Authors: Daniel Silva

The Unlikely Spy (75 page)

BOOK: The Unlikely Spy

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"So who ran him, us or the Americans?"

"It was a joint project really. We fed the Germans a steady stream of excellent material through Hardegen, top-grade stuff. Hardegen's stock soared in Berlin. In the meantime, every aspect of Walker Hardegen's life was placed under a microscope, including his relationship with the Lauterbach family and with a brilliant engineer named Peter Jordan."

"So in 1943, when the decision was made to stage the cross-channel attack at Normandy with the help of an artificial harbor, British and American intelligence approached Peter Jordan and asked him to go to work for us."

"Yes. October 1943, to be precise."

"He was perfect," Vicary said. "He was exactly the type of engineer needed for the project, and he was well known and well respected in his field. All the Nazis had to do was go to the library to read about his accomplishments. The death of his wife also made him personally vulnerable. So late in 1943, you had Hardegen meet with his Abwehr control officer and tell him all about Peter Jordan. How much did you tell them then?"

"Only that Jordan was working on a large construction project connected with the invasion. We also hinted about his vulnerability, as you put it. The Abwehr bit. Muller sold it to Canaris, and Canaris passed it on to Vogel."

"So the entire thing was an elaborate ruse to foist false documents on the Abwehr. And Peter Jordan was the proverbial tethered goat."

"Exactly. The first documents were ambiguous by design. They were open to interpretation and debate. The Phoenix units could be components of an artificial harbor or they could be an antiaircraft complex. We wanted them to fight, to squabble, to tear themselves to bits. Remember your Sun-tzu?"

" 'Undermine your enemy, subvert him, sow discord among his leaders.' "

"Exactly. We wanted to encourage the friction between the SD and the Abwehr. We also didn't want to make it too easy for them. Gradually, the Kettledrum documents painted a clear picture, and that picture was passed directly to Hitler."

"But why go to so much trouble? Why not just use one of the agents that had already been turned? Or one of the fictitious agents? Why use a live engineer? Why not just create one out of whole cloth?"

"Two reasons," Boothby said. "Number one, that's too easy. We wanted to make them work for it. We wanted to influence their thinking subtly. We wanted them to think
they
were the ones making the decision to target Jordan. Remember the mantra of a Double Cross officer: Intelligence easily obtained is easily discarded. There was a long chain of evidence, so to speak: Hardegen to Muller, Muller to Canaris, Canaris to Vogel, and Vogel to Catherine Blake."

"Impressive," Vicary said. "The second reason?"

"The second reason is that we became aware late in 1943 that we had not accounted for all the German spies operating in Britain. We learned about Kurt Vogel, we learned about his network, and we learned one of his agents was a woman. But we had a serious problem. Vogel had taken such care in burying his agents in Britain that we couldn't locate them unless we brought them into the open. Remember, Bodyguard was about to go into full gear. We were going to bombard the Germans with a blizzard of false intelligence. But we couldn't feel comfortable knowing there were live active agents operating in the country. All of them had to be accounted for. Otherwise, we could never be certain the Germans weren't receiving intelligence that contradicted Bodyguard."

"How did you know about Vogel's network?"

"We were told about it."

"By whom?"

Boothby walked a few paces in silence, contemplating the muddy toes of his Wellington boots. "We were told about the network by Wilhelm Canaris," he said finally.

"Canaris?"

"Through one of his emissaries, actually. In 1943, late summer. This probably will come as a shock to you, but Canaris was a leader of the
Schwarze Kapelle.
He wanted support from Menzies and the Intelligence Service to help him overthrow Hitler and end the war. In a gesture of goodwill, he told Menzies about the existence of Vogel's network. Menzies informed the Security Service, and together we concocted a scheme called Kettledrum."

"Hitler's chief spy, a traitor. Remarkable. And you knew all this, of course. You knew it the night I was assigned the case. That briefing on the invasion and deception plans. . . . It was designed to ensure my blind loyalty. To motivate me, to manipulate me."

"I'm afraid so, yes."

"So the operation had two goals: deceive them about Mulberry and at the same time draw Vogel's agents into the open so we could neutralize them."

"Yes," Boothby said. "And one other thing--give Canaris a coup to keep his head off the block until the invasion. The last thing we wanted was Schellenberg and Himmler in control. The Abwehr was totally paralyzed and manipulated. We knew that if Schellenberg took over he would question everything Canaris had done. We didn't succeed there, of course. Canaris was fired, and Schellenberg finally got hold of the Abwehr."

"So why didn't Double Cross and Bodyguard collapse with the fall of Canaris?"

"Oh, Schellenberg was more interested in consolidating his empire than running a new crop of agents into England. There was an impressive bureaucratic reorganization--offices moved, files changing hands, that sort of thing. Overseas, he threw out experienced intelligence officers loyal to Canaris and replaced them with unseasoned bloodhounds loyal to the SS and the party. In the meantime, the case officers at Abwehr headquarters went to great lengths to prove the agents operating inside Britain were genuine and productive. Quite simply, it was a matter of life and death for those case officers. If they admitted their agents were under British control, they would have been on the first train east. Or worse."

They walked in silence for a time while Vicary absorbed all he had been told. His head was spinning. He had a thousand questions. He feared Boothby might shut down at any time. He arranged them in order of importance, setting aside his seething emotions. A cloud passed in front of the sun, and it became cold.

"Did it all work?" Vicary asked.

"Yes, it worked brilliantly."

"What about the Lord Haw-Haw broadcast?" Vicary had heard it himself, sitting in the drawing room of Matilda's cottage, and it had sent a shiver through him.
We know exactly what you intend to do with those concrete units. You think you are going to sink them on our coasts in the assault. Well, we're going to help you boys. . . .

"It sent panic through the Supreme Allied Command. At least on the surface," Boothby added smugly. "A very small group of officers knew of the Kettledrum deception and realized this was just the last act. Eisenhower cabled Washington and requested fifty picket ships to rescue the crews in case the Mulberries were sunk during the journey across the Channel. We made sure the Germans knew this. Tate, our double with a fictitious source inside SHAEF, transmitted a report of Eisenhower's request to his Abwehr controller. Several days later, the Japanese ambassador toured the coastal defenses and was briefed by Rundstedt. Rundstedt told him about the existence of the Mulberries and explained that an Abwehr agent had discovered they were antiaircraft gun towers. The ambassador cabled this information to his masters in Tokyo. That message, like all his other communications, was intercepted and decoded. At that moment, we knew Kettledrum had worked."

"Who ran the overall operation?"

"MI-Six, actually. They started it, they conceived it, and we let them run it."

"Who knew inside the department?"

"Myself, the DG, and Masterman from the Double Cross Committee."

"Who was the control officer?"

Boothby looked at Vicary. "Broome, of course."

"Who's Broome?"

"Broome is
Broome,
Alfred."

"There's just one thing I don't understand. Why was it necessary to deceive the case officer?"

Boothby smiled weakly, as though troubled by a mildly unpleasant memory. A pair of pheasant broke from the hedgerow and shot across the pewter-gray sky. Boothby stopped walking and stared at the clouds.

"Looks like rain," he said. "Perhaps we should start heading back."

They turned around and started walking.

"We deceived you, Alfred, because we wanted it all to feel real to the other side. We wanted you to take the same steps you might take in a normal case. You also had no need to know Jordan was working for us the entire time. It wasn't necessary."

"My God!" Vicary snapped. "So you ran me, just like any other agent. You
ran
me."

"You might say that, yes."

"Why was I chosen? Why not someone else?"

"Because you, like Peter Jordan, were perfect."

"Would you like to explain that?"

"We chose you because you were intelligent and resourceful and under normal circumstances you would have given them a run for their money. My God, you almost saw through the deception while the operation was under way. We also chose you because the tension between us was legendary." Boothby paused and looked down at Vicary. "You weren't exactly discreet in the way you ran me down to the rest of the staff. But most important, we chose you because you were a friend of the prime minister and the Abwehr realized this."

"And when you sacked me, you told the Germans about it through Hawke and Pelican. You hoped that the sacrifice of a personal friend of Winston Churchill's would bolster their belief in the Kettledrum material."

"Exactly. It was all part of the script. And it worked, by the way."

"And Churchill knew?"

"Yes, he knew. He personally approved it. Your old friend betrayed you. He loves black arts, our Winston. If he wasn't the prime minister, I think he would have been a deception officer. I think he rather enjoyed it all. I heard that little pep talk he gave you in the Underground War Rooms was a classic."

"Bastards," Vicary muttered. "Manipulative bastards. But then, I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I could be dead like the others. My God! Do you realize how many people died for the sake of your little game? Pope, his girl, Rose Morely, the two Special Branch men at Earl's Court, the four police officers at Louth and another one at Cleethorpes, Sean Dogherty, Martin Colville."

"You're forgetting Peter Jordan."

"For God's sake, you killed your own agent."

"No, Alfred,
you
killed him. You're the one who sent him out on that boat. I rather liked it, I must admit. The man whose personal carelessness almost cost us the war dies saving the life of a young girl and atones for his sins. That's how Hollywood would have done it. And that's what the Germans think really happened. And besides, the number of lives lost pales in comparison to the slaughter that would have taken place if Rommel had been waiting for us at Normandy."

"It's just credits and debits? Is that how you look at it? Like one giant accounting sheet? I'm glad I'm out! I don't want any part of it! Not if it means doing things like that. God, but we should have burned people like you at the stake a long time ago."

They crested a last hill. Vicary's house appeared before them in the distance. Matilda's flowering vines spilled over the protective limestone wall. He wanted to be back there--to slam his door and sit by the fire and never think of any of it again. He knew that was impossible now. He wanted to be rid of Boothby. He quickened his pace, pounding down the hill, nearly losing his balance. Boothby, with his long body and athletic legs, struggled to keep pace.

"You don't really feel that way, do you, Alfred? You liked it. You were seduced by it. You liked the manipulation and the deception. Your college wants you back, and you're not sure you want to go because you realize everything you've ever believed in is a lie and my world, this world, is the real world."

"You're not the real world. I'm not sure what you are, but you're not real."

"You can say that now, but I know you miss it all desperately. It's rather like a mistress, the kind of work we do. Sometimes you don't like her very much. You don't like yourself when you're with her. The moments when it feels good are fleeting. But when you try to leave her, something always pulls you back."

"I'm afraid the metaphor is lost on me, Sir Basil."

"There you go again, pretending to be superior, better than the rest of us. I would have thought you'd have learned your lesson by now. You need people like us. The country needs us."

They passed through the gate and into the drive. The gravel crunched beneath their feet. It reminded Vicary of the afternoon he was summoned to Chartwell and given the job at MI5. He remembered the morning at the Underground War Rooms, Churchill's words:
You must set aside whatever morals you still have, set aside whatever feelings of human kindness you still possess, and do whatever it takes to win.

At least someone had been honest with him, even if it was a lie at the time.

They stopped at Boothby's Humber.

"You'll understand if I don't invite you in for refreshment," Vicary said. "I'd like to go wash the blood off my hands."

BOOK: The Unlikely Spy

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