DV9

[Mergerberger II]

[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"][size="2"]Despite the age of the Vietnamese government and its large part in world politics and diplomacy, there had never really been established a Vietnamese Intelligence Service. The country had been mostly protected by the stories of the old Vietnamese Secret Service established and functional during the 1800's, protecting the puppet-King of Vietnam against his enemies and doing a very good job of it. However recently, things had begun to change. The Foreign Office had begun to make enemies, and however unintentional they made them seem, and despite how much they played down the potential of these enemies to act against Vietnam, they were there, and the entire notion of nations disagreeing consistently with each other is one that often leads to major conflict of some form.

Several years ago, a man by the name of Lin Luc Phoc published a book called [i]Spies of the King[/i], in which spies working for the King of the Kingdom of Cochin infiltrated the borders of Vietnam and constantly collected information, so much information in fact that it eventually led to a successful invasion and subsequent defeat of Vietnam by forces of the Kingdom of Cochin. Phoc had done research for the book for several years, mapping out the exact invasion route with the help of a retired Major General of the Army, navigating through strategic locations and instilling fear in the populace. While this was entirely unrealistic, and most of the government doubted the ability of Cochin to conduct such an operation, as well as their willingness to do so, it did a lot to the populace. People all over the country began to become more vigilant, more watchful of their neighbors, especially those of Indian or Turkic nationality, that is, people from Cochin. These people sent letters to Phoc detailing neighbors of theirs who had been seen constantly 'engaging in suspicious behavior', such as correcting maps, on 'early morning walks and drives', showing 'curiosity about railway and road bridges', and making 'enquiries about gas and water supply'.

The Metropolitan Police Special Branch served as the best intelligence operation in Vietnam for many years, and it had been run by a man named Nguyen Ngoc Binh for eight years. Binh began to take an interest in Phoc's tales, though they were entirely fictitious, because of the reaction of the general public to these books. He looked into these letters and discovered many people that served as good candidates to track. Despite being severely underfunded, the MPSB investigated several foreigners and eventually determined a few, that is, not particularly many but enough to raise interest in their operations, spies of foreign nations within their borders. This raised much alarm within the Ministry of Defense (and within the Ministry of Silly Walks, but that is not terribly relevant here), because it was now known that spies could easily penetrate Vietnam and discover information about everything if they were plotting an invasion or wanted to simply influence policy in a way that would be favorable to the interests of their foreign government, and it was known that the Republic had no viable way of stopping this. There was no real Intelligence Service in Vietnam, and a Counter-Intelligence Service was not even considered until this point.

Dubbed the 'Intelligence Panic', this led to the War Office, who cooperated with the Ministry of the Interior to operate the MPSB, to conduct a formal investigation of the 'current situation of foreign intelligence operatives within the confines of and with the ability to influence the government of VIetnam'. The results of this investigation were astounding. The MPSB detected over 1,200 foreign agents currently working to influence the Government of Vietnam in some way. Clearly the protection of the old stories had not done much against actual foreign governments. Seeing the necessity to do something against these agents and the ability of foreign governments to so easily penetrate Vietnam, the Ministry of Finance allowed for the financing, after an Executive Decision passed down by the Prime Minister, of the establishment of a new division of the Government designed for Counter-Intelligence operations. It also, as another part of this financing, allowed for the creation of an agency designed for Intelligence Operations, however this entire ordeal was kept entirely secret and hidden, mostly from the public. No public announcement was made of its creation, but it was not intentionally hidden. Nguyen Ngoc Binh resigned from his post as head of the MPSB and was given the title of Director General of Counter-Intelligence Operations. His Deputy in the MPSB also resigned and was now Director General of Intelligence Operations. They were the heads of DV8 and DV9, respectively.

DV8 set to work almost immediately to find and deport the over 1200 foreign operatives quietly back to their home countries without creating much of a disturbance. This was done within two months, and they began formal operations into counter-intelligence in their second month of service. Meanwhile, DV9 was quieter. It was designed specifically for offensive intelligence operations for the interest of the Vietnamese government. Their office in Hanoi was relatively simple, a building in the Government District, with 'DV9' in large letters over the front entrance. Two hundred worked in the office at its beginning, mostly selected from the Central Investigation Office. This would rapidly expand over the next year to five thousand, including field agents. DV9 would be shrouded in mystery. The building was all-black, with windows all with the blinds drawn, making the occasional peek into the street from a window office all the more sinister. It was four stories tall, however it also ran five stories underground, and underground was where all the serious business was conducted. DV9 had agents in 30 countries within four years, all the while its presence was mostly as 'that black building downtown', though anyone around the building would tell you exactly what it was. DV9 remained shrouded in mystery for years.

Its first real operation was Operation Mellow Tundra. Smuggling drugs into Alaska.

[b]Operation Mellow Tundra[/b][/size][/font]

For years the government had known about massive opium farms in the rural areas of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. They also knew that the local farmers knew that they could get in massive trouble if the government decided to do anything about the opium poppy they grew. The government looked the other way and the farmers kept their heads low. Drug addiction was relatively low in Vietnam, and therefore the government did not really mind the operations, especially when they needed the drugs for some sort of covert operation, which was not relevant until DV9 had been established and running for a year and half. DV9 began to come knocking at the doors of these opium farms, asking for massive amounts of opium, which they could then use in their covert operations. Dressed in suits, they traveled the two hours from Hanoi to the Opium Poppy farm far to the West.

The opium was not terribly difficult to obtain. No threats had to be made, and the identity of the DV9 operatives was not revealed, and the farmers even agreed to a discount for the operatives and their 'friends' in the future. Sixteen tons of opium were acquired and hauled directly to the docks, whereupon they would meet up with 1000 kilos of cocaine and 5 tons of marijuana, as well as 200lbs of marijuana seeds. A contact had already been met in the Alaskan Union, who would deal the drugs and work to market them with the support of the Vietnamese government. The goods were loaded onto a ship flying the flag of Minilla Island, and labeled and hidden carefully in the hull. They were then taken to the Alaskan Union to be distributed among the populace for a relatively cheap price, but enough to make an immense profit. Estimates were in the range of a 100-200 million dollar profit if all goods were sold.

The ship docked in the Union a couple of weeks later, claiming to carry a shipment of Indonesian spice, which it did indeed carry on board. As something of an insult to the intelligence of the Customs Officers of the Alaskan Union, not only were the DV9 operatives aboard not Indonesian but instead Vietnamese, but the spices they claimed to carry were in fact large crates filled with Kimchi, a Korean dish. Still a spice, and a very decent food. The goods were all unloaded and transported to the contact in the Alaskan Union, who lived deep in the forest in a relatively small home with a massive hidden basement. The goods were first transported to a warehouse on the edge of town, and from there they were sent by pickup truck to the small house in the woods, so as not to arouse suspicion. Each box was labeled 'Spice', with the text in the center and at a diagonal from down to up, and those without spice and instead with drugs in them were labeled 'Spice' diagonally from up to down, going left to right of course.

It took two weeks for the goods to finally be delivered entirely to the small house, and then they would slowly be distributed over the next ten years. In year nine, the plan was, the way to properly make the biggest selling drugs, presumably marijuana and methamphetamine (based on previous trends), would be released, and in year eleven, when a few of the crates of drugs would still remain, the location of the house would be leaked to police, and the Vietnamese distributor would be taken back to Vietnam. This way, the Government of Alaska could feel good about themselves and seem credible in stopping the drug trade, and meanwhile DV9 would laugh knowing how effective they had been over the last decade, and knowing that their venture would wreak havoc for decades to come.