Cotland
21-01-2006, 04:16
Dobbeltspill
The evening air was cool and crisp, holding steady at a cool –12° Celsius. The one meter thick snowcover lay heavily over the many buildings, docks and ships in the harbor, while fresh snow came constantly. The weather forecasters had predicted that at least another 40 centimeters would arrive within the end of the week. Bad news for the dockworkers, who had to work outside on the gray ships that belonged to the Imperial Layartebian Navy, but not to the fourty-three year old man who looked out the window. He gazed through the snow at the hulls that lay there, covered in snow. The odd movement on the deck from an unfortunate sailor who had been assigned to guard the deck made it through, but for the most part, the man only saw the outline of the ship that was the cause of his worries. The Earthquake class battleship was a behemoth of a ship, 396 meters long and armed with twelve powerful 18” cannons in her main arsenal. After a while, the man turned around and sat down again in his chair while pulling his fingers through the thick black hair on his head. It was now or never, he thought. I’ve got to do this if I’m ever going to get away from this crappy job.
The man was the night manager at Bangor Naval Shipyard, located in Bangor, Maine, and as such, he had access to a lot of information concerning the Layartebian ship classes that frequently visited his yard for repairs or maintenance. Right now, he was about to make the choise of his life. The mysterious woman had promised him a lot of money and a new life in safety from the Empire if he would just get some information about the Earthquake class to her. He had already been paid §15,000 in an anonymous account in Norway for relatively open information about the powerplant of the Earthquake class and its preformance record. He had already handed over information that was restricted, thus making himself guilty in treason against the Empire of Layarteb.
Earlier, the woman had handed him a pair of glasses which looked identical to his own, only that these had a microscopic camera in them and a very thin fiberoptic cable going behind his ear, camoflaged by the thick black hair, and into a small harddrive some five by three by zero point four centimeter large, concealed by the mans shirt and sweater. It would take a strip search to find out if he was trying something funny, like spying for some foreign power. The woman had said she worked for the Panthean intelligence agency, and that a good life awaited the man in Pantheaa when he was done. Right now, he looked up files which might seen interesting to the Pantheans for delivery later that morning. The delivery point was a diner fifteen blocks away from the shipyard’s main entrance.
The woman who worked for the Panthean intelligence service was in fact kapteinløytnant Ingrid Nesbø of FO/E, the Military Intellligence Agency of the Kingdom of Norway. Officially, she worked as the assistant cultural attache at the Norwegian embassy in Layarteb City, where she enjoyed diplomatic immunity, but in reality, she was a intelligence officer working in a friendly nation. The whole espionage setup in Layarteb wasn’t big, but it was large enough to know that the Layartebians had a lot more than they said they had in their military arsenal. Hopefully, the operative she had inside the naval yards would be able to come with something good soon, like the whole schematics for a classified design the world hadn’t seen before. However, she knew that the best thing she was likely to get would be new information on combat systems used on cruisers or something like that. She waited in the diner for the operative to arrive.
Back at the office, the man had gotten information about the combat systems and the design history of the Earthquake class up on his screen. Using the glasses he had been issued, he photographed the various pages of information he had up on his 19” LCD screen. The images were saved on the harddrive, which could store up to 30 gigabytes worth of data. After he finished, he closed the files again and logged off the computer. His shift was almost over anyway, as the time was creeping towards 0600 even though you couldn’t see it outside due to the darkness of the winter season and the snow. He had a breakfast date at 0615, and he didn’t intend to be late. If anyone asked what he had done all night, he would just brush them off with the normal “need to know” bullshit the ILN insisted they use.
At exactly 0600, he had gotten the harddrive hidden and passed through the security control, which was very tight. However, he made it through and got into his car, an old VW Golf 1995 model which stood relatively close at the massive parking lot. After freezing his butt off for a moment trying to get the frozen door open and starting the car up enough to get the heater working, he made sure he wasn’t followed, before driving the car out of the parking lot. He drove calmly the fifteen blocks through the snow and cold and was lucky enough to find somewhere to park next to the diner. He got out and locked the door before he hurried inside. There she was. A young brunette, maybe twenty-four years old who stood 173 centimeters tall when standing up.
“Anna,” he said walking over to her. She got up and hugged him.
“Mike, good morning,” she said smiling. This was all a part of the cover she had built up over the past few weeks of turning him. It had been relatively easy, as he was sick and tired of the constant bitching at work, which happened to be the Layartebian Defense Corporation, one of the largest commercial armament manifacturers in the open market. She had promised him money and a new life somewhere far far away from Layarteb, and he had believed her.
“So, you have a present for me?” she asked, excited. He smiled mischeviously at her, then placed his hand on her thigh underneath the table. She returned the smile and put her left hand on top of his, and there she had it in her hand. Quickly and unnoticable, it was placed in her pocket where it was safe.
“So. When do I get to go?”
“Soon. I’ll have to convince my superiors first, but I’m sure that if you bring us something that’s of real interest, it could happen sooner than you think.”
“Check the present. It’s something really interesting there. I’ll see you tommorrow,” he said as he rose and walked out of the diner and back to his car. He needed sleep after pulling a night shift. Ingrid on the other hand finished her coffee before she paid the check and left. She also remembered to give just enough tip. Not too much, and not too little. The aim was that the people there wouldn’t remember that you had even been there.
She made her way to her hotelroom, which she had checked for bugs and microphones every morning, afternoon and evening. Today was no exception, and she sweeped the room to find nothing. Good. Then she opened her laptop, entered the 24-digit password and was granted access. While the laptop started up, she got out the harddrive Mike had given her as well as a connection cable. Soon, she looked over the information that Mike had gathered. It was very interesting indeed. The combat systems of… the Earthquake class! The Imperial Layartebian Navys largest and most powerful battleship, and she had the full listing of combat systems here. It was nearly 24 gigabytes of data here, all in the form of pictures showing critical information concerning the Earthquake. This would need to be sent to Oslo for analysis. Fortunately, she was returning to Layarteb City later today.
Five hours later, somewhere outside Oslo, Norway
As the analysists read over the combat system listing of the Earthquake gathered from the harddrive in Layarteb, they came across something very interesting when looking at the jamming options. A name linked to the jamming system, which apparently was nothing compared to that found on the codename mentioned. That name was “Sensücht”. This was very interesting indeed. A quick search through FO/Es database on the organizations intranet showed only one hit, and that was a rumor about some sort of massive ship with a lot of electronics aboard. This new information indicated that they were dealing with a potential spyship capable of jamming very powerful radars and even cameras. A new entry was made in the large intelligence collection the Norwegians had.
A cash payment was prepared via a bank in Brazil to Mike the night manager as a thanks for the information. The size of the payment this time was massive: §250,000. Money Mike had earned for the info which was given. Naturally, Mike didn’t manage to keep from spending it when he got it, being a greedy bastard and all. In one day, he had bought a new car, a new apartment and a lot of new things. A new TV, a new computer, new kitchen applicances and much more. It was highly unlikely that the spending spree would avoid the vigilant eye of the Layartebian security services.
The evening air was cool and crisp, holding steady at a cool –12° Celsius. The one meter thick snowcover lay heavily over the many buildings, docks and ships in the harbor, while fresh snow came constantly. The weather forecasters had predicted that at least another 40 centimeters would arrive within the end of the week. Bad news for the dockworkers, who had to work outside on the gray ships that belonged to the Imperial Layartebian Navy, but not to the fourty-three year old man who looked out the window. He gazed through the snow at the hulls that lay there, covered in snow. The odd movement on the deck from an unfortunate sailor who had been assigned to guard the deck made it through, but for the most part, the man only saw the outline of the ship that was the cause of his worries. The Earthquake class battleship was a behemoth of a ship, 396 meters long and armed with twelve powerful 18” cannons in her main arsenal. After a while, the man turned around and sat down again in his chair while pulling his fingers through the thick black hair on his head. It was now or never, he thought. I’ve got to do this if I’m ever going to get away from this crappy job.
The man was the night manager at Bangor Naval Shipyard, located in Bangor, Maine, and as such, he had access to a lot of information concerning the Layartebian ship classes that frequently visited his yard for repairs or maintenance. Right now, he was about to make the choise of his life. The mysterious woman had promised him a lot of money and a new life in safety from the Empire if he would just get some information about the Earthquake class to her. He had already been paid §15,000 in an anonymous account in Norway for relatively open information about the powerplant of the Earthquake class and its preformance record. He had already handed over information that was restricted, thus making himself guilty in treason against the Empire of Layarteb.
Earlier, the woman had handed him a pair of glasses which looked identical to his own, only that these had a microscopic camera in them and a very thin fiberoptic cable going behind his ear, camoflaged by the thick black hair, and into a small harddrive some five by three by zero point four centimeter large, concealed by the mans shirt and sweater. It would take a strip search to find out if he was trying something funny, like spying for some foreign power. The woman had said she worked for the Panthean intelligence agency, and that a good life awaited the man in Pantheaa when he was done. Right now, he looked up files which might seen interesting to the Pantheans for delivery later that morning. The delivery point was a diner fifteen blocks away from the shipyard’s main entrance.
The woman who worked for the Panthean intelligence service was in fact kapteinløytnant Ingrid Nesbø of FO/E, the Military Intellligence Agency of the Kingdom of Norway. Officially, she worked as the assistant cultural attache at the Norwegian embassy in Layarteb City, where she enjoyed diplomatic immunity, but in reality, she was a intelligence officer working in a friendly nation. The whole espionage setup in Layarteb wasn’t big, but it was large enough to know that the Layartebians had a lot more than they said they had in their military arsenal. Hopefully, the operative she had inside the naval yards would be able to come with something good soon, like the whole schematics for a classified design the world hadn’t seen before. However, she knew that the best thing she was likely to get would be new information on combat systems used on cruisers or something like that. She waited in the diner for the operative to arrive.
Back at the office, the man had gotten information about the combat systems and the design history of the Earthquake class up on his screen. Using the glasses he had been issued, he photographed the various pages of information he had up on his 19” LCD screen. The images were saved on the harddrive, which could store up to 30 gigabytes worth of data. After he finished, he closed the files again and logged off the computer. His shift was almost over anyway, as the time was creeping towards 0600 even though you couldn’t see it outside due to the darkness of the winter season and the snow. He had a breakfast date at 0615, and he didn’t intend to be late. If anyone asked what he had done all night, he would just brush them off with the normal “need to know” bullshit the ILN insisted they use.
At exactly 0600, he had gotten the harddrive hidden and passed through the security control, which was very tight. However, he made it through and got into his car, an old VW Golf 1995 model which stood relatively close at the massive parking lot. After freezing his butt off for a moment trying to get the frozen door open and starting the car up enough to get the heater working, he made sure he wasn’t followed, before driving the car out of the parking lot. He drove calmly the fifteen blocks through the snow and cold and was lucky enough to find somewhere to park next to the diner. He got out and locked the door before he hurried inside. There she was. A young brunette, maybe twenty-four years old who stood 173 centimeters tall when standing up.
“Anna,” he said walking over to her. She got up and hugged him.
“Mike, good morning,” she said smiling. This was all a part of the cover she had built up over the past few weeks of turning him. It had been relatively easy, as he was sick and tired of the constant bitching at work, which happened to be the Layartebian Defense Corporation, one of the largest commercial armament manifacturers in the open market. She had promised him money and a new life somewhere far far away from Layarteb, and he had believed her.
“So, you have a present for me?” she asked, excited. He smiled mischeviously at her, then placed his hand on her thigh underneath the table. She returned the smile and put her left hand on top of his, and there she had it in her hand. Quickly and unnoticable, it was placed in her pocket where it was safe.
“So. When do I get to go?”
“Soon. I’ll have to convince my superiors first, but I’m sure that if you bring us something that’s of real interest, it could happen sooner than you think.”
“Check the present. It’s something really interesting there. I’ll see you tommorrow,” he said as he rose and walked out of the diner and back to his car. He needed sleep after pulling a night shift. Ingrid on the other hand finished her coffee before she paid the check and left. She also remembered to give just enough tip. Not too much, and not too little. The aim was that the people there wouldn’t remember that you had even been there.
She made her way to her hotelroom, which she had checked for bugs and microphones every morning, afternoon and evening. Today was no exception, and she sweeped the room to find nothing. Good. Then she opened her laptop, entered the 24-digit password and was granted access. While the laptop started up, she got out the harddrive Mike had given her as well as a connection cable. Soon, she looked over the information that Mike had gathered. It was very interesting indeed. The combat systems of… the Earthquake class! The Imperial Layartebian Navys largest and most powerful battleship, and she had the full listing of combat systems here. It was nearly 24 gigabytes of data here, all in the form of pictures showing critical information concerning the Earthquake. This would need to be sent to Oslo for analysis. Fortunately, she was returning to Layarteb City later today.
Five hours later, somewhere outside Oslo, Norway
As the analysists read over the combat system listing of the Earthquake gathered from the harddrive in Layarteb, they came across something very interesting when looking at the jamming options. A name linked to the jamming system, which apparently was nothing compared to that found on the codename mentioned. That name was “Sensücht”. This was very interesting indeed. A quick search through FO/Es database on the organizations intranet showed only one hit, and that was a rumor about some sort of massive ship with a lot of electronics aboard. This new information indicated that they were dealing with a potential spyship capable of jamming very powerful radars and even cameras. A new entry was made in the large intelligence collection the Norwegians had.
A cash payment was prepared via a bank in Brazil to Mike the night manager as a thanks for the information. The size of the payment this time was massive: §250,000. Money Mike had earned for the info which was given. Naturally, Mike didn’t manage to keep from spending it when he got it, being a greedy bastard and all. In one day, he had bought a new car, a new apartment and a lot of new things. A new TV, a new computer, new kitchen applicances and much more. It was highly unlikely that the spending spree would avoid the vigilant eye of the Layartebian security services.