He spent the night at his house in Chelsea. He awakened at dawn, rain rattling against the windows. It was June 6. He switched on the BBC to listen to the news and heard that the invasion was on.
Vicary went out at midday expecting to see nervous crowds and anxious chatter, but London was dead quiet. A few people ventured out to shop; a few went into churches to pray. Taxis cruised the empty streets in search of fares.
Vicary watched Londoners as they went about their day. He wanted to run up and shake them and say, Don't you know what's happening? Don't you realize what it took? Don't you know the clever, wicked things we did to deceive them? Don't you know what they did to me?
He took his supper at the corner pub and listened to the upbeat bulletins on the wireless. That night, alone again, he listened to the King's address to the nation; then he went to bed. In the morning he took a taxi to Paddington Station and caught the first train back to Gloucestershire.
Gradually, by summer, his days took on a careful routine.
He rose early and read until lunch, which he took each day in the village at the Eight Bells: vegetable pie, beer, meat when it was on the menu. From the Eight Bells he would set off for his daily forced march over the breezy footpaths around the village. Each day it took a little less time for the cobwebs to clear from his ruined knee, and by August he was walking ten miles each afternoon. He gave up cigarettes and took up a pipe. The rituals of the pipe--the loading, the cleaning, the lighting, and the relighting--fitted his new life perfectly.
He was not aware of the exact day it happened--the day it all faded from his conscious thoughts: his cramped office, the clatter of the teleprinters, the vile food in the canteen, the crazy lexicon of the place: Double Cross . . . Mulberry . . . Phoenix . . . Kettledrum. Even Helen receded to a sealed chamber of his memory where she could do no more harm. Alice Simpson started coming on weekends and stayed for an entire week in early August.
On the last day of summer he was overcome by the gentle melancholia that afflicts country people when the warm weather is ending. It was a glorious dusk, the horizon streaked in purple and orange, the first bite of autumn in the air. The primroses and bluebells were long gone. He remembered an evening like this half a lifetime ago when Brendan Evans taught him to ride a motorcycle along the pathways of the Fens. It was not quite cold enough for fires, but from his hilltop perch he could see the chimneys of the village gently smoking and taste the sharp scent of green wood on the air.
He saw it then, played out on the hillsides, like the solution of a chess problem. He could see the lines of attack, the preparation, the deception. Nothing had been as it seemed.
Vicary rushed back to the cottage, telephoned the office, and asked for Boothby. Then he realized it was late and it was a Friday--the days of the week meant nothing to him any longer--but by some miracle Boothby was still there, and he answered his own telephone.
Vicary identified himself. Boothby expressed genuine pleasure at hearing his voice. Vicary assured him he was fine.
"I want to talk to you," Vicary said, "about Kettledrum."
There was silence on the line, but Vicary knew Boothby had not abruptly hung up because he could hear him fidgeting in his chair.
"You can't come here any longer, Alfred. You're persona non grata. So I suppose I'll have to come to you."
"Fine. And don't pretend you don't know how to find me because I see your watchers stalking me."
"Tomorrow, midday," Boothby said and rang off.
Boothby arrived promptly at noon in an official Humber, dressed for the country in tweeds, a shirt open at the neck, and a comfortable cardigan sweater. It had rained overnight. Vicary dug out a pair of extra-large Welling-tons from the cellar for Boothby, and they walked like old chums around a meadow dotted with shorn sheep. Boothby chatted about department gossip and Vicary, with considerable effort, feigned interest.
After a while Vicary stopped walking and gazed into the middle distance. "None of it was real, was it?" he said. "Jordan, Catherine Blake--it was all bad right from the beginning."
Boothby smiled seductively. "Not quite, Alfred. But something like that."
He turned and continued walking, his long body a vertical line against the horizon. Then he paused and gestured for Vicary to join him. Vicary broke into his stiff-jointed mechanized limp, chasing after Boothby, beating his pockets for his half-moon glasses.
"It was the nature of Operation Mulberry that presented us with the problem," Boothby began, without warning. "Tens of thousands of people were involved. Of course, the vast majority had no idea what they were working on. Still, the potential for security leaks was tremendous. The components were so large they had to be built right out in the open. The sites were scattered around the country, but some of it was built right at the London docks. As soon as we were told of the project, we knew we had a problem. We knew the Germans would be able to photograph the sites from the air. We knew one decent spy poking around the construction sites could probably figure out what we were up to. We sent one of our men to Selsey to test out the security. He was having tea in the canteen with some of the workers before anyone bothered to ask him for identification."
Boothby laughed mildly. Vicary watched him as he spoke. All the bombast, all the fidgeting, was gone. Sir Basil was calm and collected and pleasant. Vicary thought under different circumstances he might actually have liked him. He had the sickening realization he had underestimated Boothby's intelligence from the beginning. He was also struck by his use of the words we and us. Boothby was a member of the club; Vicary had only been allowed to press his nose against the glass for a brief interval.
"The biggest problem was that Mulberry betrayed our intentions," Boothby resumed. "If the Germans discovered we were building artificial harbors, they might very well have concluded that we intended to avoid the heavily fortified ports of Calais by striking at Normandy. Because the project was so large and difficult to conceal, we had to assume that the Germans would eventually find out what we were up to. Our solution was to steal the secret of Mulberry for them and try to control the game." Boothby looked at Vicary. "All right, Alfred, let's hear it. I want to know how much you've really figured out."
"Walker Hardegen," Vicary said. "I'd say it all started with Walker Hardegen."
"Very good, Alfred. But how?"
"Walker Hardegen was a wealthy banker and business-man, ultraconservative, anticommunist, and probably a little anti-Semitic. He was Ivy League, and he knew half the people in Washington. Went to school with them. The Americans aren't so unlike us in that respect. His business regularly took him to Berlin. When men like Hardegen went to Berlin, they attended embassy dinners and parties. They dined with the heads of Germany's biggest companies and with Nazi officials from the party and the ministries. Hardegen spoke perfect German. He probably admired some of the things the Nazis were doing. He believed Hitler and the Nazis were an important buffer between the Bolsheviks and the rest of Europe. I'd say during one of his visits he came to the attention of the Abwehr or the SD."
"Bravo, Alfred. It was the Abwehr, actually, and the man whose attention he captured was Paul Muller, head of Abwehr operations in America."
"Okay, Muller recruited him. Oh, I suppose he probably soft-pedaled it. Said Hardegen wouldn't really be working for the Nazis. He'd be helping in the struggle against international communism. He asked Hardegen for information on American industrial production, the mood in Washington, things like that. Hardegen said yes and became an agent. I have one question. Was Hardegen already an American agent at this point?"
"No," Boothby said, and smiled. "Remember, this is very early in the game, 1937. The Americans weren't terribly sophisticated then. They did know, however, that the Abwehr was active in the United States, especially in New York. The year before, the plans for the Nor-den bombsight walked out of the country in the briefcase of an Abwehr spy named Nikolaus Ritter. Roosevelt had ordered Hoover to crack down. In 1939, Hardegen was photographed meeting
in New York with a known Abwehr agent. Two months later, they saw him again, meeting with another Abwehr agent in Panama City. Hoover wanted to arrest him and put him on trial. God, but the Americans were such plods at the game. Luckily, MI-Six had set up its office in New York by then. They stepped in and convinced Hoover that Hardegen was more use to us still in the game than sitting in some prison cell."
"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."