Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All (4 page)

“What do you want to do when you grow up?”

He said, “I dunno, but I want to be like AZ.”

I had a hard time hearing him and thought he had said he wanted to be like Jay-Z, who at that time was a young, up-and-coming rapper. I said, “Jay-Z?”

The child responded, “No, AZ!”

He then handed me a flyer from his pocket about a local neighborhood kid using the name AZ who would perform on a nearby corner in a few days. I asked him if he had any other plans, to which he responded, “Whatta you mean?”

I walked him across the street and watched him go into the building, but I never forgot that interaction. It left a scar on me that has not healed. I asked myself over and over, why was this boy left out? I wondered why being a doctor, accountant, engineer, soldier, or anything else most children at some time think about was not an option for this child? Why was his future seemingly predetermined, while mine was an open book? Why did legions of politicians and bureaucrats feign interest in the plight of decent people living in the area yet ignore them when the results they promised never materialized? I would never let these questions go.

B
EING A POLICE OFFICER
in New York City is like no other job in the world. Things change quickly. The shift from extreme boredom to adrenaline-inducing danger can happen in seconds. I was very conscious of the fact that working the most dangerous shift in the precinct with the highest crime rate in New York City could alter my plans to join a federal law-enforcement agency, or any other line of employment, very quickly. This was never more evident than during a foot patrol on Fulton Street in the winter of 1998.

It was after midnight and I was fatigued from the cold weather and
the long day I had had before even reporting for work. The streets were surprisingly quiet that night, likely due to the cold weather. With no one to talk to for hours and all the shutters on the storefronts closed, the night seemed endless. This all changed in an instant when the silence was broken by my handheld radio: “GLA Central, in pursuit, slowly!” A GLA was a grand larceny auto, a stolen car, and the officer was in pursuit. Central was the name we used for the dispatcher, and the officer was sure to mention he was pursuing “slowly.” All officers said this because high-speed vehicle pursuits were strictly forbidden unless under emergency circumstances, and vehicle theft did not qualify. If they failed to mention it was a “slow” pursuit, even if it wasn’t, the duty sergeant would order it halted.

As the officer in pursuit began to describe his route, “northbound toward Fulton,” I realized that they were quickly headed in my direction. The next thing I saw was a set of headlights, followed by an incredibly loud crash. The thief had driven the stolen car right through the metal shutters on a storefront and the vehicle was lodged halfway inside the store. I ran to assist with my heart pounding and was the first to get inside the store. The thief exited the car and was attempting to escape when I tackled him and briefly held him while the other officers arrived. These types of experiences were all too common in the 75th.

As my time in the 75th Precinct wore on, I began to grow impatient with the glacial pace of the application process for the federal law-enforcement positions. Attending graduate school full time at the City University of New York and dealing with nightly adrenaline dumps with the NYPD was wearing me down. By this time, I had narrowed my choices down to three federal agencies: the FBI (my preference), the DEA, and the US Secret Service.

After submitting the voluminous paperwork, by chance one day I struck up a conversation with a woman in my local gym while running a treadmill. She was an NYPD detective who happened to work with a task force unit in which one of the members was a Secret Service agent. She proceeded to extol the virtues of the Secret Service and sing the praises of the agent. She was completely unaware of the fact that with that brief interaction, she had altered my life. I began to vigorously pursue my progress in the application process with the Secret Service, to the point where the administrative assistant assigned to the New York field office
recruitment section knew me by first name. My staying active in the process surely annoyed the recruitment section staff, but it moved the process along rapidly. I took the written examination, reported to the field office for an interview with a panel of agents, had a follow-up interview, received a thorough medical examination, and suffered through the necessary indignity of a full-scope polygraph examination all in the period of approximately six months.

The polygraph test is an experience every agent recalls with horror. It is an eight-hour interrogation designed to break even the most skilled subject. Mine was no different. I was grilled with such questions as, “Have you ever lied to your parents?” and “Have you ever cheated on a test?” There is never any indication if you passed or failed, and after the misery of the test has concluded you wait for days and sometimes weeks for an answer as to your status. I received the call approximately two weeks after completing the polygraph test from an agent named Madeline who, to my immeasurable relief, said, “Congratulations, you are moving on.”

The polygraph test was the drop-out point for most applicants to the Secret Service. Many did not pass and I knew that since I did, my chances of being hired were very good. It was the last step in the rigorous process and now I could only wait for a hiring decision. The waiting period was filled with anxiety because I desperately needed a change of scenery. Attending graduate school full time while working full time as a police officer was strenuous, and allocating time for studying was difficult. I frequently volunteered to work in the precinct holding cells, an assignment virtually no one wanted, because it gave me brief periods to read school material.

Working in the cells in a precinct with an exceptionally high crime rate was tough. It was not uncommon to be berated by the inmates for the entire eight-hour shift. I would occasionally laugh at the creativity of some of those arrested. Standard insults were usually not good enough, and all the prisoners could hear each other so it became a competition to determine who could say the most deranged things to the officer in the cells. I learned to develop a thick skin, which would serve me well in the political arena later. After weeks of this, I desperately wanted out and prayed nightly for that final phone call from the Secret Service. That phone call came in May of 1999.

I was in the cells listening to the nightly cacophony of insults when a “house mouse” (a precinct officer who has never worked the streets) walked into the cells and said, “Bongino, phone call in the CAPS room.”

I walked inside, picked up the phone, and heard my recruiter, Madeline, say, “Congratulations, Dan, your reporting date is going to be June 21.”

Although I expected the call, it was still an incredible feeling of achievement to be accepted by this elite agency. The officers in the room congratulated me and I walked back into the cells knowing I had accomplished something special. I called my mother and father to let them know that my journey from that frightened child rescued by the police to the elite ranks of the US Secret Service was complete, and for the remainder of that day the prisoners’ taunts sounded like choir music.

I reported for my first day as an employee of the Secret Service on June 21, 1999. I took the subway to the World Trade Center station and proudly ascended the escalator into the plaza ready to tackle this new phase of my life. I sat in the lobby of the Secret Service’s flagship New York office with three other new hires—Lisa, Don, and Tom—waiting to be summoned into the inner sanctum of the field office where only Secret Service employees were allowed. When the door opened, our new supervisor, Tim, welcomed us and we began the long indoctrination process into the Secret Service culture.

Tim was a loud and sometimes obnoxious man, but on protection assignments these are traits that can serve an agent well. His large frame and booming voice contributed to what was to some an imposing presence. We spent the first month working under Tim’s supervision, with little to do other than fill out administrative paperwork, serve as the butt of Tim’s politically incorrect humor, and assist the other agents in the office. We were not authorized to carry weapons yet or to serve in any type of law-enforcement capacity, so we were idle waiting for a new trainee class to begin at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Brunswick, Georgia. When the official notification from Secret Service headquarters arrived that we would begin training at FLETC in July of 1999, we felt relief that our next step was confirmed. The relief was short-lived, however, as the agents in the office informed us that temperatures in Brunswick, Georgia, hovered in the high nineties for most of July and August.

Tom and I decided we were going to drive to FLETC, and I followed
him for the entire fifteen-hour journey. Tom had worked in the financial services field before joining the Secret Service and we remained friends throughout our careers. Tom sought out a career in the Secret Service for the same general reason I did: a desire to do something bigger than the offerings life had currently placed in front of him. I found his humor, sometimes at my expense, to be a calming influence in the high-stress environment of the Secret Service. Being able to stay calm under intense stress is an invaluable skill within the Secret Service, and many of the men and women within the agency, like Tom, used humor to break the tension on dangerous assignments.

Tom and I arrived at the facility close to midnight and were sent to our quarters, a dilapidated series of dorms affectionately known as the “Crack Houses.” Needless to say, the dorms were old and the upkeep was sadly lacking. Despite the harsh name, I didn’t mind the housing arrangement. I lived as a child in far worse conditions, and not having to pay rent was refreshing.

We met the rest of our Secret Service training class the next day. These twenty-four men and women would be my companions and coworkers for the majority of the next nine months. It was an impressive group, with personalities bound to clash for all the right reasons. Everyone fit the psychological profile for type A classification. Our group included Sue, the biochemist and outspoken perfectionist; Reggie, the strong, silent type who was always digesting his surroundings; Mike, the class clown but loyal friend to those loyal to him; and Chris, the former college football player who was the voice of reason when excitement overtook common sense.

The classroom portion of the training was standard: law, investigative tactics, crime scene processing, and other courses designed to make us experts in the art of catching criminals. Practical exercises were the bread and butter of the training and a welcome respite from the tedium of daily lectures. The FLETC staff hired actors to play specific roles in a mock criminal investigation, which was tied into all of the classroom work. It was a brilliant training strategy, and the knowledge we needed to absorb became very real to us as we simultaneously learned about federal criminal investigations in the classroom and experienced one in the ongoing simulation. The entire process was graded, and I was as competitive a personality as could be found. I had a hard time in my quest to win the physical fitness
award due to the incredible collective fitness level of my class, but I fought for the academic honor until the last test. Sue and I had a friendly rivalry for the entire nine weeks and we would constantly ask each other, at the end of each test, “What did you get?” To my disappointment, on the final exam for the course, Sue outscored me by less than one half of one point. She and I would compete for the rest of our careers and although we never asked the question “What did you get?” again, we were always looking over our shoulders at each other in a race to the top.

The final weeks of training were the easiest. The workload was lighter, the Georgia heat began to relent, and a devastating back injury I sustained in the initial days of training began to heal. I partially ruptured two spinal disks taking a sit-up test and rather than accepting a “recycle” (trainees who were injured were typically sent back to their originating field offices to heal and would begin again in a new training class, referred to as “recycles”), I soldiered through the program. This was a mistake I would pay for dearly, as the injury never properly healed and would haunt not only the rest of my Secret Service career, but my ability to physically perform to the high standards I had set for myself.

Although, in the final weeks, our coursework was nearly over, the training class’s internal strife was not. We all got along rather well, but living and working with the same group of people for nine consecutive weeks with no break is bound to create conflict, both real and imagined. There was a love triangle; a cheating allegation against one recruit who, it was alleged, skipped a lap on the mile-and-a-half run test (cheating in the Secret Service is a crime that is never forgiven); and occasional weekend fights in bars from Saint Simons Island to Savannah. These conflicts were real, although the imagined ones were far worse. It seemed that each day someone would invent a new reason to be angry at a classmate deemed a “slacker.” The same few men and women quickly developed reputations for laziness and apathy and the stories about them spread like raging wildfire. As it turned out, some of those men and women would have problems throughout their careers, and one of them was terminated shortly after graduation for an off-duty altercation.

Graduation day, though eagerly anticipated, was anticlimactic. The brief ceremony was held in the chapel on the FLETC grounds, but we still had another eleven-week training course to complete at the Secret Service
training center in Laurel, Maryland. Most of us were content to shake hands with a brief, “See you in Maryland.” The eleven-week session was the second and final phase of our training, and the class was eager to get it started.

I was fascinated by each and every classroom course we took and was equally impressed with the agency’s dedication to marksmanship and skill with firearms. Handling a firearm anywhere near the president of the United States is a solemn responsibility, and the Secret Service places a heavy premium on mastery of your firearm. We were scheduled for range time nearly every day of the course, and the instruction was rigorous and unlike anything I experienced at the New York police academy or FLETC.