Tradecraft Part 8

True Spies, Tradecraft Part 8

NARRATOR: This is True Spies. The podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time. Week by week, you’ll hear the true stories behind the operations that have shaped the world we live in. You’ll meet the people who live life undercover. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do in their position? I’m Sophia Di Martino, and this is True Spies, from SPYSCAPE Studios.

BETTY MEDSGER: Every FBI agent in the country was required to hire an informer who did nothing but develop files on Black people. 

NARRATOR: Welcome to your eighth installment of True Spies Tradecraft.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: If they had known what David was doing, he would have been tortured first and then killed because he knew absolutely everyone and everything - and what they were doing. 

NARRATOR: You’re about to learn how to make first contact with a target.

TAMER ELNOURY: The bump is essentially an initial meet that, for all intents and purposes, is very, very planned out and mapped out by us in an effort for me to insert myself into that individual's life.

NARRATOR: A bump: a cute little name for what is quite often the first encounter with a dangerous target. These ‘accidental’ meetings are often meticulously orchestrated. And for a bump to be successful, you need a legend. Meet your guide to these two pieces of tradecraft.

TAMER ELNOURY: My name is Tamer Elnoury. I have been employed by the US government's National Security covert operations unit. It's an elite, covert counterterrorism task force dedicated to combating terrorism domestically and abroad. 

NARRATOR: Tamer Elnoury, we should make clear, is an alias. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t tell you this true spy’s real name. It’s a closely guarded secret. Tamer appeared in the doubleheader ‘American Radical’ which covered his time as an undercover FBI agent working on one mission in particular.

TAMER ELNOURY: I told them I didn't know when, I didn't know where, but we wholeheartedly believe that this guy was here to hurt us.

NARRATOR: This guy Tamer is talking about is Chiheb Esseghaier. In 2012, Chiheb landed on the FBI’s radar after he’d made contact with a number of characters who occupied pole positions on government watch lists.

TAMER ELNOURY: Chiheb Esseghaier is a Tunisian-born, brilliant Ph.D. student, world-renowned for his work in biological nanotechnology.

NARRATOR: Perhaps not the profile that comes to mind when you think of a terror suspect, but potentially very dangerous all the same. Tamer had to meet Chiheb, then get to know him - and, if possible, wheedle out any terrorist sympathies that the scientist might hold. But for this first meet - the bump - to be successful, first Tamer needed a legend, a watertight backstory and character.

TAMER ELNOURY: Tamer was born in Egypt, came to the States when he was a young boy. He was raised here as an American. He speaks Arabic like he speaks English, without an accent. He is a business major. He studied real estate, and his uncle, who had some radical thoughts and ideas and was a supporter of the Mujahideen overseas - al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula specifically - recruited him into the business.

NARRATOR: The alias had much in common with the ‘real’ Tamer. As every undercover agent knows, all great lies contain at least a grain of truth. But every aspect of Tamer’s new identity was tailored to appeal to his new target.

TAMER ELNOURY: Tamer wore expensive suits. He wore expensive watches and expensive shoes. Everything about him screamed money. And that was done purposely. Because the subjects needed to understand that money wasn't an object without me having to tell them that.

NARRATOR: As regular True Spies listeners will know, flashing the cash will quickly get you into the jetstream of a nefarious organization. Tamer is now ready for the first contact - the bump. The bump was set to take place on a connecting flight from Houston to San Jose, where Chiheb was attending a conference. It was Father’s Day 2012. A plan was in place, a meticulous stage play that would put Tamer right in Chiheb’s lap. 

TAMER ELNOURY: There was a mixup with both of our seats. Because of the mix-up, he was trying to talk to one flight attendant in the Economy section, and I was talking to a flight attendant in the First Class section, right when we first boarded the flight. He turned and saw my face, what I was wearing, and what I looked like. I was clearly a Middle Eastern Arab male on that flight. He tapped me on the shoulder and he asked me in Arabic, “Do you speak Arabic?” And I responded in Arabic, “Of course I do.” And we had the Islamic greeting: “Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh…Wa ʿalaykumu s-salam.” Right off the bat, he was immediately comfortable with the fact that he could speak his native language in Houston, Texas, with someone and he asked the flight attendant at that moment, “Can we please sit together? You have to have us sit together.”

NARRATOR: Luck was on Tamer’s side. The seat mix-up wasn’t planned, but it helped the first contact with Chiheb to get off to a very positive start. 

TAMER ELNOURY: The bump went great. We immediately hit it off. We became fast friends.

NARRATOR: Over time they became very close - so close, in fact, that months later, when Chiheb was arrested on terrorism charges and interrogated for weeks, he never gave up Tamer’s name. But Chiheb was eventually sentenced to life in prison, thanks to his best buddy Tamer.

OMER MALKIN: On one hand there's this monster that some people wanted to just kill. But at the same time, it also was clear that he's just a person. Suddenly you just see a person handcuffed, blindfolded, worried about his kids and family, and all that. 

NARRATOR: From the bump to the grab. We’re in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 1960. After years of searching, the Mossad has tracked down one of their most wanted targets - Adolf Eichmann - one of the orchestrators of the Holocaust. But the Israeli intelligence agency’s mission is unprecedented. Instead of simply eliminating Eichmann, a far easier operation, the Mossad is charged with capturing and smuggling him some 7,500 miles back to Israel. To get the whole story of the jaw-dropping mission, listen to the two-part True Spies series Extracting Eichmann. For the capture, the Mossad sent one of their best agents, veteran spy Peter Malkin.

OMER MALKIN: He was the head of operations. In addition to that, he was a master of disguise. 

NARRATOR: This is Peter Malkin’s son, Omer. For his father, this mission was personal.

OMER MALKIN: He was in Israel before the Holocaust. But some of his family members, including his sister and her children never made it and ended up dying in Auschwitz. My father as a kid always said that he had a hard time hearing from his mother about the tragedy and the fact that it was such a big thing. Six million people. He tried to avoid hearing the stories. You know, he's just a regular kid. 

NARRATOR: But now with the mission looming, Peter needed to know the stories. So he went undercover to his mum's house.

OMER MALKIN: He disguised himself as a friend of himself and went to his mother's house in Haifa, Israel, and knocked on the door and told her that he's here to rent a room in her apartment.

NARRATOR: Such was Peter’s skill at disguise, even his mother didn’t recognize him. She replied that she wasn’t renting a room, but invited him in anyway.

OMER MALKIN: Like a good Jewish mother, feeding him with a lot of food and all that. And he was there for an hour plus. The reason he wanted to go there was because he wanted to get a sense of the story of the family. Hearing it from her, telling it to someone that's not her son. So it'll be a little bit less heavy in a way. And that was his first preparation, getting into that mindset of what he's going to do a little bit like, I don't know if revenge is the right word, but closing the loop on what happened to his family.

NARRATOR: “Master of disguise”. It’s on every elite undercover operative’s CV. But it was an entirely different skill of Peter’s that was to be put to use for this mission.

OMER MALKIN: He also was good with what we called Krav Maga in Israel or Martial Arts.

NARRATOR: Developed specifically for the Israeli Defence Force, Krav Maga mixes techniques from judo, karate, boxing, and wrestling. And being an expert in Krav Maga, Peter was assigned a specific job in the mission. To make the actual capture of Adolf Eichmann himself.

OMER MALKIN: He was physically strong. It was common sense. 

NARRATOR: The capture was to take place on Garibaldi Street, the street where Eichmann lived and where he’d been under surveillance for months. The Mossad agents had noted the robotic regularity of his routine. After work, he would get off the bus 203 at the same time every evening. In a car perched on the other side of a railway embankment some 50 yards away, Peter was there with him, every step of the way, watching. 

OMER MALKIN: He wanted to map the geography, the area with the steps. He almost had it as a song in his head knowing that at count one through four, it was him leaving the bus. Seven to 11, it's him walking towards the turn, 22 to 27 is him doing this and that. And my father basically mapped his actions based on that.

NARRATOR: In the garage of one of the safehouses, Peter was rehearsing what might sound like a very rudimentary piece of tradecraft but what would be the centerpiece of this operation?

OMER MALKIN: My father realized, obviously, as he was practicing the specific moment of capture that he would have to probably hold his mouth so that Eichmann would not shout or scream. That probably means that his hand will have to touch his saliva and mouth.

NARRATOR: Disgusted at the idea of being anywhere near the saliva of a man who’d committed such unthinkable atrocities, Peter made sure that didn’t happen.

OMER MALKIN: The day or two before, he went and bought some gloves.

NARRATOR: It’s the evening of the capture. Only distant thunder breaks the silence. Bus 203 arrives but no one gets off. In the vehicles, the Mossad team can hardly believe it. For the first time since they started surveilling Eichmann, he has broken from his routine.

OMER MALKIN: Very unusual for someone doing everything in a very specific way. 

NARRATOR: Eight o’clock passes. The second bus hasn’t arrived. The team grows tense. With every minute that passes they risk being seen. Then, in the distance, headlights emerge. Eventually, a vehicle comes into view. It’s bus 203. After a brief pause at the bus stop the driver pulls away, revealing two people walking in opposite directions. One, a man, is walking toward them.

OMER MALKIN: My father started walking toward him.

NARRATOR: As they converge, Peter practices his line.

OMER MALKIN: Uno momentito, señor. One moment, sir. He felt that that would be important as a way for him to make sure that Eichmann stops and hesitates just for a second.

NARRATOR: A few seconds later the two men are face to face.

OMER MALKIN: My father said to him, ‘Uno momentito’.

NARRATOR: The man looks at Peter. Unease on his face, he steps back.

OMER MALKIN: And that step back made my father say ‘to hell with the señor’ and jumped on him.

NARRATOR: Hitting the ground, the two men struggle.

OMER MALKIN: They fell into a ditch. 

NARRATOR: The man tries to scream.

OMER MALKIN: My father was holding his hand that was in his pocket with one hand and with the other hand holding his mouth.

NARRATOR: Wearing gloves of course. The Grab was a success. Adolf Eichmann was captured, and after a four-month trial, was sentenced to death. Months of surveilling Eichmann was key to the war criminal’s capture. Understanding his movements inside out allowed Mossad to prepare for every eventuality. The same careful observation is required when assessing buildings - usually with a view to breaking in. In spycraft, this process is called ‘casing’. It was this piece of tradecraft that was used to gather evidence against a certain government-funded organization, which we draw your attention to now.

BETTY MEDSGER: We started seeing what kinds of operations they actually were. And they ranged from cruel to crude to violent and, in at least one instance, to murderous.

NARRATOR: These operations, they discovered, were a series of covert and illegal plots actively conducted by the FBI. Aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations, the program was called COINTELPRO. Listen to the True Spies double header of the same name, which tells the story of how civilians risked their lives to expose this nefarious FBI program. Civilians like a man called Bill Davidon.

BETTY MEDSGER: Bill was a physics professor at Haverford College right outside Philadelphia. When he came to Haverford, which is a Quaker college, he immediately became involved in what was then an embryonic part of the peace movement. And as Bill went from organization to organization in the peace movement, leaders were telling him, “We think that there's a growing number of spies in our groups, and this is having a terrible impact.”

NARRATOR: This is Betty Medsger. In the 1970s, Betty was a reporter for the Washington Post and was one of the key figures in exposing COINTELPRO.

BETTY MEDSGER: He started thinking about how in the world do you get documentary evidence that it's happening? As he thought about it, by December of that year, he decided that breaking in was probably the only way that it could be done.

NARRATOR: No big deal - just break into the FBI. Bill and his co-conspirators would, of course, take every precaution to avoid getting caught. So they began to study the building where the FBI office was located to get to know it as well as they could.

BETTY MEDSGER: Everybody would have assignments as to what they were to do during casing, and they had diagrams of the streets. And as they would learn new information during casing, they would add that information.

NARRATOR: Remember: these are civilians, not trained operatives. However, each one of the eight-member team brought valuable skills to the operation. One member of their crew was 19-year-old Keith Forsyth. Keith had taken a course in locksmithing and he’d be responsible for actually getting into the FBI office. To prepare for the break-in, he went to the site and covertly determined what type of lock was on the door. But he didn’t want to just go out and buy what he needed and risk leaving a paper trail.

BETTY MEDSGER: So he figured out how to make his own locksmithing tools, lock picking tools, and had them conveniently located in the pocket of a Brooks Brothers top coat that he had picked up for $5 at a local thrift store.

NARRATOR: Disguises like Keith’s played an important role not just in the break-in, but also in the casing process. This was especially true for another member of the team.

BETTY MEDSGER: Bonnie Raines was 29 at the time, but looked much younger. They came up with a plan together that she would call the FBI office and she would say that she was a Swarthmore College student, and she was writing a paper on women getting jobs in non-traditional places for women, and that she would like to talk with the agent in charge of the office about the possibility of women being hired by the FBI. 

NARRATOR: Bonnie showed up to meet the FBI officers in disguise, her hair tucked into a tight cap, her face obscured by a pair of oversized glasses.

BETTY MEDSGER: She wore gloves, which she kept on throughout a 45-minute-long interview, taking notes in front of the agent with gloved hands. 

NARRATOR: No point in being a master of disguise if you’re going to leave fingerprints everywhere.

BETTY MEDSGER: What she was really doing was looking around the office for signs of whether there were alarms. And as far as she could see in the rooms that she had passed through, there were none. She also asked him a question that required him to go to a file cabinet, and the point of that was to see if the file cabinets were locked, and they were not locked, so that was good news.

NARRATOR: Bill and his co-conspirators had spent months carefully plotting out how it would all unfold. But you know how it goes with the best-laid plans. Resident locksmith Keith was met with an unwanted surprise on the eve of the burglary.

BETTY MEDSGER: When he arrived on the night of March 8, the lock had been changed and there was a much more complicated lock on the door. And of course, he was extremely upset and went back to his car and drove to the motel a few miles away where the other burglars were based. And said he had this bad news and what should we do? And of course, the obvious question was: Do they know and are they waiting inside for us?

NARRATOR: Would the burglars abandon their mission then and there, knowing they might have already been found out? 

BETTY MEDSGER: Bonnie Raines said, “Well, there's another door beside that one.” That other door has a very tall cabinet in front of it. And she assumed that it was full as it was. And so therefore, very heavy, and very important not to tip over because of the enormous sound that it would make if it did. And she said, “Maybe we can go. You can go in that door.” And they decided, let's take the chance.

NARRATOR: The group's thorough casing of the building had paid off. That night, without anyone noticing, the burglars pried the door open and stole every single file in the office. They discovered that the FBI’s operations went far beyond just stifling peaceful dissent. One particularly despicable plan was devised at the very top of the Bureau.

BETTY MEDSGER: After it was announced that he was going to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Hoover was so angered by that, that the FBI developed a plot that was designed to force Martin Luther King to commit suicide.

NARRATOR: In 1971, the sordid facts surrounding COINTELPRO began to come out, resulting in the 15-year program being put to an end. All thanks to a handful of dogged journalists and those eight brave burglars. Civilian spycraft at its devastating best.

NARRATOR: It’s March, 1982. We’re on the Sudanese coast. 

DANIEL LIMOR: He started running toward the boat with his gun, with his Kalashnikov ready to shoot.

NARRATOR: This is Mossad’s Dani Limor who is about to demonstrate how a successful operation lives and dies on not breaking cover. However, an operation takes on a new meaning when the lives of many others depend on it. 

GAD SHIMRON: We heard a whistle and all of a sudden, 250 people from darkness came toward us. Young people, old people, mothers, babies.

NARRATOR: This is fellow Mossad officer Gad Shimron. He along with Dani Limor and professional diver Rubi Viterbo made up the team that carried out Operation Brothers - the Mossad’s mission to evacuate persecuted Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel. Listen to the three-parter Exodus for the full inspiring story. In this episode, we’re zeroing in on the ingenious cover and quick thinking of one individual that led to this operation's success. The transport of Ethiopian Jews to the safety of Israel happened by land and sea. Dani and his team needed excellent cover for the latter part of the operation, so setting up a commercial diving resort was the obvious solution.

DANIEL LIMOR: We, of course, did some promoting in travel agencies in Europe that specialized in diving in exotic places and so on. And when we opened officially, we started having clients and we, of course, were thrilled.

NARRATOR: Cover in place, the plan for the evacuation could be initiated. Dani and the team would drive 900 kilometers inland from the resort to the refugee camps where the Ethiopian Jews were being held. They were then put in lorries to make the return journey to the cove.

RUBI VITERBO Kids. Old people. Pressed like sardines. Standing. Not sitting. No toilet, no drinking, nothing.

NARRATOR: At the cove, waiting for several kilometers offshore, was a large Israeli military freighter - the Bat Galim. Israeli Navy Seals would run fully armed dinghies to pick up the Jews from the shoreline, bringing them back to the main ship over several trips. But this journey was fraught with danger. However dangerous it was for Jews in Ethiopia, it was more dangerous for them to be in Sudan. Sudan was an Islamist country. It was an avowed enemy of Israel. So if the refugees were caught, it was effectively a death sentence. For Dani and his team, too.

DANIEL LIMOR: If you get into the crossfire, it doesn't matter if they know that you're Jewish or you're not Jewish, it doesn't matter. A bullet is a bullet. 

NARRATOR: And under this immense pressure, it would all come down to a single moment of quick thinking. We join the evacuation team on the beach in the dead of night. The last of the evacuees are in the dinghies on the shore. But remember, this is no diving expedition. There are risks at every turn. Sudanese patrol ships are scouring the coast at night, hunting for smugglers and pirates. Sudanese soldiers are stalking the beaches.

DANIEL LIMOR: You have to calculate all the time, the risk that you're taking.

NARRATOR: But they’ve been spotted by a Sudanese soldier. 

DANIEL LIMOR: He came to the shore, to the water's edge. The boat was to our right. I don't know. Maybe 25, 30, 40 meters, something like that. And then he saw the other boats. And you could see the foam the engines made. And so, before I could do anything, he shot full burst, full, from his hip.

NARRATOR: Dani jumps on the soldier, wrestling him to the ground.

DANIEL LIMOR: Someone hit me with the back of the rifle on my head. I was a bit fuzzy but still conscious.

NARRATOR: Getting up, Dani realizes the soldiers still don’t know what they’ve stumbled on.

DANIEL LIMOR: They saw a lot of people on the beach. On a moonless night, you'll see people. You cannot really say what’s the color of their skin. On a moonless night, of course not - everyone is dark, right? 

NARRATOR: Dani shouts at the officer.

DANIEL LIMOR: What are you doing?! We are from the resort. We are diving here.

NARRATOR: Then he stops the officer in his tracks.

DANIEL LIMOR: I explained to him that the fish, lobsters, we go under the water and it can only be done by night.

NARRATOR: “We’re catching the General’s weekly lobster, “Dani explains.

DANIEL LIMOR: He said, “You know him.” I said, “Of course I know him. He's a very good friend. Yesterday I was in his office.”

NARRATOR: Which Dani was. And they do also catch his weekly lobster. Immediately the platoon is at ease. The commander orders them to retreat off the beach. Dani says he is going straight to the General to complain.

DANIEL LIMOR: Once when you are attacked, the best defense is attacking. I said, “Look, I came here to tell you that I am packing, taking my team and I am leaving this resort. We cannot continue working like this. It's too dangerous. And I cannot put my tourists in danger.”

NARRATOR: Embarrassed, the deputy pleads with Dani not to leave. The next morning they meet with the General himself - the man they serve fresh lobster every week. Apologizing, the deputy says the beach will be off limits to all Sudanese soldiers, asking Dani to reconsider. He even gives them an official permit stating they are operating under the General’s auspices. Dani’s quick thinking had paid off, once again.

GAD SHIMRON: He was one of those guys who if you threw him through the door, he came back from the window. If you threw him from the window, he came back from the chimney. If you threw him from a chimney, he came back from the cellar. And if he had to face a wall, he would knock his head on the wall and the wall would come down.

NARRATOR: Cover retained. No-one died. The mission continued, successfully evacuating the last of the Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Even under pressure, Dani was a master of not breaking his cover. The same is true for our next true spy.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: It's kind of a well-established spying thing. If you're confronted on that level, you confront back and you shout about how offended you are.

NARRATOR: This is Sean O’Driscoll, author of The Accidental Spy, a book about David Rupert, an American truck driver who ended up infiltrating the Irish paramilitary organization the Real IRA for both the FBI and MI5. Listen to the episode Mr Wristwatch for the full story, a truly astonishing caper featuring a larger-than-life character. Quite literally.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: He is a very big man, six-foot-six and just a huge, broad man.

NARRATOR: Let’s set the scene. David Rupert has gotten very close to the top echelons within the Real IRA, including its leader Mickey McKevitt. The Real IRA, I should point out, is a splinter group that formed after the IRA accepted a ceasefire agreement in 1997. The splinter group was responsible for the Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland a year later.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: It killed 31 civilians. Absolutely horrific. Injured hundreds upon hundreds of people. The worst bombing that ever happened in Northern Ireland.

NARRATOR: They are extremely dangerous. Even more so after The Good Friday Agreement - a peace deal designed to bring an end to 30 years of violent conflict in Northern Ireland - was signed in April 1998.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: And they were doing just about everything they could to try and bring the agreement down. 

NARRATOR: The British and American governments are desperate to make the peace hold, though.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: They would really do everything they could to try and put the Real IRA out of business.

NARRATOR: And help comes in an unlikely form. Which is where our truck-driving American comes in. David Rupert, now an MI5 mole in the Real IRA, is getting very good intel, and MI5 has spotted an opportunity in his reports to gather hard evidence on the organization to finally dismantle it.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: McKevitt said that Colonel Gaddafi in Libya had given the IRA all of their explosives and had given them millions of dollars. He was no longer interested in supporting Irish Republicanism because Tony Blair had basically reached out to him. So they needed a new foreign channel and they were thinking about who that might be. And then, McKevitt suggested Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And the British then saw that that was their opportunity to really nail the Real IRA by pretending to get the Iraqis involved. 

NARRATOR: If they themselves posed as Saddam’s henchmen, MI5’s agents were likely to get a sit down with the Real IRA, potentially gathering hard evidence against the group. A meeting is arranged.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: The so-called journalist told them that he's actually from the Iraqi government and they wanted to help out.

NARRATOR: Further meetings are arranged, and eventually several Real IRA army council members sit down with Iraqi government personnel across Europe. Or at least, the Real IRA thought they were Iraqis. And at one of these meetings...

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: They even wrote out a list on the table of what they wanted including wire-guided missiles and plastic explosives, just a huge amount of equipment they were looking for. And this was written on a napkin.

NARRATOR: The Real IRA men only show the Iraqis the list, deliberately not handing it over to them.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: Then the British agent posing as an Iraqi pretended to wipe his nose and picked it up as they were talking and distracted them and then put it in his pocket as evidence.

NARRATOR: Now possessing handwritten evidence of the requested weapons and explosives The Real IRA wants from the Iraqis, the British waste no time.

SEAN O'DRISCOLL: Those three members were arrested in a spa town in Slovakia while meeting the supposed Iraqis again. They were extradited to London and were given 30 years in prison each.

NARRATOR: This constituted a major coup. But to get McKevitt, more evidence was needed, which in the end meant David taking the stand as a star witness. Blowing his cover, but in the process getting their man, who got 20 years in prison. It was a simple mistake - an arms shopping list, essentially, scribbled on a piece of paper - that set in motion the downfall of one of the most dangerous paramilitary groups modern Europe has ever seen. On to our final tradecraft entry in this episode, another simple mistake with not-so-simple consequences.

ANDREW JEFFREY: It's not exactly high-class tradecraft, this.

NARRATOR: This is Andrew Jeffrey, an author and historian specializing in intelligence history during the Nazi era. He was our guide for the True Spies double header A Taste For Treason, which illustrated the power of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

ANDREW JEFFREY: Mary was suspicious of Jessie from the very outset. 

NARRATOR: Andrew is talking about Mary Curran, the Scottish civilian spy catcher who helped to uncover a German secret agent. It’s July, 30, 1937. Dundee, Scotland. Mary has just opened her front door to Miss Jessie Jordan, a spy of limited means and dubious talents. She has been on the radar of the MI5 for some time, but Mary doesn’t know that. She’s just naturally suspicious. Jessie Jordan is here to enquire about an ad she saw in the paper for a hairdressing salon that is up for sale in Dundee. Mary’s brother-in-law owns it and Mary also works there.

ANDREW JEFFREY: And it was Mary who opened the door in the tenement flat to find this immaculately dressed, very sophisticated-looking woman standing on the tenement staircase asking about the hairdressing business. 

NARRATOR: Even though she was suspicious, Mary couldn’t stand in the way of the sale. Jessie was, on the surface of it, just buying the salon. Plus, Mary would still have a job to go to. Jessie Jordan soon set to work bringing the salon in line with her upmarket image.

ANDREW JEFFREY: Jessie was making all these trips to Germany and bringing back very expensive top-grade hairdressing equipment. It seemed to me that Jesse was setting up a business that should be in an affluent part of the city. But she was setting it up in the working class area of the city. It didn't add up.

NARRATOR: Jessie is breaking Tradecraft Rule 101: Don’t Look Suspicious. 

ANDREW JEFFREY: And then there was all the mail that started appearing at the shop, and it was coming in from across Europe. This was very strange. You know, international mail, again, was not something that people saw very often. Jesse was getting this mail and Mary could see she was getting this mail.

NARRATOR: Remember, Mary Curran works with Jessie at the salon. Nothing escapes her notice. Mary was determined to prove or disprove her theory once and for all.

ANDREW JEFFREY: And a few days later she was cleaning under the shop counter in the hairdressing salon, and she was cleaning rather more vigorously and rather more carefully than was entirely necessary… shall we say? She was cleaning under there and she found a scrap of paper. And on this scrap of paper was one word - Zeppelin - and a series of numerals.

NARRATOR: Mary was no code breaker. The numerals meant nothing to her. But she knew code when she saw it. She also knew what ‘Zeppelin’ meant. Everybody did.

ANDREW JEFFREY: To people in Britain in the 1930s, it meant air raids because Zeppelins, airships, had raided even as far north as Edinburgh during the First World War. 

NARRATOR: Even John Curran, our arch-skeptic, remembered the looming specter of death from above. This was something that he couldn’t dismiss as fantasy.

ANDREW JEFFREY: So she arranged with her husband, John, to come down to the shop that same afternoon. And while Jesse was busy with a customer, doing a customer's hair, Mary and John stood at the counter pretending to read a book. Meanwhile, John was busily scribbling down a copy of this sheet of paper with the word Zeppelin and the numerals on it. And then Mary quickly, surreptitiously, shoved it back under the counter.

NARRATOR: John took the copy of the mysterious note to his boss at the tramway garage. 

ANDREW JEFFREY: And his boss in the tramway garage was also just as skeptical as John and said, “Mary's been seeing too many movies.” Still, Mary would not give up. She was made of stern stuff. And just a week later she found another piece of paper while she was cleaning very vigorously under the counter, this time a sketch map of some sort of installation.

NARRATOR: The sketch showed railway lines and industrial buildings.

ANDREW JEFFREY: This was obviously a major industrial or military site.

NARRATOR: Mary had no idea what she was looking at but she knew it could be valuable. She also knew that she wouldn’t be able to copy it. The drawing was too complex.

ANDREW JEFFREY: So she decided to do the only other thing possible. She shoved it down the front of her dress and took it home at lunchtime, handed it to her husband who ran down, caught a tram into Dundee, and showed it to his boss in the tramway garage. The boss in the tramway garage took one look at this and went, “Now, maybe this is serious”.

NARRATOR: John and his boss knew that time was not on their side. If the sketch wasn’t returned to the salon soon, Jessie Jordan would know that somebody was on to her. 

ANDREW JEFFREY: So they took it into Dundee police station, and showed it to the police. The police immediately recognized that it was serious, photographed it, and handed it back to John Curran, who raced back up to the flat in Church Street where they lived and handed it back to Mary. Mary then raced back over to the shop and got it back onto the counter before Jessie noticed it was missing. 

NARRATOR: The power of ordinary people in extraordinary times. In 1939, Jessie Jordan was jailed for four years for espionage. Over the course of this pair of Tradecraft episodes, we’ve taught you how to successfully surveil a target, that meticulous planning is key to a successful operation, and that becoming your legend, and sticking to your cover, will save your life and the lives of others. Many of our true spies use the same tricks and tradecraft to pull off very different feats of espionage. But what they all have in common is bravery, which begs the question: With the right tools and the right training, and with enough courage to back it up, could any one of us be a true spy? I’m Sophia Di Martino.