Men in Black
Sizemedium
This is not a BTB story.
Wife's boss starts to chase wife. Husband finds out and warns the man to leave his wife alone; however, it is a bit too late.
Background
I grew up in the mountains of Colorado. When I graduated from high school, I went to the university in Boulder, CO. I had taken Army ROTC while at college so when I graduated I was immediately inducted into active duty.
I was assigned to Special Operations Group (SOG) as an intelligence officer. After SOG training, I was assigned the Middle East "sandbox". While there, I got to know several of the CIA folk including the Field Agent-in-Charge, George Mason. One night, he was seriously wounded in a fire fight with some terrorists. I helped get him into surgery quickly and I assisted with the operation. While he was recuperating, I visited him every day and we became close friends. He and I had several long talks while he was recovering. Bottom line was that he wanted to recruit me. At the time, it sounded good, so I jumped at the chance to lessen the opportunity to be shot by a terrorist. I was transferred from the US Army to the CIA along with all my military records and I was sent back to the U.S. for training.
I never reported to Langley but I was sent directly for training at the "Farm". While there, in addition to all the "spy" training, they did a lot of tests and evaluations to see where I might fit best. Eventually, I was assigned to a secret group that was known simply as "The Men In Black" or as MIB. Little did I know that George was the one who recommended me for the job. Over time, we both advanced. Years later, George became the Director of the CIA and I was in charge of the Denver Office for MIB.
Men In Black
Now I know that many of you will think about the two movies by the same name, but the MIB really exists - since 1947 or so. It was started back then to deal with members of the public who saw UFOs. The Men In Black would 'encourage" the persons to admit that what they observed was clouds or swamp gas or some other natural cause but not a UFO. Since then, the government has found a lot of other uses for the MIB besides for UFOs. For any example, I was sent to talk to the wife of a military man who was deployed overseas. She had not heard from her husband in 9 months. At the 3 months mark, she started contacting the military wanting to know what happened to her husband. When she contacted the US Army, they acted like they knew nothing so she started going to other agencies for help. When she finally contacted her US Senator, something had to be done. Somehow the Army was able to contact her husband and get him to secretly smuggle out a letter to his wife stating that he was OK and undercover. I was given the letter from her husband and told to deliver it to her. Her husband was working undercover and could not come out just yet. He could not receive anything from his wife nor could he send anything to her without blowing his cover. I explained all that to her without giving up anything Secret. I asked her to respect that he was undercover and we didn't want her to do anything that would blow his cover or get him killed. I assured her that he would be home in approximately two months.
My first three years were spent in Virginia but working a lot in Washington D.C., then they transferred me to Colorado to lead a team of three men and an administrative person.
The Denver Office
MIB are located in several cities across the U.S., not just in Washington D. C. area (Virginia). The Denver office services 6 states (Region 8). There were 5 of us assigned to Denver, Colorado. We were located at the Federal Center which was a mile square facility that housed most of the government agencies in Denver. Our office was in a multi-story building #67 that housed the Bureau of Reclamation or the "dam engineers" as we called them. (The Bureau designs dams -- the most famous being Hoover Dam in Nevada.)
We had a nice office area, nothing fancy, with an admin out front and our 4 offices behind her. When we were in the office, we wore just regular street clothes so that if anyone entered our office area, it would look just like other areas of the building - just hard-working engineers.
We had a small storage room that was locked at all times and it had a CCTV camera aimed at the door. Inside we had a small arsenal of weapons and a lot of surveillance equipment and other electronic devices. There was a large closet at one end of our office that held three black suits with black ties and highly polished black dress shoes for each of us. There were various uniforms from various companies also in the closet that we used for surveillance. Our office had our own restroom so that we could change clothes when needed. Our admin was responsible for sending out our suits to keep them clean and crisp. We were not allowed to take our suits home -- it was an attempt to keep our work secret.
When we must make face-to-face contact with people, we wear the issued black suit, white shirt, black tie, and mirrored sunglasses. We no longer wear the black fedora hats that were worn in the 50s. All of us wear a white shirt from home every day so that we are prepared if we need to go out. When in "uniform", we do not carry any identification and all our "uniforms" have the labels removed because our motto is: "We were never here. We do not exist." We have three vehicles: one black sedan and 2 large Black SUVs, all with darkened windows. Also, there is a small gym area on a lower floor that we share with the 'dam engineers' since we must stay in top physical condition. Sometimes our contacts with people turn very physical and people needed to be "restrained". Most of the time we were armed when we were in uniform.
My team consisted of four people: Janice, our administrative person, who is a trained operative from the CIA. She got tired of spy work and transferred to work with me. She is excellent at hand-to-hand combat so she is our first defense against an intruder. Also, she is a damn good shot and keeps a loaded 45 cal. automatic in her desk. Rob, is an ex-Delta team member, who was later hired and trained by the CIA as a field agent. He is my muscle man; he is 6'-5" and 290 lbs. Ralph has a Bachelor's Degree and a Master's Degree in Computer Science. He worked for NSA previously, so he is my hacker and surveillance specialist. Lastly, there is Tex who is a former FBI agent. He is a walking law library.
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