Spycraft - Melton [84]
Each listened for the distinctive Russian word dvahd-tsaht awdeen (twenty-one), which translated from KGB surveillance code meant, “I have the target in sight.” If neither spoken numbers nor a series of clicks16 were heard, Ken could conclude with some confidence that surveillance was ignoring him that day.17
As the family drove toward the park, no words were exchanged about how Ken would spend the majority of the day or the possibility of surveillance. “We wouldn’t say much, particularly with kids there,” Ken explained later, “because at those ages you never know what they’re going to repeat or to whom. So they had to be totally unwitting about was going on.”
Ken initiated a series of maneuvers designed to detect surveillance. Unlike action adventure movies, where the hero eludes surveillance through a series of spectacular high-speed stunts, the reality of espionage for Ken was both more complex and prosaic. He did not zoom through intersections or make dangerous last-second turns to lose the followers. His driving had to fit the profile of a family man taking his kids in a van to a picnic. To any surveillance team that might have been watching, Ken took a more or less direct route to the park with all the speed his four-cylinder family van could muster.
Once he abruptly pulled off the road, grabbed a kid out of the backseat, and rushed into the treeline for an emergency potty break. He also missed a turn-off and circled back to get on the right road. There was also the need to study the map when momentarily lost. If a surveillance team had been following as he performed these common maneuvers, they could not have stopped without drawing Ken’s or Sharon’s attention.
The surveillance teams of the KGB’s Seventh Directorate were known to drive distinctive cars, usually the larger Volga, which resembled a mid-sized Volvo or the more compact Zhiguli, the Soviet version of a Fiat 124. Because only the KGB had automatic car wash equipment, their cars tended to be clean compared to other vehicles on the Moscow streets. Further, they boasted the luxury of windshield wipers, a valued commodity among those Muscovites lucky enough to own a car and often stolen if the car was parked unattended.
The SDR continued for more than an hour with Ken using a variety of seemingly routine stops and turns to confirm any vehicular surveillance.
Finally confident they were not being followed, Ken turned into a parking lot at the perimeter of the large park and pulled into a spot selected far in advance for the day’s picnic. Ken purposefully avoided the section of the park popular among Americans, where KGB teams might already be watching other targets. If he was not being watched, he wanted to avoid walking into active surveillance of another target. The family walked a couple hundred meters into the park before Sharon spread out their blankets on the edge of a grove of trees. Ken and Sharon continued looking and listening for surveillance as he began a series of apparently innocent explorations into the woods. Like the vehicular maneuvers, these were also intended to force any watchers to betray their presence.
After half an hour trying to enjoy the picnic lunch with his family and becoming reasonably certain surveillance was not nearby, Ken put on his well-used and stuffed rucksack, nodded to Sharon, and slipped into the woods. The wordless gesture told her that if he did not return by a certain time, she should load the children into the van and drive directly home. Using a prearranged signal, she would alert the chief that Ken had not returned as scheduled and was likely in some kind of trouble. The chief would immediately take action to minimize potential collateral damage to other operations and prepare the U.S. ambassador for the inevitable diplomatic blowback from the Soviet press announcing, “another American spy had been caught attempting to destroy the peaceful relations between America and the Soviet Union.”
As soon as Ken left the family, he began an extended surveillance