Editor’s note.
This is the text of an email I received in the mid 1990s from a man calling himself “Herald H Covert.” I’ve gotten a number of simular messages and present them here for whatever entertainment value they may have. None of this is true…probably.

June,1992 -

“I met my contact, we can call him “Fred” in a seedy little outdoor café just up the street from the docks at Portsmouth England. We had been meeting like this on and off for several years. Always in a different location. He seemed to know where I was and how to get in touch with me which is more than I could say about him! I was in town wrapping up some local stuff when a call came in on the hotel white-phone. I heard “How about lunch” in Fred’s gravelly voice.

The proprietors of the café were an elderly French couple who, for some reason made the best Pizza outside of that little place overlooking the old city in Piragua Italy. Fred was already there, smoking like he usually does. The café’ was inhabited by a group of enlisted men from an American warship visiting the port.

I envied them, it had been 15 years since I mustered out, although one can never be completely out of my government’s service. Fred was probably in the same boat. He never told me where he’d served other than, he had seen combat. Columbia, Libya, Beirut, Iraq or even that really bad programme in the South of France during the riots of 87

“Thanks for coming” Fred began,” you’re the only person on the outside I can trust“ ”he said. I need to tell you this because you will preserve it, then pass it on to somebody who can get the information to the right listeners.”

I sat back in my chair,” really!” I said “Don’t you think that you’re being a little melodramatic?

“It is not melodrama,” he said after a long drag on his Belomorkanal ; “it is global psychodrama”

Then he told me this strange story. Most of what follows is from notes I jotted down right after the encounter.

People ask why I don’t record meetings with tape recorders or such. In this business—recorders become useless at key moments. Even pens mysteriously run out of ink, pencils break. Paper burns.

I've learned the hard way.

This is what he said to the best of my recollection.

“During the latter part of the Great Patriotic War” began Fred, “an organization with the acronym SMERSH was created as a counter intelligence agency by the Soviets. You've heard of them. The acronym comes from the words “smert’ shpionam” which means “death to spies in Russian””

“SMERSH!” I exclaimed, I thought that was a spy organization created by Ian Fleming, you know, the sinister Soviet ring that James Bond fights or something.”

He laughed. “The group was very real. Born in the brutality of Stalinist Russia SMERSH lives on even today as a religious order, not unlike the Masons or the Ordo Templi Orientis. It’s a religion specializing in intelligence gathering, infiltration and assassination.

But first,” he continued,” they are collectors, collectors of secrets, collectors of artifacts. During the war they were able to obtain certain objects from Hitler’s bunker complex. Things which were shrouded in mystery, things that are so dangerous they make that Flying Dutchmen ship you look for for seem like a bathtub-toy in comparison.”

That took me back for a moment, I never told him about the vessel or what I was doing in Portsmouth. Of course I have no idea how he figured out I was here in the first place.

“We know about you” he continued after noting my expression, because you are in a … similar business?”

“What kind of objects?” I asked; “surely you don’t mean the Spear of Longinus and all of that rot?”

“No,” my friend replied, “Spear of Longinus is in Vienna, but you are so close! Hitler was obsessed with the idea of power coming from the outside — black magic, the occult — other things that are only casually connected with our world. The German SS and to some extent the SA were under instructions to submit holy relics and magikial items which they found to a central analysis corps.”

“But” I retorted, “I thought that to preserve a vestige of Jewish culture for archival purposes.”

“Not quite” he answered, falling silent as the waitress brought our food.

He continued; “In Gemany they were called Thule-Gesellschaft. They were not only preserving Jewish culture for museums. They were also tasked with moving the focus of European power to Berlin — concentrating it there; Hitler was convinced that if he could gather the most holy relics of Europe in one place he would be invincible.

“He very nearly succeeded. Thule-Gesellschaft agents found and shipped large number of artifacts to Berlin.

Hitler was quite mad towards the end you know. The things he collected had that effect on—some people.

SMERSH fulfilled a similar role for Stalin. They were first members of the Soviet forces to enter Hitler’s bunker. They secured Hitler’s collection.

However when SMERSH disbanded the pieces went with them. You see, some people in SMERSH knew exactly what Stalin was about. When the organisations was liquidated the members played a few tricks on the system and dropped out of sight. They took their stash with them.”

“But” I asked, “if that stuff was so powerful, how was it that Berlin was taken in the first place?”

I received a strange look for this question. “Hitler was not the only occult-obsessed dictator during that time you know” he said. “Others had been at it for far longer. Why do you think Germany canceled operation Sea Lion and attacked Russia? Not for those silly reasons the historians would have you believe!”

He continued. “This splinter group of SMERSH went into hiding after the war. They took the collected items from the Germans and the Soviets. Since that time, in the West the acronym SMERSH is now associated in those silly James Bond movies. It is perhaps ironic that the organization has a real secret identity. One which even today jealously guards the relics taken from their Soviet masters and that bombed out bunker. But the organization needed a reason to exist and,” he added, “some way to bring in sustenance. SMERSH operatives began to coin the only thing they had besides that which they guarded.”

“What?” I asked.

“Discovering secrets!” My friend snapped “Intelligence. The only game they were good at. Since the war they have continued the trade and have gotten very good indeed.”

Now I was confused, I asked “are you trying to tell me that some sort of cabalistic organization, growing out of the defunct SMERSH spy ring has been holding on to a horde of Nazi and Soviet relics while at the same time, running around selling their services as intelligence assets? My friend! That is a very strange story!”

“Fred” looked hurt and I felt sorry for a moment. It was certain that he believed this wild tale. He was starting to gather up his things to leave and waved for the check.

“Hold on a moment” I said. “It’s been almost 45 years since the war, where are they recruiting new members from? The original members would be old men by now.

“They don’t,” he answered quietly ”it is closed organization, no one goes in — no one leaves.”

“But,” I retorted, “They would be in their 80s now.” Where have they been hiding all this time?”

“Heh —ask the NSA!” he said.

Then he left before I could say another word. On the table was his part of the check and something else, an old identity card from the Soviet Union.

I never saw “Fred” again. The Soviet ID turned out to be genuine. Several dealers offered me quite a bit of money for it. I refused to sell. Staring back at me from the 1940s is Fred, exactly as he looked at our last meeting in 1992. He is about 25 years old in the photo making him 82 when I last met him….if it is indeed him in the photo.

Perhaps he will come back for it someday.
I’m sure if he wants it, he know how to find me.

—Herald H. Covert.