Ingrams & Assoc 1: Double Bluff Ch. 01

Jessica shrugged "Yes, well, as you pointed out, weareunderhanded. The thing is, April, I know you want to do this. I know you are just testing the limits and that's ok. I would expect and encourage that. But we are also experienced at this and I would like you to not forget it. I'm not going to give you any crap about us being a happy family or any shit like that. We are a business, we help people, we go covert to do it and we are good at it. The people here are the best I could find and we are offering you a place in it, as an operational field agent. The hardest job we have. You are alone, in the field and making life-changing decisions for other people. It's hard, scary and you second-guess yourself constantly. But when you get it right, you change multiple lives forever for the better, maybe even save them. What do you say?"

April put down her drink, straightened her skirt and looked up. "When do I start?"

-----

A week later, April was ensconced in her new office, on the 6th floor of the building that, she'd found out since her hiring, Ingrams & Associates owned.

On reporting to work on the next Monday morning, she'd been introduced to Dermot McConaughey – an able and older Scotsman, complete with a soft burr in his voice. Dermot was a huge man, graceful in his movements, but large in the extreme, he was tall – over six feet six inches- and he was replete around the stomach, but he knew his business. He was Ingrams' Operations Chief – all operations were planned with his input and run under his auspices.

Dermot was Jessica Ingrams' right hand man, responsible for ensuring that operations came off without a hitch, that resources were available when needed and basically running shotgun on all operations in the building. He was also her immediate manager. She found out quickly that Dermot was icily efficient. He knew every nut and bolt of the building – who did what, how often and with who. If she asked for something via email, it was done that day, and if it couldn't be she was given daily updates as to when it would be. She began to realize the care with which Jessica had chosen her people.

Dermot was wed to his job. He had an iPad permanently glued to his hand and was the fastest typist she'd ever seen – he kept laughing and saying the sooner he could get some Google Glass input devices, the happier he'd be. He was a congenial man, quick with a joke and then straight down to business and very easy to be around. She couldn't help feeling he was judging her, and it was probably true, he was. She noticed he didn't wear a wedding ring but refrained from asking.

On entering the office, April had been greeted by Dermot, shown her office, set up with email and given the paperwork common to all new employees – insurance forms, payment forms and so on, a copy of the company handbook – she had to smile at that. She was then presented with a dump of thirty plus project reports – project plans, profiles, analyses and final operational reports. And told to read them all – there would be a quiz at the end of the week.

Before she was allowed to start, she was taken around and introduced to the department heads as 'the new field agent newbie'. She met the head of Research – a mousey woman named Talia Cronkite - who ran five analysts who did the background research for an operation. Talia was the kind of soft-spoken woman who blended into the background. Pale, brunette with short hair, no makeup and huge glasses. The epitome of the female nerd. When April encountered her later as the in house self-defense instructor, she was astounded, and had to remind herself once again to not judge by appearances.

Then she was taken to the field operations center – there were three of them, with full on monitors over the wall and desks with people in it 24/7. It was straight out of a spy movie. She couldn't help but gape as she was led in, and everyone craned their necks to look at the visitor blinking their eyes as the light came in from the open door. April was introduced to each of the operations center managers, all of whom reported directly to Dermot. She learned that the operations center kept tabs on agents on the field, responded to calls for information, resources or requests for help and also presented the front end of any companies that the agents claimed to be representing.

Next up was the resources center, where agents were given communications and monitoring devices. She looked around the lab and picked up devices and wondered what they were for and if she'd be instructed in their use. The owner of the room looked like another nerd and April realized that the more people she met, the nerdier the entire operation seemed to be. The head of this department was Tom Mercy. He was the archetypal nerd, even wearing a Lord of the Rings t-Shirt when she met him. He had greasy long hair that hid half of his face. He wore black jeans and a studded belt. She could barely stop herself from shaking her head at just how much of the stereotype he embodied.

It was only a week later when he showed up in slacks and a polo shirt, with his now clean hair neatly tied in a ponytail, nodded at her in the kitchen while getting coffee that she realized she'd been had.

Then it started to perk up. She was introduced to the field agent's pool, of which she was now one. There were seven currently between operations – three who'd just come out of the field and four who were in the midst of preparations to go out. The moment she was led into the briefing room – complete with top-shelf coffee and donuts, she noticed, no expense shared here – she knew she was being sized up. Dermot introduced her, "Hey guys. This is the newbie. This is April. Now each of you remembers your first time out, if you want her to avoid that, take her under your wing. Give her whatever help she needs, ok?"

He nodded at April and said, "Make yourself at home. Remember, quiz at the end of the week. After that, we are going to pair you up with an ongoing operation, so you can sit in the co-pilot's seat and see how it's done. It'll be a while before we send you out yourself. You have some training first." Then he looked at his iPad and left the room.

Everyone just looked at her. "Umm...." she said, brilliantly. "Hey. I'm April. So, what's going on?"

The group of seven people, most in the process of helping themselves to coffee or donuts looked at each other and she saw some barely suppressed smiles.

One of them – an attractive blond woman with large boobs that seemed to approach April by themselves – came over and held out her hand. "I'm Megan. Nice to meet you. So, investigation or psychiatry?"

"Excuse me?" said April, a little confused.

"Everyone here has a post graduate degree in one or the other. It's one of the things this place looks for. Coffee?"

"Yes, please," responded April, understanding. "And it's both."

Megan looked at her, appraisingly and said, "Well, aren't you just the purpose-made catch then?" She did it smiling broadly to ensure April understood she was not making fun of her. Not knowing what to say back, April said nothing and just smiled, tightly.

They got coffee together, and Megan started introducing April to the others. Everyone made an effort to make her feel welcome, and a couple of the men commiserated at her career choice. She noticed that while most were relatively attractive, none of them were stunning. It made sense – these agents were pretending to be real people out in the world. Being model-pretty would detract from that. They had to be attractive enough that they could insinuate themselves in the lives of their targets, but not so hot thateveryonewould be hitting on them.

She asked a few of them what cases they were working on. Megan told her, "I'm just back in. Had a college professor – widely tipped to be the researcher who cracked cold fusion. But his repressed bi-sexuality just came rampaging out when he was seduced by one of his TA's. He was confused, messed up, guilt ridden and his wife had no idea what to do. It took a while to sort out. I think all three of them are living together happily now though." She smiled when she was done talking and April could quite see why she was a field agent. Her smiled was genuine and infected all of her face, including her eyes. She wondered if she'd be able to do that.

Sitting down at the conference table, April took a sip of coffee and asked, "So, who is it that hires us? I mean, who knows we exist?"

One of the guys, Ryan, put down his smart phone and said, "You'd be surprised who knows about us. Most of the major government institutions do. We get hired by universities, the military, the NSA and FBI, sometimes even the CIA. We've done work for MI6 in the UK, Mossad in Israel and other places. We've worked for private individuals – anywhere, really. Anyone who needs someone's life fixed up without them knowing they are being fixed."

April asked a question that had been on her mind for a while. "But why? I mean, I get it. I know what we do. I understand that. But is there really that demand? If people are so fucked up, why not just get them to a shrink? Why do we have to go sneaking around so much? It feels like too many people have watched too muchMission: Impossible."

Ryan chuckled and said, "April, you'd be surprised at how many bosses and managers care. How many want their people to be doing well. And everyone is fucked up in some way or another. The interesting part is that often the people who are going to make the most difference are often the most fucked up – or has the potential to be, anyway. And they are almost always the ones who won't accept help, either. So someone has to help. Someone has to care. Someone has to have the skill and sheer balls to sort it out. And that's us. Believe me, there's the demand."

"I'll bet my balls are bigger than yours," said Megan to Ryan, eyes sparkling.

"Only because you play volleyball. I play golf. My balls might be smaller, but they go further, and no one is slapping them around a net," Ryan joked..

"So, you admit you enjoy having your balls slapped with a steel rod, then?" retorted Megan.

April watched the interaction. She could see Megan and Ryan liked each other – there was a comfort level here that was easy to ignore and just accept as 'the way things were,' but April was smart enough to know that this happened because Jessica had set up the company and employees to think that way. A company's culture always came from the top and once again, April had to revise her opinion of Jessica Ingrams.

Changing the subject, April asked, "So, are there social events? Do we have a softball team or anything? Barbecues?"

Megan answered her this time. "Well, we don't have anything official. We can't have sports teams since people will ask who Ingrams is and what we do. We do enough lying professionally, no point in adding to it. But yeah, we get together every now and then for casual parties and stuff. That's about the extent of it. We all help out on each other's cases when we can. It pays to know everyone here. Trust me, you'll find out about everyone just through osmosis."

April thought of the reports and said, "I need to get going. Those reports won't read themselves." As she got up to go, Megan said, "If you need help going through them or have questions, I'm in the next office. Don't be a stranger. We are all here to help."

April smiled and said, "That's awesome Megan, thanks. Thanks, everyone!" and went back to her office to get started. Once inside, she sank into the comfortable Aeron chair, put her coffee down and looked at the desk covered in files – real files, not digital format – and sighed, then reached for the top one and opened it.

-----

At the end of the week, Dermot quizzed her on the reports with written and verbal questions; April scored 89%. It was judged sufficient. April was a little sore because she knew she could have got 100% if she'd been allowed to take the reports home and study them, but Ingrams had a strict policy of not allowing any data home, which made sense. The information sitting in Ingrams archives could bring down governments and ruin any number of marriages.

When she was done, April sat back and looked at Dermot and said, "Ok, so past history is understood. When do I get my first case?'

Dermot finished a flurry of tapping on the iPad and looked up at her. "April, there's a lot more training before you go solo. I want to put you with Charlie's case right now. I want you to shadow her preparation – see what she is doing, who she interacts with, see the profile she comes up with and how she builds it, and then look at her operational plan. I expect you to comment on it and offer suggestions. There is a briefing tomorrow at nine a.m.; be there. Go find Charlie and get started, then take the rest of the day off. You've done ok so far – it's got to be stressful. Have you found an apartment here yet?"

April shook her head. "No, not really had time to look."

Dermot reached into his pocket and said, "Here, check this place out. I just moved out of there. They have a vacancy in the penthouse suite. It has a hell of a view and you get roof rights, too."

She took the card and thanked him. She knew she could afford it – her salary was outrageous. She was going to make more in her first year than any of her tutors at college did in five years.

She spent the afternoon talking with Charlie, a small brunette who was slim, lithe and had the dirtiest laugh she'd ever heard on another human being. It was genuine too, which made it even sexier. Charlie went over her case, a four-star general whose wife had been seduced by a professional lothario. He was entirely unprepared for this and had no idea what to do about it, and had gone to pieces while in charge of an operation in Iraq. The Army and the Chiefs of Staff felt responsible and had requested Ingrams' help. Charlie went over her profile of the general, his wife and the lothario, and outlined the plan she had started to put together.

When she was done, April went to look at the apartment. It was lovely, and she signed the lease documents there and then. Next she hit a furniture store, bought what she wanted and arranged for expedited delivery. Within a week, she was moved in.

Over the next four months, April shadowed Charlie, absorbing all she could. She learned how she was expected to request background from the IT group, get out and interview people, in a very roundabout way, gather intel and then generate a profile of the target / victims. She was expected to prepare an operations plan or what she intended to do to resolve the situation, alternates and contingency plans. She was expected to generate resource requests and basically plan the entire operation.

She learned that every operation was overseen by Dermot and also reviewed by two other field agents for validity and new ideas. She saw how information leading to a profile of the target and others around him was gathered – how other field agents that weren't on a current operation were drafted in to go out into the field to befriend those involved, learn about them and generally dig for information. Of course the primary agent couldn't do this, because they'd blow their cover before the operation had already started. This was done in conjunction with the IT department who did online footprint gathering.

She learned that the resources department had a set of throw-away identities already built for this process in the operation – that finding background information on people was a time-consuming process and required a bunch of different ways to do it. Getting close to people took time, so Ingrams had learned how to do it quickly – become someone's assistant, the 'security services interview' – where the agents pretend to be agents from some covert alphabet agency, doing background interviews on the prospect for a potentially secret job. That one required some finesse, since it required them to be scary enough that the interviewee wouldn't alert the target about an interview for a job that didn't exist. That approach had to be used judiciously.

April watched as, once the profiles were written and the plan formulated, it was reviewed, modified and then approved by others. Once it was finalized, Charlie went out into the field. April sat in the operations center and watched Charlie's requests of help or information. She even got in the act herself in the principal operation, playing the part of one of Charlie's girlfriends and being introduced to the couple Charlie was trying to help. It was only a peripheral part, but it got her feet wet.

April also discovered a whole army of part-time contractors that the agency had on call. People that specialized in following others, Breaking and Entering, security work, the whole shebang. She was further astounded to discover that almost none of these people knew the agency for which they did occasional work – beyond the fact that it was an agency dedicated to helping people behind the scenes. Ingrams was very good at protecting themselves.

In her personal life, she'd finished transferring her life from Arizona to Washington – she'd moved what little furniture she had that she cared about – most she'd just sold in a weekend estate sale she'd flown back to organize. The only thing left in Arizona was her uncle Marcus's large antique Cadillac. It was vintage 1965, in immaculate condition and had been left to her in her uncles will. She honestly didn't know what to do with it, but she couldn't part with it either, since it had so many memories in it, of him taking her to the Grand Canyon and other places. In the end, she'd just left in storage in Phoenix and decided to make a decision later.

April did allow her self one indulgence – a new car. She'd gone down into the building parking lot to look at the cars everyone else drove, at least while they were not in field. They were nice. Lexus, BMW, Porsches – not one car was over 2 years old and none of them under $50k. She knew she wanted something nice, above normal, but not too flashy. One of the instructors in seduction had explained how, for some people, cars were an extension of their personality. She wanted something that said Fun, Elegance but not Ostentatious. She loved convertibles and in the end she settled for a convertible Nissan 370z. It was powerful enough to push her back into the chair if she let it go, and feminine enough to complement her personality. She enjoyed driving it and sometimes went on weekend excursions to New York just to do that.

She liked her new apartment and never got tired of the view, particularly at night. She even took a couple of cooking classes, attempting to be able to make the perfect soufflé, failing every time but having fun trying. It was five weeks before she realized that not one other person besides herself had ever been in her apartment besides the delivery furniture guys, not even friends from work. After that, she organized a roof barbeque the following weekend, just to have company.

Professionally, her skills training had also started, in between observing Charlie at work. She was instructed in lock picking and the use of everything the resource department provided: how to hack phones, how to install bugs and there were even evasive driving lessons. She received self-defense training – hoping she'd never need it, and boy, did it hurt. She was given tasks to prepare false personalities and backgrounds. She'd probably never use them, since each identity they created internally was usually specific for the operation undertaken, but it was good to know how it was done. She was tested on the identities, to prove she had learned them and could 'be' that person.

She'd spent an instructive afternoon with the R&D networking guys. They'd gone through her Facebook accounts looking for pictures of her to remove; Ingrams didn't mind people having an online presence, but drew the line at pictures, where they could be identified. They went through old websites, removing pictures, and April got a whole new appreciation of just how good some of these 'white hat' hackers were, since they didn't own any of the websites where the pictures were removed or corrupted.