Black Secrets

By E W Farnsworth

E. W. Farnsworth's stories, fictions deriving from his personal experiences, explore covert and clandestine operations that always lurk in the shadows. His spies,
members of secret societies and government agencies thrive on their invisible,secret powers, menacing each other and occasionally inflicting their horrors on innocent, ordinary people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244969059

E W Farnsworth

E. W. Farnsworth lives and writes in Arizona. Over two hundred fifty of his short stories were published at a variety of venues from London to Hong Kong in the period 2014 through 2018. Published in 2015 were his collected Arizona westerns Desert Sun, Red Blood, his thriller about cryptocurrency crimes Bitcoin Fandango, his John Fulghum Mysteries, Volume I, and Engaging Rachel, an Anderson romance/thriller, the latter two by Zimbell House Publishing. Published by Zimbell House in 2016 and 2017 were Farnsworth’s Pirate Tales, John Fulghum Mysteries, Volumes II, III, IV and V, Baro Xaimos: A Novel of the Gypsy Holocaust, The Black Marble Griffon and Other Disturbing Tales, Among Waterfowl and Other Entertainments and Fantasy, Myth and Fairy Tales. Published by Audio Arcadia in 2016 were DarkFire at the Edge of Time, Farnsworth’s collection of visionary science fiction stories, Nightworld, A Novel of Virtual Reality, and two collections of stories, The Black Arts and Black Secrets. Also published by Audio Arcadia in 2017 were Odd Angles on the 1950s, The Otio in Negotio: The Comical Accidence of Business and DarkFire Continuum: Science Fiction Stories of the Apocalypse. In 2018 Audio Arcadia released A Selection of Stories by E. W. Farnsworth. Farnsworth’s Dead Cat Bounce, an Inspector Allhoff novel, appeared in 2016 from Pro Se Productions, which will also publish his Desert Sun, Red Blood, Volume II, The Secret Adventures of Agents Salamander and Crow and a series of three Al Katana superhero novels in 2017 and 2018. E. W. Farnsworth is now working on an epic poem, The Voyage of the Spaceship Arcturus, about the future of humankind when humans, avatars and artificial intelligence must work together to instantiate a second Eden after the Chaos Wars bring an end to life on Earth. For updates, please see www.ewfarnsworth.com.

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Black Secrets

BLACK SECRETS

E. W. Farnsworth

Copyright © E.W. Farnsworth 2018

All rights reserved

BLACK SECRETS

E. W. Farnsworth

ISBN 978-0-244-96905-9

Published by AudioArcadia.com 2018

Disclaimer

The stories in this collection are works of fiction

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in wholeor in part in any form.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form

or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods,

without the written permission of the publisher.

Publisher can be contacted via email at [e-mail]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Enter Natalia - first appeared at etherbooks.com

Blue Plankton - first appeared at etherbooks.com

All Conquering Comma - first appeared at Infective Ink

Under Light Flowers - introductory passage first appeared at Infective Ink

The King of the Living Dead is a figure in the Public Domain.

Flame Girl is a figure in the Public Domain.

DEDICATION

Uncle P.L.

requiescat in pace

FOREWORD

Secrets are part of the complex heuristic by which we strive to be human. They define our self-image, our jobs, our families and our friendships. White secrets are relatively harmless. If someone outside a narrow circle of beings discovers the truth of them, embarrassment or mortification may result, but death and destruction will likely not. Most secrets in this collection of stories, however, are about black secrets of the kind that can cause pain and even death.

Government secrets and the secrets we humans keep from our governments are two complementary forms of black secrets. In their extreme manifestations, death can be the penalty for revelation.

The first story, ‘Enter Natalia’, reminds the reader that one Cold War can eventually lead to another, as may be happening as of this writing with the reunification of Russia’s state security apparatus.

The centerpiece story, ‘Under Light Flowers’, shows the interplay of spies in contemporary Singapore, where even love is a question mark lurking in the shadows.

Sometimes the contest between encroaching governments and rebellious citizens can lead to both repression and insurrection. In time of war, of course, secrets abet a nation’s self-protection. The greater the perception of an external or internal threat, the closer to the pervasive counter-intelligence state. The experience of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in America taught that freedom is relative and fungible, after all.

‘The Black Hand’ is a fictional account of one historical antidote to universal repression in Europe during the early and middle 20th Century.

‘Diwata’ revisits Manicani Island in the Philippines during World War II, with a mystical twist on an actual Top Secret US operation.

‘Blue Plankton’ involves a more recent fictional secret cover-up by NASA of the spread of a dread disease from space.

‘All Conquering Comma’ is about an actual cover-up of the origin of the Peruvian cholera epidemic.

Organizations have traditions of secrets often competing with the secrecy of governments. In stories, ‘Flight from Opus Dei’, ‘The Freemasons’ and ‘The Triskaidekaphilia Club’, systemic and even comprehensive skeins of secrets are unveiled. Because of their cultures, these secret societies can engulf and destroy lives all by themselves. As these societies’ secrets intersect and overlap those of clandestine organizations, such as the US CIA or NSA, they can sometimes drive freedom-loving spirits underground to do the unthinkable.

Stories built upon characters long in the public domain allow black secrets to flourish overtly to address the flavor of contemporary secret operations, as for example, in the three stories of ‘King of the Living Dead Revives’, which touches on the curse of Islamism, and the three stories of ‘Flame Girl Makeover’, which shows limitations of traditional sensors piercing the veil of enemy secrets and demonstrate technologies that might guide us to a better future.

The last story, ‘Silence the Only Anodyne’, returns readers to the early 1950s to remind those prone to dangerous nostalgia of the tenor of that constraining, dehumanizing era.

This collection is merely a sampler. As acronyms and anagrams are inevitable when touching contemporary intelligence matters, a glossary is included.

E. W. Farnsworth

Gilbert, Arizona, USA

ENTER NATALIA

The night the Russian femme fatale appeared at the British Embassy party was a real yawner until she burst upon the scene in her elegant green silk gown and her orange scarf. Her natural, flame-red hair, worn shoulder length in silken waves, shone like a beacon above her milk white shoulders.

The woman paused at the top of the entry stairway as if she were looking for someone, when she eyed me. She strode confidently down the stairs and across the room through the maze of guests. She planted herself directly in front of me and said in a husky voice, My name is Natalia. How do you do? Could you please find me something to drink - quickly? She asked this as if she presumed I knew her well, but I had never laid eyes upon her before. She held my astonished gaze and waited impatiently.

I caught the attention of one of the circumambulating servers, who brought his tray full of glasses of chilled Chablis. We each took a glass. We drank to her health before I asked her name. When I heard it, bells rang in my memory - Natalia Scheremetyevo was well known in certain circles as a Russian Federation spy. Yet here she stood. Our eyes locked at the same level on account of her green, four-inch high heels. Her lipstick and OLI nail polish were fire-engine red.

Natalia made a habit of moving constantly while jabbering about absolutely nothing. Illustrating her points, she thrust a forefinger with its long nail at my chest. To make amends, she used the palm of the same hand to smooth my coat where her nail had struck me. She was clearly playing the dominatrix and coquette in alternation.

Then, in an undertone, she told me that she knew who I was and what my real job was. She said we should depart the British Embassy as soon as possible and find a quiet place to eat and talk. With an odd smile, she said she had something to discuss which might change the world. I noticed the British Ambassador had, with a raised eyebrow, looked over the head of an Indian Admiral with whom he was talking to check out Natalia.

I took the young woman’s hand, placed it over my arm and escorted her across the crowded room, carefully placing both our empty glasses on a floating tray as we passed it. Without missing a beat, we went up the entry stairway, picked up her emerald colored silk brocaded shawl at the cloakroom and strode out the front door of the Embassy into the warm spring air.

I asked Natalia where she would like to talk. She said she was famished. I asked, "Why not go for dinner at The Monocle on Capitol Hill?"

She liked the idea, so I hailed a taxi. We rode in silence and stepped out at that fixture of Washington’s successful lobbyists. The Maître d’, Andre, gave us a table for two in the back, with a fresh Shakespeare rose in a vase as its centerpiece. I told Andre to bring us two glasses of the house Cab and the house specialty appetizer of Beluga caviar with Russian black bread and whipped butter.

Natalia did not demur at my having taken the lead without consulting her about her desires. But I was paying and she was putting me at risk with my being in her company without Agency sanction. I have to take chances for a living, and I surmised she did also, as was exemplified by the tenor of our meeting at the Embassy.

When the wine and caviar had been served, I told Natalia that I was bringing her to my favorite restaurant not because she was a ravishing beauty but because she had previously informed me that she …had something to discuss which might change the world. She took the compliment like a princess who was used to the adulation and fawning of would-be courtiers.

Her smiling eyes appraised me. With a set mouth, she nodded and told me to cut the crap and kiss off. She also detailed unflattering things about my mother in Russian. Then she smiled and began to feast. While she devoured the caviar, she told me why she had come to me. She knew I was an American spook, known for counterintelligence from my appearances on CNN. She also said that I knew perfectly well who she was: the infamous Russian spy who had been unmasked and disgraced with her name plastered over international papers. Unlike me, she did not like being a celebrity one iota.

When I was blown, my career as a spy ended. Her large brown eyes penetrated mine when she said she would find out who had blown her and kill them all. She wanted me to help her do this. In return, she would give me what few spies even dreamed of possessing. She stopped talking, and stared at me waiting for my reply. For once she was not in a flurry of emotions and motions.

Her deep chestnut brown eyes had flecks of steel blue, legacy of the Field Marshal of the Red Army from whom she was descended.

At that moment Andre’s lead waiter appeared beside our table to take our orders. I asked Natalia whether I should order for both of us. Yes, she replied, curtly. I ordered a dozen chilled oysters on the half shell for each of us, served with glasses of Chablis. Then I said we would have cuts of filet mignon, rare, with mushrooms and asparagus, served with a bottle of hearty premier cru Bordeaux. Finally, fresh raspberries with heavy cream and chocolates, served with glasses of Oban single malt Scotch.

When the waiter had bowed and scurried off to fill our order, I asked Natalia what she had that could possibly interest me. She smiled like the seducer she was trained to be and ran her stockinged foot, which she had just removed from its high-heel shoe, up the back of my leg.

She took my right hand in hers as if she were going to read my palm. Instead, as she ran her nail over my palm, she told me that she was prepared to give me a list of names of Russian Federation sleeper agents throughout America, together with their current addresses.

I began to think this dinner might have significant paybacks, but this was not my first rodeo. I suggested we should not talk further about the matter until we had finished our dinner and migrated to a less public venue. Let’s relax for a moment and treat ourselves to each other’s company.

Natalia had played her straight flush, and she seemed delighted with her performance up to this point. Now, she instantly changed character and became my date rather than my partner in intrigue, and we pretended to be old friends and possibly future lovers. She flirted. I made eyes at her. We shared jokes. Our animated hands and eyes were as much a part of our conversation as our voices.

We talked about Moscow in the springtime and sights we had experienced in every season, in cities such as Berlin and Prague. From my memory of the news accounts about her, Natalia had been an active FSB agent against the US Navy. We spoke about St. Petersburg and Murmansk and Odessa. I asked about her childhood in Siberia, and she asked about my childhood in eastern Pennsylvania. By the time we had completed our meal, we were on our way to becoming acquainted, but neither of us had dropped the inculcated habits of being trained espionage agents.

Nevertheless, the more I observed her, the more beautiful and charming she appeared. She had a knack for making a man feel protective of her, strong and proud. I knew she was a survivor and had been a lethal companion of several of my former colleagues, but she had promised to give me priceless intelligence. I had to discover whether her promise was genuine and whether I could help her do what she wanted me to do.

After we had eaten our raspberries and chocolates and drunk our Scotches, I had a cup of strong coffee. Natalia had a cup of strong tea with strawberry jam. She suggested I take her to her hotel room where she had a bottle of vodka chilling in the refrigerator, just for us.

We took another taxi to her hotel, and she did, indeed, have a bottle of vodka ready in her refrigerator. There we drank in the Russian fashion, throwing back glass after glass until the bottle’s contents were gone. I told her, "I need proof of your bona fides. Could you give me something that substantiates that you can provide what you promise?"

Natalia put her finger to her moist, red lips to silence me because of hidden microphones. She reached between her breasts, lifted out and handed me a thumb drive. Then, to my surprise, she rose and showed me not to her bed but to her door.

At the door she pushed me to the wall and kissed me long and hard with her body pressed up against mine. Letting me come up for air, she opened the door and ushered me out into the hall, shutting the door in my startled face. I shook my head and departed from the hotel, clutching her thumb drive in my hand.

It was long before daylight, but I did not return to my residence. Instead, I drove directly out to Langley Headquarters. On the way I called the Duty Officer to arrange for an immediate meeting with the Deputy Director of Operations. The DDO arrived at headquarters at the same time I did. She called me on my secure cell phone and asked me to waste no time stopping by my office but to come directly to her office on the seventh floor.

It was six in the morning when I finished telling the DDO my story about Natalia. The DDO grilled me on every detail in the special side room off her office. We both knew that everything that was said or done in that room was recorded.

I recommended the Agency provide security for Natalia forthwith. The DDO agreed and made a call to make it happen. I also recommended immediate attention be accorded to the contents of the thumb drive which Natalia had entrusted to me. I gave her the thumb drive.

The DDO had summonsed the lead of our computer forensics team and entrusted it to his immediate attention. By dawn, the DDO ordered, the contents of the drive would be known. She told the lead of the forensics team to call me on my secure cell phone ASAP when it happened.

I told the DDO that Natalia definitely wanted me to work with her. I did not think it would be wise to change agents, at least at this early stage.

The DDO and I agreed that Natalia’s approach seemed suspicious in the extreme. It read like a deception operation. We wondered whether the former Russian spy could deliver what she had promised. We gamed out what kind of dangle her approach might be if she were playing us for fools. The DDO would walk back the cat to determine how it had happened. The DDO then told me she would leave me on point with Natalia for now, but she would set up an Agency support team for me based right here at Langley HQ. That support team would be up and running in two hours and be available to me 24/7. The team leader would give me a call on my cell phone when the team was fully active.

The DDO gave me contact data for my support team leader. She said, Since you are single and evidently attractive to Natalia, you have a wide field to play. I remind you that Natalia Scheremetyevo was and probably still is a seducer and assassin.

We reviewed basic emergency procedures.

The DDO continued, You might want to use the special safe house on the lake island in Maine. A seaplane will take you there if you call the number on the card I’ve given you just now. She wished me luck and dismissed me with a distracted scowl. She had apparently already begun thinking about the next event in her long day, and I was history.

One hour after I left the HQ building, I received a call on my secure cell phone. The Agency head of computer forensics told me what the thumb drive contained - the name, cover name and address of a Russian Federation sleeper agent who was living in the DC area. The intelligence was 24-carat gold quality. Your support team, he said, is working to flesh out the intelligence right now. I have briefed the DDO, and she has green-lighted your operation, which will henceforth be called Operation RED HEAD.

I noted the irony of the code name. Both Natalia and the DDO were known for their flaming red hair. The DDO was clearly taking a personal interest in this case. As if to substantiate my surmise, the DDO called to inform me that Natalia was now under 24/7 Agency surveillance and protection. The DDO positively cackled when she said that everything I said or did with Natalia from this point forward would become part of the CIA’s archive. I could not think of an adequate retort before the harridan laughed and terminated her call. She was always sarcastic. I could not imagine the DDO in a romantic relationship, at least not with a man.

It was nine o’clock in the morning when I returned to my residence. I called to inform my Agency supervisor that I would not be coming to the office but I could be reached on my cell phone. The DDO had called him to say I had been assigned to report to her personally for an indefinite period. He laughed at the idea, uttered an obscenity and wished me well.

I undressed and took a long, hot shower after which I fell into bed and slept until one o’clock in the afternoon. I then called Natalia’s hotel and discovered she had checked out early that morning without giving a forwarding address or telephone number. I subsequently called Natalia’s cell phone, which was busy. When I hung up, the leader of my support team gave me a SITREP. Things were progressing rapidly now. My team was active, Natalia was on the move and the team was tracking her.

She had been calling people continuously on her cell phone after I had departed from her hotel room. The team had a list of numbers she had called, and NSA was preparing the recordings of the calls for analysis. The CIA was meanwhile working on identifying all Natalia’s cell phone contacts, but at least one of the people she had called was a former CIA operative work name Oscar Helmut. I told the team that I wanted to know everything possible about Helmut. I said I would be coming right to HQ to see what else they had unearthed.

On my way back to Langley, I received a call from Natalia. She did not have much time to talk because she was being followed by two hard men in a black Mercedes. She could handle the situation but she wanted to meet me at the boat house on the Potomac at five o’clock this evening. I told her I had confirmed her bona fides and would do whatever I could to help her. She said it may be too late for that, but she appreciated my efforts.

Whatever happens, Natalia said, I’ll deliver on my end of the promise. I hope you’ll deliver on your end of the bargain as well - whether I’m alive or not. She paused. I liked the way you kissed. I’d like to have you kiss me again. Would you like that also?

I answered, I’d like that very much. Perhaps, we can begin tonight?

She laughed and terminated the call before I could continue. I wondered at her similarity to the DDO.

At five o’clock, we met at the boat house. One hour later we were in the Agency seaplane headed for the safe house on the lake island in Maine. The Agency team which had covered Natalia’s journey had diverted the two goons in the Mercedes that had followed her. As far as I knew, the surveillance by the Russians had been broken.

Natalia knew everything in the safe house was strictly on the record. We paced ourselves slow the first night in separate rooms, and we began in earnest in the morning after a quick round of exercise and breakfast. She spoke so fast and with such attention to detail, it was all I could do to keep up with her account. She told me everything about her final assignment down to her codes, contacts, cutouts, fallbacks, mission parameters and objectives. She was ordered to ferret out a mole buried in the FSB, and she had narrowed the suspects to three top level field agents. After she reported the names of those agents to her superior, she felt the squeeze of objection. Then her identity was blown to the major European newspapers by an informer who was merely a useful tool doing her job.

Do you think one of the three field agents you identified was being protected by someone higher up within the FSB? I asked.

I can come to no other conclusion. What I deduce from this is that one of those three field agents is definitely the mole. If it had been otherwise, no one would have needed to remove me so completely.

If I may be so bold, is it not possible that the real mole was not among the suspects you identified and that you were blown to force you to bring the CIA names which were not harmful to the mole’s continued operation?

You are thinking like a Russian. Yes, of course, but you are forgetting the essential piece - my list of sleeper agents in the USA. Two FSB officers knew, or should have known, that I had access to the list, which your people have verified as genuine in one example. So what would benefit the FSB in my defection?

I frankly do not know, but the Agency must for a while keep an open mind about deception as a motive - a deception you would naturally know nothing about. Would you be willing to undergo implemented interrogation to give the Agency further confidence about you?

I do not see I have any way back after today, so I will agree to that. When do we begin?

I will have our team flown here by seaplane. They will arrive tomorrow morning around ten o’clock. In the meantime, let’s talk about a CIA agent named Helmut whom you called just after I left your hotel room.

Helmut is a former lover and a friend. Yes, I knew he was CIA, but it was love, not business. As far as I know, he still does not know I am FSB.

Helmut is now being interrogated by the Agency. We shall soon know what he knows. Depending on his answers, he may or may not be culpable. That is not your concern. You will have to forget him emotionally but remember everything about him during your interrogation. It is the way things must be.

Natalia pursed her lips and nodded. I then told her that the first line of questioning tomorrow would be the phone calls she had made to various people after I left her hotel room, including Helmut.

Again she nodded. I feel the trap closing. I feel claustrophobic already. Yet I know I can do this.

If you want me - us - to help you, you will have to do this thing.

You give a prisoner a last meal before execution. What say you give me a last wish? Come into my room and make wild, passionate love to me all night. Are you up to this, or is the idea distasteful to you?

The microphones picked up subsequent details of the night, including the sounds of showers and whispered endearments. In the morning, Natalia was refreshed and ready to begin her ordeal. I was just plain exhausted and needing a full day’s sleep.

The interrogation team was not composed as I thought it would be. The three Agency ladies were not the classic three graces, but close enough. The lead let’s call Minerva. She was wise and aloof. Venus was sensual and alluring to both sexes and devious. Juno was the dominatrix, right in your face. They efficiently took over and prepared Natalia by inserting an IV and attaching polygraphic monitoring equipment that I had never seen.

The ladies asked me to walk around the island for three or four hours or until whenever they came for me, whichever came last. I took my laptop with me and wandered out to a point where I sat on a bench overlooking the lake. In the mild breeze I kept falling asleep, and before I knew it I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Juno, who told me the ordeal was over and I could return to the house.

Natalia was sleeping. My job was to watch over her and let her emerge gradually from the drug-induced slumber. Under no circumstances was I to have sexual intercourse with her for at least twenty-four hours, no matter how she begged for it. In a matter of fact tone, Juno explained that the drugs administered to Natalia to bring her out of her stupor were, among other things, erotic in the extreme. She said Natalia would be like Odysseus strapped to the mast while the Sirens sang, only she was female and the Siren was me.

The three graces loaded their gear on the seaplane which had brought them, and departed the island. I was left with Natalia coming groggily around to consciousness, every bit as randy as Juno predicted.

Twenty-four hours later, Natalia had been through a kaleidoscope of moods from plaintive to imploring and from abusive to alluring. Sometimes she changed expression like a female lead in the silent film era. Sometimes she sulked or brooded for an hour. She whined, cried, moaned, screamed, made animal noises, swore, and the rest of the human repertoire. But I remained steadfast and strong. She would break out in a cold sweat. She would act as if she were afire. She would talk for long intervals as if continuing her interrogation with me as her audience.

I plied her with numerous non-alcoholic beverages, mostly fruit juices and bottled water. At precisely the time Juno predicted, the worst was over. Natalia then took a long, cold shower, and emerged, ready to eat anything available. She feasted and went immediately to her room where she collapsed and slept for twelve hours.

The DDO called me the next morning to say that analysis continued but Natalia was genuine, with no reservations. My orders were now to talk with her about what she wanted me to do for her. The DDO wanted to know everything about her vision and why she planned her operation as she did. I was relieved she was not a plant or deception.

I began to prod her about her plan for revenge and what I could do to help. Her plan came out in pieces which I had to combine in a timeline. I had to ask about the principals on numerous occasions since she referred to the same persons by many names, including nicknames, work names and actual birth names.

I knew we were being recorded, but I had to elicit with good faith. I had to remember every nuance and detail so I could backtrack and remind her about what she had said, without referring to the recording.

First, Natalia wanted me to help her assassinate the three FSB mole suspects and for the Agency to observe the moves the FSB made after each assassination. Second, she wanted the Agency to determine who had given the order to blow her as a spy and to help her assassinate that person. Finally, she wanted me to make wild, passionate love to her immediately and to continue to do so for the next three days, with intervals only for biological essentials.

So we took the last as the first. After Natalia’s insatiable appetites had been somewhat tempered through my ministrations, we started to do detailed planning on the first of her intended assassinations.

The Agency knew the plans Natalia and I made play by play. The CIA’s silence was acquiescence. I only hoped Presidential Findings had been signed as we executed our lethal plan - but that was not my responsibility.

With Agency assistance, Natalia and I tracked down, I set up and she assassinated our first target on the streets of Berlin. We waited for a week while the Agency observed message traffic into and out of the FSB. No great flurry of traffic accompanied our hit. We therefore deduced that the event was noise level and not to be regarded by us as indicative of interest.

The second assassination, which occurred in Paris at the Louvre, made headlines though an induced heart attack in a crowded museum and pointed nowhere. Again traffic at the FSB was inconsequential.

As we set up for our third assassination in Lisbon, we began to get indications of interest which we had not anticipated. Both the CIA and FSB were covering our third target with close, personal observation and lethal reconnaissance at a distance of up to five miles. We decided to hold onto our plan until we sorted things out. It occurred to me that if an FSB mole was being run by the CIA, we would see patterns just like those we observed in Lisbon. I needed to discuss this matter directly with the DDO before we proceeded.

Back in the DDO’s separate room, I laid out my observations and asked whether the FSB mole was actually a CIA agent. She told me that it hardly mattered and ordered me to continue with the plan we had established. We were being watched at every move.

I then dropped down to ask my support team whether they had been able to filter the plethora of data regarding Natalia’s former superior to determine whether the man had ordered her to be blown to the press. They had no proof, but Natalia’s FSB replacement had two motives to eliminate her: they were rivals for an FSB agent’s affections and they were competitors