If audio surveillance is being conducted from an OP, simple but effective means have to be used to camouflage the listening devices, most of which have been developed by the technical section of the National Security Agency, which use lasers and other technical means to pick up sounds as low as a whisper at ranges up to 250 yards. Sometimes, for example, the surveillance team will use a technique that is commonly used by snipers or countersnipers working in urban environments. The team builds a motionless for long periods of time.
Indeed, fatigue is a critical factor in surveillance operations. It is mind-numbing to stare through a long lens, a pair of binoculars, or a spotting scope for hours on end. Concentration becomes hard to maintain. The mind wanders. Other factors also intrude. In vehicle-based surveillance operations, for example, any motion of the vehicle at all will give the team’s position away-something many law enforcement surveillance details find out the hard way. In Hollywood, surveillance is easy. You pull a car into an alley, slink below the dash, and do a Starsky and Hutch sneak-and-peek through the windshield. But that’s Hollywood. In real life, operators have to fight through boredom, monotony, and hour-after-hour, day-after-day, week-after-week tedium, but just…keep…going.
3:46P.M. Reuven was on his fourth cigarette. Their wineglasses were still a third full. No one had entered or left the safe-house building and the workmen were starting to pack up and close down the ground-floor site for the day.
Tom had just lifted the wine to his lips when the cell phone in his coveralls vibrated. He set the glass down, pulled the phone out, and held it to his ear.“Allô.”
“C’est Tony. On peut parler?”Tony Wyman sounded stressed.
“Sure,” Tom answered in French. “What’s up?”
“I’ve just come in from the home office.”
Tom cracked a smile.“Bienvenue.”
“Stow it. The job’s off. Come back to the office. No need to waste your time waiting around where you are.”
“You’re kidding.”
“’Fraid not.” Wyman sighed. Tom could hear the man exhale. He sounded uncharacteristically exhausted-almost as if he’d been beaten. “Get moving-now. We have to talk.”
21
3 NOVEMBER 2003
6:37P.M.
223 RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORÉ
“THEYWHAT?”Tom looked across the desk at Antony Wyman. Wyman had been flying all day. He hadn’t even checked into his hotel, and yet he was impeccably turned out. How the man could do that was something Tom couldn’t fathom. “Who shut me down? I’ll talk to them. C’mon, Tony-let me talk to whoever it was.”
Wyman shook his head. “You know that’s impossible.”
Tom pulled uncomfortably at his wet shirt collar. “How can they be so stupid?” It had been a rush to get back. He and Reuven had made their way from rue Lambert to the warehouse, changed clothes and IDs, then run a cleaning route to the safe house, where they’d changed clothes and identities once more. Since it was rush hour, Tom used the motorcycle to get to the 4627 offices near the Place des Ternes. It had started to rain just as he’d sped through the Place du Brésil and he’d gotten soaked. He’d been riding alone. Reuven declined Tom’s invitation to accompany him, saying there was some trolling to be done and they’d catch up in the morning.
Tom’s curt tone reflected his mood. “I was just starting to make some headway, damnit.”
“They don’t care about headway,” Wyman growled. He glanced around the office with the look of a drill sergeant making a white-glove inspection, then he refocused on Tom. “Look, the seventh floor24is running scared these days. There are more CYA leaks coming out of Langley than I’ve ever seen-and I’d be very surprised if a lot of them weren’t sanctioned from the top as a way of putting some blue sky between CIA and the administration on these Iraq screwups. As much as I dislike admitting it, politics plays a part in what we do. Sometimes we just have to back off-delay taking action until we can find another way of achieving our goals without making waves.”
“You’re sounding like one ofthem, Tony.” Tom wasn’t willing to accept that kind of rationalization-even from someone like Wyman. “Goddamnit, this is too important. I’m onto something big here. Immense.”
“I understand. I know the stakes, Tom. More than that-it’s personal. These sons of bitches killed Jim McGee and I want their heads on pikes as much as you do. But we’re up against a six-hundred-pound gorilla here and its name is bureaucracy. Langley insists on total control, and right now they’re yanking at our leash and saying, ‘Sit; stay.’ Don’t forget-we’re contractors.”
“We’reoperators, and they’re idiots.” Tom clenched his fists. “Look at how Langley dealt with MJ’s stuff.”
“When has incompetence ever stopped anyone at Langley from becoming a division chief-or DCI, for that matter?”
“Jeezus, Tony-”
“Look, I’m more pissed than you are.” Wyman’s palm slapped the desk. “It’s absurd: I was told point-blank there is no Tariq Ben Said.”
“But-”
“Oh, they admit there’s a bomber out there. But they insist that by laying low and setting out traplines, the system will find him before he can do any damage.”
Wyman caught the incredulous look on Tom’s face and cut him off before he could speak. “Don’t ask me which system and what traplines, Tom, because I have no more idea what the hell they’re talking about than you do. Worse, they take a harder line on Imad Mugniyah. It wasn’t Mugniyah. Not in Gaza; and not in the surveillance photographs Shahram took on rue Lambert. The official line is that Mugniyah is somewhere in Lebanon, running Hezbollah’s operations against the Israelis and surveilling the American embassy. He is not involved with al-Qa’ida. And he is not partnered with Tariq Ben Said, because there is no Tariq Ben Said. Full stop.”
“Why is Langley so unwilling to see what’s going on?”
“Like I said, politics.” Tony Wyman shook his head. “Headquarters rejects your premise because it contradicts everything they’ve been telling the president for almost three years now. Accepting the Ben Said-slash- Imad Mugniyah-slash-Arafat-slash-Tehran-slash-al-Qa’ida alliance would mean a direct link between Arafat, UBL, and Tehran.”
“So? The president himself has talked about the UBL-Tehran link.”
“Ah,” Wyman said, “but the Romanoffs at Langley have consistently argued that with the exception of Ansar al-Islam, no such link exists. Worse, tying Mugniyah and Ben Said to Gaza would indicate Arafat’s involved-Arafat would be connected to UBL, the Seppah, and Imad Mugniyah. C’mon, Tom-the CIA for years has its money on Arafat and Arafat’s Palestinian National Authority. CIA spent hundreds of millions helping the PA create a security apparatus-it was even called the Tenet Plan. CIA spent millions teaching Palestinian security people tradecraft. And what have the Ps done with all that education and all that money? They’ve become better terrorists is what they’ve done with it. How the hell can Tenet admit he was so wrong for so long and still not resign? He can’t-and so, he and his crowd stick their heads in the sand, leak positive stories to their friends in the media, and tell the White House and the oversight committees everything’s great, and they’re making real progress on America’s global war on terror, and in a mere five years, the clandestine service will be better than ever.”