"Remember our last year of grad school?" I continued. "What it felt like to be a young nobody in a town full of big shots? How you were interning at Foggy Bottom, putting in long hours, working your butt off — all in hopes of making a name for yourself?"

She nodded.

"Meanwhile, I was over on K Street, doing pretty much the same thing – busting my ass and paying my dues interning for nuclear submariner Doug Johnston at CSIS. Alongside Kissinger, Brzezinski, Kupperman, de Borchgrave, and a host of other Washington A-listers... everyone from Abshire to Zoellick... Reminding me, of course, at every turn, and in every way, my own lowly place in the pecking order... Fetching after-hours burritos for my boss... taking dictation from a former national security advisor... fending off sexual advances in a thick German accent from a world famous 'ladies man' — these were just a few of the mundane activities that had become part of my daily routine. 

"I knew I'd have to come up with something big, original, ATTENTION-GRABBING! if I wanted to make a name for myself. Even though my op-eds were already creating quite a stir (singling out another 'up-and-comer' that summer of '98, Osama bin Laden) — and were regularly reprinted the next day in the Joint Chiefs of Staff Daily Briefing — the head honcho on the 10th floor still hadn't offered me a permanent position; and the clock was ticking on my yearlong internship.

"Then one morning — while Doug, Zbig [Brzezinski] and I were enjoying some of my mom's pumpkin bread I'd brought in to work that day — the scariest idea popped into my head:

What would we do if we ever found out

our president was secretly working

for the Russians?

"At first, it seemed too absurd, too fantastical to imagine (let alone, say out loud). The sort of thing a lowly intern should keep to himself. But for the next few days, it preyed on my mind. Scenario after scenario playing out in my brain. One after another... after another... after another...

"My goal was to develop a game plan for counterintelligence to 'go deep' like a nuclear submarine after a nuclear war has begun and the chain of command has been compromised. A scenario where, for all intents and purposes, there might not even be a 'commander-in-chief' anymore. A scenario where 'the subs' (or, in this case, the intelligence operatives) would be under their own command.

I called it

'Operation: Deep State'

"Before I had a chance to share my idea with anyone, though, someone from the DCI's office walked in unannounced and pulled the plug. He downloaded all of my files onto a portable disk drive, scrubbed my computer, and told me someone back in Virginia wanted to meet 'the kid' who'd come up with this idea asap. I always assumed that Ciluffo had tipped him off. But an hour later, I was a 'company man' with my own office at Langley, reporting directly to the guy in charge of covert ops.

"Back in DC, CSIS promoted me to adjunct fellow; and for the next two decades, I was a sleeper. Sure, I took on "regular assignments" from time to time; but nothing inconsistent with what you might expect from any mid-career operative. I went on to join the faculty at the War College, and then you know the rest...

"I bought an apartment on a sleepy side street in Georgetown, where I fell into all the usual routines of a tenure-track professor: teaching classes, attending faculty meetings, weeknights grading papers, weekends playing golf, Sunday nights at Martin's, rinse/repeat.

"Then, about 45 minutes after 45 was declared president-elect, I got the call: my operation had been activated. It's playing out now in real time and Trump knows it. He might not know who we are, or what we're capable of, but he knows enough to know he's in danger: That's why he can't stop talking about us...'Deep State' this and 'Deep State' that... same goes for Bannon, Breitbart, and all the rest of those 'tin-foil-hat' motherfuckers who've co-opted my operation's code-name into their conspiracy-vocabulary — they know we're on to him; it's just a matter of time; and there's nothing he, they, or anyone can do about it."