Spycraft - Melton [126]
Tom Grant had been in the country several times providing technical support to joint operations. On one of his trips, Grant’s contacts confided, “We’re certain the minister is dirty, but we can’t get the goods on the guy. We’ve failed every single time to record the meal conversation and haven’t been able to identify the covert communications being used.” Grant said he would think about the problem.
Grant was living in another part of Europe with his family. One day his wife discovered a local shop that featured Scandinavian goods, including some attractive pepper mills. “Buy every one they have in the store,” he instructed his wife. “Tell the owner we have lots of friends back home who’ll be getting these as Christmas gifts.”
None of the pepper mills ever made the trip to America. Grant went directly to the audio shop where he had several cylindrical transmitters that would fit snugly inside the pepper mills. With the help of concealment techs, he disassembled the pepper mills and created a cavity sufficient for the transmitter, microphone, and batteries. By modifying the grinding and dispensing mechanisms, a small pepper reservoir was retained and the mill still functioned, providing the bugs with an active concealment.
When shown the pepper mill bug, the local security service agreed that it might work and sought the assistance of managers at three restaurants where the KGB officer and his minister frequently met. Rather than trying to place transmitters on a specific table, the service asked the managers to remove all pepper mills from the tables on the day of the next meeting and bring one to the table after patrons were seated.
“It worked like a charm. The Soviet made his reservation, then switched restaurants but used a restaurant we had planned for,” said Grant. “When he arrived he asked for a table different than the one offered. Then the minister joined him. At that point, the headwaiter put our pepper mill right between the two of them. The guys in the surveillance van outside could hear everything.”
The suspected KGB officer and the minister ordered a meal and engaged in small talk for over an hour. At the end of the meal, they ordered coffee. The conversation had centered on official government-to-government topics, boring the counterintelligence “ears” in the van. However, as the business lunch finally wound down, the Russian paid the bill, then, as he took a final sip of coffee, leaned across the table, right over the pepper mill, and gave the minister precise directions for a dead drop.
“Well, that woke up the ‘ears,’” said Grant. “The guy with the headphones in the truck went bananas. Their service was elated. Even our case officer thanked me. I said ‘I’m happy to help but you understand I have to get back my pepper mills for the Agency and besides, one of them has to go to my wife as a souvenir—she dragged me into that shop.’”
Later the government minister was arrested as a spy and the KGB officer expelled from the country.
In every part of the world, similar imagination and creativity were required from techs and case officers for the Agency to attack the wary and protected Soviet Bloc targets. An Eastern European diplomat posted to South America in the mid-1970s seemed virtually untouchable. Surveillance determined that his embassy office was well secured and his home always occupied by family, caretakers, and service staff. However, surveillance did identify an interesting pattern in his wife’s regular Tuesday shopping excursions. As the case officer and the tech discussed the situation, the tech mentioned that concealment specialists had begun embedding a new generation of audio transmitters in desk and table lamps. The lamps functioned normally, the tech explained, and the transmitters operated without batteries by drawing power from the lamp’s electric current. Not long after, a plan emerged.
A CIA officer residing in the country began a side business selling lamps, loading