Chapter 29

That fight was the start of the end of my school year. It took two weeks before I could return to the boat to start practicing with the team. Because I was still not breathing right, and the coach didn't want to take any chances, I missed the Philadelphia regatta. I continued to train, but by then, the season was winding down, as was the school year.

One day, I received a call from Adam. He said that something important had come up that we needed to discuss. So he invited me to come down, for the weekend. For some reason, he asked me to invite Tiffany. I thought that there might be a conflict in what he'd just asked, but I trusted him. So I told him that I'd make the trip and ask Tiffany if she wanted to come along.

What was strange was that when I called and asked her, she already had her bag packed. Why? It seems that she and Adam had already talked on the phone, so she was ready to go. On the ride down, she told me that when she and Adam talked she'd made her mind up. She'd be attending Boston College and joining their rowing team. Since Adam and she were now dating, she was now backing away to be just a friend and without benefits.

My non-girlfriend had just broken up with me, and we weren't even all the way to Boston yet. I was more confused when I arrived at Adam's apartment and he was on the way out. He met Tiffany in the hall, just spun her around, and said, "I have a big surprise for the weekend; let's go Tiff. Nick there are a couple people that need to talk to you inside the apartment. I'll talk to you later."

When I looked in, two guys were motioning to me to come in the room. They looked serious and ominous, so I went in to see what was on their minds. I thought something might have happened to my parents, but why would I be in Boston? I figured the best thing for me to do was just to listen and find out.

They introduced themselves as agents Remfry and Adams from the CIA. They were interested in the word processor that I'd designed. What they wanted me to do was to help them with some work they needed to do. A week earlier, they'd stopped by to talk to Adam. During that discussion, my name came up, since I was the designer and owner of the software. During those discussions, they also found out that my father was the Ambassador to Japan.

After a whirlwind of meetings, they had developed a plan. They even made time to run it past President Reagan. The plan was easy, but had some possible unsafe features. The plan called for me to try to infiltrate the Soviet Union by using my new word processor. A part of the plan called for me to enroll in a local school. It just so happens that the children of the head of the KGB and the heads of the county attend that school. The plan also called for me to come up with a way to raise their interest in my word processor. Once I finished that, I needed to come up with another plan. Somehow, I needed to convince the children to have their fathers install the word processor in the Soviet government offices. Their far-fetched plan even included my parents. To make the entire situation more believable, they'd transfer them to a new post in Moscow. This way they could be with me.

To make this plan work in Moscow, I had to change the program. I had to create a new process that would save all documents that they typed in the machine. What this meant, was that they could never fully delete any single document from the machine. The program would still keep it permanently stored, even though they'd think that they had deleted it. When we offered and they installed a new program upgrade, the program would retrieve all the stored documents, and save them on the upgrade disc. Next, it would install the new program features and clean out the old documents. This way they'd think that they had a clean slate, so they could start to record new documents.

I thought that there were too many assumptions in the plan to make it work. I also thought it was a large plan with many loose ends, and a small hope of success. My father said that he worked at the pleasure of the President, and would do whatever he asked. I agreed to help if they thought that it would help the country.

At that point, at the age of sixteen, the CIA hired me as an employee. They then buried all the records in the covert section under heavy lock and key. We spent the weekend talking about all the things we needed to do to make this happen. We started to build a plan and timeline around those ideas. It was an exhausting weekend. By the end of the weekend, we realized that the plan we developed would be worse than we originally thought.

At school, I would take finals and receive my grades. But I wouldn't attend classes anymore. They'd also make a change in my school records to show that, for the last two years, I'd taken Russian. They wanted me to drop out of crew, but I told them that I needed to exercise some way, and that crew was the best way to achieve that. I would let the team and my replacement finish the season. I insisted that I would still race with Todd in Providence the first week during the summer.

Adam would do his work at Langley. This would include work to change the program to support the Russian alphabet and their language rules. The CIA had the resources, for the language portion, but they didn't have the coding expertise to change our program. To make it seem real, he also planned to add other languages for future product releases. He planned to include Spanish, German, French, Japanese, and Chinese to the list. Adam's software development help was free, but as a part of the deal, they allowed us to keep the content and copyrights.

The program already had a place to store documents as a template. It also allowed a person to work on it later. The program also had a way to save the documents to a disc. When you finished a document and were ready to print it, the typewriter would then type the document, just as a normal typewriter would do. IBM was selling the new product as fast as they could make them. It only made sense to add other languages.

After I would work out in the morning, I would drive to an office building where I would stay, for the rest of the day. During that time, they'd train me in the Russian language. When I needed a break, they'd teach me other CIA spy crafts. They didn't train me on how to use a gun, because they didn't want me to look natural at it if I ever came across one. They even provided me with some hand-to-hand training if I ever came across some drunken Soviet rowers. The training was intense.

At the end of the school year, I made straight "A's" again. But every time I saw my friends, they questioned me about what I was doing. I told them that the State Department had reassigned my father to Russia. Because of that, I was moving there so I could be with my parents. The State Department didn't want me to embarrass the country, or become an international public display. So they were teaching me the Russian language and culture.

Some of them couldn't understand how I could skip out on Japan, but then need to go to the Soviet Union. I told them that when Mom calls I just say, "Yes Ma'am." I knew that it was lame, but I'd already agreed. Adam was my only friend that knew the truth. The only time we ever talked about it was when we talked about other software issues. We needed to make sure that we handled all our company finances correctly. So, to make me feel comfortable, we hired an accounting firm. Their job would be to develop quarterly reports and to perform annual audits. Adam said that it was the right thing to do even though I trusted him.

He said, "We have other people working for us. We have different agreements with various companies. The auditor's job is to make sure that all things within and outside the company are in proper order. We must do it just the way we planned it and agreed to on how it was to run."

I told him that if it made him feel better, then I would be fine with it. He worked with some specialists to design the document storage in such a way that no one could detect our special process. It wasn't that difficult. It was like a large tape that recorded everything. If they deleted a document, the system would simply break the link to that document. With this change, they couldn't pull it up again, but it remained on the tape. This way, the lab could review it after the fact. We also wrote a special program. When they installed a software update, the process would also record all the hidden information from the tape on those same discs.

To enhance the plan even further, they took my name off the public ownership records. Adam would take care of my shares by proxy. He was happy to take care of it for me.

When school finally ended, I stayed in town to continue my studies and prepare for the race in Providence with Todd. For this race, we weren't representing the school, or any specific club or team. We'd be racing in the open division. This would be against rowing clubs and other schools that wanted to race in the off-season. We could wear whatever we wanted. Since I wanted to stir up things, I bought a USSR t-shirt and Todd wore a USA t-shirt. It might help me fit in at my new school, or my new country. Nobody paid us much attention, as we put our boat in the river. We then slowly rowed up river. I was in the stroke position and Todd was in the first seat. They had us set to start third in our class, because we'd never raced, as a pair before, but neither had the two in front of us.

We both felt pumped and pushed hard from the start. During the first thousand meters, we passed the two boats in front of us, but I was worried about Todd and if he could handle the full race. As for me, I felt so pumped that I was back on the water and racing. I asked Todd how he was doing, and he said, "You Fucking Pussy we need to push harder."

We pushed harder, and we actually passed three of the girl's boats before we crossed the finish line. We'd won the race in our division, but when we stepped up to collect our medals the crowd started the catcalls and boos. This drew the immediate attention of the press, and the photographers took a bunch of extra pictures. Todd and I were just kids, and we couldn't care less.

A couple of reporters came up to ask about our shirts. I said, "If I was going to row for Harvard next year and Todd was going to row for Yale, we could still be friends, and support our new schools. Todd will be rowing here in the states next year, and I'll be moving to Moscow. This is just a nod to my new home."

This raised even more questions. But the fact that we'd actually beat the next closest boat in our division by thirty seconds, made the most news. We didn't make the cover, but we made it in to the next Sports Illustrated issue somewhere in the back. The coach from Emerson wasn't happy, but the past is over. We can't change it.

I spent the next month in New Hampshire. I was out of sight and working with the agents. During that time, the summer camps were in progress. During the time I was not practicing my language skills and other training, for the CIA, I would show up, for several hours, to help with the Erg training.

When the summer finished, I moved out of the room in New Hampshire, and moved down to the apartment in New York. The CIA agents moved in the guest rooms. At one point, the CIA reassigned Agent Remfry. So they assigned Agent Shell as a replacement. Agent Shell was a very pretty woman. Her job was to teach me about the sexual side of the business. Her only dilemma was no one had told her that I was only sixteen years old.

What she knew was if I was in a school environment that the sexual approach might be the easiest way to get to know people. This was aside from the time I spent with the men's sports teams. I was good at sports, and not too bad with women. She worked with me, so I could learn how to meet, or engage with new friends, or teammates. We discussed different situations and the many openings that I could use for each.

Agent Adams needed some time off, so he took the weekend off. Except for the day of the regatta, he'd been on the job, for almost a month straight, without taking a day off. Agent Kari Adams also thought that it might be easier if he wasn't around.

Looking back it was somewhat funny. First, she complimented me on my physique. When she talked to me, she spoke, as if I was a kid that had never kissed a girl before. I started to laugh, and she asked me what was so funny. I told her that I would do quite well in the bedroom. She asked me to strip, so I told her that I'd show her mine if she showed me hers.

I think my statement threw her off a little, because of the confidence I showed. I was sixteen, but I was acting like a gigolo. She wanted to test me to see how far my bravado would go before I chickened out. She took off her top, so I took off my shirt. Next, she took off her bra, as I took off my shoes and socks. Her skirt dropped next, leaving her in just a pair of cotton bikini panties. I undid my jeans, and pushed them and my boxers down at the same time.