The mission came as the Maritime Branch was struggling to prove its reason for existence, at a time when its competition with the US Navy was in full swing.
In 2008, the Central Intelligence Agency sent four people on a mission into the Philippine and South China Seas and no-one came back, as follows from a feature published by Yahoo News. It gives the tragic account of a task to place a camouflaged electronic intelligence-gathering device to keep tabs on suspicious Chinese military traffic.
The mission was conducted before the South China sea became an apple of discord in the area, at a point in time when the CIA's Maritime Branch was adrift, struggling to prove the reason for its existence and competing with the Navy.
In an attempt to accomplish the espionage venture, the four-strong crew, led by Stephen Stanek, a covert CIA operative, and his younger mission partner Michael Perich sailed into a hurricane, Tropical Storm Higos, to never be heard from again.
Two other men were on board the 40-foot vessel – Jamie McCormick and Daniel Meeks, both in secondary roles. Stanek, a retired Navy ordnance disposal diver, was highly experienced, but had only recently attained his license to be a ship captain, according to people familiar with the matter.
The crew spent the last several days sailing up the coast of the Philippines after departing from Malaysia in what was to be the maiden voyage of their ship – a commercial one on the surface, but…
