We’re not talking about the story on the front of a magazine. We’re talking tradecraft. Going off the surveillance grid requires more than merely ditching electronics and avoiding security cameras. In my hypothetical sojourn off the grid, I’m still a living body, a mass that takes up space, visible to the naked eye. I never know when someone might ask a question, innocent of otherwise. If I want my reason for “being there” to remain off-grid, I’ll need a cover story (some intelligence services call an elaborate cover story a “legend”).
A cover story is a lie; but to be a good cover story, it has to be a good lie; and a good lie is always 95 percent true.
Milo was two doors down from Felix. Milo and Deangela sat on the bed. Felix perched on the edge of a wobbly wishbone chair made from some material that didn’t occur in nature.
“I need my shots to stay here?” Milo grumbled.
“You don’t need to be here,” Deangela said. “I appreciate it, but you don’t have to do this.”
Felix looked back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match.
“Horse shit, no offense. I’ve been in that town since yesterday. It’s eighty percent white, fifteen percent Hispanic. Less than five percent black. You’ll stick out like a diamond in a goat’s ass.”
“Got Felix.”
“Yeah, a man with half an ear, slender in a county where eighty percent of adults are overweight.”
“As opposed to an octogenarian.”
“Old people are invisible. No one wants to notice us. We remind ’em they’re gonna die. And three’s better than two.”
“Okay.” She put her hands up. “What’s a good contact strategy?”
“What you’re already thinking. Long surveillance somewhere he’s bound to be. Like work. Monitor a scanner. How long’s he been on the force?”
“More’n eight years,” Felix answered.
“Keep one of us on his place,” suggested Milo, “another on the motor pool, one of us floating. Pick him up, put on a front-and-rear leapfrog. You disabled your dome lights?”
“Not yet,” Deangela answered. “We will.”
“Recorders?”
“In my trunk. Only got two.”
“Get one for Mr. Sharpe.”
“Felix, please.”
“Voice activated, hands free, Felix. Make a note of everywhere he stops and everyone he sees. Ever done surveillance?” Felix hesitated. “Yes or no.”
“Yes.”
Deangela snapped a look at Felix.
“Care to elaborate?” Milo asked.
“No.”
“Fair enough,” Milo responded. “So, you know you need a cover.”
“And a cover within a cover,” said Felix.
“Dedes? What’s yours? . . . Deangela, hello. What’s your cover?”
Deangela unfixed her gaze from Felix and looked back at Milo.
“Who’s gonna carry the scanner? It’s in my luggage.”
“Then you carry it,” replied Milo. “So, your cover?”
“Wildlife photography. Even brought my portfolio.”
“You’re a badass. Felix?”
“Retiring. Looking for a cheap place to relocate.”
“Okay, Felix, you just said ‘cover within a cover.’ Tells me your experience isn’t domestic. You were with intelligence or the military . . . or both. Say no more.”
excerpt from New Moons and Sabbaths
In the story, Deangela is a wildlife photographer (in addition to being an investigator). Later in the story:
She sat very still for around five minutes, then backtracked toward the car. She was thinking she should’ve listened to Milo, when the spotlight hit her.
“Police,” a woman’s voice on a loudspeaker announced. “Stay where you are.”
“Fuck,” she whispered. She held out her hands to avoid being shot.
*
“What were you doin’ down there at night?”
She sat in the back seat of an Interceptor. A female patrolman was behind the wheel. The male sergeant twisted in the passenger seat to ask questions through the cage.
“Photography.”
“At night?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” Show deference to the rank. “I do low-light photography. Of wildlife. I have my portfolio in my car over by River Street Bridge.”
“Your driver’s license says you’re from North Carolina. They don’t have wildlife in North Carolina?” The female watched Deangela’s reactions in the rear-view mirror.
“Yes, sir, but I’m here for the Sand Hill Crane nests. This county has a lot, especially in Irish Hills. Skegum’s a pit stop. Then I’m headed to the U.P. My family has a fishing camp there.”
Good cover stories are ninety percent true: Milo.
“You’re in the river bed. Any cranes there.”
“No, sir. I saw a fox and tried to follow it.”
“You were out at night, patrolling for foxes?”
“No, sir. I just had dinner at Taste of Italy. I was headed back when I saw the fox. Target of opportunity. If we can go to my car, I’ll show you my portfolio, Sergeant. I’ve won prizes.”
“Go ahead,” he said to the driver.
“White Santa Fe.” She pointed up the street. “It’s a rental.”
They pulled in behind the Santa Fe, headlights on. The female looked over Deangela’s shoulder while Deangela popped the hatch and rummaged for the portfolio. The cops hoped she was on the up and up. They really didn’t want the paperwork.
“Right here,” she said, handing them a thick album.
They paged slowly through it in the headlights.
“These are really good,” said the woman.
“They actually are,” he agreed. His name tag: Baer, R.
“Here’s my receipt from supper,” Deangela said, holding it out.
The woman looked at it and handed it back.
“How was it?” Her name tag: Chester, R.
“Owned by your friends or family?” Deangela asked.
“No,” both cops answered at once.
“Not great, then.”
“Place is nasty,” Chester, R. agreed. “Try Dusty’s next time. Best burgers in town.”
Sergeant Baer pulled Deangela’s cameras out of the Interceptor and handed them back to her with her driver’s license and her pepper spray.
“Good luck with the cranes. Where in the U.P.? Your family’s camp?”
“Out near Tahquamenon Falls.”
“Nice. Stay outa trouble, ’kay?”
“Yes, sir.” She offered her hand to each of them. Then they left.
“Fuuuuck,” she whispered.
Her family actually does have a camp in the Upper Peninsula (which the reader knows). What was she actually doing? Window peeping a suspect (who was himself a cop).
Cover story, with some ad hoc elaboration. You get the picture.
A cover within a cover is the fallback story if my original cover breaks down. I was doing something bad (but not what I was really doing). I was going to pick up a dead drop (explained in a future post, and my cover story was walking back home from the library, and needed to sit down. The questioner—let’s say police—says that the library is closed (oops). What were you really doing and why did you lie? Okay, okay, some woman named Macie told me she’d meet me here to sell me some X.
The library cover story failed because I didn’t think it through or research. Worse yet, I should have actually gone to the library. A good cover story is 95 Percent true. The best is 99 percent true.
If we’re having a planning meeting, we’d better have a cover story. If someone rolls in on the meeting, they should see a card game or a football playoff with beer and tacos.
All hypothetical
Ta ta.
NEXT TIME: Non-technical communications—echelons, abort signals, far signals, bona fides