Chapter 1

"This is fucked," Andrea muttered to herself, as she sat alone in her apartment after returning from a briefing with Captain Gerber, Lieutenant Eberhart and Lena. It was 10 p.m. and she finally had time to study for the "weight load" test that she had at 8:00 a.m. As always, she had first opened her textbook to page 257. Whenever her Soviet handler wanted to contact her, he left a coded message between pages 256 and 257. She didn't need the book during class and kept it in her school locker. She had given him its lock combination, and, somehow, whether he did it himself or sent someone, he always managed, unseen, to put the instructions for their next meeting between those two pages.

She had been expecting for days to find a note, since it was now a month from their last meeting, when he had told her in no uncertain terms that she had just one month to get documents from the Colonel's desk to support what she claimed they said. But they had always met in the afternoon, and she had always received her notes by noon either the day of the meeting or sometimes a day before. So when she did not find a message before her afternoon class, she had not checked again, but had rushed after class to her briefing. Now there it was. The note. She hoped that she had not already missed the meeting. That would not be good at all. Not the way her handler felt that her three years undercover had so far been worthless. And especially since, this time, she had something for him.

"300. Cab. East/Cold." These instructions were different. "300" meant 3 a.m. Technically the next morning, so she had no doubt that it was that night at not the night after. But instead of a coded location, which had been "Pond" the first time and then just "P," it said "Cab." She presumed this meant that a cab was going to pick her up outside her apartment at 3 a.m. "East" and "cold" were the passwords that the driver would give her when she spoke with him, to ensure that she didn't get into the wrong cab. Nothing in the message, though, told her whether her handler would be in the cab and the meeting would take place there inside it, or whether she would be driven somewhere to meet with him. Very different. Very disturbing.

So much for studying for her test. She might not even make it back in time to take it. Although her meetings before never lasted more than a few minutes, she had no idea how long this one would take, or even where.

Andrea immediately called Gerber, who would still be at his meeting with Eberhart, which had moved on to other topics when they had excused her and Lena. Lena had been upset that Andrea insisted on returning to her own apartment to study for her test instead of spending the night with Lena. Andrea realized that, had she gone back to Lena's, she would have missed the meeting.

The person at the other end of the phone answered on the first ring, but said nothing. "Alphabet," she gave her code name. From her initials -- Andrea Baum. "Proceed" was the response. She recognized his voice, as he no doubt had hers. "Meeting tonight 300. Cab from apartment. Know nothing else." She heard a click. No instructions. Just report back after the meeting.

"This is fucked," Eberhart responded when Gerber relayed Andrea's message. "It's her first meeting with her handler since we turned her and it's not like anything she told us. Not like any of their other meetings. I don't like it."

"What don't you like?" Gerber asked calmly.

"For one thing, it's in the middle of the night. We can't follow her. If we try, her driver will know and will easily give us the slip. But his just knowing we're following her will tell him that her cover is blown. And we will never see her again after that."

"Why would we ever want to follow her?" Gerber seemed bemused. "If she has turned, she'll tell us everything when she gets back. If she never comes back, then we've lost our double agent, but she can't tell the Soviets -- voluntarily or involuntarily -- anything about our operations since she knows nothing about them. We've made sure of that. And if she hasn't really turned, all we've done is let a spy escape who can us no further harm, since she will not be sent back here. So we just wait to see what happens."

"I still don't like it. How do we know she's really turned. She didn't have any other choice but death. She could just be waiting for a chance to get away from us. How do we know that she's been truthful?"

"We don't. But she called to tell us about her meeting, instead of just disappearing for the night, which we would never have known. So I think we do have her. We'll know soon enough, though. Either when we hear from her or when we don't."

Chapter 2

Five minutes to three. Dressed in black leather -- shirt with the top three buttons undone, skirt to the middle of her calves, boots with three inch heels. No coat. The summer air was warm, even in the middle of the night. She had chosen her outfit for two reasons. First, she didn't want to be seen or recognized, and the all black outfit would help. Second, she was dressed like a high-priced call girl leaving her lover before he awoke in the morning, which had less chance of raising suspicion as to why she was out in the middle of the night, should anyone see her, than she would if were dressed, say, in a jogging suit. She fixed her hair carefully, decided to leave her purse and take just her apartment key and some cash, which she put in a small pouch that she attached to her belt.

She saw no one as she walked from her apartment to the street. A lone cab was parked to the left of her building's entrance. As she walked up to it, hoping it wasn't a sting designed to bust her for prostitution, given her appearance, the driver rolled down the front passenger window. "How far to Leipzieger Strasse?" She wanted to be sure that the answer would leave no doubt whether this was the cab. The driver smiled. "East .... or West Leipzieger?" he asked. "Let me check," she responded, but continued to look at him. "It's cold out there. Why don't you get in while you check?" he responded.

Satisfied, Andrea climbed into the back seat. The driver tossed a blindfold to her. "Orders," he told her. She slipped it over her eyes and sat back as the cab drove off. She tried to imagine a map in her head to figure out where they were going, but it was difficult. As a student without a car, she most often took the U-Bahn, so, even after three years, she still did not know many parts of the city, and she quickly lost track, as the driver seemed to take several unnecessary turns just to be absolutely certain that they weren't being followed.

Finally, the car stopped and the driver told Andrea to take off her blindfold. The car was parked behind a warehouse. The driver signaled Andrea to follow him and climbed out of the car. He walked to the warehouse, fumbled with a key to a small door in back, unlocked it, pulled out a small flashlight, and motioned Andrea to follow him inside.

The warehouse was filled with stacks of heavy wooden crates. The driver walked through the maze to the middle of the warehouse. He stopped, handed the flashlight to Andrea and showed her where to point it. He pulled one crate off another, then slid the lower crate down the floor, revealing under it a small hatch. He opened the hatch and pulled out a second small flashlight. "400 yards to the Wall. Another 400 yards to the end of the tunnel." He saw the hesitation in Andrea's eyes. "You'll be met at the other end." Andrea looked down and saw a flight of about 15 steps. If she'd known she would have to walk half a mile, she would not have worn three-inch heels, but taken the chance of wearing her running outfit. She could have run the 800 yards in less than five minutes. But to walk it in her heeled boots would take much longer. She started down the steps, and heard the hatch close behind her, followed by the sound of the driver sliding the crates back over it. No turning back. The floor was packed sand, so her heels sank into it, making it even harder to walk. She could see several rats, and knew there must be many more. Not the place to turn an ankle. Just keep walking, she told herself. Just keep walking.

She knew that there were many tunnels under the Wall, but that most were makeshift and shorter than this one and certainly were not large enough for a person to stand in them. While most had been built from West to East, to help Easterners escape to the West, this one had clearly been built by the East. Perhaps it wanted its own surreptitious access to the West even as it closed and destroyed the other tunnels that it found.

Did her superiors think this was a safer way to get her across than just driving her through a checkpoint? The East stopped people trying to get to the West, but the West didn't stop people going East. Perhaps they thought she would have to use this tunnel to get back West and wanted her to be familiar with it. What did it matter anyway? She was here. In her call girl leather outfit walking in a dark tunnel under the Wall. Just keep walking.

Chapter 3

It seemed to Andrea a lot farther than 800 yards, but maybe that was because she had never had to walk so slowly or carefully. She prayed the flashlight batteries were fully charged.

She was relieved when the tunnel finally ended and she saw stairs on the left leading up. She climbed them until she saw a hatch about the same size as the other one and pushed on it. It gave a little. There were no heavy crates on top of it. But it did not open. She pushed harder. More give, but it still did not open. She was already sweating from the staleness of the air on her leather outfit. She knew she couldn't go back. She had heard the driver slide the crate over the other hatch and he had probably left for at least a few hours. She moved up the stairs until her head nearly touched the hatch, bent her knees for more leverage and pushed against it as hard as she could with her shoulder. The hatch flew open and she tumbled awkwardly half way out of the tunnel onto a dirt floor. But she remained in darkness.

She climbed the rest of the way out, grateful not to be trapped in it for who could say how long. She darted the flashlight around and saw that she was in another warehouse. She examined the hatch and saw that a heavy hook at its side fit into a metal ring in the floor. It must have been latched the first two times that she had pushed against it, but not the third, which meant that someone ...

"Right on time." A male voice startled her, then the light from a flashlight much larger than her own blinded her to everything but its glare. "Turn off and put down your flashlight and clasp your hands behind your neck. We have to make sure you are unarmed." A reasonable request, Andrea thought. She obeyed.

A man came out of the darkness and moved behind her. "The Major likes punctuality. You're off to a good start." But the voice came from the same spot as before. There were two men there.

The man behind her patted her down from her shoulders to her hips, thighs and boots. Then he moved his hands back up to her breasts. "Can't be too careful. If these aren't real, you could be hiding something there." He squeezed her breasts hard. "No weapons there other than the obvious ones," he shouted back.

Andrea immediately circled her right hand from behind her neck around the man's right arm, at the same time grabbing his right wrist with her left hand, trapping it. She turned his wrist on itself, breaking it. She jerked her body down and to the left, and sent him flying over her hip to the ground in front of her. No sooner had he hit the ground than she kicked him hard between his legs. The man screamed and curled into a fetal position, moving his left hand to hold his testicles, having, for the moment, forgotten about the pain in his right wrist. Andrea stood over him. "Next time you will act more professionally, I hope," she said to him evenly. "When you try to get your kicks that way from me, the kicks you get will not be the kind you're looking for." The man started to vomit. It had all taken less than 10 seconds.

She looked toward the flashlight, and could see that the hand holding it must be shaking. "Let's go. I mustn't be late for my meeting, remember. You'll come back for him later." She walked toward the flashlight, took it out of the startled man's hands and continued past him. "Which way to the car?" "To the right," he managed to respond. He followed her out, leaving his partner lying in his own vomit.

Chapter 4

"That is our more immediate problem," Gerber told Eberhart.

"We don't yet know that it's really a problem, though, do we?"

"How long has Agent Krause worked for us? How many times has she failed to respond? This is the first time. No, we don't know for certain, but we can be pretty sure."

"They can't yet know we've turned Agent Baum," Eberhart offered. Gerber looked at him. There was no need to add "if we have." "But they know we've eliminated the other two. They've had several months to investigate. They must have figured it out our source. They must have taken her out ... or worse. We should have gotten her out as soon as she told us about Baum." Eberhart cursed under his breath.

"Assume the worst." Gerber decided to think through the situation step by step. "They have eliminated or captured her. That means that they know or will soon learn how she got her information, which even we don't know. But she still won't be able to tell them who she passed her messages to because she doesn't know that. So her contact should be safe."

"But, when she can't give them a name ..."

"That's the horror of the business. Forget the movies. In reality, it's just hard, tedious, dangerous work. A chance to serve your country with no chance of personal glory." He paused. "We'll know more in a few days. About Baum. And about Krause."

Chapter 5

They drove less than a mile before stopping in front of another warehouse. "Knock on the front door," the man instructed her. Andrea got out of the car. The car immediately sped away in the direction of the first warehouse.

A male voice greeted Andrea's knock. Name?" She wasn't sure what to give. "Noraskaya," she decided. The door opened and she entered a small office. A desk. Several chairs. Surprisingly well-lit. The building's blacked-out windows were obviously effective. The man walked back into the main warehouse behind the office, leaving the door between the two open. There seemed to be a lot of activity back there.

A minute later, a man dressed in major's uniform and another in civilian clothes entered the office from the warehouse and closed the door behind them, taking seats behind the desk. "I'm Major Chernin. This is Minister Dalyitch." He signaled her to sit in the chair on the other side of the desk.

"Let me get right to the reason we sent for you," Chernin began. "We have a problem. Actually, two problems. Two major problems. "You have been in the field now for three years. We have nothing to show for your work. You were given a deadline to prove your value to us. That deadline was today and you have not met it. We are going to recommend that you be brought back."

"May I respond?"

"That is why you are here."

Andrea wondered how much time she would be given. "I was sent to pose as a college student and told to make high grades to protect my cover. To never miss a class. That required a lot of work and a lot of time."

"It always takes a lot of time to maintain one's cover," Dalyitch interrupted, "but it does no good to maintain a cover if it never leads to any results."

"I was given no support. No contacts. No plan how to find the information you wanted. I was left completely on my own to figure out how to get it for you."

"So far, Agent Noraskaya, you have only given us excuses. We need results, not excuses. Chernin was as unsympathetic as Dalyitch.

"I put my own plan into operation and it wasn't a pleasant one for me," Andrea continued. "I used my best asset. My body. And I found the information you wanted. My handler certainly reported that to you."

"With no supporting documentation," Chernin reminded her. "We can't base major military and political decisions on your unsupported statement of what you say you saw. You only had a moment to look at the information. You might have misread it or misinterpreted it." Dalyitch nodded his agreement. "We need verification."

"I understand. But that I got that information for you showed you that I was working."

"We needed the documents," Dalyitch's voice started to rise. "The documents were everything and you couldn't get those. All you did was complain why you couldn't. 'The Colonel doesn't want to sleep with me anymore.' 'The building has security.' A good agent handles problems like that daily. Routinely. In fact, they should be no more than minor annoyances. Not roadblocks."

"Maybe your wrong," Andrea stared at him, then raised her arms to her hair and carefully pulled out a hair clip. She leaned over the desk, opened the clip, and let the micro-disk on which she had copied the Colonel's documents fall out onto it. "There's your verification."

Without a word Chernin took the disk, stood up and walked into the warehouse, closing the door behind him. Dalyitch was speechless.

"I broke into the Colonel's apartment two weeks ago. I planned to turn the disk over to my handler. But instead I was summoned here and so did not have a chance. You might also want to know that I have made contacts from whom I should be able to get information about future U.S. missile plans not just in West Germany, but in all of Europe and in Turkey. Of course, if you really want to bring me back instead of giving me the two or three months that I would need ...."

"If what you say is on the disk," Dalyitch spoke deliberately, "then you can have at least six more months." That was settled, Andrea knew. Dalyitch was the final word, not Chernin.

Chernin returned to the room and nodded to Dalyitch, who smiled broadly. "My apologies, Agent Noraskaya," Chernin congratulated her. "Very valuable documentation. Politically even more than militarily."

Andrea stood. "Can I get back now? I have a test in the morning. And I need to keep up my grades, don't I?"

"Not just yet. Remember I told you that we had two major problems. You have proven us wrong about the first. But we still have the second." Chernin's face once again turned serious.

Chapter 6

She had forgotten. "What's the second, Major?"

"Did you know that we recently lost two operatives in West Germany?" Andrea shook her head. "Working on entirely separate missions. We spent a long time figuring out how anyone could have known about both. We looked at hundreds of thousands of pages of our records to see if any might have accidentally referenced or linked them. And we found a document that failed to delete their names from our list of employees, as is our standard procedure, obviously, for all our operatives. In our health records of all places. We concluded that a West German or American mole inside our health services department taken advantage of our oversight, compared the list of our employees on that document with our standard list of employees, and figured out that the extra names on it must be working for us undercover. A brilliant piece of spying, actually, I regret to say. I wish all our agents were that good."

Andrea waited for him to pause. "I don't see how I fit into this second problem."

"Agent Noraskaya, the document had three extra names on it."

Andrea's eyes widened. "Mine was the third?"

"Yes," Chernin continued. "Under your Baum alias. Has anything happened recently to make you think your cover might have been blown?"

"Major, something happens every week to make me fear my cover has been blown. Then I have to figure out a logical, innocent explanation for what concerns me. Sometimes I can do this quickly. Other times it takes longer. For anyone but a spy, this would indicate paranoia. For a spy, though, being that observant and suspicious is a matter of life and death."

Agent Noraskaya, you are exactly correct," Dalyitch responded. "But has anything happened that you haven't figured out that you still fear may mean that your cover is blown?"

"The last thing, Mr. Minister, was receiving instructions to come here in the middle of the night. So no, nothing else."

"It has now been more than a month since we lost contact with our second agent. If your cover hasn't yet been compromised, I don't think it will. Agent Noraskaya," Chernin stared at her, "we've caught the mole. We have her in the back of the warehouse. Along with two others who worked in the same department with her."

"A conspiracy?" Andrea was surprised. "That would be a major breach of our security."

"Probably just the one. But it should help break her to force her to watch what happens to the others. Especially if they're innocent."

"You're going to torture two innocents to try to break the third?"

"No, Agent Noraskaya. You are going to torture them. Do you have a problem with that?"

Andrea looked directly at Chernin. "No. If they are innocent, then, as loyal East Germans, they know there is no greater glory than to give their lives for the good of their country. Helping to gain information from a mole who has cost us the lives of two of our operatives is a great glory indeed. On the other hand, if they are guilty, they deserve what they will receive and much more. Will either of you assist me?"

"Agent Noraskaya," Dalyitch had been quiet, but now he spoke for both himself and Chernin. "We are leaving the matter in your hands."

Chapter 7

"She told us her meetings never lasted more than a few minutes." Lena had returned to the meeting room at 3:30 a.m., more than an hour earlier, hoping to be there when Andrea reported.

"Lieutenant Klammer is right," Eberhard was no more optimistic. "We've lost her. They had to figure she'd been compromised along with the two agents that they lost."

"Combine that with the fact we've lost contact with our own agent who gave us all three names. They have to know."

"Lieutenants," the Major interrupted their predictions of doom. "If they knew, they would face no risk from keeping her in the field because they would know not to trust her information and that they could learn valuable information just from listening to what she told them, true or not. When she gives them the disk, they may be convinced she has not been compromised. The information will check. We have to let her give them some accurate information, even valuable information, to keep her credibility so that they will provide her with more information that she can pass to us. And so that they will trust her information and act on it, hopefully to their devastation when the right time comes. You know how much the stakes go up with double agents."

Lena remembered all the pain she had suffered when she had been accused of stealing this famous micro-disk. Now they had given it to Andrea to turn over to the Soviets. The world of spy and counterspy was indeed a strange one.

Chapter 8

Dalyitch explained to Andrea that this part of the mission was up to the military, and, while he understood its necessity, he found it personally distasteful. He left, as Chernin led Andrea into the main part of the warehouse through a maze of stacked boxes until they reached an open area on its far side.

"This one is Karen Krause," Chernin nodded toward a woman with long brown hair in the center of the warehouse. [See Krause At Time of Capture Pic] Her wrists had been tightly secured to a rope hanging from an open beam near the top of the high warehouse ceiling. The rope pulled her arms directly over her head and lifted her body a full foot off the floor. Her ankles had been pulled apart by ropes secured to bolts in the floor, putting her into an inverted Y position. Other than her black heels and g-string panties, she was naked except for the tatters of the top of her blouse that hung loosely at her shoulders and failed to hide her small breasts. [See Krause in Warehouse Pic] "She is the ringleader. The one who gave the three names to the West."

"That one," Chernin nodded to the left, "is Anne Helling, one of Krause's co-workers." Andrea had been so focused on Krause that she hadn't noticed any other captive. Helling's stockings had been tied tightly around her ankles and secured to a hook attached to a bar that ran across the ceiling, so that she now hung by her ankles, her brown hair a foot off the floor. She was gagged. Her wrists were tied behind her back. The top of her white dress had been torn open and her white bra pulled to her stomach to reveal her large breasts, on which gravity was now working. The rest of her dress hung in tatters down to the floor. Her white panties had been pulled to her knees, revealing that she was completely shaved. [See Helling Pic] Dressed in virginal white, Andrea thought. This is not how she had expected to spend her day.

"Krause's other co-worker, Joanna Schneider, is there." Andrea looked to her right. Schneider, with brunette hair to her shoulders, stood totally naked with her back against a short vertical wooden post, her wrists chained behind it. Unlike Helling, a triangle patch of dark hair was visible between her legs. Like Helling, her breasts were large. One of the men held a riding crop under them, nudging them up slightly. [See Schneider Pic]

"I hope you find our preparations adequate," Chernin stepped back. Andrea noticed that the bodies of none of the women had yet been marked. "You haven't started questioning them, it appears."

"No, we let the fear build. You can already see it in their eyes. And in that one's knees." Chernin motioned toward Schneider, whose knees were shaking noticeably. "So far we've just let them wonder what the men have in store for them, but we haven't let them touch them yet, either."

Chapter 9

Andrea signaled a man to bring her a chair. She sat 10 feet in front of the hanging Krause, with Helling and Schneider 10 feet to either side of her.

"So, Fraulein Krause. I'm Andrea Baum, as you know me. Third name on your list. Did you ever expect that we would meet like this? Or ever meet at all?" She didn't wait for a response. "Everyone in this room knows that you are a West German spy responsible for the deaths of two of our fine agents. And that I may become the third. Are you going to force me to torture your friends or are you going to tell me who your contacts are?"

Krause's response startled her. "I don't deny my guilt. You wouldn't believe my denials anyway. I'm proud of what I did to protect my country from people like you. And everyone in this room also knows that my co-workers are not guilty and should be freed. They are loyal to your country, misguided as that may be."

"A long-winded response, Fraulein Krause," Andrea spoke loudly enough for Helling and Schneider to hear. "But all I heard was, 'Please torture my friends because I'm not going to answer your question.'" Andrea looked at Helling, who was twisting her body in a hopeless effort to free herself, then at Schneider, whose knees remained shaking.

"Bring me a whip." Andrea turned toward the men standing behind her. "A harsh one. And a loaded gun. Some nipple clamps, hoods, gags. And wax ear plugs. Oh, and you must serve your workers food in this building, so bring me the grill that you use. And some lighter fluid and matches." Three of the men moved out of the open area to fetch the items that Andrea had requested.

Andrea walked to the hanging Helling and removed her gag. "Here's what's going to happen," she explained to the captives. "If Fraulein Helling or Fraulein Schneider gives me valuable information that I don't already know, I will release her from her bonds, give her clothes and send her out of here. The other I will use as my guinea pig for a new and most unpleasant torture I want to test. But first, we need a vote among the three of you. Do I start my questioning with Fraulein Helling or Fraulein Schneider."

"No," an immediate scream came from Helling. "I have done nothing wrong !! I have done my job well for four years. I have certificates of good service," she protested in a loud, clear voice. "Everything was fine until she came a year ago."

"That sounds like a vote that I start with Fraulein Schneider. Fraulein Schneider, how do you vote?"

Schneider's voice was as shaky as her knees, "Anne has worked as my assistant for those four years. I vouch for her loyalty."

"I'll mark that down as an abstention. Fraulein Krause, yours is the final vote."

"Fuck you. Leave them alone."

One of the men returned with a cat o' nine tails. Andrea felt the small metal studs at its ends. "Yes, this will do very nicely." He also handed her a .22 caliber revolver. She checked to confirm that it was loaded. A second man put a small table next to her chair, and placed on it the items that Andrea had requested -- several hoods, gags and sets of nipple clamps, wax ear plugs, lighter fluid and matches. Andrea put the revolver down on the table and stood up, holding the whip.

"That sounded like another abstention, so we don't have a majority." Andrea picked up a hood, a gag and a pair of ear plugs and strode toward Krause. "We don't want you eavesdropping on what your friends have to say, but don't worry, we'll get back to you later." She pushed the plugs into Krause's ears and pinched her nose to force her mouth open enough to push the cloth gag behind her teeth. After tying the gag at the back of Krause's neck, Andrea pulled the hood over Krause's head, leaving her in a dark silent world. But, before moving back to the table, Andrea touched Krause on the side of her hips, sending a cringe from her, and then yanked off her panties to add even a greater feeling of helplessness and vulnerability. Krause, like Helling, was completely shaved. "I Iove the shoes," Andrea added, knowing that Krause could not hear her.

Andrea took two strides toward Schneider. She raised the whip behind her ear, and lashed it hard across Schneider's stomach. The cords stung. The metal studs tore. Schneider screamed. Andrea paused for a few seconds, moved the whip again behind her, as Schneider shook her head violently, begging her not to lash her again. Her pleas were wasted. Andrea slashed Schneider's breasts. Schneider howled. Her body arched as far as her chained wrists allowed. Droplets of blood oozed from the points where the studs struck. The lines of red across her body deepened and reddened. Terror and pain filled her face. "I've done nothing! Stop! Nothing!"

"I agree with your words in one regard, Fraulein Schneider. I will stop at nothing to get what I need. But excuse me for a moment. I have other work to which I must turn." Andrea moved away from Schneider, toward Helling. "Anything that you'd like to tell me before I begin?"

"I don't know anything about this spying you're talking about. Nothing!"

"Well, somehow I don't believe you. And while this might not loosen your tongue, it will loosen your flesh." Andrea lashed the whip across Helling's stomach. Helling tried to turn her body away, but the whip struck its target, and the studs caught in her bra, ripping it off as Andrea pulled the whip back. Helling shook she shoulders and breasts. Andrea's second blow crossed her thighs, ripping into her panties and nearly tearing them off. Andrea paused to listen to Helling's shrieks of pain and to make sure that the red lines across her body were as deep as those she had inflicted on Schneider. Without warning, she struck a third blow, again across Helling's thighs, this time tearing her panties completely off. "Now that's better," she added.

Chapter 10

Andrea realized that she was beginning to sweat even after just these first few strokes. First the heat from the tunnel. Then from the closed warehouse with its blackened windows. From the tension and excitement in the room. From her black leather outfit. She could control only one of these sources of heat. She walked back to the table next to her chair. "I hope none of you mind," she turned toward Chernin, "but I feel a bit restricted and I know that I can do better." She put the whip on the table, and reached to the belt for her skirt. She unfastened it, pulled it off, and laid it on the table, with the pouch holding her cash and key. Then she unhooked the side of her skirt, pulled it down, stepped out of it, folded it and put it on the table. Under the skirt she wore only black low-cut panties. Her heeled black boots ended at mid-calf.

She knew all the men were staring at her as she quickly undid the buttons of her shirt, pulled the shirt open and off, and put it down next to her skirt on the table. Her low-cut black bra made it clear that, while the size of her breasts did not match those of either Helling or Schneider, she was sufficiently endowed that none of the men's eyes left her chest while they hoped that she might disrobe further. Instead, however, she picked up the whip and walked back toward Schneider.

"I apologize for my previous efforts," she told her sarcastically. "But I'll improve, I promise. Unless you have something you want to tell me."

"Please. Ask what you want to know. I'll tell you the truth. Whatever I know. Please." Schneider chest and shake now joined her knees in shaking in fear.

"I can't know what you know until you tell me." Andrea raised the whip and struck Schneider across her hips, then, without pausing, across her breasts, her stomach, her stomach again, and again across her breasts. Five lashes. Schneider's mind blurred in pain. Her screams filled the warehouse, the lines of red across her body quickly multiplying, blood seeping from a dozen places where the whip's studs had dug into her.

Andrea stepped back to examine her work. Schneider struggled hopelessly to free herself from her bonds, all the time pleading with Andrea to stop. But Andrea decided she needed still more incentive, and lashed her breasts from right to left, then immediately from left to right, the studs digging deeply. Schneider's screams suddenly stopped, and her head slumped to her chest. Andrea walked to the table, put down the whip, and moved toward Schneider's slumping body. She grabbed her hair and raised her head, her face inches away. "Now. Has your memory improved?" Schneider nodded slowly. "Good. Talk."

"Karen. Karen. Not me. Not Anne. She kept asking us questions. Said we'd been there longer and she was the new kid, so she needed our help."

"Go on." The information was so far useless. But Andrea doubted that Schneider had any useful information.

"Strange questions she asked. Who are these people? What do they do? Questions that had nothing to do with our job. Just trying to learn,' she would say."

"Did you ever see her looking in files that she shouldn't have been looking in, that she didn't have clearance to look in?"

"All the time. When I questioned her, it was always the same response. 'I have catching up to do so I can learn my job as well as you know it.'"

Andrea let go of Schneider's hair. Her head collapsed to her chest. Andrea moved back to the table, picked up the whip, and walked over to the hanging Helling. She brought the whip down vertically to the underside of Helling's left breast, then back and down to the underside of her right breast. "No one likes people who play favorites," she explained. Helling's mouth was open, her throat unable to sustain her screams, which now were reduced to grunts of pain, her eyes glazed, The next lash found its target in the small space between her hanging legs, now unprotected even by her panties. The force of the blows sent Helling's body swinging back and forth.

"What do you have to tell me?" Andrea sat down on the floor in front of her, their faces now at the same level.

"What she said is how I remember it, too," Helling said unhelpfully.

"When did this all happen? When was Fraulein Krause asking all these questions and looking through all these files?"

"She's been working with us about a year. It started right away."

"Did she ever stop?"

"She stopped about three months ago. She told us how much better she'd gotten at knowing her job, and she didn't ask us so many questions."

"Did you ever see Fraulein Krause look through any classified folders that she wasn't supposed to see?" Andrea could see Helling's body tense. She waited for her answer.

"Yes," Helling finally responded slowly.

"Did you report this to anyone?"

"I reported it to Fraulein Schneider, who was my boss."

"Well, Fraulein Schneider," Andrea turned around. "That brings me back to you. Did you report Fraulein Krause's activities to your superiors? We can easily check, you know." Schneider shook her head. "I see. So your assistant told you that one of your employees was looking at classified information that is not part of her job and you did nothing about it? Doesn't that make you an accomplice?"

Schneider hung her head. "I was afraid of her. She was very intimidating. She always talked about the Generals and Colonels that she knew. That she had dated. I was afraid to say anything. I thought that she was just doing what she said. Learning her job. But that she didn't know what she needed to know and what she could ignore, so she sometimes looked at things she shouldn't have. But I didn't think that she was a spy."

Chapter 11

"That's a nice story, Fraulein Schneider, but it doesn't explain the money." Andrea took a wild shot in the dark, but, to her surprise, it struck the bulls-eye. Schneider looked up at her. "She said it was just for helping her learn her job and for being her friend. She said that her family had a lot of money and it would matter more to me than to her. I didn't see any harm in taking it."

"How much?"

Schneider hesitated. "20,000 Marks."

"You didn't think that was a bit much just for helping her with her job?"

"I ... I tried not to think about it."

"What about you, Fraulein Helling? How much did she pay you?" Andrea turned and strode toward her.

"I took nothing from her !! Since I had told Joanna what she was doing, I was sure that she would be fired soon. Or at least questioned. But it never happened."

"Well, it never happened until now, anyway. When did you realize that nothing happened because Fraulein Schneider was on the take?"

"What more could I do? I told my superior what was happening and I took nothing for myself."

"Because you did nothing more, Fraulein Helling, two of our agents are dead." Andrea walked back to her chair. "And my own life is in danger. All right. I think we understand the roles of these two," Andrea looked at Chernin. "Both bear a degree of guilt, but Helling less so than Schneider. Dupes, not spies. Anyway, I did promise to release the one who provided me with the more valuable information. Let her down," Andrea nodded toward Helling. "I keep my promises." Chernin began to protest. "Major," Andrea interrupted him. "You put me in charge of the interrogation, remember? You declined my offer to have you assist me."

Two men lowered the hook holding Helling's ankles, then unhooked Helling's stockings from it and laid her on the ground. A third man tossed a pair of khaki army pants and an army shirt toward her. They helped her put them on. She stood up and tucked the shirt into the pants, but her hands were too weak to button it. Schneider stared at the scene, knowing that she had been chosen as Andrea's guinea pig.

Helling stood up and slowly walked toward the edge of the open area. As soon as she reached the crates on its edge, Andrea called after her. "Fraulein Helling, just one more thing." Helling turned ... and saw Andrea pointing the .22 revolver at her chest. Andrea fired twice, both shots striking Helling between her breasts. Helling's body was pushed back from the force, her shirt flying open, her back hitting a large crate. Her hands were hands thrown up to the sides of her head. Andrea fired a third and fourth time, these shots both hitting Helling in the stomach. Her body slowly slid down the crate until she sat on the floor, her back against the crate, her legs straightforward. Her hands and her head slowly dropped to her side. "I promised to release you. I did that. I promised to give you new clothes. I did that. I promised to send you out of here. Meaning the interrogation area, and I did that. Letting you leave the warehouse was not a promise I made to you. Get rid of her body. She was the least responsible so she got away the easiest."

Two men grabbed Helling's wrists, pulled her onto her stomach, and dragged her away, leaving a trail of blood as the warehouse floor reopened cuts on the front of her body from the brutal whipping.

They were barely out of sight when two other men wheeled in a large rectangular barbecue grill, three feet high, with a grated metal top under which it was filled with heated coals. They carefully held its wooden handles as they rolled it into the opening. "It took a long time to remove the bolts that held it to the wall in the kitchen," one explained. "Put it between my chair and Fraulein Krause. I want her to have a good view of what is going to happen to that one," Andrea motioned toward Schneider, "if she fails to give me the answers that I want." Schneider again screamed, pulling at her cuffs until the skin around her wrists was raw.

"Cuff her wrists to the same hook that you used for Fraulein Helling's ankles," Andrea instructed. "Use that hook on the other side of the same bar for her ankles. I want her parallel to the floor, so add a rope around her waist to keep her from sagging in the middle. Pull her up about three feet over the grill to start. That bar can be raised and lowered, can't it?"

The men understood exactly what Andrea intended. Two removed Schneider's wrists from their cuffs behind the post and pulled her past Andrea's desk. Andrea watched as, with a push of a button on the wall, one of the men lowered the bar holding the two hooks that she had indicated. After Schneider's wrists and ankles were secured to them, a second push of the button raised the bar, and Schneider's body hanging from it, until she hung in front of Krause exactly as Andrea had directed.

"Move the coals under her. She's high enough that she'll barely feel the heat. And gag her. We only want one of our guests speaking at a time."

Chapter 12

Schneider shook her head frantically as two of the men pushed the coals directly under her, while the third forced into her mouth the same gag used on Helling when she was first hanging by her ankles. That the coals did not burn her was of little relief, knowing that the bar to which she was tied could easily and quickly be lowered.

"Any interest in doing the honors, Major?" True to his word, apart from the few seconds when he did not understand Andrea's intentions regarding Helling, he had simply observed her handling of the three captives. "She is their leader, after all."

Chernin walked toward Krause's hanging figure. "First see how she is doing," Andrea added. Chernin knew what she meant. He reached between her legs and inserted two of his fingers. Krause's body jolted in shock after so long with no sense of what was happening around her. Moving his fingers inside her, he watched her body continue to shiver. "Since I don't think that she's wet from excitement, I'd say she's wet from fear."

"Good," Andrea nodded. "Let's see her reaction when she sees what's in front of her."

Chernin pulled the hood off Krause's head. She squinted after so long in darkness. When she saw Schneider hanging over the hot coals, she looked to the pole to make sure that it was Schneider. Then she looked to the other side and did not see Helling. Chernin removed her ear plugs, then unfastened the cloth gag down. Krause remained silent.

Andrea ordered one of the men to stand by the button controlling the height of the bar from which Schneider hung. She moved three feet to the side of the head of the grill. "Fraulein Krause, as you can see, much has happened since you were last with us. Fraulein Helling is no longer here. But Fraulein Schneider has stayed." Schneider turned her face toward Krause, a look of desperation in her eyes.

"For one thing, we have learned a lot from your two friends. And we're going to ask you to confirm what they've told us. Fraulein Schneider will be very grateful if you do, because, otherwise ..." Andrea nodded toward the man near the button. He pressed it and the bar lowered Schneider's body 6 inches, to 2-1/2 feet above the grate. Still not enough to burn her, but she could certainly feel the heat. Not knowing how far Andrea intended to lower her, Schneider yet again started to scream through her gag.

"Did you examine classified documents that you did not have clearance to view?" Schneider stared at Krause, praying for a truthful answer, knowing that anything less would send her closer to the heated grating below.

"I did."

"Did anyone else know that you had done this?"

"No. I did it on my own."

Andrea nodded to the man near the button. He pushed it and the grate dropped another six inches. The volume of Schneider's screams increased. She could feel the heat, especially on her breasts, which hung closer to the grate than the rest of her body.

"Both Frauleins Helling and Schneider confessed that they knew about your actions, Fraulein Krause. Another lie and Fraulein Schneider is going to be a much hotter lady than she already is. Did you pay Schneider to keep quiet about your activities?"

Krause's own body was bathed in sweat. "Yes."

"How much did you pay her?"

"50,000 Marks."

"Interesting. I think that's the truth. Unfortunately, it means that Fraulein Schneider lied to me before. She tried to hide how large an amount she was paid. But, since you told the truth, I can't lower her, since I promised I would only lower her when you lied."

Andrea walked over to her table and picked up the lighter fluid and matches. "But never fear. I have a solution." She moved back to Schneider's hanging figure. Schneider shook her body, trying to swing it away from the grate under it. Andrea squeezed the lighter fluid over the coals, which sizzled when the liquid hit them. "I don't like liars." Andrea lit a match, held it in front of Schneider's face, and dropped it onto the coals.

Flames immediately rose two feet from the grate, licking Schneider's breasts and singing the rest of her body. Schneider's screams turned into the grunts of a wounded wild animal. Her body lurched, as, for 10 seconds the flames shot up before consuming the liquid and dying down. Schneider's thighs and stomach were deep red. Her breasts were burned and blistered, particularly around her nipples. Andrea had not meant to be so severe so soon with her. She put the fluid and matches back on the table.

Chapter 13

"Heathen !!" Krause screamed at Andrea.

"No more than you. Do expect that the two agents that you identified were treated better by your side !! That woman lied. I won't tolerate that." Andrea moved back to sit in her chair. "Now let's get back to my questions. Did you generally deliver your information to your contact yourself?"

"No, of course not. You know how it works. I would never take a chance of running into my contact. Of putting us both in the same place. In case I've been followed."

"What's your contact's name?"

"I don't know that. I'll bet you don't know yours. For protection of the operation."

"That hardly protects you now."

"That's the risk we all take."

"So how do you pass your information to your contact?"

"I put it in code into a small waterproof tube."

"Waterproof?"

"The tube is left in the tank of the middle toilet in the ladies' room of the Pergamon art museum on the last Tuesday of each month at 11 a.m. There are not many people there in the morning during the week. I don't know when the pick-up is made. If I don't have any information that month, the tube is left empty. But we missed the drop this morning. For obvious reasons."

Andrea looked at Chernin. "The drop would have been this morning. So they already know that no drop was made. Bad timing for us. But we send someone there next month. Her contact may go just to see if its absence this month was a fluke. They might suspect that she didn't make the drop because we have her, but they might not be sure."

"I already noted to do it," Chernin replied, "but you're right. It will probably be too late."

Andrea turned back to Krause. She could see that, even having confessed and resigned herself to her fate, however that might be carried out, Krause was still feeling helpless. How could she not? Hanging naked by her wrists, her legs spread, in front of a dozen East Germans who knew she was responsible for eliminating -- probably as horribly as Andrea's torture of Schneider -- two of their agents. She was brave, but she was afraid to lie, hoping, likely without justification, that she still might help save Schneider. Not letting Krause hear what Schneider and Helling had said, and now gagging Schneider so that she could not interfere with Krause's questioning, had been a brilliant move on Andrea's part. She expected that Chernin recognized that, since it had allowed her to get a lot from Krause in a short amount of time.

"Who made the drop last month?"

"I ... I can't tell you."

"Then poor Fraulein Schneider is in for a very painful time." Concentrating on her own severe pain, Schneider was no longer aware of anything else happening in the room.

Krause's head slumped. "It will make no difference if I tell you."

"Try me."

Krause took a deep breath. "Fraulein Schneider made the drop last month."

"How many times has she made your drop?"

"Most of them."

"So she's an accomplice." Andrea now knew exactly how Krause and Schneider had operated, so that neither would have any more information for her. The time had come to conclude the questioning. She walked over to Schneider and removed her gag.

"I ask either of you to tell me the name of your contact. The name of anyone in the West to whom your information goes. Tell me something that gives me a reason not to eliminate Fraulein Schneider right now."

Schneider had fainted and was hanging limply in her bonds, her body shaking involuntarily. The flames below her body remained hot. Not hot enough to add to the burns that the flames had already inflicted on her. But hot enough to remind Krause what a lie from her meant to the poor woman stretched out before her.

Chapter 14

Krause shook her head resignedly. "I can't answer your questions. I have nothing more for you. I have told you everything. More than I thought I ever would."

"That's a shame. Truth is that I believe you. But that doesn't change the fact that you and Fraulein Schneider are responsible for the deaths of two of our agents, probably violently and painfully, and that I am soon likely to be the third, since my name was on the same list as the others. So regardless of what information you have or have not given us, what information you know or don't know, the penalty to both of you must be severe."

"For me. I understand," Krause pleaded for Schneider. "But not for her."

"In return for 50,000 Marks, she betrayed her country. She delivered your messages. She hid your activities. She lied to us about her involvement. You are guilty of espionage. She is guilty of treason. She could have stopped you. She could have turned you in. In which case you would now still be here, facing our interrogation, but she would be free. And our two agents would be alive. But she chose your money instead of loyalty to her country, and the penalty for treason in our criminal courts is death. And, in our court of spies, it is worse."

Andrea walked back to her table and again picked up the lighter fluid and matches. She moved to the head of the grill and lifted Schneider's head by her hair. Her mouth was open. Her breathing short and raspy. Eyes closed. Unconscious. Andrea released her grip and Schneider's head fell back down.

Andrea squirted the fluid on the coal just under Schneider's hanging breasts, then nodded to the man by the button on the wall, who lowered the bar six inches. Schneider's body started to shake as the heat reached it, but her eyes remained closed. Andrea lit a match, watched it for a second and tossed it into the grate, taking a large step back.

The grill burst into flames just under Schneider's breasts and quickly surrounded them. Krause screamed first. Then Schneider raised her head, opened her eyes and screamed, as the flames consumed her breasts, singing off in seconds whatever had remained of her nipples. Andrea turned to the man by the button and gave a thumbs down signal. He pushed the button sending Schneider's body down until it landed on the heated grate, from her neck to her toes, her head falling just outside of it, the heat of the metal edge burning her throat. In a matter of just a few more seconds Schneider's screams stopped. Krause's did not. Andrea signaled the men to remove Schneider's body from the grate. Carefully, they released her ankles and wrists from their cuffs, and removed the rope around her stomach, then lifted her off the grate, large pieces of her flesh sticking to it. They lay her on her back on the floor.

Half of the men stared at the scene in amazement. A few cheered the hideous demise of the captured traitor. Still others bent down and vomited on the floor. "Put her with the other," Andrea ordered, and the two men who had earlier dragged out Helling's body now lifted Schneider's body by its wrists and ankles and carried it out of the open area. The room was silent except for Krause's continuous screams.

"Men, the Major and I have other matters to attend to, so we leave Fraulein Krause to you. Your orders are that she is not to be moved or touched by anything other than human flesh for at least an hour." Krause knew what that meant. The men in the room were going to rape and sodomize her for an hour, probably beat her as well. "After that, she must remain alive for at least another hour. And you must do nothing to her eyes. I want her to see her torment to the very end." Andrea looked at Krause, whose eyes were closed, apparently in prayer. "No one's going to answer your prayers or mine, Fraulein Krause. Today you die at my hands. Soon I expect that I will die, less directly, at yours. But whatever the men choose to do to you will be less than you deserve for your actions."

Andrea instructed one of the men to return the table and chair to the office, from where they had been taken. She did not look back as she and Chernin walked away. Chernin did. He saw that the men had already formed a tight circle around Krause and were fighting for position to be the first one to rape her. He imagined they would have enough time for each to have one or two turns with her.

Chapter 15

In the office, Chernin took his seat behind the desk and Andrea sat in front of it. Just hours earlier they had each sat in the same two chairs, but that now seemed like ages ago to both of them. Chernin was sweating profusely. Andrea was sweating as well, even though she wore only her bra, panties and boots.

"I'm not sure what I expected from you, Agent Noraskaya. But you delivered, I cannot deny that. We now know exactly what Krause did and how she was able to do it, so we can make sure it doesn't happen again. We also eliminated a significant danger. Both from a foreign spy and from two weak traitors in our midst. We got from them all the information that they had. We can close our book on the matter. The President will be pleased."

Andrea didn't mind that Chernin appeared to be sharing credit with her for what had happened, even though he had only watched while she handled everything. It meant that he approved of what she had done. So she had proven herself to both the military and the government authorities. She was surprised to realize that, at that moment, there was only one thing that she wanted.

"Agent Noraskaya," Chernin interrupted Andrea's silent analysis of her performance. "You were well organized. You knew what you needed and made use of just about everything you asked us to provide you."

"That's how I operate."

"But you never used these." Chernin reached over to the table and picked up a pair of nipple clamps. "Did you just forgot about them?"

"No, Major," Andrea sat on the desk and spun her legs around to the side where he sat. She crossed her arms, grasped the sides of her bra and pulled it up over her head and off. Chernin stared at her well-shaped breasts and hard nipples suddenly exposed within his reach. "Those were meant as a reward for me after a job well done." She dropped her bra to the ground. "Or isn't that your kind of thing?" She clasped her hands behind her neck and thrust out her chest toward him.

Chapter 16

Chernin quickly slid the clamps onto Andrea's nipples, then slowly pushed up the rings to tighten them, as Andrea watched. Halfway up Andrea gasped and moved her hands to the inside of her thighs. Chernin stopped. "No, a little more," Andrea instructed. She bit her lip as he obeyed. She bent her head down low toward her chest. "Pull the chain over my head and around to the back of my neck." Again he obeyed. Andrea let out a louder gasp as he pulled it to the top of her head, stretching her already pinched nipples, and then to the back of her neck as she had asked. "Now," she explained, "all I have to do to add to the pressure is tilt my head back."

When Chernin let go of the chain, Andrea leaned back on the desk, her arms bent at her elbows, her hands next to her head. She bent her knees and used her feet to push her hips to the front edge of the desk. Chernin stood and leaned over her. He unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis. She watched him intently. He stepped back to pull her panties down, but she stopped him, wrapped her legs around him and pulled him back toward her. "No. Rip them off. Just rip them off."

She watched as he grabbed her panties with both hands and ripped the front open, then yanked them off and tossed them on the floor. He positioned the tip of his penis, reached his hands under her thighs and pushed her toward him as he thrust himself into her. She let out a loud gasp. As he started to move inside her, her body began to shiver uncontrollably. She closed her eyes and started to moan. He moved his hands to her breasts and rubbed her clamped nipples. Andrea's moans grew louder and faster as she slowly tilted her head back. Her tongue circled her lips. Slowly Chernin began a rhythmic pumping, and then leaned forward to insert his tongue into Andrea's open mouth. She put her arms around his neck.

Chernin moved his mouth to her neck, and grabbed the edge of the desk to pull himself as deeply into her as he could. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist. He moved his body on top of hers, then slid his arms down and under her thighs, separating her legs more to push himself into her still more deeply. Andrea screamed and her muscles tightened. "Harder, Major, harder." She let her head fall over the edge of the table, stretching her nipples even further. Chernin thrust as deeply as he could while she continued to scream "Major hard." When he quickened his pace, her screams turned to a loud and long "Major yes, a Major yes." When he finally ejaculated into her, she wrapped her legs around him as tight as she could to hold him inside her as long as possible. Sweating and breathless, her mind exploding, she realized that, while her own screams had stopped, those coming from the open door to the warehouse had not. Much raspier screams now. Soon Krause would scream herself silent. But not with screams of pleasure, like Andrea's had been.

Chernin got up off her. She continued to lie on the table. With her eyes still closed, she ran her fingers over the nipple clamps and released them carefully, enjoying the pain as her blood beginning to flow again into them. She massaged her nipples to quicken their recovery, then moved her arms back up to the sides of her head and enjoyed the feeling in her body.

When Andrea opened her eyes, she realized that she had dozed. She sat up on the desk. Chernin stood by the door to the warehouse, looking through a pair of small binoculars. Andrea walked next to him in the doorway, naked except for her boots. "Have they moved to phase two with Krause?" Andrea asked.

"Awhile ago." Chernin handed the binoculars to her.

"Oh, yes. They certainly have."

Chapter 17

Krause remained in the same position as before. But the men had taken a set of heavy-duty jumper cables and closed one around Krause's right breast, its teeth puncturing deeply into it. Her breast oozed blood from both sides. The other cable had been clamped around her labia with even more severe results, the teeth digging into her, its sides meeting in the middle. The other ends of the cables rested on top of the battery of a small warehouse forklift.

But this was not enough for the men. They removed Krause's shoes. Andrea thought how ironic it was that she and Krause had been engaging in sexual activity at the same time, nearly in the same place and with both naked except for their footwear. Krause's feet were tied about a foot above the floor. Now, under each of them, the men placed a small burning candle whose flame reached to an inch or two below her soles, and watched her scream. One of the men approached to make sure that the two metal cables were tightly clamped to her body, as if that were not obvious from what they were doing to it. When he stepped back, a man standing by the forklift secured first one of the cables to the forklift's battery, then the other. Krause's body instantly leaped forward and held that position as sparks flew up and down her body. She shrieked in pain, the raspiness of her throat adding to the hideousness of the sound. When the man finally unhooked one of the cables from the battery after 15 seconds, Krause's body fell back to its original position, but she continued to scream from the pain from the candle flames under her feet, which were turning deep red.

Andrea handed the binoculars back to Chernin and pressed her naked body against his uniform. "It makes me horny. I want you again." When he started to protest that he would like a little more time, she pressed her lips against his, reached down and unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis from his undershorts. Slowly she knelt down, taking his penis in both hands and felt it start to harden. "See," she looked up at him, "I can help that. You don't have to worry."

She took Chernin's penis into her mouth, and flicked her tongue around its underside, using her lips and teeth to thrust it back and forth, holding it nearly in her throat. He started to moan as he penis lengthened. Then, in an instant, she felt it turn flaccid. Her eyes darted up.

"Ex... Oh, excuse us, Major." Two men stood in the doorway, staring down at the naked Andrea with Chernin's penis in her mouth. Chernin quickly pulled himself out of her mouth and returned his penis to his pants. "We ... wanted to know if Agent Noraskaya had any further orders for us. We completed the ones that she gave us.

Andrea stood up unashamedly and walked over to the table, giving the men a good look at her backside, She put on her skirt, not bothering with her torn panties, picked up her shirt and slipped it on, turning back toward the men as she buttoned it, and reached for her belt. "If you've obeyed my orders, then I leave the manner of Fraulein Krause's execution to you."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Send a man out to wait in the car to take Agent Noraskaya back to the tunnel when she is ready," Chernin added. The men returned to the warehouse. "Well, that was embarrassing for my men to find me like that."

"To the contrary, I think that your stature rose in their eyes," Andrea responded. "Even if that was the only thing that rose," she added with frustration.

Chapter 18

Chernin blushed, and looked again into his binoculars. "There's another pair in the desk drawer," he directed Andrea. She found them and joined him watching as the men took Krause down from where she had been hanging, cuffed her wrists behind her back and dragged her to two four-foot long crates they had pushed together. They stretched her body on its stomach across one, her feet dangling off it, the severe redness and blistering of her soles visible, and opened the top of the other crate. Her neck rested on the top of the crate's three-inch thick side, her head over its opening. It was obvious to Andrea what they planned. "They saw what I did and they want to outdo me."

"This one is the ringleader. Of course they want to outdo you." Chernin's eyes remained fixed on the scene.

Krause's mind was too blurred from the pain of her torture to realize what was happening. The largest of the men, weighing more than 300 pounds, had removed his shirt and stood several feet back from the far sides of the two crates, his hands blocked by two men standing between him and Krause's prone body. One of the men saw Chernin and Andrea watching from the doorway, pointed toward them and ordered the men not to block their view.

Another raised his hands. The men quieted. "Fraulein Karen Krause, having been tried and convicted of the crime of espionage against the state, and sentenced to execution in a manner to be chosen by this committee, your sentence shall now be carried out." The men standing in front of the large man stepped aside revealing the long fire axe that he held in his hands. "If that axe isn't sharp or he isn't strong enough, or he doesn't hit in exactly the right place, this is going to get very messy. It is very difficult in a single ..." Andrea stopped talking as she watched the man grip the axe handle with both hands. He raised it directly over his head, his arms stretched fully upward, paused for a second, and brought it straight down with all his strength. The blade struck Krause directly in the middle of the back of her neck. Andrea's fears proved unfounded. The blow severed Krause's head cleanly and it dropped into the open crate. Her body twitched momentarily. Forgetting their instructions not to block the view from the door, the men swarmed around to get a closer look at the result. Andrea could not see how much blood had spattered, but figured that there should not be too much, since Krause's heart would have quickly stopped once her spinal cord was broken. She put down the binoculars, but noticed that Chernin continued to stare at the scene.

"I must go back now," she told him. He put down the binoculars and picked up Andrea's bra and torn panties from the table. "You forgot something."

"No. Souvenirs for you to remember me. Until next time."

"Minister Dalyitch and I are going to deal with you directly from now on. You will not see your handler anymore. It will be more effective to hear from you directly about your efforts and progress."

Andrea moved toward him. "It's been a good day." She gave him a long kiss before turning and walking out the front door of the office.

In a matter of minutes, her driver drove her back to the nearby warehouse that housed the secret tunnel. The two men whom she had encountered there on her arrival were nowhere in sight, although she noticed some blood where she had shown one of them the importance of civility. She doubted, though, that he had ever spent a night as uncivilly as she had just done.

Unlike the first time, she felt a sense of relief when she heard the tunnel's hatch close behind her. She looked forward to walking back alone. Time she needed to think.

She remained confused about Lena. She had resisted for so long the thought that she was lesbian, but had gradually grown to accept it. That was one of the reasons she had turned double agent. To be with Lena. But she had very much enjoyed her encounter with Chernin. She needed to think more about her personal life. And it seemed to her that she had convinced each side that she was working for it, so that she was safe for the moment from both. Not that any double agent could ever truly feel safe. So she had thinking as well to do about her professional life. Which meant that she had two important questions that she needed to answer. And both of them were: What side was she on?

When she pushed the hatch at the end of the tunnel on the West side, she felt it hit the crates above it. A minute later she heard someone slide them off and open the hatch for her. She walked out of the tunnel to find the same driver waiting for her. She imagined that his last four hours had not been nearly as interesting as hers.

It was 7:35 a.m. She told him to drop her off at her school. She would make it just in time for her test. As tired as she was, she had to keep up appearances. He handed her the blindfold as soon as she got into the back of the car.

Chapter 19

Andrea left the test room after the two-hour test to find Eberhart waiting for her in the hall. "Just like old times," he referenced their first meeting. It had been only a few weeks earlier, but seemed a lifetime ago to both of them. "You were supposed to report immediately to us after your meeting. We've been up all night waiting. I went first to your apartment to look for you, then came here."

"I'm exhausted. I need to rest. If you drive me home, I'll be there in a few hours for my debriefing."

"My orders are to bring you in now."

"We shouldn't even be seen together." She had always gone to Gerber's office alone, through a secret door in the back of the coffee shop on the first floor of the building, which led to a private and guarded elevator that she took up to his floor. Even now, someone -- perhaps Andrea's former handler -- might be watching them.

"Just be there in 15 minutes." Eberhart walked away, disgusted.

Forty-minutes later Andrea walked into Gerber's office. She had gone back to her apartment to shower and change her clothes and now wore a sports bra and running shorts and shoes. Three pairs of eyes stared at her. 11 a.m. Eight hours after her meeting. Even Lena glanced down when Andrea looked toward her.

"This can't happen again," Gerber began. "When I order you to return to us immediately after your meeting, you must return to us immediately after your meeting. Is that understood?"

"I had a test at school. I have to maintain my cover."

"We had to look for you. That is dangerous. This will not happen again. Now first you will tell us the most important things about the meeting, and then you will tell us everything and we will interrupt you with any questions that we have so that we have a full debriefing."

"Agent Krause is dead. She and two East Germans who were aiding her were captured. The East Germans figured out how she got the names of the two agents you eliminated and mine. They called me to meet them in East Berlin. I went through a tunnel that they use, but I was blindfolded going to it and coming back from it, so I cannot tell you where along the Wall it is. I met with an East German Major named Chernin and a Minister named Dalyitch. They wanted to bring me back, thinking that I had failed to get the documents that they wanted. I gave them the disk. They were impressed. They changed their minds. I told them that I thought that I could get information on U.S. missile plans for Europe and Turkey. They were excited. They will give me at least six months to do it."

After Andrea finished her key points, Gerber began his questioning. "How do you know that Krause is dead?"

"I ordered her executed and watched several of the men carry out my order." The other three in the room were stunned. "I had no choice. They had brought all three of their captives to the warehouse where we met. They were testing me."

"You were responsible for the death of one of our best agents?" Gerber was still incredulous.

"I did what I would have done had I still been a loyal East German agent. Do you want them to figure out that I'm not? They know my name was on the same list as the two agents that they lost, so they know you have my name, too, from Krause. Should I have given them a reason to believe that you have already gotten to me? Besides, Krause was doomed to die before I got there. She was going to be executed that evening whether I participated. Or whether I even showed up."

“And the interrogation? What did Krause tell them?”

“Everything.” Andrea did her best to look repulsed. “The interrogation was relentless. Savage. None of the three women had any chance. They told everything they knew. My order that it was time for Krause's execution was an act of mercy, given what she was going through. It saved her from further torture." Andrea looked at Lena, who nodded sympathetically.

"How did she die?" asked Gerber.

"You don't want to know and I had nothing to do with the method or its implementation."

"Did she suffer much before?"

"Not as much as one of her East German collaborators. But she was not killed immediately and her hours before she was killed were not at all pleasant."

"Do you think that they think suspect that you have turned?"

"No. But they are pretty certain that you have my name and that you intend to eliminate me soon. But I think that my giving them the documents and ordering Krause’s death convinced them that no one has gotten to me yet. Look, I'm exhausted. I need to sleep. You can ask for more details tomorrow, all right?"

"All right," Gerber relented. Andrea walked out without another word and headed down the elevator to the coffee shop and out to the subway. When she reached the street, she realized that she had not said a single word to Lena.

Back in Gerber's office, the three officers analyzed what they had learned. "She had no choice," Lena defended Andrea. "What else could she have done without making them suspicious?"

"She was so matter of fact about it," Eberhart observed. "'How do you know Krause is dead.' 'I ordered her death.' Cold. Very cold."

"Krause was her enemy. That didn't change just because she switched sides. Krause is the one who identified her. Krause is how we came to capture her. Why wouldn't she be cold about Krause's death? Why wouldn't she enjoy her victory over her?" Lena continued to defend Andrea's actions. Of course, Andrea hadn't told them that she had screwed Major Chernin. And she certainly had not told them that she had enjoyed it.

"She must know that we are as tired as she. That we all stayed up all night waiting for her report. Reporting to us was more important than that test." Gerber could not hide his anger. "I don't like this. We learned tonight that you can't trust a double agent. We should already have known that."

Chapter 20

"Analyze the possibilities. How many are there?" Dalyitch asked Chernin as they sat in Dalyitch's spacious office in government headquarters in East Berlin.

"Let's count them. First -- she has not been compromised. Krause missed her name on the list and just identified two of our agents. Which means that she is exactly what she appears to be. An agent doing her job and, after a slow start, doing it well. She provided the information about the U.S.'s future missile plans and then, when we demanded proof, she supplied it. Without any help from us. When we confronted her with Krause and her assistants, she destroyed them with a professional vengeance under which there appeared to lie some personal satisfaction. Agreed that is one possibility?" Chernin knew, but did not mention, that this possibility also meant that Agent Noraskaya had sex with him solely because she found him attractive.

"It requires us to believe that Krause missed Agent Noraskaya's name on the list." Dalyitch criticized. "I don't think that a spy as brilliant as Krause, who knew enough to compare two lists of our employees to figure out which were our agents, would have missed it. What's your second possibility."

"Second --" Chernin responded, "Krause identified Agent Noraskaya along with the other two, but the West hasn't located her or just hasn't yet found the right time or person to handle her elimination. Maybe it believed that the other two were more dangerous or vital to us and so took care of them first. Under this possibility, again she wouldn't have previous knowledge of Krause's work until last night and all of her actions indicated exactly what they indicate under the first possibility. Except that she is not likely to survive for long. Agree or no?"

"It seems more likely than the first possibility because it does not require us to believe that Krause overlooked her name. Do you agree?" Dalyitch threw the question right back at Chernin.

"Perhaps. But it would mean that she now will be very careful, very watchful, fearing that anyone could be her assassin. Which may compromise her value to us. It also means that her end may come soon. Either way, this is a worse scenario for us than the first possibility, but, unfortunately, it seems more likely."

"Third," Chernin continued, "the West may have gotten her name and already acted, but, instead of eliminating her, it has turned her to its side. Did she do anything last night to dispel that possibility?" Chernin proceeded to answer his own question. "She gave us the disk. We verified that peripheral information on it was consistent with everything we know. So it appears that the key information is also accurate. Does that dispel the notion that she could be a double agent?"

"No," Dalyitch concluded. "Any double agent must provide some accurate information to retain her credibility, her access to more valuable information than she is giving. They know that. Giving us accurate information about future U.S. missile plans was an investment in her that they hope to recoup when we provide her with information valuable to them. Or when we act upon false information that she provides on an even more vital subject. If she had given us nothing, we were going to pull her back and she would have been completely lost to them. If she had given us inaccurate information, we would have eliminated her as worthless to us, and again she would have been completely lost to them. So, to maintain her, they had to give us accurate information and they needed to do it last night. So that confirms nothing."

"What about her elimination of Krause and her friends?" Chernin asked. "Does her utterly brutal destruction of them dispel the notion that she might be a double agent?"

"Again, no. What choice did she have? We ordered her to take charge of the interrogation and execution. How could she refuse the opportunity to destroy the agent whose actions might soon destroy her? And why would she have not done so brutally."

"Which means," Chernin regretted the the obvious conclusion, "that either the West will soon eliminate her ... or it has already converted here into a double agent. Which of these possibilities it is depends on how efficient the West is in fulfilling its contracts."

"If we think the West is efficient, then she has already turned." Dalyitch began to nod his head. "And from my long experience with the West ... it is efficient."

Chapter 21

Andrea returned to her apartment, but not to sleep. For the last three years she had been transferring her pay checks from the East, washed through several intermediaries, to a foreign account in the name of one of the many aliases for which she had been given false credentials. She had put her "bonus" from the West for turning to its side into that same account. She had enough to live on for several years, and the means to disappear into another identity. She packed a small bag, and took out of her desk the pre-paid airline ticket she kept there. With an open date and destination.

She had thought that turning double agent was the answer. It was in the sense that, had she not, she would have been executed. But it was not the answer she had hoped for, or at least thought she had hoped for -- life with Lena without the West or East coming after her. Instead, it was a life where neither side would ever trust her. Which meant that she had to take care of herself. She needed time to figure out what she wanted and how she could get it.

Switzerland? Perhaps. Singapore? Intriguing. China? She could tell the Chinese a lot about both the Soviets and the U.S. That probably would pay very well. Or maybe the south of France, just to rest. Many possibilities.

Maybe the East would assume that the West had finally gotten around to eliminating her and wouldn't bother to look for her. Maybe the West would assume that she had gone back to the East and wouldn't look for her, either. Even better, she thought, she would write a letter, and arrange for it to be post-marked from, say, Poland. "Dear Lieutenant Eberhart: I do not know what your relationship was with my sister, Andrea, but I found your name and address among her belongings, and thought that I should tell you, regrettably, that she passed away two weeks ago from a heart attack during a dinner party. How someone so young could die of a heart attack I don't know, but the coroner said he could find no other cause. I thought that you might want to know. Sincerely ...." Surely Eberhart would conclude that he East had learned of her deception and poisoned her. She would write an identical letter to Major Chernin, who would assume that it had been the work of the West putting Krause's information into effect. Chernin would probably take out the souvenirs that she had left him, and clutch them tightly, to feel closer to her, as he read the letter a second time. Yes, this might give her a real chance to escape from both sides and begin a new life. It was certainly a better option than remaining in Berlin as a double agent trusted by neither side.

Andrea picked up her bag and headed for the door. She had a plane to catch.

END