Field Notes: Building a Boat to Sail Away
A husband-and-wife team built their business with a trusted partner. Then he started pulling away. Missed meetings, secret side conversations, strange new energy. Was it burnout, or was he already building a boat to sail away?
Field Notes: The Ghost in the Hallway
A boy nobody could place kept showing up at a church youth group, circling closer to a teenage girl. Her parents tried to figure out who he was, but every lead went nowhere. That’s when they called me.
Field Notes: Protection in Stockholm
A national security trial in Sweden, a key witness under threat, and a crash course in protection alongside the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. Sometimes protection is not about fighting off danger, it is about making sure the danger never gets close.
Field Notes: Following the Yachts
When sanctions hit Russian oligarchs, I was assigned something I never thought I would be tracking: a 464-foot superyacht. The job was less champagne and more spreadsheets, but the lessons stuck with me.
Field Notes: The Bump at Formula One
Intelligence work does not always happen in alleys or safe houses. Sometimes it happens trackside at a Formula One race in Florida. With a dossier in hand and a little luck, I had the chance to “bump” into a former Russian executive who might have more to share than just sailing stories.
Field Notes: The Human Side of Intel
In training, the Bureau dropped me in a non-descript compound in Virginia and taught me how to run human sources like it was the real thing. What stuck was not the tradecraft, but the people.
Field Notes: Moscow to Minot
What happens when suspicious wire transfers from a Russian front company land in the account of a family feed store in North Dakota? I went to find out.
Field Notes: Trust, But Verify
Not every case involves international travel or counterintelligence. Sometimes the hardest lessons are close to home. One family trusted a nanny without vetting her husband. Another trusted that a contractor’s reputation meant their house was secure. Both learned the value of checking first, and both leaned on me to help pick up the pieces.
Field Notes: One Man’s Trash
Sometimes the breakthrough comes in the least glamorous way possible. For me, it was 3:30 in the morning, rain pouring down, digging through a trunk full of garbage outside a fire station. Not exactly Hollywood. But that soggy mess gave me the evidence I needed to crack a child exploitation case wide open.
Field Notes: When the Threat Isn’t Physical
Protective intelligence is not just about preventing someone from being followed in the street. While preparing a tech founder for a high-profile trip to Egypt, I uncovered signs of a potential espionage play, proof that sometimes the real threat is not physical at all.
Field Notes: The Art of Waiting
Surveillance is not glamorous. It is long hours of waiting, watching, and doing nothing, until suddenly you need to act. In one of my first counterintelligence cases in New York, patience and a cardboard mailing tube taught me the real art of surveillance.
Field Notes: When You’re the One Being Watched
Working with a source on a Russian arms procurement case, I suddenly found myself dealing with an unexpected twist: my source believed they were being followed. We set up counter-surveillance and discovered it was not who we thought at all.
Field Notes: Finding the Signal in the Noise
Deployed to Afghanistan, I found myself pulled into a JSOC task force based out of Mullah Omar’s former compound in Kandahar. It was there I had my first real exposure to signals intelligence, learning how to find the signal in the noise. A lesson that still shapes how I work cases today.
Field Notes: Origins of Kingfisher
From military special operations and FBI counterintelligence to private consulting, my career has always been about finding clarity in complex situations. Kingfisher Investigations was built to bring that same focus, discretion, and precision to clients here in Florida.