My fixed salary towards the end was 10,000
marks a year, besides twenty marks a day living expenses when not at
work, which was automatically tripled irrespective of expenses when
out on work. Besides, there is a bonus set out for each piece of
work, the amount of which varies with the importance of the case in
hand. I received as much as 30,000 marks ($7,500) for a single
mission performed successfully.
The risks are great, so are the rewards--if successful. If not, then
one pays the usual price of failures, in this case only more so. For
in the event of disaster no official help or protection could or would
be granted and quarter is neither asked nor given. The work is
interesting and fascinating to those of an adventurous turn of mind
and not overly nervous about their health or squeamish in regards to
established ethics. I would not suggest the Secret Service as a means
of livelihood for a nervous person. At times it is arduous and
strenuous work and mostly undertaken by men and women who fear neither
man nor devil. It is not compatible to longevity. As a rule, the
constant strain of being on the _qui vive_, playing a lone hand
against the most powerful influences often unknown, having one's plans
upset at the last moment and continually pitting one's own brain
against some of the acutest and shrewdest minds of the world, the
knowledge that the slightest blunder means loss of liberty, often of
life, is wearing, to say the least.
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