G Men

"The jig's up Rocky!"

A knock knock at my door one day years ago.

I open it. Outside is a well dressed man in his early 30's.

“Hello. My name is John Cotton, Special Agent for the FBI. Might I come inside and have a few words with you?”

And of course my alarm bells start going off like mad. I thought over every sin I may have committed in the past 20 years and wondering just which one he'd like to talk about. I then mentally start rehearsing my lawyer's firm number in my head.

So I let him in, amid the dog fur, the blaring stereo and blaring German Shepherd who wants to see him die very slowly. I get the dog safely into my bedroom and come back, offering him coffee or something to drink. He declines.

“Let me tell you why I am here today.” Here it comes!

“I and another agent are canvassing your street because one of your neighbors, Paul Sarmento, is applying for a job at Raytheon Underwater Warfare Solutions. We'd like to ask you a few questions about him.”

“You're doing a background check?” I ask.

“Yes.” (Thank God said my brain...you don't have to mention the farmland some of us had on the islands of a particular river a mile east of me.)

FBI agents, the younger ones at least, and this one, look like very healthy Boy Scouts. If fact, a lot of them look lik Mormons because the FBI loves recruiting Mormons as they have a annoying penchant for being honest nearly 100% of the time. Blond, blue eyed fit and trim Salt Lake City.

I was surprised at the thoroughness of the questions. I personally didn't know the guy really. I kept saying “I don't know” and apologizing for the lack of information. He said never to worry about it. But one theme he kept coming back to was drug use.

All I could say was that the guy, a 20 something kid, looked like he belonged in college. I suspected he may have dabbled but that's what kids in college do. That's all I could offer.

The agent filled out his form, thanked me for my time and also for stowing the “rather large dog you have there “ away.

**

A Secret Service story from my brother.

He had a friend from college he ran into years later at a coffee shop in downtown Providence. They went over old times and Ken asked what this guy was doing now. “I'm retired from a gov't job.” He said. My brother thought that odd as the guy was in his early 40's and a bit young to be retired.

“I was shot during a drug deal that had gone bad in NYC.” he says. This guy was employed with the DEA as a field agent and had apparently walked into a drug deal where the opposing members had information that unearthed this DEA's cover.

“Right in the abdomen. I got with a 9mm, but it turned wild and ripped through my guts. The surgeons re-sected about ten feet of my small intestine. I was told later that it was shredded.”

He went on to say while lying in the hospital bed, he rethought his career move about wanting to work for the DEA and thought it was time to find safer work.

“I was out of work for half a year, on TDI, when I was approached by some guys from the Secret Service who had heard that I was planning on leaving the DEA. They offered me a position as a body guard/prep man/trainer and what have you.” He said he thought about it but the idea of throwing yourself in front of a bullet to save the President was to, too much.

“I wondered to myself about the Secret Service's motives, since I was already shot once, that this experience would work to my benefit and theirs....I though otherwise.”

He went on to say how weird and insular the Secret Service is. They constantly train to protect ONE man.

“They're like attack dogs. They've been trained to act on instinct and save no life at all but the President's. I swear, if it meant running over a seven year girl with the limo to save the President, they'd do it in a heartbeat. They are an odd breed with a very particular skill.”

“I declined the job offer...I wasn't into getting shot twice.”

“What do you do now?” my brother asked.

“I manage security for a Connecticut pharmacological company, sort of part time.”

Safer indeed!