Page 21 of Cry Havoc

Lavrinenko looked back at the photo. Her thin nose, light skin, and perfectly proportioned and pronounced cheekbones and chin made her seem more Danish than German.

“Was she specifically targeting him for the Germans?”

“No. She had a different target, a Brit, but when he turned out to be uninterested in women, she took advantage of another man. She used initiative.”

“A rare trait,” Lavrinenko noted.

“Like all Stasi trained in the Soviet Union, she retained her ties to us.”

Lavrinenko turned a page in the file.

“First contact, 1966?”

“Yes. In Paris at the International Conference on Information Processing. Desmond was attending at the behest of the NSA. Ironically, they met at the hotel Le Meurice.”

“The bar frequented by Mata Hari before her execution for spying for Germany,” Lavrinenko recalled.

“Precisely. It appears Desmond is enthralled with the history of espionage. Müller was lunching with her previous mark when she spotted Desmond and made her approach. Over drinks, she played to his ego. He does not seem to be socially aware enough to keep climbing the ladder. He’s topped out. He’s gone as high as he will go in the NSA, which could work to our advantage.”

“If he has the access we need and stays in place, he could be a most valuable asset. Do we know when she will see him next?” the director asked.

“They meet at science and technology conferences. Desmond is married, which plays into his discretion and acceptance of agent Müller’s precautionary measures.”

“She can travel freely?”

“Yes, it’s in the file. She was an orphan. Her mother was a prostitute who gave her up for adoption. She’s been a ward of the state since birth. She was identified early on via intelligence tests and then later for her physical characteristics. At sixteen she was taken from polytechnic secondary school and sent here for training. She finished State School 4 at eighteen and returned to East Germany. She had an aptitude for the technical sciences, so the Stasi inserted her into France as a student atUniversité Toulouse III Paul Sabatier to study information and computer sciences. She joined Française de Calcul to solidify her academic bona fides while continuing to employ and refine her tradecraft in a relatively permissive environment. She applied for a job in West Germany after university and was hired by Nixdorf Computer Corporation in Paderborn. She’s now a mid-level programmer, which allows her to travel internationally to computer science conferences under the auspices of her job, the same conferences attended by Allister Desmond of the NSA.”

“Interesting.”

“She cultivated him. He fancies himself something of a spy novel aficionado, which she then exploited to further the relationship sexually.”

“Does he know who he’s spying for?” Lavrinenko asked.

“That is unclear. According to the file, he thinks he’s helping agent Müller with her job at Nixdorf, and as long as he delivers, her hotel room door is open to him. She assesses that he sees it as industrial espionage. As you know, our swallows can be very persuasive.”

“Does the Stasi know she is working for us?”

“No, but they must suspect that any agents they send through our training will be recruited. And in agent Müller’s case, we have a place for her if the wall should ever come down. She’s an orphan. She needs a home.”

“What keeps her from going to the West Germans, the Brits, or the Americans?”

“It’s in the file as well. First, she was saved by the East Germans. They offered her a sanctuary. Then so did we. And after State School 4, she knows the price of betrayal.”

“Quite,” Lavrinenko said, swiveling his chair to look through the window at his back. Smoke still poured from the chimney of the crematorium.

He turned back to his deputy.

“Now is time for the real test,” Lavrinenko said. “Get her to America. We can’t wait for the next computer conference. It’s time to find out just how much this Allister Desmond will do for her.”

CHAPTER 3

South Vietnam

January 27, 1968

TOM REECE AND FRANKQuinn had conducted off-the-books missions before. Accompanied by Amiuh, their Montagnard team leader, they called them hunting expeditions and used them as testing and evaluation ops, which indeed they were. By venturing into the jungle just beyond the gates of Phu Bai, helicopter insertions or extractions were unnecessary. These missions were a way to shake out new gear before going across the fence into Laos, or in this case, a way to assess if conducting missions armed only with suppressed 9mm Sten submachine guns and .22 High Standard silenced pistols was a viable option. This way, just two miles from the base, if they got into trouble, they could make it back to FOB 1 for beers at the Green Beret Lounge before senior-level leaders were any the wiser. The intent was to develop silent ambush techniques that would not draw the attention of nearby NVA units when extraction could be hours away.

Previous hunting expeditions assessed cave and tunnel infiltration methods, using the rock walls to ricochet rounds into unsuspecting enemy fighters. On others, they configured M16s with new Starlight scopes to test them out against living, breathing targets.