World on Fire: Excerpts!

[Crafty_Pat]

Architects of Deception
In the last century, espionage has become one of the most romantic domains of popular entertainment. Books, computer games, movies, and television have delved into the lives of fictional agents like James Bond and real-life spies like Mata Hari. World on Fire is a careful blend of fiction and reality, an action drama set against a genuine backdrop that can easily explode into untamed cinema (and often does). Regardless of the tone and flavor, though, the trappings of espionage remain the same. All spies barter in a unique currency called “tradecraft,” a mixed bag of refined techniques and impromptu troubleshooting.

Especially in the real world, most tradecraft involves methodical plotting. Spies watch trends, analyze data, and dream up scenarios; the vast majority of them are office jocks. Fortunately, roleplaying sessions are rarely this passive, and concessions are made to support exciting game play. Nearly always, player characters become an investigative arm of their agency, meeting objectives in the field where similarly aggressive enemies oppose them. It is in these activities that this basic primer is focused.

All operatives are advised to read this material thoroughly. Their survival will all too frequently depend upon the lessons that follow.

The Second Oldest Profession
As long as there have been secrets, spies have tried to protect, steal, and exploit them. Almost two thousand years before the birth of Christ, Hammurabi’s scouts chiseled what they saw while visiting enemy territory into “secret tablets.” Others chiseled assassination orders for his finest warriors. In the Old Testament, Moses’ successor Joshua was a spymaster, collaborating with a prostitute named Rahab to hide his operatives in the red light district of Jericho (it’s possible Rahab’s home is the first safe house on record).

In 17th century France, Armand-Jean du Plessis — later to become famous as Cardinal Richelieu — became head of foreign affairs and eventually prime minister, amassing the most expansive and effective espionage network the world has ever known. His ability to ruin men and nations alike was legendary. “Give me six lines written by the most honest man,” he said, “I will find something in them to hang him.”

Governments and goals have changed, but the profession — like its oldest predecessor — remains the same. The 20th Century was a hotbed of espionage activity. The discovery of nuclear weapons gave rise to the super powers, polarizing the political and economic fields of battle for decades. For nearly fifty years following World War II, an uneasy game of chicken arose with America and the Soviet Union staring each other down, their fingers poised on the proverbial “big red button” in case the other blinked.

As the leaders and pundits jockeyed for airtime to wage their ideological Cold War, others fought battles in the new trenches of Europe and Asia. There, spies lurked in the shadows, playing a delicate game of cat and mouse for the ultimate prize: knowledge. Legions of operatives from the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. recruited legions more in their satellite states, unfortunate pawns in a lethal global chess game. Countries and agencies alike were propped up and knocked down. Motives and objectives were crafted and unraveled daily, often by the hour. Yet despite all the lies and liaison, the Great Game was relatively simple then. It was all about which side you were on, and in the final analysis, there were only two sides to choose from.

Modern espionage is far more ambiguous. Now that the Cold War has ended, the world’s intelligence agencies are reorganizing their agendas. The nuclear arms race has taken a back seat to the ideological conflicts of a new era, led primarily by extreme terrorist movements. The weapons of the past five decades are being auctioned off to fanatics whose goal is not expansion but annihilation.

The Soviet Union’s collapse left a power vacuum the new Russian Federation hasn’t managed to fill, and the rise of countless new world orders has prompted a global industrial boom. Corporations long hungry to expand vie for control of oil reserves and other natural resources, as well as technological talent and new fountains of profit. Everywhere, these ambitious conglomerates take advantage of lax laws and corrupt officials, undermining governments in the name of progress.

Spy agencies have evolved along parallel lines, and many new agencies have cropped up in remote countries with private agendas. The corridors of espionage are growing more and more confusing every day, as small territories defend themselves and large territories fight over who gets to topple them. In all this, spies come out on top, their services as valued as they were four thousand years ago.

[Crafty_Pat]

Operative Lifestyle
An argument could be made that no spy is ever “off duty,” and the home office commonly prescribes the personal lives of its operatives. In the case of most real world intelligence organizations, this translates to strict rules about where an operative may live and shop, what doctors he can see, where he can travel, and those with whom he can interact. Most of the time, the operative must live in middle-class housing within approved neighborhoods near agency stations. He endures regular observation by agency watchdogs, some of whom even pose as friends and neighbors. He isn’t allowed to visit suspect countries without advance approval and even has to submit romantic interests for vetting before the relationship progresses.

Though spies protect critical national secrets, they aren’t afforded secrets of their own. Their private lives are the stuff of interdepartmental reports, subject to scrutiny by supervisors and strangers alike. Operatives undergo impromptu psychological examinations and many are forbidden from keeping journals or diaries. Only a few are permitted to tell their loved ones what they do, and even then they must keep the vast majority of their work to themselves. Elaborate cover stories are developed to conceal their activities, complete with trade dress and contact personnel for the companies where they say they’re employed.

The fanciful superspies of fiction, who dash about the world of their own volition, dropping insane amounts of money from vaguely defined “personal accounts,” are a myth — though they’re an intriguing one that can easily be established in an RPG. Likewise, a Spycraft game could revolve around operatives who aren’t even permitted the simple freedoms of their real world cousins; these spies might be confined to secluded enclaves between missions, guarded against unwanted attention and casual slips of the tongue. Certainly, both of these models have occurred in the real world, though they’re the exceptions rather than the rules.

In any scenario, spies are far from prisoners. They are, after all, inherently crafty, trained to evade detection and act without notice. Many real world spies maintain healthy lives separate from their duties. Some amass small fortunes through freelance contracts, trading secrets, and gambling. Others keep multiple lovers or even wives in cities around the world. The most ambitious of them double or triple their services, betraying and re-betraying their loyalties for cash, ideals, and gratification.

Compensation
Like any employee, a spy earns a salary. The actual amount ranges widely, with some servants making paltry sums as low as $30,000 U.S. per year and certain highly prized operatives breaking the $100,000 U.S. mark. Most fall between $50,000 and $80,000. The important facet of these salaries is regularity. It’s critical that intelligence professionals receive regular payments, that they feel financially secure, though never flush. This guarantees their continued loyalty. Also, to dissuade uneven performance, bonuses are rare, if offered at all.

Of course, such standards have not always been in place, and still don’t apply in some parts of the world. During the Cold War, when the stakes were sky high and intelligence outfits commanded wildly disproportionate percentages of their governments’ budgets, a savvy spy could retire after a single highly successful mission. Today, most have to work a little longer — though not necessarily harder — to achieve the same result.

Payments are mostly made on the books, by standard company check. Again, this was not always the case. In the old days, spies were often paid in cash, in part to conceal the operation but also because the agency preferred that the money be spent. The thought process followed that a spy who saved his money wasn’t reliant upon it, and was therefore a potential risk to the home office.

An operative’s salary is generally consumed by mundane life expenses, private “off-screen” endeavors, and perhaps most commonly, the proverbial “nest egg” on which every veteran spy dreams of retiring. Savings can be tapped, of course, to supplement mission resources, as represented by the mechanic for permanently reducing Wealth (see the Spycraft 2.0 Rulebook: First Printing, page 212). Most rational operatives avoid this tactic, however, valuing their own finances over temporary comforts in one field op, especially since excruciating penalties tend to apply.

[Crafty_Pat]

Substitution Ciphers
Replacing each letter in a message with another corresponding letter is called “substitution.” For example, the “Caesar shift cipher” replaces every character with the letter three places later in the alphabet (wrapping the alphabet around from Z to A). Thus, the message “Alex Kole owns the night” would read “DOHA NROH RZQV XKH QLJX.” This technique requires all cipher users to possess a key showing the translation of letters.

On its own, the Caesar cipher isn’t very secure, but if the alphabet is rearranged before it is applied, this simple cipher theoretically becomes far more difficult to crack. For example, if the substitution alphabet were reordered as follows…

MGZDARTBVWKXYFENHCOUQLJIPS

…then the same message, “Alex Kole owns the night,” would read “MXAI KEXA EJFO UBA XVTBU.” The words can be merged together into one unbroken stream for even greater security: “MXAIKEXAEJFOUBAXVTBU.”

Another variation of this involves choosing a key word or phrase, such as “Rear Window,” removing all the repeated letters (“REAWINDO”), and lining the rest of the alphabet behind the result…

REAWINDOBCFGHJKLMPQSTUVXYZ

Thus, only the key word or phrase is required to read messages created with the cipher in question. This also allows for easy memorization.

Countless other options follow. Unfortunately, a technique called frequency analysis allows for relatively easy decryption by studying how often letters are used in substitute cipher text. In the English language, the letter “e” shows up approximately 12–13% of the time, whereas “q” and “z” are very rare, appearing far less than 1% of the time. An examination of substitution cipher text tends to reveal certain patterns based on these established percentages, reproducing the cipher key one letter at a time. This process applies best to lengthy samples where the average appearance of letters is less likely to deviate from the norm, and tends to produce complete keys in a landslide — all at once right after a few letters have been discovered.

Substitution ciphers developed after frequency analysis are more inventive. One example assigns a letter to each of 26 numbers ranging from 1–99, leaving all the other numbers as “nulls” to be ignored by an intended recipient. The nulls can be sprinkled throughout an encrypted message, leaving those studying it perplexed about its true length and composition. Another introduces a “dowbleth” symbol in place of the first of two side-by-side identical letters, reducing the chance that they’ll be spotted. The Great Cipher of Louis XIV uses a set of 587 numbers in place of French syllables.

A method that tries and in the end fails to elude frequency analysis is the homophonic substitution cipher, which replaces each letter in the alphabet with one or more symbols or numbers, depending on the letter’s frequency. The letter “e,” for instance, which shows up approximately 12–13% of the time, is replaced 12 different ways, while “r,” which shows up only 6% of the time, is replaced 6 different ways. Unfortunately, the study of extremely strict letter combinations, such as “q” followed by “u,” can yield lists of the replacements in each case, and the cipher begins to unravel.

The Vigenére cipher, developed in the 16th century, seems to render frequency analysis effectively useless. This cipher stacks 26 Caesar shift cipher alphabets on top of one another to form a “Vigenére square.” Each alphabet is shifted by a different number of places so each begins with a different letter. To encipher a message, a codeword is devised and repeated end to end over the plain text. To find the alternate letter for each plain text character, the Caesar shift alphabet beginning with the corresponding code word letter is applied. Since the Vigenére cipher uses no consistent cipher alphabet, there is no way to study character frequency.

This still doesn’t preclude decryption, however. As proven by 19th century visionary Charles Babbage, the Vigenére cipher is vulnerable to mathematical analysis involving the number of times a certain cipher letter combination appears and the number of characters between appearances. The factors of this number presents a list of possible codeword lengths and the number of times the word must have appeared between instances of the cipher letter combination in each case. By comparing several results from several samples, a common codeword length may be found, allowing the message to be broken into smaller chunks. For example, if the codeword is known to be eight letters long, every eighth letter is translated with the same Caesar shift cipher. Frequency analysis can then be applied to every eighth letter to determine the code word, and with that in hand, the message is easy to read.

A series of substitution methods introduced in the 1820s by Thomas J. Beale are known as “book ciphers” and variations are often used today. The concept is simple: every word on a given page of a book is numbered and in the cipher alphabet, each number translates to the first letter of the corresponding word. For variety, every fifth word can be numbered, or the seventh word on every page. Large networks using a book cipher tend to choose popular or widespread volumes, such as the Bible, though many elite spies prefer obscure literature or books of personal importance. Some even pen their own key text, often in the form of memoirs. Generally, the less known the key text, the more secure the cipher, though cracking a book cipher often becomes a game of second-guessing the encrypting operative more than piecing together letter relationships.

[Crafty_Pat]

Transportation
One of a spy’s most basic functions is the surreptitious transportation of people, objects, and information. This type of mission takes two basic forms. The operative might be assigned to retrieve something or someone, returning it to the home office or another location, or he might he ordered to guard someone or something as they move from place to place. In either case, the operative’s superiors believe the target to be in danger or they wouldn’t be dedicating their big guns to his or its protection.

Secrecy also plays an important role in espionage-themed transportation missions. The operative is rarely given authority to reveal his true allegiance and identity to any but his ward, and in some cases, even that disclosure is prohibited. For example, the operative might be given a cover identity to use when helping a foreign national to defect, just in case the national turns out to be a lure or worse, an enemy agent trying to draw out the operative or his allies.

In some transportation missions, the operative is only expected to possess the ward for a short time. He might even be part of a long chain of custody, only knowing the couriers at either end of his route by password or scripted action. This often happens when the ward passes through a major population center, as it confuses pursuers and provides opportunities to replace the ward with a duplicate if necessary. Unfortunately, chains of custody sometimes break. If even one forward courier is knocked out of action, the operative could wind up being cut off until he can make discreet contact with the home office or the people to whom the ward is to be delivered.

Alertness is vital during a transportation mission. The operative must keep his eyes open for aggressors, traps, pursuers, and curious bystanders. He should always have at least one escape plan at the ready, and never let his guard down for any reason. Even through long periods of dull travel, he cannot falter, lest he leave himself and his ward vulnerable to attack or capture.

Each incident during a transportation mission must be carefully studied for links to other evidence collected along the way. Some missions begin with little to no information about potential enemies, leaving the operative to piece together identities and motives. Everything is important — the nationalities of those involved, their choice of weapons, their tactics, their aftershave. Every tiny detail can lead to revelations about the people after the target, and how to stop them.

It’s important to avoid obvious travel plans as well. Direct flights are only advisable when time is too short for another option; also, airports and planes also provide few escape routes (though busier hubs are excellent for brush passes and dead drops). Cars, buses, trains, and even boats are superior — travelers aboard them are harder to track, plus it’s easier to shift plans and vehicles without preparation.

Particularly adamant or widespread pursuit may even require the operative to take the mission off the grid. The black market maintains countless illicit smuggling tunnels for drugs, weapons, and other contraband, and the operative and his ward can catch a ride to nearly anywhere for the right price. Of course, keeping underworld figures quiet is a risky proposition and often boils down to who paid them most recently. For this reason, many spies keep tabs on criminal activities whenever possible, just so they know who to go to for the best service. Some even befriend smugglers and other law-breakers so there’s a reason beyond money for them to remain loyal.

Some transportation missions benefit from a limited distance between the operative and his ward. The operative might secure the ward at some location the first time he enters an area or interacts with people of unknown alliance. If he suspects that he’s being followed, he might even arrange for his ward to travel separately, in disguise or hidden inside a parcel or other object, at least for a time. This tactic benefited WWII French house painter Rene Duchev, who as part of the resistance group Century stole blueprints for the Nazis’ Atlantic Wall along the country’s southern border. He couldn’t initially hide them on his person so he hid them within a mirror inside the very house where he’d found them. Later, he retrieved them and headed to a café to hand them off, but Gestapo soldiers raided the building. This time, he hid the blueprints within the pocket of a Nazi coat hanging near the door. Despite searching every other person in the café, the Gestapo didn’t bother with the Nazis, and Duchev was once again able to collect the blueprints after they left. From there, the stolen plans were sent to Paris by train, sealed in a cookie tin, and shipped by fishing boat to England.

A variety of obstacles can complicate a transportation mission. Information may be left out of the briefing, sometimes on purpose, sometimes because the agency wasn’t adequately informed. Sometimes, defectors and others may only agree to come along if the operative also rescues loved ones, or a valued research project (and if the project is valuable enough, the home office is likely to agree).

Alternately, the agency may assign the operative to perform a “hostile extraction,” or kidnapping. Such was the case with Mordecai Louk, an Israeli double agent who worked for Mossad and Egyptian intelligence. The Egyptians drugged him and locked him in a special trunk to be flown to Cairo. Unfortunately, a delay caused the drugs to wear off and customs officials freed Louk when they heard him struggling. This kind of “noise,” or unwanted attention, is not unusual during a kidnapping, and violence is often required to close the op. This can cause additional problems with the police, or prompt tension between state cells as they try to direct the attention at each other.

Hostile extractions are often followed by interrogations, which the agency may also place in the operative’s hands. Scientists may be questioned for their discoveries and enemy agents may be broken and tuned as doubles. Either might be coerced to continue their work for the agency, or be bartered to gain more heavily guarded people or items in another group’s custody.

The Hunt for Red October is an excellent fictional example of a large-scale transportation mission targeting a defector and a valued piece of gear (in this case, a multi-million dollar piece of prototype military hardware).

[Crafty_Pat]

This excerpt is a sidebar from the Tradecraft chapter.

Honor Among Spies
Spies are elite warriors fighting a private shadow war with their own unique rules of engagement. Like samurai or gentlemen duelists of a bygone age, all spies recognize one another as kindred spirits, treating even the most despised enemy with the respect due any peer. Though their unspoken code has never been committed to paper, all understand that it defines their lives… and deaths.

Success Before Survival
The mission is God. No operative can hope to fully comprehend his superiors’ intentions or the needs of his agency and nation, nor should he try. Espionage organizations are rooted in military tradition for a reason; when missions fail, people die. Ideals die. To preserve the cause, every operative must understand that his very life is secondary to completing the mission as briefed. No questions, no excuses. Anything less and the operative has no place in the service.

Defeat is a Matter of Degrees
Espionage is akin to a global chess game. Civilian specialists, operatives, governments, and even countries fall like pawns before the shadowy kings and queens of the intelligence community. Leaders must always be wary of sacrificing too many of their tools, however, lest their empires collapse, leaving them vulnerable to attack or annexation. This delicate balance of gains and forfeits demands discretion, and the understanding
that no war can be won all at once.

Business is Business.
Grudges between spies are inevitable, but taking a grievance into the private sector benefits no one. Personal vendettas lead to distraction, sloppy fieldwork, and in extreme cases dereliction of duty, all of which cost lives. No intelligence agency tolerates private retribution. Spying is a business, and there is no room for petty squabbling among professionals.

One Civilian, Ten Spies
Spies ultimately exist to protect civilians; their actions sponsor their nation’s principles and further their nation’s aims. When a civilian perishes during an espionage operation, a little piece of the spy’s purpose perishes with them. Likewise, civilians never die, or even disappear, without fallout. Bystander deaths crucify intelligence agencies and the governments that control them. Good spies are tried and jailed, or linger in the public spotlight so long that they become useless. This benefits no one.

The Great Game is Private
The most intractable tenet of spying is that of keeping the Great Game quiet. Revealing an enemy’s existence or actions to the authorities, the media, or other outsiders certainly complicates missions, but it also complicates lives, careers, and politics. The public is notoriously unforgiving of spies, even those working for their own governments, and revealing even one player risks upsetting the entire game. Those who violate this precept rarely last long. They are often preemptively eliminated to prevent further exposure, sometimes by their own allies.