Moore - Special agent man : my life in the FBI as a terrorist hunter, helicopter pilot, and certified sniper

Copyright 2012 by Steve Moore

All rights reserved

First edition

Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-0-914090-70-0

Due to safety and security considerations for the FBI personnel mentioned in this book (especially those still serving), and at the request of the FBI, all names of FBI agents and other FBI personnel have been changed.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moore, Steve.

Special agent man : my life in the FBI as a terrorist hunter, helicopter pilot, and certified sniper / Steve Moore. 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-914090-70-0

1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2. Moore, Steve. 3. Intelligence officersUnited StatesBiography. 4. Criminal investigationUnited States. I. Title.

HV8144.F43M66 2012

363.25092dc23

[B]

2012014309

Cover and interior design: Visible Logic, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

For Michelle, who cared more about my dreams than she did her own.

And for Meagan, Steve, and Madison; I am more proud of you than words can express.

My brother-in-law Evan Easterly is a policeman in San Marcos, Texas, outside of San Antonio. One afternoon recently, I got a call from him. He had just responded to a bank robbery in which the robber got away, and Evan was standing inside the now-locked bank. I could hear voices in the background as the familiar process of interviewing the tellers and bank personnel began. I was absolutely at a loss as to why Evan was calling.

Steve, do you know an FBI agent named Ryan March?

I was floored. Ryan was one of my favorite people in the world; wed been on the same SWAT team for five years. We went through SWAT tryouts, SWAT training, and countless SWAT operations together. As teammates, we depended on each other for our lives. We traveled all over the world with the team. But even beyond that, he was one of the most interesting, funny, and tactically competent people I had ever met. But hed transferred to San Antonio several years ago, and wed had had little contact since then.

Ryan March? I asked excitedly. Yes, I know who he is. How do you know him?

Hes standing right here, Steve; he responded to the bank robbery and he says he knows you.

Evan, listen carefully, I said seriously. The reason I know him is that hes a con artist who has posed as a preschool teacher and an FBI agent all over the world. Be careful. Hes a very sick man.

Thats kinda what he told me youd say. Evan said, deadpan. Here he is, he added, handing his cell phone to Ryan.

Hey, Steve, has your wife ever leveled with you about her and me? was Ryans opening gambit. It would be out of character for him to start a conversation with anything but a provocative joke.

Suddenly it all flooded back: all the memories, all the joy, all the pain, along with an aching longing to be back on SWAT with Ryan and the team. It wasnt the guns, it wasnt the excitement, it wasnt the cool operationsit was the people. Our conversation was all too brief, as Ryan had to get back to work. I longed to be in that bank, interviewing victim tellers and building a case. It had gotten routine before I retired, but now it would be incredibly refreshing. When we finally bid each other good-bye, Ryan finished with a quick Miss ya, man. Thats about as sensitive as SWAT guys get, but it said a lot.

One of the greatest privileges of being in the FBI was getting to work with the incredible people there. Obviously, in every situation there are exceptions, but I have never seen a more uniformly competent, overachieving group of people in my life. I was proud to be one of them, and never stopped hoping that I would measure up to the agents I worked with. Theres a phrase in the FBI to describe the wide-eyed fascination that new agents come to town with; its called lights and sirens syndrome. It takes some people years to get over it. Im not sure I ever did. I think thats because some people know that they belong in the FBI, that its where they should be. Some are just grateful to be there.

Im grateful, but like someone who finds a million dollars in a bag on the side of the road, I didnt want to call too much attention to myself for fear that a mistake had been made. I was always amazed at the mystique the FBI seemed to give me. Each time I pulled out the badge and said, FBI. Special Agent Moore, the reaction was amazing. People went pale. They hyperventilated. They stuttered. I felt like whispering to the honest ones, Look behind the sunglassesIm just a normal guy! Im not really like you think I am.

Maybe thats why I wanted to tell my story. Since I never lost the lights and siren syndrome, I think I have a unique view of the FBI. I never forgot that I was blessed to be where I was, and I never, ever, stopped loving what I was doing there. So this is the story of an FBI career from a guy who didnt get jaded. From a guy who loved it as much on his last day as he did on his first. A guy for whom every case was the best case he had ever worked. Sure, there were times when I didnt love the FBI, but none when I didnt like the job of special agent.

I cannot tell you how many movies and TV shows Ive seen about FBI agents. Ive even written a couple of TV episodes. But in every one of those screen characterizations, agents are seen as fearless, emotionless near-automatons unfazed by death and risk. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) of the television show 24 was a case in point. Every week, Jack would live another hour of an incredible twenty-four-hour adventure. What he regularly did in twenty-four hours, the average real agent doesnt do in twenty-four years.

When Jack Bauer was the head of the fictional Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), I was the supervisor of al-Qaeda investigations for the Los Angeles FBIs Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Jacks job was to stop terrorism in L.A. and the United States. So was mine. Jack was a SWAT operator who carried a .40 caliber Sig Sauer P229. I was a SWAT operator who carried a 9 mm Sig Sauer P228but I really wanted the higher-caliber P229. Bauer was a sniper, and so was I. Jack was an airplane and helicopter pilot for the FBI. So was I. Bauer was an undercover agent, and so was I.

But thats where the similarities end. Jack was fearless, and I felt fearI just didnt let it stop me. Jack saw death and was unaffected. I saw death and couldnt get it out of my mind. Jack was cool, and I lived in a suburb and drove my wife and three kids around in a minivan. We had the same job; we just went about it in different ways. But my job was real.

So to the reader and to my fellow agents, I must confess: Im not Jack Bauer.

(But I still want his Sig 229.)

THE PREDAWN AIR was crisp and cool, and the breeze across my face refreshed me and wicked away some sweat that had soaked my black flight suit, even in the fifty-degree night. The streets were empty, the dutiful traffic lights just going through the motions.

I loved this time of the morning. I was exhilarated, I was happy, I was determined. My feet stood on a steel grate about eight inches off the ground, and the asphalt I saw between my feet was disappearing behind me at forty miles per hour.

I looked across at Ryan and saw the same excitement, the same contentedness, and the same intensity. He looked ahead, his goggles down, and he was in the zone. I loved the zone. The Chevy Suburban ahead of us suddenly slowed, the brake lights as bright as road flares. The team on the lead Suburban held on to the rails above the windows to keep from sliding forward. Four operators on each side. I looked back at the vehicles behind us: two more Suburbans with eight operators each on the rails, the mount-out truck carrying any other equipment wed need at the site, and a dozen police and FBI cars behind that. It was an exciting sight. LAPD black-and-whites blocked each intersection as we sped through.