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strict  Moscow rules of engagement.
Helen smiled radiantly, pleased by the first unqualified
praise she d received in weeks.
We moved on to the next officer, who had ignored the rules
of engagement and was well aware of it. The man s name was
 Darrell, one of the brightest of Soviet-East European Divi-
sion s pipeliners. In fact, Darrell had been slated for a Moscow
assignment early in his training process.
But I was disturbed by the report on his actions that night.
One of the OTS surveillance specialists,  Jerry, who had been
team leader on the exercise, had taken me aside just before the
debrief.  The guy really
THE MASTER OF DISGUISE / 311
became provocative between Washington Circle and Connecti-
cut Avenue, Jerry had complained.  Then he doubled back
toward the GW campus through a building in his DAGGER
rig in order to make his next timing point.
Jerry s concerns were valid. That night s modified Moscow
rules were a refined version of the specialized disguise mater-
ials employed in the CLOAK procedure, the new technique
we d code-named  DAGGER.
The DAGGER technique is still classified, so I cannot describe
it in detail. But I can say that the disguise is so effective, it can
be successfully employed while maintaining the flow of normal
street travel.
Darrell knew this; we all did. Yet he had chosen to break the
rules. Why? He already had his coveted Moscow assignment.
Was his competitive drive too strong to control?
I studied Jerry s handwritten surveillance notes, then turned
to Darrell, a dark-eyed, calm, and self-assured man who looked
younger than thirty-one.
Maybe tonight s breach was an aberration. Or perhaps he
hadn t fully understood the rules of the exercise. I handed the
report to the Soviet-East European control officer,  Martin.
 Darrell, Martin said, looking him directly in the eye,
searching for any sign of deceit,  Jerry saw you duck into a
building when you doubled back up L Street and then into
that alley near the Washingtonian office. That was against the
exercise parameters. Why did you do it?
Darrell hardly blinked.  I didn t. Once I lost surveillance, I
just kept moving toward Connecticut until I hit my timing
point and changed into the DAGGER rig.
 We saw you, Jerry said harshly.
312 / ANTONIO J. MENDEZWITH MALCOLM MCCONNELL
 If you ran out of time, Martin said, trying to control the
palpable animosity building around the table,  just admit it,
and we ll repeat the exercise another night.
Darrell coolly looked each of us in the face before speaking,
then returned his gaze to Jerry.  You re wrong.
He s trying to  case officer us, I thought. Lying was bad
enough. But trying to outwit us through this transparent de-
ception with his colleagues was a worse offense. Suddenly, I
remembered that painful morning in 1967 when Lynn, my
Flaps and Seals instructor, had caught me in my lie about using
the forbidden French opening to unseal her test envelopes.
Then, I had been humiliated and condemned to clean her lab
for a week, but I had also learned a valuable lesson about
mutual honesty among colleagues in this strange business.
 Okay, Martin said flatly to Darrell, then turned to the next
trainee. Perhaps the embarrassment we all felt for Darrell
would shame him into admitting his deceit. But he sat serenely
at the table and even managed to eat a slice of pizza as if
nothing had happened.
Jerry looked at me quizzically, but read my expression cor-
rectly. I would consult with Soviet-East European management
about this situation later, an unpleasant but necessary obliga-
tion.
But I didn t have to make a special trip to give my report.
Mary Peters, the Moscow case officer who had been arrested
by the Seventh Chief Directorate and PNG d from the Soviet
Union following TRINITY s roll-up, had been overseeing
Darrell and other pipeliners in their advanced tradecraft. She
came to see me to voice her own concerns.
 We re getting some unusual reports on Darrell, Mary
confided.  Nothing earth-shaking, but still disturbing.
 The only definite thing I have is a lie he told last week in
the after-
THE MASTER OF DISGUISE / 313
action session, I explained.  But the guy just stuck by the lie,
even when Martin nailed him with it. I don t like that, Mary.
 Neither do I, she agreed.
It didn t take long for cocky Darrell to step down from his
high horse. As all the older, more experienced case officers
recognized, the pressure and stress of this intense training, as
well as the unnerving prospect of a pending assignment to the
big league of a Soviet bloc station, had caused the young
pipeliner to falter in his basic integrity. When he was again
confronted with his performance in rigorous tradecraft exer-
cises, Darrell came clean and asked to be given another chance.
He had learned a painful but precious lesson: Espionage
was an extremely stressful business, a profession that combined
elements of being a street cop with those of a salesman working
on commission. In Darrell s case, his progress through the
pipeline was somewhat slowed, and he was given a couple of
extra months to prepare himself for the field. This grace period
allowed him to mature enough to handle the stress under
which he had almost buckled that rainy November night.
Blue Ridge Mountains, May 28, 1986 " I stood on the rutted track
between the house and the cabin in a natural alcove formed
by black locust trees whose branches were overgrown with
wild climbing roses and honeysuckle vines. The fragrance was
almost overwhelming. I had come here this bright spring Sat-
urday morning just after sunrise to pick a bouquet of wild
flowers from our forty acres to be placed on the altar of St.
Luke s Episcopal Church at Karen s memorial service.
Suddenly, I sensed that I was not alone, that there was some
intangible presence surrounding me in the trees and vines. As
I stood there
314 / ANTONIO J. MENDEZWITH MALCOLM MCCONNELL
motionless and listened, all my senses sharpened. Then I
walked slowly back toward the house, taking measured
steps I didn t want to look as if I was fleeing that unknown
observer.
Almost as quickly as the feeling had come it disappeared.
Grasping the bouquet, I reflected on the series of near-mys-
tical events that had occurred during the week since Karen s
death. I had visited that wooded alcove several times and had
always been aware of that inexplicable presence. The night
before, I had invited my son Toby, and his sister Amanda, to
join me there. Toby had returned from school in Chicago two
days earlier and Amanda had just arrived from Seattle. Neither
had been with Karen in her final days.
Karen had been diagnosed with lung cancer in January and
received radiation treatments at Johns Hopkins Hospital until
April, when she appeared to be in remission. Her sudden re-
lapse and death had come so unexpectedly that there had not
been time for the two oldest kids to return home. But I had
brought Ian, our youngest, from Washington to be with Karen
the day she died. The trauma of her disease and death had left
all of us reeling with grief.
On Karen s fortieth birthday, I had surprised her with a hot-
air balloon flight over our valley, something she had wanted
to experience for years. This small extravagance hardly com-
pensated for countless missed birthdays and anniversaries,
when professional assignments had pulled me away from her
and the children. When I had been in the mountains of Laos,
on extended duty in South Asia, or in the Soviet bloc, I had
often thought of our life together in this Blue Ridge retreat
after retirement, when I would finally have the chance to paint
full time, which had been one of our naive dreams as a young
couple in Denver.
Two years after her fortieth birthday, when she could hardly
bear the pain of her cancer, Karen s memory of that balloon
flight lifted her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]