Tar Robertson was indulgent, arguing that “Tricycle has the Balkan outlook that all positions of influence can be turned to personal advantage.” To make matters worse, Popov’s American creditors discovered that he worked for the British government in some capacity, and the Keystone Debt Collection Agency began demanding payment of his unpaid bills through diplomatic channels. “The one thing that does strike me as urgent is that we should stop the debt collection agency trying to dun Tricycle further through the British Ministry of Information,” wrote Tar. Trivett’s Tested Seeds finally got what it was owed, unaware that it had successfully extracted money from British intelligence.
At a meeting with Wilson in February, Popov announced “his desire to do something more active in the way of outwitting the Germans” and was told there was “certainly no intention of letting his case vegetate.” Popov asked to be parachuted into Yugoslavia to join the Chetnik partisans, insisting “he was ready to take almost any risks to achieve anything that would be really useful.” The request was turned down. Popov was too valuable to be risked, but his demands and complaints, his restlessness and sexual shenanigans, his “white silk shirts with soft collars and fancy ties,” were starting to try even Wilson’s vast reserves of tolerance: “Tricycle is continuing to make an infernal nuisance of himself.” So it was agreed to send him back to Portugal.
“Every Double Cross agent is inclined to be vain, moody and introspective,” wrote Masterman, but these volatile personalities were proving ever harder to handle. One of the most important members of the team had gotten himself arrested, another was in the throes of a spectacular marital bust-up, and a third was demanding women, chocolates, and silk shirts while living the life of a pampered prince. Even Elvira Chaudoir was asking for more money and flirting with MI6. The constant need to monitor, cajole, flatter, and sustain these difficult people was taking a toll. However, the effort, expense, and frustration would all be worthwhile if the Double Cross spies managed to deceive the Germans into making some large and disastrous mistake.
At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, the Allies agreed that a cross-Channel invasion could not be undertaken before the spring of 1944. The main thrust for 1943 would be into Italy via Sicily, while Stalin’s Red Army continued the epic battle in the East. The Germans knew that an invasion of France was only a matter of time and were already laying plans to reinforce the Atlantic Wall with millions of tons of cement and steel using slave labor. They could not know that the Allies had decided to focus elsewhere in 1943, and therein lay an opportunity. A deception plan, code-named “Cockade,” was drawn up by the London Controlling Section to mount bogus threats to Norway and northern France, in the hope of drawing off German troops from the Mediterranean and the eastern front, or at least pinning down those in northern Europe. In early September, a mock invasion fleet would set sail from Kent and Hampshire, apparently heading for Calais, to draw the Luftwaffe into battle over the Channel; another fake invasion force, this time American, would threaten Brittany, while a third fake force would threaten Norway. The central plank of the deception was to be nailed down by planting false information through the double agents. Cockade was not quite the grand roll of the dice envisaged by Masterman, but it was the most ambitious gamble so far.
The B1A team sprang into action. Von Karsthoff’s messages to Popov indicated that “invasion questions are no doubt what the enemy is chiefly interested in.” Therefore “he ought to be supplied with a lot of items from which it is possible to draw all sorts of inferences about our future intentions.” Popov was “in his best mood” and looking forward to seeing Jebsen again. “He should be back here in time to put over some really effective misinformation when invasion of the Continent becomes imminent,” wrote Wilson. In July, Popov flew to Lisbon once more (leaving MI5 to pay his overdue rent), carrying a briefcase full of hints indicating that an invasion of France was at hand: his tailor had told him senior officers were ordering new battle dress, hospitals were preparing beds, and electrically propelled canoes were being manufactured in large numbers. He told von Karsthoff he had “taken his girlfriends to different south coast towns on various weekends,” and in Southampton he had spotted that shelters were being prepared for a retaliatory air attack, indicating that the port would be “active as a supply base for the invading army.”
Popov’s subagents, Gelatine and Balloon, added corroborative details, while Mutt and Jeff, the two Norwegians, reported that Norway was under threat of attack from Scotland. Bronx relayed invasion gossip picked up from politicians, journalists, and others, including a conversation with an invented Harley Street surgeon called Nielson, who told her of “hospital arrangements for an invasion in autumn.” On July 11 she wrote: “France to be attacked in September. Increased production of invasion barges. Good harvest and increase in pig farming.” The reply congratulated her: “Pleased with work. Exact details on invasion, will pay expenses of travel for this.”
The Garbo network reported concentrations of troops in Wales and Scotland, while Pujol himself claimed to have seen seven divisions near Brighton (though he was careful to point out that this might be just an exercise); his subagents spotted assault craft gathering in the Channel ports, military camps near Southampton, and torpedo boats massing in Dover.
On Robertson’s orders, even Flight Lieutenant Walker’s pigeons were enrolled into the deception. For some time, British intelligence had been dropping homing pigeons into occupied France carrying questionnaires about German defenses, “in the hope that at least some of them will fall into the hands of people who are supporters of the Allied cause,” who were urged to fill out the forms and release the birds to fly back across the Channel. The pigeons were dropped by parachute in cardboard containers, each with a small bag of corn. “I gather some satisfactory results have been obtained from the answers to these questionnaires,” wrote Robertson. “But some fall into the hands of the enemy.” Any method of seeking the truth can also be used to plant a lie. “It occurs to me that this is a possible means of putting deception over to the enemy by the careful framing of the questionnaires, as presumably the Germans must, if they capture some of these birds, take notice of the kind of question being asked.”
Robertson gave orders that “the questionnaire carried by pigeons dropped in the Pas de Calais and west coast areas should convey the impression that we are very keen on getting detailed intelligence about these areas in beach and coast defences, airfields, focal points on road and rail communications, detailed locations of formation headquarters and units, bridges, ports and installations for demolition etc.” The Germans would read this and assume an imminent invasion. Walker prepared his flock, and in August more than a thousand homing pigeons, each carrying a list of questions deliberately framed to suggest a looming attack, were dropped in a flapping deluge on Calais and Brittany. “The mere fact of increasing the number of pigeons used has a certain deceptive value,” Robertson gleefully reported.
Finally, the day of the dummy invasion arrived. On September 8, Agent Garbo reported that troops had been confined to barracks and assault craft were gathering. A mock invasion flotilla of some thirty ships headed for France, preceded by minesweepers. With information coming in from all sides, the Germans surely could not fail to think that a huge invasion was taking place.
But that is exactly what happened.
In response to the great charade the Germans did … nothing at all. The shore batteries did not open up, the Luftwaffe did not take to the air, and the High Command did not redeploy troops from places where they were needed. As one British officer wryly remarked: “It was an inspiring sight to see everybody doing his stuff to perfection … except, unfortunately, the Germans.” The only indication that they even noticed the elaborate performance put on for their benefit came when “a German coast-artillery subaltern on the far shore [was] overheard calling his captain on the radio to ask if anybody knew what all this fuss was about.” About ten miles off Boulogne, the bogus invasion fo
rce stopped, waited for the Germans to do something, and, when they didn’t, trailed home.
From the Allied point of view, the attempted deception was “disappointing in the extreme,” not to mention downright humiliating. It would later emerge that instead of reinforcing their defenses in light of a perceived threat, the Germans had actually reduced their troop numbers in the run-up to the mock invasion, apparently convinced that there were still insufficient troops in Britain for a full-scale invasion. Garbo scrambled to cover his back with a message to his German handler: “It appears the operation has been suspended. Troops surprised and disappointed.”
Cockade was a cock-up, but the Double Cross team could extract some crumbs of comfort. Popov seemed even more firmly in favor with his German bosses, and Garbo’s credibility was actually reinforced by the farce. “Your activity and that of your informants gave us a perfect idea of what is taking place over there,” enthused Kühlenthal, who was becoming infected by Garbo’s rococo prose style. “These reports, as you can imagine, have an incalculable value and for this reason I beg of you to proceed with the greatest care so as not to endanger in these momentous times either yourself or your organisation.” Messages marked “urgent” were being relayed from the Garbo network to Berlin in under an hour. “There can be no doubt of the high standing which Garbo enjoys with his masters,” Johnny Bevan told Tar Robertson. “Garbo will have a very important role to play in the future.”
Some useful lessons were learned from the failed plan: any future deception would have to involve every branch of the military, to the fullest extent, on a far wider scale; no fake invasion would be believed unless a real one was taking place at the same time. The Double Cross players would have to up their game. Despite the disappointment, Masterman eagerly “looked forward to the day when we should take part in the great final deception.” The episode also instilled fresh confidence in Tar Robertson, along with a profound but not entirely helpful belief in “the actual uses that Pigeons can be put to from the point of view of espionage.”
12. Discovered Treasure
Kenneth Benton was, formally speaking, His Majesty’s passport control officer in Madrid, in charge of visas, immigration, and customs formalities. In reality he worked for MI6, recruiting agents and potential double agents and, with his wife, Peggie, also an MI6 officer, organizing a rich range of skulduggery to confound German espionage in the Iberian peninsula. His opposite number in Madrid, Karl-Erich Kühlenthal, considered him a “sly fox,” a description that Benton had read in Most Secret Sources and found rather flattering.
At ten thirty on the morning of July 17, 1943, Benton’s secretary, Mollie Gillard, rang through to say that there was someone in the embassy reception area demanding an urgent interview to sort out a visa. Moments later, a “rather attractive woman of about thirty” was ushered into his office, carrying a small white dog. The visitor perched on a chair with a creaking wicker back, the dog on her knee.
“My name is Benton,” said Benton. “If what I understood is correct, you wish to go to England to rejoin your family.”
“Not exactly,” said the young woman. “I’m going there to spy.”
In good English, Lily Sergeyev described her recruitment in Paris by Major Emile Kliemann as “Agent Solange,” her training in the use of a wireless and secret ink, and her spying mission to Britain: she now wished to swap sides.
They sized each other up. Lily saw a “classic example of ‘the Englishman’: young, tall, and slim, with a long narrow head and a straight brow with thinning red hair.” Benton saw a typical Frenchwoman, “made up and dressed to kill,” with a self-dramatizing manner, but clearly intelligent. He wondered whether she might be “first and foremost a self-server.” During pauses in the conversation, she whispered remarks, in Russian, to her dog.
Lily explained that, as instructed by Kliemann, she had made contact with an Abwehr agent in Madrid, a man she knew only as “Hans.” Kliemann himself had promised to bring a wireless to Madrid. He was late.
Benton told Lily to report back to Hans and tell him that the British authorities had agreed to issue a visa, but the process might take several weeks. She should then wait for Kliemann to arrive. That afternoon, Benton sent a coded telegram to London, describing his meeting with Lily Sergeyev and asking whether MI5 might have any use for her. He himself was “doubtful.”
Benton’s doubts were shared by John Masterman. “I should be very cautious about agreeing that she should become a double agent working for us,” he wrote. “She ought to be thoroughly interrogated and a full account obtained of her activities before we decide we can use her.” MI5 began a background check, interviewing people in Britain who knew Lily. “She has respectable friends and relatives,” noted Tar, but these offered a contradictory picture of her loyalties. Virginia Hall, an American SOE agent who had known the Sergeyevs in Paris before the war, said she suspected that Lily was “pro-German.” Anthony Blunt, who also knew her slightly, described Lily as “a White Russian with slightly left views” (which was rich, coming from him). Her cousin, Dr. Elizabeth Hill, who lived in Cambridge, was “perfectly sure that Lily was pro-Allied in her sympathies” and thought her “something of an adventuress, but an exceedingly clever girl.”
The person assigned to investigate Lily Sergeyev was Mary Sherer, the latest addition to Tar’s team and the only woman case officer in B1A (though she was denied full officer status). Mary Corrie Sherer was twenty-nine, robust, and ambitious, with a sharp sense of humor “often at other people’s expense.” She had joined MI5 as a secretary in 1938 and spent the first part of the war in the countersabotage section and working in New York for British Security Coordination, the clandestine arm of MI6, MI5, and SOE that sought to bring America into the war by means of propaganda, blackmail, and espionage. A child of the Indian Raj and the daughter of a brigadier, Mary was military in bearing and often wore a red jacket with epaulettes, which she thought made her look like a general. She walked with a long, martial stride, swinging her arms and humming little songs to herself when she thought no one could hear. In a male world, she assumed a carapace of toughness, smoking filterless Kent cigarettes and holding her gin as well as the next man. “Mary was someone you did not want to cross, and was not quick to forgive any misdoings.” But there was also a gentleness to her and a resolute sense of purpose.
After conducting the background check on Lily Sergeyev, Sherer concluded: “She appears to be a character well-suited to becoming a double agent.” Mary Sherer “had a great deal of character,” according to Benton, and not for the last time she stood up to her skeptical male bosses, insisting that a woman double agent, equipped with her own wireless and a gullible German handler, would be highly valuable in the run-up to the Allied invasion of northwest Europe. Mary gave her the code name “Treasure.”
After nearly two months in Madrid, Lily was becoming oppressed by a city “full of menace and intrigue; a place where everyone is plotting, betraying, bribing or selling themselves.” She urged Hans, her Abwehr contact, to tell Kliemann to come quickly. Still he did not appear. “I have got very good at lying,” she wrote in her diary. “I am beginning to feel the nervous strain [of] this double game, this constant change of personality without any let-up when I can be myself again.” The only creature she could trust was her dog. Lily wrote to her sister: “The heat in Madrid is torrid. Babs sleeps blissfully on his back with four feet in the air and his tongue hanging out. I have just been talking to him about you. He opened one eye and raised an ear; that means he remembers.”
She arranged another meeting with Benton, who told her she had done extremely well. “We know a certain amount about Major Kliemann,” he explained. “He’s an important man in German intelligence—quite a formidable figure, in fact. I have the impression that you underestimate him. He has his weaknesses certainly—you think him a little absurd because he is always late for appointments. If he finds out that you’ve double-crossed him, he won’t be late for the next rendez
vous, I can promise you.”
Finally, word came from Hans that Kliemann was on his way and would meet her at the Café Bakanik. When he eventually arrived, the dog jumped up to greet him. “Babs licks his face while he continues to waggle his tail and whole body.” Lily felt moved by the sight of her dog and her German spymaster so pleased to see each other: “I look at them and think: at last, something genuine.” Kliemann was excited by the way Lily’s mission was progressing. He preened and ordered a steady stream of drinks. “It will be quite something for me: to have set up an agent and actually get that same agent into England. It’s incredible. It looks as if it’s going to work.”
Kliemann, usually so lethargic, was all business. He planned to provide her with a radio set hidden inside a gramophone, with operating instructions written on a microdot concealed in the case. In order to read it, she would need to buy a small microscope. She should pretend to be interested in microbes. Indeed, she should carry a book with her as cover: he recommended The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif. Lily declined to say that she thought this was a ridiculously overcomplicated plan. By now quite drunk, Kliemann was enjoying his role, though Lily could sense he had something else on his mind. He suddenly grew pensive and gazed “thoughtfully at the space in front of him, sighing deeply.”
“Anything wrong?” Lily asked, knowing that the conversation was about to turn to his favorite subject: Yvonne Delidaise, his mistress.
Kliemann buried his face in his hands. “You must think me ridiculous. Maybe I am. She is young and pretty, gay and witty. And I? Look at me. A married man of forty-six.” The German spymaster ordered another bottle of wine and poured his heart out. Yvonne had spent May in Madrid, at the Ritz, he said. After she returned to Paris, she was no longer the same toward him; something must have happened while she was here. And he wanted Lily’s help to find out what.
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