The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth Read Free Book Online

wanted to shake off the tail.
    “First fallback,” corrected Munro. “We’ll be doing all this on the streets of London in a couple of months, so get it right.” They scribbled hard. “Okay. You have a second location in the city, but you’re still tailed. You haven’t got anywhere. What happens at the first-fallback location?”
    There was a general silence. Munro gave them thirty seconds.
    “You don’t meet at this location,” he instructed. “Under the procedures you have taught your contact, the second location is always a place where he can observe you but you can stay well away from him. When you know he is watching you, from a terrace perhaps, from a café, but always well away from you, you give him a signal. Can be anything: scratch an ear, blow your nose, drop a newspaper and pick it up again. What does that mean to the contact?”
    “That you’re setting up the third meet, according to your prearranged procedures,” said Bright Spark.
    “Precisely. But you’re still being tailed. Where does the third meet happen? What kind of place?” This time there were no takers.
    “It’s a building—a bar, club, restaurant, or what you like—that has a closed front, so that once the door is closed, no one can see through any plate-glass windows from the street into the ground floor. Now, why is that the place for the exchange?”
    There was a brief knock, and the head of Student Program poked his face through the doorway. He beckoned to Munro, who left his desk and went across to the door. His superior officer drew him outside into the corridor.
    “You’ve been summoned,” he said quietly. “The Master wants to see you. In his office at three.
    Leave here at the lunch break. Bailey will take over afternoon classes.”
    Munro returned to his desk, somewhat puzzled. “The Master” was the half-affectionate and half- respectful nickname for any holder of the post of Director General of the Firm.
    One of the class had a suggestion to make. “So that you can walk to the contact’s table and pick up the package unobserved.”
    Munro shook his head. “Not quite. When you leave the place, the tailing Opposition might leave one man behind to question the waiters. If you approached your man directly, the face of a contact could be observed and the contributor identified, even by description. Anyone else?”
    “Use a drop inside the restaurant,” proposed Bright Spark. Another shake from Munro.
    “You won’t have time,” he advised. “The tails will be tumbling into the place a few seconds after you. Maybe the contact, who by arrangement was there before you, will not have found the right toilet cubicle free. Or the right table unoccupied. It’s too hit-or-miss. No, this time we’ll use the brush-pass. Note it; it goes like this.
    “When your contact received your signal at the first-fallback location that you were under surveillance, he moved into the agreed procedure. He synchronized his watch to the nearest second with a reliable public clock or, preferably, with the telephone time service. In another place, you did exactly the same.
    “At an agreed hour, he is already sitting in the agreed bar, or whatever. Outside the door, you are approaching at exactly the same time, to the nearest second. If you’re ahead of time, delay a bit by adjusting your shoelace, pausing at a shopwindow. Do not consult your watch in an obvious manner.
    “To the second, you enter the bar and the door closes behind you. At the same second, the contact is on his feet, bill paid, moving toward the door. At a minimum, five seconds will elapse before the door opens again and the fuzz come in. You brush past your contact a couple of feet inside the door, making sure it is closed to block off vision. As you brush past, you pass the package or collect it. Part company and proceed to a vacant table or barstool. The Opposition will come in seconds later. As they move past him, the contact steps out and vanishes. Later the bar