Indeed, a Russian operation against the State Department’s headquarters had provided Tom with an interesting case study in the manual-trades necessities of spycraft.
In 1998, Boris Grumov, a case officer from SVR (the Russian foreign intelligence service) working under embassy cover in Washington, managed to plant an audio transmitter listening device inside a conference room belonging to the Bureau of Oceans and Environmental and Scientific Policy, or OES, on the seventh floor of the Harry S. Truman Building, the two-square-block main State headquarters that sits between Twenty-first and Twenty-third and C and D Streets, Northwest, in Washington, D.C.
In Hollywood movies, bugs are cavalierly applied to the bottoms of tables and chairs or easily screwed into chandeliers or floor lamps. In real life? Not likely, bub.
At the State Department, for example, offices and conference rooms are regularly inspected by Bureau of Diplomatic Security special agents augmented by spit-and-polish U.S. Marines, who look underneath desks, tables, and chairs and inside all the lighting fixtures, make sure that classified materials are properly stored in document safes, and check to see that the removable hard drives from every computer linked to State’s classified network have been locked in special safes. Every night. Violations are taken seriously.
So the Russians got erudite. They installed their listening device by planting it inside the chair molding that ran along the perimeter of room 7835.
Talk about a complicated and sophisticated operation. After all, SVR had had to:
• Take photos and measurements of the chair molding so it could be purchased and matched exactly to the molding in 7835.
• Get a paint sample so the paint could be copied, right down to the patina, nicks, and smudges.
• Cut a section of molding out and replace it with the new section containing the listening device.
• Camouflage the seams between the old and the new molding to make them invisible.
And finally, accomplish all the work during the hours when the room was not being used by the OES staff.
Intelligence and law enforcement services maintain huge technical departments and break-and-enter specialists to perform such work. But if time and limited access are factors-which they often are-then much of the work has to be done by the case officer him/herself. In this operation, even though the SVRrezident (station chief) in the Russians’ Washington embassy had a five-man technical section at his disposal, the on-site work at State had to be performed either by Grumov or an American agent because penetrating a team of hostile technicians clandestinely inside HST is exponentially more difficult than getting one hostile case officer with diplomatic immunity through the C Street turnstiles. After all, hostile case officers with diplomatic immunity go through those turnstiles all the time. It made one wonder.
Tom examined the wall section Reuven had attached to the forklift truck. On one side, it was stucco-finish plaster about a quarter of an inch thick, set into lath that was fastened to masonry and sheathed in stone. The opposite surface had crown molding made of poplar wood, behind which was lath and plaster, then another layer of masonry and the common stone sheathing. The total width of the two facing walls was just over sixteen inches.
The Israeli stood with his hands on his hips. “Which one do you want to try first?”
Tom pointed to the stucco. “Back side.”
“From the back, you’ll want to drill high-into the crown molding.”
“Then we’ll need a ladder?”
“Of course.” Reuven ambled off toward the scenery bay. Thirty seconds later, he was back with a trifolded aluminum multipurpose ladder, the tips of its rails sheathed in soft plastic. “Your wish, Stafford Pasha…”
“Let’s go, Reuven.” Tom was getting impatient.
The Israeli set the ladder down next to Tom, hoisted himself aboard the forklift, and turned on the engine. He reached for the lift control. The wall section rose slowly. Reuven eyeballed the height. “We want three meters. I think that’s close. You measure.”
Tom pulled a ten-meter cloth tape measure out of the tool kit and clipped it to the pocket of his coveralls. He straightened out the ladder and locked the sections in place. Then he inclined the rails against the wall section, snugged the antislip feet against the concrete, and climbed up until he was able to snag the hook end against the top of the crown molding. He handed the tape measure to Reuven. “Distance?”
The Israeli knelt and squinted. “Eight centimeters short.”
He vaulted onto the forklift and eased the wall upward while Tom held on to the ladder, then jumped down and checked the tape. “Only half a centimeter off.”
Tom unhooked the tape and let it fall, watching as Reuven caught the end one-handed. “Close enough for government work.”
20
11:35A.M. Tom tightened the elastic band on his protective goggles, leaned forward on the ladder so that he could put pressure on the silent drill, and squeezed the trigger. The bit overrevved and gouged a thumbnail-size hole in the rough plaster surface. “Goddamnit.” Tom released the trigger, wiped the bit clean, and prepared to start over.
From below, Reuven looked up. “You’re okay. Just take it slow and easy.”
“Gotcha.” Tom applied pressure cautiously, gauging carefully as the bit revolved ever so slowly. “Okay.” He stopped the drill, pressed the tip against the plaster, and eased his finger onto the trigger.
The bit began to turn slowly. Tom put some of his weight behind the drill and watched, satisfied, as the bit eased smoothly into the rough-surfaced plaster. Particles of fine dust floated down onto his coveralls.
Now he increased the speed of the drill, feeling momentary resistance as the bit passed through the plaster and chewed on the lath beneath.
He increased the revolutions. The plaster dust was now joined by tiny wood shavings, which were, in turn, followed by gray masonry dust. Tom pressed harder. The drill bore into the wall. He cocked his head to examine the metric markings on the bit. He’d penetrated just over ten centimeters so far. He’d be coming to the stone sheathing soon-and then it would be time to switch drill bits.
11:39A.M. Tom pulled the bit out of the wall. He was sweating now, and his arms had begun to ache from holding the drill rock-steady. He hung the drill off the utility belt he’d cinched around his waist, inserted a fiber-optic Snake-Lens Scope into the hole, and depressed the light button. The fiber-optic cable was 2.75 millimeters in diameter-just over a tenth of an inch. It had a close-focusing lens with a fifty-degree field of view. The scope had been designed for SWAT teams so they could peer under doors and into the interiors of locked cars and vans. It was an off-the-shelf model powered by double-A batteries. This one had red-light illumination. But you could get them with bright white, or blue, or even infrared light for clandestine operations. He’d bought the scope out of a police-supply catalog on a whim. It had cost just over three hundred dollars. Now he was glad he’d splurged. He turned the knurled fine-focus knob on the eyepiece until he was satisfied with what he saw, counted the striations, then dead-reckoned how much drilling was left undone.
He was getting close-certainly within an inch and a half of the adjoining wall. He extracted the fiber-optic scope, inserted his measuring rod, and squinted at the markings Reuven had etched on the aluminum as a guide.Yup -three-point-six centimeters to go. He retrieved the drill, removed the drill shaft, and replaced it with a long titanium 1mm bit. He double-checked to see that the bit was seated securely and then eased the unit back into the hole.