With a fierce twinge of irritation, Lily understood that Kliemann had come to Spain with an ulterior motive that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his love life. Like most jealous lovers, he had already fixed on the rival he believed Yvonne to have been seeing in Madrid: Edgar Espírito Santo. “He’s Portuguese. A very wealthy banker. He used to see a lot of Yvonne. He’s a lady-killer. Yvonne amused him. She is jolly and witty, but Yvonne doesn’t mean a thing to him. I think she met him here. He always stops at the Ritz—and I want to know if he was there at the same time as Yvonne. I must know if she has been carrying on with that damned Espirito Santo. And if she has made a fool of me.”
“Then what?”
“Then I shall ask for a transfer to the Russian front.”
“But what do you want me to do?”
She could make enquiries, suggested Kliemann, and see if the banker had been staying at the Ritz when Yvonne was in Madrid. Lily had come to Spain as a German spy, not as a freelance private detective for a middle-aged married man besotted with a younger woman. She was outraged.
“Major Kliemann, I don’t care a hang about your ridiculous affairs,” Lily railed. “In a few days, I shall be in England and you will be in Paris. I shall probably never see you again. Why should I care whether Yvonne is deceiving you or not?”
Kliemann was pleading and plastered. She left him in the café.
The next day, she related this bizarre conversation to Benton, who reported back to MI5: Kliemann “appears to be extremely pleased with her progress” and “pathologically jealous” of his mistress, he wrote, two discoveries that, in combination, rendered him uniquely vulnerable. Lily was Kliemann’s only spy. If she now became a prop for his frail sexual ego, then he would be even more in her debt and even easier to manipulate. Benton advised her to report back to the major that “the object of Kliemann’s jealousy was not at the Ritz, or even in Madrid, in May.” The MI6 officer then made his own enquiries, which suggested that Yvonne probably had been carrying on with the Portuguese banker. There was no sense in telling Kliemann that. “Whatever the truth may be, the report must prove that Yvonne is faithful to him. Now that we know all about Major Kliemann we want him to stay in the job. We must make quite sure he doesn’t get sent to the Russian Front.”
Kliemann was delighted with Lily’s “purely fictitious but reassuring report” affirming Yvonne’s fidelity. Predictably, he had failed to find her a wireless set but insisted he would be able to get one passed to her in Britain by a Spaniard “who was under great obligation to Kliemann’s friends.” (MI5 would later conclude that this must have been a reference to Ángel Alcázar de Velasco, the press attaché at the Spanish embassy and a known German agent.) He then handed over two pellets of ink for secret writing and a long questionnaire clearly aimed at discovering the Allies’ invasion plans, which he told her to memorize and then destroy. “What view is taken in authoritative English circles of landing preparations? Where are the barracks placed in coastal towns?” Kliemann wanted information on uniforms and troop movements, stoppage of leave, armaments production, and much more. Lily and British intelligence seemed to have Kliemann exactly where they wanted him: she was “the personification of his hopes, the evidence of his subtlety, his courage and his flair.”
Only once did the conversation take a more sinister turn, when Kliemann, with studied nonchalance, observed that after her abrupt departure from Paris, the Gestapo had put her parents’ flat under surveillance. Lily did not like the sense of threat in that remark and told him that “if any harm came to her parents while she was away he would find her working for the other side against him.” It was half a joke, but Kliemann’s response was immediate, sharp, and entirely without humor: “Naturally, should she double-cross him, she must consider that the lives of her parents were at stake.”
Kliemann now reached into a pocket with an air of great munificence and handed Agent Solange a small package wrapped in tissue: inside was a diamond solitaire ring and a two-inch brooch in the shape of a branch with five small diamonds representing blossoms. The ring had cost 95,000 francs in Paris, he said, and the brooch 39,000 Portuguese escudos. In England, she could sell the jewelry and say it had belonged to her grandmother. To this he added a pile of 7,000 Spanish pesetas, with an additional 2,000 pesetas as a bonus for setting his mind at rest about Yvonne’s visit to Spain, a token of thanks for her “help and sympathy.” Dinner over, Kliemann climbed into a taxi in the Plaza del Callao and drove off with “a cheery wave.” He was a happy man: his mistress was faithful, his bosses were pleased, and his star agent was now about to help win the war for Germany. That night, Lily wrote in her diary: “He has gone. He hasn’t found out anything. And now: England.”
Kenneth Benton of MI6 had grown to like Lily. He liked her still more when she reappeared in his office, with Babs in tow, and handed over Kliemann’s questionnaire, proof of mounting German anxiety over the coming invasion. She was dressed to the nines, having spent all the Spanish cash from Kliemann on clothes. “I was getting to know her and felt she had a good feeling for the job. Everything was in order for her onward travel to Lisbon. Then she exploded her landmine.”
“Mr. Benton,” said Lily, “I have one more request. I have worked for you; I will continue to work for you; I don’t ask for any payment. But I have one favor to ask: I want to keep Babs with me.”
Benton was taken aback. It wasn’t possible. It wouldn’t be allowed. There were quarantine laws.
“That’s exactly it. I want to skip quarantine,” Lily explained. “Babs has been vaccinated. I’ve got his anti-rabies certificate, and there is no danger. It’s the only thing I ask for, but I do insist on it.”
British laws preventing dogs from entering the country until declared disease free were some of the oldest, and silliest, in the statute book, maintained long after science and technology had effectively removed the rabies threat. This strange animal-based xenophobia probably had something to do with Britain being an island. Benton was happy to break every law in the book to help win the war, but he was not about to break the sacrosanct quarantine laws. He prevaricated. “I’ll see what I can do …”
But Lily would not be fobbed off. She would not leave without Babs. “If my work is important it is worth this exemption; if it isn’t worth that, then it isn’t worth my going to England.… To you, it’s just a dog; but to me, it’s Babs, and worth more than a million pounds. Just tell your people in London that.” She was working herself up into one of her rages. “Why can’t I go by Gibraltar?”
“Even if you did, you would have to leave the dog in quarantine for six months. In fact, I’m not even sure they would allow that.”
“You can persuade them. After all, I’m going to be an important double agent.”
“I cannot persuade them. This is wartime, Lily.”
“Then I will refuse to go. I will stay here in Spain. I won’t leave my poor little Babs.”
Desperate for the interview to end, Benton offered to find a kind owner for Babs. It was wartime; she had to make sacrifices.
Lily whispered angrily in Russian to her dog before turning back to Benton. “You shall not have him.… He knows nothing about your war; all he wants is to be with me.”
Benton (who rather liked dogs) told her he would do his best, though he knew “it was going to be impossible to get that wretched dog into Britain without passing through quarantine.” He had resorted to a very English sort of temporizing, a commitment to do what he could, when he planned to do very little and believed that nothing could be done. But Lily had heard something very different: she had heard an Englishman promise to get her dog into Britain. That misunderstanding would have the most profound ramifications.
Benton asked London what to do about Lily’s dog. “Get her to Gibraltar, then leave it to Gibraltar colleagues to sort out,” came the reply. Benton reported back to Lily: “My Gibraltar colleagues might be able to find a way of smuggling Babs to Britain, perhaps by sea.
” In reality, this had already been ruled out by the MI6 officer on the island.
On October 7, 1943, Lily Sergeyev, traveling under an alias, arrived in Gibraltar under escort, with her dog. Benton did not fail to notice the “suspicious looks” she gave him as they said good-bye. Sure enough, when she reached Gibraltar, the customs officer insisted she surrender the dog. “I picked up Babs and handed him over,” Lily wrote in her diary. “The difficult moment had arrived.” But their separation, she assured herself, would be temporary. She had Benton’s “promise.”
The next day, an MI6 officer in plain clothes, who introduced himself as O’Shagar, came to see Agent Treasure at the hotel. “From now on, you have nothing to worry about. We will take charge of everything,” he told her.
Lily pressed him about Babs and “Mr. Benton’s promise to arrange for his transport and to make sure that he wouldn’t have to go into quarantine.” O’Shagar replied that they’d “see to that too.”
That night, at the hotel bar, she met a friendly American pilot, Lieutenant Kenneth Larson, who liked dogs. “Why don’t you send him to London with one of our pilots? They don’t have to go through customs or any controls at all,” he said. “Would you like me to fix it up for you?” The next morning, she reported the conversation to O’Shagar, pointing out that this arrangement would “save an awful lot of bother and red tape.” But she wanted a promise that if the American failed to deliver Babs to Britain, then MI6 would find a way to do so.
“You have my word,” said O’Shagar. (That, at least, was how Lily remembered the conversation.)
By some immutable law of travel, luggage always lets you down when you are in the greatest haste. Lily was about to board the flight for England when the clasp on her suitcase gave way, spilling its contents everywhere. O’Shagar gathered up her scattered belongings, stuffed them in the broken suitcase, and promised to get it repaired and sent over on the next flight. Lily ran for the plane.
A few hours later, “Dorothy Tremayne” landed at Bristol Airport. The policewoman detailed to collect her had been told to look out for a woman with a small white dog and a large record player. She had no gramophone and no dog; she also had no suitcase. But she was in no doubt that the Frenchwoman complaining loudly in the arrivals hall must be Lily Sergeyev. “Treasure” had finally been smuggled into Britain, bringing with her, in Masterman’s words, “a rich dowry: the confidence of the Germans.”
Back in Madrid, Kenneth Benton of MI6 suffered a “feeling of guilt” when he learned that Lily had flown to England, leaving her beloved dog behind in Gibraltar. But then he reflected: “After all, it was wartime, and sacrifices, as I had told her, had to be made by people and consciences alike.” Besides, Benton had other things on his mind: he was about to reel in an even bigger fish, an officer within the Abwehr itself.
13. The Walk-In
On September 14, 1943, Dusko Popov flew back to Britain and was immediately taken to Clock House, the cottage rented by MI5, for a debriefing by Tar Robertson and Ian Wilson. Both were in a state of high excitement to see what Tricycle had brought back from Lisbon. Solemnly, Popov opened the “diplomatic bag” provided by von Karsthoff. “First of all a very large number of silk stockings fell out,” wrote Wilson. These were followed by a radio transmitter, a Leica camera and six rolls of film, ingredients for making secret ink, $2,000 and £2,500 in cash, and yet more questionnaires. This complete spy kit was proof enough of German faith in Popov, but additional reassurance came from Most Secret Sources, which, as Wilson reported, “make it clear that Tricycle’s reports to us are accurate, that for the most part the Germans still believe him, and that those members of the Abwehr who have reason to doubt him are so corrupt or so afraid of losing their jobs by disclosing awkward facts that they are doing all they can to support him.”
Popov explained that he had met up once again with Johnny Jebsen and was now “absolutely sure” that his friend knew he was a double agent: “The way he talks to me and his whole behaviour shows this very clearly.” Jebsen had been even more candid than before, talking of “that idiot Hitler” and speaking with a “funny smile in his eyes” that left Popov in no doubt that he knew every word he said would be relayed straight back to the Allies. Jebsen’s enemies in Berlin were machinating against him, he said, and the Gestapo was circling. But the part of Popov’s report that really made his listeners sit up was Jebsen’s account of “some new invention” causing great excitement in Berlin, a multiple rocket device “with the same effect as a 2,000 kilo bomb.”
Robertson immediately sent a memo to the Twenty Committee, informing the board of this most alarming information from Jebsen, who seemed to be, “for the first time, acting as a conscious informant.” Popov did not say explicitly that he had advised his friend to go to the British and offer himself as a double agent, but he almost certainly had. A full report was sent to Churchill:
Tricycle has just returned from a visit to Lisbon where he has been in contact with members of the German secret service. He gained the impression that they no longer hope to win the war and expect it to be over shortly. He learnt from his spymaster who is also a close personal friend that the latter believes in the existence of a rocket gun for shelling London. The spymaster added that the raids on Germany had delayed the production of the gun by about two months, but that it should be in action by December and Tricycle would be well advised to leave London before then. The Germans further told Tricycle that they are well informed about the British Order of Battle. The Germans said that they had practically no agents in the USA, but that they had ten or twelve in the UK (this corresponds to those under our control). They also told him the story of a Major in the German secret service in Berlin who had suggested that the agents in England were under British control but was sacked for this suggestion within 24 hours.
The “rocket gun” was the V1, the flying bomb being developed in Germany in order to bombard Britain into submission. Jebsen’s information corroborated what was already known about the new weapon, while his description of the Germans’ faith in their British spy network underlined Tar’s claim to control the whole thing: any German intelligence officer who dared suggest the spies were false was regarded as a heretic and liable to be fired.
The final element in Popov’s Lisbon haul was a plan that had been stewing for some time—a way to smuggle additional double agents into Britain with German help. With MI5’s approval, Popov had spun von Karsthoff an ingenious tale: since numerous Yugoslavs were anxious to get to Britain, why not introduce some secret Nazi spies among the genuine refugees? Popov’s older brother Ivo, living in Belgrade, could select potential candidates. Ivo was held in high regard by the Germans, who saw him as a keen and dedicated collaborator, so highly trusted that he had been issued travel papers, a Wehrmacht uniform, and the rank of Sonderführer (specialist leader). Ivo Popov would select recruits who, with German assistance, would be smuggled into Britain, via Spain, as refugees. Once they arrived in Britain, the younger Popov brother would take them in hand and add them to his spy network. Von Karsthoff leaped at the idea, and on July 23 sent a message to Berlin describing Popov’s plan for infiltrating spies into Britain: “I consider this plan a good one,” he wrote. “I still consider Ivan as reliable, if kept under supervision.”
What von Karsthoff did not know was that Ivo Popov, like his brother, was working for the other side and had already been recruited by British intelligence as “Agent Dreadnought.” Instead of choosing Nazi sympathizers for the “slipping out” operation, he would select his own anti-Nazi collaborators, who had been briefed to play the part. At the other end, Popov, Robertson, and the Double Cross Committee would be waiting to welcome them. Every link of the chain was false. Instead of introducing keen new spies into Britain, the Germans would be helping to recruit, train, finance, and transport a stream of ready-made double agents, precooked and ready to serve.
The first agent to be “slipped out” in this way was the Marquis Frano de Bona, an aristoc
ratic Yugoslavian naval officer and a friend and former carousing partner of Dusko Popov. At Ivo’s instigation, de Bona was recruited by the Abwehr, trained as a wireless operator, and slipped into Spain. While waiting for his transfer to London as a refugee, the Marquis took up residence in a Madrid brothel, where he spent four days and nights, finally emerging exhausted and happy but with a nasty dose of venereal crabs. On arrival in Britain he moved into Clock House with Popov and became a double agent, the wireless operator for the Tricycle network. No longer would Popov and his subagents have to rely on secret writing to communicate with Germany. Whether because of his long hair, licentiousness, or lice, the Marquis de Bona was awarded a most unflattering code name: he became Agent Freak.
Intriguingly, Freak’s briefing in Germany offered indications that elements within the Abwehr were ready to sue for peace. Churchill read of de Bona’s arrival:
His main mission, it appears, was to contact Englishmen in high places and to impress upon them very strongly the view that Germany is open to approaches from this country with a view to stemming the flow of Communism across the Continent of Europe, and for this purpose they required the assistance of the British. The core of his instructions was that Germany was not to be forced to capitulate, but should be granted terms by this country to enable her to maintain a barrier in Eastern Europe against the Communist peril. It was emphasised that Germany was willing in order to obtain these terms, to get rid of Hitler, to introduce a democratic form of government acceptable to the English and Americans, [and] withdraw from all occupied territory.
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