James heard some of what she said, but mostly he was appreciating her gorgeous figure and legs. He guessed her to be in her twenties, but these days it was anyone’s guess. She was a tall girl, but built for speed not comfort. That having been said, she had curves in all the right places, shown off to their full advantage by her short-sleeved blouse and knee length skirt.
He tried to determine her accent, for it wasn’t North American, neither was it English or any of the British regional accents he’d come across. He believed it was South African or Rhodesian.
“Sure, but who are you?”
She smiled, and for a moment, James’ eyes glazed over. He found himself sitting behind his desk as the girl spoke to him about a forthcoming operation to extract some key individuals from the East. Her voice was quiet, educated and very sexy. James was unaware of the mental pressure she applied, but after she had gone, he had no recollection of her visit at all.
Over the next three months, this portion of the wall saw some quite hectic activity. None of it was reported to the authorities in either the East or the West. Under the guns of the East Germans, people were able to walk up to the checkpoint on the Eastern sector and then through the short stretch of No-man’s-land that divided East from West. The Americans opened their barrier and permitted the travellers through without hesitation.
Each time, the personnel had each been spoken to by an unknown woman, so the men on the barriers and those observing from above, were all in the belief that the activity was countenanced by their respective masters.
At a small flat in West Berlin, Matthew and a small team debriefed the trickle of key scientists and engineers who had been assisted to defect by a veritable army of different young women. All gave different descriptions of the girl who spoke to them. She was tall, short, plump, slender, blonde, dark, German, Russian, American, English, Australian, South African or even French. The only factor that was constant was her eye colour, but this wasn’t picked up by anyone but Matthew, who knew that Amber was the one-girl army they described.
Even the Brigadier was unaware that Amber could ‘change’. He still believed that Amber mentally coerced various people to assist her. He believed that the ‘girls’ had all been recruited by the ever-persuasive Amber. The fact she was coming and going into the Eastern sector on an almost daily basis was lost on him. It was, therefore a terrible shock when word came to him that she’d been taken by the Stasi. (State Secret Police of the DDR)
It had been an accident, for which she had been completely unprepared. She was dressed in the uniform of a Lieutenant in the Volkspolitzei (E. German Police), having made arrangements for a group of four academics to exit the East that coming evening.
The meeting had been held in a squalid apartment above a café in a deserted street close to the road leading to the border. The door to the apartments’ stairwell was beside the café front door, but as she exited, she found herself facing a dozen armed soldiers and Stasi agents.
Instinctively, she reached out with her mind and alerted those in the flat, while ascertaining that this was a raid on a group of anti-establishment activists based in the café, who, coincidentally, were plotting a breakout of twenty people from the east. She mentally kicked herself for not ‘scanning’ the area as she arrived for the meeting. She was so focussed on her task that she failed to consider others activities.
“What are you doing here, lieutenant?” a plain-clothes man asked Amber.
“My job,” she replied, knowing that she had neither the papers nor the credibility to survive anything other than a cursory investigation.
“What job is that?”
“That’s classified. I am under orders not to discuss it with anyone other than my commanding officer,” she replied, hoping it would be enough.
It wasn’t, for her sudden arrival on the scene caused Hans Vriester, the plain-clothes Stasi agent in charge, to immediately jump to the conclusion she was involved, so ordered her detention with the eight men and five women from the café.
It was neither the time nor the place to start using her powers, as there was another Stasi agent with a cine camera recording events as they unfurled. Without respect for her rank or uniform, they took her sidearm and then bundled her into the back of a truck.
The Stasi HQ was bounded by Frankfurter Allee, Ruschestrasse, Normannenstrasse and Magdalenenstrasse. It was the size of London's Whitehall, and contained everything the Stasi required to operate the most complex system of spies and informers in the world. Double the size of Hitler’s Gestapo, the Stasi was the instrument of power behind the E. German system, making its leader, Erich Mielke, the most feared and hated man in the DDR. It also made him one of the most powerful.
However, as the truck pulled up in the courtyard of the detention centre, Amber had had to formulate a plan to make the most of this unfortunate turn of events. Large gates were secured, effectively sealing her inside the complex. She knew she had no identification, but her presence was on the film, so it would be difficult to negate that. She had to deal with the film, and then ensured those who had seen her happened to ‘forget her as soon as possible.
The film was easy, as the car containing the Stasi agents followed the truck. Closing her eyes, she managed to over-expose the film while it was still in the camera, overlapping images of Mickey Mouse from her memory. Then, as the tailgate was lowered, the eight men and five women were herded by the uniformed VPs (Volkspolitzei) towards the reception area and cells. No one saw her remain behind in the rear of the truck. Despite the senior agent checking the rear of the vehicle, he never saw the blonde girl sitting quietly by herself. All the prisoners and guards had no recollection of her at all. Hans remembered a female VP officer at the scene, but had great difficulty remembering what the connection was. Suddenly alone in the enclosed yard, the tall blonde Lieutenant simply jumped down from the back of the truck and made for the door that led up to the administration block. The door was a thick steel security door, and it was locked. There wasn’t even a keyhole on the outside.
Closing her eyes, Amber concentrated and placed one hand against the door. After a few moments there was a resounding ‘click’ and the sound of a large bolt being drawn back could be heard from the inside of the door. One push of a slender hand and the door opened inwards. Amber smiled and stepped out of the yard, finding herself in a stairwell. Deciding against going down, she turned left and went up. The stairwell was an emergency exit route from the many floors all containing offices, so Amber simply went to the top, and started working through the building.
Making her way quietly through the busy office block, Amber was fascinated at the energies spent of the collection and dissemination of intelligence and information. So many people, mainly women, were typing reports and slowly disappearing behind mountains of papers. Knowing that informants riddled East German society, Amber wondered how they managed to separate the mundane jealous neighbour from the genuine anti-state activity.
Arming herself with the ubiquitous clipboard she found in one of the offices, Amber conducted a systematic search of the building, touching minds every now and again to ascertain her whereabouts and the functions of each particular department or office. No one challenged her, as uniforms were in evidence everywhere, both police and military.
Locked doors presented her with no barrier, so she managed to cover a lot of ground. She found it fascinating, and noted everything on her clipboard as she went, collecting the occasional memo or taking down a notice from a notice board. She lost track of time, but covered a dozen sheets of paper in her neat handwriting.
On entering one locked office, she gasped in surprise, for on the walls were photographs of British intelligence and counter-intelligence officers. Many she knew personally, whilst some she had either heard of or knew about through other people. Many, however, were unknown to her, and she was pleased to see that her photograph wasn’t here. Matthew’s was, and she read with some interest the caption underneath.