The penetrations were dangerous but the Russians’ greatest successes were mostly at lower levels, which meant his information was rarely involved. Nevertheless, strict compartmentation between the Russians and his service meant he didn’t know who their agents were. More worrisome would be if the Americans had someone in their midst like British MI6 traitor, Kim Philby—then Fischer knew his full identity was in danger.
That the Americans had acknowledged his warning message gave him some comfort. They would know enough to shut down and cease reporting anything that might reveal additional information. Hopefully, they would track back all the previous traffic to find out where things might have gone wrong.
It was their second message that worried him. “Expect a night visitor” was how it broke out.
For the moment, he needed to concentrate on his short game. “S” believed there was a spy but didn’t know who it was other than someone at high level. That led to more questions.
What led him to suspect me? Was it the information associated with Gypsy’s compromise? Are there others also under suspicion?
Only rarely did Fischer lament the secrecy and loneliness he felt in his chosen profession. Not that of being an intelligence officer for East Germany, but of being a spy for the Americans. Sometimes he wished for someone to talk to about the problems he faced or just to discuss the game and who was winning. He hoped his chosen side was winning but he couldn’t see the scoreboard from his office and the recent red card that had taken Gypsy out of play made him feel the game was in jeopardy.
Going back to the question at hand, Fischer could name only a few who had access to the kind of information he sent the Americans. There weren’t many. His access was at the very highest level and of that he sent only the choicest bits of intelligence.
He looked in his in-box. As chief of the overseas bureaus, he was responsible for assigning collection requirements, approving operations, and reviewing the intelligence reports produced. He knew the officers in each bureau, what their strong points were, and where the problems lay. In short, he knew what was happening, often before Mielke or Wolf found out. It was an ideal position to keep his friends informed of what East Germany was up to around the world. The only area he didn’t have good insight into was West German operations. Wolf controlled those personally and kept close tabs on everything. Diving too deep into that area was dangerous, so he kept his distance despite the continued American pleading for information.
The intelligence reports he received from the bureaus were bundled into area-specific folders after they had been analyzed and assessed for value. Normally, he was more interested in the raw reports which held details of ongoing overseas operations and plans. It was the sort of information that was normally invaluable to the Americans for manipulating those penetrations or discovering sources. It was ironic that one of those reports may have resulted in his own compromise.
The flow of folders seemed to have resumed its normal pace after a couple of days’ pause. His senior secretary thought the bureaus had all gone on holiday, but some technician blamed it on a communications problem. Fischer thought otherwise.
The information was, for the most part, routine. Assessments of dictators and their political rivals, notes on the susceptibility of a maritime company owner to bribes (always valuable when arranging covert arms shipments), and which rebel group controlled what section of a country this week. Not exactly what he normally shared with his friends.
A blue striped folder was among the other traffic. Within was an operational cable addressed to Department XXII and copied to several other offices including his. The blue stripe meant it was a very restricted distribution cable. Fischer picked it up and, as he read it, an idea came to him.
15
Rohan met her boyfriend on the soccer field the morning after she accepted Colonel Jelinek’s offer. Stavros was working out with some of his teammates when she appeared. They were practicing their soccer, known as football in Europe and most other countries that did not have NFL franchises. The Detachment’s soldiers often played with and against local civilian, as well German military and police teams, and it was a good way to meet “interesting” people who might prove useful for any eventuality. They never expected to win against most of the other teams, many of which fielded semi-pro players, but they generally held their own in competitions.
But it required hard work and lots of practice. From the sidelines she could see their labored breathing turn into clouds of vapor in the cold morning air. Stavros broke off to greet her and, to all appearances, it looked to be a normal meeting between a man and woman enamored of each other, which they were. The two went trotting off together towards Stavros’ building a kilometer away.
When they reached the back door, Stavros regarded his girlfriend closely and asked, “You’re sure?”
“Yes, it gets me away from the Field Station grind and who knows where it might lead?”
Stavros smiled as he punched in the combination on the door lock, “I thought you’d say something like that.”
“Not taking me for granted, I hope?” “Never, I just knew you’d want to do this.”
Becker greeted Stavros and Rohan at the top of the steps.
The young, black-haired woman drew some, actually a lot of curiosity from the other men. It was rare to see a woman in the building unless she was a spouse and even then it was unusual. The curious didn’t remain long before moving along, however. Becker’s dismissive glare urged them to attend to their duties elsewhere.
Just as Stavros exuded a Mediterranean heritage, Rohan didn’t look American. She was European: her clothes, her hair, everything about her was different. It was an unconscious habit learned from a mother who never gave up her homeland or languages even as she assimilated a protective layer of an adopted culture. Given a chair and asked to be patient while Becker mapped out some details for their mission, she instead came up with a question out of left field.
“What defines a good leader?” Sarah Rohan asked Becker.
Becker’s head was bent over a map while Sarah sat quietly in the small room where Stavros had left her several minutes before. Now he looked up at Rohan and then back down at the map.
“First, either someone is a leader or he’s not. There is no such thing as a bad leader. If he is bad, he is not a leader.”
“That’s it?”
“No, there are many things that make a good leader. Do you want to hear what I believe?”
“Yes, I don’t think any of my superiors could do that without reading off a note card.”
“First, in my view a leader must know his men, or in this case, women, as well as he knows himself. He must understand their abilities and limitations and be able to communicate with them. Communication is important, not only to instruct and guide, but to listen and perceive. He must train them to be their best and cannot ask anything unreasonable of them. A leader must know what he does is not for his own promotion, but for the people he leads. Success comes not from one person but from the efforts of everyone working together as a team.”
“Did they teach you that kind of stuff at the Sergeant Majors Academy?”
“No, I learned from a much wiser man.” “Who?”
“A guy by the name of Musashi, he was a warrior scholar.” “Where did you meet him?”
“In a book he wrote. He is much older than I—about 300 years older.”
“Was he a philosopher?”
“He was a Samurai first; it is the highest caste of soldier in medieval Japan. He won over sixty sword duels before becoming a recluse and philosopher.”
“He sounds ancient. Are those kinds of ideas still relevant?” “Good leadership never gets old. The principles of leading haven’t changed. Some people just refuse to learn them. And if you don’t learn it from your mentors or in books, you have to learn it on the street. That’s a pretty unusual thing to ask for a junior soldier to ask. What makes you so interested in leadership? Aren’t you concerned with
what we’re going to be doing?”
“I like to know the thing that drives the people I work with or for. Most of the kids in Field Station are too scared of the first sergeant to ask questions or they blindly obey whatever their section sergeants say. Most of the sergeants seem to have been promoted into a level of mediocrity and couldn’t answer that question with anything other than some formulaic B.S. taught at NCO academy. Our sergeants aren’t leaders, they’re technicians.”
Becker reached into his knowledge of military history to answer. “Obedience was important in the days when close-order drill was the mainstay of battlefield tactics. Not obeying an order could lead to confusion in the ranks and panic. That was a crucial thing when you faced a well-disciplined army. These days it’s better to train hard together as a team and learn to trust each other. Still, at the end of the day, soldiers still need to follow their leader’s orders.”
“That’s it?”
“Most of it; the only other thing I would add is the leader has to know when to say no.”
“Say no to what?”
“You have to say no to missions that are stupid, useless missions that risk your people’s lives without any gain. Your soldiers will always be enthusiastic and want to do the impossible. Sometimes you can do the impossible, but there are times you have to ask if it is worth the sacrifice and when it’s just a waste.”
Becker went silent. There were too many times he hadn’t followed that rule. A moment passed before he continued.
“You’re a college graduate, right?” “Yes, are you?” she countered.
“I never had the chance, or better said, I fouled my chances up and ended up enlisting to get out of town. I’m a simple soldier.”
“Seems you’ve done pretty well.”
“For the army, maybe, but I’ll never have a penthouse on Fifth Avenue.”
“That doesn’t matter much to me. What matters is a good life well lived.”
“Why did you join the army, Sarah?”
“Because America accepted my family and me without question. I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot and I felt I could give something of myself to repay the debt. Now, are you going to mentor me for this job? Or must I pick it up by osmosis?”
“I think you might be too smart for the army,” Becker said. He shook his head and continued.
“Now, you could just learn by OJT, except on the job training doesn’t work well for critical skills like flying airplanes or operating in enemy territory. The failure point generally comes too quick for a healthy recovery. Or we could go over basics and role play some scenarios.”
“I like the second option.”
“Good, then with your permission, we’ll begin,” Becker was beginning to fathom that working with Rohan would be a lot different from what he was used to. He continued,
“We will be going to East Berlin together to see a play as husband and wife.”
“Is that what all this is about, and have you told Paul where you’re taking me?”
Becker smiled, “At least I have your attention. That’s our story and you need to learn the details. We’ll be carrying identity documents in false names that show us to be French diplomats from West Germany who are visiting the East. We’ll be booked at the Palast Hotel—no worries, we’re probably not really staying there—and we’ll have tickets for the Schiffbauerdamm Theater.”
“I love theater, but what are we really doing?”
“We’re going to meet an important man at his house, but we can’t be seen with him. We’ll sneak in and out of the area. If we’re stopped, we will say we came to see the show and got lost. That way we have a plausible reason for wandering around.”
“Okay, I think I have it now. You need me for cover to be out at night. I did something like this with my parents when we escaped from Czechoslovakia.”
“Tell me about it.”
“As we were making our way out of the city, my mom made me use a different name with strangers. So I had to learn that I wasn’t Sarah from Prague anymore, but Nadia from Pilsen. To this day, I don’t like that name. There was a lot of angst associated with the thought of getting it wrong.”
“But it got you out.”
“Eventually, yes. But one night before we made it over the border, I had to go knock on a door in the middle of nowhere and ask for something. Mom said only that whoever answered would help us. I’ve forgotten what I had to ask, but I was scared and felt alone in the countryside. It turned out to be an old farmer lady and her husband who hid us for a couple of days until we could make our way across the border.”
“Why were you hiding?”
“My dad was a teacher who was wanted by the police for supporting the reform movement.”
“That’s why your family had to escape?”
“Yes, otherwise he would have been sent to prison.”
“So you’ve had some experience in the kind of things we’ll be doing. I think some time spent on the details of our story would be good and then I’ll fill you in on how we’ll do the mechanics of the job. By the way, I’m glad you got out.” He paused before adding, “So is Paul.”
For a second time, Sarah blushed.
Changing the subject, she asked, “What’s the play?”
“Braun’s Großer Frieden. We may or may not make it to the play.
It depends on how long everything takes with our contact.”
“Your friend better be pretty entertaining for me to miss that, whatever the hell it is!”
“He’s not a friend, but a man we’ve been asked to help. I’m told he is a rebel hiding deep inside the system.”
“Who is he?”
“You’ll find out soon enough, but for now, I think we’ll just call him the ‘Wizard.’”
Becker thought the questions were finished, but Rohan had other ideas.
“Are you married?” she said.
Oh, Jesus, he thought.
“Where did you learn your interrogation techniques? You ask about one thing and then you switch to another. You keep your subject off balance.”
“My mom and dad taught me to question things. I guess that’s what got him in trouble but he told me never to stop asking. My mom was like that too. Plus, she was very open and always wanted to know about people’s feelings. It may have rubbed off. So answer my question.”
“I was never married. My army life has really been too intense for a meaningful relationship. It’s a hard life and I’ve seen too many marriages go bad. Why do you ask?”
“Sorry for asking, I was just wondering. If I stay in this line of work will I have the same future as you? And what does that mean for me and Paul? I have a lot of questions about where I need to go next. I wouldn’t ask anyone in my unit because they would probably think the wrong thing. I thought you might have an idea.”
“I am probably the wrong guy to ask but I really don’t think you need to worry much. Besides now isn’t the time to think about anything other than the task ahead. In any event, you’ll have opportunity enough to think about it when it’s re-enlistment time.”
“You’re right. I need to concentrate on what’s next.”
Becker smiled. It was probably the first substantive conversation he’d had with a woman in a long time, if he was honest. He could see why Stavros was drawn to this one, but he’d have to be careful.
She’s smart and pretty—a dangerous combination for any guy.
It was probably for the best that he deviated from his true history a bit as he related it to Rohan.
There was this one woman in Monterey… but that was a story
better left untold.
16
As defined in the Special Forces Operations manual FM 31-20, the briefback is the final decision brief presented by an “A” Team to its commander. Its preparation involves a systematic process that covers all areas of mission planning: what the team has been tasked to do and how they intend to carry it out, as well as the enemy they will face on the field. This ex
haustive methodology had been used since SF was first commanded by Colonel Aaron Bank in 1953, and Becker was well versed in it. He thought of it as a “soup to nuts” approach to a task, throwing in how the team would react to anything and everything that could possibly go wrong. Usually, the process takes a week or more; sometimes, as with this mission, a team only has hours.
Colonel Jelinek sat back in his chair as Becker concluded his briefback. Sergeant Major Bergmann, Jamie Wheeler, and the unit operations officer, Dieter Kelly, were the only non-players in attendance. Most of Team 5 was also there as they had tasks to fulfill on the mission. It was typical for a Special Forces briefing, intensive and thorough. The team’s primary and alternate plans were covered, including any emergencies that might come up. A map showed the route each of the different elements would take after they separately crossed Checkpoint Charlie into the East.
Team 5 had received the mission just days before and pulled out all the stops to organize resources. They were going into a denied area and, although Becker was confident, he knew one thing could screw up all the planning: a trap set by the Stasi. This was out of his control and he just had to place all his confidence in the two Agency officers, whom he regarded as professionals without any hidden agendas. Besides, Jelinek and Bergmann would not have taken on any B.S. mission, of that he was sure.
“What are your questions, sir?”
Jelinek asked Wheeler if he had any.
“Tell me why you chose to go with French documents. I assume you can pass yourself off as French?”
“Both of us speak French. We will present less of a threat to the East Germans than we would as Americans.”
Wheeler dove deeper and directed his next question to Rohan. “Your French, what you spoke at home in Czechoslovakia, is an older dialect, right?”
“I am equally comfortable in old as well as modern French. I spent a year in Paris studying before I joined the army. I am quite familiar with the requirements of the Académie Française.”
A Question of Time Page 10
