Women volunteering to become secret agents or spies risk the same torture as men if caught, plus sexual violence. Many of their male colleagues mistrust them for "emotional unreliability." Some have indeed gone to bed with their captors, seeking leniency. Mathilde Carré was caught by the Abwehr in occupied France and betrayed everyone in her Resistance network to her new lover. At her trial, she said, "Women do not have the same choices as men." Yet female agents of SOE saved thousands of Allied soldiers' lives. In the Comintern's 70-year war against the West, Moscow's many female agents seduced soldiers and politicians, got divorced and married following orders, financed revolutions and stole nuclear secrets—many settling in the countries they betrayed to avoid being shot on return to the USSR. This book records the lives of the "agentes" and investigates the powerful motives that drove them to undertake such dangerous work—like patriotism, ideology, love and revenge.
