Phil was a contract case officer specializing in offensive counterintelligence based in the smallest of the five Task Group Tall Oak offices on the West Coast, Tall Oak–Washington. When he mentioned his role to his sister, she said, “Wow, that sounds glamorous.” He quickly explained to her that it was actually a lot of hard work, and much of it involved boring report writing. As was typical in the counterintelligence world, it took hundreds of hours of work to generate a lead, and only a few leads panned out to be solid cases to follow. Their victories were few and infrequent, but each one was relished. Catching a foreign agent red-handed felt very rewarding, but since they were usually operating in the U.S. under diplomatic cover, their immunity protected them from prosecution. They would simply be declared persona non grata, and told that it was time for them to go home. Getting a foreign agent declared persona non grata (PNG or “Ping,” in CI slang) was considered a feather in the cap of any CI agent.
The man Phil was observing now was with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). For days, they had been trying to catch him in the act of visiting a dead-drop microcache location. The MOIS, also known as VEVAK (Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e Keshvar), had agents who were some of the CIA’s most challenging opponents. The VEVAK was an outgrowth of the Shah Pahlavi–era SAVAK, and it was widely known that SAVAK got their training from the CIA and the Israeli Mossad during the 1960s. So the tradecraft employed by the Iranian MOIS was excellent.
The MOIS agent stepped into his car with diplomatic plates, and then spent several minutes combing his hair, trimming his fingernails, and checking for specks of food between his teeth using the car’s rearview mirror. Finally, he popped a breath mint in his mouth before starting the car’s engine.
Phil chuckled. This was not the behavior of a man who was afraid of being followed. No, this was the behavior of a man headed to a date. Phil started the engine of his own car and pulled out to follow. He trailed ten car lengths back. Using his hands-free microphone, he radioed in on the DCS Task Group Tall Oak secure network: “Subject in view, and rolling west on East Denny Way. Now crossing Twenty-fifth Avenue. No worries.”
A minute later, Phil heard a tone on his earpiece, indicating that someone had joined the secure “chat.”
Clarence Tang gave his usual “Hul-low there, guys” intro and then said, “I’ve got a situation. Mr. Lo, my former subject and now suspect at the Chinese consulate, just got a so-called secure e-mail asking for a meeting at ‘the usual place’ at noon. Based on his previous movements, I think that means the Main Post Office. Can any of you be there with your badges and credentials before noon?”
Phil chimed in, “I can definitely be there. Let’s say we meet on the roof of the Republic parking garage—the Cobb Garage—on Union Street, at 1140 hours. I think it’s the closest one to the post office.”
“Sounds good. I’ll brief you and show you photos of my two subjects.”
• • •
Clarence was there waiting, as expected, sitting in his silver “High-Speed Pursuit” Honda Hybrid, which was often the butt of jokes at the office.
Phil parked nearby and walked over to the Honda. As he slipped into the passenger seat, he could immediately see that Clarence was agitated.
“This could be it, Phil. A face-to-face between Mr. Lo and his corporate mole with Boeing, an engineer named Robert Chan.”
He flipped open his laptop, keyed in a passphrase, and navigated to a file designated “T.O. Case 121—UCAS Follow-On.”
Clarence continued. “What the Chinese are after is some stealth technology from a UAV that is under development by Boeing.” He deftly clicked the computer’s track pad and opened two street-surveillance photos, side-by-side. Pointing, he said, “This is the inscrutable Mr. Lo, and this is Bob Chan. If we catch them passing data, we can arrest Chan, but Lo is beyond our reach since he has diplomatic immunity.”
“But we can Ping him right out of the country.”
“Right!” Tang replied excitedly. “And I brought two body cams to nail their assets.”
“Perfect.”
Phil was wearing black jeans, a polo shirt, and a tan windbreaker. He put the camera recorder in the jacket’s inside pocket. The camera’s tiny lens and microphone head were then pinned directly through the jacket to the recorder lead. The four needle-sharp pins on the back of the camera head served to both hold the camera firmly in place and pass the video and audio signals to the recorder leads. The lens and microphone head were built into a small enameled Ecology pin, effectively camouflaging it to casual observers.
Clarence did the same with an identical camera through his gray Aéropostale hoodie jacket. He glanced at his wristwatch nervously, and said, “Showtime.”
After stuffing his laptop into a rucksack and locking the car, they headed to the stairs in a trot. Two minutes later, they entered the Seattle Main Post Office (also known as the Midtown Post Office) through separate entrances. After scanning the lobby and the queue at the service counter, Phil took on the role of “indecisive shopper” at the rack of postal service shipping boxes, tote bags, and collectibles. Meanwhile, Clarence got in the long noon-hour line of customers approaching the service counter.
Two minutes later, at 11:57, Mr. Lo arrived. He was wearing polished shoes, dark pants, and a black raincoat. He pulled some junk mail out of a trash receptacle and pretended to study mail-order catalogues.
At exactly noon, Robert Chan walked into the crowded lobby. He walked over to the tall table where Mr. Lo was standing and began picking through the clear acrylic rack of postal forms, eventually grabbing a green-and-white customs declaration form. Meanwhile, Mr. Lo pulled a fat envelope from his pocket and laid it on the table. Chan palmed the envelope and slid it into his oversize iPad man purse. Getting a subtle high sign from Phil, Clarence left the line and walked toward the table in time to see Bob Chan reach into his pocket and pull out a wrapped stick of chewing gum. He laid it on the counter. As soon as Mr. Lo’s hand touched the gum stick, Clarence shouted, “Federal agents—you’re under arrest!” Both he and Phil quickly rushed the two suspects, putting them both in armlocks and shoving their chests into the table. In the scuffle, the stick of gum was flicked to the floor.
After both men were handcuffed, Phil snatched the wrapped piece of gum from the floor. On camera, he unwrapped it, revealing that it contained a miniature SIM card, resting in a rectangular notch cut out of the gum stick.
“Gotcha,” he exclaimed triumphantly.
Lo protested, “I am a member of the People’s Republic of China consular staff. I have a diplomatic passport. You cannot detain me.”
Again on camera, Phil searched Lo’s pockets, stopping when he found his passport. He slowly passed each page of it in front of his body cam. Then he said, “With apologies for the inconvenience from the United States government, you are free to go, Mr. Lo.”
As Phil keyed Lo’s handcuffs open, Clarence added, “But you, Mr. Chan, have an appointment with a federal magistrate.”
Lo made a hasty retreat out the door. Robert Chan whimpered and started to cry.
• • •
The bulging envelope contained fifty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills—a figure that was confirmed in three separate supervised counts at the FBI office, where they took Chan for his initial processing. Phil had no reluctance handing the cash over to the FBI, but then their agents wanted to copy the data from the SIM card. Phil put his foot down, citing Title 10, and said forthrightly that this was a DOD investigation, a DOD arrest, and that because the arrest had been made on federal property (the post office), technically there wasn’t even any need for the FBI to be involved. It didn’t take long for the feebees to relent. They settled for photographs of the SIM card, the partial stick of gum, and the wrappers. But there was still chain-of-custody paperwork to fill out—and it was unusual that the SIM card (with gum wrappers) and cash had different destinations. That, too, caused a little confusion. With the FBI, “following protocol” was an art form, and unusual situations like these ruffled their feathers.