PUSHBACK

1500 WESTBRANCH DRIVE

MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

0842 HOURS

There were forty-three fresh-faced recruits sitting in the cramped auditorium on the main floor of the Stafford Building when the Chief of the Security Education Staff (C/SES) walked in and introduced himself at eight that morning. He was alone, as he always preferred to be when meeting the latest crop of prospective entrants into the Office of Security, this being the first stop on what lay before them as future full-fledged members of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Assuming they successfully completed training, of course.

At eight-thirty, the rest of the senior staff from the Office of Security (OS) who were available began to file into the room, including the two deputy directors (Physical and Technical Security and Personnel Security) and the chiefs of Investigations, Protective Programs, Information Security, and Polygraph. C/SES introduced each one in turn, giving a quick overview of their duties and responsibilities within OS. Ten minutes later, there was one more, and final arrival, and as soon as he stepped into the room, standing quietly off to the side wearing a charcoal gray suit, dark blue shirt, red tie adorned with blue dots, and highly polished black Oxfords, the new recruits noticed that all of the other senior managers suddenly stood straighter, their manner deferential to the early fifties black man with close-cropped, slightly graying hair, thinning in the front.

The Security Education chief smiled and rubbed his hands together.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, you are in for a real treat this morning. I wasn’t sure if he would be able to make it, but he does try to get here at the start of each new class, despite how busy he is. Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Kevin Mada, our Director.”

The senior staff began to clap and a second later the recruits did as well. As he approached the podium in the center of the room, Mada rolled his eyes at the staff, waved a hand at the recruits.

“And let that be the last time that any of you expend any energy clapping for me,” he told them all with a half smile, glancing once again at his staff, in particular the man who had just vacated the podium where he now stood. “And, Mike, you know better. Let me guess, Anna put you up to it?”

When no response came from the man himself, Mada looked past him down to the tall blonde three over, one of his two deputy directors. She was grinning but would not meet his gaze. Mada nodded, turned to the assembled once more, took out a pair of reading glasses and set them on the podium.

“Good morning, all,” he greeted, stepping to the side of the podium, resting his left elbow against it. “As you have already been told, my name is Kevin Mada. Strike that. Since you’ve all passed your background checks and have been granted Top Secret/SCI clearance, I’ll tell you that my full name is Kevin Jerone Mada, Jr. I’m currently fifty-one years old and have worked at the CIA for twenty-nine years, all of that time in the Office of Security. And for some unknown reason, the person who occupied the Director’s chair at Headquarters three years ago decided to make me Director of OS. After that, I decided to push for regular drug testing of everyone on the seventh floor over there.”

The staff laughed immediately, the recruits were a bit slow to respond because they didn’t know if Mada was joking, his delivery was deadpan. After a few seconds he smiled.

“Yes, despite all protests to the contrary, I do have a sense of humor.”

Several people against the wall to his rear began to cough, and he could have sworn he heard BULLSHIT under one of them.

Mada walked closer to where the recruits sat, glancing around, remembering his first day in orientation three decades ago, knowing what was going through their minds now because he’d had the same thoughts then. I’m really here, I’m in the fucking CIA!

“I’m not going to take up too much of your time this morning because I know Mike wants to get started separating everyone into their training groups so you can settle in and meet the cadre of instructors who will be responsible for all of your lives over the next few months. But I did want to take the opportunity to welcome you to the Agency and to the Office of Security. Now here comes the speech, but I promise not to be too much of a bore.”

He stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped in front of him, speaking in a conversational but easily understandable tone that reached everyone in the room, his eyes constantly on the move, engaging each and all.

“The Central Intelligence Agency is the premier intelligence and security organization of the United States Government, and the only one that is independent of a cabinet master. Its primary mission is to protect and defend the national security of the United States. Not the government, the country. There is an important distinction that I hope all of you understand. Never forget that while what we do is largely secret and will never be revealed to the public at-large, what we do is for the people, for the citizens of this country. Every sacrifice, every hardship, every loss we endure, we do it for them, so that they can live in peace and safety, and the generations that will come after them.”

He paused for a moment, scanned the young faces again, then continued.

“I know that for a lot of you, Security was not your first choice of assignments when you filled out all that wonderful paperwork for your security clearances. Most of you probably joined up to be James Bond, Jack Bauer, Jack Ryan, Sydney Bristow, or perhaps even Nikita. Yeah, I spent a good deal of my youth in front of a TV, as, no doubt, have a lot of you. And you joined the CIA to become a spy. Let you in on a little secret, so did I. And when I was notified that I didn’t qualify for Operations training, it broke my heart. But I needed a job and the Agency never wastes material if they can help it. I got the same pitch some of you got, telling me that there was still a place for me, a job. So even though I felt dejected about not going into CT[6] training, and the prospect of becoming a security officer was not all that appealing to me, even if it was at the CIA, I decided to take the opportunity. I thought, as many of you are thinking right now, that after a few years, with more experience, I could reapply to Operations and stand a better shot at getting in. And some of you might just do that. I was in training with a few who tried, some made it. But you know what, I never did try again, and I have not regretted that decision once in the past twenty-nine years.”

He turned and went back to the podium, glancing briefly at the people lined against the rear wall. They had all heard this speech before, and were probably thinking they could be somewhere else doing something more important right now. Mada smiled at them, then stepped behind the podium and picked up his glasses, but he didn’t put them on.

“The CIA protects this nation from its enemies and the threats they pose. In the Office of Security, we protect the Agency from its enemies. I know some of you come to us from the military and are probably well familiar with the term force protection. That’s good, because in OS, that pretty much sums up our mission. Data, physical and digital, facilities, and personnel, everything connected to the Agency is our responsibility to protect. The designation that you are seeking to achieve is one that I thought was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of when it was first introduced more than ten years ago. MDSO—Multi-Discipline Security Officer. When I and all the folks behind me came onboard, our designations were broken into different categories. Deputy Director Betts and I were on the Special Agent track. Chief Gonzales there was on the Technical Analyst track. But the brains that were at the time decided that the system was a little too complicated and created unnecessary problems when one of us wanted to switch tracks, and designations, and since most of us would eventually be trained in several specialties, thus becoming multi-disciplined… Well you can see how it happened. And while I still prefer Special Agent Mada over MDSO Mada, I have come around to liking the current system of career designations within OS. Which is why I didn’t kick it straight out the door the second I sat down in the director’s chair three years ago.”

He spoke for another ten minutes, keeping everyone’s focus the entire time, and when he concluded, despite the prior admonition against it, the recruits all clapped, and so did the staff behind him.

“Disobeying orders on the first day,” The DOS (pronounced The Doss) shook his head. “This does not bode well for the future of the Office. Mike, they’re all yours. Good luck, everyone, and once again, welcome to the CIA and the Office of Security.”

Kevin Mada pocketed his glasses and turned to leave. The SES chief retook the podium after shaking the boss’ hand and the rest of the senior staff officers fell in line and followed Mada out into the corridor.

Anna Betts moved close to his right side as they turned left at the intersecting corridor.

“You didn’t tell them what trainees were called back in our day,” she said with a grin.

Mada briefly glanced at her.

“No I did not,” he said. “And neither will anybody else. But you know we didn’t have it as bad as the trainees from Personnel. They called us SORTS, but those poor folks had to walk around being called POTS!”

Everyone was still laughing when they got on the elevator for the ride up to the top floor.