Lena held her tongue, but she was feeling strange inside. A mixture of understanding, fear… and other emotions that she couldn’t describe.
“Because it’s a story we hear in the company all the time. It’s a tactic that the Stasi use called ‘zersetzung’—divide and conquer. They turn everyone into an informer so that no one trusts each other. Because when no one trusts, people can’t band together. Does this sound familiar?”
Lena nodded.
“I imagine it goes a little deeper for you, though,” he continued, with a caring tone. “I’m not going to ask if you work for the HVA. Heck, Matt and I here are just going to assume that you don’t. That way, if you are…” he said this with a wink, “you don’t have to tell your boss anything that would get you into trouble. Okay?”
Lena nodded, but this time, she actually felt a measure of relief.
“That said, in our company, we are quite familiar with the HVA and how they do things. It’s almost exactly like the Soviets: prostitution, blackmail, extortion, paranoia, threatening…” with every word, Lena’s eyes became more and more unfocused as she correlated his words to her various memories. He seemed to pick up on this, because his words became more pointed… violent, even, “Perhaps you’ve seen beatings… torture even… perhaps even worse.”
“I…” Lena gulped, trying not to remember that.
“Don’t you worry about it, Lena,” Mr. Collins said, as he leaned forward. “If that’s the world for you, you are certainly welcome to it. We will never try to steer you away from it… that is, if that’s a world you happen to find yourself in one day.”
Lena shuddered.
“But…” he said with a knowing glance, “I think I’ve got the measure of you right. You might not like that stuff, but I think you love the adventure. And I think you belong in this room with us, instead of being a groupie outside of our bus. You want to be a part of a world that helps make their world for them. Should you wish to find yourself a part of this room and this world, but one that does things in a more palatable fashion than the HVA, we might have some work for you—some work where you might actually be doing some good for both our country and yours.”
“Well…” she started, “what exactly would that work be?”
“Lena.” Matt broke in, “I need you to know something before we continue. Mr. Collins here is one of the best—truly. If you decide you want in, you will absolutely be in the best of hands. But…” he said this, while placing a hand over hers, “if you feel like it’s too much pressure for you, I want you to know that we will still find a way to work together. You know, as bands.”
“I’d like to hear what the work is, I think.” Lena said, blushing.
“Well, here is where things get complicated,” Mr. Collins responded. “Because this is very much an ‘in or out’-sort of thing. Normally, vetting potential agents takes months or longer. It’s the age-old war between security and efficiency, and normally we have time to sacrifice efficiency; but this is what we call the ‘not soft’ approach. We have an immediate need for someone like you, which means that certain security and evaluation procedures are being thrown to the wayside. Once you are in, the ball immediately starts rolling. This means more fun for you, of course—quicker training, better training, and immediate gratification… not to mention the paychecks which can be substantial. But, it also means that if you try to back out, we have to excise the entire project. So…” he added, with a steely grin as Matt squeezed her hand, “are you in or are you out?”
“It’s worth it,” Matt said. “You’ve never had so much fun in your life.”
For a second, Lena relaxed in the moment. This, right here, was the crux: if she said no, then her life wouldn’t immediately be in serious danger. She could go back to her normal life of utter insanity, living in fear of Dragon Lady and any of the other horrors the HVA and Stasi had in store for her. If she said yes, then… well, she was sure her life would simply be even more dangerous than it had been before. Then again, she could just run away. After all, she was on this side of the Wall. Nothing could technically stop her.
For precious seconds, she reveled in the moment. She knew she was going to say yes. Honestly, who in their right mind wouldn’t?! Yet, until she said yes or no, she was safe in the moment and secure in her indecision. For a brief moment, she reflected on what Grandfather had said back in the Stasi prison about the games that officers liked to play with each other… “As long as they are still playing, they technically haven’t lost yet.”
For a few more seconds, she sat thinking the words she knew she was going to say, trying them on for size. The thought of the possibility that she was in over her head did threaten to dawn, once or twice. Then again, she had lived the last several months in over her head, so what damage could a little more chaos and confusion really do? Besides, Matt and Mr. Collins really did seem to know what they were doing, and they wouldn’t have asked her unless she really was that good, right? Two entire spy agencies wanted her help—she must really be something!
“Alright. I will work with you.”
“That’s why we wanted you, Lena!” Matt said cheerfully.
“You’ve made the right choice,” Mr. Collins said. “Now let us prove it to you.”
He then stood up and walked over to a small cubby in the wall. Reaching in, he pulled out a folder. Sifting through it, he sat down and spread out its contents in front of him: just a few plain folders and a map.
“Through much of the coming weeks,” he started, “you will be acting more-or-less alone. This is a crucial position for you to be in. So, I want to start out with a few definitions:
“Information is anything you don’t already know, however useful or un-useful. All information is useful. It might not be useful to you specifically, or to you right now, but it is useful to someone at some point. Conversely, Intelligence is curated information. That means that its information that is in fact useful to you right now. More specifically, it’s useful to your boss, who might be a diplomat, a CEO, a President, a Prime Minister—someone that doesn’t have the time to sift through 300 pages of poorly aggregated information. Intelligence is information that has been further analyzed and presented formally in a finished, readable package. Intelligence is aggregated and curated by teams of analysts and the discernment of experienced directors.
“Information used in intelligence is gathered by various means. Sometimes—well, the vast majority of the time—it’s gathered by reading the newspapers of other countries. You would truly be surprised what sorts of things your rivals put out into the public forum. They even print things that the government is wanting to keep secret! Failing that, it’s generally gathered by simply asking: calling the editors of those newspapers, for instance, or calling constables, or experts, or people that are in a position to see things that you otherwise wouldn’t.
“Lena, if I wanted to know when a boat loaded with important cargo is docking, who do you think might have that information?”
“Someone who works at the docks?” Lena offered.
“Ok, good!” Mr. Collins said. “But be specific. Who might be in a position to see the cargo unloaded and know what it was?”
“Maybe a crane operator?” Lena offered again.
“Good! Or maybe also someone who checks the manifests, right? Who might that be?”
“Security?”
“Keep going.”