'Well, forgive me for saying so, but wasn't it rather a waste of time to bring me all the way back here for a briefing? Surely you could have sent me a coded cable if the job I've got to do is in France? At least,' she said after a pause. 'I assume that's what you have in mind. There's certainly not going to be much time to do any work here.'
'Beta' got his cigar going and blew a thick cloud of vile-smelling smoke past her head before replying. 'No,' he told her. 'First of all, we couldn't run even the smallest risk of a communication being intercepted. The job is far too important. Secondly, you will start the assignment on the plane in Paris.
'Let me put you in the picture: I assume you know that a certain Miss Eva Harnecz is one of the East's leading woman scientists?' Maria nodded.
'But what you probably don't know… that nobody knew until this morning, when I received our Budapest agent's report-is that she's almost perfected an RPM-a radar-proof guidance missile!'
Maria leaned forward in her chair, amazement on her face. «That's incredible!' she breathed. «I always thought such a thing was scientifically impossible! Are you sure it's not just a piece of propaganda the Communists have allowed to filter out?'
'Beta' shrugged, lifting his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “We can't say. It s a possibility, he admitted. 'But, naturally, we can't afford to take chances. If she is on the brink of devising such a devastating invention the Communist will, quite literally, be able to strike anywhere without warning.
'I don't have to remind you, he went on. That everything we say in this room is 'A-crypto' and confidential. However, what I'm about to tell you now is the most private and not-to-be-revealed information you've ever heard. I thought I should make that absolutely clear.
'Now somehow or other, and in spite of the danger that she'll be exposed to, Miss Harnecz has persuaded her superiors to allow her to take a vacation in Western Europe!' He sniffed as if the vagaries of the Communist Integrated Intelligence filled him with disdain.
'She'll be heavily guarded, of course, and watched every second. However, we want you to do your utmost to get to know her and try to convince her that she should defect to our side!'
Maria's mouth opened wide. She could scarcely believe her ears. “But this is a job for a man?' she protested. 'Not because of the danger involved, she added quickly. “You know that I'm capable of looking after myself In a tight spot as well as any male!.
“To persuade her to defect means only one thing. You’d have to get her to fall in love with one of our agents. How can I…”
Maria broke off in mid-sentence, feeling her cheeks coloring as “Beta” nodded slightly, his eyes mischievous. “I see!” she finished softly. “You think I could succeed in that department better than a man because…”
“All right. I won’t be coy about it! We both know that I enjoy going to bed with girls! But is Eva really a lesbian? Are you absolutely sure?”
“Absolutely!” the man told her. “Our most notorious Lothario has done his damndest to make her fall for him. And he had no luck at all! Our only hope is to try someone who will appeal to her, ah, forgive me, my dear- her somewhat sophisticated tastes! I can’t think of anyone more attractive and more appealing than you.”
“Anything for the free world,” Maria murmured to herself. “All in the line of duty, I suppose.” To “Beta” she said: “Woul4n’t it be easier and more likely of success to simply kidnap her, though? This seems a roundabout way of trapping her.”
“Beta” shook his head. “No,” he told her. “We need to find out if the report is true first of all. If it turns out to be only propaganda, we can forget the whole thing. On the other hand, if-as I’m inclined to suspect-Miss Harnecz has broken through a tremendous scientific barrier, we want her to work for us. She’ll hardly do that if we kidnap her.
“Our prestige and importance in the eyes of the world will be increased a thousand fold if we can persuade her to defect. So you see, my dear, how very important this mission is. I’m asking a great deal of you, I know. But it’s a long-shot we’ve got to take. If it comes off, if you succeed in making Eva fall desperately in love with you (and I leave all the details to you, of course!) it ought to be a fairly easy matter, to play on the girl’s loyalty and get her to come to our side.
Maria still felt bewildered. It was the first time the Department had made use of her particular sexual desires and the calm, unemotional way in which “Beta” was telling her to use the expertise of her lesbian inclinations was frightening.
He wanted her to deliberately seduce this girl, do everything in her power to make Eva love her so much that she’d even act the traitor to please her and to be with her.
Maria shuddered inwardly at the cold bloodedness of the plot. And she realized, not for the first time, how completely the machinations of espionage overlooked and discounted the feelings of its servants. “Will I be working on my own?” she asked “Beta”. “Or are you planning to send some strong-arm boys over to help me out?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I’ve arranged for an old friend of yours to meet you in Paris. He’ll have to keep out of sight of Eva though, because only two days ago he was doing his best to seduce her himself!”
Maria looked pleased. “If it’s the man I think you mean, I couldn’t be happier,” she smiled. “Is it Don Cabot.”
“Correct!” he replied. “He’ll stay close to you, but rye warned him to keep in the background. The Communists will be particularly interested in meeting up with him. He killed Tzerny, their chief man in Hungary. He's being smuggled out of there this morning on a private charter flight to France.
'Oh, incidentally, you'll be taking along a girl named Erica Sondgaard… Danish. She was with Don in Budapest, more as a messenger than anything else. She'll be acting in the same capacity for you. Anything you feel you can't put into a cable or phone through Erica will deliver personally to me.
'What about 'Alfa'?' Maria asked. 'Isn't he involved in this, too? Since Don usually works under him I would have thought… '
'Beta' tapped his pipe against the side of his desk. 'It's been decided that the full responsibility for this little exercise should fall on my shoulders, he replied.
The man dropped the cigar into an ashtray, signaling that the interview was over. Maria got to her feet. She felt that there were still dozens of questions she wanted to ask him, but time was growing short.
'We've had word that Eva will be flying to the Riviera via Paris,' he added as she turned to go. 'Rather a convenient timetable, isn't it? You'll be able to bump into her right away… on the flight from Paris to the Riviera.'
Maria turned to make an acid retort to this bit of baiting, but 'Beta' was already absorbed in a bulky file, his eyes moving rapidly over the pages as if he had already dismissed her from his mind, She let the door slam behind her, a weak gesture of defiance she knew, but she felt she had to do something to show her disgust.
The Air France jet broke through the heavy dark clouds which hung over Paris’ Orly Airport and straightened out from its climb. Just over two hours flying time away it would be coming in to land at the Riviera at about six in the evening.
Maria and Erica sat together in the first class section, talking in low voices. They had met each other just before take-off and Maria had been pleasantly surprised by the youth and attractiveness of her fellow-traveler. Erica was quite low in rank compared to herself, but Maria could tell after a few minutes' conversation with the girl that she possessed considerable potential. Both in terms of intelligence and sex appeal.
She found herself wishing momentarily that it was Erica she had to seduce. That would have been a most enjoyable task, Maria reflected; taking a quick look at her companion's extremely well-filled dress and noting the interesting pout of her lips.
So far, Maria had only caught a few brief glimpses of the woman scientist as they boarded the aircraft. Eva Harnecz was sitting two rows in front of them, accompanied by another Hungarian girl who seemed to be her maid. Two thickset men sat on the aisle opposite them and their eyes were constantly turned to Eva, betraying without a shadow of doubt their function as her bodyguards.
Maria waited until Eva got up to visit the wc, then gave her a few minutes grace before moving as casually as possible down the aisle after her. She could feel the eyes of the two Communist agents boring into her back and couldn't resist the temptation to sway her buttocks seductively as she sauntered away from them.
Curtains hung between the restroom section and the seat compartment and Eva made sure that they were closed after she'd passed through them.
She stood outside the toilet marked 'engaged' until Eva opened the door, then smiled as sweetly as she
