A Howard Watson Intrigue - CIA Friends

CIA Friends

This piece will be short and sweet because I only have two CIA friends: Officers Allen Knox and Trent Michaels. To be honest, I don't know if I could call Trent a friend per se, maybe a little more than an acquaintance...but I like his peculiar take on things.


The CIA and FBI are both members of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The CIA, however, has no law enforcement function. The CIA collects information only regarding foreign countries and their citizens. Unlike the FBI, it is prohibited from collecting data regarding "U.S. Persons," a term that includes U.S. citizens, resident aliens, legal immigrants, and U.S. corporations, regardless of where they are located.

Of course, I'm not about to tell Knox this. He and I have worked on several missions together. In The Smoke Ring case, he helped the FBI tie up strings that might have been missed had he not been on board. In The Standing People case, Knox's resources were unbelievably valuable regarding our ability to quell an illegal logging and human trafficking network. He also saved me from being shark food.

As a CIA officer Knox thinks he knows everything. Whereas we in the FBI report to everybody and their mother. No, strike that - Knox does know everything.. just ask him. Because he can be in South America one month and France the next, he can work nearly independently.

 Trent is the most skillful operative I have ever met when creating codes. He helped my team twice on missions that required his skill set. He didn't let us down.

The problem, as I see it is that the FBI is supposed to be domestic; the CIA - is international. The reality, again, is much more clouded than that. The FBI has hundreds of agents in many overseas countries with varying operational capability levels. Likewise, the CIA has a broad domestic network focused on helping the agency gather information overseas.  

There seems to be a natural tension between the FBI and CIA stemming from our different missions, which we feel never seem to go away. If you knew Knox and Trent Michaels, you would probably agree with me. However, I believe there is something in the water when training in the CIA's Clandestine Service Division at the highly classified Camp Peary, which they call "The Farm." I call it the funny farm.

Talk soon. 

Howard

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