't apply logical thing into what he did. Because he wanted an audience to tell his story about all his grievances. So in his mind, he was fully justified to kill the bus driver and take this kid hostage to tell his story of grievances. So tell us about CNU and HRT getting spun up for this thing.

So, yeah, I remember my partner and I, Vance, same guy in Boston. Really, it was my mentor, just probably when best negotiators in the world. And he and I got the tag for the mission. On the day one, when it just happened on Monday, we saw the video, and we met with the behavioral analysis, and we just watched that. And remember we were debating with them, and they said, well, maybe he's taking the five-year-old for sexual gratification. Because he also wrote a note, which we found on the bus.

And we looked at a note, there's no mention of wanting the kid for that, and there's nothing in the video to indicate that. And I remember this first time, like, professionally disagreeing, like, no, we, I don't see that. We don't see that. Yeah. And amongst his long rap sheet. Right. He doesn't have that.

Horrible the guy is. Yeah, yeah. There's no behavioral indicators, right? We always, that's why I learned as a negotiator. Like, you base your assessment off a behavioral indicator. You don't just base up a gut feeling. Right, right. Like, there's no behavioral indicators that he wanted to molest a child.

Although, again, we had to be prepared, I, God, forbid, but just an initial assessment. And then that night we actually got the order to deploy. We're going to fly out in the mornings. We flew out the second morning and we rolled with them on the plane and we're going over those back on nature two is doing all their gear prep on the plane. And when we landed, it was Midland City. And thankfully, we had our own, you know, the Bureau plane. It was always nice to fly into the airport.

Although it was Nick named, or it was named Freddie too, in honor of Freddie. But I always felt like when everything flyed, know this is a tangent, but it sounds like an old washing machine. Is this like a Gulfstream? Rattling? No, no, it was like 737. Oh, no kidding. But like a 35-year-old 737, which sound like a washing machine. Like you'd hear these moving parts every time he landed and took off.

We always thought it was going to blow up on us. But anyway, we were on Freddie 2, I believe, for that mission. And yeah, it was a really, it's such a interesting story because he was so prepared and, again, had IEDs on the property. He had one inside the bunker that was a remote wire detonated to outside the bunker. And then inside he had another one, which was like a like a 22 against a shotgun primer into a bigger IED. So he had both those IEDs. He threatened to detonate if anyone came down. It was just one way in, one way out. So talking about like the worst fatal funnel ever. And we had structural engineers. We had army ground penetrating radar.

We had almost every asset you can dream of to help us, but there is no way. And if we tunnel from the side, it would potentially collapse at least 2,000 pounds in dirt. And the HRT guys built a full-scale mock-up, right? Well, one of the former seals on the HRT called Gulfport CV Battalion. And this is like Tuesday and says, hey, can you guys help us build a mock-up? And how great is this? Within like three hours, I don't know how long it takes to load up. They had like two 18 wheelers drive from Gulf Fort to Midland City.

And that day, the CBs are making the mockup. Like, incredible. Those guys rock. As you've seen what they do overseas. It was just awesome. So they're building the mockup. So we're doing rehearsals, eight or twos in rehearsals, but I was going over there, just checking out as well, just to get an idea of it.

Because we were using negotiation with him to gather intel for the creation of the bunker, right? Because he would kind of boast about it. And we interviewed all the neighbors, of course, because we're trying to gather every bit of Intel for What construction materials did he buy? Exactly. We're going through

purchase history, everything you can think of because we have hundreds of people on the ground. I actually remember like day three, I think we have daily updates of the director

and, you know, the in there was like the special in charge, the H.R.T. Commander and then Vance was the lead negotiators because there's a deputy,

the BAU rep and the sheriff. So that was like the key kind of leadership group, which realized was like a negotiator. So for me to be even involved, even though I was the deputy, it was a great feeling to know that I kind of had to seat at the table. Right, right.

Which I felt like, I don't know, it just was like a cool professional moment even to be there. How did you advance get comms with the bad guy? The Atlanta, this is that night one, we weren't there yet. Atlanta, I assume, yeah, Mobile called Atlanta FDA to help them initially. So before we even natured got there, some Atlanta negotiators were there. Gotcha. And they successfully, he'd set up the speaking tube. It's such a crazy thing.

He dug a 170 foot underground, like foot deep, PVC tube speaking apparatus so that if, you know, the bunkers over there 170 feet away, he would talk to people. So that was where he first told law enforcement. He called 911, by the way. After he drops to get in the bunker, he comes up, calls 911 and says, talk to me at the speaking tube. Come to my speaking tube. Yes. and the first responders do that Bill Raffrey is the first

negotiator or a stand in the speaking tube and they're just talking to him and of course that night we bring up an SABT a bomb tech and they x-ray it and what's in the speaking tube and IED. Oh shit. Yeah. So they were talking so they negotiators that night persuade him to accept a throw phone

as a separate communication device and like any good negotiator does he phrased from his perspective benefits him and so they filled that to him so that was how we're talking to the Gotcha. Gotcha. So it was safer and obviously better for us not to have someone staying up that IED. We just surround it with sandbags after that.

And what was, as you get, you know, you and your buddy Vance open up communications from your end. I mean, what's your assessment of this guy? Well, day two, I should back up when I first saw that Ethan was the five-year-old. He needed medications. So he needed his ad Asperger's syndrome. And he needed three times a day med. So the negotiator is able to talk him and letting us go, if tax will go up to deliver meds three times a day.

So we're going to be with target analysis three times a day. So day two, I saw like, you know, 4-8-30 buddies go with the two local sheriffs. And I remember watching that. I thought, well, wait, they're talking to him. Even though they're the throw phone. They're talking about the bunker lid. So I went to the ATR2 commander and say, hey, boss,

like any time there's communications, you should have a negotiator there. Let me go be the coach to that sheriff's deputy. have continuity with the same guy talking to him. And I'll be his coach, the office assess, and provide him talking points and be right there at the lid. He said, yeah, do it. So I became the forward, like deployed negotiator. Even though, I'm not drunky talking to him.

I'm talking, coaching the guy with him. So I'm right there, though, with everything. And we had 25-person team, so it was not just me in advance. We were leading the team, but they had 25 other negotiators because now we're doing eight-hour shifts. And you got every hour, you got to send an update to headquarters. it was like a beast of an operation. So yeah, the story on day three is like,

again, we got 100 FBI personnel plus unseen and director asks us, okay, how many calls were there today? Well, sir, we had two calls. That's like 6 p.m. at night. Two calls? You know, implying, what are you guys doing? What's going on?

Why only two calls? So, each call was four and a half hours long. Right? So it was like nine hours of calls. Right. Right, right. And, you know, it's a classic example of it's tough to lead a crisis from far, right? The second guessing your subject matter is on the ground.

But so there's no more questions about the number of calls after that. But day six, or day five is a pivotal event. We had an opportunity. He, which is a remarkable thing about this, this is the bad guy stuck in a hole. there's this garage door spring on top of the hatch lid, which he installed these two garage door springs to help lift it up. It was so heavy. So imagine like 200 pound piece of wood or 200 pounds square roof lid.

He had the springs on to help him lift it up. And one of the springs that come off in the storm. And he said, well, I want to help you guys lift up that hatch lid to attach a second spring so it's easier for you guys to lift the lid to put medication down. And I heard him say it on the phone. I'm like, think about it, this is the bad guy offering to help the police, help law enforcement. And I thought, hey, I ran to the commander. So I heard this.

I say, boss, he may, he's willing to come underneath and lift the hatch lit up. That's going to operate it right there. See if he'd snap. Yeah, what do you think, boss? So, boss said I love it. So I went and I shared it with HRT and they talked about having a guy right there. And if he could confirm that. the trial wasn't there, right?

Then it's, we don't have differences in our lethal force directives, but it was nice to know that at least the boss said I view this, Ethan being in an imminent danger. Because we truly don't change our lethal force, but this is nice to our boss say those words. Anyway, so we go up due to the medicine delivery that day, which is all normal. Then we say, hey, can you help us lift the hatchlet now?

And so I'm right there. The hatch lid open it up. Then I can see his white hair, I'm like three feet away. And actually, you know, the operator's right there. But he's got to wait, right, confirm that shot. And it lifts up.

And then right as operators, I can see the finger on the trigger. Right. It's coming back. And he caught like a glit of sunlight, like off the barrel or something. He sees it, drops it. So it's only like half a second.

I'm talking like much longer to happen. Like half a second. He goes, you motherfuckers. you just tried to kill me and I was trying to help you so we lost like all rapport and it really is spiring downward he's yelling at us

and I should have pulled Tony was the sheriff's step he did a great job but it's like not a productive conversation right we're just he's getting more emotional more pissed finally pull him off and that we like we're done here we're nothing good is coming from you talking to him

and I probably I'd let him talk probably too long. But anyway, we come back and they did call and say, oh, it was the new guy, the whole Vance came up with a good excuse. He was just, you know, too close, and he'll never come back. Bullshit, he doesn't believe it. So it's like, fingers are twiddling, and then he gives the deadline. And he says, by, this is day six the next morning.

Yeah, I want a female reporter to come inside the bunker. That was his whole request. The female reporter to tell a story. Then I'll release Ethan. And he knew there's no other way around it. Like, the reporter has come in the bunker. then they'll release Ethan. And we're never going to put a female reporter in there.

Yeah. Even though we had a short guy, even the HRC operator said he'd put on a wig. It's kind of a funny aside. But we're not going to, we never also put a solo guy. All right. It's always going to be two people. Yeah, I mean, even a female FBI agent, you're not going to put somebody in that. Exactly.

Yeah. So it was never seriously considered. But we had to, right? So it's a six by eight foot space. And this is where I think almost one of those moments. that I was kind of meant to be there, lucky to be there, fortunate to be there. Because, again, I want to,

now I know my brothers have to go in that hole. But how can we reduce risks? How can negotiators set them up? How can I set up them for success? And I noticed that before, so imagine six by eight foot room and the ladder was here, so I can move that, sorry,

we would drop toys down every couple days for Ethan to play with. And I noticed they took him to the far corner over here by the bed. And I thought if we deliver toys to Ethan and then somehow lure Dikes up the ladder At least separation. Exactly. Yeah.

That would be the most we could possibly get in a six-by-eight foot room, but it's better than any other kind of combination thereof. And I thought, who is the only person that he would speak to? And it clicked his daughter. He had two estranged daughters. I hadn't spoken daughters 20 years.

We'd call him up, contact him on Thursday. One said, I want nothing to do with my dad. But the other said, all right, I'll come help you. So I met, we talked with her, and we said, hey, would you talk to your dad for us? And gave her some, like, scripted lines, yes. But I didn't tell her she was the lure. So she was going to be the bait to get him up the ladder. So this was back to 2013, like early Skype days.

So, hey, I said, let's put her on a computer. I'll lower the computer down the hatch lid, just like a foot, and have the daughter on there and try to get them up there. So we all I briefed At least my idea H or T they like it We brief the sheriff

He likes it We briefed the director A director similar kind of verbiage I'll never forget He says well I want everyone in that room The seven of us To verbally concur that you want to go with this plan Like he put it back

On all of us At least he wanted to make sure 100% concurrence And everyone said yes Yes yes And they said okay Do what you need to do But before you do it

call me. Think about it from the leadership perspective. He gave us all authority, then took it all back. Right, right. So we're all sitting there and I'm, there in advance and I went and talked to the SAC and said, obviously, Bosch, you're going to call them back because that's not an answer. And, you know, we do believe this is a serious deadline. He's going to kill himself and Ethan. So anyway, they do call back. They get approval. And this is day seven now. I've got the laptop, which is hardwired to the other laptop, which goes to the van, you know, 50 yards away where the daughter is. And we, we, go up and the breaches first thing I do they place their you know charges on the uh there's these

three ibolts where the he also had not only was at 200 pounds but he had steel cables into a winch so they couldn't open that thing so they put the three charges there and then excuse me we deliver the meds just like a routine that's the other thing too is keep it the same each and every time and then we deliver the toys and thank god that second condition met, the toys, and then I lower the laptop, and I'd marked it with like 550 cord, and then we'd told the daughter, hey, start talking immediately, and then we back out of there. So now we want no more contact with us. We went right, the daughter. So then we're watching the video screen, the ground force commander, GFC, he knows the trigger. So the trigger one, Ethan is there,

trigger two, dikes up, and he said, execute, execute, execute. The charges are go and then the team's run up. Breacher's open that lid. First guy goes in and he's just, he jumps in, imagine like an elevator shaft, but then he's only halfway down the elevator shaft. His waist is sticking up. It was like a bicycle locks or something that he. Well, we didn't know that yet. Yeah. We just, I see him jump in and we're all like, what the hell? What the fuck is going on? And now he's getting shot at and he's just like hanging there. And it like doesn't compute. Like, why didn't he drop down the bottom? And he sees muzzle flashes, but he doesn't know exactly where Ethan is because now it's been like, whatever,

five seconds later, even though it's still five seconds, you can move a lot. Or I don't know exactly maybe three seconds. Doesn't matter. But he doesn't know exact Ethan's location. So the team leader says, you know, pull him out, pull him out. This is the same wit guy was in Ramadi with. This is an awesome leader or two. And they pull him out. And then they throw in some more, throwing a couple bangs and they throw in Ella, another canine, Valjean Malma, and the canine, she also gets stuck.

We're like, what fuck is going on? And so now, like, this is the first time ever, like, like, we don't quit anything, right? We are going to overcome every obstacle, but it was similar, or I should say it was like a moment where I just paused, like, again, what are we can do next?

Like, we can't get in the hole. And now we've lost speed, surprise, violence of action. Like, we have a little, little of violence on action with the bangs, but like, what the F? And like a team leader sensed that, and this is awesome. That wit, just some magic words, but they electified. He said, guys, this is what we do. Get in the hole. And not that there was like a big pause or anything, but it was just those words. And then the breacher reach in. There's, you think you saw the

video of it, there's two breaches, one guy reaches in, feels there's cables. He has installed a secondary set of cables, crisscrossing cables, which we had looked down that hole dozens of times during the past six days, seven days. We'd see no other obstructions. He added him just that morning. So the one guy has cable cutters. That guy's a breaching shotgun. And the two breaches are being shot at. He's shooting dozens of rounds up the hatch lid. And they say clear. And this is one of the bravest things I've ever seen. Again, been shot at, you know, numerous firefights overseas and domestically. see incredibly brave things from extraordinary men in the military and women in the FBI.

And that same number one guy who easily could have like stepped out of the line of March because easily checked over by a medic and he easily could have stayed out, right? And number two here would have filled right in without any doubt. And he gets back like intentionally in front of the number two guy now and then jumps back in the hole, knowing that there's an armed adversary actively fighting waiting to kill me. Like, that's the men I was fortunate enough to serve with the caliber of individuals on H.R.T. So he jumps back down that hole, and we had rehearsals practiced, and he knew he was going to encounter either one of two things, right? The grizzled veteran asshole, diabolical man, fight to the death, or innocent five-year-old child.

He's not going to know which. And he just lunges forward, and it's Ethan. Wow. It's a five-year-old. So he grabs him like this. He turns his body towards the subject. Cradles Ethan towards the wall. It says, you're going to be okay, Ethan. You're going to be okay.

Because he knows every other man is coming right down after him. There's a whole team, assault team coming in behind him. Yeah. And two and three are right behind him. I'll watch her back up two. Gets down there. He's got his pistol, fires the Glock. Fires two rounds, hits center mass.

but he charges him. You know what happens in the Glock when you're pulling the trigger and the muzzle is depressed? It goes out of battery. Yes. So now he has a non-functional weapon, but he knows he's hit the guy twice, but he's still fighting.

And so they're tussing going to the ground. Number three guy, and by the way, this is interesting. You don't like this. First guy is a former Marine officer. Second guy down, former Ranger. Third guy down, former Navy SEAL. Let's talk about like the perfect, even though it wasn't planned that way,

so the perfect representation of a joint force of the man on hd i think that's interesting fact but the second guy is now taking the ground he's trying to unsling his rifle after they you know exchange blows the third guy the seal has his flashlight he sees jeans on and he knows all his guys are wearing cry so then he works his way up to the head and i'll just say both those guys eliminate the threat and then Ethan comes out and one of the more emotional moments in my life just seeing him emerge when all of us, again, it worked so hard. And then we bat an eyelash about that amount of work. But the relief was overwhelming.

And he was taking the hospital. And he says, the doctors, man, those guys shoot a lot. Because everyone in the flash bangs, you know, we had thrown some nine bangers. He thought we were shooting at him. So that's the quick, down and dirty. I tell the whole story in the book, too. But it's one of the more incredible examples of teamwork, heroism. yeah i mean it's like a nightmare scenario yeah um and they pulled it off amazingly yeah over

talking about overcoming adversity and obstacles i and for you uh um you took a management job after this yeah i was so tired of complaining about management and again look at myself in the mirror i said hey if you're not willing to do it yourself stop bitching so yeah i went to uh She field office was a supervisor there at WFO and then headquarters unit chief then finish up Miami is a assistant special agent in charge. So it was a wonderful career. But yeah, interesting to have all three perspectives, right, as an operator going through the door, then the perspective as a negotiator. And then later as a leader, like when I was in charge of operations when national security and lives are on the line. So I felt, I don't know, confident and having those

three perspectives, I think, made me a better leader in judgment when to use what tool, for example, because as you saw, the blending of those tools where negotiators helped enable the tactical rescue, even though the heroic save the day, was still enabled initially, right, with the negotiators setting them up. What was it like, you know, taking that kind of leadership position and now presumably having oversight over a lot of these operations? You're the one they have to call and ask for permission? Well, actually, I loved it. Because having been there and done it, like there's, I don't know,

a supreme sense of not of confidence, but just having gone through these situations on HRT, like the field office had, we had high risk operations, there were some Americans kidnapped in Haiti and I led the repatriation.

Wow. I'm on the C-130 with, it was a Coast Guard C-130. So that was really cool bringing back these Americans. But the risk level wasn't the same as HRT, but the responsibility was higher. So I really kind of enjoyed that aspect of it. And having, you know, people in Miami was just a wonderful group of professionals.

And we were counterintelligence and cyber. So I- Cubans down there. Yeah, there was a lot of good work in Miami. And I truly enjoy that as well. And then you retired, what, like three years ago? go at a bureau. Yeah, I've been out for three and a half and now do some executive leadership development at Cornell University, a part of their team. And I'd also do keynote speaking. So anyone looking for their company for a corporate retreat or event? That's what I do now. I talk

about leadership stories. I tell the FBI stories, but then I have some leadership takeaways. Just that we talk about here, it's kind of the essence of the book. I tell the stories and they're one of the leadership takeaways. Where can people find you if they did want to have you come speak at their event. So I'm on LinkedIn and my company name actually is Inter Perimeter, which you'll like Interpremitter.com. The most trusted leaders are closest to the crisis. The books on Amazon so they can connect me either through the LinkedIn innerperimeter.com or hit me up on LinkedIn. Tell us a little bit about the book itself. Like how did this come about? What was sort of your motivation for writing it? I had several colleagues in the FBI say,

Kyle, you really should write this. And Chris Whitcomb, he had on, he actually encouraged me. I've talked to him several times, and he pushed me as well. For the similar reason we talked about before, to share, so the American people, like, know about these incredible people that did so much on their behalf. Because you think of the kind of Herculean efforts that we went to save one child, and I think people need to know about that. So that was really important.

I want to encourage others to serve their community and their country. and share these stories and hopefully will do that. And the book is called Shaping Chaos. Where can people find it? It's on Amazon. Anyplace books are sold. It actually comes out in November 3rd. We're in the important critical pre-sale pay now. So I'd love it. And it's a discount if you pre-order on Amazon. But yeah, there's some riveting stories in there, again, with those takeaways. And really, I wanted to highlight some extraordinary people. So hopefully it reflects

that as well that I was fortunate enough to serve with. Absolutely. Anything else that we didn't cover that you'd really like to talk about? Oh, we've covered a lot. I feel like I've talked like way too much. Oh, it's great. But no, thanks so much for your service as well and for telling these stories. I think it's important for veterans and fellow people because I think it's cathartic.

I don't know about you. Yeah, yeah. I think it helps, you know, folks process sort of their own experiences. And also, as you mentioned, I mean, for people to hear some of the, these stories and know that these things exist, maybe expands their, for a young person, expands their mind a little bit of what's possible and what they might be able to do. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, hope to inspire others. And I respond. I still, all right, people hit me up on LinkedIn or interested in the Bureau. I'll talk to that and help them out because I want to

encourage service to our country because we, as you know, live in the greatest country in Earth and we've got to continually find people willing to raise their hand to serve this country. We recently had Steve Lazarus on, FBI EOD guy. And we had, what was that gentleman's name, the counterintelligence dude that was involved in the Robert Hanson arrest? I can't remember. I'm sorry, it's dropped. We're having another one of the bomb guys, Barry. Yeah, Mary Black.

Yeah, he's going to be on here. So, yeah, no, it's always fun talking to the FBI guys. Well, thanks very much. Rangers lead the way. Yeah. Thank you. So please go check out Kyle's book, Shaping Chaos. It's available for pre-water now and comes out November 3rd. So thank you, everyone who joined us.

And thanks again, Kyle, for making the trip in. Appreciate the time. Hello, everyone. If you're hearing this, you are not a member of the Patreon. You can get your hands on ad-free episodes that come out early. and you can ask us questions, maybe we'll answer them. You can also watch the Teamhouse podcast completely ad-free and early, and you can also watch it live as we interview our guests.

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