Private Intelligence

Synopsis:
Lou Kippling has witnessed many CIA-lifers grow old and disillusioned and creaky in both mind and body–and have nothing to show for it. Fuck that, it won’t be him. He’s taking his talents to the private sector, where industrial spies use the skills and tricks they’ve spent years honing for the Federal Government and apply them on behalf of big business. Lou’s putting a team together, his right-hand woman plus five recruits from various agencies. They’ll bug the New York Knicks home locker room at the behest of the team’s owner, they’ll smoke out c-suite executives selling secrets to rival companies, they’ll protect proprietary information and–if you pay them enough–they steal it for you too. And when the CIA or NSA have some domestic dirty work that needs doing, call up Lou Kippling, his new firm will lend you plausible deniability.

Characters:
Lou Kippling served his country diligently. Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine…but then something happened in the Sudan, something Kippling couldn't shake. And now he’s home in New York, almost too paranoid to function, attempting to get his private firm, Clockwise, off the ground. His second-in-command is Leah Elbaz, Former Mossad, she’s the only human on the planet that Kippling actually trusts–but should he?

The New Recruits: Mandy Palmer worked corporate fraud investigations for the FBI, until a cornered bank manager got a hold of her side arm and used it to kill himself. Spencer Ludwick was a Secret Service agent until he got caught in a precarious position…with the President’s daughter. Remy Henderson was a corrupt detective in the NYPD who was brought down by a sociopathic Internal Affairs member named Maxine Wheeler–who’s also been recruited by Clockwise? And then there’s Darren Gold. Mysterious past, useful skill set, murky motivations. Can he be trusted? NO! None of these people can, that’s the point.

Story:
The scary thing about this story is that the concept is all too real: Big Business co-opts Government-trained intelligence agents and employs them against the general public. Yes, it’s really happening. Yes, our tax dollars were spent training these people. Yes, the CIA has a long history of farming out illegal domestic activity to the private sector. Read about all this and more in Private Intelligence.