the pushback

There were forty-three fresh-faced recruits sitting in the cramped auditorium on the main floor of the Stafford Building when the Chief of the Security Education Staff (C/SES) walked in and introduced himself at eight that morning. He was alone, as he always preferred to be when meeting the latest crop of prospective entrants into the Office of Security, this being the first stop on what lay before them as future full-fledged members of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Assuming they successfully completed training, of course.

At eight-thirty, the rest of the senior staff from the Office of Security (OS) who were available began to file into the room, including the two deputy directors (Physical and Technical Security and Personnel Security) and the chiefs of Investigations, Protective Programs, Information Security, and Polygraph. C/SES introduced each one in turn, giving a quick overview of their duties and responsibilities within OS. Ten minutes later, there was one more, and final arrival, and as soon as he stepped into the room, standing quietly off to the side wearing a charcoal gray suit, dark blue shirt, red tie adorned with blue dots, and highly polished black Oxfords, the new recruits noticed that all of the other senior managers suddenly stood straighter, their manner deferential to the early fifties black man with close-cropped, slightly graying hair, thinning in the front.
The Security Education chief smiled and rubbed his hands together.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, you are in for a real treat this morning. I wasn't sure if he would be able to make it, but he does try to get here at the start of each new class, despite how busy he is. Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Kevin Mada, our Director."
The senior staff began to clap and a second later the recruits did as well. As he approached the podium in the center of the room, Mada rolled his eyes at the staff, waved a hand at the recruits.

"And let that be the last time that any of you expend any energy clapping for me," he told them all with a half smile, glancing once again at his staff, in particular the man who had just vacated the podium where he now stood. "And, Mike, you know better. Let me guess, Anna put you up to it?"

When no response came from the man himself, Mada looked past him down to the tall blonde three over, one of his two deputy directors. She was grinning but would not meet his gaze. Mada nodded, turned to the assembled once more, took out a pair of reading glasses and set them on the podium