By Blue Bronc
Chapter 1
As many of you have guessed I did live a life different from you. A life that was (and for the most part still is) classified. Levels of secrecy that are classified way beyond what West Wing dialog called “code word”.
Now that some of my world is declassified I think it would be a nice thing to write about some of the things my family, friends and co-workers had to endure while I lived and worked. This is some background into things I might have mentioned or hinted at here. I won’t go into details unless those are necessary. If I do not expound on something or do not bother explaining things, take that as I will not do that.
To enter this snippet of my life and world. it was in 2014 when the Office of Personnel Management database was hacked, the one that was of active federal employees. That was the first one. That was about what Musk and his hackers reached through the first pass. A few months later another hack got into the database of those who were in classified positions, even in the past. But this database included information about employment data, backgrounds, and much deep classified information.
The second hack is how the Russian/Soviet spy services were able to find people they used to be interested in and where they were in 2014 in the U.S. government. One of those was me.
It took a couple months during fall 2014 for all the data processing, in Russia, to take place.
Now to some of the why the KGB was surprised and interested in me.
They, KGB/FSB, thought I was dead, died somewhere in the middle of the Nineties. That was an easy thing to understand. I was medically retired in 1991. During the next couple of years I continued to get sicker, but no doctors could find out why. Then, I dropped off the face of the Earth. The information got out I was dying of Hepatitis C, around a fifty percent survival chance at the time.
The Soviet Union and the KGB ended around the same time in 1991. Russia created the FSB to replace the KGB. The replacements for the Soviet KGB were not that great for many reasons. The military agency, GRU, was growing to replace the KGB as they had not dissolved. So, I was easy to write off, to forget, and not pay a spy to keep my contact sheet up to date. Lost track of and not worth trying to find. I was dead. At least in a data base.
So, I am living my life, fat dumb and happy. I sort of recover from the Hepatitis C and B and regain enough strength to live my life. Oh, and I transitioned to me, Pam. The old me is what we call a dead name, it is no longer used, it is the one the KGB knew me under. I am also disabled due to the HCV and military damage to my body.
I ended up with a company that provides disabled people to the federal government hiring process, the act to hire disabled people. In 2011 I was initially interviewing with the National Security Agency, but the Department of Agriculture interviewed me days before I was supposed to go to NSA. In the world of secrets it is easier to get a security clearance if you have one or had one.
I was hired by the Department of Agriculture instead of the NSA. At a very low level. One of the sad things is often if you are disabled you will be hired as a nice second base. It is up to you to prove that you are not brain dead and you can do things. I did. My position needed a security clearance, a Secret, and a high-risk public trust investigation, which were not difficult for me.
Chapter 2
The last thing anyone living and working undercover is to have someone spot you and shout out your name. You never know who is hanging around, especially if it is a tail who only knows you are on an airplane or a train.
I was traveling from Denver to another city, on the East Coast. Everything was timed for me to leave my plane, and walk over to the plane parked next to it. All was good as I get halfway there and I hear my name being shouted, really loud. Ooo, this is not good. It was former co-worker from a company I worked for several years earlier. He had no clue about my current work, but he was determined to say “HI” to me. I gave a wave and moved as fast as I could onto the plane. Yeah, I like filing reports about things like this.
Being from Colorado, more about my being from somewhere later in this screed, I often wore a Stetson in the summer. Primarily for the shade from the wide brim. I was working in a place that is still classified, occasionally taking breaks outside for a smoke break. One day the security manager came up to me to give me a talking to about my hat. It is customary for those working undercover to not have any identifying items that could link you to anything or anyplace. So he proceeds to talk to me, and when he took a breath I pointed out that the locals also wore Stetson’s, just like mine. At least I did not need to file a report on my hat.
Chapter 3
I find the concept of not existing difficult for most people to understand. I would tell them that there was an invisible line somewhere in my journey that marked where the real Me would cross and I would no longer exist. There was a physical Me, visible to all, but not in any record under whatever identification I had. I was traveling and working, but I did not exist.
Travel was interesting if you had a family, I did. “Where are you going?” The answer could be complicated. Especially if you lived in Denver, in January, and had lost your tan. I could say, “oh, Washington, D.C.”, and put an itinerary on the refrigerator with that on it. Returning several weeks later with a very strong tan, obviously not from sunning on the Mall. It took a few trips for the family to not ask a lot of questions.
Every now and then something would make my world “interesting”. My companions and coworkers and I would wonder what would happen if we had a medical emergency. Say a broken leg. Or, lose a filling. That is what happened to me on a Thursday afternoon. A filling fell out and I had a painful tooth. I could not go to a local dentist. Working out travel I was able to fly back to Denver on a Monday and into the dentist chair on Tuesday. Life is good.
Due to my work I had identification so I could get into places. I would not know until I got the physical badges and key cards what company I was working for. Things could get really strange, such as one trip I was in a meeting on one side of the country with one ID, and travel across the country to another meeting under a different one. When I checked into the hotel it was under a different ID, which put me in an awkward position because it was the wrong one. You just go with the flow and hope nobody looks at the hotel guest sheets. I never did find out who did that.
Chapter 4
Now that you have a tiny touch of my life before I medically retired. Let me bring you up to my life after the KGB found out I was still alive.
The hack on OPM in August, 2014, was the one that gave the spy agencies around the world the inner information of those who had or were still living in a classified world. Combining the early 2014 hack of OPM and the August break, let them understand I was still alive and working in the federal government. Even more interesting, at least for some, I was working next to an NSA building. Being employed by the Department of Agriculture might have been my cover.
But, they had to prove it was me. November, 2014, my ex received a phone call, caller ID had my old company name. She sent me the information as one of those odd things. In the business there are no odd things. So I called to find out who called asking about me. The phone number was from an inactive line in a state very far from Colorado. Roh roh, not good. Most likely it was a spoofed phone number, one to cover the actual phone number used, and the company name to cover the actual caller ID. Antenna up!
For the next several months nothing strange popped up, but when it did it started a whole mess that has gone on for years.
Chapter 5
June, 2015, Washington, D.C., a fine early summer day, a change of location from my usual cube in the USDA office near the University of Maryland, to an office conference room in one of many federal office buildings in downtown D.C. I had three interns with me as my co-workers and I met with a foreign delegation who were interested in how we built a specific program. While sitting there I played the game of which one is the spy? So far my life had been free of obvious interference from Russians.
But, that changed very fast. After our meeting we had an hour before heading back to our office. The interns needed some time to stretch their legs before we jumped back on the Metro to get back to the office. We were at one of the District’s many statues so I had the interns investigate who it was and get some movement going. One of the interns stayed back and did not come up to the horse.
I was busy with the other two interns when the one who stayed back came up to me and told me that a woman stepped out of the crowd to take my picture, several pictures actually, all of me. I asked if she could point out who did it, she tried, but it does not take much to slip in and out of visibility in crowds. That is when I knew the KGB/FSB or at least one agent knew who I was.
Chapter 6
The following days were filled with doing the steps necessary to report the experience. One thing about having a clearance is you have to report any contacts or odd things that are not normal that happen to you. The intern was not happy about sitting for an interview, she had some very odd thoughts about her privacy and talking about a woman taking my picture. We got the easy reports done. Then I had to sit in a private conference to discuss a little of why this event was more than it looked like from the surface.
The USDA was not prepared for someone with a different work history, like me. There were necessary steps to establish paths to federal security agencies, steps to create paths for me to report any other events. And, what to say to my co-workers. The interns already knew something about me and the picture taking was not a normal event in USDA life. I preferred to stay with reporting things if you have a clearance. But, my life was not stuck in a single modeling session.
Other than my co-workers, my supervisor and my manager needed to be briefed and given enough information to understand some things about my possible future. At least they knew about clearances, even though they did not have any, along with what to do when there are contacts.
I found it interesting that most had a question, something I was not used to in my old world as it was not needed, “are you safe?”.
Chapter 7
Being “found” was not my happy spot. It meant I was back in a world that I had left and a big reason I did not go to the NSA. I liked not having to check for a tail every time I went outside. I liked not having to establish routes where I could dump a tail if necessary. I liked not having to live with bugs in my house or trackers on my truck.
There was no single location that was under surveillance, it is universal, in this world every where I went, everything I posted online, every vehicle, my home, my boats, my cell phones and everything in between, was covered.
There was only one question that has never been answered, how did they know when I would leave the office and take the Metro to D.C. There are guesses, but no answers.
Chapter 8
The “Talk”: “I need to tell you something that does not involve you, but, it is important you know about it. I have a problem with Russians, specifically the KGB/FSB and GRU. They spend time tracking me. They will pop up taking my picture and then go away. They will try to find out if you are working with me on whatever they think I am working on. I am not working on anything anymore.” “Yes, they do tail me. No, they are not dangerous.” “If anyone tries to get you to talk about me, even if you know them, let me and our supervisor know immediately.” “Any time you feel threatened go to the police.” “Any time you have a weird contact with someone you do not know, we need to report it to security. Come to me and I will take you there.” “Yes, just like what happened when the intern saw the woman take my picture.” “Always feel free to ask any questions, I will help if I can.” “No, I was not a spy. I just worked on interesting projects the Russians want to know about.”
Chapter 9
What a pain they are. Traveling on the Metro became a who is taking my picture today experience. Try to get a picture of the picture taker to hand over to the FBI using my cell phone. Did you know D.C. is the city with the most spies? And, not just American. What is interesting is how many of my picture taking fan club were not known to the FBI, “cowboys” they are called. Lone Rangers trying to make money. How did they know to target me?
Sitting in my cube in the cube farm one nice afternoon, working on my computer, my desk phone rings, “Ms Bennett?” “Yes” ” This is USDA IT security, are you trying to log in?” “I am already logged in and using my machine” “Okay. We are seeing someone trying to log in to your account from a location other than your building.” “Ah, probably the Russians, they have been trying to hack everything I have.” “The Russians?” “They are a pain, just block them.” Ten minutes later IT is at my desk to take my computer for “testing”. A couple weeks later my computer returns, or I should say the shell, the computer and keyboard were new.
“Did you really have different identifications? How did you travel?” A co-worker was in the break room when I came in to get a cup of hot water for my tea. I had briefed her a week earlier because we were going to a meeting in D.C. together. She told me that another co-worker confirmed that my Russian problem was real, something she originally thought to be something out of a novel and she doubted. I was not ready for a question about my identifications and how it was sometimes confusing to keep up with on busy trips. But, a straight answer will end the path of the question. “Yes, I did have multiple identifications. We could not let people know who I was and who I worked for. Also, there were different ids for different clearances. So, yes, things could be interesting.” “I do not talk about that”, as a specific question that went to sensitive information. Anyone asking too many of those might find themselves in an interview with people who never smile.
Chapter 10
They are such a nuisance is what I thought as I turned the corner on my home street, one had just parked in the middle of the street to take pictures of my house and belongings. He was a real amateur at the job. He did not keep awareness as I was sitting in the road with my engine running and me doing a little picture taking of my own. Idiots.
I left work early to enjoy an nice afternoon at home. I also drove direct to my house rather than a pattern to see if I was being tailed. Clambered out of my car and got to the door and see the door open. Oh, the bastards were in my house. I did a look around, apparently it was not the usual break in by burglars. This was someone interested in my computers. They did not get in to see anything due to security steps I have on my machines. I checked the door to see it was not forced, the lock had been picked. Or rather screwdrivered. The lock was damaged making the key almost optional. I decided not to replace the door lock, no need to waste replacing locks for a while, the least they could do is teach lock picking at the spy school.