The Unlikely Spy

  Evenings were Vogel's private preserve. After a group supper in the farmhouse kitchen, Vogel would lead Neumann into the study and lecture him by the fire. He never used notes, for Vogel, Neumann could see, had the gift of memory. Vogel told him of Sean Dogherty and the drop procedure. He told him of an agent named Catherine Blake. He told him of an American officer named Peter Jordan.

  Each night Vogel would cover old ground before adding another level of detail. Despite the informality of the country atmosphere, his wardrobe never changed: dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie. His voice was as annoying as a rusty hinge, yet it held Neumann with its intensity and singleness of purpose. On the sixth night, pleased with his pupil's progress, Vogel actually permitted himself a brief smile, which he quickly covered with his right hand, embarrassed by his dreadful teeth.

  Enter Hyde Park from the north, Vogel had reminded him during their final meeting. From Bayswater Road. Which Neumann did now. Follow the pathway to the trees overlooking the lake. Make one pass to make certain the place is clean. Make your approach on the second pass. Let her decide whether it will continue. She will know if it is safe. She is very good.

  The small man appeared on the pathway. He wore a wool overcoat and a brimmed hat. He walked briskly past without looking at her. She wondered if she was losing her power to attract men.

  She stood in the trees, waiting. The rules for the rendezvous were specific. If the contact does not appear exactly on time, leave and come back the following day. She decided to wait another minute, then leave.

  She heard the footsteps. It was the same man who had passed her a moment earlier. He nearly bumped into her in the dark.

  "I say, I do seem to be a bit lost," he said, in an accent she couldn't quite place. "Can you point me in the direction of Park Lane?"

  Catherine looked at him carefully. He wore an all-weather smile, his eyes burning bright blue beneath the brim of his hat.

  She pointed west. "It's in that direction."

  "Thank you." He started to walk away, then turned around. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?"

  "He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully."

  He smiled and said, "Catherine Blake, as I live and breathe. Why don't we go somewhere warm where we can talk?"

  Catherine reached inside her purse and removed her blackout torch.

  "Do you have one of these?" she asked.

  "Unfortunately, no."

  "That's a stupid mistake. And stupid mistakes like that could get us both killed."

  15

  LONDON

  While Harry Dalton was still on the Met he was considered a meticulous, shrewd, and relentless investigator who believed no lead, no matter how trivial, should be discarded. His big break came in 1936. Two young girls had vanished from an East End playground, and Harry was assigned to the crack team of officers investigating the case. After three sleepless days of digging, Harry arrested a drifter named Spencer Thomas. Harry handled the interrogation. At daybreak he led a search party to a secluded spot along the Thames Estuary, where Thomas had told him he would find the mutilated bodies of the girls. In the days that followed he also found the bodies of a prostitute in Gravesend, a waitress in Bristol, and a housewife in Sheffield. Spencer Thomas was locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane. Harry was promoted to detective-inspector.

  Nothing in his professional experience had prepared him for a day as frustrating as this. He was looking for a German agent but he didn't have a single clue or lead. His only recourse was to telephone local police forces and ask for reports of anything out of the ordinary, any crime that might be committed by a spy on the move. He couldn't tell them he was looking for a spy; that would be a breach of security. He was fishing, and Harry Dalton hated fishing.

  The conversation Harry had with a police officer in Evesham was typical.

  "What did you say your name was?"

  "Harry Dalton."

  "Calling from where?"

  "The War Office in London."

  "I see. What would you be wanting with me?"

  "I want to know whether you've had any reports of crimes that might be committed by someone on the run."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as stolen cars, stolen bicycles, stolen ration coupons, petrol. Use your imagination."

  "I see."

  "Well?"

  "We did have a report of a stolen bicycle."

  "Really! When?"

  "This morning."

  "That could be something."

  "Bicycles are bloody valuable these days. I had an old wreck rusting in my shed. Took it out, cleaned it up a bit, sold it to a Yank corporal for ten quid. Ten quid! Can you believe it? That thing wasn't worth ten shillings!"

  "That's interesting. What about the stolen bicycle?"

  "Hold on a minute--what did you say your name was?"

  "Harry."

  "Harry. Hold on a minute, Harry. . . . George, did we hear anything more about that missing bicycle up on Sheep Street? Yeah, that one. . . . What do you mean he found it? Where the hell was it? . . . In the middle of the pasture? How the hell did it get there? . . . He did! Christ Almighty! You with me, Harry?"

  "I'm still here."

  "Sorry, false alarm."

  "That's all right. Thanks for looking into it."

  "No problem."

  "If you hear of anything--"

  "You'll be the first to know, Harry."

  "Cheers."

  In the late afternoon he had fielded dozens of telephone calls from policemen in the countryside, one more bizarre than the next. An officer from Bridgewater called to report a broken window.

  Harry said, "Look like a breaking and entering?"

  "Not really."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it was the stained glass window at the church."

  "Right. Keep your eyes open."

  The police in Skegness reported someone trying to get into a pub after hours.

  Harry said, "The man I'm looking for may not be familiar with English licensing laws."

  "I'll look into it a little harder then."

  "Good, keep in touch."

  He called back twenty minutes later.

  "It was just a local woman looking for her husband. Terrible drunk, I'm afraid."

  "Damn!"

  "Sorry, Harry. Didn't mean to get your hopes up."

  "You did--but thanks for checking it out."

  Harry looked at his watch: four o'clock, shift change in Registry. Grace would be coming on duty. He thought, Maybe I can make something out of this day. He took the lift down to Registry and found her pushing a metal cart brimming with files. She had a shock of short, white-blond hair, and her cheap, bloodied wartime lipstick made her look as if she were tarted up for a man. She wore a schoolboy's gray woolen sweater and a black skirt that was a little too short. Her heavy stockings could not hide the shape of her long, athletic legs.

  She spotted Harry and smiled warmly. Within the world of Registry, Grace was the exception. Vernon Kell, the founder of the Service, believed only members of the aristocracy or relatives of MI5 officers could be trusted for such sensitive work. As a result, Registry was always populated with a staff of rather beautiful debutantes. But Grace was a middle-class girl, the daughter of a school-teacher. She spotted Harry and smiled warmly. Then, with only a sideways glance of her bright green eyes, she told him to meet her in one of the small side rooms. She joined him a moment later, closed the door, and kissed his cheek.

  "Hello, Harry darling. How have you been?"

  "Fine, Grace. Good to see you."

  It started in 1940 during a night raid over London. They sheltered together in the underground and in the morning, when the all clear sounded, she had taken him to her flat and to her bed. She was attractive in an unconventional way and a passionate, uninhibited lover--a pleasant, convenient escape from the pressure of the office. For Gr
ace, Harry was someone kind and gentle who would help pass the time until her husband came back from the army.

  They could have carried on that way the entire war. But three months into the affair Harry was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. The poor sod is fighting for his life in North Africa, and I'm here in London bedding his wife. The feelings provoked a deeper crisis for him. He was a young man; maybe he should be in the army risking his life instead of chasing relatively harmless spies around Britain. He told himself MI5's work was vital to the war effort--indispensable--but the nagging feelings of doubt persisted. What would I do on the battlefield? Would I pick up my gun and fight or would I cower in a foxhole? He told Grace about his feelings the next night when he broke off the affair. They made love one last time, her kisses salty with tears. Bloody war, she kept saying. Lousy, bloody, awful war.

  "I need a favor, Grace," Harry said, voice low.

  "Listen to you, Harry. You don't call, you don't write, you don't bring me flowers. Then you pop round and say you need a favor." She smiled and kissed him again. "All right, what do you need?"

  "I need to see the access list on a file."

  Her face darkened. "Come on, Harry. You know I can't do that."

  "An Abwehr man named Vogel--Kurt Vogel."

  A look of recognition flashed across her face, then dissipated.

  "Grace, I don't need to tell you we're working a very important case."

  "I know you're working on an important case, Harry. The whole department is buzzing about it."

  "When Vicary came down to pull Vogel's file, it was missing. He went to see Jago, and two minutes later he had the bloody thing in his hand. Jago spun some yarn about it being mislaid."

  She was angrily digging through the files on the cart. She grabbed a bunch and began replacing them on the shelves.

  "I know all about it, Harry."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because he blamed it on me. He wrote a letter of reprimand and put it in my file, the bastard."

  "Who blamed you?"

  "Jago!" she hissed.

  "Why?"

  "To cover his arse, that's why."

  She was digging through the files again. Harry reached out and took her hands in his to make her stop. "Grace, I need to see that access list."

  "The access list won't tell you anything. The person who had that file before Vicary doesn't leave a trail."

  "Grace, please. I'm begging."

  "I like it when you beg, Harry."

  "Yeah, I remember."

  "Why don't you come over for some dinner one night?" She dragged the tip of her finger over the back of Harry's hand. It was black from sorting files. "I miss your company. We'll talk, have a few laughs, nothing else."

  "I'd like that, Grace." It was the truth. He missed her very much.

  "If you tell anyone where you got this, Harry, so help me God--"

  "It stays between you and me."

  "Not even Vicary," she insisted. Harry put his hand over his heart. "Not even Vicary." Grace picked up another handful of files, then looked up at him. With her bloodred lips she mouthed the initials BB.

  "How is it possible you don't have a single lead?" Basil Boothby said as Vicary sank down into the deep overstuffed couch. Sir Basil had demanded nightly updates on the progress of the investigation. Vicary, knowing Boothby's passion for having things in writing, suggested a concise note, but Sir Basil wanted to be briefed in person.

  Tonight, Boothby had an engagement. He had mumbled something about "the Americans" to explain the fact he was dressing in his formal wear when Vicary was shown into the office. While he spoke his big paw was engaged in an abortive effort to stuff a gold cuff link through the starched cuff of his shirt. Sir Basil had a valet to assist him with such tedious tasks at home.

  Vicary's briefing was suspended a moment while Boothby summoned his pretty secretary to help him dress. It gave him a moment to process the information Harry had given him. It was Sir Basil who had pulled Vogel's file. He tried to remember their first conversation. What was it Boothby had said? Registry may have something on him.

  Boothby's secretary slipped quietly out. Vicary resumed his briefing. They had men watching every rail station in London. Their hands were tied because they had no description of the agents they were supposed to be looking for. Harry Dalton had compiled a list of every known location used by German agents for rendezvous points. Vicary had men watching as many of those as he could.

  "I'd give you more men, Alfred, but there aren't any," Boothby said. "The watchers are all pulling double and triple shifts. The head of the watchers is complaining to me that you're running them into the ground. The cold is killing them. Half of them have been struck down by the flu."

  "I'm sympathetic to the plight of the watchers, Sir Basil. I'm using them as judiciously as possible."

  Boothby lit a cigarette and sipped his gin and bitters while pacing the length of the room. "We have three German agents loose in the country outside our control. I don't need to tell you how serious this is. If one of those agents tries to contact one of our doubles, we're going to be in trouble. The whole Double Cross apparatus will be in jeopardy."

  "My guess is they won't try to contact any other agents."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I think Vogel is running his own show. I think we're dealing with a separate network of agents we never knew about."

  "That's just a hunch, Alfred. We need to deal with the facts."

  "Ever read Vogel's file?" Vicary said, as carelessly as possible.

  "No."

  And you're a liar, Vicary thought. "Judging by the way this affair has unfolded, I'd say Vogel has kept a network of sleeper agents inside Britain, on ice, since before the beginning of the war. If I had to guess, the primary agent is operating in London, the subagent somewhere in the countryside, where he could take in an agent on short notice. The agent who arrived last night is almost certainly here to brief the lead agent on his assignment. For all we know, they're meeting right now as we speak. And we're falling further and further behind."

  "Interesting, Alfred, but it's all based on guesswork."

  "Educated guesswork, Sir Basil. In the absence of hard, provable facts, I'm afraid that's our only recourse." Vicary hesitated, aware of the response his next suggestion was likely to generate. "In the meantime, I think we should schedule a meeting with General Betts to brief him on developments."

  Boothby's face sagged into an angry frown. Brigadier General Thomas Betts was the deputy chief of intelligence at SHAEF. Tall, bearlike, Betts had one of the most unenviable jobs in London--making sure none of the several hundred American and British officers who knew the secret of Overlord gave that secret, intentionally or unintentionally, to the enemy.

  "That's premature, Alfred."

  "Premature? You said it yourself, Sir Basil. We have three German spies on the loose."

  "I've got to go down the hall and brief the director-general in a moment. If I suggest to him that we broadcast our failures to the Americans, he will fall on me from a very great height."

  "I'm sure the DG won't be too hard on you, Sir Basil." Vicary knew that Boothby had convinced the director-general that he was indispensable. "Besides, it's hardly a failure."

  Boothby stopped pacing. "What would you call it?"

  "A temporary setback."

  Boothby snorted and crushed out his cigarette. "I will not permit you to tarnish the reputation of this department, Alfred. I won't have it."

  "Perhaps there's something else you should consider besides the reputation of this department, Sir Basil."

  "What's that?"

  Vicary struggled out of the soft, deep couch. "If the spies succeed, we may very well lose the war."

  "Well, then, do something, Alfred."

  "Thank you, Sir Basil. That's certainly sound advice."

  16

  LONDON

  From Hyde Park they took a taxi into Earl's Court. They paid off the driver a quarter mile
from her flat. During the short walk they doubled back twice, and Catherine made a bogus call from a phone box. They were not being tailed. Her landlady, Mrs. Hodges, was in the hall as they arrived. Catherine threaded her arm through Neumann's. Mrs. Hodges shot her a glance of disapproval as they walked upstairs.

  Catherine was reluctant to take him to her flat. She had jealously protected its whereabouts and refused to provide the address to Berlin. The last thing she needed was some agent on the run from MI5 to come pounding on her door in the middle of the night. But meeting in public was out of the question; they had much to discuss, and doing it in a cafe or a railway station was too dangerous.

  She watched Neumann as he led himself on a tour of her flat. She could tell by the precise walk and economical gestures that he had been a soldier once. His English was flawless. Clearly, Vogel had chosen him carefully. At least he wasn't sending some rank amateur to brief her. He went to the drawing room window, parted the curtains, and gazed down into the street.

  "Even if they're out there, you'll never spot them," Catherine said as she sat down.

  "I know--but it makes me feel better to look." He came away from the window. "It's been a long day. I could use a cup of tea."

  "Everything you need is in the kitchen. Help yourself."

  Neumann set water on the stove to boil, then came back into the room.

  "What's your name?" she asked him. "Your real name."