Eyes Pried Open: Rookie FBI Agent
Vincent Sellers
Copyright Vincent Sellers 2018
Published by Black Rose Writing
www.blackrosewriting.com
© 2018 by Vincent Sellers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.
Second digital version
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-1-61296-440-9
PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING
www.blackrosewriting.com
Print edition produced in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to the analysts, staff, and agents of the FBI who live their lives with Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity for benefit of the citizens of the United States of America.
Special thanks to my "bro," Ken;
my parents, Kenneth and Martha;
and my true partner in crime, Jennifer.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Part I: Becoming an FBI Agent and the FBI Academy
The Dream
The Polygraph
The End of Normalcy
Welcome to Quantico
A Rude Awakening
Finding a Routine
Firearms
Defensive Tactics
Bull-in-the-Ring
Pepper Spray
Team Building, FBI Style
Academics
Orders Night
Hogan's Alley
Graduation
Go West
Part II: Adjusting to Life as a New Agent
Street Agent Day One
First Arrest
First Bank Robbery
Coworkers in the Bureau
Inspections and Administration
Background Checks
Off Duty
Baker to Vegas
Face of the FBI
Part III: Never a Dull Moment
Early Bird
Run for the Border
Big Bear Prison Transport
FBI SWAT
German Rapper
Arrest at the Car Dealership
Sources
Protection Detail
Assaults on Federal Officers
Kidnappings
Expect the Unexpected
Top Ten Fugitive
Interrogation
Red Wire or Blue?
Surveillance
Murder-for-Hire
Things Change
Traffic
White Collar, Cyber, and Violent Crime
Part IV: The End of the FBI Dream
Calling it Quits
Resignation
Last Hurrah
Adios, California; Hello, Texas
Part V: Epilogue
BRW Info
Introduction
I love the FBI. I love the people who make up the FBI. I believe in the mission of the FBI. But this book is not a love note to the FBI. Instead, my intent is to provide a normal person’s perspective of being a Special Agent in the FBI. Many seasoned agents have written excellent books singing high praises for the Bureau. Other agents have happily shared their negative views of the FBI. My intent is simply to provide an honest account of my time in the Bureau and of how that journey impacted me. In a sense, my eyes were “pried open” as I was exposed to the inner workings of the FBI and the underbelly of society, working as an agent on a violent crimes squad. You will not be reading embellished tales of heroism. I never shot anybody, nor did anybody shoot at me. I did not rappel out of helicopters. I did not work alongside Special Agent Starling, nor did I interrogate Hannibal Lecter. I never crossed paths with Special Agents Scully or Mulder, nor did I come across any X-Files. I never deactivated a terrorist bomb at the last possible second. But I did have some fun, and did learn about crime, about our country, and about myself. I was just a normal corporate guy who successfully pursued a childhood dream, and this is my story. I hope you will enjoy it.
Vincent Sellers
Austin, Texas
August, 2014
Part I
Becoming an FBI Agent and the FBI Academy
CHAPTER 1
The Dream
Snow covered the wooded hillsides. A peaceful winter wonderland enveloped my Chevy pickup as I cruised through the Virginia countryside, yet I was more nervous and scared than I had ever been in my life. But my extreme apprehension was topped by sheer excitement that one experiences only a few times in life. I took the exit marked “Quantico,” and began the chapter in my life that I had dreamed about, but had never believed could come true.
To get to this point, I had spent a full year focused on making it into the FBI. It had been one year almost to the day since I had submitted my application to become an FBI agent. I was thrilled to have been invited to Phase 1 testing, the first of three phases required to become an agent. I showed up at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, and was met with a long line of at least one hundred candidates. Out of this crowd, which was already funneled down from a large applicant pool to a select group of qualified candidates, only a few would be invited for the next phase of testing.
I chose to sit at the very front of the massive testing room, which was roughly the size of a high school gymnasium. I sat right in front of the agents who administered the test. I paid close attention. I did not ask any dumb questions. I was polite and truly thankful merely to be there with the opportunity to become an agent, no matter how slim the odds of success were. I took the Phase 1 exam with determination and worked every second allowed to answer the multiple choice questions correctly. Most of the questions fell into categories of math, logic, and personality. There were far too many questions to finish in time, but like everyone else, I gave it my absolute all.
I was not aware at the time, but I would later learn that for the next phase of the application process, candidates would submit a photo along with additional in-depth application content. Although I will never know if my front-of-the-room seating choice provided any advantage in being selected for Phase 2, the required photo could potentially identify candidates who made an impression, either positive or negative, during the first round of testing. That next phase was the most critical, because if selected, the candidates would be given the green light by the FBI to become agents. They still had plenty of hurdles to clear, in the form of a written test, verbal test, physical test, medical test, and background check. Bu
t the odds of becoming an agent suddenly jumped to about one in four, versus the roughly one in five-hundred odds with which the applicant started the application process. The person's destiny would finally be in his or her own hands, rather than depending on getting lucky or getting his or her resume noticed out of a giant stack of competitors’ entries.
The toughest part about applying is the waiting. The FBI, unlike most other jobs, is the dream of those who apply: seemingly a lifetime of happiness doing something worthwhile versus the drudgery of most professions that are endured simply, as my mother used to say, “to make a living.” As a corporate warrior, with years of experience shuffling among a never-ending maze of cubes that had started to feel like jail cells, I felt drawn to do something special and amazing. Software implementation projects, financial analysis, and improving business processes for ten years were mind-numbing. I had recently endured a breakup in my marriage, along with the death of my father. I was at a moment in my life where I was ready to make a dramatic transition to a more fulfilling career. At the time, I felt that if I did not make it into the FBI, my life would be incomplete, and it was hard to imagine being truly satisfied with my life if I were forced to remain in the confines of the white-collar worker’s world.
So after what felt like an eternity but was really only three weeks, I received notification that I had passed the Phase 1 exam. I was instructed to fill out and return a more detailed application along with a photo. I immediately went to work.
I knew that a very well-prepared application, along with an attention-grabbing resume, would increase my odds of being noticed and invited to participate in a Phase 2 interview. I worked an entire weekend on my application, and sent it to my local FBI office in San Antonio via USPS Priority Mail. I beat the deadline by a couple of weeks, and knew that my application was one of the first (possibly the very first) received out of the Phase 1 group who had passed. By my estimate, taking into consideration the large number of applicants, if there were a stack of fifty applications, I figured my odds were roughly one in ten of getting picked.
In the meantime, while feeling pleased about my perceived progression down the hiring funnel, I decided to end any questions whether my uncorrected vision was at least the 20/200 required by the FBI. My eyesight was 20/300, and did not meet the vision standard. I did not want to make it through one of the most rigorous application processes in the world, only to be turned away because of a literal lack of vision. So I signed up for a LASIK procedure and within a week was getting my vision corrected. I had a rough go at that appointment, with the doctor saying I was only the second person out of 28,000 who had eye sockets that were not compatible with the LASIK equipment. However, the doctor was able to “freehand” (in his own words) and complete the procedure. Afterwards, my vision was not 20/20 uncorrected but was good enough to pass the FBI vision test with flying colors. I was initially disturbed to be one of the only unlucky people ever to experience the LASIK issues. However, when I realized that I did walk away with much better vision, I chalked the experience up to being a good omen; perhaps I would be one of the relatively few lucky souls to make it into the FBI.
Two months later I got the call that I was picked for Phase 2 examination. I knew that I interviewed and tested well, and for the first time I thought my odds were better than 50/50 of becoming an agent. My dream was coming true. Nothing could have made my steps become lighter than knowing that I had an excellent chance of being an FBI agent. This feeling of joy trumped the personal sadness that I had been dealing with. I knew I was heading for better things, both professionally and personally.
Around this time, I began to seriously consider the physical testing involved in becoming an agent. I was an excellent runner, although I was slightly overweight and out of shape. I had never excelled at the other exercises that I would be tested on: namely, pushups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. The time had come to get into shape.
I began a regimen of running eight miles every other day, with pushups and sit-ups on my non-running days. Over the next few months, my weight dropped, my strength improved, and I felt better mentally and physically than I ever had in my life. I could almost feel myself morphing into an FBI agent.
My local FBI field office met with several candidates, including me, who were scheduled for the Phase 2 test. The office recommended a plan to think of answers to questions that were likely to be asked and suggested we prepare written and oral statements to gear up for the test. I wrote page after page of examples of life challenges, work problems, leadership scenarios, and other typical corporate human-resource-style questions that I anticipated potentially being questioned about. I followed the recommended “who what when why how” method, and prepared by giving oral statements while video recording myself. I would go back and listen to my answers and evaluate my body language, and through this iterative process I prepared for the biggest interview of my life.
Meanwhile, I continued to walk the corridors of cube-world. Although I was extremely fond of my coworkers, and despite working for a highly respected and well-run organization, I was disenchanted with the corporate culture, which is captured accurately and humorously by movies like Office Space and cartoons like Dilbert. A few of my company's policies and rules were ludicrous: Dilbert cartoons were banned from being put on cube walls. Another policy specified a maximum of two photographs per cube, with size limitations. I could feel myself longing for more meaningful and satisfying employment by the day. And I knew that if I didn’t make it into the FBI, it would be the greatest disappointment of my life.
The time finally arrived for the Phase 2 test. Several other applicants and I flew to Kansas City, Missouri, for the test. We were a small group but immediately found commonality and camaraderie. We knew that some of us would be appointed as FBI agents, and others would be left with nothing but tales of “how I almost became an FBI agent.”
My level of nervousness on the morning of the exam was at record levels. The only comparable anxiety-ridden times I had ever experienced were the instant the gate was about the drop while racing motocross, and the split-second when you are climbing to an open door of an airplane in flight before skydiving. Terrifying, yes, but I also felt an adrenaline rush. I remember walking down the corridor of the hotel, dressed like an FBI agent, and I felt myself becoming an agent. I even had a crowd cheering. And in my heart, everyone who had played a part in my life was with me, especially my father who had died two years previously. Using a black marker, I wrote the names of friends and family on my body, in a strange and superstitious pre-game ritual. To put it mildly, I wanted desperately to be an FBI agent. I was summoning spirits that I did not even believe in. Nothing was going to stop me.
I was “on” that day. I first took the written exam, which went extremely well. I cannot divulge the contents of the exam, but I can say it was unlike any test I had ever taken before. This critical test was an essay exam, the type of test with which I was most comfortable. The test-taker had to not merely write, but also use logic. Seeing the various layers of complexity within the exam, I surmised that if someone made it to the higher “levels,” that enhanced the applicant’s score. I could tell that I made it to every level, exactly as time expired. I had aced the written test, but the toughest part remained.
The oral exam was an hour long interview in front of a panel of three FBI agents. At this point, I had only met a few agents in my life; I was in awe of them. They also scared me. The interview began. I sat in front of a tape recorder, which almost seemed more like a Hollywood-borrowed FBI intimidation scare tactic than a functional part of the interview. At least there was not a bright overhead spotlight focused on me, which was the movie cliché that I almost expected. I was asked roughly fifteen questions, most of which were questions that I had anticipated. I gracefully danced through some questions and stumbled through others. I took advantage of the rules of the interview which allo
wed the test taker to skip questions. This strategy seemed like a great idea until I was down to the last ten minutes of the interview, with the last three remaining questions being ones that I had bypassed because I did not have an answer for them. I had fifty strong minutes with a lousy ten minute finale. I hoped that I would be judged more on my initial responses than on my final impression.
I was relieved to have completed the Phase 2 exam process. I flew back to Texas, obsessing over every detail of the testing process, replaying questions and the answers I had provided. The more time that passed, the more I figured that I had failed miserably. Time seemed to come to a complete stand-still for the next week. I was so anxious to receive word from the FBI that I even took my cell phone with me when I went running, which certainly was not my normal practice.
One day I was running in a greenbelt behind my housing subdivision, when the phone rang, showing me that the FBI was calling. I felt like my life had come down to this moment.
“Is Vince there?”
“Yes, that’s me!” I gasped since I had just run a two mile time trial, in the hot August Texas afternoon heat.
“You passed Phase 2. Congratulations!”
I didn’t even know what to say, or how I should feel, but I knew that those words meant that I was conditionally appointed as a Special Agent of the FBI. “Happy” does not begin to describe my emotions. In my head, I did a faithful Leo DeCaprio (from Titanic) impression --- at that moment I was “THE KING OF THE WORLD!”
CHAPTER 2
The Polygraph
“Who are you, the Pope?”
I had never been asked this question before. Definitely not by an intimidating FBI agent, who was grilling me while I was strapped in a chair resembling a death-row electric chair. This seemed to be a scene right out of the show 24, and unfortunately I was not remotely armed with Jack Bauer’s confidence or skills.
[2014] Eyes Pried Open: Rookie FBI Agent Page 1
