I'm just gonna put this round out of its misery, because we're already getting into too many semantics and technicalities now.
Guij has a point when he says that the presence of a mole on the Defenders alone is enough to qualify as a "direct" connection to SHIELD for *all* the members -- even if they are not aware of it. I would have called that an "indirect" connection, precisely because they're so clueless about it, but I understand why somebody would qualify it otherwise.
Eventually, somobody would have remembered that Pym referred to Valkyrie as "Barbara" when he spoke with Janet in either #7 or #8, and that would be it. (See the First Appearances thread for verification.)
Next round goes to either Guij or E.Vi.L. -- whoever successfully posts a set of clues first
Oh, and it's so obvious -- Arcade's real name is
John Romero