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a half dozen officers seated around the cavernous office on the
overstuffed brown leather furniture, which could only be found
in the executive suite of a supergrade officer.
His manner made me acutely aware of the fact that I was
just a lowly disguise officer who could hardly be expected to
drive a hard bargain with such an Agency icon. Yet when I d
heard of his pending operation, I had suggested my disguise
team work with Darth s section on equal footing. It was my
first foray into big-league Pinball; the opportunity had been
there, and I d seized it.
A quick scan of the room confirmed that I was not a member
of their fraternity. I looked into the hard eyes of some of the
best electronics experts and second-story men in the business.
I recognized the Chief of the Surreptitious Entry Unit and his
deputy, whose expertise involved swiftly defeating any lock
or safe known to man. Among the other burly men, I identified
several crack audio officers, renowned for operations in which
they d slipped over high walls or scaled icy rooftops in the
Soviet bloc under cover of darkness to penetrate target build-
ings. They had sometimes remained inside for days, while they
installed hidden microphones and transmitters designed to
eavesdrop undetected for years.
Unknown to the public, the men in this room were the
glamour boys of OTS. Their equipment was beyond state-of-
the-art in terms of electronic miniaturization and power-source
duration. They could plant a bug that hopped across a range
of frequencies almost impossible to detect, yet consumed less
power than a quartz watch. Their esprit de
THE MASTER OF DISGUISE / 189
corps and autonomy were legendary. They earned promotions
rapidly arid routinely received commendations.
I opened my briefcase and removed an 8 X 10 photograph
of myself in a new generation of the GAMBIT disguise that
could easily transform any of them into whatever persona was
required for this operation. I had used this disguise to quickly
change into a bazaar wallah, right down to the kurta and the
soiled white turban. I wore this rig a couple of times in the
field, I said, tailing and photographing a KGB officer who
was trying to pitch a code clerk from a friendly embassy. I
think you ll agree I don t look like your typical American.
The hardened audio officers seemed impressed.
Imagine that you re wearing one of these in the cab of a
repair van that the landlord waves through the front gate of
the embassy compound, I said, then turned to Darth
Schraider. Broad daylight presents no problem.
I sensed that the atmosphere of skepticism was gradually
changing to one of credibility and rapt attention.
We can procure and prepare all the materials you ll need,
and, if you have the resources, we can use the best consultants,
I told Schraider. But I ll ultimately want my most experienced
disguise officer on site with the team. And he has to be pre-
pared to go into the target if necessary to maintain the integrity
of the materials, especially in the monsoon with no air condi-
tioning. I was imposing an unprecedented condition. Darth s
people operated alone. But they all recognized that my recom-
mendation provided the operation with added insurance. We
can get to work right away ordering custom materials and
making the disguises and have at least three of your officers
ready to travel by Friday. I smiled benevolently at the audio
boys, then looked back at Darth
190 / ANTONIO J. MENDEZWITH MALCOLM MCCONNELL
with what I hoped was youthful innocence. I assume, sir, that
you have the budget to make all this happen.
Ten minutes later, I strolled into the office of my boss, Tim,
on the second floor of the Central Building. I just got another
fifty thousand dollars for disguise development, I said, trying
to keep a straight face. Tim heard my words, but their meaning
did not immediately register. How could I make a simple
verbal request, not supported by countless memos and endless
meetings, and score fifty grand? In my head, I heard the big
Pinball board clank and chime I was learning to play the
game.
Two weeks after the meeting in Schraider s office, his audio
penetration team, accompanied by one of my best disguise
officers and the local landlord, entered the Communist embassy
compound early on a steamy monsoon Sunday morning. They
came out three days later. The devices they planted would
continue to transmit valuable intelligence for years to come.
Headquarters, April 1976 " By the mid-1970s, the serio-comic
confrontations between Bull and the technical gurus at
Headquarters had reached epic dimensions. But the dynamics
of conflict between the case officers in the stressful world of
field HUMINT and the technical experts in the sterile laborat-
ory or workshop would soon give way to a system of demand
and supply that improved the performance of both sides.
Through bold looting forays back in Washington that Bull and
his like-minded, workhorse chiefs of station conducted, a more
flexible, cooperative relationship between OTS and the field
eventually developed.
The new watchwords were no longer operations first or
can do. Instead, the key question was, Is this operation
worth the expense in both money and technical expertise?
OTS officers were trained to ask: What is the operational
goal?
THE MASTER OF DISGUISE / 191
When challenged to justify the need for his often outrageous
technical demands, for example, Bull would produce elegantly
formal request memoranda, with all the proper operational
and bureaucratic bows neatly tied. These requests evolved into
a system to justify not only the technical support but the field
operation itself within the larger scheme of Agency programs.
Ironically, it was a traditional Agency case officer like Bull
Monahan who would help transform high-stakes Pinball into
a mini-revolution in the Clandestine Service, opening the path
for more programmatic thinking. The old boy system was
replaced by a more level playing field, and we began to plan
ahead.
This shift was fabulous for my business. Bull Monahan, a
near-genius brimming with ideas, loved the world of disguise.
We reached a tacit understanding that he would keep applying
the pressure on OTS for improved disguise technology. In turn,
I would discreetly keep him informed of any progress we made
on promising new technologies that he might include in his
request for field support.
To set this process in motion, I arranged a meeting between
Bull, the ultimate user of the most innovative disguises, and
Jerome Calloway, the ultimate source.
Burbank, California, May 1976 " Bull was straining to remain
still in the makeup chair, while I did my best to finish applying
the delicate FINESSE material on his left cheek. Always impa-
tient, Bull insisted on talking to Jerome, who was poised
nearby, seated backward astride a tall lab chair. We had been
working for almost an hour in Jerome s private makeup studio
in the three-car garage of his home.
Jerome leaned forward, his hairy forearms across the back
of the chair, holding a smoldering Salem between the tar-
stained thumb and forefinger of his left hand. The brilliant
southern California spring
192 / ANTONIO J. MENDEZWITH MALCOLM MCCONNELL
sunshine flooded Jerome s lush garden outside the open garage
doors.
This is the material Jerome began using a while back for
these subtle adaptations, I explained to Bull. He d forgotten
about it till I told him the idea in your last tasking cable. Then
he found the stuff in a cigar box up on that shelf.
Bull s restless mind had hatched yet another audacious
concept: We did not realize it at the time, but he was upping
the ante on the FINESSE materials and would help lead us to
another, more effective breakthrough, which would later be
code-named DAGGER.
Jerome took the cigar box from his workbench and held up
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