We tried our hardest, but after a few weeks our scores had begun to suffer. Our marks had declined, but not to a disastrous extent. Or so we thought. Until one Friday afternoon when, after a particularly brutal week, we were summoned to the main conference room. It was warm in there, and more than a few eyes were beginning to close as we waited for the chief instructor to arrive. He came in after twenty anxious minutes, carrying a stack of paper. I was near the front, so I could see it was the work we’d been set the night before. The instructions had been shouted at us as we staggered into the locker rooms after a six-mile run. Write two thousand words about Wales. Must be completed by 10:00 P.M.
The one thing on our minds at that time was getting to bed, so no one queried what was required of us. We just each found a space in the gym and started scribbling down anything we knew about the place. Geography. History. Politics. Sport. Anything to burn through the specified number of words. Then one of the guys gathered the papers up, took them to the office, and no one thought any more about it.
“Hands up who’s read Moby-Dick,” the chief instructor said.
A couple of people complied.
“Hands up anyone who started it, but didn’t make it to the end,” he said.
About three-quarters of the group raised a hand this time.
“Well, you lot have certainly got no excuse,” he said. “For getting no marks. Zero. Nada. Nil points. To be clear, you’ve all failed. All of you. Now go back to your rooms and write four thousand words this time. About whales.”
The moral of the story was clear. Doing the right work was even more important than doing the work right.
And once you’re in the field, you find the same thing applies to place.
Fothergill was right. McIntyre had chosen an excellent place to set up the meeting. But not for the textbook reason. You’d normally pick somewhere like a pier when you knew you were under surveillance, but that whoever was watching you was still gathering evidence. Your identity would already be known, so you wouldn’t mind being seen or photographed. You’d meet at the very far end, so you had the maximum warning if anyone tried to approach or apprehend you. And the physical inaccessibility, married to the ambient noise from the wind and water, would make it nearly impossible for anyone to eavesdrop. Even if they had access to the best electronic enhancements.
Navy Pier didn’t work that way. It was just too big.
There were two official entrances for pedestrians to use. One was to the right, outside, leading to where the leisure boats and cruise ships were tied up. The other was in the center, which brought you inside the main building. It looked like you could make your way through either of the restaurants at the front of the complex if you needed to, as well. A driveway for vehicles led away to the left, allowing access to the garage. An abundance of windows and polished surfaces made it easy to check for tails. There were obliging crowds everywhere to lose yourself in. And a virtually unlimited number of places to observe the rendezvous point from without any chance of being spotted in the process. I had to confess—the location stacked the odds hugely in McIntyre’s favor. He’d pulled out another rabbit, just like with the abandoned apartment. I wondered whether Young’s network was still helping him. And whether there was any mileage in tracking them down, if I found myself needing a real plan B.
I reached the pier complex at a minute after six, which further restricted my options. It meant there wasn’t time to set up any of the usual tricks. Even the simplest were out of the question. Like one of my favorites, which involves a second person. It works because generally speaking, your target will be on the lookout for an individual. So if you show up as half of a couple, you can stand or sit in plain sight—arm in arm, or even cuddling and kissing—without attracting attention. Another trained operative is obviously preferable, but I’ve had to rope in civilians on more than one occasion. The kind that bill themselves as members of an even older profession than mine, and charge for their time by the hour. But in this case, I had no idea where to look for one. And no chance to find out. So instead, I resorted to something you learn on your first field exercise. Something that’s surprisingly effective, but so basic that with luck McIntyre would never believe anyone it would try it for real.
All you need is a newspaper. And something to make a hole.
None of the shops in the main building could help me, but a guy from a souvenir kiosk pointed me toward a trio of vending machines to the side of the taxi rank. I bought a copy of that day’s Tribune, and headed for the area surrounding the Ferris wheel. The photo booth was to the left, against the parking garage’s outer wall. A line of benches ran back from it, at ninety degrees. There were seven. All were vacant, despite the hordes of people that were still swarming throughout the place. I sat at the edge of the second one and unfolded my paper, making it as large as possible. The keys to the Chrysler were still in my pocket so I took them out and selected the sharpest. I used the tip to make a tiny hole two-thirds of the way up the paper’s spine. Then I sat back, raised the Tribune like a shield, and settled down to wait.
I never paid much attention to physics at school, but I’d learned one thing about light waves since then. If I put my eye near enough to the hole, I could see out. Yet anyone looking back at me would be hard-pressed to notice the pinprick, let alone anything on my side of the paper. There were only two things to be careful about. Holding the paper in a convincing position, like I was actually reading something. And keeping it still.
The photo sellers were kept busy that night. A constant stream of people flowed past their booth—there was no other way to go once you left the Ferris wheel—and the group from every third or fourth gondola stopped and gathered around to gawp at their pictures. They formed quite a crowd. Maybe half of them handed over some money. But six forty-five came and went without anybody sitting on the bench. Or approaching it. Or even looking at it. I scanned every face in the vicinity. There were hundreds. It was impossible to say that McIntyre’s wasn’t one of them. But if he was there, I couldn’t pick him out.
I decided to only wait until seven fifteen before abandoning the plan. I took a final, careful look around the area. Then I folded the paper, found the shortest route across to the garage building, and called Fothergill. I wanted to know if he’d got anywhere with the cell phone company. I knew it was a risk. McIntyre had shown he was patient. If something had made him suspicious, he’d have been prepared to watch the bench for hours. But on the other hand, the GPS signal from his phone would give us an idea of where he was. If it turned out he was miles away from the place, the sooner I found out, the better.
There was no answer from Fothergill’s desk phone, so I tried his cell. I figured he might not be back from the depot yet, or he might be tied up en route with the technicians. He didn’t answer that one, either. I moved to a window to keep an eye out, just in case, and gave him five minutes. I tried again. And got the same result. No answer on either number. So then I wondered about the IT guys at the consulate. Perhaps Fothergill was down there again, harassing them. I didn’t have their department’s number so I tried the switchboard, hoping they could put me through. But when the operator picked up, she recognized my voice. She sounded tense. I was put on hold, and after thirty seconds the receptionist from the fourteenth floor came on the line. She took a minute to run me through some pedantic security routines—a kind of telephone version of the sniffer machine—and then told me why I couldn’t reach Fothergill. He wasn’t in the office. And he wasn’t in a place where they allow cell phones.