“Friday Fiction” Series: The Novice…
Note from Steve: Missing my political posts? This blog now only has articles about reading, writing, and book publishing. You will find the missing political posts at http://pubprogressive.com; they’re still commentaries on social issues, politics, and other topics of concern that have more to do with my concerns as a US citizen and not my writing life. Please take a look.
***
The Novice
Copyright 2021, Steven M. Moore
Preface
Readers who have followed Esther Brookstone’s adventures in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series know that her current husband, Bastiann van Coevorden, ex-Interpol agent and MI5 consultant, is her fourth husband. In those novels, flashbacks and background material refer to the previous ones, as well as to her time in MI6, sandwiched between Graham, husband number one, and Alfred, husband #2. In this sense, this short story is a prequel to all those prequels.
Readers might also remember Jeremy Brand from those novels. This story is about how the long association between Esther and Jeremy began. She didn’t meet Bastiann until much later. The novels are the chronicles of their adventures together, and Jeremy plays a role in most of them.
Enjoy.
r/Steve
***
Jeremy Brand didn’t know how to handle Esther Brookstone. The young spy was clever, enthusiastic, and productive, but she took too many chances. She was also a stunner who could catch the wandering eye of any Stasi agent looking for a conquest, much to his peril, at least in job standing.
He saw her waiting on the bench reading a newspaper. It would be in German, of course, and printed with dirty ink that would soil those delicate hands with the long fingers of a concert pianist. She spoke the Teuton tongue like a native, even capturing a bit of the East German manner of forming efficiently constructed sentences. Her writing was also educated German prose as if she were an intellectual who supported the East German ruling classes…or was one of their members.
Today she was blond. Her name during this first sojourn into East Berlin was Gretchen Lange. She was nearly as tall as he was, and even dressed in a modest blouse, sweater, and skirt, was every bit the demure fraulein. He took a seat beside her, at the other end of a bench, as if he were a young man trying to approach a young, pretty woman, and being a bit shy about it.
“A dreary day, fraulein,” he said.
She looked up from her newspaper. “The clouds might come in, I’m afraid.”
He resisted the urge to surveil the area. Her statement was a signal that Stasi agents lurked nearby. They’d have to be careful. They always were.
“What news is there today? Good or bad?”
She tapped the paper. “The Russians want us to increase production. It’s not clear what that means in the short term.”
That was a more complex message, but it meant she had information about Russian visitors to East Germany, yet she wasn’t clear that the information was useful.
How did she get that? Jeremy asked himself. He didn’t want to know.
She handed him the newspaper. “Here. See for yourself. I have an appointment to keep. Please excuse me, mein Herr.”
He watched her walk away…practiced, dainty steps, not her customary, business-like stride. Coldly professional, this novice spy.
He’d knew he’d find a floppy disk inside the paper. It wouldn’t be examined until later, when they’d find the list of Russian visitors. With luck, they’d also find a list of East German journalists who might be approachable by the British before or after the event.
***
The next “meeting” was at a restaurant near various Soviet-style residential towers where Jeremy figured living in a flat there would be dangerous; he knew shoddy construction practices and inferior materials characterized such buildings. They were bleak, foreboding, and gray monuments to Soviet dominance in the East Germans’ worker’s paradise.
She was sitting in the booth at the rear; he took the next one.
All meetings between the two were arranged by an intermediary named Walther, a man who lived elsewhere and used an illegal transceiver the British had supplied him. The messages were generally from Jeremy to Esther via the intermediary, in encrypted Morse code. She could send messages to him too, but that wasn’t often because they met on a schedule, both days and times corresponding to agreed upon random numbers in a table the three spies had.
In this case, he’d requested a meeting. She had previously used her charms to approach a young German scientist who secretly made a trip to Moscow and returned. The West had wanted to know the purpose of that visit.
She dropped her contraband issue of a western fashion magazine that anyone could find on sale in kiosks around the city, and he retrieved it for her, without what had been inside. She smiled at him, and he returned to his beer that couldn’t compare to Munich’s.
There was a note in German but not in code:
New system. He’s in charge of guidance. Wants asylum. Respond via Walther.
Jeremy lit a fag and finished the beer, using the lighter to burn the note. After stirring the ashes and putting out the fag—he didn’t smoke—he left the restaurant that had just begun to seat dinner guests.
***
“That’s all she had?” said Jeremy’s colleague via Walther from the UK’s West Berlin consulate.
Jeremy frowned. The prat doesn’t care about our lives; he just wants useful intel. “Asylum effort risky. No way to determine intel is useful,” Jeremy said in return.
“Worth the risk. We might have to extract our asset too. She’ll need a new hairdo.”
Jeremy now smiled. With every deep dive into East Berlin, Esther would require a new identity and a new dye job. For him, it would be a glimpse into what life would be like with a harem, although he knew just one Esther would be enough for him to handle.
“Inform later on extraction reqs. Decision solid about target?”
“Can use him no matter what. Onward.”
Jeremy had never set up an extraction, although he’d been at the game longer than Esther. Now he might have two. And, if they extracted the scientist, the Stasi would go after anyone they could find who had contact with him. Both Esther and the young scientist were in danger.
***
Esther Brookstone wasn’t a fraulein; she was a grieving widow, in fact, although being a British spy passing as a fraulein helped dull that widow’s grief that was gnawing at her insides. Her beloved Graham was still on her mind, and the thought of joining him wherever he might be steeled her for whatever dangers awaited her.
She liked Jeremy, her handler. He was a serious bloke—probably deadly serious—but he had an appreciation for the finer things in life as well as the reputation of being a bit of a ladies’ man. Graham had been that way too. She was a lady, wasn’t she? Of course, he couldn’t very well pay proper attention to her when they were mostly communicating in code and meeting under the watchful eyes of the Stasi.
Wolfgang came out of the bathroom. “Do you like the look?”
The young scientist had dyed his dark hair and beard blond as she’d insisted.
“Put a towel on, Herr Doctor Schmidt. And you forgot to dye all your hair.”
He looked down. “Sorry. When will we leave?”
“When Walther gives me the word.”
She didn’t expect the delay to be long, but the extraction method might be a surprise. She was a novice in everything, trained for anything. She knew the latter only went so far; experience was acquired, not taught.
She was obsessive by nature, and her current obsession resided in a hatred for Soviet-style Communism, as practiced by the Soviet Union and all its satellites.
She watched the young scientist dress. Yes, young, egotistical, and intelligent enough to realize he’d have a better future in the West. He had no family to leave behind and no serious relationship because he was a bit of a playboy. No matter. The Home Office thought he might be useful, especially if he knew about Russia’s new missel guidance systems.
***
Jeremy didn’t like the plan. The East Berlin train station was out—too many Stasi guards and dogs looking for East Berliners wanting to flee to the West, which was the next Berlin stop. They’d be looking for the scientist, in particular. The Stasi had recently cracked down on lorries carrying goods to and from East Germany, mostly to, for the party VIPs and supposedly returning empty to the West because the workers’ paradise produced no goods of interest to the West. So they’d come up with a different plan.
It was a bit much to ask of a novice spy and the young scientist. So much of the plan depended on luck, and none of them had any experience in extracting personnel. That all increased the risk level, which would be high even in the best of circumstances.
He had to admit there was a personal reason for him to worry. He liked Esther Brookstone, admired her bold attitude towards life, and understood her obsession for doing everything she could to hurt the Soviet regime.
He couldn’t let his feelings get in the way of his task, though. No matter his desire to keep her safe, they both had serious jobs to perform, thankless jobs in many ways because Britain’s leaders expected their spies to do their duty with no public recognition of their sacrifices.
He couldn’t help considering what a relationship with Esther might be like. Maybe that would come later when they passed their batons to others in this strange race for world dominance. No, dominance was the Soviet goal. Stopping them from achieving it was the UK’s.
***
The BBC crew climbed into the helicopter. Their job, filming a major news event in East Berlin where East Germany’s leaders had wined and dined their Russian visitors, was over. The Russians had wanted the coverage. UK leaders had convinced BBC to give it to them. The Russians had thought it was good propaganda showing how well their satellite countries were coddled and protected, although everyone knew the Kremlin’s iron fist squeezed them dry for Mother Russia.
Blood from stone, thought the pilot, saluting the BBC lads as he swung into the cockpit. He knew that the ride to the border would be dangerous. Some trigger-happy Stasi might decide to shoot them down. That would create an international incident the Soviet leaders wouldn’t like, one exacerbated by the fact that the East Germans had invited the BBC, ordered to do so by the Russians.
“Easy with that equipment!” one BBC photographer called out to the Stasi poking the cargo under the helicopter. “If you break anything, you pay for it!”
The Stasi finally gave their permission to leave, and the helicopter took off, flying fairly low during the short journey. Upon landing in West Germany, the BBC crew was picked up and taken into the small terminal at the heliport. No one in the terminal saw the black van pull alongside the chopper, presumably to load the equipment stashed underneath.
“Can I shed this damn parachute now?” Esther said to Jeremy inside that van. Two agents were helping her out of the duffel bag where she’d been hiding amongst the shredded newspapers.
He smiled and nodded. “I’m glad you didn’t need it,” he said.
The novice was home safe…for the time being.
***
The next trip into East Germany, Esther took the train to East Berlin from Frankfurt. It became an East German train at the border. The young fraulein was now a brunette with short hair as if she were too poor for a salon cut. When she showed her passport to the East German conductor, it would show she was Fraulein Becker, a woman of modest means from a small village who occasionally visited her ailing grandfather in the city.
Jeremy, on the other hand, became a lorry driver delivering luxury goods destined for the Communist party VIPs. He drove it all the way to an East Berlin warehouse from which those goods would be distributed. His trip took longer. Once there, he disappeared into the dawn filtering through the clouds of pollution of the workers’ paradise.
The parachutes had been his idea. If the Stasi had shot down the helicopter, he’d wanted Esther to at least have a chance to survive. She’d never used one before; neither had the scientist.
He couldn’t help wondering how long the rolls of the dice would continue to be in their favor.
***
Comments are always welcome.
Rogue Planet. I often taut this as a hard sci-fi and not just another fantasy version of Game of Thrones. Now there’s a lot of hype about Dune, as the third movie based on the famous Herbert fantasy epic is about to come out. While it’s much better than Thrones, it’s a bit long-in-the-tooth…and long! Rogue Planet is a more compact story—similar swash-buckling battles between armies and a similar flawed and royal hero, but everything is set in my usual sci-fi universe that I began in The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. Of course, you can read it independently of that trilogy. (All my novels have that feature.) So if it’s epic fun you want, try my hard sci-fi, not fantasy! Rogue Planet is available in ebook and paper versions wherever quality books are sold.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
