The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comOne such was PERFECT PASSENGER, which was intended to take the lessonslearnt in PERFECT STRANGER a step further and test our ability tocultivate a target. Often MI6 use the confines of public transport -especially aeroplanes - to cultivate a target, because he or she cannotescape. In this exercise we were told that MI6 had intelligence that aSouth African diplomat, who was vulnerable because of financialproblems, was returning from Portsmouth to London one Friday evening bytrain. Our assignment was to take the same train, find him amongst theother passengers, engage him in conversation and cultivate him so thathe would agree to have a drink on arrival at Waterloo station. Ballshowed us a surveillance shot of our target, but our only otherinformation was that he had radical pro-apartheid views and that healways carried The Economist, which would help us identify him in thecrowded train.I was lucky and found my target alone in a compartment. The `SouthAfrican diplomat' was easy-going and affable, and I arranged a followupdrink at Waterloo without problem. For Barking the exercise was lessstraightforward. He found his target without much difficulty andengaged him in conversation. Talk soon turned to apartheid politicswhen Barking, posing as a politics student, `discovered' that the roleplayerwas a South African diplomat. Barking decided that the best wayto persuade the target to come for a drink was to appear amenable andpolitically like-minded so he pretended to be a racist apartheidapologist. Soon the two were enthusiastically discussing the merits ofracially segregated education, the unacceptability of mixed marriagesand the impossibility of allowing non-whites to vote. Concentrating onthe assignment and enjoying the sympathetic response his extremistviews were eliciting from the play-acting South African, Barking paidlittle attention when two other men sporting beards and tweed jacketsentered the compartment, and didn't notice that his conversationagitated them. Eventually the two men, left-wing politics lecturers atPortsmouth Polytechnic, could no longer stomach Barking's racistbluster and they furiously joined in the argument. Unfortunately,Barking, mindful of the `party' a few weeks earlier, presumed that theywere MI5 role-players sent to see how he would handle the situation andgrade his performance. He refused to back down and the exercisedegenerated from a quiet attempt to gain the supposed diplomat'sconfidence into a four-way shouting match that ended only when thetrain arrived at Waterloo.We had a busy schedule down at the Fort the following fortnightlearning the `tradecraft' of spying. Tradecraft is the term used todescribe the practical skills that enable a spy to meet or communicatewith an agent without arousing the suspicion of the counterintelligenceopposition. It covers such skills as surveillance,antisurveillance, counter-surveillance, brush contacts and loading andclearing dead letter boxes. All require guile, cunning, a degree ofacting ability, but most of all, careful planning and preparation.An intelligence officer cannot go to a clandestine meeting with aninformer without first ensuring that he is not being followed bycounter-surveillance; but he must not make it obvious that he islooking out for watchers. Nervous glances over the shoulder or frequentstops to tie shoelaces would clearly signal to the surveillance thatthe target was up to mischief. The skill in anti-surveillance istherefore to appear an innocent diplomat, yet still identify anypage- 40 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com