Part 10 (1/2)
The undersecretary brought him up short. ”Excuse me,” she said, ”but we haven't yet a.s.signed the responsibility to you. We understand you're here to give advice, not to take charge. I a.s.sure you that since these are our diplomats, the department has the utmost concern with how we should comport ourselves in effecting their rescue.”
Our man sat down and one of the undersecretary's aides took the floor. He described what they thought was the way to go about mounting such an operation. They seemed to favor a plan to bring out the six incrementally, effectively running three or more operations in tandem, not necessarily coming out through Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. At this point I interrupted.
”Excuse me,” I began, ”but my experience tells me that when we are managing a complex operation for more than one or two people, it's best to consolidate your risk, put everyone together under an appropriate cover, and take the shortest and quickest route out. It's one of the principles of guerrilla warfare: choose the time and place for action and overwhelm their senses.”
I looked around the room and saw that I had everybody's attention.
”Exfiltrations are like abortions,” I said. ”You don't need one unless something's gone wrong. If you need one, don't try to do it yourself. We can give you a nice, clean job.”
The undersecretary looked at me, startled, obviously appalled. Then, with a wry smile, she said, ”Well, you do have a way with words, Mr. Mendez. I think maybe we can get on with it, and with you, after all.”
I had begun honing my skills in exfiltration in the early 1970s. At the time, the Soviets were moving out into the third world and as a result we were getting more and more ”walk-ins.” A walkin is just that: a defector who shows up at a U.S. emba.s.sy or otherwise presents himself to an official American ent.i.ty and either asks for asylum or has valuable information that he wants to share. Any good case officer needs to know how to handle a walkin, as it's the bread and b.u.t.ter of the spy business. Screw up a walkin and you're done-simple as that.
So many Soviet personnel were going missing without a trace during this period that the KGB thought we must have been kidnapping them. In retaliation, there was even talk at the highest levels of the KGB about a program to kidnap American officials, but ultimately Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, nixed the idea.
My first exfiltration involved a high-level KGB officer code-named NESTOR, who was posted to a Soviet emba.s.sy in a densely populated capital of the Asian subcontinent. At the time, I was stationed in Okinawa and running the twenty-five-man graphics branch when a cable arrived marked IMMEDIATE, asking for an artist-validator. The cable had been sent by a CIA officer I'll call ”Jacob Jordan.” He and I had first worked together on a job in Hong Kong in 1968, when I'd been asked to help forge the travel doc.u.ments for a top Chinese a.s.set.
Jacob, a senior OTS disguise and doc.u.ments officer for Asia, was already a legend when I started working with him. Despite being from the Midwest, Jacob had an appearance and demeanor more Savile Row than Sears Roebuck. He wore custom-made shoes and expensive suits and in every way affected the air of a British gentleman. In all the time I spent with him, I never once saw him break character. A gifted linguist, he spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and j.a.panese. After joining the CIA's Technical Services Division (the precursor to OTS), Jacob's first posting was to Shanghai in 1949. By the time China had fallen into the hands of the communist Red Army, he was considered the leading American expert on the region.
Less than twenty-four hours after receiving Jacob's cable, I found myself, along with a doc.u.ments officer, ”David,” holed up in a tiny vaultlike room in a Southwest Asian seaport. The two of us had flown into the country posing as tourists, and after checking into our hotel, had been picked up at a prearranged site by a local CIA officer, ”Mac,” and driven through back alleys to this secure location. The site was in a commercial office building that was a front for nonofficial contacts. The building stood amid a sea of similar office buildings, so it was no problem for us to blend in with the myriad British and American businessmen who plied their trade in this busy port.
Once we were inside, Mac introduced us to two more local CIA officers, ”Raymond” and ”Jane,” who had been working around the clock for the past few days.
The whole reason for our being there had been set off twelve days earlier when NESTOR had walked out of the Soviet emba.s.sy and contacted a local CIA officer, telling him that he wished to defect. After confirming that NESTOR was indeed who he said he was, the CIA officer had given him instructions on how to get in touch, then promised to help organize his escape. NESTOR, meanwhile, had gone underground for several days before arriving at the prearranged rendezvous where Jacob was waiting.
If we could get him out of the country, NESTOR would be considered a huge catch. Not only was he an officer in the KGB's First Chief Directorate, the part concerned with foreign espionage, but he was also a member of a group that the CIA had dubbed the ”Junior KGB.” Under an alias, NESTOR had spent several years attending schools in England and the United States while posing as the son of Soviet officials legitimately stationed there-so he spoke fluent English with both a British and an American accent. After that, he had attended several KGB inst.i.tutes in preparation for being stationed in Asia. As a result, not only could he provide invaluable intelligence on the KGB's operations in Central and Southeast Asia, but as an added bonus he could also help identify other ”juniors” who were being trained overseas.
As expected, NESTOR's disappearance had triggered an avalanche of activity on the part of the KGB and the local Special Branch (SB). Surveillance around Western emba.s.sies and border crossings increased dramatically, while the KGB and SB flooded the airport, bus depots, and railway stations with agents. In addition, newspapers across the country ran notices about a missing Soviet attache, and included a good photo of NESTOR to help anyone identify him. Being a Moscow-trained case officer, NESTOR had been able to avoid pursuit by shaving his head and disguising himself as one of the locals. But in order to get him past the thick security network arrayed against us, we would have to be at the top of our game.
We were especially worried about the security controls at the airport. Because of the manhunt going on, the airlines were requiring that all pa.s.sengers reconfirm their flight in person before leaving the country. Somehow we'd have to come up with a way to overcome this final obstacle. But we'd need to move fast. We had only three days until it was time to launch.
When it comes to exfiltrations, the uninitiated almost always think about ”black options,” usually involving a nighttime helicopter pickup or a desperate border crossing in a car involving hidden compartments and an American spy smooth talking his way out of danger. The problem inherent in most of these scenarios is that if anything goes wrong, then there is no chance for plausible deniability. The American flag is going to be draped all over that helicopter or car if the plan falls apart. In certain situations, you have no choice-the only options available are black and you take your chances.
In most situations, however, a quasi-legal departure on a commercial flight is usually the simplest and most effective means of getting an a.s.set out of the country. Jacob would provide the disguise for NESTOR, while David and I would create two sets of alias doc.u.ments for him to use.
As I sat down to look at the operational plan for NESTOR, I could see immediately that there was no shortage of ideas about what to do back at headquarters. Raymond had brought over a thick stack of cables, each offering a different opinion. It seemed that everyone was piling on, something I would come to call the ”committee effect.”
Later, after a few days of twisting in the wind, Jacob came to a decision. He had been sleeping out at the safe site with NESTOR, prepping him for his disguise, and he knew the situation better than anyone. NESTOR was getting anxious, and as Jacob read through the cable traffic he shook his head in amazement. ”Okay,” he said when he was finished. ”Here is what we are going to do.” As I listened to Jacob lay it out, I realized I was learning a valuable lesson, one that I would take with me for the rest of my career: never preempt the man in the field. In this case Jacob knew that NESTOR spoke fluent German and could easily carry off the persona of a German businessman, headquarters reservations be d.a.m.ned. More important, since NESTOR was beginning to lose his nerve, Jacob informed us that he was going to take him through the airport ”trunk to tail,” meaning that he was going to be physically present in the airport to run interference in case anything went wrong. It was a risky move as NESTOR might compromise Jacob, but it would also allow him to address the problem of NESTOR's having to physically reconfirm his reservation, since Jacob could do it for him.
Once the cover had been chosen, Jacob got to work on NESTOR's disguise, transforming the short and stocky Russian into a distinguished German businessman. Using a camera that I had provided, he snapped a few photos in various poses and lighting setups, allowing David and me to put together a full complement of alias doc.u.ments that would give the impression of a man at different stages of his life.
On the night of the exfiltration, my job was to watch from the rooftop departure lounge to see if Jacob and NESTOR had made it onto the plane. We had chosen a TWA flight that was set to depart at one in the morning. The flight was an hour late, however, and when it did finally arrive, the ”smit”-a thick haze that hugs the ground composed of equal parts smoke and burning s.h.i.+t-was so dense that I could barely make out the silhouettes of the pa.s.sengers as they made their way out onto the tarmac. When I didn't see Jacob or NESTOR among the embarking pa.s.sengers, I became nervous. I was to learn later that everything inside had gone according to plan until NESTOR had arrived at the customs counter, where a turbaned official had promptly taken his pa.s.sport and disappeared into a small room. A few minutes later the official returned followed by a European who was actually one of NESTOR's KGB colleagues. The two men stared at each other for a few long seconds before NESTOR, caught up in his persona, lit a Cuban cigar that Jacob had furnished him and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke in the direction of the KGB officer. The man continued to study NESTOR, but finally waved him through. The cigar had been the final piece that had fooled his excolleague.
A few minutes later I was able to see Jacob and NESTOR boarding the plane along with the remaining pa.s.sengers.
When the plane finally took off for Athens a little before three in the morning, it fell to me to call Raymond and let him know that the operation had been a success. As I fumbled for a coin at the public pay phone, my body sagged from the heat and stress of the last three days. I had a sudden flash of panic that the phone wouldn't work, something that would haunt me for many years. But after dialing I heard it ring and then the unmistakable click as Raymond picked up the other line. As per our prearranged code to indicate that NESTOR had gotten out, I asked, ”Is Suzy there?”
Playing along, Raymond shouted, ”No!” and slammed down the phone.