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Nuclear Graystone
Background: I'm doing a spy scenario, focused on the action and stealth. It is set in the spring of 1961. The players will be a collection of agents of unspecified origin (CIA, FBI, military). I'm mostly limiting my own information as GM to as much realism as possible before the game starts, but once in the game I'm going to not worry about historical accuracy and just work on the fly. The game will last for 4 sessions, 4 hours each. I have session 1 and 2 planned out. I have a ton of historical background, I've even located the original building permit for the Russian ambassador's residence, just can't get it cause I have to go to DC in person to pick it up.
Situation: The players will be briefed that there is some sort of nuclear deal about to happen. A defector just turned over the information a few hours ago halfway around the world, and the CIA is pretty sure some of the details are being hand-carried by an agent at the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC. The players will be told to obtain these details within a few hours. They're going to be disavowed, but if successful, new identities will be given to them.
Basic idea: The simplest idea I have is that nuclear cooperation between Russia and China has broken down (this is actually true historically, though China still finished their first bomb in 1963). Elements within the Soviet government are acting on their own to supply China with newer technology. If supplied with information, the Soviet government will assume this is a ploy and not react.
This idea is kind of simple. I can run with it, but I'm wondering if something better can't be invented. I've thought of maybe the information is actually an American traitor, but I'm not sure who they're selling the secrets/materials to that would make it that interesting. I want to stay in the realm of historically "possible". So no "The CIA is actually run by vampires/aliens." Slightly more realistic than say... James Bond.
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Basic idea: The simplest idea I have is that nuclear cooperation between Russia and China has broken down (this is actually true historically, though China still finished their first bomb in 1963). Elements within the Soviet government are acting on their own to supply China with newer technology. If supplied with information, the Soviet government will assume this is a ploy and not react.
Running with this idea, there is a super-secret (because whenever they've spoken up, they've been killed!) group of fanatical pro-communism Marxists scattered about the Kremlin who feel that supporting communism is more important than the Soviet Union itself, and that spreading nuclear technology to other communist states, like China, even if they aren't 100% best buds with the Soviet Union, or it's current leadership, is vitally important to further the goal of uniting the world in one glorious worker's revolution.
And so, even though more practical factions within the Kremlin have quelched the deal with China, these idealists are moving ahead and smuggling the information out, initially to China, but, ideally, to any nation willing to embrace communist ideals, making this small group of Marxists an existential threat to anyone who *doesn't* want random unstable 'third-world' countries to have nuclear capabilities.
I'm not familiar with what countries in 1961 would qualify, for instance, with whether or not Afghanistan was flirting with communism yet or not, but that's probably not hard to look up, if you want to run with it, and have the PCs discover dossiers on those countries in the files of the agent they run across.
Adding to the potential problem, there's not just files and copies of files (since the information is meant to be distributed to multiple nations, eventually, and the agent has backups secured in other locations, in case one is lost or destroyed, such as in a bank deposit box, or in a train station storage locker, in the hands of a lawyer who has no idea that it isn't immigration information he's been tasked to hold on to), but there's also an actual nuclear technician that's been smuggled somewhere, who would oversee and assist actual development of nuclear technologies in whichever countries (other than China) are selected for the nuclear upgrade. He's not a fanatical pro-Marxist, but has no idea that the Kremlin has decided to cut the nuclear deal with China (it's not like they advertise this information, and he's being kept on the down-low, which he totally would be, even if this operation was 100% Kremlin-approved).
If this engineer can be secured by the PCs, he could provide priceless intel on Soviet nuclear procedures and practices and whatnot. Needless to say, both the pro-Marxists and the standard KGB will absolutely kill him before allowing him to fall into enemy hands, stopping shooting at each other to do so, if need be...
The Soviet Union will first officially deny anything is going on, while scrambling their own agents to find and eliminate these security threats, and agents on the ground (more realpolitik than the ambassadors claiming nothing is going on) only grudgingly accept help, if things seem really, really out of control (and even then attempt to destroy any information / kill any rogues before the PCs get their hands on them).
So the PCs have to deal with the agent(s) present, possibly travel the globe to find any others on the loose, secure any documents stored in various fun locations (a train station in Germany, a lawyer's office in Rome, etc. if you want some globe-trotting, or all conveniently in one city, if you don't want to Bond it up to that degree), and find the engineer. Lot's of moving parts, and a copy of the documents getting loose could be a problem.
I'm not sure who they're selling the secrets/materials to that would make it that interesting
How about "everyone"? They plan to sell nuclear technology to anyone who wants it (India, Pakistan, Cuba, North Korea, most of the Middle East...), resulting in mass nuclear proliferation. The traitor has no ideological loyalty and is just trying to make as much money as possible.
This gave me an idea, so thanks a ton. Going to ruminate on it for a bit, see how it feels. Basically combining the two, except the greedy traitor is American, but he's funded by a secret faction in the Kremlin. They think the workers in every country should be armed, not just the US and Russia, and want to embarrass the US at the same time.
This also conveniently puts the players in a situation where they have no idea who they can trust. Is an American agent a patriot? Or is he working for the traitor?
More ideas still welcome. I've got like 3 weeks until I really need this ready.
The plot reminds of a story that the CIA once tried to sell fake nuclear secrets to the Iranians. They created some plausible but flawed techniques that wouldn't work, then hired a Russian scientist to deliver them. The Russian scientist spotted the mistakes in the document and, since the CIA didn't explain the plan to him, corrected them before handing them over in order to protect his scientific reputation.
You can have this plat fostered by an iranian holy man, and opposed by a different one. The last 2 sessions can involve this secret holy war. If successful, the characters can end up owning an atomic suitcase bomb.