When Foley arrived back in Boston his problem was to give everyone involved, including officers from partnering law enforcement agencies, the confidence to do the jobs they were trained to do. During his time at the agency Foley had been through other high-stakes cases. Now, he said, he needed to reassure the many teams working to capture the bombing suspects to solve their own bits of the case. “We had good training. We had good people,” he said. He wanted them to understand “’ You know what to do. You just do it. And that’s what they were looking for.”

“I’ve got no secret recipe for this,” said Foley recalling the early part of the investigation. “We were going to make it right. I know our world is upside down. I know it’s not what we want. But you have the skills to make this right,” Foley said he told officers working the case. “In some sense, I gave them that walking through the door,” he continued. “They were looking up to me to make it right. When there were problems and kidnappings and shootings. It’s like you just kind of help them get through.”

After the bombings Boston remained under siege for days. By Thursday, Foley and others involved in the hunt for the bombers had little or no sleep. He planned to get some rest that night, but those plans changed after the bombers killed a college police officer, car-jacked a driver, and threw bombs at pursuing police officers in nearby Watertown, MA.

When Foley arrived on the scene in Watertown he said there was smoke in the air. “Cops were yelling like schoolgirls ‘Watch out they’re throwing bombs,’” said Foley. He initially responded as a pure problem solver and began a foot chase after one of the suspects. Then he stepped back and told himself, “’I have to be a boss. I can’t be running through the streets and the backyards of Watertown.”

“It was surreal,” he continued. “People were yelling and screaming. It felt like a war zone.” While the crime fell under federal jurisdiction, Foley stressed the importance of federal, state and local law enforcement working together. “It was a team effort. No ego,” he said. Foley added that if people are given the chance to develop belief in themselves, they are easier to lead in a time of crisis. “If you are the boss, you are going to have to make a call. And no one has a problem with you making that call. They want you to make the call. But not if you are dominating people and regularly saying, ‘I’m the boss. I am in charge.” Moreover, he said, “My experience is if I have to tell someone in charge, I’ve already lost.”

The Boston Marathon bombing came at the end of Foley’s FBI career, but two decades in the bureau provided him with plenty of opportunities to solve problems. For more than a decade Foley had worked long hours in an inner-city drug squad. Agents were expected to work six days a week. They started their days banging down doors and making arrests while suspects were asleep and easier to safely bring into custody. In the afternoon he wrote affidavits and did other investigative work. At night he went out on the street. “The bad guys were rolling out of bed in the late morning or afternoon, so you wanted to be out there when they were kicking around making moves.”

Foley said that while he was on that squad he worked too much, but felt he was making an impact. “There are certain squads within every field office. They are the go-to men and women. They are the Clydesdales. They are all in, they are committed, they’re razor sharp, they are focused. And if things go bad, you want them.” The members of that squad were tough, he said. “Tough not in the sense of rough and cruel, in a sense that we work hard. The bar is very high. We took our job real serious. And there were serious consequences for doing anything that is less than the best. Because someone could die, someone could get hurt,” he said. “People would not raise their hand to be on that squad.”

Even after a friend who was operating undercover was killed, Foley was not ready to leave that assignment. His partner asked whether Foley thought it was time for them to be done with the long hours and dangerous work. But Foley said he was still “all in.” To cope with the stress and demanding schedule, Foley said he stayed disciplined and worked out to maintain his physical condition. Working out was good to relieve stress and was necessary to stay in shape to do the work, which involved crashing through doors, weighed down by firearms, ammunition, protective vest and helmet. “You need a level of fitness in order to be spry. To move,” he said. “You had to be an all-around athlete to perform physically and mentally. You had to be on your game.”

Foley said that he also relied on strong people skills. Foley is dyslexic and had “rough edges” growing up, but his father told him he had many abilities and urged him to continue to develop them. At the FBI, Foley said, good people skills tend to give an agent an edge. “The FBI’s bread and butter is informants. Human intelligence. I exceeded at that. I had a good cadre of really strong informants,” said Foley.

He recalled an informant once let him know that a well-known mobster had been killed and was lying dead in a car. Foley called the organized crime office to let them know. The agent who picked up the phone said, “’What are you talking about?’” Foley replied, “‘He just got assassinated.’” Foley said the exchange continued, “’Why do you know this?’ ‘I got a call.’ ‘Oh, my God. Is anyone there?’ ‘No, there’s no officer on the scene. No, nothing.’ ‘So, you are just calling me to tell me you have someone on the street, calling and saying he’s here in a car, dead. ‘Yep. They just killed him.’ ‘Incredible. OK. We will roll the cars.’”

Foley said informants have any number reasons for offering tips, especially if an agent has developed trust. “People who live in the underworld were willing to talk about things. I didn’t judge them. And we created a relationship,” he said. “I would always look to find a common ground. And there is some good in everyone. I try to look for that. To work with them on that and create a relationship. I had people who had done some horrible things in life, but they would talk to me. That was incredible.”

He stressed, however, that he did not exploit his informants. He looked for people who had a specific reason to talk. “Whether it was they felt they were making good on their past sins, getting revenge, financial, or respect from someone in your position. Whatever it is, you had to find it and you had to go there,” Foley said. In some cases, he said, he helped informants out of a life they wanted to leave.

Now director of law enforcement at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, Foley said he urges security personnel at the bank to take on an open and engaging pose toward the building’s 3,000 employees rather than a stern, unapproachable look. “If they see something that’s not right and you are a tough guy guess what they’re not going to do? Talk to you about it,” he said “Or if you are engaging everyone who comes through, right away it will be obvious to you when there’s something not right with this person here and deal with it. It’s all people skills.”

Foley recalled an FBI recruiter told him early on that he would have good and bad jobs at the agency. The recruiter advised him to work harder at the bad jobs in order to get the good ones. “You live it every day. You don’t just get it on a tough day and all of a sudden show up,” said Foley. “You apply for your next promotion or your next job every day you come to work. You think you are going to get an interview today for a promotion and I don’t know what you have been doing every day for the past three years? No. You bring it every day. And if you do bring it every day, when the crisis happens, when the big things happen, it’s there.”