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Cold War, Colder Blood

A Tale from the Agent's Lounge

During the Cold War some of the prospective agents had been engaged in very aggressive activities; especially the undercover cops and Special Forces types. A few, like our Chief of Staff Silver, got in through an act of assassination. But once the Academy training was complete and they were officially junior agents life became more mundane.

More than once Silver told me or others at the bar about the time he spent in West Germany under the senior agent known as Green. He had a few adventures and misadventures, once even getting into a shootout with a group of KGB that included the future president of Russia. But until a mission in Finland, a mission he does not discuss with anyone, anytime, he was mostly acting at the direction of Green and his freedom to improvise was restricted.

After the Finland mission he was promoted to Senior Agent and took the codename Silver. As far as I can tell no one has called him by his real name since then. Even his mate calls him Silver, although she has hinted that she knows his real name, and threatens to reveal it whenever Silver gets too grumpy. I assume that the Director, Williams knows it also but when anyone asks him about it he clams up.

The same goes for their former Executive Secretary, the delectable poodle Miss Caniche-Chien. She and I have been living together since she was crippled during an attack in Brussels and while she definitely has a great deal of affection for me she has never once let one of the Director's or Silver's secrets slip through those soft, silky lips.

Sorry, I was drifting away there. That's what happens when one is suffering from lack of sleep. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Silver's promotion.

As a senior agent he could work autonomously or as the head of a team. From the talk around the bar he preferred to work alone. Having already proven capable of killing traitors and spies from the opposition he drew those assignments, as was common for senior agents. It was considered cold-blooded killing, but there is a fine line in the assassination business that some cannot or will not cross - that being the killing of civilians. It is common knowledge that Silver crossed that line - and he crossed it often.

By civilians I mean people who are neither soldiers or spies, criminals or malicious scientists. Even security guards that happened to catch one of our guys where they should not be were fair game. Those were all kill-or-be-killed situations. 'Civilians' were people like clerks in government offices that may have come to know too much, diplomats that were being duped by professional foreign agents, security officers seduced into looking the other way; people who were genuinely innocent, or had fooled themselves into believing that they were. Usually those types do not merit killing, in the West anyway, but occasionally there are exceptions.

On this particular night Silver was sitting with the Director and Missus Brown, a retired senior agent who now ran the Academy's daycare centre. It was rare for her to show up. She made Silver seem positively giddy, so all of the junior agents sat well away from her least her glare singe their fur. They were talking about how things had changed since the Cold War, about how they were rarely called on to strike down civilians who got in too deep.

One of our younger agents, but a fellow well on his way to being a senior agent in his own right, a grey wolf by the name of Zac Ember, was brave enough to sit where he could listen in on their conversation. When they did not shoo him away he even got up the courage to interrupt and ask Silver about the first time that he had to kill someone like that in cold blood.

At first I did not think that Silver was going to answer, the silence after the question being so long, but Ember kept his tongue and I silently polished glasses until Silver cleared his throat and began to speak. And I knew that it was a special case because he did it without even asking Zac to buy him a beer first.

* * * * *

The weather was unusually pleasant in the Eastern European nation that Silver found himself in for his first solo mission after being promoted to senior agent. He had been sent in because the head of security at the Canadian Embassy there suspected something was up and wanted someone both the opposition and the local staff would not recognize to confirm his suspicions. He went in under a false name but with a real passport, arriving on a business visa, supposedly to scout out locations for a restaurant franchise. The cover story gave him the freedom to roam about the embassy district where most of the foreign eateries were already situated. He made a courtesy call to our embassy's Trade Commissioner but avoided the head of security least a locally engaged employee report the meeting to their government. He did not need to meet with him in any event, having memorized the faces of all of the staff he suspected may be leaking information and having already studied the dossier on the opposition.

Their secret service tailed him at first, of course, but after three days of wandering about the area speaking with restaurateurs and sampling the local cuisine they shifted their efforts to more important subjects. After they disappeared Silver spent half his time following the staff on the suspect list and half keeping up the facade of a visiting businessman.

She was the third and last name on the list, and Silver had only been trailing her for two days when she broke routine. She usually ate lunch with the other secretaries but on this occasion she left the embassy just long before noon. It was early for the locals to be eating and the diner she led him too was mostly empty, with just a few patrons dispersed along the counter. She sat in the seat just one over from a rather handsome wolf that looked familiar. Never having visited this particular diner Silver sat at the end where he could observe them while engaging the owner in a discussion about local dishes and their preferred spices.

The wolf was just toying with his food and when he looked up, perhaps locking eyes with her in the mirror behind the bar, something clicked. His picture had been in the dossier Silver had studied. He had been photographed leaving the local office of their secret service, the office where the division responsible for spying on western diplomats was. Perhaps this meeting had been arranged through some subtle signal, a chalk mark on a wall, a curtain arranged in a particular manner in a window on her route to work. Silver shifted his chair around to get a better view of them.

A minute later she took something out of her purse and wrapped it in the napkin that had come with her food. Then she knocked her fork off the counter. It clattered to the floor between her and the fellow Silver had pegged as an agent. They both leaned down below the counter to retrieve it, a most natural gesture of chivalry on his part. Then they sat back up the fork was in her paw and the napkin, along with whatever she had wrapped in it, was not. There had been ample time for him to take it and slip it in a pocket while they were out of view under the counter.

That was it then, Silver thought, suspicions confirmed and the culprit identified. But there was one more thing, something he had noted when they were bending to retrieve the fork and pass the package. As they straightened up she had brushed her head against his, her eyes closing as their cheeks briefly touched.

Silver watched them over the owner's shoulder as he explained why only local potatoes could be used to make the house specialty. She was looking at the mirror longingly. The wolf was finishing off his food and glancing back occasionally, giving her tender looks that said 'be patient, we will be together soon'. After cleaning his plate with a hunk of bread as the locals were wont to do he threw a few notes on the counter and left without looking back. Her eyes followed him out.

She was left there alone with a sad, somewhat frustrated look on her face. A female who was slightly overweight and just short of being pretty in clothes a little too fancy for office work. The picture was all too clear. The plain girl who had joined the Foreign Service looking for love and adventure, only to discover that the males there were more interested in women with lovely faces and shapely bodies, or the exotic allure of local females. Then she meets a handsome male while on a lonely vacation somewhere, a holiday romance novel come true. She falls in love, he claims to love her too. It turns out he works in the same city as her.

Perhaps he claims to be a businessman from our country, or a nation friendly to ours. She tells him that she works in the embassy. He mentions that she must have access to information that would help him in his work. Maybe she volunteers to help, maybe he asks her, but before they leave their little paradise he has arranged to see her again.

Does she know who he really works for, Silver wondered? Maybe so, maybe not. It didn't matter, not from the look in her eyes; she was hooked. Now she spends her days collecting information for him and her nights dreaming of their next get together, probably somewhere outside the country, for the sake of her security he would have insisted.

Silver let her finish and leave while the owner opined on which of the overly-sweet local liqueurs went best with his dishes. After another fifteen minutes and a shot or two of his home-made digestif the big fox left to go write his preliminary report.

It was written in terms suitable for the cover he was operating under of course, referring to the third location being the best option but bemoaning the fact that there was a rival bidder with a personnel connection to the owner. He sent it off through the local telegraph office to a fictitious company the Academy used as a cover, knowing that this nation's secret service would be reading a copy by tomorrow at the latest. It didn't matter. No immediate action would be taken so they could not link the innocent looking telegram to whatever the Headquarters decided to do about the beaver. The full, unabridged report would be written the second Silver was back at headquarters, and that would be the end of it as far as he was concerned, or so he thought.

Three years later found Silver trailing the same couple as they walked hand-in-hand down a beach outside of Rio de Janeiro. He sensed some tension in her posture, and some stiffness in his. Apparently the honeymoon was over.

His report of three years ago had been studied by the planners in the Operations Division and the decision had been made to use her to unwittingly funnel false information. Silver was not involved with that aspect of the case, but he was informed as a courtesy. She was posted back home for a "special assignment" and everything that crossed her desk was subtly altered to produce a distorted image of trade tactics and diplomatic policy. She continued to pass information through her erstwhile lover, travelling alone to countries where the security services were friendlier to his nation than to hers, staying at resorts where they valued privacy. A check of her bank records showed no charges for these excursions. Local sources confirmed his presence during those stays.

Silver wondered how F.O.X. knew if the subterfuge was effective. He assumed that they had a double agent in their secret service that was letting them know what intelligence they were receiving from her and possibly other sources. But that was not his part of the agency, not at that time. There were other ways to tell: if they reacted to threats that that do not exist except in the false intelligence, or if they moved their assets or adjusted their policies in line with the reports she passed on. Of course they had to give them some real intelligence now and then, low impact stuff, but even then you can only go on fooling them for so long, he knew. Eventually they would grow suspicious, and task another source to double-check on her. Little discrepancies would start piling up and they would begin to wonder if she had been turned ... or if she had been a double agent all along. They would begin to doubt everything she was giving them, or had ever given them.

The only way to be sure what information was good was to bring her in for an interrogation, a soft one at first. And who better to conduct it than the man who had seduced her in the first place? If his gentle questioning did not satisfy them they may take her to a local safe house and introduce her to the real interrogators, or even set up an extraction. Whether she went willingly or otherwise they would claim that she had defected.

There are ways that you can play the exposure of a spy to your advantage, he supposed, or to at least minimize the damage. The F.O.X. planning department would have contingency plans for any eventuality and the counter-Intelligence people would be monitoring her every move for the first sign of trouble.

That sign came three years after Silver's initial surveillance of her. His reintroduction to the case came in the form of a summons to the office of the Director. When he arrived the British walrus known as 'W' gestured the big silver fox to sit in the armchair opposite him at his desk. He said nothing, but slid a Top Secret dossier across the desk.

Silver recognized her from the file photo clipped to the inside cover. The file was thick, beginning with his initial report and a damage assessment of what she may have passed on before being discovered. Then it followed her actions and the nature of the information fed through her since then. Each trip out of the country was documented. Every communication with her lover was noted.

Near the back of the file there was a copy of an accidental disclosure form. Someone who was not in on the fact that she was being used to funnel false information had accidentally included her on the circulation list for a document that identified one of our sources in a country friendly to the one she was sending information to. She must have passed the information on along with her regular material. Silver recalled that the source, a senior politician opposed to the ruling junta, had been publicly tried and executed for treason recently. That was too bad, he thought, as he had recruited the lady in question and spend several memorable nights in her bed before turning her over to the local F.O.X. agent for handling.

The last page simply stated that she had received a communication from her lover/handler the previous morning. Immediately afterwards she had asked for leave to take care of her ailing mother back in her hometown, but a flight to Brazil had been booked in her name.

Silver closed the file and looked at the Director, waiting for him to speak.

"There's to be a killing." W said. "An obvious one. We need to send a message."

Silver got the picture.

There was no advantage in arresting her. The agency already had a good idea of what she may have passed before being identified and knew everything she had passed since, including the unfortunate disclosure of one of our sources. In fact, arresting her could be quite embarrassing, undermining public trust in the government. Even if it was done quietly all the opposition had to do was make an anonymous phone call to the right journalist and the story would be out. They would also be working their sources in our government, and no one doubted that they had them, to monitor our actions. A lack of panic would tip them off that they had been played.

On the other hand, if one of our tourists was found dead in a foreign resort there would be a flurry of articles decrying the poor state of security and policing in certain countries, but that would die out after a couple of days. It would also leave the opposition guessing as to how much we knew, if anything. The Director could be feeding disinformation through other compromised sources to further muddy the waters for all Silver knew.

But he did know why he was called to this meeting. Obviously he had not been invited to solicit his opinion on the ethical nature of such an action, nor was he there to contribute to the planning of the mission. The planning staff would have considered every action, reaction and outcome and the decision had been made to kill the spy in or midst, probably because of the death of the compromised source.

Being a senior agent entitled him to use his gun whenever he deemed it necessary, and he had done so on a number of occasions when faced with capture or death. But the ranks of the older generation of agents, the World War II vets, were thinning out. There was still a need for the kind of agent that could detach themselves emotionally from the job, and W wanted to know if Silver was that kind of agent. There were really only a couple of things he, as the instrument that would carry the execution out, needed to know.

"Sanctioned?" He asked. The only difference between a sanctioned and an unsanctioned assassination was that if he got caught during an unsanctioned one he might as well shoot himself, because the government would never acknowledge his existence or exchange a captured spy for his freedom.

"Yes."

"Both or just the girl?"

"Both."

"Alright then."

The director proceeded to lay out the plan. It was very simple, as the best plans usually are.

Silver flew to Rio under a false passport. The resident agent put everything he needed in a luggage locker and passed him the key in a brush-by exchange. Silver found the locker and put his carry-on bag along with the papers he was traveling under inside and took the suitcase that was there. He found new papers in an exterior pouch. It seemed that he was now Klaus Schmitt, of Munich. Silver had been stationed in Germany when he was in the army and again as a junior agent. His German was not good enough to pass as a native in Germany but it would fool the Portuguese speaking Brazilians. Along with the identification and a very authentic looking German passport he found sufficient cash to last a week, the key to a rental car and directions to a hotel near the resort where Herr Schmitt had a room.

Once Silver was safely in his room he opened the suitcase. The resident F.O.X. Agent in Rio had considerately put a couple of wooden wedges on top of the folded clothes. Silver used them to jam the door shut as an extra precaution before lifting out the clothes to examine the tools of the trade. There was a reliable nine-millimetre automatic with a silencer, one spare magazine of ammunition and an armpit holster which could take the gun with or without the silencer attached. Silver strapped it on and did a few practice draws. There was no time or place to test fire the gun but at the range he would be shooting from practice was unnecessary; this killing would not be a test of his shooting skills.

He put the gun back for now. The suitcase looked like a commercial model but the locks were of a much higher quality and the skin of the case was lined with steel mesh to prevent unauthorized entry. It also had a braided steel cable, almost impossible to cut, that could be extended and locked back into the base. He secured the case to the frame of the bed with the cable before changing into beach clothes.

The hotel and the resort shared a beach but hotel guests and the public were only allowed so far before being stopped by private security guards. Resort guests were identified by coloured wrist bands. Different colours indicated different privileges and access. The local agent had provided Silver with a variety of them so that he could be sure to have one the same colour as the subjects of this mission were wearing. He choose an unoccupied beach chair and settled down to wait for his targets to show.

During the several hours he waited Silver was approached by several ladies of varying ages and one effeminate fellow, all of whom made it clear that they were open for a summer fling if he was so inclined. Finally the couple in question appeared. They were strolling paw in paw along the edge of the surf. They drew no more than cursory glances. She was not pretty enough be interesting and did not appear to be rich. He was too good looking for her, but was obviously off the market, at least while she was with him. Silver noted that they did not appear at ease; more like a couple that had just quarrelled and had gone for a walk to clear the air. When they got even with the hotel they turned and headed back toward the resort. They were wearing yellow wrist bands. Silver slipped on one of the same colour and followed them onto the resort's property.

The security guards nodded and smiled as Silver passed them. They cast no more than a glance at the wristband he wore, certainly not enough of a survey to make out the details printed on it. It could be for a different hotel altogether for all he knew, but it was more important that he fit the profile of their typical guest: a northern species who appeared well off and sun starved. The expensive beach clothes that his contact had supplied, the expensive watch and the pasty flesh visible through the thin fur on his thighs fit the image of a newly arrived tourist to a tee.

He trailed the couple back to their room, a small suite in the better section of the hotel, probably chosen because of its privacy. Every guest he saw in that section was wearing a yellow wristband, so that explained their colour code. The entrances to the rooms all overlooked a pool reserved for the patrons of this section so he took a lounger on the side opposite their room and indulged myself in a couple of complimentary drinks while he waited for them to reappear; but only a couple and only singles. It was a couples only section and no one propositioned him while he waited this time, assuming that whoever he had arrived with might be watching from one of the rooms overlooking the pool.

The beaver and her lover came out around six dressed in shorts and shirts and headed to the buffet. Bathing trunks and bare feet were not allowed in there after six so Silver ducked into the washroom of the bar and changed into clothes from his beach bag before moving to a table across the room from them.

Silver noted the same tension in their postures while they dined as he had on the beach. Perhaps the wolf had already started asking the difficult questions that his masters wanted answered, revealing him to be more of a handler than a lover. Maybe he had revealed who she was really spying for, telling her that she was deep into this now, too deep to quit. Maybe not, maybe he was still counting on his professed love for her to keep her from running off. Whatever the case, Silver told himself, just as long as she did not pull a runner or get shipped off to a safe house before he visited their room later that night.

After a couple of drinks in the lounge and a half-hearted attempt to enjoy the band that was playing there they returned to their room. Silver sat at the bar by the pool, drinking fruit juice and soda, until he was sure that they would not reappear.

Silver left the resort by the front door, telling the doorman that he was just going to stretch his legs. He went back to the hotel and made his final preparations for the mission, changing into dark slacks and a blazer before loading the remainder of his luggage into the rental car.

He gave the couple a few hours to take care of business. No doubt the wolf would make love to her before questioning her further, and maybe again afterwards, to preserve the illusion of love for as long as possible, but they should be deep asleep by three. The actual assassination would take no more than a minute, leaving Silver ample time to return to the hotel where the rental was parked before sunup.

Silver returned to the resort along the beach, a tourist dressed for an evening out, enjoying the sound of the surf and the sand between his toes while carrying his shoes and socks to keep them dry. He acted a little drunk as he flashed his yellow wristband at the guard posted by the stairs leading up to the resort. The waved him through with a weary grin.

The pool in the VIP section was abandoned, the bar there having closed an hour earlier. No one was around but Silver mimed fumbling with a room key while he bent to pick the rather simple lock on the door to their suite. Slipping silently inside he closed the door softly before drawing the gun with its silencer already attached.

The execution itself was anticlimactic, at least for the couple. Silver had underestimated the wolf's stamina and diligence for his role as the earnest lover for they were still doing the nasty when The F.O.X. agent stepped into the sleeping area of their suite. They were in the standard missionary position and it looked like they were quite close to finishing, but they never would. Using the grunts and moans to cover the sound of his approach Silver moved in close and aimed at the wolf's heaving back.

Silver put two slugs between his shoulder blades. The wolf stopped breathing, stiffened and arched his back as if he were climaxing. His heart only pumped for an instant after his spine was severed so there was very little blood. What there was sprayed on his partner and dripped down onto her as his sweat had done earlier. Then the wolf collapsed on top of her like so many inconsiderate males do after satisfying themselves. The bullets were the type that fragmented so as not to exit the body of their victim so she was unhurt, and for a second she looked disappointed at the thought that the wolf had finished before her. But her expression changed to one of horror when she opened her eyes and saw the red stains and the stranger with a gun looming over them.

She shoved his corpse to one side and tried to scramble out from underneath her much larger lover without success. Then her eyes locked on Silver's and she had a moment of clarity.

Her face fell. She looked resigned. She must have suspected that she would be caught eventually, Silver thought. Had she imagined this though? Perhaps, and perhaps she preferred this fate to having her name dragged through the newspapers, bringing shame on her friends and family.

She did not beg Silver to let her live or attempt to bargain for her life. She just looked him in the eyes and asked: "Why?"

Silver spoke the name of the source that had been executed after being exposed. She nodded once and closed her eyes. He leaned forward so that there would be no chance of missing and put a bullet between those eyes, ending it quickly for her.

There was no need to clean up or pose the bodies. Silver took a couple of obviously expensive things and rifled the wallet and purse that he found in the sitting room, solely for the benefit of the local law enforcement, so they could write it off as a random robbery. The Director was certain that the wolf's employers would know what had really happened.

Silver's dark slacks and jacket now served as camouflage as he kept to the shadows. He used the emergency exit to avoid running into any other guests or staff. The stairs came out near the resort's outer wall where the gardener's shed stood. Climbing over the twelve foot wall from the other side would have been extremely difficult but a wheelbarrow got him on to the shed and that brought the top of the wall within reach. The ground below it was soft, according to the resident agent who had scoped out the resort and suggested the escape route. Silver dropped into the darkness and was relieved to find that the description was accurate.

After that it was down the road and into the rental car for a quick drive to the airport. Silver kept the clothes he was wearing but put everything else back in the suitcase and left it in the locker after retrieving his original identification. He purchased the local newspaper and folded the key inside it. The resident agent had booked him on several flights out of Rio and was waiting by the entrance to the departure lounge. He stood as Silver approached and placed the newspaper he was carrying in the paw on the same side that the fox would pass him on. They bumped, apologized, and an instant later Silver had a number of airline tickets to choose from and the resident had the key for the locker. He would dispose of the gun and Schmitt's paperwork while Silver flew off on the first flight to somewhere other than home.

Flipping through the tickets in a washroom stall Silver chose a flight to Germany because it was familiar territory. He stayed in Frankfurt for a week, filing his report through the resident agent there, while the analytical division assessed the reaction to the deaths. As expected the Brazilians chalked it up to a random robbery stating that they had no leads, and no one came around the hotel asking about Herr Schmitt. The hometown papers made a fuss, but the Foreign department let it die by mumbling about how they agreed with the local police, how this sort of thing can happen anywhere, even in our country, and that they were not considering raising the threat level for Brazil.

Most importantly, the nation that was running her, with or without her knowledge, made only a token show of harassing the Canadian Embassy staff there. They did not even bother to expel the military attache, their typical reaction whenever one of their spies was uncovered, because the reporters who covered the diplomatic circles would wonder why and might connect the dead woman in Rio with the one that once worked at our embassy in one of their satellite states. There was no indication from any of our intelligence sources that they knew who had pulled the trigger. Silver's had not been compromised.

All this was passed on to Silver by the resident agent when they met for drinks and he told the senior agent that it was time to return home. Silver made a joke about how the Chief of Staff would have a backdated leave application ready for to account for the working days he had missed while cooling his heels.

"No." The resident replied. "You've been placed on administrative leave with pay. That's how it works for senior agents coming off a special assignment. Congratulations." The resident said as he stood to leave, dropping an envelope with new identification and an airplane ticket on the table of the cantina. Silver detected just a touch of jealousy in his tone. "You're paying for the drinks." The resident added as he walked out. Yes, Silver thought, just a touch.

Silver checked the tickets and the passport. It already had entry stamps for Germany, or good forgeries of them. The tickets were for the next morning but with the only person he knew in the country already gone he was left alone with no one to celebrate with. Well, almost no one. The waitress, a busty blonde Bavarian bovine, had been giving him the eye since he came in.

Silver tipped his empty stein towards her to indicate a refill and she walked over slowly, swaying her hips more than necessary to navigate the close-packed tables.

"Friend gone?" She asked. "All alone for the night mein herr?"

"Not anymore, Liebchen." He assured her. "Not anymore."

* * * * *

There was a moment of silence after Silver finished his story.

"You shot them while they were yiffing?" Zac asked with amazement.

"Well, sure." Silver shrugged. "He probably had a weapon nearby and she could have seen me and screamed at any second."

"If he was any good at his job she should have screamed anyway." Missus Brown said with a leer. It was the first time that I could recall her with anything but a disapproving frown on her face.

The Director, Tancred Williams chimed in saying, "Oh shush, Brownie. You'll give the lad the impression that you have a dirty mind."

'Brownie?' That was another first. Plus the fact that instead of ripping into the great golden fox as I expected given her reputation she just grinned, finished her drink and got up to leave.

"I'd love to stay and chat with the young feller but I got to go." She announced, putting her best frown back on. "Can't afford the luxury of drinking when you're on call for emergency child care services."

"No one is out on a mission and things have been quiet." Silver noted. "Stay for one more."

She did not stop though. "No, someone has to take their job seriously around here." She said as she headed through the door.

"Jesus." Zac said as the door swung shut behind her. "What's her problem?"

It was a rhetorical question but Williams answered him anyway. "Maybe one day I'll tell you Zac, but for now, have a drink on me. Gray? Set us up again."

I poured the drinks, took his money and scooped up the tip he left on the bar, hoping all the while that I would be on duty the day Williams opened up about Missus Brown.