Read Online Cassidy's Run by David Wise - Free Book Online

were near Burke, Virginia,” a Washington suburb. Cassidy then drove to a designated point in nearby Springfield. While he was en route, a Soviet retrieved Cassidy’s rock. In Springfield, “ ‘Mike’ would be waiting on the street. Or I would park and walk a block to where he was waiting. Then he would get in my car and we’d drive to the parking lot of the bowling alley. Always at nine P.M. At the personal meetings, nothing would pass. We’d part around eleven.”
    This way, the Russians reasoned, if something went wrong and the FBI swooped down on the parking lot, neither man had any documents. They were just two people chatting by a bowling alley. At the meetings, Danilin discussed the previous batch of material Cassidy had provided and what he might be looking for next. “When we left the bowling alley we’d drive in my car to wherever he said, and I would drop him off. It was always different from where I picked him up but always in Springfield.”
    Cassidy then drove to a prearranged spot to pick up a fake rock that Danilin had left for him before their personal meeting. Inside were instructions in secret writing, a microdot, and cash. The instructions listed more drop and pickup sites and the dates of future meetings.
    “The next day I would give the rock to the FBI.” Although Cassidy had the portable microdot reader, it was much easier for the FBI to blow up the microdot in its laboratory and relay Moscow’s instructions to Cassidy. Neither Cassidy nor the FBI would easily have found a microdot inside a rock, but Cassidy was always told where to look. Those instructions came on what appeared to be a blank sheet of paper with secret writing, or SW as it is known in the espionage trade. Cassidy then steamed the sheet of paper and the message became visible.
    Usually, the microdot was tucked away in a slit in a matchbook cover that was placed inside the rock. One matchbook had a picture of a Mississippi River paddle steamer; the SW instructions told Cassidy to look under a particular section of the paddle wheel.
    In addition to enlarging the microdots to full-page size, the FBI photographed the entire contents of every rock retrieved by Cassidy, including the cash. These were all recorded on eight-by-ten color prints.
    The bureau watched most of Cassidy’s meetings with Danilin, and it kept the Russian’s apartment under surveillance. The FBI also tried to follow and photograph Danilin when he cleared drop sites, but that was extremely difficult in the remote, wooded areas of northern Virginia favored by the Soviets. The Russians chose such isolated areas because it was fairly easy to spot anyone who might be following them. Normally, a Soviet agent also had a partner watching his back.
    “Physical surveillance of Soviets at a drop was almost impossible,” Charlie Bevels said. “They were aware of it, and they ran countersurveillance. Once Danilin was scheduled to clear a drop in a very dark, rural area. The lab wanted to use infrared film to get a picture of him clearing the drop. I said no. Because when you use an infrared flashbulb, if you are looking straight at it, you can see it go off. I didn’t want to take the chance.”
    On another occasion, the bureau was frustrated in its surveillance efforts by the unexpected. “I remember one personal meeting they had at the Rose Hill shopping center in northern Virginia, off Franconia Road,” Bevels said. “We had cameras, and we were in a house that the owners left at our request. We assured them that the house will not be disturbed, there would be no shooting. We had given them twenty-five dollars; go out to dinner, we’ll be here a couple of hours. But at Rose Hill some guy in a huge tractor trailer, Interstate Movers was their name, parked it right in our way. We couldn’t see anything.”
    The GRU understood that Cassidy was not passing secret documents for ideological reasons. As far as the Soviets knew, he was betraying his country for