No Spring Break In Tijuana After All

Good news all the way around regarding Marcel and the litany of ‘What could have happeneds.’ He got an emergency call from his boss, got on the red eye, arrived on the East Coast at 5:00 EST, went straight to the office and has been living the corporate grind, unshowered, ever since.

I did manage to carve out a few minutes of his time for our chat. I’ll be expecting word on whether he’s found me suitable opportunity sometime next week.

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...

Call Waiting

If there’s one thing that gets my head, and heart, racing, it’s when someone misses a meeting. Mother always taught me, if you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late.

Generally, for face to face meetings, I’ll arrive at the specified location much earlier than that to check for surveillance and to make sure my escape routes are mapped out. For internet meet-ups or phone calls, other than making sure you’re on a secure line, there’s nothing much more to do than sit and wait for your contact to arrive.

Now that my Bulgarian Operation has, for the most part, been wrapped up, I’m looking for another target on which to focus my skill set. I’ve done a good job of establishing my corporate cover. I’ve gained trust, built relationships and delivered results consistent, exceptional results to all of my corporate business partners. Because of this success, I may have the ability to gather more intelligence in other parts of the bank.

With this perspective, I was awaiting a phone call last night from one of Mother’s people who may have a way to interject me into their operation. We had met in person previously, but with Marcel currently residing on the Left Coast, we struggled through time zone differences to set up a contact time: 21:00 EST.

By 21:09 a myriad of what-ifs were running through my mind. What if he couldn’t get away from his corporate responsibilities? What if he couldn’t find a secure line? What if, unlikely as it may be, he forgot? What if he was tied to a metal chair in the basement of a Tijuana flat, bleeding, hoping the power goes out so the electrodes will stop while his captors repeatedly ask who he was meeting and what it was about?

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...

Thirty Minutes Or It's Free

Remember maintenance guy ploy? Well, it works for deliveries as well.

Upon returning home from work, I received a message instructing me to make a delivery to a local contact. My parcels weren’t all too exciting. I had two thumb drives containing dossiers on people of interest. But, I still had to figure out a way to bring the information without attracting the slightest amount of suspicion.

I made a sandwich, wrapped it in waxed paper, like what you’d get in deli, and put one of my Coke Zero’s in a paper bag. I put on some ratty jeans, an old t-shirt and a baseball cap. Got in my truck, opened the windows, which was finally possible as it was finally above sixty degrees today in Delaware, and blasted some ungodly rock-pop music from the first painful radio station I found via the scan button.

To anyone who may have casually watched me deliver the paper bag, I would have looked just like they would have expected a delivery person to. If someone actually stopped me, they would have needed to look inside the sandwich to find my data, as I had covered the thumb drives in plastic wrap, hollowed out a small notch on the inside of the roll and covered the drives back up with the bread, which was then further concealed with the makings of a fine sandwich.

Then, without a sandwich to eat for dinner, I settled on boiling some cappellini with some left over meat sauce.

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...

Staying Dry

It’s been raining in Delaware for about three or four days. As such, this has been pretty much been a good parallel to what my operative life has been like lately. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing however, as it means that no one has tried to kill me lately.

The life of an operative isn’t as glamorous as Sean Connery led us to believe in James Bond. Rarely, unfortunately, do I spend my time walking the bikini clad boardwalks of Miami, as Michael does in Burn Notice. Down time, in my perspective, is a blessing. My line of work entails persevering through a series of calculated risks. The more down time you have, the fewer chances you take on rolling the dice. This means that I’m essentially procrastinating until it lands on black, when I’ve put my free breathing future on red.

Begrudgingly, I’ve been surviving the daily commute. The grind, as it is, seemingly just as much relates to the coffee dust that gets me through my day as it does to the worker bee lifestyle I’m currently entertaining. I biggest fear is that the lack of action will lull me into a state of complacency. This, of course, can have dire consequences. Coming in at a close second, though, is the apprehension surrounding the potential that I may grow accustomed to this molasses lifestyle and become hesitant to reengage when Mother’s call comes.

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...

Longer Short Cut

Treasa and I went to the Philadelphia Boat Show yesterday. Unlike the Baltimore Boat Show, I wasn’t there on behalf of Mother, or any other official business. Instead, we just went up to look at what we’d spend money on if we had a spare hundred grand, which we don’t.

On the way there, though, we encountered multiple sirens from police, fire response personnel and emergency medics. The short cut I wanted to take to the highway was blocked off. Nothing incriminating was in my truck, so I wasn’t concerned if we got stopped, but because we were forced to take an alternate route, I was glad I knew the area well enough not to get lost.

The road we took wasn’t something I was familiar with because I knew the area, but rather a series of side streets I learned because they were an additional way for me to get to work when I need to get to the downtown office. Every so often, I’d take the extra ten minutes to wind my way through these neighborhoods to see if I could recognize a car that I sometimes saw on my typical commute. The chances that someone was taking the same route on the same day as me would be slim. It’s a good way to see if you’ve picked up a tail.

Yesterday, however, I was less concerned with that. Instead, it showed how preparation for one thing can pay off greatly for another.

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...

TGI Lunchtime On Friday

Friday was a pretty typical day at the office. A meeting here, some work there, and most importantly, a lunch break. I met Heather Erinovic a contact for lunch at a place downtown. We were in on a previous operation a while back and haven’t seen each other since. Each of us ordered the grilled ahi tuna caesar salad. Nothing to report really.

However, on the way to the restaurant, a panhandler asked me what time it was. “Quarter to twelve,” I responded. Then he asked me if I could spare a dollar. I wonder how successful he is with opening up communication with misdirection.

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...

Instead Of A Good Dinner

There are times when your job calls you to take something that you otherwise wouldn’t dream of possessing. Lot’s of times you will be asked to be the middleman, the information/material conduit from one person to the next, because you can be trusted. Today was one of those times where it was made clear to me that ignoring this request wasn’t an option.

After work I meandered through rush hour traffic to avoid catching a tail and picked up some goods that I’ll need to drop off later tonight. Without knowing exactly what was in the sack, I was pretty sure that possessing them puts my health and wellbeing in jeopardy. Of course, with it being a second trip out late at night, the drop is going to stink, but it has to be done.

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...

Cheeeeeeeese!

There are certain times where it just makes sense to pay a professional to do a job right. For a great variety of things, I’m the man you call to get results. But intrinsic in my skill set is an understanding of my own limitations. For instance, I’ll solicit the services of an accountant, a lawyer and a plumber, and yesterday, you can add a top notch photographer to the list.

Mother sent Timothy down to meet me. Whereas I can avoid detection, trail a mark, and gain access to areas without leaving a trace, taking pictures good enough for facial recognition software isn’t something I have on my resume.

Timothy and I met downtown and trailed our targets as they ran Sunday morning errands. While they made a trip to the ATM, a hair cut for him, nails for her and lunch at a burger place, Timothy was click-click-clicking away with his multi thousand dollar camera. I kept my truck from drawing attention.

He seemed to be pleased with the lighting and how the depth of the backgrounds complimented the subject matter, or something. His mood turned sour when we followed them back to their home, a working horse farm. At the thought of walking his white suede, leather soled dress shoes through the woods and a field or two to gather intelligence, he threw his hands up and exclaimed something to the effect of, ‘Oh, they’re last season’s style anyway.’

The layout of the property was all in the dossier. The fact that he knew that the couple lived on a horse farm and that we’d follow them there, and that he still chose to wear those shoes made me reason that his pictures must be really good to outweigh his complete absentmindedness.

A bluff of trees, two fields, and two now brown suede, leather soled shoes later, we had the pictures we needed. I brought Timothy back to his car and went home to cook dinner:

Sear seasoned chicken thighs in enameled cast iron dutch oven in butter and oil.
Set remove chicken, set aside and sauté chopped onion and garlic in oil.
Dump last sip of beer into dutch oven to deglaze stuck-on chicken goodness.
Add parsley, thyme, crushed red pepper, and a good dash of personal spice blend.
Add two cans of low fat, low sodium chicken broth and bring to a simmer.
Add chicken back to dutch oven and simmer until just shy of done.
Remove chicken thighs and add box of orzo. Add water if necessary.
Chop was-frozen-now-partially-microwaved spinach and add to ducth oven.
When orzo is almost done, reintroduce chicken thighs.
Top with parmesan cheese and devour.

.-. . ... ..- .-.. - ...