Ring of Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  That was another area in which Franz Rauter had been smart.

  He’d made himself indispensable.

  * * *

  That morning he’d stopped as usual at the run-down café on the corner of Ludendorff Strasse, and was pleased to see that the seat at the end of the bar and against the wall was vacant. The one-armed owner gave him the usual knowing look and without exchanging a word handed him a cup of something that in Rauter’s opinion was the closest he was going to get to coffee around Potsdamer Strasse that morning. At least it was hot, and the cup looked like it had been rinsed since the last person had drunk from it. A bun appeared in front of him on a plate, and although it would be hard, with a hint of sawdust, he knew it could be made palatable by dunking it in the hot drink.

  He removed a copy of Der Angriff from the rack on the wall next to him. Tucked away on an inside page was a short report about ‘measures being taken against large-scale criminal activity in Warsaw’, which he supposed was one way of describing the uprising. The fact that the report was on an inside page indicated that things weren’t going well. All over Europe cities the Nazis had taken for granted were beginning to crumble. He wondered about Brussels and what would happen to the two incompetent Gestapo officers who’d called him there so needlessly. He reckoned they’d escape in time: like rats on a sinking ship the Gestapo were usually the first out. The mischievous part of him hoped not, but then he worried that if they had been captured, they might not keep their mouths shut.

  He finished his breakfast and made his way to what had been the Abwehr building on Tirpitzufer but was now merely an outstation of the RSHA. His office was small and overflowing with files, which he had to edge through to get to his desk. At least he now had the office to himself and a reasonable view over the canal. At times it could even be quite peaceful.

  But that morning he didn’t make it as far as his office. No sooner had he emerged into the corridor than he was intercepted by Kramer, who liked to see himself as some kind of office manager but was probably there to keep an eye on Rauter and his colleagues.

  ‘You’re wanted at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, now!’

  He barked the last word like an instruction on the parade ground. It was accompanied by a toothy yellow smile and a face etched with schadenfreude.

  ‘Very well: and does anyone there in particular want me, Herr Kramer?’

  Kramer told him he was to report to the front desk. ‘And you’re to leave now!’

  Normally a summons to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse would be quite ominous, but Rauter was pretty sure as he left Tirpitzufer and walked across Potsdamer Platz and Saarland Strasse into the headquarters of the RSHA that he wasn’t being watched. Had he been in trouble, he wouldn’t have been left to his own devices like this, though it still didn’t mean he had no reason to worry.

  He was escorted to an office on an upper floor, the dimly lit one where the three men faced him across a table. He was certain they were all long-standing SD officers, revelling in the fact that the Sicherheitsdienst were now running everything. The SD was the intelligence arm of the SS though Rauter felt the emphasis was on the SS rather than on intelligence.

  The Austrian with the hard-to-understand accent seemed to be in charge. He leaned forward, his head out of the shadow, revealing a long, thin face with a jaw that tapered to a sharp point.

  ‘Agent Milton.’

  There was a silence clearly meant as an invitation for Rauter to say something. He knew he had to resist coming across as too clever, but he wasn’t in the mood to volunteer any more information than he had to.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What of him, Rauter?’

  ‘I have been providing regular reports, as you may be aware. Last September, Admiral Canaris took the view that it was the right time to start using Agent Milton, and I—’

  ‘Admiral Canaris is under arrest, Rauter.’

  ‘But he wasn’t in September last year, sir. He and I agreed we would activate Agent Milton and that we needed to send over an agent to liaise between him and his radioman, Agent Byron. As you know, there was an instruction that recruitment of this agent was to be handled by Section 6 of the SD. Unfortunately that has not gone well.’

  The three men shifted awkwardly. The Austrian spoke.

  ‘Remind me what happened, please, Rauter.’

  Franz Rauter straightened himself in the chair.

  ‘A series of disappointments, sir, I’d be the first to admit that, but—’

  ‘There are no buts.’

  ‘I was simply going to add that none of the three agents we lost was recruited by me. I am on record as having expressed reservations about all of them. As far as we can gather, Agent Keats was killed by a train as he tried to escape from the British police last November. We cannot be sure whether he deliberately threw himself in front of it or if it was an accident.’

  ‘But either way—’

  ‘Either way, he’s dead. The following month we lost contact with Agent Shelley. We don’t know what happened for sure, but we do know he was found dead in his bedsit in Coventry. The likelihood is that he died of natural causes: one of my reservations about him was that he was clearly not a well man, certainly not well enough to be sent on a mission like that.’

  ‘And Agent Dryden?’

  ‘In March this year, there was a report in a number of British newspapers that a Polish national by the name of Jan Dabrowski was killed in an accident with a lorry near a railway station in Birmingham. Jan Dabrowski was one of Agent Dryden’s identities, and the date given was the same one he was due to travel to London. There was a photograph that was unquestionably of Agent Dryden: according to the report, he’d been arrested a day or two before for being drunk. That is certainly feasible: one of the reservations I had about him was his fondness for alcohol.’

  ‘You seem very ready with your reservations about our agents, Rauter. I presume you have none about Agent Milton?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t – he recruited him!’ said one of the other men.

  ‘To be more accurate, sir, I inherited him. Helmut Krüger recruited him.’

  ‘And what was it that happened in Brussels last month – something to do with Agent Milton?’

  ‘It was a false alarm, sir, quite unnecessary and why on earth the Gestapo there thought—’

  ‘The Gestapo rarely make mistakes, Herr Rauter. And so you are still not in contact with Agent Milton?’

  ‘Since the presumed death of Agent Dryden, it was felt we ought to pause. We don’t want to do anything that could alert the British to Agent Milton. As far as we know from Agent Byron, Milton hasn’t been compromised.’

  ‘We think,’ said the Austrian, ‘you have waited far too long to activate Agent Milton. If the military setbacks we’re currently experiencing are to be reversed, we need to use all our resources, not least our intelligence agents. If we can even just delay the Allied advance, then who knows, the weapons we are developing could well alter the course of the war. It’s one thing having a sleeper agent, but this one could be regarded as comatose. We need to wake him up!’ All three men behind the table laughed heartily. ‘We cannot afford to have the luxury of an apparently well-placed agent who’s not doing anything. You can assure us, can you, Rauter, that everything is in order and you’re ready to commence when we give you the order to do so?’

  ‘I think everything is in order, sir, but obviously we need to send over an agent before we activate Milton. We would need to recruit someone.’

  ‘Do you have anyone in mind for that?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure I was permitted to have a role in that respect, sir.’

  ‘That attitude, Rauter, is precisely why the Abwehr has been so distrusted.’ It was another of the men, a Berliner by the sounds of it. ‘Given that you’ve had so many reservations about the agents we’ve suggested, perhaps you’d like to recruit this one? You clearly know best.’

  ‘You’d better pull your finger out
,’ added the Austrian. ‘We need to get someone over there very quickly – understand?’

  ‘And be in no doubt, Rauter,’ said the Berliner, ‘this agent you recruit cannot fail: if he does, the blame will fall squarely on you.’

  Chapter 7

  Berlin and London, September 1944

  Like an uninvited guest at a wedding, Franz Rauter hung around the landing by the staircase on the fourth floor of Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse that Monday morning, 11 September, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the well-guarded door leading to the corridor where SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg had his office.

  Once or twice a guard had come over and pointedly asked if he could help, and Rauter had assured him there was no need to worry, he was waiting for someone. Some of the people hurrying past gave a ‘who invited him?’ look in his direction. He knew many of them by sight even if they’d struggle to put a name to his face.

  He’d been waiting on the landing for an awkward half an hour when the guards at the corridor entrance snapped to attention and the doors swung open. Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg was at the head of a small entourage, which moved quickly towards the stairs. Franz Rauter hurried across the landing and found himself face to face with the head of the Reich Main Security Office, only just remembering in time to greet him with a Heil Hitler.

  ‘Good morning, Brigadeführer. My name is Franz Rauter and I’m based at Tirpitzufer. I’m sorry for approaching you in this manner but I do need to see you as a matter of urgency.’

  Schellenberg stopped and looked at him, unsure of what to make of the situation. One of his aides stepped forward as if to move Rauter away, but the Brigadeführer waved him back.

  ‘Rauter, did you say?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What do you want, Rauter?’

  ‘As I say, sir, to see you as a matter of some urgency.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re aware there are channels you should be going through. Your head of unit should contact my office and arrange a meeting.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no time for protocol, sir.’

  ‘Please, Rauter, I’m in a hurry. I have a meeting in the Reich Chancellery and I can’t possibly imagine that what you want to see me about can be more important than that!’ Schellenberg smiled and the group behind him laughed obediently.

  ‘As it happens, sir, it may well be.’

  Walter Schellenberg stepped back to get a better look at this man in a smart civilian suit who was either mad or needed to be listened to.

  ‘Very well, Rauter. I’ll be back from the Reich Chancellery at two o’clock and I’ll see you then. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this had better not be a waste of my time.’

  * * *

  When SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg returned to his office just before two o’clock that afternoon, Franz Rauter was sitting patiently in his outer office. Schellenberg was followed in by a young aide-de-camp.

  ‘Tell me, Hauptsturmführer Böhme, what we know about this Franz Rauter?’

  ‘He’s a former police officer from Hamburg, sir, where he was very highly regarded. He joined the Abwehr in 1932 and has a good record of recruiting and running agents. There is nothing negative on his file, sir.’

  ‘Well there wouldn’t be, would there, Klaus, otherwise he’d have been got rid of like the rest of those traitors at Tirpitzufer. Tell me, is he a party member?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘When did he join?’

  ‘Last year, sir.’

  ‘Better late than never, I suppose. What else does his file say?’

  ‘He’s regarded as a professional intelligence officer rather than a loyalist to the regime, so he’s not one of us, sir.’

  ‘But not one of them either.’

  ‘There is one other matter, sir: last month his work was reviewed by department 6B, who were concerned that he has a well-placed source in England who has not yet been activated as an agent. There was some discussion about who was responsible for sending over a contact. Rauter was instructed to activate this agent.’

  ‘Maybe it’s in connection with that. What is the agent’s name?’

  ‘Milton.’

  * * *

  Since inheriting Agent Milton from Helmut Krüger, Franz Rauter had regarded the Englishman as his insurance policy, not unlike his membership of the Nazi Party. Now he realised he was even more valuable than that. Since the Abwehr had been absorbed into the RSHA and Canaris, Oster and so many other Abwehr officers had been arrested, he saw Agent Milton as a possible reprieve from the death sentence that so many of his former colleagues seemed to face. It was for this reason that he was holding the intelligence he’d just received from Agent Milton tightly to his chest. He knew he’d taken a risk by insisting on seeing Brigadeführer Schellenberg in person, but he wanted to be certain his name was associated with the information he was about to deliver.

  He was angry that the message sent by Agent Byron had taken so long to reach him. Byron had transmitted on the Friday evening, but for some unaccountable reason – laziness, no doubt – the message had been waiting for him when he arrived at Tirpitzufer that Monday morning. He should have been contacted over the weekend.

  The head of the RSHA was lounging behind his desk. He pointed to a chair and told Hauptsturmführer Böhme to leave. Then he held out a hand in Rauter’s direction, the conductor cueing a minor section of his orchestra.

  ‘I have an agent, sir, in England. He—’

  ‘Would this be Agent Milton?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Agent Milton was identified by a sympathetic British national in 1933 and then recruited by an Abwehr officer called Helmut Krüger between 1934 and 1935. We instructed him to join the British Army in 1938. I took him over in 1939 when Herr Krüger died. The plan had always been to do nothing with him for a while, until he reached a position where he could be of most use to us. We instructed him to apply for secondment to his brigade headquarters, and then to brigade intelligence, and from there he went to his divisional headquarters. He applied for a transfer to the Directorate of Military Intelligence at the War Office: this had been our intention for him all along, but the feeling was that it should not be rushed; we wanted his transfers to appear to be part of the normal course of events.

  ‘He was due to start at the War Office in July, but when the Allies were struggling a bit in Normandy, he was sent over there and was wounded in the shoulder, though not too seriously. In August I was instructed to activate him come what may, and was able to recruit and send over a decent contact agent, Agent Donne. Happily this coincided with Agent Milton finally starting work at the War Office.’

  ‘Which is all somewhat interesting, Rauter, but surely—’

  ‘If you please, sir. Milton’s first task at the War Office was to work on an Allied plan to invade the Reich through the Netherlands by outflanking our forces. They are going to attempt to do this by a combination of land troops advancing across the Belgian border and heading into the Netherlands through Eindhoven, and large detachments of airborne troops who will… Would it be possible, sir, to go over to your map wall?’

  The two men stood in front of a map of northern Europe.

  ‘The terrain in that area is very difficult for land forces: it’s marshy, the roads are narrow and the area is crisscrossed by canals and rivers. Their plan is for the parachute divisions – there is some talk as to whether there’ll be three or four of them – to capture the bridges over key canals and rivers, specifically here, sir, the Meuse at Grave and the Waal at Nijmegen. Their main objective, though, will be here…’

  Rauter glanced over at the Brigadeführer and could see he was now interested – leaning forward, concentrating hard.

  ‘…at Arnhem, and specifically these two bridges over the Rhine: the railway bridge to the west of the town and the main road bridge into the centre. They’ll look to land their airborne troops as close as possible to the bridges. Once they’ve secured them, their armoured divisions and infantry
– our intelligence is that this will be led by XXX Corps of the British Army – will advance from behind, across the secured bridgeheads and through the Netherlands.’

  Schellenberg stepped back, deep in thought, his hand stroking his chin. ‘Do you have any further detail, Rauter?’

  ‘Not yet, sir. The system we’re using with Milton is a very secure one, but it does have limitations. We cannot afford to risk him being caught anywhere near a radio transmitter or with any documentation on him. He is alerted through coded telephone calls, and that’s how meets are arranged, where the intelligence is passed on to Agent Donne by word of mouth. Donne then takes it to the radioman – an Agent Byron – who transmits it to us. That way Milton will always be clean: they’ll never discover incriminating evidence on him or in his apartment. If he’s followed and stopped either on his own or with his contact agent, they’ll find nothing.’

  ‘Wait here, Rauter.’ Brigadeführer Schellenberg went to the door and called his aide over. From what Rauter could gather, he was instructing him to make some urgent calls.

  ‘I don’t need to stress to you how important this information is,’ he said when he returned. ‘It is to be divulged to no one else – you understand? I have no doubt the High Command will want more detail. I want you to move over here – I will find you space on my corridor. The first thing you will do is contact Milton and demand that he provides more information, as much detail as he can. And then I want a thorough report from you, Rauter: the recruitment of Milton, background on him, any corroborating intelligence we have.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘One question I do have, Rauter…’ Schellenberg was standing in the doorway and Rauter had already got up to leave. ‘If I was being very cynical, I’d wonder about such a fortunate coincidence.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow you, sir?’

  ‘When was it you say you sent over this contact agent?’

  ‘Agent Donne, sir? He arrived in London on the last day of August, I believe.’