courses I was supposed to be taking. Iâd sat in on the odd lecture and class and I had even been invited to a student party! The experience had given me the confidence and knowledge I needed to lay out my cover in a convincing way. Oren looked pleased.
âWhat I like to see is that you are not some delusional egomaniac living in a complete fantasy world,â Oren said. âThe problem in building a legend is that you have to walk a fine line between reality and fantasy. Stray too far in either direction and you have a security problem. You have to believe your story because itâs based on truth, but you have to keep it far enough from the truth so it canât get back to you.â
We fine-tuned my tale, with Oren pointing out some potential problems I hadnât thought of (for example, where was my student card?). And with that, my legend was establishedâa momentous step in the career of an intelligence agentâeven if this legend was merely for training purposes.
Without further ado, Oren produced a file. In it were the details of what the Mossad calls an âobject,â a person about whom the agency wants to know more, through physical surveillance and other means. The object was a Tel Aviv-area doctor who kept odd hours and swam in the sea each day at dawn. I had two days to observe him and perform intelligence collection tasks related to his daily habits and work. Oren and Elan left, and I got down to work.
I lacked operational coverâthat is, a story about what my alleged motivation was for being at the objectâs hospital, his apartment block, or even the beach at dawn. I was quickly learning about one of the Mossadâs basic teaching philosophies: no one tells you how to do things. You have to figure it out for yourself, and only later are the mistakes analyzed and corrected. In training, as in the field, nobody holds your hand. I set myself to preparing possible operational cover scenarios: if I was taking pictures at the beach, I was a photography hobbyist. If I was in the hospital, I had shooting pains in my back that needed to be checked out, and so on.
For the next forty-eight hours, I ran around after the doctor. I had to find his car and apartment, take pictures of him while he was swimming, and find his office in the hospital. To this day, I donât know whether he was a witting participant in the exercise or not, but I had to perform my tasks without arousing his or anyone elseâs suspicion. It was exhausting and difficult. I felt as if I was botching it, drawing attention to myself and standing out in every crowd.
To my knowledge, the object never spotted me, but I was questioning my operational cover choices. Some were weak, and I doubted anyone would believe themâthankfully, I never had to use them. In one case, for instance, I crafted a convoluted story about a girl that I met at a bar who gave me an address in the same apartment building as the doctor.
Making matters more difficult was the fact that I was going about this exercise in a particularly challenging environmentâIsrael. For good reason, Israelis are a nosy and paranoid lot. They watch for anything out of the ordinary and are not skittish about reporting odd behavior or simply asking a complete stranger, âWhat exactly are you doing?â To most Israelis, a guy with a camera is just a tourist or hobbyist. But a not insignificant portion of the population will look at you and think youâre collecting intelligence for a terrorist attack. The Mossad has never felt compelled to do their training outside of Israel; itâs easy to turn Israel into hostile territory for novice spies.
When the grueling two days were over, I returned to my apartment, wrote up my reports, and waited for Oren and Elan to return. When they did, Oren asked me if I had had any security problems. I told him I hadnât and walked them through the two days.
We went over my operational cover
âWhat I like to see is that you are not some delusional egomaniac living in a complete fantasy world,â Oren said. âThe problem in building a legend is that you have to walk a fine line between reality and fantasy. Stray too far in either direction and you have a security problem. You have to believe your story because itâs based on truth, but you have to keep it far enough from the truth so it canât get back to you.â
We fine-tuned my tale, with Oren pointing out some potential problems I hadnât thought of (for example, where was my student card?). And with that, my legend was establishedâa momentous step in the career of an intelligence agentâeven if this legend was merely for training purposes.
Without further ado, Oren produced a file. In it were the details of what the Mossad calls an âobject,â a person about whom the agency wants to know more, through physical surveillance and other means. The object was a Tel Aviv-area doctor who kept odd hours and swam in the sea each day at dawn. I had two days to observe him and perform intelligence collection tasks related to his daily habits and work. Oren and Elan left, and I got down to work.
I lacked operational coverâthat is, a story about what my alleged motivation was for being at the objectâs hospital, his apartment block, or even the beach at dawn. I was quickly learning about one of the Mossadâs basic teaching philosophies: no one tells you how to do things. You have to figure it out for yourself, and only later are the mistakes analyzed and corrected. In training, as in the field, nobody holds your hand. I set myself to preparing possible operational cover scenarios: if I was taking pictures at the beach, I was a photography hobbyist. If I was in the hospital, I had shooting pains in my back that needed to be checked out, and so on.
For the next forty-eight hours, I ran around after the doctor. I had to find his car and apartment, take pictures of him while he was swimming, and find his office in the hospital. To this day, I donât know whether he was a witting participant in the exercise or not, but I had to perform my tasks without arousing his or anyone elseâs suspicion. It was exhausting and difficult. I felt as if I was botching it, drawing attention to myself and standing out in every crowd.
To my knowledge, the object never spotted me, but I was questioning my operational cover choices. Some were weak, and I doubted anyone would believe themâthankfully, I never had to use them. In one case, for instance, I crafted a convoluted story about a girl that I met at a bar who gave me an address in the same apartment building as the doctor.
Making matters more difficult was the fact that I was going about this exercise in a particularly challenging environmentâIsrael. For good reason, Israelis are a nosy and paranoid lot. They watch for anything out of the ordinary and are not skittish about reporting odd behavior or simply asking a complete stranger, âWhat exactly are you doing?â To most Israelis, a guy with a camera is just a tourist or hobbyist. But a not insignificant portion of the population will look at you and think youâre collecting intelligence for a terrorist attack. The Mossad has never felt compelled to do their training outside of Israel; itâs easy to turn Israel into hostile territory for novice spies.
When the grueling two days were over, I returned to my apartment, wrote up my reports, and waited for Oren and Elan to return. When they did, Oren asked me if I had had any security problems. I told him I hadnât and walked them through the two days.
We went over my operational cover
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