London Calling

by D. N. J. Greaves

  Simon offered his hand. ‘How do you do,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’m Peter O’Malley. I’m staying with Mr Simms for a short while, while I’m here in London. He’s an old friend of the family, and it’s a whole lot cheaper than living in a hotel, if not quite as convenient.’

  ‘Are you in the services?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Tanks - that sort of thing. Just got back from Italy on sick leave.’

  ‘Oh, you poor dear.’ She looked concerned. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  Absolutely not. The last thing he wanted was a nosy neighbour to drop in unexpectedly. He put on his most winsome smile. ‘That’s awfully kind of you, ma’am, but I’m well on the mend, thanks.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘By the way, it’s a nice quiet street. I do like it here. Is it always so peaceful?’

  ‘Yes, that’s usually the case.’ She was keen to gossip. ‘We rarely have a commotion, and for the most part it’s nice and peaceful. Mind you though, there was one earlier today, would you believe, while you were out. I couldn’t help but notice.’ She seemed a little embarrassed about the revelation. ‘Some cars drew up outside number seventeen across the way.’ She pointed towards a house- it was the same one where he’d seen the curtains move. ‘Official looking, you know.’ She winked at him. ‘Bit of a to-do, heaven knows what about, and then it all quietened down. I expect it was some busybody from the council, or something like that.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Ooops! It’s nearly five thirty. I must get going, otherwise I’ll be late for my shift at the Vickers factory. Nice meeting you, Mr O’Malley. It’ll do Mr Simms good to have some company.’

  Simon said goodbye and watched her walk off. He casually glanced around the street, and then turned back to open the front door. Nothing had changed- the man was still asleep in the front seat. No curtains moved. He turned the key and entered the house.

  There was no sign of Simms. He should be home in the next half hour or so. Simon eased himself into an armchair and thought about the things he’d noted in the street. He didn’t like the signs. Why should somebody be sitting slumped in a car within easy viewing distance of this house at this time of the day? A twitching curtain might only indicate another nosy neighbour, someone with too much time on their hands and not enough to occupy their mind, but did it link with the ‘busybody from the council’ story, or was that a cover for something far more sinister? Or was he simply being too paranoid?

  There was only one thing to do. He’d have to mount his own counter-surveillance operation by himself, see if he could flush out the enemy into making a mistake. That is, if there was an enemy and this wasn’t just his imagination running wild. Simms would be no good to him- the pharmacist might panic, or start behaving entirely out of the ordinary and let the opposition know they’d been rumbled. Later he would check his escape route, the path leading from the rear of the back garden that flanked the railway embankment at the rear. If he was being watched, they would definitely have a team checking the rear escape route.

  Room 42, third floor, Cabinet War Rooms, London 2000

  Stuart Menzies was not particularly looking forward to the evening meeting. The day had not gone quite as well as he’d wished. The visit to the Chief Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard was routine enough, and then things had definitely looked up when Monckton brought back the welcome news that O’Malley had been spotted. But life would have been far simpler if only the discovery had been by somebody else, and not MI5.

  Earlier that afternoon he reluctantly made the journey across London to MI5 Headquarters to meet his counterpart, David Petrie. Their meeting was coloured by overtones of their previous working relationship. Petrie was a former senior MI6 man whom Churchill had appointed in place of the previous MI5 director, Brigadier Oswald Harker. The latter had proved to be rather less than effective in managing Britain’s internal security network. Unfortunately Menzies and Petrie had never quite seen eye to eye, especially during the days when Petrie was Menzies’ deputy. It was probably because the two were not dissimilar in character and temperament, both being of Scottish descent, each one fiercely independent and jealous of the success of their own reputations. It was widely reckoned that moving them apart, and promoting Petrie to run MI5, was a masterstroke by the PM. They were both competent and hard taskmasters, and would keep their subordinates under effective and firm control. Moreover, a little bit of competitive friction between the two agencies was always a good idea, even if their spheres of influence infrequently coincided.

  Petrie had been decidedly cool at the meeting, no doubt enjoying Menzies’ discomfort at losing his target the day before and the fact that MI5 had saved his bacon, however inadvertently. He reminded Menzies of a particularly smug cat who had just eaten all the cream. Despite the distinct impression that he was standing on weaker ground, Menzies had proposed a joint operation between the two departments, but under the overall jurisdiction of MI6. After all, the case had come to MI6’s attention first, and it involved foreign intelligence. Petrie countered by dismissing this idea, maintaining that it was entirely a matter of internal security and must come under MI5’s control. Already a team had been despatched to a house across the street, in addition to the usual routine observation, and another team was in the process of covering the rear access to number fourteen. So the two had clashed, agreeing to disagree, and the matter had inevitably gone upwards to be decided by a higher authority.

  The Joint Intelligence Committee was such an authority. It was founded in 1936 as a specialized subsection of the Committee of Imperial Defence, in response to the growing threat from Germany. Unlike its parent committee, which was mainly involved in defence planning, the JIC’s function was to collate intelligence data from all sources, and present its findings to its current political masters. Normally, it met once a week, but tonight a special emergency session had been urgently convened by the current chairman, Admiral Sir Richard Lockhart, in view of the information Petrie had sent to him. Sitting alongside him were representatives from the War Office, each of the three armed services and a Permanent Undersecretary attached to the Home Office.

  Lockhart was a retired senior naval officer who had seen action at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. He walked with a limp, the legacy of a shell fragment from the Seydlitz that had struck the bridge of the heavy cruiser HMS Indefatigable where he had been serving. He had spent the remaining two years of the war recovering from his wounds, and retired in the late thirties, only to be called back to duty at the onset of the Second World War. He worked in the field of naval intelligence, and graduated upwards to become the JIC’s leading light three years ago. A clever and sometimes genial man, particularly after a few whiskies, he was well known as being a stickler for protocol and for not suffering fools gladly.

  Lockhart started the proceedings off by inviting both men to present their information. Menzies went first, briefing the room about the original leaked information from Madrid, and a current update on the enemy agent in England. This produced some incredulous shaking of heads and muttering from the other members, but Lockhart merely fixed a steely gaze at Menzies, and then asked Petrie to present his report. At the end Lockhart sat in silence, weighing up the seriousness of the news in his mind.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said Lockhart. Indeed it was all very gracious and gentlemanly - everybody was on first name terms, no matter one’s personal opinion of another committee member. They would smile and refer to you as an old friend even when sticking a knife in your back.

  Lockhart cleared his throat, and twisted in his chair to relieve the dull ache in his left leg. ‘Stuart, perhaps you would give us your reasons why this committee has not been informed of these developments up until now?’

  This was the part that Menzies had not looked forward to.

  ‘Three reasons, gentlemen,’ he began, putting a brave face on it. ‘First, the leaked information is only one item in a series of many false reports and bogus documents we’ve been feeding ou
r counterparts in the Abwehr for the last four years. This includes information on Overlord. We know that in the past Canaris has passed these reports straight back to the German High Command. It’s quite possible that he has even exaggerated such misinformation further in his attempts to derail Hitler’s plans. Normally, there’s a very good chance that the report would simply have been buried among the reams of disinformation the Germans already have. But now we know the situation in Germany has changed, from March of this year. Hitler has sacked Canaris and put Schellenberg in charge. The SS are less adept at espionage than even their Abwehr counterparts, with one exception- Schellenberg himself. We think he is almost as astute as Canaris is.

  ‘So, assuming the report has reached him and he’s taken it seriously, what will he do with it? Will he give as much credence to this one as to all the others that have come his way in the last few months? This new report only tells him what our current strength is, not where we’ll invade, although the disposition of our forces might give him a clue. Have the Germans acted on it? So far there’s absolutely no evidence of that. We’ve checked with SHAEF- their intelligence staff has not noted any change in the overall deployment of German units in the West, which tends to reinforce the belief that the Germans are still unsure as to where the blow will fall. That’s the second reason. Our thinking is that Schellenberg would have to send someone to England and make contact with this mole to determine if he’s genuine, and also to confirm the invasion area.

  ‘You know the current situation. Thanks to David’s men we have his safe house, and presumably the transmitter, under observation.’ Menzies nodded briefly in the direction of Petrie. ‘He can be arrested at any time. We have the Spanish Embassy and Hyde Park locations under close observation, so if the mole does show up again that’s where we’ll pinch him.’

  Lockhart looked at him coolly. “Has your surveillance on Hyde Park and the embassy produced any results since you received the message from Madrid?’

  ‘Nothing so far, Richard.’

  Lockhart stroked his beard, which partly covered a thin purple scar that ran down the left side of his face. ‘And the third reason?’

  ‘I thought it would be best not to discuss this in front of a full quorum of JIC members.’ He shifted his feet and tried to look suitably embarrassed. ‘Of course, I mean no disrespect to our political colleagues, but if word travels upwards and reaches the PM’s ears about the possibility of Overlord being betrayed, it would have the most catastrophic effect on his mental equilibrium. Some of us appreciate just what level of stress he’s under. I can see no point in adding to his burdens when I feel that we can successfully conclude this operation to our advantage - namely, permanently fix the leak and ensure that word never reaches Germany.’

  Lockhart turned to his colleagues. “Would anyone like to comment on these facts?’

  Alan Nicholls, the Permanent Undersecretary, managed to get the first shot in. He spoke in a deceptively mild manner, but there was no doubting the stinging criticism in his words.

  ‘Don’t you think, Stuart, that you’ve rather taken a lot on yourself to make these decisions and assumptions without referring the matter to us, or even sought advice from our political masters?’

  ‘No, Alan, I don’t,’ Menzies forced a smile, almost through gritted teeth. Nicholls was a pompous paper-pusher, and had little grasp of the realities and difficulties of the real world. ‘Yes, I’ve acted in this way, but there simply has not been enough time, not since this agent landed in England, to inform everybody until now. And before that there would be little point in concerning you or our political masters until we knew for certain that an enemy operation was underway.’

  ‘And yet you managed to lose this agent yesterday evening,’ interjected Brigadier Edgar Williams, the Army representative.

  Menzies winced mentally. ‘Yes, I’m afraid that wasn’t our finest hour, but there were operational reasons that contributed to this.’

  ‘Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what these are.’ Nicholls’ silky tone was full of unspoken censorship.

  ‘We had to mount the tail operation with little notice. By the time we received warning there was just enough time to send a team to Paddington. We were temporarily under-strength, so we had to use two plain-clothes officers from Oxfordshire Constabulary, who weren’t best suited to tailing a suspect, at least not in the way we operate. Somehow O’Malley must have recognized one of them, maybe from the train journey, and led us on a merry chase across London to an area he was familiar with, and then managed to give us the slip.’ He did not want to go into more specific details. It might look as if he was trying to shift the blame elsewhere.

  But Nicholls would not let go. ‘So it was the Police’s fault, not MI6’s, then,’ he said, almost sarcastically.

  ‘No, that’s not what I said.’ Menzies took a deep breath to calm himself. The little shit liked the sound of his voice too much. ‘This is part of the reason why I’m here. MI6 is operationally stretched at present, and I admit we need help- hence my visit to MI5 this afternoon. I was hoping to mount a joint operation to contain this threat. David and I could not reach an acceptable decision between us, hence the decision to discuss command and control, as well as other matters here at the JIC.’ A little white lie, perhaps, but they weren’t aware of that. It was Petrie who had decided that the problem should be referred upwards. ‘You know the rest.’

  Lockhart turned to Petrie. ‘Do you have any comments, David?’

  Menzies tried to appear relaxed, but steeled himself to accept what was coming next. It was bound to be critical.

  Petrie began in his well-known nasal whine that accentuated his Scottish origins. ‘Naturally, you’d expect me to say that if MI5 had been consulted from the start, we wouldn’t have lost the tail. But to be fair to Stuart, this could have happened no matter who was running the pursuit.’ Menzies’ jaw dropped a mile. The last thing he expected was a defence of his actions. ‘But the main thing is that we have this man under tabs at this moment. I feel that running internal surveillance in this country, as opposed to ventures abroad, is best done by us in MI5. We have the additional resources here that Stuart doesn’t, and as you now know, the house is now under our twenty-four hour observation. It should be a routine job to track him wherever he goes.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Lockhart sat back in his leather chair. Sooner or later he would have to take stock of the situation and devise a plan of action. ‘So let’s summarise. From what you’ve told us so far, it seems that this O’Malley is Schellenberg’s response to the report from Madrid. The man is here to make contact with our mole, confirm he’s genuine and verify where the invasion is taking place. His safe house belongs to that of a former BUF man who has laid low for six years. He should be easy to neutralise- we can arrest him at any time. Why not now?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ echoed Nicholls, looking smug. ‘Are there any reasons why we shouldn’t act immediately?’

  ‘Actually, there are, Alan.’ Petrie smiled thinly at Nicholls. He had a similar opinion of civil servants and politicians as Menzies had. ‘I’m concerned that this all sounds a bit too easy. How do we spot the mole if for some reason he decides to change the location from Hyde Park to somewhere else, especially at short notice? It would be simple to arrest him now, but I think we need this O’Malley chap as our marker to target the mole if things don’t go according to plan. Who knows if Spanish Intelligence has already found out whom the mole is, and has passed this information back to Schellenberg? That’s very unlikely, but not impossible. And I very much doubt Schellenberg would send this man into England without some back-up intelligence in case there was a problem. Yes, we can arrest him at a moment’s notice, but in the end our most important task is to find the mole and stop him permanently. I regard O’Malley. as a sort of extra insurance policy, if you will.’

  ‘But if you lose him, and he makes contact, what then?’ Air Commodore Roger Green sat up and leaned forward. ‘That could cost the lives of tho
usands and prolong the war.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Menzies intervened. ‘How will he get the information back? By radio? Not a chance. As soon as he makes contact, we close down the safe house and transmitter. Where else will he find a radio? Both David and I are sure we have all former Abwehr and SS agents under our complete control here in England. And how will he arrange to get out of England? Getting in is much easier, and even that was tricky enough. Getting out will be far more difficult. There’s less than a snowball’s chance in hell of being picked up by air. He’d need an airfield, and that’s out of the question- they’re all in use or guarded by the RAF. The country is covered by our radar network. It would have to be by U-boat, presumably pre- arranged by radio. A very risky business indeed.’

  ‘In any case,’ Petrie continued, ‘as soon as he makes contact with the mole, the safe house is raided, Simms is arrested and that, presumably, is the end of the transmitter.’

  ‘As long as it’s located there,’ said Green doubtfully.

  ‘There’s that,’ agreed Petrie, ‘but there’s no evidence of illicit radio activity elsewhere in London, nothing we can trace.’

  ‘But there’s something you haven’t yet considered,’ Williams interrupted. ‘It’s comparatively easy enough to take care of this German agent, as you say. But how can you stop a message being passed to the Spanish?’

  ‘There are several ways.’ Menzies counted off on his fingers. ‘First, there’s a mail intercept operation that’s been going on since February. All mail sent to the Spanish Embassy and other foreign embassies has been opened, inspected and resealed- we’ve been running this with the cooperation of the staff at the GPO’s main sorting office here in London. Second, we’ve also photographed everybody going into and out of the Embassy in the last few weeks since we received the warning. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. Ruiz has been identified from the declared staff at the embassy.’ All foreign embassies had to provide a list of staff employed at their embassies, as a matter of routine. ‘Thirdly, the Hyde Park location is under constant observation, day and night. If the mole contacts Ruiz on the day and time he says he will, we will be in position to intercept them both. I-‘.