Clarence did the same with an identical camera through his gray Aéropostale hoodie jacket. He glanced at his wristwatch nervously, and said, “Showtime.”
After stuffing his laptop into a rucksack and locking the car, they headed to the stairs in a trot. Two minutes later, they entered the Seattle Main Post Office (also known as the Midtown Post Office) through separate entrances. After scanning the lobby and the queue at the service counter, Phil took on the role of “indecisive shopper” at the rack of postal service shipping boxes, tote bags, and collectibles. Meanwhile, Clarence got in the long noon-hour line of customers approaching the service counter.
Two minutes later, at 11:57, Mr. Lo arrived. He was wearing polished shoes, dark pants, and a black raincoat. He pulled some junk mail out of a trash receptacle and pretended to study mail-order catalogues.
At exactly noon, Robert Chan walked into the crowded lobby. He walked over to the tall table where Mr. Lo was standing and began picking through the clear acrylic rack of postal forms, eventually grabbing a green-and-white customs declaration form. Meanwhile, Mr. Lo pulled a fat envelope from his pocket and laid it on the table. Chan palmed the envelope and slid it into his oversize iPad man purse. Getting a subtle high sign from Phil, Clarence left the line and walked toward the table in time to see Bob Chan reach into his pocket and pull out a wrapped stick of chewing gum. He laid it on the counter. As soon as Mr. Lo’s hand touched the gum stick, Clarence shouted, “Federal agents—you’re under arrest!” Both he and Phil quickly rushed the two suspects, putting them both in armlocks and shoving their chests into the table. In the scuffle, the stick of gum was flicked to the floor.
After both men were handcuffed, Phil snatched the wrapped piece of gum from the floor. On camera, he unwrapped it, revealing that it contained a miniature SIM card, resting in a rectangular notch cut out of the gum stick.
“Gotcha,” he exclaimed triumphantly.
Lo protested, “I am a member of the People’s Republic of China consular staff. I have a diplomatic passport. You cannot detain me.”
Again on camera, Phil searched Lo’s pockets, stopping when he found his passport. He slowly passed each page of it in front of his body cam. Then he said, “With apologies for the inconvenience from the United States government, you are free to go, Mr. Lo.”
As Phil keyed Lo’s handcuffs open, Clarence added, “But you, Mr. Chan, have an appointment with a federal magistrate.”
Lo made a hasty retreat out the door. Robert Chan whimpered and started to cry.
The bulging envelope contained fifty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills—a figure that was confirmed in three separate supervised counts at the FBI office, where they took Chan for his initial processing. Phil had no reluctance handing the cash over to the FBI, but then their agents wanted to copy the data from the SIM card. Phil put his foot down, citing Title 10, and said forthrightly that this was a DOD investigation, a DOD arrest, and that because the arrest had been made on federal property (the post office), technically there wasn’t even any need for the FBI to be involved. It didn’t take long for the feebees to relent. They settled for photographs of the SIM card, the partial stick of gum, and the wrappers. But there was still chain-of-custody paperwork to fill out—and it was unusual that the SIM card (with gum wrappers) and cash had different destinations. That, too, caused a little confusion. With the FBI, “following protocol” was an art form, and unusual situations like these ruffled their feathers.
Very few of the subjects of Tall Oak CI investigations were in the nonofficial cover (NOC) category or clandestine agents. But with sufficient evidence, the Americans whom the foreign agents had used as assets could be prosecuted, or more often than not, turned. Turning an asset into a double agent was difficult, complicated, and stressful, particularly for the assets. As a handler, Phil spent much of his time trying to distinguish fact from fiction. A lot of his work required him to develop a level of trust with “assets” who had already proven themselves to be entirely untrustworthy to the other side.
Phil worked at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The nearest town was DuPont, a small bedroom community. More than half of its residents were Fort Lewis officers and NCOs who lived off-post. Phil’s apartment was in DuPont, not because he particularly liked the town, but because he disliked long commutes in traffic. The four-apartment building had two floors, and his modest two-bedroom apartment was on the second floor.
The DIA’s counterintelligence (CI) agents could do some things inside the United States that the CIA couldn’t. Under the National Security Acts of 1947 and 1949 the CIA was barred from domestic intelligence gathering. Ironically, the Tall Oak intelligence reports went “up the pipe” to the CIA just as if they had been produced by CIA agents. Phil didn’t mind being a surrogate for the CIA, especially if he was a well-paid surrogate. And his work didn’t pose any ethical dilemmas. The subjects of his investigations were nearly all foreign nationals who were trying to steal American secrets—most often industrial secrets.
In 2012, a reorganization within the DIA created the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS). To the Tall Oak staff, the change mostly meant a change of business cards and stationery. Tall Oak shifted from a DIA “Project” to a DCS “Task Group.” (Tall Oak was never a separate compartment, but now its name could be spoken outside DIA circles.)
The DCS had an emphasis on languages and gave hiring preference to agents with language proficiency. They sought people who spoke Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, Dari, Hindi, Turkish, Tajik, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese, but it was an open secret that the main emphasis of the DCS was watching China and Iran.
Phil’s officemates were Brian Norton (an electronics wizard), Clarence Tang (a Chinese linguist), and Scott Paulsen (a Russian linguist). The section chief was Hal Jensen, a crusty old vet who had been with the DIA’s Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) for eight years before it was rolled into DCS. With no path to career advancement unless he moved, he described himself as “a GG-13 for life.” At sixty-three, he had long been eligible to collect his twenty-year military pension and could have already collected a DOD civilian pension as well. But he was waiting to turn sixty-five, so that he could “triple dip” and collect Social Security, too. (He had also accumulated forty-plus quarters in the Social Security system.) For his planned retirement, he had a cabin waiting for him near St. Maries, Idaho. Jensen was fond of saying, “I’m delaying my retirement just to keep you contractors honest, and of course for the great coffee.”
Even though they spoke different languages, Clarence and Scott were buddies, since they were both prior service 98G MOS Army Intelligence linguist NCOs. They had both attended the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California, at the same time, and they had both transitioned to the DCS when they were E6s. The 98Gs (or “Golfs,” as they called themselves) tended to be clannish and were some of the Army’s most highly educated NCOs. A surprising number of them had master’s degrees in foreign languages before joining the army. And until recruiting policies changed in 2011, a few of them were age-waivered to be able to enlist after their thirty-fifth birthday.