Spycraft - Melton [128]
At about the same time, the Agency learned of another Soviet official, a newcomer to the city, who lived in an apartment-hotel complex. The local station tracked the Soviet’s pattern of movements for a few weeks, then the chief decided to bug the official’s residence using a recently developed audio transmitter concealed in a standard three-way electrical plug. When the modified plug was inserted into a wall outlet, it drew power from the household circuit.
A week passed and Headquarters had not responded to the operational proposal. The station chief became anxious. He had an OTS technical team in the city ready to act. A detailed ops plan had been laid out. Choreographed in concert with the target’s comings and goings, the installation opportunity window fell on a specific date and time, but approvals were not in hand. “If we don’t hear by eight o’clock tonight, we’re going to go ahead and do this,” the chief told the senior tech.
The plan left little margin for error. A team of two techs would enter the apartment-hotel complex. One would take temporary control of the elevator, holding it at the floor of the Soviet’s apartment and act as outside countersurveillance. The other tech would make entry with a duplicate key and insert the modified three-way plug in an outlet under the bed. He would then exit, lock the apartment, join his colleague in the elevator, and depart the building. The entire operation would require no more than five minutes.
At eight o’clock, without a Headquarters response, the operation commenced. The techs were well into the job when, at 8:15, the communications officer brought a cable marked IMMEDIATE to the chief. The message, although apologetic about the delayed response, left no ambiguity: PROPOSED OPERATION IS NOT APPROVED.
As the techs departed the Soviet’s apartment complex, they received a signal to contact the chief immediately. He related the Headquarters disapproval direction.
“Well, it’s too late,” replied the senior tech. “In fact, we’re already listening to him. He came back home just behind us. He brushed his teeth and went to bed.”
The next morning the device captured the personal routine of the Soviet as he prepared for the day, then went off the air at noon.
The station chief was in a quandary. He had acknowledged receipt of the Headquarters order, but had not told his superiors what had already occurred. He was applying the operational maxim “What happens in the field, stays in the field.”
The chief ordered the techs to go back to the apartment and retrieve the plug. A second entry, this one without Headquarters’ knowledge or approval, was planned and executed. The tech crawled under the bed but there was no plug in the outlet. He quickly surveyed other electrical outlets in the apartment but saw no plugs.
For the chief, as well as for the techs, the situation was about as bad as it could get. Not only had they conducted two unauthorized entry operations, but a piece of the CIA’s newest clandestine audio equipment and its concealment were lost, very likely compromised to the Soviets.
The next day, the techs met at the listening post with the Russian-language transcriber sent to TDY from Headquarters to translate and process the audio take. He had set up the post in a small room in the same building as the target apartment. The post would now have to be quietly closed down and the transcriber sent home. As the tech related the saga of the lost transmitter and the pickle the chief found himself in, he noticed that one of the post’s tape recorders was connected to building power by a familiar-looking three-way plug. “Where did you