Being A Field Agent Never Felt So Dangerous…

Scientist, diplomat, nightclub dancer, billionare playboy… and now, real estate agent? The arrest this week of Cambridge’s Ann Foley and Donald Howard Heathfield has added an even more unlikely profession to the list of secret agent covers, when news broke that Foley, the blonde Natasha of the alleged local Russian spy duo, was an agent for Redfin’s Boston office.

The Teller can kind of see the rationale – after all, biochemical researchers, computer security specialists, and rising young politicians and CEOs gotta start somewhere, and an awful lot of them pick Harvard and MIT. And even the nation’s intellectual elite need to buy homes, right? It’s probably not too tough to work a few pointed work questions into your showing patter.

"And what do you do, professor? Nuclear physics research? My, how very interesting…"

Agents may have thrilled to the touch of glamour upon hearing that one of their own has been ripped straight from the pages of a Bond novel, but Foley’s former employers were rather less titillated. Shortly after the news broke, a baffled post from Redfin’s CEO, Glenn Kelman appeared on the firm’s website, promising up and down that the firm did two rounds of interviews, looked up her license and performed checks on her social security number and criminal background before offering her a contract position as a field agent (what an appropriate title, by the way).

It might be time for a strong word with your human resources department, Glenn – obviously the check skipped over a few little things here and there.