The building was surrounded by thin suburban woods, through which there were some railroad tie stairs and trails leading to the street beyond. The West Falls Church Metro station was within walking distance from the building; presumably, the trails were used by commuters. They would do equally well for an unwelcome visitor bugging out after a failed op. There was a custodial entrance in back, a single, heavy metal door at the top of a short riser of concrete stairs. And, positioned over the door, as a deterrent to anyone who might want to break into the building through its less trafficked rear, a security camera.
I found a Nordstrom in a nearby shopping mall and bought a pair of galoshes, a gray windbreaker, a nice pair of deerskin gloves-thin enough to offer good tactile feedback; thick enough to avoid leaving fingerprints-a black wool overcoat, and a large leather briefcase. Then I stopped at a gas station near the mall, where, while engaged in a nonexistent conversation on the public phone, I tore out the listings for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean restaurants from the kiosk’s Yellow Pages. I drove around until I found a place, Kim’s Korean barbecue, that sold tee-shirts and baseball caps with the store’s logo, a bright red box around red Korean lettering. I bought a shirt and a cap, along with a large lunch to go.
I drove back to Crawley’s apartment. There was a Whole Foods organic supermarket in the strip mall across the street. I went in and fueled up with a couple of vegan sandwiches and a fruit smoothie. I washed it all down with a large coffee. It was good to eat so healthy on the job-usually the available operational menu consists of McDonald’s and, if you’re lucky, some other fast food possibilities, typically consumed cold and congealing. I enjoyed the repast, knowing it might be a while before I had a chance for another meal.
At two-thirty, I went to a pay phone and tried Crawley again at his office, ostensibly a State Department number but one I knew would in fact ring through to a CIA extension. He answered on the first ring.
“Crawley,” I heard him say.
“Hello, I’m trying to reach the public affairs press liaison office?” I said, my voice a little uncertain. The title was sufficiently bureaucratic to make me confident that there would be dozens of similarly named working groups, at the Agency and elsewhere.
“Wrong extension,” he said, and hung up.
I smiled and shook my head. People can be so rude.
I got back into the car and drove to a nearby residential street. I pulled over behind a few other parked cars and took a moment to slip on the galoshes and transfer my shopping items into the briefcase. I changed into the Kim’s tee-shirt and pulled my windbreaker on over it, leaving it unzipped so the shirt’s logo would show. The windbreaker, which I had deliberately purchased two sizes too large, would make me look smaller by comparison, awkward inside its volume, diminished. I donned the wig, the glasses, and the Kim’s cap. I checked in the rearview, and liked the unfamiliar appearance I saw there.
I drove back toward Crawley’s complex, parking in another strip mall parking lot that I would be able to reach on foot through the woods if things went sour and I had to leave in an unexpected hurry. I purged the contents of the car’s GPS nav system and shut off the ignition. Then I spent a few minutes with my eyes closed, visualizing the next steps, getting into character. When I was ready, I got out and walked to Crawley’s complex, carrying the Kim’s bag with me.
I approached through the large carport, opened one of the two sets of double glass doors with the backs of two fingers, and stepped into a vestibule defined by another set of glass doors opposite the ones I had just come through. As I extended my hand to try one of the inner doors, a buzzer sounded. I looked through the glass and saw a young Caucasian girl, shoulder-length brown hair and freckles, who looked like a college student working a part-time doorman’s gig so she could keep hitting the books while she worked. Part-time would be good. She wouldn’t know the residents, the delivery people, the feel of the place, the way a full-timer would, and would be easier to deal with as a result.
I opened the door and moved into a lobby decorated in some sort of nouveau colonial style, lots of reproduction period furniture and wood paneling and shiny brass lamps. The girl sat behind an imposing built-in desk, behind which I imagined would be electronic access controls and video feeds from security cameras.
“Delivery?” she asked, with a friendly smile.
I nodded. I had multiple contingency stories prepared for the questions and events that might follow: What apartment? Funny, they didn’t mention a delivery. Wait a moment while I buzz them. Hmm, no answer. Are you sure about that number.. .?
But instead she asked, “Are you new?”
I nodded my head again, not liking the question, wondering where it was going.
She looked through the glass doors at the carport beyond. “Because you can park under the carport for deliveries. Sometimes it’s tough to find a nearby space in the parking lot.”
“Oh. Thank you,” I said, in an indeterminate but thick Asian accent.
She looked at the logo on my shirt, then said something in a language that I couldn’t understand, but that I recognized as Korean.
Oh fuck, I thought. You can’t be serious.
“Uh, I not Korean,” I said, keeping my expression and posture uncertain, vaguely subservient, not wanting to cause offense, just a recent immigrant, and not necessarily a legal one, working a minimum wage job and trying not to fall through the cracks.
“Oh!” she said, flushing. “My boyfriend is Korean, and I thought, because of the restaurant… never mind. Sorry.”
Her embarrassment about the mistake, and my apparently embarrassed reaction to it, seemed to combine to cut off further questioning. Thank God.
“I just…” I said, gesturing vaguely to the area behind the desk, where the elevators would be.
“Yes, of course, go right ahead.” She smiled again, and I nodded shyly in return.
I snuck a peek as I passed the desk. One open textbook, front center; one video monitor, off to the side. An easy bet as to which one got her hourly-pay attention.
I knew from the position of the custodial entrance in back that the access point would be to the left of the elevators, and I headed in that direction, passing an internal stairwell on the way. There it was, a swinging wooden door. Beyond it, a short corridor, lined in linoleum, at the end of which, the exterior door.
I looked the door over quickly. I couldn’t tell if it was alarmed. Its heft, and the presence of three large locks, indicated that the building’s management might not have bothered. And even if it were alarmed, the alarm would likely be deactivated during business hours, when the door might be in use. There was a wooden doorstop on the floor, which supported the notion that there was no alarm or that it was currently disengaged. The custodians wouldn’t be able to use the doorstop otherwise.
I used the cuff of the windbreaker to open the locks and turn the knob. I opened the door and examined the jamb. No alarms. I looked outside. There were several mops propped against the exterior wall, apparently to dry there, and a number of industrial-sized, gray plastic garbage containers on wheels, too.
I thought for a moment. The girl in front was obviously more interested in her books than she was in that monitor, and I had a feeling she would be habituated to seeing maintenance men moving in and out the back door during the course of the day. It looked doable.