As Charlie Muffin strolled casually across the lobby, Williamson managed three exposures on his camera, two full face and one profile. With luck, he thought, he might get the other man who had gone upstairs about thirty minutes earlier: another person in authority, the man had realised. And similarly scruffy. If he didn’t manage it that night, there was always the following day.
For the moment, Williamson considered the Cubans more important. He was impressed with them, and intended telling Moscow. Despite being provided with a complete description, it had taken him several hours to identify them all. He seated himself casually in one of the lobby chairs, less than fifteen feet from Manuel Ramirez, whom he knew to be the leader from the information he had been provided with in San Diego. The Cuban was a middle-aged, thickly built man, his hair already whitening at the temples. He appeared quite at ease in the luxury of an American hotel; had Williamson not been a trained observer, it would have been impossible to detect the attention that Ramirez was paying to the exhibition, even though it was now closed for the night. Williamson continued his gaze around the lobby. Ramirez had perfectly placed his people, ensuring that every possible entry was under observation. Because he had come only minutes earlier from the parking area, Williamson knew there were two more men outside covering the garden windows.
He looked back to Ramirez, feeling a brief moment of pity for the man who imagined the operation to be his passport back to America. Quickly he stifled the feeling, surprised at its appearance. It made unarguable sense to expose them, if the need arose, so that the C.I.A. would be embarrassed.
He rose, moving towards the restaurant. All he had done so far, he admitted to himself, was establish the procedures which were basic to the start of any operation. It was time he concentrated upon the purpose of his mission, isolating the man who knew General Kalenin.
The maitre d’hotel greeted him at the entrance to the dining room, searched for a single seat and then led him to within three tables of where Charlie Muffin was sitting, also alone.
16
Robert Chambine, who had two children at a $2, ooo-a-year school in Scarsdale, stood unobtrusively at the edge of the warehouse, intently watching the group go through their rehearsal and thinking of the end-of-term plays through which he and his wife always sat, proud of their daughters’ participation.
Chambine was surprised by his own analogy, because really there wasn’t very much similarity. These six weren’t play-acting and it showed. They had improved upon the equipment provided and, using the plans and measurements, had created a workable reconstruction of the exhibition room at the Breakers. Polystyrene blocks represented the walls, with gaps for windows and doors. Each camera and spotlight had been fixed to a photographic extension pole, set at precisely the height and position at which Bulz and Beldini would have to work.
The innovation which particularly impressed Chambine was the Polaroid cameras, of which he had not thought. They had bought four, and while Bulz and Beldini came in through the side door and went through their practice, covering first lights and then lenses, the other men positioned themselves by four of the cameras and took photographs as rapidly as they could. This fell far short of what the videotape would record, but it had enabled the two men who would be going first into the room to recognise and therefore guard against the points of maximum exposure.
Throughout the polystyrene was threaded red and yellow flex, indicating the wired alarms, and these had actually been connected to battery-operated bells which rang if, during any part of the rehearsal, anyone disturbed either a window or door alarm or stepped on one of the pressure pads that Chambine had guessed would be there, and therefore marked around the display cases.
As much thought had gone into the cases as everything else. The entry through the side door was planned to enable a lengthy bypass lead, with alligator clips at either end, to be simply clamped into place, and this would maintain the circuit so that the intervening alarm wire could be cut, allowing the door to be opened about two feet.
At first Chambine frowned both at the other leads and the expandable steel rods carried into the practice area after Bulz and Beldini had immobilised the cameras, unable to think of a purpose for them. And then he smiled at the expertise. The rods were extended and slipped beneath the display cases by Bertrano and Petrilli. At Bertrano’s nod they lifted the cases, but only slightly. Chambine saw that they had anticipated that the case legs would be wired, to trigger an alarm the moment there was any extended movement. With the case about three inches from the ground, Bulz and Beldini went on their knees and clipped more bypass leads into place, linking them with the alarms on the adjoining case so that at all times the circuit would remain intact.
‘Good,’ said Chambine approvingly, moving further into the warehouse when the rehearsal was over. ‘Very good indeed.’
The performance had gone far more smoothly than he had ever hoped it would.
‘Our first attempt timed out at forty-five minutes,’ said Bertrano. ‘The last three runs have all come out around twenty.’
‘The camera-covering averages out at about four minutes,’ added Bulz. ‘We can lose about another minute, but it increases the risk of exposure before a camera. Even though we’ll be masked, we figure it isn’t worth it.’
‘I agree,’ said Chambine. ‘Four minutes is fine.’
‘Can you imagine any other alarms we haven’t thought of?’ asked Bertrano.
Chambine shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. He turned to Saxby and Boella.
‘What about the outside lights?’
‘Better than we expected,’ said Saxby. ‘Every fourth lighting pedestal has a small junction box. The idea must be to reduce the possibility of a full-scale blackout. All we’ll have to do is to make our selection and take out the entry cables with wire cutters.’
‘Have you worked out a pattern?’ demanded Chambine.
Boella produced a drawing. It was quite detailed, showing the area off South County Road and Breakers Row, with the hotel golf course sketched in. The lights were designated in green and those they intended extinguishing were crossed through in black.
‘Swimming pool and beach area first,’ said Saxby, indicating the initial targets. ‘That’ll create a diversion. Then some in the gardens, but still away from the exhibition area. Those around that and the car park will be the last.’
Chambine moved his head, as satisfied with this as he had been with the other preparations.
‘We thought about midnight,’ said Bertrano. ‘By that time those still around will be sufficiently drunk and the hotel staff will be tired.’
Chambine stood nodding.
‘At midnight,’ continued Saxby, ‘we hit the lights by the pool…’
‘… and we go in through the side door immediately after the security checks by the guards,’ said Bertrano.
‘We paced out the distance,’ said Saxby. ‘Four times, in fact. Allowing three minutes for any eventuality we haven’t considered, we’ll be outside the exhibition hall, with all the lights out, in fifteen minutes.’
‘And by that time,’ said Bertrano, ‘we will have all the cases except the last two freed from whatever wiring there might be and positioned near the car-park window.’
‘Which is fifteen minutes ahead of the next security patrol,’ remembered Chambine.
‘We want to talk about that,’ said Bertrano. ‘One thing which could stretch our timing is how long it will take us to load the cases into the cars. Even if there is no interruption, I can’t see us clearing the car park before twelve-twenty-five. That’s only five minutes before the inspection. It’s hardly long enough.’