The Case Officer (23 page)

Two members of the team were
poised to pick up GUNSHY, Collette, and her mother, and follow them all the way
to Trouville on the Normandy coast. The rest of the team were instructed to
keep the two buildings under constant observation and notify the entry team
inside—Santos and MacMurphy—of any unusual activities, the presence of police,
anyone at all entering the building, or the sudden return of Collette and her
mother, any of which might jeopardize the operation.

Each member of the foot
surveillance and stakeout team was equipped with an almost invisible earphone
and tiny lapel microphone to keep them in constant communication with one
another, the surveillance vehicles, and the entry team.

Every member of the team knew
instantly when GUNSHY and the two women exited through the front door of the
apartment building and headed up the street with their luggage.

“Here they come,” said MacMurphy.
He shook his head as he watched them approach GUNSHY’s vehicle. “Damn! He’s rented
a Benz! Look at that! François is running true to form. He’s got a Benz.
Sonofabitch loves to spend my money. The green eyeshade people are going to
have another conniption fit when they see his accounting. Sometimes I think he
does it just to annoy me. I
know
he does it just to annoy me! Look at
the grin on his face. He knows we’re watching. Son of a bitch!”

Culler laughed at Mac’s
exasperation. His amusement was contagious, and now the situation tickled Mac,
too, and he joined in the laughter, shaking his head in disbelief. They waited until
François and the two women had loaded their things in the trunk of the Mercedes
and had driven out of the area, then they waited a few minutes more to be sure.
When nobody returned for a forgotten suitcase or last minute
“I-should’ve-packed…,” Culler and Mac left the café.

Collette appeared to have bloomed
under François’s attentions. She had paid extra attention to her hair and
makeup today. It was going to be a big weekend for her. “The so-called ‘old
maid’ doesn’t look too bad,” Santos observed as they headed down into the
parking garage to retrieve their equipment. “Not bad at all, in fact…”

“Not bad for an ugly cuss like
you, Culler, but think about poor François and what he’s used to. Everything’s
relative, you know. And she was all gussied up too. Think what she’ll look like
in the morning, without makeup and her hair all a mess. François is definitely
lowering his standards for the sake of the Agency. I guess I shouldn’t begrudge
him the Benz after all. We may have to give him a Medal of Honor for service
above and beyond…”

Culler snorted derisively,
“You’re probably right. If that guy is half of what he’s reputed to be, he’s
certainly not hurting. And I suspect he’s going to make that little lady very,
very happy tonight.”

“Bank on it, ol’ buddy! She’s
going to think she died and went to heaven tonight.
Mon ami
François
Leverrier will see to that....”

Chapter Fifty-Nine

C
uller Santos easily carried the
two heavy suitcases. MacMurphy carried the other, lighter bag. Culler said he
wanted the two heavy bags “to balance himself.” He was that kind of guy.

They entered the apartment
building and quickly proceeded up the stairs to the old maid’s apartment on the
fifth floor. Culler was puffing heavily as they reached the top. “Don’t they
have any elevators in these buildings?” he complained.

MacMurphy inserted the key Culler
had made from François’s clay impression into the lock. At first the key
wouldn’t turn. Mac sucked air through his teeth in frustration.

Culler took over and talked to
the stubborn lock: “C’mon, baby…” He kept his voice at a barely audible level. He
jiggled the key and pushed it in and out, smoothing some of the burrs. Culler
held his breath. Eventually the troublesome key turned in the lock, and the
door swung open. They were in…

“Sure as hell beats picking the
lock,” said Santos appreciatively. “Thank GUNSHY one more time for me, will
you?”

“You bet.” MacMurphy
double-bolted the door and stood by the peephole to provide a last ring of
defense from intrusion while Culler Santos set to work methodically. They were
all business now.

Culler opened one of the
suitcases and took out a digital flash camera. He took a sequence of shots of
the contiguous wall, viewed them, and set the camera back into the case.
Everything would be replaced exactly as shown in the photos when they were
through.

Now Santos set about accessing
the area of the wall he needed to get to. First he unplugged both lamps and
silently signaled Mac to help. The two of them moved the couch and two end
tables away from the wall, being careful not to disturb anything on the tables
or any of the small pillows on the couch. Next he removed a drop-cloth from the
open suitcase and spread it out on the floor along the wall behind the couch.
Using a tape, he measured a distance of three meters from the back wall and put
a small piece of black electrician’s tape on the top of the baseboard.

He turned to MacMurphy and spoke
quietly. “If we go in directly behind the baseboard at this point, we will come
out about two feet above the baseboard near the center of Huang’s office.
That’s because of the juxtaposition of the buildings. The land slopes down to
the Seine, so the embassy building is lower than we are. That’s fine for audio
quality, and low enough not to have the pinhole at eye level, no matter whether
people are sitting or standing. But I’d like to move over a couple of feet to
the rear to be closer to this outlet, so I can tap into the AC power easier.
Okay?”

“No problem. You’re the tech.
Sounds good to me. The less we have to disturb, the better off we are.”

“Absolutely… And I’m really glad
we don’t have to go through that old wallpaper. I hate working with wallpaper;
restoration can be a bitch. This baseboard looks like it’ll come off easily.”

Santos opened the other two
suitcases and laid the tools out on the floor. One held the parts of the drill,
bits, and various other tools nestled into gray Styrofoam pockets. The other
held the parts of the thickness gauge, more tools, and a surgeon’s green
trousers and smock.

He donned the clothes, which
covered him from ankle to throat, and immediately went to work gently and
quietly loosening a four-foot long piece of baseboard under the electrical
outlet, using a crowbar and rubber mallet.

Once the baseboard was removed,
he assembled the thickness gauge—a device that looked like a pistol with a long
12-inch aluminum barrel attached by a cord to a calculator-like instrument—and
proceeded to take readings of the wall’s thickness at the spot he had selected
to drill.

He placed the tip of the barrel
against the wall and held the trigger down until the numbers of the calculator
display stopped ticking up. It read “107.” He did this three more times, and
each time the display read either “106” or “107.”

“Close enough for government work,”
whispered Santos while consulting a chart. “Christ, the damn wall is 74
centimeters thick! That’s almost 30 inches.”

“Seems about right,” said
MacMurphy softly, “considering there are two buildings.”

“Never fear,” said Santos as he
set aside the thickness gauge and began assembling the drill. “This is not like
the old backscatter gauge, which was hit or miss at best, and you had to keep
taking readings until you were within an inch or so of the end. This gauge
gives it to you one time, and believe me it’s accurate to within a centimeter.
It’s sure reduced the number of breakthroughs.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,
because I sure as hell don’t want a breakthrough on this job. We can’t run
around to the other side to plug up our hole in
this
op!”

“Never fear, never fear.” Santos
was deftly assembling his drill like a Marine with an M-16. “Now, wait till you
hear this.” Culler tightened a two-inch diameter core bit on the drill and
pressed it against the wall. The drill gave out a high-pitched whine similar to
a dentist’s drill, and the bit disappeared into the wall a full four inches.

“Jesus H Christ!” whispered
MacMurphy. “That thing eats into the concrete like its cardboard.”

“Thought you’d like it,” Santos
snapped off a four-inch core and removed it from the drill bit. He set it
carefully on the drop-cloth beside him. Not a speck of dust would go anywhere
other than on that cloth. “We’ll be through in no time at all.”

Suddenly a subdued voice spoke in
their earphones. It was a member of the surveillance team. “Someone, a woman,
is entering the building.” Both men stopped what they were doing…and waited…and
listened. MacMurphy went to the door and put his eye to the peephole. They did
not want anyone knocking on the door, nor could they afford for some person
unknown to them to enter the apartment with a key. For that matter, they didn’t
even want any neighbor to hear any sounds from within the apartment. The
apartment was supposed to be empty. Pausing, listening, they waited.

When several minutes had elapsed
with no indication that anyone was outside the apartment door or about to
enter, the two men exhaled and work resumed. Whoever had entered the building,
whether a neighbor or a visitor to a neighbor, had apparently entered another
apartment on a lower floor. They breathed a sigh of relief, but tension
remained high, their senses keen to any possible disturbance.

Again, some seven minutes later,
the scenario repeated itself. A surveillance team member signaled an entry into
the building—a man this time—and all drilling work stopped. Mac went to the
door, the men waited watchfully, and when nothing further transpired after
several minutes, they resumed work with relief. 

“We’ll be through in no time at
all.” Santos had seven four-inch long, two-inch diameter cores laid out on the
cloth next to him. He whispered, “Now we switch to a 3/8” bit for the next few
inches,”

He screwed six-inch sections of
the 3/8” tubes onto the drill. He stopped when he had a thirty-inch long
section fitted to the drill. He waved it around like a light saber and turned
to MacMurphy with a smile, “That way the hole won’t be so big if we break
through.”

Mac grimaced.

“Nah, you know better than that.
We’re in a full 28 inches with the two-inch bit. That’ll give us plenty of room
to conceal the transmitter, switch, and masking device.” He pointed to what
looked like a foot-long sausage of connected electrical equipment on the floor
beside him.

MacMurphy knew that the
transmitter had an output of less than half a watt of power but could easily be
picked up with the proper receiving equipment within a distance of about 200 to
300 meters; beyond that there would be nothing. It was switched, which meant it
could be turned on and off remotely from the LP, and masked, which meant it
would sound like static to anyone happening upon the transmitting frequency—a
decoder connected to the receiver in the LP apartment would change the static
back into clear audio.

“Now I’m going to mark this bit
so I can stop within a half inch of the end.” Culler marked a spot on the bit
near the drill end with a pen and circled the spot with a piece of electrical
tape. “That’ll give us plenty of room for the dick-mike to seat snugly.” He
pointed to an inch-long penis-shaped microphone attached to the end of the transmitter
sausage by a thin speaker wire.

Santos concentrated on drilling
the final few critical centimeters with the 3/8” core bit. He was very careful,
exceedingly precise, his whole concentration focused on the task at hand, and
though he didn’t betray any nervousness with his actions, the beads of sweat on
his brow belied his outwardly calm composure.

Mac, despite his faith in the
equipment and in Santos, was sweating so badly that his scalp itched. He didn’t
blink at all, just stared bug-eyed at the drilling operation, willing Culler to
succeed and not break through the wall.

Culler extracted the drill and
carefully snapped off the last core deep in the hole with a long, thin core
probe. When he pulled the last 1-1/2” long, 3/8” core from the hole, he held it
up to Mac and whispered, “
La voilà
!” The end of the concrete core showed
traces of plaster from the inner wall.

Normally, the last half-inch
long, pinhole-sized air passage was drilled with a device called a “grit
drill.” The grit drill actually eroded the material in front of it by forcing
carbon grit out of a tiny hole at the end of a long, rigid hose attached to a
pump. And when the erosion process was complete and resistance stopped as the
grit exited through the other side of the wall, it made a “poof” sound, and the
pump shut itself off. Hence the audio techs affectionately called the drill the
“poofer.”

But Culler Santos was a tech of
the old school, and he didn’t like the poofer. He thought the equipment was
rather cumbersome and made too much noise—much like a small air pump—for his
taste. So he relied upon the old “pin-vice.”

The pin-vice consisted of an
inch-long pinhead-sized drill bit attached to a long, 3/8” probe that looked
like a gun-cleaning rod. The probe was inserted into the drill hole, and the
tech manually turned the handle at the end. It took a little longer, but there
was no noise and very little chance of a slip-up. And drilling would be easy
through the soft plaster at the end of the hole.