The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.comfollowers. This involves walking or driving, under the guise of aninnocuous cover activity such as a shopping trip, a planned route whichcontains `surveillance traps'. For example, the escalators in manydepartment stores are arranged in a switchback cascade, so from thesecond escalator it is often possible to check the first withoutappearing suspicious. A full anti-surveillance route may have dozens ofsuch surveillance traps and may take many hours to complete. At everyone of the surveillance traps the officer must make a mental note ofeverybody who is behind. Most of them will be innocent shoppers, butamongst them may be surveillance operatives. Ball taught us that inorder to firmly identify surveillance, we must note the same face atleast three times.Surveillance teams try to make themselves difficult to positivelyidentify, in part by using nondescript `grey men' as watchers - not tootall, not too short, unremarkable clothes - so that there is nothingthat draws attention to them in a crowd. The more sophisticatedsurveillance teams like the Russians use tricks like reversibleclothing and disguise, making repeat sightings difficult. In Moscow,strict rules about anti-surveillance drills are followed and `drycleaning'may mean spending a whole day `shopping' with wife and kidsin tow. `Moscow rules' are also used in Iran and in South Africabecause their counter-intelligence services are skilful. In contrast,in most South American countries, anti-surveillance is easy as thewatchers seem to have learnt their trade from Starsky and Hutch andsport leather jackets, large moustaches and dark glasses.Sometimes the only means to communicate with an agent may be by `brushcontact' or a `dead letter box'. A brush contact is a fleeting meetingwith the agent, transferring information or instructions in theprocess. It relies on careful co-ordination ensuring that both partiesarrive at the same place at the same time so that it is possible tocarry out a brush contact even when under surveillance. The followerscannot get too close, otherwise they make themselves too obvious. Thisgives an opportunity to brush an agent in `dead ground', for example adogleg in a corridor or passage. We were taught to watch the agentapproach the dead ground from an observation post, say a table in acaf‚. Having previously timed to the second how long it would take himto reach the dead ground and knowing how long our own trip would be, itwas in theory possible to meet at the correct point, unobserved bysurveillance. In reality, brush contacts are difficult to pull offreliably and we practised them assiduously.Most of the exercises took place in Portsmouth and we took turnsplaying the roles of officer or agent. The `officer' found a suitablebrush-contact site and then, back at the Fort, wrote instructions forthe `agent' on its location. We were usually under surveillance fromteams from MI5, the Portsmouth SB, Customs and Excise, or the armyIntelligence Corps, so we would have to `dry-clean' before attemptingthe brush - sometimes identifying the surveillance, sometimes not. Onone exercise, it was Spencer's turn to play the agent and I carefullyplanned a brush contact with him on the back stairs coming down fromthe public library in Portsmouth town hall. I spotted surveillance onmy way to the library, but calculating that they would not follow meclosely enough on the deserted stairs to see the brush contact, I didnot abort. However, instead of the usual film canister or brownenvelope, Spencer handed me an extravagant ice-cream, complete withpage- 41 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com