172 AMERICAN SPYtoday’s CIA, a case officer can instantly take and edit digital photos and
can case sites from her/his phone or laptop, thanks to Google Earth.
The internet also plays a role in modern agent communications, and
not always in a good way. Beginning in 2010, an entire CIA agent network
inside China was compromised because of reliance on a “secure” internet-
based communications network.^2 Old-school chalk mark signals and dead
drops may be cumbersome, but they are secure, just as paper voting ballots
are more secure than hackable digital voting systems.
Are denied area operations more efficient now? Without a doubt.
More secure? Not likely. More fun? Hard to imagine.
Surveillance in Belgrade was generally easier to detect than what we faced
during SE/IO training, since Yugoslavia had limited resources to devote to
monitoring suspect American spies. Belgrade was not Moscow, where the
KGB could easily blanket a foreign spy with a near-invisible surveillance
network. In the land of the South Slavs, surveillance typically consisted of one
or two small, white Yugos or Ladas, driven by the obligatory pair of burly
thugs wearing dark leather jackets, even in summer. Both the car and its occu-
pants smoked like grease fires, and in the winter as much smoke poured out
of the car’s cracked windows as from the tailpipe. In marked contrast to typi-
cally aggressive male drivers in Yugoslavia, those on a surveillance detail did
not t ailgate, flip off, or sideswipe their “rabbits” (those they were following).
Rather, exhibiting very un-Balkan restraint, the surveillance goons would
hang back a few courteous car lengths, scrupulously obey the speed limit,
and in the process make themselves as conspicuous as a Boris Badenov
balloon sporting an erection in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Good case officers will always adapt or modify traditional tradecraft
practices to their particular operating environment. Prior to meeting
HITCH in Belgrade, for example, I would always take my customary
“black piss” toward the end of my three-hour SDR. This was my informal
but dependable barometer of whether or not I was black. Taking a leak
on the street is not the type of thing a (sober) guy can do if he thinks he is
being watched. They didn’t cover “black pisses” in CIA training, but they
probably should.
One ancillary benefit of perfecting surveillance detection skills: as long
as I live, I’ll never not be aware of whether or not I am being followed. It is
now instinctual and almost as involuntary as breathing.