“Yes, sir.”
“And that for seven years you have been posing as German. Eventually joining their army and becoming a German intelligence officer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Remarkable. Most remarkable.”
Churchill sounded almost wistful at the thought of such an adventure. Alexsi wondered if he would have to disillusion the man by telling him he’d been dragged into the entire affair against his will. Blackmailed and threatened at every turn.
Serious again, Churchill said, “My question is this. As a Russian intelligence officer, was it possible that some lower-level official hatched this scheme without Stalin knowing of it?”
“No, sir,” Alexsi replied instantly. “Out of the question. No one in the Soviet Union would dare such a thing. No one. Not even Beria. This had to be approved by Stalin personally. There is nothing more certain.”
Churchill nodded gravely and drew on his cigar. He seemed lost in thought. And then, “I realize that only one man knows the answer to this question. But perhaps you can offer me some insight into why Stalin would do such a thing.”
“You mean plot your death, sir?”
“That is correct.”
“I can only guess.”
“Please indulge me.”
“You are an old-line anti-Bolshevik, sir. A dedicated foe of Communism since the time of the Revolution. If Stalin believes in nothing else, it is annihilating his enemies when the time is ripe.”
Churchill didn’t miss his hesitation. “And?”
“The Germans foolishly sneer at them. I do not know what the Russians think. But anyone with eyes can see that the Americans will be a great power after the war. Perhaps, sir, just as he was easily able to persuade them to reside in the Soviet embassy where the NKVD will be recording all their private conversations and reading their secret documents, Stalin feels that the Americans would be more easily persuaded in all things without you standing beside them.”
Now Churchill was rumbling with outrage. “And he would accept this monstrous risk?”
“Not much of a risk, sir. All the NKVD did was stand back and let the SS assassination team they had been observing all along take position in the house I obtained for them but never intended to be used. I am told the Soviets delayed you at the vehicle gate demanding proper identification? For a period of some time before I arrived? As if they had no idea who you were?”
Churchill nodded.
“They knew that a man such as yourself would never carry an identification card in his pocket. So you have an overzealous Russian private soldier delaying the prime minister of Great Britain over the proper identification required to enter a gate. Just stupidly following his orders to the letter. Anyone who knows soldiers would laugh. And I’m sure you laughed, sir, as you waited for someone in authority to come and straighten it out.”
His face fixed into that famous bulldog glower, Churchill nodded again.
“So all the Soviets have to do is make you a stationary target, sir, long enough for the Germans to take a clear shot. Stalin would not care in the least if they mowed down a score of Russian soldiers in the attempt. If the Germans succeed, all the Russians at the gate, and everyone who received the order to delay you, would be shot for criminal incompetence. The Germans who killed you would of course all die. Molotov would attend your funeral with an exquisite wreath of flowers, and most likely weep with emotion. They would perhaps name a street in Moscow in your honor. But if the Germans fail, heroic Russian soldiers gain the credit for saving the British prime minister. It was embarrassingly close, so everyone agrees to keep it secret from the world. And all the Russians along the line of the order will be shot just the same and silenced forever. Stalin takes his chance, and it costs him nothing. You are still his ally today, from necessity, and you will never love him in any case. This is how the man does his work, sir. He does not have to be this subtle in Russia.”
Churchill concentrated on his cigar again. “And his work in Russia is as evil as I imagine?”
“There are more in camps than live now in your nation, sir. Unless they have been driven out to die in front of the German guns. Not including countless numbers shot out of hand in dark cellars all over the Soviet Union.”
Churchill nodded, as if that was the answer he had been expecting. “One final question. Make no mistake, young man. I am deeply grateful to you for saving my life. But I am curious why you went to such extraordinary lengths to do so.”
Alexsi knew this was a man of vast experience. He would not accept being told that it was someone risking his life because it was the right thing to do. His instinct told him to tell the truth. “Sir, when I was in Berlin I informed Stalin when and how the Germans would invade the Soviet Union. I am sure there were other warnings.”
“I also informed him,” Churchill interjected.
“Yes, sir. He ignored them all. Eventually, every Russian who gave him this intelligence will have to die. Stalin will never let it be known that he sat back and allowed Hitler to invade and nearly conquer the Soviet Union. He cannot.”
Churchill went back to dreaming over his cigar.
Very much like Uncle Hans used to. Alexsi thought it was a fine way to make everyone wait while you thought things over. “And as I said before, sir. Sooner or later, every Russian with knowledge of this plot against you, even the very highest, will be liquidated.”
“And a man of your abilities could not manage to disappear without a trace?” Churchill inquired.
“I chose not to, sir,” Alexsi replied, boiling anger locked up behind his impassible Russian face. He’d saved the old bastard’s life. He didn’t expect them to kiss him like a Russian, but did he have to go down on his knees to beg the British Empire for refuge? Fine, he’d do it if he had to.
Churchill exhaled a puff of Cuban smoke. “You’re quite an extraordinary fellow, aren’t you?”
It did not come out as a compliment. Alexsi did not expect anyone to understand his story. All he said was “There is an old Russian saying, sir, that if you live among wolves you must act like a wolf.”
A brief flicker of enjoyment crossed Churchill’s face, as if he had been expecting another response and liked this one better. Now he rose, and Alexsi and the colonel rose along with him. He put out his hand to shake once more. “Thank you again, young man. We have high hopes for someone of your talents. Colonel—”
An undisguised warning glance from the colonel cut the prime minister off before he gave a name.
“Very well,” Churchill said, with barely disguised petulance at being corrected. “The colonel here will discuss these things with you.”
“Sir,” Alexsi said, confused. High hopes?
They remained standing until Churchill left the room. As the door closed they both sat down.
The colonel rushed to light a cigarette. “The prime minister thinks cigarettes are unhealthy. Ten cigars a day, and they’re unhealthy.”
“High hopes?” Alexsi said.
The colonel waved out his match. “The German woman you were with crashed her car into a bridge on the outskirts of Teheran. Dead.”
Alexsi nodded. No accident, there. The NKVD being thorough. “High hopes?” he repeated.
The colonel drew on his cigarette. “Having you with us is the most splendid opportunity. We intend to play you back into Germany as our agent. We’ve already begun negotiations through the Swiss to exchange you for a British intelligence officer in German captivity.”
Alexsi only nodded. The Englishman smiled, thinking he was in accord. But for Alexsi it was more along the lines of, Yes, that was exactly what I should have expected.
This was what happened when you were foolish enough to tell the truth.
64
1943 Teheran, Iran
The British Army chose its military police by size, like their Guards regiments. Except the Guards were chosen by height to appear uniform during ceremonies. The MPs for overall intimidation. The two that were walking
side by side took up the entire width of the embassy hallway. Perfectly creased olive battle dress. Gleaming black ammunition boots. White gaiters. White Sam Browne pistol belts. And the military police red covers atop their General Service caps. Incongruously, one carried a covered food tray. The lance corporal was carrying the tray. The sergeant was carrying nothing.
“Don’t reckon it,” said the lance. “A nice fry up. Egg and b, toast and tea. Treat him nice, they say. Breakfast in bed. But keep him locked up?”
“You don’t have to reckon it,” the sergeant said, in the way of sergeants in any army. “You just have to take the bloke his bloody breakfast.”
“Some kind o’ spy, in’t he?” the lance said persistently. “Gave Reg Smythe a turn on guard duty, I hear. Pops up right out of the grass, inside the walls mind you, nary a sight nor sound, and put a Tommy gun to his face. Holding talks with Winston himself.”
“You lot’ll talk your way into glasshouse,” the sergeant grumbled. “And you know what happens to redcaps who get locked up.”
They stopped in front of the door.
“Hold up,” the sergeant said. He made sure he had the key ready in his left hand. And unsnapped the flap of his pistol holster, exposing the butt of the Enfield revolver.
The lance just gave him a look that asked if all that drama was necessary.
The sergeant pounded his fist on the door. “Breakfast, sir.”
They both leaned forward slightly, but there was no answer.
The sergeant shrugged and put the key in the lock.
“Suppose he ain’t decent,” the lance said with a snigger.
“Comedian,” the sergeant said. He turned the key and swung the door open.
The room was empty. Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov was gone.
“Fuck me!” the lance exclaimed.
“There go me fuckin’ stripes,” the sergeant said mournfully.
Author’s Note
Since these are the days of fictional memoirs and nonfiction novels, I feel I should mention that this story is a work of fiction. But as it deals with the history of the twentieth century, perhaps a few final words are in order.
Operation Long Jump is mostly unknown in Western histories. It only achieved any notoriety in the Soviet Union, where it has long been a popular subject of both Soviet and then Russian history and fiction.
The historical record is clear on one point: that Stalin informed Churchill and Roosevelt of a Nazi plot to attack the Teheran Conference. As a precaution the Americans agreed to house their delegation in the Soviet embassy. British intelligence always maintained that they could find no corroborating evidence of any kind, even from their Ultra code-breaking program, which successfully read high-level German communications. They regarded Long Jump as classic Soviet disinformation with the aim of gaining access to the American negotiating positions at Teheran. But their secret archives on the period are still closed.
It is true that most Soviet/Russian accounts of Long Jump are highly contradictory and more reminiscent of their flamboyant wartime propaganda than anything else. Whenever an intelligence agency offers up a public account of its deeds, it should always be regarded, at best, as a tiny kernel of truth bundled up in lies in the service of an agenda. Though the NKVD/KGB intelligence archives opened briefly during the Yeltsin regime in the 1990s, they shut closed again and show no sign of ever becoming public.
Otto Skorzeny was tried as a war criminal, acquitted, and then escaped from American custody in 1948. He fled first to France, then Austria, and eventually settled in Spain. He remained an unrepentant Nazi who helped former SS men escape to South America and sold his military services to, among others, the Spanish fascist government, Argentina, and Egypt. It was rumored that he traded the Israeli intelligence service Mossad information on his clients in order to remain alive. He died of cancer in 1975. Skorzeny always insisted that Operation Long Jump never took place, and that the Soviets used his name in order to make their fictional account more plausible. However, he never denied Operation François, the 1943 SS plan for sabotage in Iran.
Abwehr chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was deeply involved in the resistance movement against Adolf Hitler, and after the failed assassination attempt against Hitler in 1944 he was imprisoned and all Abwehr intelligence operations were turned over to General Walter Schellenberg of the SD. Canaris went to the gallows, barefoot and naked, at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp shortly before Germany surrendered in 1945.
Despite being Heinrich Himmler’s right-hand man, Walter Schellenberg was a clever enough lawyer to never leave his signature on the record of any major war crimes. As the war ended he was in Sweden unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate a separate peace with the British and Americans on Himmler’s behalf. He was captured by the British in Denmark, testified against other Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, and was himself sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. He was released in 1951 on grounds of ill health and died of cancer in Turin, Italy, in 1952. Penniless. The French fashion designer Coco Chanel, who was most likely his agent and probably his lover, paid his funeral expenses.
Joseph Stalin died in 1953, as he was preparing to initiate another round of purges. He either suffered a stroke or was secretly administered the tasteless rat poison warfarin by his lieutenants, who took to heart the fate of their predecessors during the previous purges. An autopsy report that surfaced after the fall of the Soviet Union, genuine or not, indicated severe intestinal bleeding that would be inconsistent with a stroke. In any case, his guards were under strict orders not to disturb his sleep, so he lay in extremis for an entire day until the deputy commandant of his residence worked up enough nerve to enter his bedroom. He died four days later.
By all accounts the Teheran Conference of 1943 proceeded uneventfully. There were a number of fires in the city, at least one serious, as there are in any city on any given day.
Also by William Christie
The Warriors of God
Mercy Mission
The Blood We Shed
Threat Level
The Enemy Inside
Darkness Under Heaven (As F. J. Chase)
Bargain with the Devil (As F. J. Chase)
About the Author
WILLIAM CHRISTIE is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a former Marine Corps infantry officer who commanded a number of units and served around the world. In addition to A Single Spy, he has written eight other novels, published either under his own name or that of F. J. Chase.
Visit the author’s Web site at http://williamchristieauthor.com/ or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WilliamChristieAuthor/, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part I: The New Soviet Man
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part II: The Sling and the Stone
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
>
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Part III: Operation Countenance
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Part IV: Operation Long Jump
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Author’s Note
Also by William Christie
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A SINGLE SPY. Copyright © 2017 by William Christie. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-08081-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-9265-1 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466892651
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First Edition: April 2017
A Single Spy Page 34