Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy - Eamon Javers [65]
There are dozens of firms like Beckett Brown around the world, but their activities are typically shrouded in secrecy. They tend to bind their employees to ironclad nondisclosure agreements, hide their work through a convoluted series of contractors and subcontractors, and argue that their activities are subject to attorney-client privilege. Documents revealing their operations rarely surface in public, even when they’re involved in contentious court proceedings. But Beckett Brown is different. Because the founders of this firm eventually became bitter professional and personal rivals, the company collapsed. The corporate wreckage contains a treasure trove of documents that offer a rare glimpse inside a spy firm in action.
Crossing into the Eastern Shore from Washington over the Bay Bridge, a visitor travels down Route 50, passing the Kent Narrows and the town of Wye Mills before entering Easton. Along the side of the road, past an Applebee’s but not as far as the Denny’s, sits a rental facility called Bay Tree Storage. Inside one of its metal-lined storage units, in cardboard boxes precariously stacked from floor to ceiling, are the last remaining business records of Beckett Brown International.
Sitting next to those boxes, sorting documents by hand, is John Dodd, the man who put up most of the money to launch Beckett Brown in 1995. Dressed in a faded blue striped polo shirt, jeans, and a Florida Gators 2006 National Champions baseball cap, Dodd perches on a folding chair alongside a card table. He opens a worn briefcase to reach for documents, tapes, and supporting evidence. Dodd launches into a long tale, explaining how a company he partly owned deployed undercover operatives into gun-control groups, spied on Greenpeace, and gathered intelligence on Mars, all without his knowledge.
Even as he lays out the details of years of diving in Dumpsters, intercepting phone records, conducting physical surveillance, and engaging in other spy tactics, Dodd insists he was appalled when he found out what had been going on at his company.
IN 1994, DODD had been enjoying the resort atmosphere of Chesapeake Bay, and spending some of his time in the bars of Easton. His family had sold its regional beer distributorship for millions of dollars several years earlier, and Dodd hadn’t needed to work full-time since then.
In Easton, he met Richard Beckett, a local businessman who ran a small executive search firm, helping corporate clients find and place executives in high-level jobs. Beckett, as it turned out, was friendly with several law enforcement officers, current and former Secret Service agents, and a veteran officer of the Maryland state police.
Over beers, Beckett told Dodd that he’d come up with a plan for an exciting new business. Using their skills and connections from the Secret Service, the Maryland police, and the corporate world, the group would form a security company to provide protective services for executives at several of America’s largest companies.
All they needed, he said, was an investor.
John Dodd was hardly a wheeler-dealer. He was just a guy who’d inherited a beer company, sold it, and grown rich; and he didn’t know the first thing about running a security business. Still, he was intrigued. He was also impressed by Beckett’s team members when he met them several weeks later. The men took Dodd to see the Secret Service headquarters building in Washington. They introduced him to Daniel D’Aniello, a founding partner of the $80 billion private equity firm Carlyle Group. At a meeting at the firm’s spacious offices on Pennsylvania Avenue, D’Aniello sang Beckett’s praises: This is a great idea. I might even invest in this company myself.