“What are you smiling about?”
Brodie looked at Taylor, who was laying out the paperwork from her satchel on the coffee table. “My last time here.”
Taylor looked around the high-end lounge. “I can’t believe you came to this place as a college student.”
“We didn’t stay long.”
“You were supposed to tell me why you got comped.”
“My roommate had a slip and fall at the fountain.”
Taylor gave him a suspicious look, then tapped the papers on the coffee table. “What do you want to read?”
“You review the material from the BKA and Berlin PD while I read the Stasi report from Anna. Then we’ll split the CID files.”
Taylor handed him the envelope from Anna Albrecht, and Brodie opened it and removed a twenty-page document titled, “ON THE ACTIVITIES OF SECRET AGENT ODIN, PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF MINISTER ERICH MIELKE,” and which was dated October 1989.
Brodie began to read:
This report documents the aid rendered by the American agent code-named Odin to the Ministry of State Security in its mission to uncover and liquidate traitors to the German Democratic Republic. Through his actions, Odin has helped defend the nation from the pernicious and reactionary forces in the West who would seek to dismantle the state and delay the inevitable victory of Marxism-Leninism.
A note on the contents of this report: In accordance with the new security protocols enacted by Deputy Minister Grossman of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance, details which are irrelevant to a concise and accurate accounting of Odin’s execution of his duties—yet which might reveal the identity of said asset to enemy intelligence in the event of infiltration or theft of materials—have been excised from the narrative.
Well, that would explain why this report had not yet led to the discovery of Odin’s identity. Rather than rely on redactions, the Stasi had been self-censoring their own history on the assumption that traitors and spies were all around them. Probably a good bet. He continued reading:
On March 6th, 1983, Odin first made contact with an individual within the Ministry, promising valuable intelligence about pro-Western moles within the GDR state security apparatus. Odin presented himself as ahigh-ranking individual within the American military who was stationed in the American sector of occupied Berlin. Odin asserted that he would maintain his Berlin posting for several years to come, and thus could provide intelligence at regular and reliable intervals.
The offer was met with an appropriate level of skepticism and scrutiny. Odin’s motives were evaluated, based on his own claims as well as his professional and personal circumstances. Odin’s position within the American military occupation of the western sectors of Berlin granted him unique insight and access, which the Ministry deemed valuable to securing a stable and sovereign socialist state free of malicious influence by bourgeois and fascist elements.
The waiter delivered their drinks, and Brodie was grateful to have the beer to help him get through the report’s tortured prose. Was something lost in translation? Or was it worse in the original German?
He continued reading. The report was written in such a vague way that even someone with a granular understanding of the American military’s presence in West Berlin would not have been able to discern the covert operative’s identity. A few pages in, Brodie found something interesting on the subject of Odin’s motivation:
The asset, Odin, refused payment of any kind and insisted that he was driven purely by ideological conviction. This, naturally, led to a degree of doubt by his handler. The asset said he believed that while the triumph of Marxism-Leninism was desirable, it was not inevitable. On the contrary, capitalism was a powerful and malignant force that would achieve unfettered dominance in the postcolonial world unless more was done to demonstrate the successful application of an alternative economic system. It was his view that the GDR was the ideal vehicle to set a positive example for this alternative way of life. His beliefs, while clearly a product of a mind-set warped by the imperialist system within which he lived and operated, were nonetheless judged to be sincerely held, and were thus exploitable to assure the asset’s continued cooperation, loyalty, and efficacy.
There were a few rambling paragraphs about why Marxism-Leninism—Communism—was of course the inevitable next phase of human society’s evolution. Brodie skimmed it and then reached the section describing Odin’s first success in outing a mole within the Stasi:
On November 2nd, 1983, Odin communicated to his handler that he was aware of a double agent within the Ministry. He did not know the name of the traitor, but he did potentially have access to the documents that the agent provided to American intelligence. He shared that the agent was promising information related to the National People’s Army and its offensive capabilities and strategic posture. Odin’s handler understood this meant that the traitor was within the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance. At Odin’s direction, and with the express permission of Deputy Director Wolf, the Administration manufactured multiple erroneous intelligence reports, all identical except for a few minor alterations. These reports were distributed among many suspects within the Directorate. Once the double agent duplicated and shared his uniquely altered report with his American handler, Odin was able to acquire the intelligence documents and transfer them back to the Ministry. This strategy had the dual purpose of feeding misinformation to the Americans while also exposing an enemy of the state. It was through this technique that the Ministry was able to identify the traitor Karl Liebnick, who was arrested, tried, and executed.
The report was describing what Brodie knew to be a standard piece of counterespionage tradecraft: Flush a few turds down the pipe—the bad Intel—and see which one comes back.
It seemed to work well for Odin and his Stasi conspirators, and they used this same technique two more times, in 1984 and 1986, to blow the cover on Hans Müller and Paul Fischer. The fate of both men was summarized with the same clinical efficiency.Arrested, tried, and executed.Also tortured and interrogated, but that detail was left out.
As with Karl Liebnick, both Müller and Fischer had worked within the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance—German abbreviation HVA—which Brodie surmised was the foreign intelligence service within the Stasi. Their equivalent of the CIA. That made sense. While the Stasi spent much of its resources tracking and harassing its own internal dissidents and imagined dissidents, what the Americans cared about were the international players.
Brodie continued to read:
Beginning shortly after the arrest of Mr. Fischer, Deputy Director Wolf sought to explore other ways that Odin’s unique access might benefit the state. At this time, Odin’s handler pressed the asset for military intelligence pertaining to his branch of the American armed services. Odin refused. He maintained that since the Ministry was compromised, he would provide no intelligence that might be traceable back to him. His handler offered him a direct pipeline to Deputy Director Wolf and Director Mielke, with strict protocols that would ensure the utmost security. He still refused, and would not provide additional intelligence until all parties were confident that the Ministry had been cleansed of traitors. This was typical of the asset’s intractable and stubborn nature, which could at times be detrimental to the larger mission.
So, Odin had been offered direct access to Erich Mielke, the head of the Stasi, and had turned it down. He was clearly concerned about being caught, and single-minded in his mission to rid East Germany’s state security apparatus of Western spies. Which was understandable, since the Stasi—and probably the entire East German government—seemed to have a serious loyalty problem. No one at the time knew that the Cold War was coming to an end, but maybe the East German regime and the Stasi felt—even subconsciously—that they were on a sinking ship of state.
The waiter arrived with their hors d’oeuvres and set them on the coffee table. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
Taylor declined, and Brodie ordered another pilsner.
Taylor picked at the hors d’oeuvres. “I’m going through the metro system’s surveillance camera sightings of Vance. Even accounting for the factthat he wasn’t picked up on a camera every time he used the U-Bahn or S-Bahn, it’s clear he was busy during the days. I’ll need to cross-reference these stops with any relevant points of interest nearby, see if it tells us anything. How’s the Stasi report reading?”
Brodie briefly described the salvaged Stasi document and added, “So far, I can deduce a few things. First, Odin was not in dire financial straits, otherwise he would have accepted payment for his services. It seemed important to him that they believed he was doing it for the cause. This was a guy with a lot of self-importance, who also valued the trust and respect of the people he was conspiring with.”
