A Love Story

I am beginning to understand someone, whom I never fully knew, but I still do not know her real name. During the six month period, when this movie takes place, Susan did not visit me at Christmas and seldom emailed me. I was deeply puzzled because earlier in July, we had enjoyed a very romantic vacation in Mexico. All was normal again, when she visited at Easter.

Today is Susan’s birthday. Happy Birthday Susan, wherever you are! From the moment you anointed me with “Holy Oil” in the middle of my pasture in the Shenandoah Valley 33 years ago, I was destined to never forget you.

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

Grieving for a lost loved one, when they didn’t really die

The truth is that we probably were in love with each other within a few weeks after meeting each other at a political gathering in the Wendy’s Restaurant, Front Royal, VA. She headed a group, which was trying to combat the rising power of both occult groups and the New Jersey Mafia in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Nobody there dreamed that she was much more than a young real estate lawyer.

I should have guessed that this lady had a secret career. In our second meeting . . . in the middle of the front pasture on my farm . . . she performed an ancient Hebrew royal marriage ceremony for us in Ancient Hebrew. It included anointing my head with olive oil from Israel then taking some of that oil from my head to rub on her forehead.

Only after that ceremony was I asked to work with her to help carry information from honest Virginia cops to the FBI headquarters in Downtown Washington. We ended up doing much more than that, but time does not allow. For much of the next 15 years, we pretended that our intermittent times together were dalliances between good friends, until permanent relationships appeared in our lives. Far too late, we realized that we were lying to ourselves.

In June 2006, Susan suddenly cut off all communications with me . . . just about two weeks before she was to arrive at my home in Jasper, Georgia. On her 40th birthday, she had planned to take a hazardous duty retirement from the federal government. After being friends with benefits for 15 years, we had planned to casually tour the United States then live together in a historic farmhouse at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley.

Once we were living together, she promised that she could legally tell me who she really was. I also would get to be with our daughter and son. I have never seen them or even a photo of them. There was some unstated reason why she did not want anybody in Georgia to know that we had children.

For 16 years, I assumed that Susan had been killed in the line of duty somewhere overseas, but never could find her grave. With the greatly expanded power of the internet, I was able to determine in 2021, that no one with the name that she claimed to have was ever a Special Agent with the FBI. I also found proof that no one with her name had ever attended the University of Minnesota Law School. In her town house in Winchester, VA was a mounted diploma, which claimed that she had graduated with honors from that school. Who was this woman?

In October 2022, I was raking leaves, when a white car slowly drove past my property. The car turned around and parked at the edge of my property. The woman looked like Susan and the age that Susan would be now. However, she said nothing to me and did not return my friendly wave. For the next two weeks, that woman would honk and wave at me, while she passed me . . . just like she used to do, when we were in a secret relationship.

The movie, “Breach” is about the investigation of FBI administrator Robert Hanssen. The convicted traitor died at a federal prison on June 5, 2023. I didn’t get the connection at the time, but in a few weeks after his death, someone in a federal agency finally provided me the first information on Susan, since her inexplicable disappearance in 2006. Susan or whatever her real name is . . . was alive, but could not communicate with me at this time.

It seems that back in June 2006, her “cover” had been compromised through no fault of either her or me. “Someone” in law enforcement had somehow hidden video cameras in my bedroom, then posted the videos on a Pay-For-View porno website!

She lost her job and had to completely change her identity, Back then, for a female National Security officer, that typically meant that she was forced to legally change her name and Social Security number . . . marry someone, who she did not love . . . then move to a remote location.

A surprising climax to the Fourth of July

I celebrated a very hot Fourth of July by eating barbecued ribs, corn-on-the-cob and turnip greens from my garden for supper in the air conditioned comfort of my mountain cottage. While I was eating, I scrolled though Amazon Prime to see if it had an interesting movie that was NOT about the struggles of rich, spoiled people living in New York City or California. “Breach” caught my eye, because it had a very high rating, but I had never heard of the movie.

What immediately caught my eye was that the blond FBI agent in the movie was wearing shoulder-length hair. Women employees at the FBI were encouraged to look like effeminate men. Looking feminine and sexy was frowned upon in the era, when I first met Susan, but she ignored the rule.

Her big problem, though was that even though 25, she looked much younger. No male agent wanted someone around, who looked like a college coed. On top of that, she didn’t like guns and before meeting me, didn’t have a clue about survival in the wilderness. The only reason that she was kept on by the Bureau was that she had a knack for unraveling mysteries and understanding criminal organizations.

Susan presented her confidential report in November of 1991 to her bosses about the organized crime in Northern Virginia. She had a surprising conclusion as to who had murdered over 100 witnesses to drug trafficking in Virginia. Appearance-wise, she threw caution to the wind.

Our mutual friend, Vivi the French Courtesan, took her out for a make-over. Vivi purchased the most chic French fashions available . . . including a French beret . . . for the big presentation. Susan looked like a sexy, French actress, not a nerdy FBI agent, when she walked into the FBI conference room in Downtown Washington.

The result? The Commonwealth of Virginia ABOLISHED the Virginia Bureau of Investigation and Susan was awarded a mega-promotion. She was bumped up so high in the Federal government that I never again knew who she really worked for or where she lived – even when she was based in North Metro Atlanta. Once my National Security Classification expired, she never again discussed details of her work with me.

Fortunately, her commendation letter had specifically mentioned me in the last paragraph . . . stating that she had learned many practical skills from our relationship. It urged her to continue in that relationship. However, she soon was transferred to an agency in Atlanta, so I assumed that we would never see each other again. We reconnected again in the summer of 1993, when I was stuck at my parents house in Georgia against my will.

The initial similarity of hair style between fictional FBI Special Agent Kate Burroughs in the movie and Susan was soon forgotten, when the movie’s plot shifted to the Russian KGB mole, Robert Hanssen and his new assistant, FBI Law clerk Eric O’Neil. These were real people. According to the movie’s director, Kate Burroughs was a composite of middle level female FBI agents in the Counter-Intelligence Division.

Then the movie began racing toward its climax. At that point . . . son-of-a-gun . . . Special Agent Kate Burroughs began saying some things that were identical to what Susan had said to me through the years.

Susan often encouraged me to date other women, when she was away. When she became pregnant the first time and wanted to conceal that from me, she pretended to dump me then picked out a Sumatran gal in our Sunday School class to be my new girlfriend.

When back in my arms the same day that the Sumatran lady dumped me, because I didn’t make enough money as an architect to fund her dreams, Susan reassured me, “Richard, I am happy being your private call girl. You are the only man, who I don’t have lie to.” Almost every time she was back into my arms afterward, she would make the same statement.

Kate Burroughs complained in the movie, “I can’t even date men in the Bureau, because I have to lie to every man I meet.”

Susan spoke English, German and Russian fluently, in addition to her native tongues of Swedish and Finnish.

Kate Burroughs spoke German and Russian fluently.

Once we entered the 21st century, Susan began to tire of being owned by Uncle Sam. She repeatedly complained, “I can’t even own a cat, because I never know when a telephone call will send me somewhere faraway for weeks or months.”

In the movie, Kate Burroughs complained several times, “I don’t even own a cat!”

Now, whether Susan was actually in the FBI Counter-Intelligence Division during the winter of 2000-2001, I will probably never know. She could have been employed by another National Security Agency, which assisted the FBI. For that matter, she could be an extraterrestrial or angel. I have often considered that possibility, also.

What ever the actual situation, she will always dwell in a section of my brain, labeled “Special Memories of a lady who could give and receive love without any conditions.”