Variant Exchange

by Fox J Wilde

  “And please understand that I have few answers, dear. That’s not my job. I just help coordinate between folks who have answers for each other. Anything else I know is strictly for my own personal benefit. We’re family, Lena. I love you like a granddaughter, so please understand that I will never knowingly put you in any danger. But there’s a lot of other people I love just the same, and I have to make sure I don’t put them in danger either. The more information you have, the more you grow attuned to seeing and hearing things you aren’t yet supposed to…that means you might make assumptions. Assumptions get you captured. If you get captured, that means I get captured. Which in turn means that others get captured.”

  “But what about Ha…err, Grips? He was captured.”

  “Grips is a remarkably strong boy,” Mrs. Schroeder admitted. “But I very much doubt he hasn’t talked. More likely, he spilled everything that he knew eventually, and now the agents he mentioned are under surveillance 24/7. But those agents won’t be arrested until the entire network can be brought down simultaneously. We’ve been able to isolate all the agents that Grips encountered—they are being fed a constant stream of our very best counter-intelligence to ensure the Stasi are all on the correct snipe-hunt together. But it still presents a huge danger. And we worry that the Soviets may eventually grow restless and pull the trigger on the known assets. After that point, all of our efforts are sunk.”

  “What sort of counter-intelligence?” Lena asked honestly. “I’ve been hearing that term over and over, and to be honest, I still don’t understand it one bit.”

  “Spying is the oldest game in the book next to prostitution, dear.” Mrs. Schroeder laughed, “It’s also the most hated profession in the book, next to prostitution—that’s probably why the two go hand in hand. And like prostitution, as long as spying has existed, there have existed methods of deterring it. Sometimes the best way of getting rid of a spy is to kill him or her. But most of the time, the best way is to use them without them knowing it, by feeding them secret information that’s outdated or altogether false. Spies aren’t going to know the difference. And if the information is good enough, not even the analysts will know. That is, until the top-secret files that state ‘Russia’s anti-aircraft capabilities can’t shoot down anything over 50,000-feet’ get an American U-2 spy-plane shot down at 80,000.

  “Every now and again, CI-agents get the chance to flip an enemy asset—threaten and reward him or her to work for their side, that sort of thing—but the best counter-intelligence comes from consistency and coordination. If you create a parallel reality where an entire network of NATO agencies are intentionally collecting and disseminating false information and working towards a fake goal together, then the Soviets will be following the trail of that goal for years…putting together very fake dots on a very real map.”

  “That sounds really complicated.”

  “The more complicated the better,” Mrs. Schroeder laughed. “That makes it more believable. Spies are naturally suspicious people who are trained to see ghosts…but CI-agents exist to create those ghosts. They get caught up in a world of such intense suspicion and paranoia that they have to have a sense of whimsy about them. Otherwise, they will go absolutely insane.”

  “But what’s the point of it all?” Lena asked, even more exasperated than before. “It all seems needlessly complicated.”

  “That’s why you and I are just assets. We like the adventure of it all, without really caring all that much about the result. And why should we? The results rarely affect us personally. But these people—meaning the people who cultivate us and pay our bills—these people’s main purpose is to know why. You may think it’s stupid wasting millions of dollars and putting hundreds of lives at risk trying to bring some British punk rocker into the GDR. Especially since that person could likely come here of his own accord on the subway and receive a hero’s welcome. But if that punk rocker’s Bosses’ goal wasn’t all that honorable where the GDR is concerned, well, that’s a different story. Certainly, changing the economic and political structure of the GDR in its entirety is worth millions of dollars.”

  “But what in the world could he do?” Lena asked. “He’s just one person.”

  “Oh, you would be surprised what one person can do.” she gestured solemnly, “A pawn seems like a pointless piece in the game of chess—and if you are a layman playing against another layman, it is. But if you are a master playing against another master, the pawn is no less important than the bishop or queen. Every move a pawn makes, however small, is valuable and necessary.

  “The pawn makes small moves; but it makes small moves that the bishop and knight can’t make, and it makes moves that the queen or castle can’t be bogged down with. And thank the Lord about that. If the chessboard had only knights, bishops, queens and castles, it would be a very different game indeed. It would look very much more like open trench warfare than the elegant asymmetry of spy games, and millions more people would die.

  “It’d be faster.” Lena grumped.

  “Oh, of course it would be! And so would launching the nukes at each other. So would starting another World War to fight over whatever is left, but that’s not an outcome anyone wants. Make no mistake: you and I may be pawns, with our small purviews, making our small moves on a huge board filled with big important pieces; but that British punk rocker is a knight jumping over all of the laws and customs of the State, and moving strangely around the board to do things that you didn’t consider initially. We are here to make sure that wherever he lands, the bishops of counter-intelligence don’t have an opening to mow him over.”

  “But wouldn’t that mean we get mowed over instead?”

  “Maybe,” Mrs. Schroeder answered honestly, “but probably not. Would you take a pawn, if all you gained was taking a pawn? Especially if it might mean losing your bishop in the process?”

  “It might, if I knew how important that pawn was.”

  “And that, my dear, is the purpose of our counter-intelligence: to make sure they don’t see the value in that strategy.”

  “By moving the Pawns around.” Lena said, drearily.

  “See, this is why our boss gets paid more than us. They find this stuff a lot more interesting and profitable than you and I do.”

  “How the hell do you deal with this?!” Lena threw her hands up in exasperation. “It’s all so…twisted and tangled up. You never know who knows what, or what anyone really wants or has planned for you. You can’t trust anyone. Doesn’t that scare you??”

  “My dear, that’s why I choose to trust. It isn’t always easy, but it gets easier the more it proves itself out. Sometimes it isn’t about trusting someone entirely; but rather finding those precious things about them that you can trust. I trust you, even if I don’t know entirely what you are up to when you aren’t working for us. I trust you because you and I have a history together, and that has to mean something. I trust that friend of yours, Vivika, because you have made a choice to trust her…and she hasn’t given me a reason not to. I won’t tell her what you and I are up to, but I’ll certainly trust her with Kraut. And in my book, that’s pretty close to trusting her with my life.

  “I trust Walter Müller, even if he is spying for the Stasi. With Walter, it’s not that I don’t trust him with information that he could use against me; it’s that I save the poor man from having to keep more secrets from them. I trust him because I have more of a history with him than I do even with you, and I know he watches out for Mick and Herr—little idiots though they may be—just the same as I trust Jonathan and Janet to be good parents, even if I don’t trust their marriage to each other.

  “I trust our boss. Not just because he’s proven to be trustworthy, but because if I don’t, that puts me and everyone else’s lives at stake. I trust him to know far more than me about the great game, and I trust the training he has been given to train me on what I need to do. Moreover, I trust my network to d
o their individual parts without me double-checking their work, because that makes us function better.

  “I trust Grips to hold out for as long as possible, because he trusts that we are coming for him. And I trust that if he finally cracked, that our counter-intelligence folks had long planned for that exact eventuality. Moreover, I trust that they are the type of people that are still coming for Grips, knowing full well that his actions spell out betrayal to the letter of the law. ...because of all the things I do trust, I don’t number the letter of the law amongst them.

  “If all else fails, I trust God in whatever form he or she takes, because when times get tough and the road ahead gets confusing, and no matter how bleak it truly does look, I trust that he or she has a good use for these old bones. Failing that, I trust that a horrible death in a black cell ends with an eternity spent with my dead husband and this sweet little dog that everyone seems to hate.”

  As if on cue, the relentlessly lazy Kraut made more snoring/wheezing sounds as he rolled onto his back, displaying his tummy to the world.

  “And Kraut...” Mrs. Schroeder laughed, “...trusts that the house will not collapse as he sleeps, and that he is safe and free to display his belly to the world with his tongue hanging out for all to see. It’s a simple trust from a simple mind, but it’s a trust based off of nearly two decades of me ensuring that for him.”

  Lena laughed. It felt good to have spent this time with Mrs. Schroeder. Even though she had kept this secret from the group, and from Lena until now. And even though she was likely withholding more information. She was a trustworthy person, and Lena made a silent pact with herself to rely on her wisdom, no matter how dangerous doing so felt.

  “One person I don’t trust, however...” Mrs. Schroeder said with a dire tone, “is Patrick.”

  “You...” Lena said, startled. “You know about him? ...how?”

  “Don’t trust that one, Lena.” she continued, ignoring the question. “Don’t trust him. Follow his orders, and say the things you have to say; but for the love of God, do not trust him.”

  Lena sat outside a small cafe, smoking a cigarette on a Monday. It was roughly five in the afternoon and the city was still busy about her, passing the baton of business from reports and labor to conversation and cocktails. As normal, few cars passed through the street, while hundreds of bicycle-born pedestrians choked the city on their way to meet friends and lovers. The general chill in the air seemed to provoke the denizens into a more urgent stride, yet it did nothing to daunt the general mirth. For all intents and purposes, this was a happy day—for everyone else, that is.

  Lena was at the appointed spot, awaiting instructions. Awaiting being the operative word, since she knew nothing about what waited for her in the coming hours…or days, or weeks. Since arriving back in the GDR, she had received a blissful few days of normalcy, and she and Vivika had made good use of this time to relax, shop and generally amble about with very few cares in the world. Yet Lena was beginning to realize that anything more than a day of peace and quiet made her itch with anticipation. Not an ‘excitement-for-more’-sort of itch, but rather the ‘something-bad-is-going-to-happen’-type. A few days of hearing nothing and Lena was on edge.

  Thankfully, she had received her instructions to sit outside of this cafe and wait. But that was the extent of it and she was hopeful she wasn’t waiting for a bullet to the brain or a black-bagging of some kind. Those things did happen, after all.

  She scanned the city in front of her, smiling at the people as they walked past. They all seemed so happy to be free of work. While Lena couldn’t necessarily relate, it still lifted her spirits. She noticed, what appeared to be a young couple walked briskly hand-in-hand. The man was wearing a polo shirt, and slacks of the evening variety. His company was wearing his overcoat to stave off the chill, yet it was unbuttoned, so as to display a very nice purple dress underneath, “They must be on a date!” she thought. “How very sweet!”

  She watched another couple. This one was elderly, and they moved at a snail’s pace. He was hunched over from a life spent working hard for her, and she was hunched over from a life spent helping him make it through. Although both needed support, both defied gravity in a mutual embrace that made every step all the easier. Lena loved them instantly, and hoped one day she could love someone who loved her that much. They also wore their pants really high, and this made Lena laugh.

  Perhaps a half block away, a taller man wearing a slightly ratty suit and black fedora ambled down the street. He looked to be tunelessly humming to himself and smoking a cigarette, no doubt trying to calm himself after a long day’s work. By the way he shuffled about, he struck Lena as a professor of some sort. Looking at him, she felt the urge to smoke another cigarette herself. So, she pulled out a stick, put it in her mouth, and lit a match. Sadly, this was one of two matches she had left, and the first snuffed out.

  “Oh, bother.” she thought; she hated it when this happened. She continued looking around. On the other side of the street, was a young woman walking her dog. They were, perhaps, the cutest couple she had yet seen. The woman had a stately aura to her, wearing a conservative business outfit and a tightly manicured bun only partially obscured by a tasteful headscarf. She looked to be a somewhat humorless individual, with limited grasp for social interaction. And yet the dog she walked—some maniacal creature barely larger than a handbag—twisted, turned, and unleashed a minuscule yet spirited assault on the leash.

  This dog seemed to switch moods as often as it switched directions. It first bit at the leash, then rolling onto it’s back to scratch some newly discovered itch. After this, it attempted to climb up the woman’s leg, only to attempt a backflip right before forgetting the leash and all-out sprinting towards…well, whatever. Oddly, the well-mannered woman seemed to be perfectly at peace with the furry bundle of electricity, smiling at him and cooing in a voice that Lena couldn’t quite make out. They were the perfect pair, these two.

  Again, Lena tried to light her cigarette with her last remaining match…and again, it fizzled out uselessly, “Ah well.” she thought peacefully to herself, “These things do happen.”

  The tall man in the slightly ratty suit walked by then. He stopped just a few feet away, pulled a match out of his matchbook, and lit his cigarette. After being satisfied with its lighting, he casually tossed the matchbook on the ground and walked away.

  “Oh, well, that worked out well,” she thought to herself. Looking around a few times, she reached over and grabbed the matchbook. She opened it up, and took a second to read the words ‘’Dritte– 6th’ before casually ripping out a match and pocketing the rest. It didn’t really matter if she threw out the matchbook or not, as she always kept a fresh book in her pocket, and it’s not like folks didn’t occasionally write on matchbooks. Yet it was the principle of the thing, and she knew Red-hat (now Black-fedora) would be mad if she didn’t take every precaution.

  Standing up and stretching casually, she looked around to make sure she had gathered all of her things. She hadn’t brought all that much, really. She just needed to waste a few moments to give Red-hat three blocks or so of headway before following him. Counter-surveillance was very difficult to do on your own (at least it was for her), but it was much easier to do in pairs. For one thing, anyone she was paired up with would obviously be better at this than her (so she wouldn’t have to try so hard). Plus, they almost never put someone on her when she was running doubles. She still had to keep a lookout, however, just in case.

  Once Red-hat was about three blocks away, he paused briefly for a rest, and to take in the sights. Lena used this opportunity to lazily amble in his direction, taking frequent stops to look in shop windows or smile at children and dogs. This was the first half of her duties—to show Red-hat that she had no tail on her. She did this simply by walking. Red-hat would be able to immediately spot someone who stopped when she did. The three-block distance would give him an easy two
blocks to see anyone.

  One block passed, then the second, and Red-hat stood in the same place, tunelessly humming to himself and smoking a cigarette happily. Once Lena had reached the second block without any sign from Red-hat, she kept walking. This block, however, Red-hat began walking slowly towards her. Lena lit a cigarette while walking. This was perfectly normal behavior and didn’t symbolize anything in particular. It did give her a chance to briefly pause to look around for any tail he might have, though.

  Seeing no sign of a tail, Lena decided to relax on this unimportant corner for a moment. She watched Red-hat walk down the street, stopping to greet a young lady, then again stopping to pet a dog. After a moment, he moved forward again, only to stop and look in a local store. Seeing something he liked, apparently, he walked in, and Lena lost sight of him, “Dammit.” she thought, they always took forever in these stores.

  She leaned against a wall, smoking her cigarette. It wouldn’t have been that big of an issue, truly; she had smokes and she was tightly bundled against the occasional chill, but she had been cooling her heels out in the open air for, what, almost an hour and a half now? She wanted to get moving and get this meeting over with. In an effort try and stave off the chill and boredom alike, she resolved to people-watch some more. It was an easy conclusion to come to, since it was what she was supposed to be doing, anyways.

  She watched another old couple, a younger man reading a newspaper across the street, a few girls skipping rope a block away, and a young woman taking artsy photos with an old camera down an alleyway. Nothing out-of-the ordinary. A few more minutes passed, and then a few more. The old couple had finally moved on, as had the girls skipping rope and most others who were out for the day. The man reading the newspaper still sat there…but why wouldn’t he? He was reading. The young woman was still taking her artsy photos of the cracks in the wall, “Artists,” Lena smirked to herself, ignoring the fact that she did similar things as well.