Greta had started working as a EUOPS courier and carrying things from place to place when she was eighteen. She had completed several missions in and out of Russia posing as a schoolgirl and a tourist when she had been sent to contact an agent on the ferry from Stockholm to Saint Petersburg and give him a coded list of agents to contact. He would give her information from his network. She had boarded the ferry with her bicycle and backpack in Stockholm as a member of a cycle club and gone to the main lounge with the other members to talk and read until that evening.
She had a photograph of the agent she was contacting and a countersign to make sure of his identity so there would be no slip-ups. He was supposed to contact her in the lounge and ask if she played chess. Although Greta did play chess she was to refuse and suggest that they play cards. Then she was to take a deck of cards out of her book bag and they would play several hands. Finally, Greta would excuse herself to go to the restroom and lay the cards on the table. When she returned, the contact would have picked up the cards and substituted another deck. They would play several more hands and then the agent would invite her for a drink and then excuse himself and go to the bar after finding out Greta was too young to drink. Greta would put the deck of cards from the contact in her bag and go to the lounge to read and doze for the rest of the trip.
It was near sunset when the agent had approached Greta and suggested a game of chess then set up a board without asking, taken white, and opened. Greta had looked at the contact and it was the right man. Then he had used the verbal countersign and she had responded. After several moves, he had excused himself to go to the restroom and a man had followed him. Greta had waited until he returned and then said she thought she would get a tea while he considered his move and had walked to the snack bar. The same man had followed her. She had stopped in the restroom on the way back and written a question mark on a piece of toilet paper then returned to her seat.
Greta put the toilet paper in the contact’s lap and he had leaned forward over the board and leaned his chin on his hands. He locked his fingers together under his nose with his thumbs on his chin covering his mouth and whispered.
“Two FSU agents.”
Greta nodded and they finished the game.
“Well, you won,” said Greta, “Buy me a drink to apologize?”
The contact had smiled and Greta had picked up her book bag and led the way to the veranda bar at the rear of the ferry. The contact ordered two drinks and Greta smiled and motioned to the outdoor lounge area. She walked out of the rear door and turned to the side of the ship and a quite deserted area on the walking track and her contact followed. Greta motioned him to the wall and when one of the FSU agents came around the corner she hit him in the throat with the edge of a book bound with fabric covered aluminum covers that weighed about three pounds. The blow collapsed the agent’s windpipe and he fought for breath and staggered back and reached for a pistol. Greta hit him again in the temple and he collapsed on the deck. Greta picked up his pistol and put it in her bag.
“Throw him over the side,” ordered Greta. “There are no windows below us. Just enclosed car decks. I’ll go get the other one.”
Greta’s contact wrestled the inert man to the rail and threw him over. Greta walked back into the bar and ordered another drink then she asked if the outside music could be turned on. The bartender switched on the music and outside lights since it was past sunset and mixed Greta her drink. Then she walked out again and turned the corner then crouched down. The other FSU agent turned the corner with his pistol out and yelled hands up Greta raised her hands and put the pistol against the agents stomach and shot upward three times in rapid succession and pulled her hand away before she got any blood on her. The pressure of the gun against his stomach and the music from the speakers had effectively muffled the shots. She threw the gun over the side followed by the agents gun and then helped her contact heave the agents body over the rail.
They went in and exchanged decks of cards and the contact went to a mid ship bar and Greta finished a rather mediocre novel and then dozed until the boat arrived in port. When they arrived Greta had changed into jeans and a cycle club tee shirt and a scarf and joined the group of cyclists that were going to visit the Hermitage and ridden off with them while her contact stayed on the ferry, which was Swedish territory, and booked a return cabin since he didn’t think returning to Russia was a good idea.
EUOPS Greta Steiner 