“Customs officials?”
“Give me one more.”
“Um… maybe a dockhand? I don’t know.”
“Good—all good ideas. There’s a lot of ways to handle that problem. Understand though, that people are busy. They don’t always want to take time out of their busy day to remember what those manifests say, or look out for specific ships. Its work—it might not always be hard work, but it’s still something that they don’t have to do. That, and its work that’s valuable to you. So how do you think you get these people to keep a watch out for you?”
“You could pay them?” Lena said.
“Exactly!” Mr. Collins cheered. “They are doing a job for you! You pay them for their time. So, you see, when we are looking for information to turn into intelligence, sometimes it’s gathered by offering someone something in return. It could be money, protection, freedom, adventure, immunity, access, or any number of things that a government is capable of providing.
“Now really quick, I want to shift gears into defining what counterintelligence is, because it’s often a pretty misunderstood concept. Really, the most important thing to remember is that it’s not just us—as in, your own team—that’s trying to get information: it’s everyone else, too. In the game of intelligence, whoever gains more, faster, wins. So, on top of trying to get intelligence, we have to protect what we already have. Generally, this is done with packaging, classification-levels, access-cards, cameras, and etcetera. Sometimes, by simply locking valuable information up in a safe, and then only telling one of your employees the code, works perfectly. Do you know why?”
“Because maybe another country is paying some of your other employees to gather information?”
“Awesome answer!” Matt cheered.
“Very good,” Mr. Collins nodded. “But what could we do if, say, we suspected that the one who had the codes to the safe was a spy?”
“You could just fire him.”
“But then we wouldn’t know who he works for, would we?”
“I suppose not.”
“What if you replaced the real information with fake information, and then waited for that fake information to show up somewhere in another country? Say, ‘American-inspired’-cars with oval-shaped wheels?”
“That seems like an awful lot to go through for something that wouldn’t even work,” Lena said.
“Oh, all Counterintelligence people are pranksters,” Matt said while rubbing his hands together. “One time, we packaged up a live nuclear warhead, and had an American Major charge the Soviets millions of dollars for the pleasure of mailing it back to themselves—without safety measures. It almost went off too, right in downtown Moscow. Boy, that would’ve been fun.”
“That’s insane!” Lena winced.
“One of our better ideas.” Mr. Collins laughed. “What about walls, though? Do you think walls are counterintelligence? Or what about fences?”
“Well, they don’t… I mean, they keep some people from getting in, right?”
“Exactly! It protects information. Say that you could easily hop over fences though… how would we keep you out?”
“You could, I don’t know… put out land-mines? Trip-wire? Towers with guards in them?”
“What if, instead, we went the cheap route and put signs on the fence that said, ‘Warning: deadly force authorized’?”
“I probably wouldn’t hop over them.”
“…what if the signs aren’t true?”
“Well, how the hell would I know that?!”
“You should see the size of the imaginary ‘dogs’ we have in our compound that you should ‘beware of’” Matt grinned. “Counterintelligence is mostly just slight-of-hand and misdirection.”
“But unfortunately,” Mr. Collins broke in, “information isn’t just collected by asking people politely. Oftentimes, when you can’t find someone who will willingly provide the information you need, it’s gathered by surveillance. And that puts you—and us—in a pretty precarious position. Surveillance is the art of surreptitiously watching, listening or otherwise procuring firsthand knowledge on a person, place or thing. This is recorded by means of a camera, audio device, or memory.
“Now, surveillance inside your own host sovereignty only comes with one singular problem: not spooking the target. This is because you are surveilling for the country you are doing it within. Therefore you don’t need to worry about where you sleep at night once you are finished. You have a bed, you have a life, you have normalcy. You can openly surveil someone with a camera because you don’t necessarily care who else sees you doing it, as long as it doesn’t set your target off. The worst that happens is that the cops get called on you, and you have to flash a badge. At which point they leave you alone.
“Now, most folks that work for the Stasi are familiar with surveillance—rote spying on friends and neighbors, then providing information to the Stasi who further curate that information into intelligence. But when we are talking espionage… well, Lena, that’s an entirely different ball-game. Sure, you are still conducting the same type of surveillance and information-gathering tactics, but now you are not doing it with the permission of the sovereignty you are residing within. You are doing it inside of a country that doesn’t want you doing it. This means you have to worry about anyone seeing you, because if anyone spooks, it could mean a lot of trouble.
“Furthermore, you have to use means of concealing your activities. This means concealing absolutely everything: your cameras, your employers, your day-to-day activities, even what your name is, or what your hobbies are. I’m sure you have received some sort of counter-surveillance training… maybe how to tell if you are being followed, or how to lose someone who is following you… ring any sort of bells?”
“Yes,” Lena nodded, remembering Wart-face and the others.
“Well, that’s all legally-sanctioned stuff. You don’t have to worry about getting in trouble if you get caught, because who’s going to catch you? Your employers? Worst case, if your target spooks on you, the Stasi will just send someone else. But in the world of espionage, if you are being followed, that means they know you are worth following. If you try to lose them, you only prove that you are who they think you are. Now, that doesn’t seem very smart, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.” she shook her head.
“Furthermore, attempting to lose a surveillance team only makes their job more difficult. A lot of times, these folks are underpaid and work incredibly long hours out in the elements. If you upset them, they will absolutely bring the wrath upon you. That’s not something you need, is it?”
“No, Sir,” she shook her head honestly.
“Alright. So, your first mission is simple: when you get back to the GDR, you are going to build yourself a routine. This will consist of a series of cafes you eat at, a series of stores you shop at, a series of places you frequent for whatever reason. Do you know what “Three sides of a Square” means?”
“No, Sir.” Lena answered.
“It’s very simple. If you are walking west to east down a road on the right-hand side, picture that you are walking across the bottom line of a square. If you want to find out if you are being followed, you take a left across the street, which forces anyone following you to cross as well. Then, you turn right and keep going in the same direction you were before. Then, you take a right-hand turn and cross the street again… once again, forcing anyone following you to cross again… only to turn left back into the same direction you were first going, on the same path you were on in the first place.