“Zigzag is fully convinced20 that the Germans will pay him,” wrote Laurie Marshall. “He does not ask the British authorities to pay any money to him or to his descendants.”
This was all most confusing for the more literal-minded members of MI5. Here was a grasping thief who seemed to have no interest in money for himself. Backwell had also noted that while Chapman was keen “to get as much money21 as he can from the Germans, he does not seem very interested in the financial side of the undertaking.” He was scrupulous in paying his share of expenses, and once remarked wryly that with the cash he had brought over, he was “paying for his stay”22 at Crespigny Road.
Under Masterman’s “principle of generosity,”23 double agents should be compensated. But how much? Laurie Marshall, an accountant in peacetime, now began totting up Chapman’s net worth as a spy. First, there was “the risk to his life24 which he will incur on our behalf: he will do his utmost not to betray us [but] if his betrayal of the Germans is discovered he will pay with his life.” An additional factor was the value of the information he might obtain in the future: “If Zigzag successfully25 reinstates himself with the Germans, he will be in a unique position to give us full information on the activities of the German SS in France, as soon as we are able to catch up with him.” Yet there was also an entry on the other side of the ledger: “We cannot be absolutely certain that Zigzag, once returned to his friends in Nantes, will maintain 100% loyalty to us, nor can it be sure that he will fully carry out the mission given to him—he may carry out some individual task of his own. It is not considered that he will fail us, but we cannot have complete certainty.”
The equation was therefore: Chapman’s life plus the value of his intelligence, minus the possibility that he might turn traitor, fail, or head off on some wild freelance mission. The accountant carefully added it all up and advised that “substantial payment be made now to Zigzag [and] a further substantial payment should be promised after the successful completion of his mission or our obtaining information that although he had worked loyally for us, his mission had been unsuccessful owing to his being suspected by the Germans.” The money should be added to the cash already paid over, and if Chapman failed to return the total would automatically be paid to Freda and her daughter. In the meantime, a savings account would be opened, and the money invested in a 3.5 percent war loan. That way, the man being sought by British police and employed by two rival secret services would not only be profiting from the war, but investing in it. The money would be held in the London Co-Operative Society. Chapman had always favored co-ops, though more for what he might take out of them than for what he could put into them.
So far, Zigzag’s double cross had gone without a hitch, and that, to Reed’s cautious mind, was a cause for concern: “It was almost too good26 to be true and much more reasonable that arrangements should go a little wrong.” Chapman agreed: Everything was “going rather too smoothly.”27 Von Gröning would surely appreciate him even more if matters appeared to go slightly awry. Jimmy Hunt, or his fictional doppelgänger, would be the fall guy.
Chapman had already informed the Germans that he had recruited Hunt as an accomplice, and that he owed him £15,000 for his notional part in the De Havilland factory sabotage. Since it had been decided that Chapman would be returning alone, the fictional Hunt now needed to be disposed of, preferably in such a way as to put the wind up the Germans.
On the morning of February 9, midway through sending a message to France, Chapman and Reed deliberately broke off the transmission with PPPPP, the agreed-upon danger signal. Once again, the Germans failed to spot the warning. Reed was incensed: “After making such28 careful arrangements for Zigzag to indicate that the police were on his track, they had failed him in practice.” The stakes would have to be raised.
The following day another message was sent: FFFFF DANGEROUS TO CONTINUE29 TRANSMITTING. THINGS GETTING AWKWARD. ESSENTIAL COME BACK WITH JIMMY. HAVE IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS. SHIPS PAPERS HARD TO OBTAIN.
The story Chapman would tell the Germans was this: Jimmy Hunt had seen the German message refusing to send a submarine and, suspecting that he might not be paid, had begun to make trouble, demanding that he accompany Chapman back to France; the PPPPP signal had been sent, he would explain, because Jimmy had spotted a police car, which they suspected might be intercepting radio transmissions.
Once again, the German reply was complacent, ignoring the awkwardness Chapman had referred to and requesting more information on the bombing of the factory. Chapman sent a terse message saying that the substations at the factory had been “completely destroyed” by placing “60 lbs. of gelignite under the transformers.” This was followed by another message saying that he had “seen a chance30 to return to Lisbon and asking if preparations had been made to receive him.” To this, there was no reply. Clearly, the Germans must be made to sit up and pay more attention.
On February 12, the Evening Standard carried a news item under the headline GELIGNITE INQUIRIES31 on the front page: “A man was questioned32 at Shepherd’s Bush police station last night in connection with the possession of gelignite.” The News Chronicle carried a similar story, reporting that “185 names have been taken33 during a club raid in Hammersmith.” Both stories were, of course, fake, placed in the newspapers with the connivance of their editors.
Chapman now sent his last wireless message: FFFFF JIMMY ARRESTED.34 SEE EVENING STANDARD FEBRUARY 12TH FRONT PAGE. CLOSING TRANSMITTER AT ONCE. WILL TRY AND GET TO LISBON. FRITZ. In an internal memo, Reed ordered: “No further transmissions35 are to be made on Zigzag’s transmitter.” The fictional Jimmy Hunt had served his purpose and could now be liquidated. The ZINC traffic was ended.
Chapman’s last, panicky message seemed to have the desired effect. The Most Secret Sources picked up a worried transmission from von Gröning, ordering radio operators in Paris and Bordeaux to continue scanning the airwaves for any word from his agent; to do anything else, he said, would be “absolutely inexcusable.”36
In a single blow, MI5 had convinced the Germans that a prize agent was now in mortal danger and that Hunt had been removed from the picture, and thus a little more time had been bought in which to prepare Chapman’s return trip to the Abwehr.
For a month, Chapman had been allowed, in Reed’s words, “to live as man37 and wife with Freda and his illegitimate child.” Now the time had come to break up the strange domestic arrangements at Crespigny Road. Backwell and Tooth were almost as sorry to see Freda and Diane leave as Chapman himself. Theirs had been a strange, homely world, a cocoon from the grim realities of the war. Tar Robertson arranged for Eddie and Freda to spend their last night together not in Crespigny Road, but in the grander surroundings of a bedroom in the St. James headquarters. There is an oddly touching exchange in the transcript of one of Lord Rothschild’s interviews with Chapman. The two men were in the middle of a complicated discussion about detonators when Ronnie Reed interrupted.
“Victor, do you mind38 if Eddie just has a word with Freda on the telephone?”
“No, rather not, of course not.”
When Chapman had left the room, Reed explained to Rothschild: “As it’s her last night in London we thought it would be advisable for her to spend her last night here. He’s just getting her to bring some clothes.”
“Beautiful,” said Lord Victor.
It was rather beautiful.
“Freda returned home,”39 wrote Backwell in his diary, “and we settled down to some concentrated grilling.”
Chapman’s life would depend on his ability to tell his cover story “unhesitatingly.”40 Hour after hour, day after day, Chapman was coached on every detail of the tale he must tell the Germans, from the instant he landed to the moment of Hunt’s “arrest.” After a week of this, a Field Security policeman named Hale was brought in to play the part of a German interrogator. He aggressively pummeled Chapman with questions: Where had he lived, who had he seen, how had he obtained explosives, and what had he discovered? Hale repea
tedly tried to trip him up with strange questions such as “What shoes was Jimmy Hunt wearing?”41 He tried to bluff him, accusing him of being a British spy, and alarming him by claiming that there had been a German observer at the factory on the night of the explosion, whom they would shortly produce. Chapman was “not shaken in any way.”42 When Hale demanded to know what had happened to the members of the Jelly Gang, Chapman did not miss a beat: “Poor Freddy Sampson,43 he was taken as a deserter by the RAF; Tommy Lay is still serving four years in Wandsworth and Darry is doing seven years in Dartmoor. I am not sure what George Sherrard is up to, but he is living in Kilburn and probably mixed up in some monkey business.” As for Hunt, Chapman would say he had been released on bail after his arrest on explosives charges.
Reed, who monitored the trial interrogation, was pleased at the way Chapman had withstood the bullying tactics. He was a natural liar: “We can rely44 upon his ingenuity to fill in small details and incidents of an amusing character which always give an added basis for believing that a man’s story is true…Zigzag is not easily rattled during an interrogation and unless the enemy have some knowledge of his having worked for the British Intelligence during his stay in this country (something which is highly unlikely) I do not believe he will experience any real difficulty in persuading them that he has carried out his mission to their satisfaction.”
Part of that mission had been to collect military and other information. If Chapman was to convince his German bosses of his bona fides, he must not only tell a convincing story, but also bring back some goodies. Chapman drew up a list of all the things he had seen that the Abwehr might be remotely interested in; from this, Reed removed anything that might be useful to the enemy; then they added some additional information, interesting but essentially harmless, and, finally, some believable fictions that would set the Abwehr guessing. The resulting mixture—chicken feed garnished with grains of truth—was approved by the Twenty Committee, and then written out on fourteen sheets of plain writing paper with the secret ink matchsticks. Chapman sketched out a series of army divisional signs, some accurate, some imaginary: “Blue starfish45 with curling tentacles on yellow background,” “blue hands and white clouds over top of shield,” and so on. He also revealed that Llandudno, in Wales, was home to the Inland Revenue office (a building even MI5 officers might be happy to see bombed), and that the Ministry of Agriculture had a branch at Africa House, Kingsway; he sketched a map of the military airfield at Hendon, and described the defenses around Green Park and Hyde Park in central London: “AA guns camouflaged46 and concreted. Few lorries or troops. Piquet guards, ATS, some huts. Four masts, possibly radio, near trees, approx 24 rockets stand and iron and stone ammunition shelters, empty.” Reed calculated there was information here of sufficient interest to persuade the Abwehr that Chapman was in earnest, and in sufficient quantity to show he was keen.
Among themselves, the officers of MI5 discussed what additional information Chapman might reveal to the Germans if he was exposed as a double agent or, worse, turned traitor. Chapman had always been driven in and out of Camp 020 and other sensitive military installations at night. Stephen thought he might have “picked up the names47 of officers or warders,” but nothing of any great value. Robertson was also sanguine: “There is no information48 in Zigzag’s possession which we should in the least mind him imparting to the Germans should he be disposed to go bad on us,” he wrote, adding quickly, “we do not in fact consider that he would go bad.”
There was one secret, above all others, that Chapman must never know. “It is imperative49 that no hint should be given to him about Most Secret Sources,” wrote Reed. Chapman had no inkling that the Abwehr codes had been broken. But in some ways, his information had been too good: He had provided clues that he believed would help Britain to break those codes—which indeed they would have done, had the codes not been broken already. If he was forced to reveal what he had told MI5, then the Abwehr might conclude that its codes were now vulnerable and change them, providing Bletchley with a new headache. Chapman must be made to believe the Abwehr codes were still invulnerable, by painting a “gloomy picture…50 regarding the capabilities of our interception organization to pick up and decode radio messages.” Reed told Chapman that MI5 could gather German wireless transmissions, but found it difficult to trace enemy agents transmitting in Britain, and almost impossible to crack German codes without “a vast number of intercepts.”51 Even with the information Chapman had provided, Reed said sadly, “the successful solving of any cipher must take a very long time.” This was all untrue, but Chapman replied that Reed’s assessment confirmed what he had been told by von Gröning, “that the code in use by their radio stations was a most difficult one and practically impossible to break.” If he was exposed, Chapman could be relied on to confirm the Abwehr’s belief that its wireless transmissions were secure. Ultra was safe in Zigzag’s hands; the deception agent was effectively deceived.
Having recited his cover story until he was bored stiff, Chapman was set to work memorizing a questionnaire listing all the information he might usefully acquire when back in occupied territory. This, too, had to be carefully vetted. MI5 interrogators had gathered much useful information from the questionnaires of captured German spies, since these often revealed gaps in Abwehr knowledge and areas of particular concern. Tar Robertson was insistent: Chapman must only be given “instructions which, if he were captured52 and forced to reveal them to the other side, would not convey information to the enemy.” Chapman’s questionnaire was astonishingly broad, covering just about every aspect of the Abwehr organization, including its codes, personnel, buildings, relations with the Gestapo, favorite hotels, and plans in the event of an Allied invasion. SOE wanted to know about counterespionage techniques, most notably the wireless interception station run by Dernbach—the bald spy catcher of Angers. Rothschild asked if Chapman would be kind enough to dig up information on sabotage targets in the United Kingdom, chemicals used by saboteurs, and camouflage techniques.
Chapman agreed to all the requests, even the impossible ones, for he was in the highest of spirits. The prospect of peril seemed to work on him like a drug, with Backwell noting that “in spite of the fact53 that he has quieted down in many ways, it seems that he is a man to whom the presence of danger is essential.” Robertson agreed, reflecting that this “deep-seated liking54 for adventure, movement and activity is more likely to be the cause, than the effect, of his criminal career.”
The mission was to be open-ended, in time as well as content, for as Rothschild observed: “You may see lots55 of openings, which at the moment are a closed book.” He might bring back a team of saboteurs, or go to America, or volunteer to train a team of German fifth columnists to remain in France in the wake of an Allied invasion and German retreat. “Obviously if he were56 to gain control of such an organization the value to the Allied cause would be immense,” wrote Reed. Chapman should use his own initiative: “It all depends on57 the opportunities that you see presented to you when you go back,” Rothschild told him. MI6, as the service operating outside British territory, might have had a claim to Chapman’s services, but MI5 was already running Agent Zigzag, and intended to continue doing so.
For reasons both practical and personal, the B1A team was confident that Chapman would not turn traitor, not least because of the rekindled emotional bond with Freda and their daughter. Soon after they parted, Freda sent Chapman a passionate letter, which MI5 intercepted and copied, before passing it on. “You will see that58 the incentive for him to return to this country is quite strong,” Reed remarked, as he showed the letter to his boss. Then there was the money: He might be about to be rewarded with a small fortune by the Germans, but his first priority was providing for his family in Britain, and that would depend on remaining loyal. But most important was the character of Chapman himself. Robertson believed him to be “genuinely inspired59 with patriotism,” and though he might be a criminal, the potential intelligence windfall from having a
spy at the heart of the German secret service was an opportunity too good to squander on the basis of mere morality. Tar concluded that given “the excellent personal relations60 which Zigzag appears to enjoy with various officers, it would be of the greatest possible value to get him back into those circles with the added prestige of having successfully completed a mission on their behalf.” Reed was emphatic: “He will be greeted61 as a hero.”
As the hour of departure loomed at the beginning of March, the case officer reported that Chapman was as ready as an agent could be. “Zigzag is confident62 that he can put over his story and his morale is extremely good…While his interrogation in Berlin may be arduous, after the first few days he should have no difficulty in continuing the old life he used to lead before coming here.”
If, “by some unhappy chance,” his collaboration with the British was uncovered, he could probably survive by playing triple agent. But to do that, he would have to explain why he had included the FFFFF message, the sign that he was acting freely, from the outset. In Tar’s words, “it is very important to have an alternative cover story for a final emergency, which satisfactorily explains the deliberate untruth of the primary cover story.” Reed came up with an ingenious solution.
If Chapman was exposed, he should say that MI5 “had detained Freda as a hostage and had forced him to return to France” by threatening to “shoot this woman.” As proof that he had tried to warn von Gröning he was under control, he could point to the message, sent after Christmas, in which he had omitted the FFFFF signal. He could claim that the British had then spotted the omission, and forced him to include it thereafter. In this way, a mistake might just be turned to Chapman’s advantage. Reed admitted that this explanation was a long shot, to be deployed as “a very last resort,” but if Chapman found himself backed into a corner, it “might possibly enable him to escape with his life.”
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