15th of October 1940, 'Odinatsat' #1, A surprising arrival
The 15th of October 1940, Vologda, 1°C, 5am Moscow Time.
I was awoken by the ringing of the intruder alarm. When I opened my bedroom door, five heavily armed ex-military and ex-gru commandos (all officially KIA in Finland or on exercise) were rushing through the hallway from their sleeping quarters towards the concealed entrance of our compound's main bunker. With the alarm ringing, I hadn't even noticed that the telephone in my room was ringing. I picked it up and it was the commander of the Guard, ex Field Marshall Egorov:
I replied quickly and sternly:
I dressed myself in a big hurry and ran down to the office where she was now held. All the men were talking, there were women who lived and worked in the compound, analysts, radio operators, secretaries, even a few guards, a few were wives of internal members, but none had had quite the effect of this one. The guards all seemed in awe of their prisoner, of her skill, her beauty, but it was more than that, she seemed to be more in control of the situation than any of the men guarding her. It was clear that, if she was sitting in that office, it was because she had wanted to be there, not because we put her there or kept her there. She seemed entirely unimpressed by any of it. When I opened the door she greeted me:
I hesitated, and before I could formulate a response, she continued:
"I used to be a GRU operative in Paris, you see, I was born there, Russian mother, French father. In 1936, we returned to the Soviet Union, Leningrad to be precise, I was 18 then, and I was quickly picked up by the GRU, thanks to my perfect French, my good looks, and my great test scores. Naturally I was sent back to France. Most of my colleagues stole technology, but I spent most of my time seducing members of the Sureté d'état, and then eliminating them once I got them on their own. Besides seducing french spies, I had an affair with my handler, whom you may, or may not, know. Let's just say that he reported directly to the man you call 'Shest'.
So, one night of passion, my handler tells me that a particularly skilled Canadian spy-hunter was on his tail, he would soon be compromised and this was the last time he would be seeing me romantically, because he didn't want to compromise my cover as well. That night, I had him tell me everything he knew, about his boss, and how his boss had reached out to him under different names of highly placed Soviet Intelligence officials, 'Shest' had been disguised, but my handler had a knack for recognising voices.... My handler and lover was shot by this Canadian a few days later, but what he told me about his boss got me thinking....
I managed to arrange for me to report directly to 'Shest' and I started digging, and the more I dug, the more I found 'Shest' 's history did not add up to explain how he had gotten into this position, unless of course, there had been influence from above... I never shared any of these suspicions with my new boss, as I knew him to be quite ruthless when it came to comments on his history...
Under his authority, I was sent to spy on a couple of French Army Maréchals in order to gain intelligence on German capabilities and troop numbers. Besides the intelligence I was looking for, I discovered something else entirely... A group of these officers had started talking to the Germans about a surrender, without the approval of the central Government. They proposed an arrangement where France would be divided into two areas, one including Paris, the Maginot line, and the Atlantic coast would be under direct control of the Germans, while in the rest of the country, a subservient Government would be set up, probably with Maréchal Pétain at it's head... I believed 'Shest' could not be trusted entirely, so I didn't tell him about this. I foiled the plot myself through a combination of seduction and blackmail... One by one I seduced those involved, had a picture taken of us together, and then threatened to send it to their wives if they continued to advance their plot. After two weeks, there was no more plot, as all the participants who had any power pulled out one after the other...
Once they realised what had happened, and that they were all being blackmailed by the same woman, they decided they would try to kill me, and then proceed with the plot. That was easier said than done however... I dropped off the radar, and they started circulating a picture of me, saying I was a German spy, it's not as if any of them could have ever guessed I was Russian. I always framed my threats as if I was a patriotic french girl who wanted the army to fight until the bitter end...
To make a long story short, a clever Australian spy-hunter caught up with me in Marseilles, as I was about to leave on a hydroplane towards French Indochina. Luckily I'm more attractive than my former lover had been, especially to a young Australian man, and I seduced him into faking my killing. To all intents and purposes I was killed by a bomb placed in the hydroplane I was supposed to be on... I guess you'll have to revise your statistics about the amount of Soviet spies killed in France, down by one..."
She stopped talking, and I could finally get a word in:
This beauty was blown up shortly after take off, the records show only the crew, the mail, and a mysterious woman were on board. French and Australian Intelligence consider her to have been a German spy... but she was GRU, or that's what 'Shest's records show... she even outplayed the master...
"While all of this was going on, I reported to 'Shest' ' about German troop dispositions, and he knew about my seducing of high ranking Army officers, thinking that it's only purpose was intelligence gathering... One day, while I was making my report to him, the telephone next to him on the wall of the bar rang. As only the two of us knew we would be in this particular bar, as we had only decided for this one a mere five minutes before the call, I expected some surprise on his part. But he wasn't surprised, he seemed a bit annoyed, but he took the call... After the call, during which he had said next to nothing, seeing the distraught look on my face, he told me I shouldn't worry, and that the caller was on our side.
Of course this only awakened my curiosity, and from then on I scouted every possible location for a meeting in advance, and set up listening equipment on the telephone lines. A couple of weeks later, when he had just come down from Moskva again, he got another call, and this time I heard every word... And that's how I found out there was some kind of secret organisation where people had huge influence and numbers instead of names. That's when I first heard 'Tri's voice, I pegged him for a Soviet Diplomat, or even a member of the politburo, with his demeanour of utter confidence and his way of coming straight to the point, giving his opinion, then just hanging up, he had to be high up in the food chain... It still didn't explain how he always knew where 'Shest' was... I don't have an answer for that one, yet...
Back to the story, One day I found a safe hidden in a hiding space I had never even noticed, inside the wall behind some loose panelling, effectively in the house next door. I managed to guess 'Shest' s combination, as I knew him intimately by now, well not intimately like that... we were never lovers... but I had been researching him for months and listening in on his calls from Paris for weeks by then... Anyway. Inside the safe I found strange reports with very accurate data on the Soviet Union, they were your reports, and I noticed that most of them had Vologda, next to the time and date. That's when I knew that if I ever needed to disappear, I would go to Vologda, and find the place that doesn't exist, as you guys seem to not exist rather well, all the while staying active and gathering better intelligence on the inner workings of the Soviet Union than anything I've ever seen. That's the kind of team I can see myself be a part of... after my demise.
I'm here to apply for an active position as a non existent person with a number instead of a name that serves the higher purpose of advancing the Soviet Union outside of any government bureaucracy or censorship. As I see it, you have only two real choices, hire me, or execute me, and I can all but guarantee that I won't be dead if you pick the second option. I'm sure you realise that locking me up really isn't an option as I would be out of here just as easily as I got in... so, what do you say."
I replied that any addition to the Committee, especially at the level of a numbered correspondent, had to be authorised by Stalin. I noted that if she could convince Stalin on his next visit, she could become an active member, as her skills would clearly be a valuable addition to our ranks. The only problem was that, having executed so many missions on her own, without authorisation from a superior, it wasn't clear if she could be trusted.
For starters I told her she had to stay within the grounds with an escort of guards at all times until the rest of the Committee and comrade Stalin himself had agreed to let her work for us. As a counter to her promise that she could run away whenever she wanted, I reminded her of the fact that 'Tri' could find anyone, whenever he wanted...
Then I left the room and had Egorov select his two best female guards to escort the young woman around the facility.
What do the external members of the Committee think about this, should we take this woman on?
(no names will be used as per protocol, any names or cover-identities of members mentioned during the interview have of course been replaced by the assigned number.)
For now she will be referred to as 'Odinadtsat' (Eleven),
Greetings,
'Odin'
OOC:
Thank you Markkur for inspiring this story, an explanation of why there is no Vichy. Here is the 'shadow' that made it all happen.
I was awoken by the ringing of the intruder alarm. When I opened my bedroom door, five heavily armed ex-military and ex-gru commandos (all officially KIA in Finland or on exercise) were rushing through the hallway from their sleeping quarters towards the concealed entrance of our compound's main bunker. With the alarm ringing, I hadn't even noticed that the telephone in my room was ringing. I picked it up and it was the commander of the Guard, ex Field Marshall Egorov:
"Odin, sir, you have to see this! It's a woman, and she's standing right in front of the door of the main bunker. She seems to have gotten through the outer fence with the "Military training ground, all trespassers will be shot" signs, past the sentries, through the minefields, over the inner wall and across the landing strip, all without being noticed... I can't believe it! Orders sir? Do we shoot her, capture her? No one has ever been so foolish to even cross the outer fence. What do we do now?..."
ex Field Marshall Egorov had himself assembled the men to guard the compound, he had shaped this small unit of elite soldiers into a very effective and well hidden defensive force. He had overseen the installation of the minefields, the construction of the wall, tunnels,... He was a can do kind of man, and the most skilled in defensive warfare of all our resident ex-Red Army officers. He had greatly improved the defences of our compound, but now it seems a woman, alone, had gotten through all of that. He was clearly distraught, and luckily I was there, because this ex Field Marshall was at a loss for words...
I replied quickly and sternly:
"Open the door and lead her to one of the empty offices, tell her to wait there and lock the door. If she tries anything, restrain her. It's not like she can run anywhere now that we know she's there.. but just in case, place guards at the door and at all the windows. I'll be right down."
I dressed myself in a big hurry and ran down to the office where she was now held. All the men were talking, there were women who lived and worked in the compound, analysts, radio operators, secretaries, even a few guards, a few were wives of internal members, but none had had quite the effect of this one. The guards all seemed in awe of their prisoner, of her skill, her beauty, but it was more than that, she seemed to be more in control of the situation than any of the men guarding her. It was clear that, if she was sitting in that office, it was because she had wanted to be there, not because we put her there or kept her there. She seemed entirely unimpressed by any of it. When I opened the door she greeted me:
"Ah, you must be 'Odin'. Sorry to drag you out of bed, but getting in here by day would have been too much of a hassle...It's not like you can ring a door bell in this place and even I couldn't find a single phone number for it"
She spoke in perfect Russian with a barely noticeable French accent.
I hesitated, and before I could formulate a response, she continued:
"I used to be a GRU operative in Paris, you see, I was born there, Russian mother, French father. In 1936, we returned to the Soviet Union, Leningrad to be precise, I was 18 then, and I was quickly picked up by the GRU, thanks to my perfect French, my good looks, and my great test scores. Naturally I was sent back to France. Most of my colleagues stole technology, but I spent most of my time seducing members of the Sureté d'état, and then eliminating them once I got them on their own. Besides seducing french spies, I had an affair with my handler, whom you may, or may not, know. Let's just say that he reported directly to the man you call 'Shest'.
So, one night of passion, my handler tells me that a particularly skilled Canadian spy-hunter was on his tail, he would soon be compromised and this was the last time he would be seeing me romantically, because he didn't want to compromise my cover as well. That night, I had him tell me everything he knew, about his boss, and how his boss had reached out to him under different names of highly placed Soviet Intelligence officials, 'Shest' had been disguised, but my handler had a knack for recognising voices.... My handler and lover was shot by this Canadian a few days later, but what he told me about his boss got me thinking....
I managed to arrange for me to report directly to 'Shest' and I started digging, and the more I dug, the more I found 'Shest' 's history did not add up to explain how he had gotten into this position, unless of course, there had been influence from above... I never shared any of these suspicions with my new boss, as I knew him to be quite ruthless when it came to comments on his history...
Under his authority, I was sent to spy on a couple of French Army Maréchals in order to gain intelligence on German capabilities and troop numbers. Besides the intelligence I was looking for, I discovered something else entirely... A group of these officers had started talking to the Germans about a surrender, without the approval of the central Government. They proposed an arrangement where France would be divided into two areas, one including Paris, the Maginot line, and the Atlantic coast would be under direct control of the Germans, while in the rest of the country, a subservient Government would be set up, probably with Maréchal Pétain at it's head... I believed 'Shest' could not be trusted entirely, so I didn't tell him about this. I foiled the plot myself through a combination of seduction and blackmail... One by one I seduced those involved, had a picture taken of us together, and then threatened to send it to their wives if they continued to advance their plot. After two weeks, there was no more plot, as all the participants who had any power pulled out one after the other...
Once they realised what had happened, and that they were all being blackmailed by the same woman, they decided they would try to kill me, and then proceed with the plot. That was easier said than done however... I dropped off the radar, and they started circulating a picture of me, saying I was a German spy, it's not as if any of them could have ever guessed I was Russian. I always framed my threats as if I was a patriotic french girl who wanted the army to fight until the bitter end...
To make a long story short, a clever Australian spy-hunter caught up with me in Marseilles, as I was about to leave on a hydroplane towards French Indochina. Luckily I'm more attractive than my former lover had been, especially to a young Australian man, and I seduced him into faking my killing. To all intents and purposes I was killed by a bomb placed in the hydroplane I was supposed to be on... I guess you'll have to revise your statistics about the amount of Soviet spies killed in France, down by one..."
"How did you find out about this place? What do you know about us? Who should we eliminate to make sure something like this never happens again?..."
She hadn't stopped to allow me to talk, as her annoyed look told me, she was just pausing to let things sink in, and to show me a picture of the hydroplane, a 1935 Latécoère 300, an Air France postal plane. I could swear I caught a glimpse of sadness in her eye at the demise of this beautiful hydroplane, but that may just have been my imagination...
This beauty was blown up shortly after take off, the records show only the crew, the mail, and a mysterious woman were on board. French and Australian Intelligence consider her to have been a German spy... but she was GRU, or that's what 'Shest's records show... she even outplayed the master...
"While all of this was going on, I reported to 'Shest' ' about German troop dispositions, and he knew about my seducing of high ranking Army officers, thinking that it's only purpose was intelligence gathering... One day, while I was making my report to him, the telephone next to him on the wall of the bar rang. As only the two of us knew we would be in this particular bar, as we had only decided for this one a mere five minutes before the call, I expected some surprise on his part. But he wasn't surprised, he seemed a bit annoyed, but he took the call... After the call, during which he had said next to nothing, seeing the distraught look on my face, he told me I shouldn't worry, and that the caller was on our side.
Of course this only awakened my curiosity, and from then on I scouted every possible location for a meeting in advance, and set up listening equipment on the telephone lines. A couple of weeks later, when he had just come down from Moskva again, he got another call, and this time I heard every word... And that's how I found out there was some kind of secret organisation where people had huge influence and numbers instead of names. That's when I first heard 'Tri's voice, I pegged him for a Soviet Diplomat, or even a member of the politburo, with his demeanour of utter confidence and his way of coming straight to the point, giving his opinion, then just hanging up, he had to be high up in the food chain... It still didn't explain how he always knew where 'Shest' was... I don't have an answer for that one, yet...
Back to the story, One day I found a safe hidden in a hiding space I had never even noticed, inside the wall behind some loose panelling, effectively in the house next door. I managed to guess 'Shest' s combination, as I knew him intimately by now, well not intimately like that... we were never lovers... but I had been researching him for months and listening in on his calls from Paris for weeks by then... Anyway. Inside the safe I found strange reports with very accurate data on the Soviet Union, they were your reports, and I noticed that most of them had Vologda, next to the time and date. That's when I knew that if I ever needed to disappear, I would go to Vologda, and find the place that doesn't exist, as you guys seem to not exist rather well, all the while staying active and gathering better intelligence on the inner workings of the Soviet Union than anything I've ever seen. That's the kind of team I can see myself be a part of... after my demise.
I'm here to apply for an active position as a non existent person with a number instead of a name that serves the higher purpose of advancing the Soviet Union outside of any government bureaucracy or censorship. As I see it, you have only two real choices, hire me, or execute me, and I can all but guarantee that I won't be dead if you pick the second option. I'm sure you realise that locking me up really isn't an option as I would be out of here just as easily as I got in... so, what do you say."
For starters I told her she had to stay within the grounds with an escort of guards at all times until the rest of the Committee and comrade Stalin himself had agreed to let her work for us. As a counter to her promise that she could run away whenever she wanted, I reminded her of the fact that 'Tri' could find anyone, whenever he wanted...
Then I left the room and had Egorov select his two best female guards to escort the young woman around the facility.
What do the external members of the Committee think about this, should we take this woman on?
(no names will be used as per protocol, any names or cover-identities of members mentioned during the interview have of course been replaced by the assigned number.)
For now she will be referred to as 'Odinadtsat' (Eleven),
Greetings,
'Odin'
OOC:
Thank you Markkur for inspiring this story, an explanation of why there is no Vichy. Here is the 'shadow' that made it all happen.
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