The Team House - The guy behind the spy w/ intelligence advisor & author JT Patten, Ep. 26

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

From front companies to cover legends. The behind the scenes specialist who gets operators and agents in and out of countries. Today's guest is intelligence advisor and author JT Patten. His new novel, titled Presidential Retreat, can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/PRESIDENTIAL-RETREAT-Havens-Black-HAVENS-ebook/dp/B083N4VVSR Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MurphysLawstream SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Welcome to episode 26. I'm Jack Murphy. This guy here is Dave Park. Here coming in remotely is old friend.

author, intelligence contractor, J.T. Patton, also the author of his new novel, Presidential Retreat, which if you look down below, you will find the Amazon link for, and go take a look at that, and J.T. will tell us all about it. So J.T., welcome. Thanks for coming on the show today. Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I guess to just kick this thing off, I mean, can you tell people, I think a lot of people are familiar with security contractors and have this idea of these, you know, pot-bellied Bubba's with M4 rifles doing mobile security in Iraq. That's like the vision I think the public has, right, way or wrongly about security contractors. But what is an intelligence contractor?

Good question. And I think that there's going to be a lot of different degrees, especially after 9-11. I will say that post 9-11, things were a lot more formalized. You had a lot more of the big entities or you had a lot of ex-agency guys that were running the contracts. It also made it a lot more difficult to get contracts. And I think that's where it became a lot more commercialized. Frankly, I think that's where some of the value of the human, and some of the analysis started to wither a little bit,

albeit that's where the technological side really, I think, cranked up. I think because of the budgets that the contractors had, the abilities that they had from just the financial aspect or who they were able to recruit, I think that gave them a lot more leverage. I entered the game kind of before that point, And I don't even think, really, it wasn't even contracting at that point. It was just that loose network of people that were able to get involved, get contracts,

or find themselves being placed in certain organizations. And those organizations enabling certain activities that really post-9-11, ironically, were kind of frowned upon. So I'd like to think that I was able to enter it at a time where we still had a lot of autonomy. You had a lot of visibility up to the people who were making the changes, making the decisions, whereas later on we got pushed down a lot. We had a lot more project management. You had a lot more fingers in the pot. They kept their distance because I was never a butt in seat type contractor. our

our involvement was rather unique and that we were supposed to be not on site, not affiliated, not involved so that we could do our activities as necessary. We had talked about it a little bit earlier

and I mean when you say activities, some of the things you were involved in figuring out how to get people are covert and clandestine folks in and out of denied areas to go and do their jobs, developing cover legends for them, developing front companies and the backstops for them to go about doing their job. That's the kind of thing that they had you doing, right? Yeah.

I mean, it started out where I think my first involvement ended up being in economic espionage, either protecting or conducting before 9-11. then because of some of the companies I was working for and the work that I was doing, I got into supply chain, counterterrorism. We were trying to track down a lot of things and leveraging models of supply chain, finance, what have you. So, for example, I think it was probably around 2004,

I was asked to start developing, you know, system of systems for the IED network because they were really wrestling with that. I had written for a government entity a viral disruption campaign that was able to get down to grass level to do some disruption through what we would call like a virus, you know, that little lytic cycle that just kind of spreads in the undercurrent. And so you could do a lot of messaging. you could place assets in that area and wreck certain things, and then that would spread. And then, of course, you could always roll up those networks.

So once that started going in, then we started looking at other types of companies and activities that were going on. So IRGC was one of my core focus areas, as you know. And as we would get to know how they were moving money, how they were laundering it, and how we would roll them up, it came to reason that all of a sudden, you know, wait a second, if we could roll them up, and we already knew how to build companies, and we knew how to organize them, and how money was moved,

and what supply chains and logistics look like, maybe we could start doing things to enable our own capabilities, and that's where I got involved with setting up the platform. So essentially, we were using a lot of commercial applications for intelligence, and we would then, we would be able to map a commercial battle space, you know, understand what the key industries were, look at the key companies, look at how they were connected. We would get into, you know, business ecosystems of that area so that we could really get a good understanding of what that look and feel was for a company. And that's how we were able to roll them up. So all we were doing is reverse engineering it and thinking, all right, if we were able to catch them, how is it that we could go under the radar?

But I mean, the public narrative really is that, you know, our hands were tied when it came to dealing with these Iranian IED networks. That, you know, the task force and other coalition elements in Iraq were really prohibited from rolling up IRGC networks or Shia high value targets for lack of a better term. You're saying there's a little bit more going on behind the scenes. Yeah, I think so. I think that a lot of times, and again, this is all, you know, all due. respect to the guys that were on the ground and the intel folks that were also going down there, I think it was a shift of mindset. You know, we're looking for bad guys.

So when you go to roll up a human network or a network of humans and leverage, you know, the human side, and I don't think we were really getting into as much of the Cigant side at the time, you're focused on more of the whack-a-mole approach. And so it wasn't until you really broke down the system. And it was all of the actual components of an IED that had to come from someplace or that were manufactured. And even if they were manufactured at the ground aggressor's level, those products and components that they had had to come from someplace else. So it was being able to run those things down in many cases later on as they got more sophisticated. you're running down microprocessors and finding out how did that get into Iranian hands.

And then we started looking at the third parties, the suppliers in Europe. And then, of course, we found that most of those microprocessors were coming from the U.S. or China. But it was commercial. So it was people didn't really pay attention to who that buyer was. We didn't have as much of the know-your-customer that was going on, the responsibilities for your own supply chain. And so if I'm a New Jersey manufacturer of something or I'm in New York, I'm manufacturing it. Somebody from Amsterdam is buying it.

They've got a license to be able to buy it. If I'm a manufacturer, what do I care? But what we didn't recognize or what they didn't recognize is then that might go to Germany, then that would go to Iran or some other place like that. So we were hunting down all of those components or giving the map. of what that architecture would look like and what that social network and the social system look like so that other people could run it down.

And then we also got into the follow of the money side of it. Well, there was an article in the New York Times a couple months back about what they called poisoning the supply chain. And it was regarding Iran and their ballistic missile program, and it was saying that the Central Intelligence Agency and others were essentially introducing defective parts into their supply chain,

so that the missiles failed. Is that the sort of thing that you're referencing when you talk about identifying the processors or the chips that were used in some of these IEDs? Yeah, absolutely. So you're looking to figure out a way to disrupt something. So you could even insert it. I mean, just like in, what was it, Vietnam,

where they were bringing in the faulty rounds. That was called eldest son. And finish your thought. I want to tell you a story about that, actually. Okay, so, I mean, the same, but it's the same principle. Either giving something faulty so that they question themselves, have to spend more time to test it, or that somebody's going to pay the price for failure.

And that's what you're counting on, is creating doubt within the supply chain, within the leadership structures, within that the grassroots function. So if I'm a guy on the ground and I just got my head blown up because I gave a bad processor, chances are somebody in my neighborhood is going to know about that too. So are they going to want to raise their hand and say, I'll be the next guy to carry on? Probably not. So it was a lot of those types of disruptions that we try to involve ourselves. Or in most of my cases, it was not on the ground. And it was more giving somebody the ideas, breaking it down, telling them where to do it.

And then we just kind of hand it off. And then, you know, they follow their course of action. So they choose. So in a very real way, it's kind of like JT. Patton's influences inside these network. of bad guys and they just don't know you're there. Yeah. So my funny story about this is 2009. I was in Iraq with special forces and I had some SPD rifles.

There are Russian sniper rifles, Russian patterned sniper rifles for people who don't know. And I had some, there's 7-6, 2x4 rounds with a silver tip, there are a light ball dot the SPD fires. I didn't know where the rifles or were the. bullets came from and I went out to the range and you know I said 18 bravo let me fuck around with this when I shoot these guns and you know see if I can get paper rounds on target and so on put the rounds into the gun fired it I hear like a hiss like and there's like smoke coming up out of the receiver and I'm like what

the fuck and I I start working trying to work the bolt like I like I had a malfunction like let's clear the weapon it won't clear what the fuck so my dumb ass what do I do I grab another SVD, grab another handful of rounds, put it into the gun. Same thing. There's like smoke coming out of it. And it's not like a normal malfunction. The fucking bolt is welded inside the receiver and it just will not come out. So this is not at all a normal malfunction.

I mean, you can have a failure to extract. The bullet is jammed in there. But I mean, I'm taking a fucking rubber mallet. It's just like way up, way up. I'm 18 bravoing this thing to the best of my ability. And the gun has been rendered useless. It's destroyed. And I started to get some bad vibes at that point, like, what the fuck just happened here?

And lo and behold, I did find out many years later. There was a program called Sunfire, which was the modern-day implementation of Elda-Sun, where some nefarious, no, they're not really nefarious, but there are people out there on the ground who are spreading this bad ammunition, I think they call it salted ammunition, into the enemy supply chain. And thank God that they had the foresight

to realize that some of these bullets would wind up in the hands of this guy right here because if they did it like in Vietnam, I would have had my head blown off when I went to fire the gun. But that's just my little story that, like, these programs exist that there are people shadowy folks like you JT behind the scenes introducing doubt into the enemy's logistics systems and ultimately it has an

impact on their psychology and whether or not they have faith in their equipment and whether or not it's going to work yeah we so it was within the AFPAC COE at CECOM that they had decided they wanted to see if we could disrupt munitions. You know, where is everything coming from? Well, I mean, with so many different resources that it could be coming from, how are we actually going to be disrupting it,

especially if a lot of those transactions were legitimate? So we found that it was nearly impossible, and there were just so many manufacturers, so many components of the casings, and things that could also be manufactured pretty much within the Middle East. What we did find were primers were a different story. Primers were one of the areas that had a lot less options to buy and couldn't be manufactured as easily.

So because we couldn't figure out where they're coming from, how they're being routed, we actually found some suppliers at the local level and were able to discreetly provide them with bad prices. primers. And we know that that's circulated through the region. And it probably saved a lot of lives because, I mean, because of what you guys were doing, how many assholes were about to drop the hammer on an American soldier and they got one of these dummy rounds. Yeah, they got a little tis and a little smoke wafting from the receiver. Or they went to hit the button on their cell phone to detonate an IED and it didn't work because you guys had introduced faulty components into their supply chain.

So it's one of those things that people probably don't think about, but it's out there. I'd sure like to hope so and think so. So your new novel is called Presidential Retreat. I really want to get into the books after we continue talking about some of this real world stuff. Because I think that your novels, I mean, they are espionage novels. And you really make the other guys out there writing in this genre look like they're writing fucking coloring books. for kids. And the stuff you're writing is just above and beyond. Yeah, and they've all agreed to pull their books from the shelves and cancel their publishing contracts so that those 100 people

reading my books who are waving the flag, you know, we're going to take it over. But no, thank you. I hope so. I'd like to think so. But I've got to say, I, while I try to do that, I don't know that, I don't know that the readers always really care. And so I think where the books originated from and where my target audience was initially was the special operations community, the intelligence community. Counterterrorism. Yeah. You know, I didn't have these grandiose plans for being an author, you know, being able to quit a day job or something like that.

I just thought I wanted to write a better story than what I was reading, get it out there. And I honestly, I found that it was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. And my product was a lot worse than I thought it would be. And so I think that where I even arrived at the first novel was thinking, okay, I do think that I've got some really cool last stuff in my book, but because somebody like a Brad Thor or a Nelson DeMille or something like that is such a better storyteller, it kind of didn't matter. right yeah and Brad is a terrific writer truth be told but I think what you really bring to the table is there's

this amount of technical knowledge in them that only someone like you can bring to the table and you know from the first chapter of what was the last book that you wrote um not the Sean Havens that the TFO series where yeah the first scene is in Lebanon I'm sorry where the first scene is it they're in Beirut. Okay, yeah, so buried in black. So the first one of the Task Force Orange series, yeah. And I mean, it's dark, man.

But I mean, there's a feeling that like, is this something that really happened? You know, you get that creepy feeling as you're reading it. And there's just so many people out there really have, they try to write, they try to do what you do and they just have no idea what they're talking about. And just for instance, you hear people talking about like clearance,

and talking about all this like gonzo stupid stuff that doesn't even exist. But one of the things we had talked about in the past is there's obviously programs that are top secret. But the really dark stuff, I shouldn't say dark, the really black stuff that's really secret, they take place under special access programs that are waived and unacknowledged. And each of those words has a specific meaning into, as they refer to Saps. And I was wondering if you could talk to us about what that term actually means. Sure. So usually at the clearance levels, you're going to have the top secret,

and then you're going to have the sensitive compartmentalized information. That then bridges over to the special access programs. within the special access programs, you have the acknowledged, which are those that you might be able to share with Congress and number of others, and you would be able to see budgets and where the funding is coming from. When you get to the unacknowledged side, it means that it's obviously going to be a little bit less publicized or available for review. If you get to the unacknowledged and waived side, that means that you've been able to gain authorization to procure funds discreetly that are not going to be tagged, earmarked, and that most Congress and appropriations, things of that nature, are going to have no knowledge of. In most of those cases, you may find that on a particular program, maybe less than 100 people, less than 25 people will actually know about those things. Those are the areas that I prefer to write in because that is, I mean, that's the area that I worked in. That's the area that I know.

That's the area that, you know, it is dark. And it's not necessarily dark because you're doing all of these, you know, alleyway assassinations or anything like that. It's because most of it involves heavy deception, major lying. So if we wanted to gain particular information that was maybe commercially available, but not available even through the intelligence channels just because they didn't have the placement or access, you would have to find creative ways to obtain that. And so sometimes the only way to obtain that would be to create ruses to gain that information, elicit that information, put yourself in those companies so that you had access to that or outright steal it. If you think about, you ever see that Charlie Sheen movie Wall Street?

I think so yeah, a long time ago. Yeah. So, yeah, it's real old. So Charlie Sheen wants to be a broker, work with Michael Douglas, Gordon Getco. Right. And, you know, he's like, I don't want you to just get me information. I want you to, you know, like, make me information or something like that. And so, you know, this character, Bud Fox ends up, like, on his own dime buying a cleaning company so that he had access to a law firm so that you could see where there were going to be judgments beforehand.

the type of work that we were in, we would involve ourselves, place ourselves in companies, get people who were in those companies, and be able to get at that information. So as an example, we might find a big four public accounting firm that's located in Bahrain. and if we found that, okay, there's a partner in particular who is covering, you know, XYZ bank or corporation, and we know that they're auditing them. But we think perhaps IRGC CUDS forces involved and that maybe they're getting some funding from Banyards, those are partnering with them. We might ask for, you know, we might say, hey, we're a private equity firm and we're looking to do

business in that area. Can you send us a sample report of what you would do? And in most of those countries, you might be able to give a little bit of pocket money just to get it. But what they would do is they would still sanitize it where they take off the company name, but we know the company name that they had already done. So what you're getting is all of the detailed information in it for free, or maybe you're paying them $10,000 or something like that. But to get asked it's on the ground to be able to develop that information and get that content, it's going to take a lot longer. Nowadays, quite honestly, we would probably just identify who had that information, where

did they have it, what server is located, and we'd probably just use hackers to steal it. So it's a little bit easier now if you can target where to find that information or who's got the information, but that's the type of work that you would do to leverage some of the the corporate intelligence that's available out there. Well, it's corporate information that you're creating with other things to provide an intelligence picture. So when it's waived, you're able to conceal the source of the funding. And what I think is interesting about the program being unacknowledged is, you know, so if Dave is my boss, we both work, you know, in some office under the chairman of the joint chiefs.

and I'm read on a waived unacknowledged special access program. We're doing some ops in Iran. But Dave, my boss, isn't read onto that program. He calls me into the office, said, Jack, what the fuck are you working on? I heard, you know, you're doing some weird stuff. I saw you in the hallway with this guy. What the hell's going on? Are you guys doing ops?

I have to look Dave in the eye and say, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, sir. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's how it goes. there were a number of meetings that we were involved with and, you know, handoffs within, I don't know, maybe it's, you know, Socom, J-Soc, you know, other elements. And somebody may make an introduction. You kind of go off into another room, have a little chat. And then, you know, day later, hey, were you guys able to do anything with them?

You know, anything come out of that? No, no, no, just chatted. You know, that was it. And before you know it, you know, you're meeting. up with them in D.C. or abroad and, you know, you've gone live. I mean, that's, that's how it is. Most people who are, I think most people who are more senior get it. I have, I've got just a wonderful friend over still at Socom, call him Harry and he knows who he is. You know, he would broker introductions, whether it's within the building, whether it's at Mad Dogs or Blonde.

little guan or something like that and he just said i just want to introduce you guys and then he'd walk away and he would never ask again because he knew all right he knew somebody had probably an ask and he just you know met two people together and that's all there is to it um i think in other spaces especially within you know j3 when they see somebody coming in and they're talking to 3x folks, you know, what are these guys doing? Especially if they know you. And I think there's a little bit of, you know, I don't want to say jealousy, but, you know, they just, they want to know. For the people watching who like don't know what J3, like, can you expand on sort of just the terminology that you're using?

Because not all of our, no, it's just like my books. You got to look it up. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, within the JT, you know, so each, so in the joint terminology of the codification, you've got the, you know, the ones, two, three, four, fives. The areas that I would typically work in would be a two, which is on the intelligence side. You throw an X on it, and it's usually a little bit more specialized, so it would be, you know, collect, like human or counterintelligence.

You go with the three. you're going to be dealing with operations X a little bit more type of special projects like a J5 had been you know a little bit more of the planning and so you can then even mix and match some of those things so that you would have you know a J25 a J25 so most of the spaces that I would ever work was in like a two a two five a two X a three three X And again, sometimes the J3X guys are working on projects that the unit commander is not himself read onto. Yeah. And that was funny.

It just came out in a little thread today on Facebook. Last night I had posted something. I was reading a book, and I should know better because, you know, again, the guy's a better writer than I am, but I was just pissed off by the code words that he was using or the actual the, nickname of it. And I'm like, you know, these people are just pulling them out of their ass. And again, they're okay. It's fiction.

You could do whatever you want. I mean, I do the same thing where I move a building in New York four blocks over so that it could be next to a hotel. So it's, you know, it's just being an asshole, you know, where I'm like, that pissed me off. So I posted something out there of saying, look, here's how it works. And these are the databases that they use. These are the components that hold certain ones for certain letters. And so if you're going to say you're, you know, summer wind, well, you can kind of rid it back to those areas. But to your point, and I know I've taken probably three minutes to get to this point, what you may find is what you thought was so calm is joint chiefs.

What you thought was joint chiefs might be something else. I mean, I think in my decade plus of doing this work, if I ever had a cack card, I don't think I ever had a cack that was for any of the entities that I was really working with. And I don't think any, when we were using contracts, I don't think they were ever in any contract anywhere remotely what we were doing. Well, guys, we are here today with J.T. Patton, intelligence contractor, author of espionage thrillers, many other things. Thank you for joining us tonight. And I just wanted to remind everyone, please subscribe to this channel. If you haven't already, you match that button down below and also give us a little thumbs up, because it really helps spread the meme of Dave and Jack and JT all across the internet. The bio influence that is Dave and Jack.

The thoughtfluensers that are Dave, Jack, and J.T. Hit that bell icon, make sure you get notified so that YouTube lets you know when we go live. All those things actually kind of matter in helping these videos kind of get some traction. Also, there should be a link down there in the description for our subreddit. If you want to help support the stream, our Patreon link is down there. And you'll also definitely find a link for JT's latest novel Presidential Retreat, which I'm going to ask him to tell us about in a few moments here. And otherwise, you know, tell your friends, tell your wife, tell your dog, tell your kids,

let everyone know we're out here doing this. And we really appreciate you guys coming by and spend some time with us tonight. Hey, Ian, thank you very much for the donation. We really appreciate it. And Ian asks, do you feel that the special access program procurement is able to achieve better value for money due to reduced oversight? Yes. I mean, bottom line, yes, but I have to say that. So my clearance is expired, and I've been out of this work since, roughly since 2014.

So on occasion, I'll get brought into things, but I'm doing it as an advisor. and I don't have clearance tickets anymore. One of the reasons that I ended up doing that is because it just became too difficult to get the contracts in those spaces. 2012 is about where really my career started dwindling because of the cutbacks. I had always been in Chicago,

so I was going back and forth. And, you know, when they started making the cutbacks, they fell and hacked everything. And then because of that, I think that most of the directive was, look, we've got great people inside. We should be able to do that. So, for example, with the agency, there's a specific area that does cover. Right. They suck or did.

So, you know, and why is that? Because, and this is a perception. And so I am admittedly being. unfair, you know, to maybe now. But at the time, most of those people that were put in that area were washups or there were accountants and or maybe just some business guys. I think the, it wasn't by design. I'm not a smart guy. I don't have all the answers. I fell into a cycle that allowed me from the very beginning of my career to pick up certain. things that by the time I was involved in this type of work, I had probably built on 10, maybe

15 years of shady dealings, money laundering, money investigations, fraud examinations, things like that that you couldn't put people into a curriculum for. And I think that's one of the questions that I get most from young readers is, I get a guy in college that says, look, I want to do what you did. Or I've got a guy who's just kind of feeling like they're going nowhere in the military, and maybe they couldn't pass selection. And they're like, I want to do black ops stuff. How did you do it?

How do I do it? Where do I go? Who can you call? I don't know. I didn't know when I was there. There was a time when I literally called a guy from, it was an agency liaison. I called him up and he was a friend of mine, but I met him in Tampa. And I go, look, I really could use a little bit of help because I need to know some of my own origin.

I knew that at the time in 94, I was passed over from my recruiter to Dewey Clarege. Dewey Clarege passed me off to somebody else. Was I working for a contractor? Was I working for the government? I didn't know. I still don't know. So I think it's an informal, good old way, that work. You also don't know what you're doing sometimes.

And maybe is it somebody's personal agenda and you're just working for a commercial entity? Maybe you're working for UAE and didn't know it. You know what? While it's remote, I'll tell you what, there's just that, there's just that thing where you just don't ask. So I will still remember just like anybody, they might remember, you know, a significant milestone in their life. And I would say probably one of my, you know, top 10, I'll say out of, you know, personal things with family and things like that, was probably getting the read in to the unit.

And when they gave me the nickname, when they told me of what the element was and got the read on, And then they had said, look, you can reference the nickname, but you can't reference it with the actual unit name at the same time, blah, blah, blah. I have never let those words pass through my mouth. And even when they said, did you, do you know where you are at the compound? Yeah, but I didn't know. I mean, I was young enough then where I just didn't know. know what to say. Nobody had coached me on it. And so I just didn't say. And I just didn't utter those words. I never thought, I always thought that well, shit. What if they are screwing with me

and I say the, the nickname and I was the only one that was given that nickname? You know, and then I'm on the outs. So I think that in that case, it was very effective because I shut the hell up. Do you want to tell that story about your nickname? I remember you telling me that where you were in the room with all these old salts and they decided to break your balls a little bit. So, yeah. So I was in a particular location and had a very good familiarity with it. So there is going to be some activity down there.

And so they sent a number of guys. It was a joint activity, so you had some interagency players. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today.

Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. I was the only Intel Dork, okay? So I'm in this room and is they're just getting together,

it was just a very off-the-cuff thing where someone's like, all right, let's just go through how we're going to refer to each other. We don't have to say our names. Everybody's going to say, my name's, you know, a Mr. White or a Joe or a Mike. And so let's just go with this. So someone's like, well, do you have any suggestions? Like reservoir dogs. Mr. Pink.

Yeah. And so someone says, well, why don't we do bears? So, okay, fine. So I'm like, all right, well, how's this going to work? And so one guy's like, all right, I'm going to be black bear. And the other guys, I'm going to be a brown bear. I'm going to be a grizzly bear. I'm going to be a codiac bear.

And it got to me. And it was like, you know, someone else said polar bear. And I'm like, one of the last guys. And I'm like, I just, I couldn't think of another bear. And so I was in Indian guides. And I was bear claws. And I thought that, you know, that was kind of cool. So I'm like, I'll be bear claws.

And I just kind of sat and waited to just see what anybody would say. And you just kind of put my head down. And someone was like, what the fuck is a bear claw? And someone's like, like a donut. Like a donut, like, yeah, like a fritter, like an apple fritter. So at that point, and from then forward, I was fritter. See, if it were me, I would have suggested Bear Cub. I'm going all the way.

It's just one of those moments where, again, I was a little one among big shoulders, and I knew my place was not in their place. So I just want to just go quick. I just, I was just, you know, I had so many thoughts going through, but, you know, they put me in my place. And that was that. And so I was Fredder. And so, you know, it's one of those things where it's, it's not like a horrible name and it's not anything that's a problem. But even a couple years later, I might be walking the halls or you meet somebody or you're just at a bar or something and you're talking to some friends. And again, I'm, I'm the intel weenie. I always will be. I do not have clear roots. I do not have a clear. Godfather. And so I have to tread very precariously because I don't have many people backing me up. And that's actually been an issue before. And it's kind of an interesting story. But as a result, every now and then someone just yells out, Fritter! And, you know, there I am. And so, of course, that's, you know, you guys know how the name game works. And you're just, that's who you are.

with it. I mean, that's pretty funny, but I mean, there's also some of the things you're describing. I mean, these are like some like very dangerous liaisons where it's a very informal network. It's a good old boy network. But as you said, you don't necessarily know who you're working for. And the potential for abuse, especially in a environment where sources of funding are hidden from Congress, the program is unacknowledged to your superiors and all these other things that it just sounds like the potential for abuse is quite high. There is. But there's also some real different culture paradigms.

I would say in the intelligence community, we are very comfortable, as appropriate, dropping names because it's just your reference. That's part of your bona fides. And you don't have a tab on your shoulder. You don't have a green house. No. Yeah.

That's right. That's right. So that's who you don't have any unit patches. So you have to give your affiliation. So if you're working with the agency and you reference person, somebody's to say, okay, that's D.I. That's D.O. That's, you know, maybe triple C or whatever it is. So you get your affiliation from that.

And on the military side, especially within special activities, you don't want to be a name dropper. Right. And I learned that the hard way because I did. And so I was close, I was close to General Grange. And he introduced me to, I don't know if I can say this in the context, but to another general who was then over the J3. They knew the type of work that I was doing. They asked me to go out and meet them and kind of help them out in 3X shop. So, okay.

So I knew who I would be meeting with. I knew the guys, but the meeting wasn't set for like, you know, two months out. At that point in time, I changed, I wouldn't say I changed companies. I changed kind of my alignment because I was working for a kind of a government entity. But I started working for, my role was within a company. And at that time, I had to let them know, hey, I'm going down to this meeting. and they said, oh, sweet, we've been trying to get into those with those guys. And one of the reasons I was brought in is because of the capabilities that I was going to bring.

So they said, yes, when you're in there, also remember to mention and drop these two guys' names. Okay, now these two guys are big dogs in the community. So, all right, sure. So I'm in the meeting. I'm talking to everybody. And they're like, and so who are you working with? and I dropped those two guys' names. People kind of nod.

Kind of like, all right, all right, all right. And one or two guys walked out and left. You know, no big deal. So we continue the meeting. And the guy comes back in and he says, hey, and he stops me mid-thought and says, who did you say you were working with again? And I dropped the two names.

And they said, they don't know who you are. And I was pretty uncomfortable because I didn't know them personally, but I would have thought that my boss, who was working with them would have let them know, hey, Scott's down there. Well, J.T. so sorry. Is down there. And we need to clarify this and or, you know, give him the backstopping that he needs. And it didn't happen. And so I mean, you know, here you are. I mean, you are in the smallest of small communities.

Right. I'm already a bit of an outsider, and I've got, I've got egg on my face, and as soon as I got out of there, and, you know, I was just trying to hurry up and find out what the fuck had happened, and I got out, and I had a message, and it was from this plankholder, and he cussed me up and down. He's like, never mention my name. I don't know you. You don't know me.

How can you possibly do this? you don't know who I am. And so, you know, and he had all, he had every right to do so. Now, the other guy was so gracious. And, and he's like, I know how these things are. And he ended up being a really fantastic individual. And did crutch us back in. And, you know, because the bottom line is we knew what we were doing.

But I learned my lesson a bit on the whole name dropping for, you know, my status. and, you know, it was a good lesson learned. And again, it's when you can't forget when you're an outsider because, you know, you're not one of them. Right. Yeah, it's all like affinity networks. There's no formal rank structure. There's no guys with green hats and the bright flashes and all that other stuff. No, and, you know, it was funny because I, you know, I was thinking back, I mean, I was obviously, you know, thinking about this interview and some of the questions you might ask.

And then I was kind of reflecting back on life and, you know, some of those people that I have had the opportunity to rub elbows with because it's been a lot, especially in that space, albeit I'm not friends, I'm not tight with them. But as an example, if I would have any communication with General Petraeus, he used to always ask me, he goes, were you a ranger? So of anything that I could ever be, it was like, were you a ranger? I can't remember. Were you a ranger? And it would always go back. to that affinity of, you know, who where he felt maybe he was grounded and came from. And I always thought, one, it was kind of neat. But two, I knew I knew I didn't have that type of a status. You had mentioned at one point earlier that you were working for Dewey clergy for a while. And that's, I did not know Dewey, he passed away a few years ago.

But in my work, I have over and over again come in contact with people who, as it turned out, were part of the Dewey Clerge Network. And who is Dewey Clerch for? He's a legend, a legendary CIA officer. But, I mean, J.T., why don't you take it? You're the expert here. Yeah, and I'm not necessarily an expert on him because, again, that meeting was facilitated to me. actually on a couple different occasions. So I'll say on the one hand, it was through my recruiter.

And the second hand, and I'll give him a plug, one of my good friends, Joe Goldberg, who you've met. He worked for Dewey for years. And so in the context, actually my second. Yeah. So in the context of my second meeting, I was actually going from my master's in strategic intelligence. and I was doing a special project and I asked Dewey to then be my my thesis, you know, kind of guide sponsor.

And so he kind of crouched me through how we would disrupt and secure the strait of Malacca. So I got a chance to know him, work with him as my advisor for that. And then again, then there was the handoff. I want you to meet this person, that person. And so in some cases, because he was close to Coffre Black, I found that on more than one occasion, I had some affiliation, whether it was directly or through a subcontract. I think part of it was even through Norther Broomin, but all of a sudden I find, all right, I guess I'm on a Blackwater project. And, you know, and it was just an area study. But still, it was, that's just, again, that nature of you're not really sure you don't know.

And I suspect that there's probably people who are more grounded in the community that would be able to ask somebody a little bit better. And there's probably some aspect of me not asking simply because I didn't know who I should ask because I didn't want to look stupid either. You know, I had a seat at the table. And I was able to walk among Ledge. And so why would I out myself? And as long as I was, you know, doing a good job, I just kept my head down, shut up. enjoy the ride because I knew I would never get an opportunity to do, you know, what I, what I'd really dreamed of doing since probably high school.

Yeah, and Dewey really was a legend. I mean, I guess you kind of either love him or hate him, but I've been told no one could run a human network like that guy. Yeah, I don't, I wish I would have had the opportunity to work with him more directly, obviously. I think, you know, in hindsight, I was very lucky. I'll tell you the irony of it, too. And this is so true of so many of the meetings that I had with people throughout the years.

There's some really humble people out there, especially in the darker spaces. And they don't talk about what they do and who they are necessarily just because of that very nature. I didn't know what Dewey Clarege did when I had any interaction with them. So to have a guy that was overseeing me, you know, willing. to read my thesis, going through it, give me career advice, make broker relationships and introductions and things like that. I had no idea who he was until later on. I had the same experience working a little bit just on some research papers and things at the time with General Singlob and Billy Waugh. I never knew who they were at the time. Because, again, I just never asked.

somebody made the introduction, they were told who I am and what I was trying to achieve and some of the auspices that I was working under and they're like, yeah, right on. I think Singlob is one of two surviving OSS agents. Yeah, so I'll tell you, there was a really cool thing that we did years back, and it's still out there in the public domain. I want to think it was maybe 2007, 2008. Dave Grange had gotten out, and he was working for a charity organization,

the McCormick Tribune Foundation. And Dave wanted me to help him with some position papers on Iran. And we were looking at how we would disrupt it. And, you know, because that was a bit of my background, I figured I'd jump in. He's like, you know, let's try to get a whole bunch of extra people ideas on this thing. And I was able to

include General Singlob, Billy Waugh, Elizabeth, shit, I can't remember her last name, and this, well, another woman, Barbara Podaski, those were two original OSS women

who were working for Donovan. Wow. That's amazing. And I got to spend days with them just talking about, all right, what are we, what would, this is what we want to accomplish? What would we, what would you guys have done if we went back to OSS and how would that have happened? And that was, that was also, I think there was a cool segue through it because I then, they pointed me to all kinds of documents that they had, they knew existed. I was able to retrieve those through Library of Congress. and I had been doing some work also with TISWIG,

which was a Pentagon element for some kind of special project funders and stuff. And so I then started partnering with TISWIG, and literally, I swear to God, we probably had the biggest database built of old OSS documents that I knew eventually went over to a number of the other programs because this was, I don't know, this was still about 2006 or 2000, something like that. Mark Boyott was telling me he was doing a stint in the Pentagon. He was the commander of Third Special Forces Group, but he was over at the Pentagon,

and they were going to put all these OSS manuals into the furnace and burn them. They were like sabotage manuals and stuff. And he was like, hey, can I have those if you're going to burn them? And he actually got them. And they're published in his book if you buy it. It's amazing stuff. That was just going to go into the incinerator. Yeah, it's crazy.

So there's one, it's probably in my book self. It's called under-cover. They were working on all kinds of tech projects for J-Socck back in the day, weren't that? Yeah. Yeah, and so there was one book in particular that Elizabeth had written, and I think her, maybe her name was Betty, but she was going under Elizabeth. Anyway, she had worked for Donovan, and she had worked for Donovan, and she had. She wrote a book called Undercover Girl.

So that book is out of print. And if you tried to buy it on eBay or something, I mean, it's hundreds of dollars because it's so expensive. And being the shady motherfucker that I am, I went to the library in Chicago and I checked out the book because they had a copy. And I called them up a couple days later and I said, I lost your book. you know, I think I owe you. And they're like, well, yeah, it's $35. So I paid it and have the book. And, yeah, I probably took it from the public,

but I know what we were using it for, you know, probably was a whole lot better than just somebody's interest in reading. The library police from Seinfeld come and hemmed you up. Right, right? But, you know, I paid for it. Drawing your little peepees. Like I said, it was for the group. great or good. Let's talk about your novel series a little bit. I mean, you got a couple of them.

What made you decide to start fictionalizing some of your experiences and putting them into these books? So there was a time, so I've always been a, I'd say since probably high school, I've been a pretty avid reader of, you know, whether there's old Navy Seal books and Delta. special forces things could be a lot more of it was um nonfiction and then i got into more of the fiction with tom clancy you know blah blah blah um i don't know how but a couple well one i do know one of my friends from the dia was very close friends with a very famous thriller military thriller writer. And he was, he knew the type of work that I did.

And his author was kind of interested in a little bit of knowledge of it. And so I was willing to share, you know, as appropriate what I could. And sometimes it was just matter of just some jargon, you know, names of things and stuff. So it was very benign and I would make sure that it was, that it was appropriate.

But I read the books and I didn't really like them. I found them to be a little bit too political for my taste, but he kept coming back. And he kept coming back and he kept coming back. And so I was reading other books. And then I, again, you know, it was a little bit biased. I thought, there's, this isn't really hitting, you know, when somebody talks that they're doing black ops and they've got the cover programs and all that stuff. At Bakers, no matter where you order free pickup, you get the same great deals as you'd get in store so you can save when you order during band practice or at the dog park or wherever start your cart with the baker's app and save from wherever today bakers fresh for everyone

thirty five dollar order minimum restrictions may apply subject to availability you can save an extra ten dollars when you spend 40 or more on a great selection of participating items just look for the signs and save at bakers it was just so backwards and so i was thinking you know i told my buddy from DIA, he said, you know, we should write one of these. And, and he's like, yeah, we should. He goes, but we should put a wager on it and who could do it first. So he bet me a buck, bet him a buck. And I actually, and I was traveling, you know, so I had time on my hand. So I started trying to do it. And I figured if I write it, then all I would do is just PDF it and send it to guys that I knew downrange. You know, a lot of those guys read too when they're just sitting around.

and so I thought maybe they would enjoy this book. And after I passed it to a couple folks, they're like, this is actually decent. You know, it's rough, but it's decent. And about the time I had had an introduction to Dalton Fury, and he was fantastic. And he's like, look, man. Yeah. And he read it, and he's like, you know, we're fairly similar in that we're, we're fairly similar in that we, we write pretty dark stuff.

And I include you in the same area, Jack. I mean, I think that we're among those that write about the darkest of military type depiction. So that was great. And then I passed it over to the guy that I had been helping. And he's like, yeah, I can't help you. I'm like, what do you mean? I've been helping you for like two years.

He's like, yeah, I can't. I just can't help you. Really? He goes, you're not a writer. You know, it's not for everybody. you can't just try this and then and then do it. I'm like, well, I'd like to try it. I'm like, can you give me your agent's name?

He's like, no, no, no, I can't do that? I mean, if I write it and I fix it up, can you give me a blurb? No, no, no, I couldn't do that. So I'm thinking, you know what, you're a real asshole. And there's not much that stops me from anything that I put my mind to. So I'm going to do it if for no other reason, just to make sure that at one point in time, you look on the book charts and you see that my ass is, one above you.

Yeah. And I never stopped writing until I was at least one above him. Yeah. Now, I had to make my 99 cents to do that that day. But it was, it was great to be able to take that picture, send it to them to F you. And that's that. Now, now since then, I mean, there's been a little bit of a reconciliation. I don't talk to him.

I don't interact with him anymore or anything like that. But we're at a good place. But I felt like, okay, now I'd kicked out two books. And again, they weren't great from a writer's perspective. You know, if I compare them to a lot of great writers who, you know, that's their craft. That's their job. They're good at it. I do something else all year long.

And I do this for an hour over a couple beers, you know, in a hotel room. So I was okay with what I had accomplished. But then it became a passion, not just to try to kick his ass, but I'm like, I really like it. And I think that once I was out of the community and I'm back in Chicago, I missed it. I'm working with a bunch of, you know, Jemokes that are great in their own right, but they don't have that mission focus. And they don't have some of the same. I mean, look, in the intelligence community and in the, you know, even in the special project community, people are going to stand. be in the back on occasion, but for the most part, when you're dealing with a lot of the operators,

they're going to look you in the eye and say that they're going to screw you. The business world is a lot different, and I did miss that. I really missed being in that space, and I felt this was the only way that I could stay connected, make up the stories. So it wasn't so much that I would ever divulge anything, and that's been kind of a pain in the ass with the professional review board. I never wanted to disclose anything. I wanted to make up a fictional type of scenario. I wanted to tell more about the emotion, and I wanted to tell about the toll that it takes on people.

And so it was more of the story of the guys and the women who were involved in it. And that's what I wanted to write about. And so I did feel like that connection, and I thought that maybe is something I could share of what it's like for those people. I mean, shit, there was a time when my wife asked me to email something and I said, all right, let me pull up and see what email I can use, you know, maybe a customer service thing or something.

I looked down, I had like 30 or 40 different email addresses. I had different websites and stuff like that that I had because it was to build networks. And I had to, you know, lie and say who I was for those people. And I had pages of who this person was. And, you know, sometimes I was. I was an Iranian. Sometimes I was from Yemen. Sometimes I was a Somali. And so, you know, I would be sending information from that. I'm like, my God, I'm like, I'm not lying to my wife. I'm not lying to my kids or anything. But on a day-to-day basis, I am lying constantly just to get things that I need for the intelligence community or operation side. And, you know, that feels a little bit dirty. And I know it does weigh on you, wait on me. and I think that to to write about a character

where you don't have to necessarily spell it out but to just carrying a weight I think that's something that I think I'm doing better than most of those other authors even though I'm not conveying it so I think if people are really caring to see that I think that's

I think that's kind of a cool differentiator it's not going to put me on top of the bookshelf but in your first novel it's even worse than that because I mean it's like the dude's employer as you were saying you don't always know who you're working for The the protagonist's employer is like actively like destroying this guy's family Yeah, yeah and you know I think there are times you know they talk about that wilderness of mirrors Yeah, and if you don't know sometimes your own origin or your own handoff especially when it's not delineing

when you're not in the building, when you don't have the IDs, you don't really know. And that gets very scary. So my main, my main, like, mentor guy, CIA, you know, like, old-timer is a kind of an amalgamation of, one, my recruiter, whose actual name was Jerry. And that's why I never mentioned this guy's last name in the story, even just to fictionalize it. It's just kind of like, you know, he's just Jerry. That's all I had ever known him for us a long time. I used him because I never knew when he said, you know what? I think you're a little bit young. I don't know if this is really going to be right for you. Let me make

an introduction to you. I just never knew. But yet I had another guy who I can, you know, vocally say was a mentor on the commercial side. His name is Jan Herring. He mentored me for for a good four or five years in the intelligence analysis tradecraft. And I was able to get into Sherman Kent School to go through some of the analytical courses and the writing courses. He made introductions to me. Now, when I would talk to him, I always knew, based on his character and the things that he said, things that also related back to this other guy, Jerry. And so I kind of knew, all right, I'm getting this.

same vibe from both of these guys. And so I knew that, and even though a lot of those guys were in science and technology, I knew that I had a good enough feeling, at least with like, with Jan as a baseline, but with Jerry, I never knew. And like I said, whether it was an introduction to Dewey or to a number of other folks, I didn't know. And I probably didn't know how legitimate it was until another plankholder introduced me through the jury network, or through the Dewey Network, and he was a Delta Plankholder working over at Socom. He brought me in, and he passed me over to this guy, Harry, and said, I need you to kind of bring him in because he's been doing stuff for us,

and he can probably help you guys too. And then all of a sudden, like, well, shit, if I'm getting, you know, read into projects here over at Socom, I'm doing projects, you know, for them. I'm advising them in the J-W-S-E-S-A. two space, clearly, you know, somebody's not

dicking me around. And it all feels very much like you're at the deep end of the pool, you really don't know where the bottom is. No.

Which is something that really comes out in your books. Well, thank you. And I hope it does because I think a lot of the ghosts

that the guy sees are my own. You know, I, I've not been, I've not been on a battlefield. So I don't know what that's like, you know, and I'm not, I don't have, you know, any body count.

So I don't know what that's like. But what I just try to try to put in there is it's just a regular guy trying to live his life, have a family, but he's kind of interested in this type of work, gets spun up into it, is living in this space where he's like, I don't really know what it is. I don't trust it. But yet I really like what I think I'm doing. and I think I want to keep doing it. And even when it comes to the detriment of his family, I think he's still wrestling with,

is this really happening? Or is this kind of, am I, is this my paranoia until some of these things really happen? So, I mean, look, you're a family man. I have a kid, and sometimes she asks me about the army and, you know, what's it like in the army? You know, what do you eat? Where do you sleep?

What do you do? she asked me about the stories I work on, you know, like working on the story this week about a big attack and, you know, our troops way late in a bunch of bad guys. And I always struggle, like, how do I explain these things to a kid? I'm just curious from your experience. If one of your kids came to you and said, Dad, I want to go into the intelligence community, what, I mean, what would you tell them? So we've had, so I've got, I've got a senior in high school, I've got a junior in high school, and then I've got a kid in middle school. school. My son, the youngest one, he doesn't really care. My daughters, however, now that they're into the stage where they want to, you know, they just like big clothes, big sweatshirts and stuff,

they raid my closet, and the next thing they know, they're walking out into school with an FBI SWAT sweatshirt. Maybe it's a SOCOM sweatshirt. Or, or, or, you know, or something like that. So they're not the ones that are raising the questions to me. The teachers are. They're like, why, why, what, what is this? And my middle daughter is like, I don't know. You know, he just travels, does what he does.

And that's that. She just likes having the big sweatshirt. My older daughter, she gets it because she's asked to read the book. She's got, you know, as a senior, she has friends that have come over, they see the books and stuff, or maybe parents Google or something, you know, before they send them over and then all of a sudden they find

something. So she's been asking, and there for a time, she was considering maybe going into the FBI. She thought that forensics could be pretty cool. I, in Chicago, I still advise

a number of their intelligence professionals and I'm involved with this thing called InfraGuard as a board member. So, I am still, you know, have a lot of good connections there and could have gotten her into the, you know, internships and stuff like that. So if they wanted to go into the intelligence community, honestly, I'd be okay with it. I really don't have a problem with that. And I guess it depends on the role. And I know I'm going to be controversial and you didn't ask me and I'm just going to just say it and be a dick.

I'd have a bigger problem with some of the military sides. If my son decided that he wanted to do it, I struggle with it. And for the same reasons that I struggled with it, my dad and his cousin, you know, who were all in the military, struggled with advising me of what to do. I have not found as many good leaders that I trust that of where they would be sending my son and for what reason to feel that it was always the right thing. I mean, yeah, we can wave the flag and the patriotic and its security and blah, blah, blah.

I would rather be able to have some involvement in directing them to the targets than I'm over simplifying it, but, you know, taking a hill because somebody says take a hill. I differ in some of those opinions. Would you, if they did want to go to the intelligence world, would you advise them to go a more formalized and acknowledged

route or would you support them going a more non-traditional way than that like you did? No. I think that because I do care about family and I think that my kids do too

I don't think I would want them in the same spaces. If they want to be an analyst, great, you know, for the agency. DIA, great. You know, ATF, Secret Service, again, on the intelligence side, yeah, no problem. If they really wanted to go more operational, again, controversial, but I have not met more fine people than I have over at the FBI. And, you know, the Chicago office in particular, there are just some really wonderful people. And I think if my kids were asking me, you know, what to do, if they were going into the sciences, you know, for forensics or something like that, again, I'd probably point to the FBI.

If they were thinking they wanted to do some investigations, again, I would probably route them to the FBI, encouraged them to do accounting, finance, business, what have you, so that if once they got out, then it would leverage them into consulting or business or something like that that they could depend on. I don't think I would, you know, you always try to raise your kids, Jack, as you know, and better than what you had and better than maybe who you are. And I look at myself and I look at what I'm capable and sometimes of that moral ambiguity. And I have really tried to teach my kids better. Now, I know my parents taught me better than that.

It just, it's, maybe it's my own, it's, maybe it's a personal flaw. I think that I probably could have gotten myself into a lot of trouble if I hadn't gone into some of the intelligence route so that I'm fighting doing it for the good guy. I would want them to be better than me and I wouldn't want them on that dark side. Oh, that's a really thoughtful answer there, J.T. Because I tell my kid that you're either airborne infantry or you're fucking nothing. Well, you know, it's funny because Jack and I were talking about this one time, maybe even on the show with somebody, but when you become a sniper for special operations,

everybody has to take the MNPI, we have to go through this thing. Yeah. And because they want to make sure you're not going to be like a bell tower shoot or whatever. And I was jumping around with a doctor, you know, after I took the test, I was like, so did I pass, you know? And he goes, well, I don't think, what do you mean? Wow. And he goes, well, you score the same way everybody else, you know, who comes to us from your organization's score. And I go, how's that?

And he goes, I don't know, sociopathic tendencies. Like you, like, you're not sociopaths, you guys are fine, but you have sociopathic tendencies. and he goes, you guys basically have the same psychological profiles as career criminals. We just don't know why one group branches one way and the other group branches the other way. So it kind of, you know, when you say that if you hadn't gotten into this, you know, you don't know where you would have ended up, it sounds like you have those similar traits, you know, able to work in a gray area. part of the difference also is that it's almost like on a daily basis you just you just make a decision and I don't know that it's really ethics because I feel that there can be some flexibility with them I think it's just a decision that you you just don't want to I mean I think of that with a lot

of rule of law I mean you know people talk to me about concealed carry have you got one blah blah blah and I'm like if I want to carry something I'm going to carry it right I don't I don't care because I know the rule of law. I know the consequences, but I also know how I would handle it. And so am I going to bring it to an airport? No. Am I going to bring it to a restaurant or something like that and be brandishing it in such a way? No.

So do I really care what the rule of law is for that? Right. No. And I would accept the consequences for it. But if it's to do something and if it's do something I believe is for the greater good, yeah, I'd probably do that. But you're right. And I'll tell you, that's a funny point that you made about the evaluation because I had the same difficulty with the FBI,

where when I was going for a polygraph with the FBI some years back, I kept drawing an inconclusive. And I had passed polygraphs before. And in my security interview, you know, when they asked me, have you ever lied? Have you done this? Have you done that? I'm like, yes, on a daily basis, on a regular basis. And like, that doesn't work. you know why and then they ask you for i'm like that's my job yeah that's and maybe that's who i am

i'll be great in the field for you but uh yeah you you got to know what what you're getting but would i ever give up your secrets nope could anybody ever coax me into being an asset nope could anybody ever blackmail me you know short of holding my kids or something like that and i'd probably figure a way around that no yeah i had a very very very similar experience, very similar experience, failed to polly and had to go through an entire long, long appeal and finally ended up in a room with two women and they're like, well, you know, you wrote this really hell of a little. Look, yeah, I've been in fights, yeah, I've done this, yeah, I've done that, but I'm not going to betray America. You know, that's, isn't that what

you're asking me? Like, are you asking me if your secrets were saying? Yes, have I been in trouble? Sure, but but almost everybody who comes from where we come from Has been in trouble that's it draws troublemakers, you know, yeah and I mean with my case, you know, I'm I'm I'm a type B person Not much bothers me and maybe that's a good thing also because I under stress It's not gonna rattle me And so if I'm flatlining even on my name and then they're asking if I ever you know drove a bunch of kids off of a cliff or something like that I didn't do. I'm going to have the same answer and it's going to look the same because I'm just just kind of chill. It's all good. Yeah. Well and that is a thing about I think like the FBI and

you know they are very rules driven and and so coming from your background and having your type of job and then going there it's hard to find the polygrapher's or the polygrapers or the the people who can understand that and give you the leeway of understanding like where you're coming from, what your job is, what your daily life is like, you know. Yeah. And, you know, again, another real good point. And I, you know, I do think of myself as a good person, but I know even at home, I'm challenged with the same thing where some rules just do not apply. You know, if I'm going to pick up my kid and there's a long line and I can go down the wrong way around the school and up is that following the rules no and am i going the

wrong way yeah uh would i take the consequences yeah absolutely chances are there's not going to be a consequence for that and i and i'm going to you know pick up my kid i'm going to double park you know in an area am i supposed to no but i'm going to do it and i don't think that it's narcissistic um where some people would break rules because they think i'm above it i don't i don't I'm entitled. I think I'm willing to take the consequences, but I'm also willing to weigh and accept certain risks for that. And if I come out ahead on it, that's okay.

But I think that's also been part of where I've evaluated things, where it's like this isn't a life and death situation, people. That's not that big of a deal. We got a couple of donations, a couple questions real quick. Thank you, Power Play. most important skill that you learned on the job? Wow. I really think it has to be elicitation.

I mean, you use that in a day-to-day life, whether you're trying to get a reservation, whether you're trying to get out of a parking ticket and asking the questions and the manipulating. So it's definitely the human factor element of it. and some of it's been it's been learned, you know, by experience. Some of it's been taught, but I would say of the skills that I have learned and that I would tell other people if you can get that. I got most of it from the old company Phoenix Consulting and they were old, you know, Vietnam, Phoenix Program guys.

and that's who that's where I learned it. Okay. So elicitation. And thank you, Andrew. How much of the historical record is purposely destroyed by their own commands by oversight or apathy? Like when we're talking about the OSS files getting incinerated or whatever, things like that. I don't know. I'm sorry.

I hate that you wasted it, you spend the money think you're getting more out of it. and just some good time on a Friday night. I don't know. I don't think that most people are given mandates to destroy things like you see on homeland or, you know, reading books and stuff like that. I think most of the time it's just people don't know what it is. Right. And they destroy it.

It's just old manuals. I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't have. So I've got like a box of information. that is not classified. And it's just old things of just notes and proposals or something like that. That it's just, it's very benign. I mean, it's very benign. It means a lot to me because I think it helps me stay connected.

But if I got hit by a bus, my wife could very much just throw it out, not think anything of it. But yet somebody else might have said, holy crap, you had an old Rhodesian intelligence. analysis, you know, manual or something like that. And that's, you know, how could you have thrown something like that out? Man's trash. It's another man's trash. That's right. I mean, and really, it's crap and it's outdated, but, you know, it's good to me.

What's it been like for you? You know, you have put your books through DOD review. I don't know if you had to put them through the PRB with the CIA as well. But like, for instance, you wrote the Task Force Orange series, which is like J-Sox's spooky intel unit. I mean, I imagine it just must have been a lot of ass pain. Dude. So, okay. So all of the one, all of the Safe Haven series, my first series, they all had to go through PRB.

And then they all had to go through DOD. because that's what I focused on. PRB has always been fantastic, the agency folks, and I've never had a problem. And even if they have to go an extra four or five months,

I earnestly did not want anything exposed that I might have put in there. Inadvertently, I think that there are some things they didn't always agree on, but I, you know, I just turned 50 this year. So when I wrote those, maybe six years ago, I thought I didn't still know what my career might entail for the next 15 years. So I never wanted to, I mean, I wouldn't want to get sideways with them anyway, but I wanted to make sure that I also wouldn't get PNGed from them.

And so I was very sensitive to that. Task Force Orange was a lot more difficult than I thought. I was never read into the program, okay? So even though I was read into a number of J-Soc programs, I wasn't. And I thought that I was, that was why I thought it was going to be safe. I also thought that it was something that was kind of cool today with technology, especially with eavesdropping. And I've gotten into mobile forensics over the last year.

So I'm like, you know, I know what they do. I know what they do. Okay. And I know I know how I could write a story about it. I thought that would be really cool. About the time that I was thinking about the book, Mitch Gerrads had been writing his comic book, The Activity. And I think, Jack, you were involved in that also. I passed them on some story ideas and tips and things.

Yeah. So I had been thinking of it. So I had initially wanted to call it the activity. And then I'm like, all right, well, let's call it Task Force Orange and just get that out there. And I thought I was good to go with it. And also, Sean, Nick. had written a book. I mean, the knowledge of this unit was now public. That's right. That's right. And I was not going to, I was never going, actually, I lie.

I wasn't going to call it a task force Orange. I wanted to call it the man from Orange. And my publisher thought that that name sucked. So we went with Task Force Orange and because he felt like, you know, people would know and be able to look it up a little bit better. So I thought that I was going to be in the clear and I would talk more about this guy and his experience. Very similar to like Sean Havens where I didn't talk about him being a knock. I didn't talk about him involved with SAD. I didn't talk about him being involved with Delta or anything like that. It was just about him as a guy and then the missions that he was going to go on.

And I would use public reference to kind of color in some things. I forgot about another entity that I had done work with that had a closer tie to Task Force Orange. And so in my PRB, who was always so good to me, and then they passed things down to DOD, I had to go over to NSA. And NSA was also very cool in working with PRB. but I think when they started flagging some things and then it got down to the J-Soc components and then maybe it went over to Belvoir and then I think things got a little bit a little bit hair-during you down first we're shutting you down J-T yeah I think at first with Buried and

Black they didn't realize exactly what was going on I didn't know what you're up to All right, what is, what's, what is that? You know, what are we looking at from what, what things was he read into from years back? What contracts was he on? I mean, shit, they'd look at Indianapolis or Indiana for like crane, or they'd look at another type of an Air Force base or something for a contract. I'm like, that's pretty benign. So you'd really have to dig to find, all right, where was I and what was I probably read into,

that most of those people would have accent. to, I think. So then when it was released, there was a little bit of a hubbub. Over what? Just about the topic of the unit that I was covering.

And I've always said, look, if you tell me what you want removed, I'll remove it. I don't care if I have to call the publisher and say, take all my royalties and put them into, whatever you had to spend for your changes. I'm okay with it.

I'm not going to be a millionaire by writing books. I know that. It's a pastime. It's a hobby. So I don't care. Let's do the right thing. But they couldn't tell me what they didn't like about it. And everything that they had ever asked me to redact, I redacted.

And I changed names of things that were even out in the public because they asked me to. So the second time when I put out the presence of evil, it took me over, well, the agency reviewed it, NSA reviewed it, and I don't think there's much that they readacted at all. But when it went down to Socom, it got a little bit problematic, and it took about 11 months before I heard back. And that's some of the same challenges that Jack Carr, I think, had with some, you know, it takes them a while. but there may be some things that they just don't want out. And I'm never going to lawyer up to try to get things passed. I'm trying to be pragmatic about it. So that was it.

And I said, look, guys, I'm with a publisher here now. And they expect me to be able to turn around these manuscripts in about nine months. If it takes me nine months to write the book, have it edited, but agency wants it first before it's even edited DOD wants the final copy of it I got to play in between and you guys don't want the agent so the agency

was because it was Task Force Orange they wanted DOD to take the lead so I couldn't even get my agency stuff back to know what I could then edit finish pass over to them so I'm like what can we do so that I can

actually deliver this and not violate anything and the guy was pretty chill and he's like well maybe shouldn't write the book well i mean that's the the inferred message right like stop doing what you're doing i you know i don't want to put conspiracy in it i know that i got the impression i would not be seeing that book back for 11 to 12 months at least and and that wasn't going to work um and And, you know, I'm like, look, as I said, I'm not making money really off of these things. They're not the best written product out in the world.

So really, if somebody thinks there's a problem with what I'm doing because it's either endangering somebody, giving away our means of doing things, it's not like I can't come up with another story. You know, and so that's the point where I look back and I said, all right, so what am I going to do here? I had two series. I had bridged both worlds together or used characters from the same world. Really, just because I've got a bad memory. And I'm thinking, how am I going to remember the character's names and some of their histories? So I just used some of the same names. And then created this Drake Wolf, who was the man from Orange is the main guy. but basically they bled over.

So what I did is I finished up that third book in my initial indie series. And that's the one that's the presidential retreat. And that was my way of like, okay, let's avoid this whole Task Force Orange thing. Let's see if we can get this thing through. Again, was I looking to be on the top shelf? No. I mean, quite honestly, if I sold more than a few hundred copies of that book, that's fine. I think I felt that I owed it to the readers who had stuck with me, read the first two books, and wanted to know, all right, what happened at the end of that and use that as that bridge to get to the next series.

So I think that was just, look, I've asked for their support. They've read my books. We've gone this far together. The onus is on me to finish that third book. Get it out there. it bridges all five books together and I feel like as a storyteller I was honest in doing that and true to what I'd set out to accomplish which is just to tell a story so well I have my own conspiracy theories about DOD review having put actually an article I wrote through DOD review

because the participants that I interviewed requested it and I won't tell that whole I won't go on that whole rant here because you're our guest today and I'm not going to dominate the whole show with my own bullshit this time around. But yeah, I have a whole rant on DOD review, but I'll save that for another day. Well, you know, here's, so you did raise a good point with that, though. And this is kind of interesting, I think. My first two indie books that did have the redactions, there were a number of things where they said, you have not, well, there's some that were just blatant where they didn't like that I named certain places of trainings and stuff like that.

Okay, fine. But other things, they said, you have created analytical inferences that align to current happenings and our approaches. Okay. So again, I'm cool with that. Fine. I don't want to get, I don't want to mess anything up. Start writing the task force orange stuff.

Agency starts passing it and looking to the components. Now, if you read the presence of evil, while I never took anything that was classified in it, the shit that I go down to on IRGC Cuds Force, Right. M-O-I-S, Unit 400, Unit 190, the Basij, and where, you know, Gals and Tower is, and things like that, and where things are located in Southeast Tehran and North Tehran. Again, I'm not pulling it from stuff that I know, but there's just things that I'm just going to have inherent knowledge of. Right.

They didn't redact any of that stuff. Because it's not in any of it. They only wanted to redact things that were really a lot of things that Snowden had published of certain systems that I was using to do the eavesdropping and things like that and some of those. And maybe this is a good place to ask then because you spent quite a bit of time studying Qasem Soleimani at the behest of our government. recently Dave and I talked about it at length on this live stream and podcast about the whole chain of events that led up to his assassination or targeted killing whatever we want to call it and then the retaliation and on and on which you know the conflict between our two countries is going to continue on for quite a while it seems but I was wondering if you could use some of your expertise

to shed some light on who was Salamani what is the significance of his killing what does that mean for the future of Iranian-American relations and you know of course our relationship with nearby Iraq which is intrinsically connected to all this and just you know Jack and I also kind of disagree on this so a little bit yeah in terms of whether his killing was strategically beneficial or strategically non-beneficial what you I guess I mean I'm kind of on the fence about that specific question Fair enough all right please okay so I'll give my opinion but it's it's not It's not current because I haven't really been following the geopolitical side of it for over over six years okay

My putting it into the books was simply because it was stuff that I knew about. I thought it was cool for content. And because my books, while they're maybe considered military thrillers, are also a kind of twist of that espionage thriller. So when I was doing my work, whether it was Venezuela, whether it was tri-border, Iran was always involved somewhere. We always found Iranian companies.

I think of most of the circles that I ran in from the intelligence community was one of the fewer people who was pretty well versed in the Banyards. Boniads being the kind of the holding companies that are, you know, they're somewhat government owned, somewhat private owned. They had been privatized in many cases, but yet they would still place Cuds Force opportunities. leaders, whether they were used for operational purposes or whether they're used as maybe gifts to line their pockets. I don't know and how many of those then were operationalized. But I would say in many cases, it was fairly similar, albeit without the government funding to how Mossad operates. Okay? Perpetual presence and a requirement to enable activities from them or to facilitate.

certain things. So Soleimani is part of as leader of Cuds Force and reporting up, I mean, people say he reported up to the Supreme Leader and yes, he did have a relationship, but I know he did have to go to the joint headquarters, you know, through that also. So I think for a certain mission coordination and whatnot, but you know, maybe not. When I was involved again, there was a lot of references to whether he was traveling or people that were directly under him were traveling in certain areas. And they were so good at obfuscating their activities. I had a couple notes here that I had, I mean, in Venezuela alone, tractor factories, car assembly plants, processing plants, bicycle factories, tuna processing, dairy products. These were, you know, business units.

that were that were paid for by a lot of the banyards they were established as legitimate businesses in venezuela and yet they all had ties to to the cuds force and they would be used for various enablement of moving objects so he was involved with that unit 190 dealing with logistics and smuggling was also heavily involved in that but that's also a part under him and i believe that uh gani It was a little bit more in the 190, air, sea, and land activities to support those logistics and smuggling. So when at the time that I was involved, we usually didn't know where Soleimani was. But again, I don't think that where I was, I was tied in as much to now, if I were doing the same thing, to where there would be that harmony of the Sagan side, okay? So we didn't usually know where he was to be able to target him. I suspect that if we did, that it would be a course of action that would have been recommended to at least, you know, detain him, rendition, you know, or take him out. Again, I wasn't, when I was leaving, that was more of when we were doing a lot more of the drone targeting. And when I was first involved with a lot of that stuff, there was less of the drone activity.

Okay, so we would have had to have boots on the ground know where he was and do that. And we probably would have leveraged Mossad for something like that, or they would have done it. We would have shared the intelligence. So to do it now, I suspect- Much like some of the Iranians were dropping dead in the streets the last couple days. So I think to do it now, I suspect we've known where he's been for some time. and I think it was we're going to make a point

of taking out somebody without sending a missile into Iran you sent a missile into Iran effectively without sending a missile into Iran right it's probably probably the biggest impacts that you could have had

without doing that and so I think that was a little bit of a safe play but a very bold play do did that help our area our our our our troops and our mission in iraq i think that yes probably in the short term it probably disrupted a little bit uh caused some ripple um but i think the area that we are still not very good at and have not been good at since the time i was involved the second and third order effects where we really weigh what it is that we're going to do and have we really mapped out

what are what are the ramifications of this on a number of different levels i think i've talked before i would jack with you on a show or maybe someone else where when you think of what we did in somalia years ago before uh mogadishu um we shut down the hoala networks because somebody's like oh shit their arms and pirates and it's all going through Huala. So we shut that stuff down. Well, what was happening? Probably 70% of the Huala banks were supporting overseas remittances from family members that were driving taxis for 20 hours a day to send money back home.

When those people weren't getting money, what did they do? They went to the only other thing that they could do. They went to the streets. They went to the mobs, you know, and the warlords. and they became pirates. So second, third order effect, somebody think too hard about that one, not so much.

And that's where I have probably my biggest distaste for politics in many cases because the people who are closest and whispering in the ears are those that really don't know a rat's ass about what the hell they're talking about. People who have a history of failed policies,

often get picked for the same jobs over and over again. That's right, that's right. And so, you know, without making it a political thing. I think the Soleimani directive, however, was probably a military decision where they put that on the table

because I would venture to say that most of the people out in Washington at the policy level couldn't spell Soleimani. So I think that was one of those things that was put out there and that was a decision was made and everybody was like, oh shit, we don't know who he is.

That's fine, you know, whatever. Now, is that going to affect things? Yeah, I think it may as far as we didn't, as much as a lot of other decisions that are going on where we didn't necessarily consult our allies. So I think that's chafing them some. Did we, you know, kick a hornet's nest in Iraq? Maybe some. Is it going to stop anything? probably not because I think Ghani has been trained under Soleimani.

He's effective in his own right. He doesn't have the same type of charisma. I don't think that he has as much of that, you know, so-called care for his troops and that personal touch. But really, if you, you know, you're in the Middle East. If you lead with a big stick, you know, they don't care about warm buzzies and challenge coins and shit. So I don't think we did a whole lot there.

We did what we wanted to do, which was to prove a point. And that's, I think, what had happened. So I think it was a token and probably a, it was probably a pretty good strategic one that wouldn't have as much blowback, you know, as some other thoughts might have been that would have been probably more benign. I mean, I go back to the Bonnade,

shit, if you ever go to the treasury, to OFAC, and you look at the number of banyards that we have sanctioned and the people, I mean, we've maybe put 10 banyards on the sanction list. There's over 200 of them. It's stupid. Yeah. We've got one more question from Pavlai, he goes, what's the best way to get in touch with a recruiter? For what? I assume for the intelligence world. Paveli, you've got to be more specific than that, man. Yeah, cia.gov, man. Yeah, so you're told them trying to, yeah, and you're told them try the CIA website. Yeah, you know, that's the thing, because I do get a lot of inquiries, whether it be FBI, whether it be NSA agency. And they're like, can you at least put me in touch with somebody?

No, those days are gone. Yeah. I think. I'm sure there are in the right circles. There probably are. I'm sure, you know, your old, you know, Yale circles. and whatnot in some of the recruiting grounds and the leaders. Yeah, there's probably some sons and daughters that are getting in left and right.

But at my level, no, they do. They just funnel them right through CIA.gov. Now, I will say there was a time when I was laid off a few years ago, and I was like, ah, for shits and giggles, I'm just going to send one over again, see if they want to start up some chats. I was contacted within a day. It called me on a Saturday morning. So I sent it on a Friday.

So. Do you think that's their normal way or do you think that's because it's you? I don't know. I got to call on Saturday. And so, so can, you know, I tailored my resume and my

responses to what I had been doing and stuff like that. And so, but somebody got it and somebody acted on it. Somebody pushed it. And it went to the DO very, very, very quickly. Does that happen to everybody? I don't know. But, you know, also the things that they're looking for today are so different. I think about when I was getting out, I was starting to do work on identity reputation management.

So that was, if you had a guy that was, you know, let's say Jack is a knock and or just, you know, covered a field officer and he's going out to Nigeria and he's saying, okay, I'm a, I do a radio show. And I want to interview people and this and that. If he was using a false name, then, you know, now you're dealing with Facebook. Twitter and what have you. When I started working on that stuff in 2014, that wasn't big stuff. So we were talking about how do you set those things up? How do you log where you're at? How do you add friends and things of that nature?

And I was playing around with that with LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, all of those things, and showing what that direction would be between that power of leveraging, you know, virtual and physical domains to strengthen cover legends while mitigating risk. I'll tell you what, I could not do that now. I have no idea how you would really go about doing it effectively, and I don't think it's effectively being done. I think that also came about the time in maybe 2016. I was asked again to advise someone, and I'm like, I really firmly believe at this point in time,

the name of the game for 90% of activities is operating under true name. Yeah. Well, I mean, with biometrics now and things like that, I mean, let's say you've passed through Heathrow. You can never go, whatever name you go through Heathrow in, that's saying you always have to go through Heathrow in because you're logged, you know. Yeah. But it's also, I mean, you go through, you don't even know. I mean, I've been through airports, small airports in Africa, Central America. I mean, other places. where they take biometrics, how do I know they didn't sell that data to the Chinese or the Russians or the Iranians? You have no idea. Right.

Well, some guy just now invented like facial recognition that can do it just via photos. They scoured like billions of photos on the internet now can basically recognize anybody out there. So if you're, if you have an internet presence. Yeah, we've got to, we need to move to a hybrid model of the. Chinese and Israeli activities where you're setting up legitimate businesses overseas and you're feeding information based on the networks that they're able to do

or you're sending legitimate people out all around we've had a domestic program for years where travelers come back but we not tasked them to the level that that we could now are we really going to be able to given our political climate and our climate of privacy that's going on and transparency? Probably not. We probably screwed ourselves of that. But I think if you put the feelers out enough of who would do it,

you'll probably get some. You have to figure out that program. You're going to have to go through a good screening process because there's a lot of fucking whack jobs out there that'll say that they'll do it and then get rolled up. But there's just like anything, there's a there's a selection process and there's a a look to see you know it's the it's the adage of if you want to be in the CIA or special mission units you're probably not going to

make it and you're probably not the right guy if they want you to be in it that's probably the right guy and that's where I think you don't necessarily go in uh with that thought, but usually somebody finds you and says, we think that you've got the traits or the access that would help us. Would you consider this? And then you make your pitch and go from that. But that guy waving their hand saying, I want in, kick him to the curb. Yeah.

I was wondering if you could tell me this story that you had mentioned before, that there's something about you were trying to go after a corrupt doctor in Texas. Oh, shit. What the hell is that all about? How many beers was that? So, wow. All right. So story time, I guess.

About four years ago, five years ago, Dave Grange reached out to me and was building a company. He was building it. You wanted to build it with me. Colonel Heinemann, Tim Heinemann. Shit. I mean, his old crew, basically. And I think it was his old group of Bosnia. He was a National Guard, SF Colonel, right?

I don't know. He's 10th group. I don't know National Guard so much. So he spent a ton of time over it in Leavenworth as one of the main director or maybe it was for Sam's or something like that. But anyway, and he does a lot of writing, you know, because he's in Burma a lot too. So anyway, it was. was a, you know, a real good who's who, as you would imagine, for any contracting company that was going to go about, just going back into the business and calling up old, you know, old folks from the unit and the agencies and stuff like that. And so great. Well, we needed to get money fast and we didn't have a skiff. And we, I think, I think that we were still thinking it was part of that old boys network. And not so much of that.

newer procurement process that awarded, you know, based on lowest cost and you had to fill out, you know, 60 forms of this and another 40 forms of that and then go to the meetings and blah, blah, blah. We didn't have that type of capital. So this attorney presented us with an opportunity in Texas where this the CEO, who is a doctor, was saying that he was being defrauded. I was the only guy that had a fraud background. So they sent me down first to check it out. And I went down there and I started interviewing the people and I call up Dave. I'm like, this is not right.

I said, there's more to this. I said, there's a lot of embezzlement going on. And there's some shady things. I've looked at the bank accounts. They've got over 120 bank accounts. And I'm like, this is for like a medical facility that. that's, you know, private practice. And they had maybe like 10 different locations and maybe eight different partners.

I'm like, Dave, this is, this is not right. And so he reached out to the attorney and we said, all right, we will conduct a forensics accounting investigation. And so we're like, all right, you know, I'm thinking, well, who's going to be doing this work? And so it was me and a couple other guys. And then Dave and Tim and then roll in and we find out that there's more to this. Well, about the same time that this is happening, it turns out that this doctor was getting in all kinds of other problems. And he had been arrested for a flight, accosting a stewardess. He had had some problems with some weapons that he possessed.

And then I think he was declaring bankruptcy on something. And so the courts mandated us all of a sudden to take over the company. and to kind of facilitate it because we were the closest ones to this whole thing. Well, it caused a real problem because this guy was involved in a lot of nasty activities with a lot of nasty people all the way down to Miami. There was some Russian mafia involved. We were getting bomb threats into the building. I mean, what was it about drugs?

I'm sorry? Well, I mean, was it drugs? What was going on here? There was drugs. There was prostitution. There was just, it was a mess. It was, it was, Saganam Gimara. It was just, it was just mayhem out there.

And yet at the same time, now here, and this is the key, the same time the people who had been working for this person were so righteous. And really committed family people. And they really, I mean, they had put their whole lives into this. And this guy had told them that they're going to get stock options. they would be rich. And really, with the amount of money that he was making, they all could have walked away with millions. So they were vested in this. The money he is making from the drugs and prostitution?

No, no, the legitimate money, because I will say that from everything that I knew, he was quite a gifted surgeon. Okay. And so, but I think he had gotten caught up, you know, by having the means, he got caught up in some of the lifestyle and stuff. And I think he had even, you know, he had a couple of divorces. I think even this guy who multi-millionaire ended up like marrying a stripper, you know, just like he was, you know, Special Forces private. And so, so we roll in then to, to take up our positions and those guys are rolling in in black suburbans. And they're rolling in

heavy guys have, you know, concealed carry and stuff. But, but that was to protect them. And I mean, really, we looked at it as it was a hostile environment and we didn't know where the threat was coming from next. ATF was involved. And so what was really neat was that Dave and Tim took it on like they would any other foreign situation where they had to stabilize it. And it was really pretty cool to be part of that because while I was doing the investigation and the intel side of it, we were using, you know, military structure and ways of problem

solving and bring it into this company so that we can get them back on track. And he was treating them, they were treating them just like the indigs. And so you can, and because Dave and Tim had worked so long together, they knew their movements and they knew what to do. And so as they're looking to, you know, first stabilize it, when hearts and minds, I mean, it was textbook as to how you would do this in a foreign land. And yet here we were doing it in Houston. I think the unfortunate, I mean, and here's the other aspect of it too is this, this doctor ended up getting arrested.

He was kind of gone crazy. He was, you know, there's times he was on drugs, wasn't lucid. He hated the shit out of Grange. And so he would make his own threats and stuff like that. And he would tell us, he would drop us stuff like, you'll never get my money. It's in a safe and it's in all these things. And so he found a warehouse that had all these safes. And we were drilling those saves like,

It was, you know, Saddam Hussein's, you know, riches. And there was like, there was nothing that those guys could do. Our security guy was a seal. I mean, we were protected. There was nothing that was going to happen. And, I mean, and this guy had a, had a ranch just to make the bills, pay the bills. We're selling like giraffes, rhinoceroses and stuff, zebras.

It was, every day was just so crazy. This sounds like a fucking mess. This is the book you need to write. It was nuts. It was nuts. And I think what would stop any of that type of a book writing is the fact that this doctor was in such a bad shape and was going to see some long-term time. He overdosed one night. And so it ultimately froze up all the money that we hadn't been paid.

And so it was kind of a bad ending, disappointing ending for us. but, you know, to work with those guys again was really pretty neat and to see how you can actually apply. You know, some people say, well, how do you transfer, you know, this military knowledge from special forces into, you know, a corporate world? I'll tell you what, when it comes to a corporate takeover or a restabilization and change management, there's a lot of principles that can be learned and something like that. And really, the leadership traits between both Tim and Dave was exemplary where they were the first guys in the office. They were the first guys to leave. While these guys both had means from retirement and other things, we all stayed at the same hotel. We all stayed on the same floor.

We were all in like the cheapest stuff. We would eat dinner all together. And I swear to God, I ate hamburgers every single night for like nine months on this project because that was the cheapest thing that we could do. And we're trying to build this company together. So it was just, it was cool. It was a real cool experience. crazy as shit

but again it shows where true leadership wins out and some of the marketable skills that people bring also come to bear in the real world so JT I want you to tell us about your latest novel about presidential retreat

but first I just want to remind everyone again who has joined us tonight thank you and please subscribe to the channel if you haven't already please hit that little thumbs up or hard or like or give us a hug or whatever. The little icon is down below to hook us up. Leave comments, share this video with other people,

let them know. Down in the description, there's also a link to our Reddit, and there is also a link to Patreon if you wanna support the stream and help us continue doing what we're doing. But with that, there's also a link down there in the description for JT's latest novel, Presidential Retreat, and that's what I wanna hear about now.

Okay, so I think I pissed off enough people in the defense and intelligence community, and I've never worked for the Secret Service, so I figured Target is on you guys now because nobody can redact my stuff. I was in Boston for a wedding some years back, and my brother-in-law took us all to Martha's Vineyard, and we rented a house for a week out there, and they took us for a tour. And so my mother-in-law, you know, wasn't able to walk a lot of the area. So we were on this bus and they're taking us all through the area. And this guy had been an ex-cop who was the tour guide.

So he's telling us all about when presidents come to Martha's Vineyard. And he's saying everything from, you know, here's my placard that I put on the car when I get to go in the motorcade. Here is my badge that I get to have. And it's all just sitting in his car. and he's going through and he's like oh this is the back entrance to this one location where the obama stayed um this is the airfield uh this is the point where some crazy guy ran out onto the golf course and secret service didn't do it and we start talking about it and and i'm like just asking questions and stuff and my wife notices that i've got my phone out and i'm starting

to type away and she's like oh shit geezer you writing another book and I'm like, this is golden. And so I started taking pictures really of all this guy's, you know, this guy's, these guys' goods. I mean, he had secret service pins that folks had given him and he was telling us all about the colors. And just like any type of a situation where you're looking for, you know, a target to exploit, this guy is the weakest link in the supply chain. Yeah. And he thinks, you know, he doesn't know who he's got in the car.

He thinks it's benign, and he is sharing absolutely everything that he knows about some of the vulnerabilities of what's going on with presidential protection on the island. And then from that, I was able to go to restaurants and things and build on that by asking other questions and seeing how when the Secret Service is there, are they passing the bill, charging things to the room? What are their names? What are the room numbers? can you see that stack on the bar and ascertain who it is? Where are they staying? Where are their cars going to be parked? The fact that they go to the same place to fuel up for gas.

And I'm like, this is it. So in this case, I wanted to explain. I want to do something different. I mean, you know, Jack and I talk so much that the publishers want to see you kill another Arab. and they want another Arab to blow up New York or Chicago or something like that. And so I tried to put a little historic twist on it. I've never, you know, the other side of it too is I do like writing, as I said. I want to try to stretch myself.

So I've written, you know, some books that are a little bit more espionage, a little bit more military thriller. I try to do one through the Task Force Orange that is a lot faster pace, you know, one more linear storyline to a degree. So in this case, I'm like, can I demonstrate to any reader that I can also write some type of a historic type of a conspiracy? So I started out with that and brought into question whether or not we actually had the sovereignty as United States or whether we were still beholden to England. And there was then this conspiracy that went over generations for, of course, that one moment in time when everything lines up and they decide now is the time to kill the president and make an existence. of us. And so that's what I did and was able to use that research that was just kind of given to me on pretty much how somebody might exploit the fissures within the Secret Service, or at least what you'd heard about in the last number of years, and do that. Again, mad respect to Secret Service,

the job that they do, the thankfulness of that role and how they have to pay for so many things even out of their own pocket because they don't have the funding. That said, it's of only And my job as an Intel guy is to identify the threats, exploit the vulnerability so that you could look at your inherent and residual risks and make some change. So may not sell a million books, but maybe somebody will look at the program and say, well, fuck, we're kind of jacked up here. In, it buried in black, there's some stuff in that book where it's like, oh, damn, where the terrorists are targeting J-Soc guys in Southern Pines. and like I've actually been in the bar that you're describing getting blown up by a V-Bid down there. Actually having beers with Pat McNamara and a retired Delta officer, former squadron commander who sadly passed away.

But down in that same bar having Pints of Guinness, and here it is in JT's book getting blown up by a bunch of rogue Iraqis. yeah so I don't know I guess I struggle with some of that but if nobody's pointing out some of the risks I think oh absolutely you know I'm not an intelligence community anymore so there's nobody I can tell so if I can tell a story but then also expose some of the fissures in our infrastructure or what we're doing I think that's I think that's reporting and I know jack you get a lot of shit for that for your true report. Yeah, I know, once or twice maybe.

You know, the true reporting that you see and how you want to at least present it out there, but not such a way that you're saying, oh, here, at this time and day, you can kill 50 people. Yeah. But just saying, look, this is something you guys need to think about. And as you're managing yourselves, as you're working with your families, as we're dealing with critical infrastructure. I mean, in presence of evil, I talk about what we would do to. disrupt the Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade.

I'm in Chicago. Do I want anything to happen to us? No, but there's some problems. And so I think to be able to exploit those things and identify weaknesses, that's the other thing I think people get out of the books is true infrastructure risk. I would have to go and pull up the

literature. I can't remember where I was reading about this, but during the Cold War there's a plan, just like we had Detachment A, that we're going to be sleepers cells in case the Soviets ever invaded. There were special forces guys who would go underground and become the stay behind networks once Soviets had passed over Berlin. The Soviets were reported to have a similar sleeper cell program.

I think it was in Sweden or Norway, but the deal was that on D-Day and H hour, like just before the Soviets were to invade Scandinavia, these sleeper cells would activate and they would go to the homes and just shoot the fighter pilots in their beds, like just an hour before the invasion kicked off so that they would never even have the opportunity to get into those planes and fly against, you know, the migs and blow up the T-72s rolling over or whatever the hell it was. Those are awesome ideas. Yeah.

It's creative, you know. And the thing is, in a free society, there's really no way to stop that type of action, you know, if somebody is bold enough to... do you want to carry it out. Right. And so in, and again, I struggle with some of the things that I put out there. I know in, I think it was Shadow Masters, one of my first ones, I talk about some, some ways that you could actually take down an aircraft in, on Midway Airport.

And it's real. It's real. The airline community needs to be thinking about some of those things. We did the same thing with presence of evil. No, I'm sorry, not Presence of Evil, but Prime Charge. If you go around New York or Chicago and you see those solar trash compactors, if you would ever put a few different chemicals in there, put it in the compactor because of the very nature of it compacting on a certain time,

or if you programmed it to do a certain time, you'd be able to mix those chemicals then and cause a reaction. Okay. Is it realistic? Would it actually happen? I don't know, but I saw that I could exploit it. So that's one of the things that I did. And I think that's true with most of the books that I write as I think of,

if I were in that person's shoes and I wanted to cause an attack, what would I do? And that's part of the realism, but I don't think we get to the point where it's anything that somebody could do. I mean, I think in the presence of evil, we hack an airplane. I get pretty damn close to showing what you could actually do and where those fishers are. But, you know, is somebody able to do it? No. But if somebody looks at it and says, you can't do that shit, I'd say, well, here, let me just show you what you can actually do. Yeah.

So how paranoid are your kids? Just in terms of, like, trying to figure out, like, what could go wrong in everyday situations and things like that? I don't know. They're not. They're not. But nor am I anymore. I mean, you know, does the family sit in the back of the restaurant, back to the wall?

Okay, kids, you know where the exit plan is and all that stuff? No. Do I have a bulletproof backpack? Yes. But it's... What's your EDC grow? Yeah. I don't know.

There's a point where I think you can be vigilant and you can be aware. and I think those are the types of things. So I've got daughters now that are looking to go into the city. I think I'm more worried about them being mugged than, you know, active shooter and stuff like that. But we talk about it. I think all I can do without them being, you know, whack jobs about it is just try to be a good dad who's a little bit aware, maybe has some knowledge of it. but am I, you know, having the kids with concealed carry and leaving weapons around, okay, you know the combination of the safe in case dad's shot and, you know, commies are coming in

or something like that, or jihadis, I, you know, no. The threat is real. Yeah, it's, we have to take it with a grain of salt. And I think there are more things on a day-to-day basis that can hurt them for the future than some of those things. Sure. And that just, you know, a lot of the things. day-to-day just kindness you know and bullying and you know sure and social media and

stuff like that but but even with even with not necessarily the bullying or the social media but even like because I I know I get on people's nerves sometimes just in terms of like I feel like I'm just being pragmatic you know I go I'm just being well you know in this situation be aware of this and people go like well that you know like and it's not even like a terrorist attack it's nothing it's It's just everyday life, but I just, I feel like, I don't know, they're, they're always, you always have to have contingencies. You always have to be prepared for things that you're not prepared for because that's,

that's why things happen to people because they're not prepared for things. Yeah. You know, I'd say that I probably, if I'm being honest, we probably are at the point of being unprepared. You know, do I have bug out bags and do I have extra water in the, in the Jeep and stuff like that? No. Do I have a blanket in there and jumper cables? Yeah. I think also some of that comes with a little bit of being in a community that's relatively safe. I think if I were living in Tampa, if I were living in D.C., if the people I was socializing with were military, government,

and things like that, I probably, we would probably be a little bit different, but because of the culture. I looked back at some pictures of myself when I was doing work and going back to DC. And I, I coached soccer for a number of years. I looked at myself in those pictures of those, you know, championship games or just practices. And I am that dumbass that is wearing like striker boots, you know, 511 pants and, you know, ripstop jacket. And I've got my, you know, glint patch on my hat. I'm like, what a tool I am. You know, I'm coaching eight-year-olds, you know, in soccer. But it's like coming back and forth from that community.

And that's just what we were wearing. And that's just how it was. And so you just kind of adopt it. But yet here I am talking about fitting in and how you, you know, with cover legends, you've got to adapt to your environment. And yet I was the biggest standout of probably everybody. And I looked like a, like it's just a Jim Moak because nobody understood, you know, who this guy is.

that's probably going for a, you know, to a picnic. Do you feel that because of, well, first off, did you lie a lot as a kid? Was that a talent you had? Yeah, for a couple reasons. So my parents were really strict. My mom was really a kind woman. She was a teacher. Took a lot of interest in her kids and wanted to know everything.

nauseam. And so if there were things that I just didn't want to talk to her about, I might lie just so I didn't have to talk so much more about it. My dad was really, really strict. Strict Baptist, very religious, probably to that far right of conservatism and maybe even extremism on the religious side. And so. John Birch Society guy. Yeah, he just, you know, just. He just was, he walked, well, he said he walked a fine line.

Okay. And so that's, we'll just go with that. So I knew that there were just certain things that were unacceptable. And so for me to be in the social circles that I wanted to be in and things that I wanted to do, there too. There had to be some deception. As I mentioned before, I'm more of a type B person. I was tall, but I was always really pretty thin, took my lumps getting bullied also. And so I knew that if I couldn't fight back in some ways, I would have to manipulate certain things so that I could get it.

I think I also got to the point where in school sometimes I struggled. It's kind of interesting because we've noticed with one of my daughters, there's some learning challenges she had. I probably had some of the same at the time. And so instead of addressing it, I adapted. And so I might erase somebody's name on their homework paper and put my name on. You know, I'm talking like second grade. Yeah, yeah. But the way that I had to survive probably lent itself more towards deception and things like that.

So again, I think in some ways that fell easy, but that's also where we talked earlier of that switch where you just don't. to my wife it's kind of funny because I I just I don't lie you have rules right I think in my professional practice I don't lie to my kids I don't lie you know and unless you know you're joking around or something so it's like one of those things you can flip on flip off make a conscious decision but in the work side of it on the intelligence aspect it could come very naturally right well you have to be able to turn it off because you have to report the truth to your bosses or you have to you know I mean like they can't have

a compulsive ladder. They just have to, so being the nature of your job, the deception, sort of the duplicity, things like that, do you find yourself, do you tend to be more suspicious of people of their motives or if you catch a hint of something that doesn't smell right? Do you, you know, do you tend to be a lot less trusting than other people maybe? Um, no, because I think I see it in other ways. I think so, you know, being type B, being also, you know, kind of introverted, I think most of the relationships that I have with people, I have a smaller, you know, circle of friends. And so I'm not looking to usually bring people into that circle of trust. but I think because I've been able to identify

because you're having to identify assets for recruitment, susceptibility and things like that, there are certain tells. I think most of my friends that are guys are really good with their kids. If I see a guy who just, you know, he's kind of out partying, really doesn't give a shit about what his kids doing,

is not active with them. I'm not judging him, but that just doesn't fall in line. with who I am and kind of my belief system. So do I have to be suspicious of them? I just think I've already got a pretty good idea as to what that person is like and what they're doing. So I think I can read people a little bit faster

so I feel I get who they are, what they're doing, and what their motive is very quickly. So I don't have to get to the point of like, I'm really wondering. And I think because of that, I think more often than not, because I can see through somebody in many cases, when other people are judging somebody and saying, oh, I know that that guy's up to some.

I know what they're saying. It means that they're really doing this. I'm like, yeah, not so much. So I think I give people more of the benefit of the doubt when others are suspicious or kind of catty about things. But I'm like, that's why would that guy give a shit about something like that? You know, you can tell where his focus is, her focus is, something like that. But it's kind of cool the other night.

I don't know if you guys ever watch Homeland. I don't see me. I think I tapped out around like season four or five. I was like, I can't take it anymore. I did too. But I picked it up again. And there's this one point where, you know, the main character that one of the guys, Saul Berringer, you know, the CIA guy, you know, he's just getting duped left

and right. He's like, yeah, I don't know. They never lie to me and stuff like that. You know, I could be getting duped left and right. Right. I don't know. But you know, part of it is like, I don't really give a shit. Because there's not that much anymore that is mission critical to me or that important to me so that I'm giving any power to make any decision over it to me. So if some guy's lying saying, yeah, your furniture is not going to be able to get delivered to you until Thursday, I'm like, I know he can really do it probably Tuesday. But who gives a shit?

Yeah, who else? Yeah. You know, an employee that decides to lie to me. I'm like, I can see through your other stuff. So you can lie to me now, but you're never going to get promoted, and chances are I'm probably going to run you out pretty soon. Well, I think with that, we'll probably get ready to close it out for tonight. I'm going to ask JT to stay with us for just another moment to tell. So maybe one or two more stories real quick for our supporters of the stream on Patreon. I'm going to ask you about the mob closet stories.

Okay. Yeah, there's some funny stuff there. Is that we have one last question. Okay. Thank you for Andrew. Were they smuggling giraffes or were they selling them? Oh, were you guys smuggling them or were you selling them legally? It was Texas after all.

We completely sold them legally. So what he had done is, and again, this goes to the spirit of this man. And I think where his heart really was in the right place at first, he had the means. So he wanted to provide the sanctuary and this great place to bring his family and his friends that was kind of like a safari. And so he had the means. So he was acquiring a lot of these animals and stuff. And they were treating them very well also.

So in this case, it was just as we're getting down to a liquidation of what do you sell, you know, cars and boats and things like that. And then you got a frigging giraffe and stuff like that. And, you know, tigers or whatnot, you know, it's just it's an asset at that point. But it's just so incredible that you're in that situation. And you're like, we sold two giraffes and we were able to pay, you know, payroll today. And so great. You know, I mean, how often do you do that? So you weren't throwing these extravagant wildlife dinners with exotic animal states?

With the baby draft in your hands like this and the Russian hookers on either side? I'm not saying that with the guys that I was with that those type of opportunities didn't cross our minds. but they always crossed it with a smile. And I will say as much as those guys are great leaders, I have never laughed so hard with some of those guys either. They're just, they're great people and good hearts. That's awesome. Guys, the author is J.T. Patton, our guest tonight.

The book is Presidential Retreat, the latest in his series of espionage thrillers. The link is right down below in the description. Go down there. Hit it up, take a look. It's an audiobook also. it is audio should come out on the 30th or 31st okay um and it's by the same guy charles callenberg so that he can finish up the uh the the trilogy and um yeah good guy now is it on kindle kindle prime yeah yeah so it's so because of the whole kindle thing and because i really need to

be able to pay for you know doing the book on my own right now i've got the exclusive through Amazon Kindle, it can be distributed and paperback through Amazon or through a lot of the other means, but it's not available on like Nook or Apple right now in digits just simply so I can get my 70% to pay my overhead at this point, honestly. Is it on Prime? So like if people have a Prime membership, can they go and download it and read it and you get Payton for it? Yeah. And I highly encourage you to skip to the very end so I get credit for you reading the whole thing. And so you can look at pictures and stuff like that.

Okay. So here's the plan. Even if you guys are not military or espionage thrills, download the book, it's free if you have Amazon Prime. Download on Kindle. Flip through it so JT can get paid. Just sit there for watching your show and flip through it so the man gets his money. It's in the book.

Yeah. Yeah. And check out the other ones. I read Buried in Black. I read Safe Havens. I mean, I read a couple of your books. I mean, they're awesome. So go back and take a look at the previous ones that J.T. wrote as well.

And while we're talking about books, I got to promote my own work also. This here is the... Where is it? Where is it? This is the paperback edition of my memoir, Murphy's Law. And that's actually... You can't get those anymore, J.T. That was the hats I made for one of the novels.

Hey, J.T., would you put that closer with the camera? We didn't see that. Yeah, I stole it from Jack's house. Oh, nice. Yeah, I wrote my fourth novel, Grey Matter splatter. It takes place in the Arctic, so I had the hats that are made up that are snow camo

and have the patch on them. But the book, the paperback is due out later this month. I think it's February 30th. You can go pre-order it on Amazon. And in the meantime, the hardback, the audio book, the Kindle. did I say audio back or hard back? Anyway, it's getting late. The audio edition, the candle, the hardcover, it's all out now.

And I'll plug it too, Jack. I'll say that to any of the writers out there who are listening to this podcast, even if you use that as kind of a reference guide of what somebody has to go through for selection and up the ranks, it's really a great reference book in addition to just the great stories that are in it and learning about Jack and his heart and his commitment. there's some real talk in there i'm patting myself on the back a little bit but i was proud of the book and how it came out yeah and your narrative with your voice is also good too because i think you know i'll tell you what it's um i can't do it but i think that when somebody does narrate their own book

and gets the right inflection for the dialogue and kind of regaling those stories there's something to it that brings another different lens of authenticity and so i feel like any time i listen to it And I've listened to it a few times, you know, you're right there just telling the story. Yeah, yeah. No, it was important to me. I wanted to narrate the books. That's it's me telling my story. You know, why not?

We have two more. Thank you for the donations, guys. And thank you, Annie. We appreciate it. Andy wants to know how much does a giraffe go for? Good question. If you were in the market for a giraffe, what would he be looking at paying for a user? Yeah, yeah.

Secondhand giraffe. Yeah. Like how many bones did you get for that? I'd have to ask Dave or tell I don't remember I'm gonna guess that they probably got a good couple thousand dollars off of that's it Yeah, I don't that's a fucking right-out long more man it could have been five or seven thousand dollars, but I don't know. I just knew that they had they'd sold like a nice barbecue gas grill like life is cheap on the Savannah I think it's got a fucking giraffe somebody would have taken that thing out for a trophy which I think would have been highly illegal I know they could have commanded a lot more for it. Yeah. No, I think whatever they got, we had to go

quickly to pay the bills, but that's funny. I'll have to ask me, I'll post it on mine. What if I find out? Yeah. Alex said, don't forget to mention a sub-read. I did, like three times. We did. And, well, he just got off work. And last one, um, Andrew goes, you know what I'd love for the plug? The market price of giraffes. Andrew's hot on this. Andrew wants a giraffe. What's the street value of the giraffe? You want a giraffe? I get you, Gerard. I promise I'll send a note to our comptroller that was on the project and see what that went for.

And I'll post it on your site. All right. Andrew, you will have your answer. All right, everyone. The rest of you, join us on Patreon. We'll do another 15 minutes or so with JT telling some interest in war stories. But other than that, we'll see you next week. with Greg Walker, 7th Special Forces Group veteran, talking about the bad old days.

Old school guys. Central America, Iraq, yeah. All right, guys. Thank you. Take care everyone.