Double Cross

by Ben MacIntyre

  Ian Wilson flew out to Lisbon and met Popov and Jebsen at the safe house. Jebsen was ambitious to do more for the cause. “He is keen to go to Germany as he wanted to do something big for us,” Wilson reported. “He could arrange to be sent to Germany for a visit under a false name if we really desired it.” Wilson thought it safer for Jebsen to remain in Lisbon, particularly after he casually referred to “Kühlenthal’s controlled agents in UK” and the need for these to back up whatever Popov reported. Here was proof positive that Jebsen knew the Garbo network, or “the Spaniards,” as he called them, were bogus. Brandes had “brought word back from Berlin on how the British spies were seen in Berlin,” which suggested that Popov was now even more valued than Pujol. “Ivan [Popov] is now considered to be by far the best connection and the Spaniards, as regards quality, are following a long way behind,” Brandes reported. “The confidence in him has grown very much.” Such comparisons were of limited value since, as Jebsen observed, it was “common for members of the Abwehr to run down each others’ agents.”

  Still, Brandes was being remarkably helpful, and Jebsen again urged his recruitment: “He is certain that Brandes would collaborate with us.”

  Jebsen did not realize, and MI5 did not tell him, that Brandes was an even more slippery opportunist than he knew. Brandes had his own wireless transmitter. With this he was sending messages to Berlin reporting on Jebsen—whom he was meeting, where he was going, and what he was saying. These transmissions, decoded at Bletchley Park, revealed yet another layer of deception: the man Jebsen considered his close friend, to whom he was prepared to entrust his life by inducting him into his terrifying secret, was betraying him behind his back.

  “Brandes is playing a game of his own,” reported Ian Wilson, a note of fear creeping for the first time into his words. “Brandes is clearly telling tales.”

  20. “Am I Not Always Careful?”

  Brutus, Bronx, Treasure, Tricycle, and Garbo would never meet. Yet individually, and together, as spring advanced and the Allied armies prepared for the biggest amphibious assault in history, they spun a tapestry of lies so thick and wide it would envelop the entire German intelligence system. In April 1944, anxiety was still high and expectations low: Tommy Harris declared that the effort would be worthwhile if the deception caused just “one division to hesitate 48 hours before proceeding to oppose our landing in the Cherbourg peninsula.” As the real army mustered in the southwest to attack Normandy, the double agents deployed their fake army in the southeast and the north. At first Pujol and Harris had merely sprinkled untruths among the chicken feed, but now they began to “increase the percentage of false in the mixture until the entire substance of our reports would be based on the false or notional,” a creeping barrage of deception.

  Popov’s latest report to Lisbon had established the names and locations of units within the fictional invasion force; knowing that the Germans would now be paying attention, the double agents started to move these south and east. Most Secret Sources showed that Garbo’s reports, five or six a day, were being relayed to Berlin, promptly and almost verbatim, along with his analysis of their meaning. The hoax was being injected straight into the central nervous system of the Third Reich.

  The deceivers wondered if they were being too subtle. Would the Germans pick up the hints and reach the right conclusions? As a test, Tar Robertson called in a “military expert who had no previous dealings with B1A,” sat him down with forty boxes of paper—the entire double-agent traffic from March 1943 to April 1944—and asked him to interpret the lot. The poor man plowed through the files every day for two weeks and then offered his conclusions as to what the Germans must be thinking:

  1. Agents have been at pains to make no definite forecast.

  2. Strong likelihood of attack in the Mediterranean at same time.

  3. An attack in Norway, possibly of a diversionary nature, prior to the main attack.

  4. The initial landings will be made against Belgium and the Pas de Calais.

  The assessment fitted with the deception almost perfectly.

  A German intelligence report of April 4 stated that the Fourth Army was assembling in Scotland and cited a “credible Abwehr source.” This source was Roman Czerniawski, whose reputation expanded with every message: “He is very well regarded and up till now has produced much accurate information,” Oscar Reile noted. Hugh Astor hit on a way to bind Brutus even more firmly to the Germans, while reinforcing the lie that a fictional American-led army was assembling in Kent: “If Brutus were posted notionally to FUSAG just before D-Day, he would be in an excellent position to report on the Order of Battle and operational intentions of FUSAG.” When the time was ripe, Czerniawski would announce that, “on account of his intimate knowledge of France and French military procedure,” he had been ordered to join a special unit “set up under FUSAG with the object of recruiting Poles who worked in the German-occupied territory which was likely to be overrun in the near future.” Since many Poles worked in the coalfields east of Calais, this would in itself bolster the idea that the U.S. Army group was poised to attack the Calais area. Installed at the heart of the fictional army, the little Pole would be perfectly placed to report exactly what was happening or, more accurately, what was not happening.

  While Brutus focused on military matters, Bronx fed her handlers “the opinions of those whose names and pictures appeared in the column of fashionable newspapers,” a peculiar admixture of the weighty and the irrelevant. Beneath the fluff, she pointed unmistakably to forces assembling to attack the Pas de Calais: Lord Kimberley told her an armored division had moved from Yorkshire to Brighton; one Major Bulteel suggested “Montgomery’s HQ may be near Canterbury”; a friend in the army petroleum department visited Dover and Folkestone and told her of “large invasion stores”; another, George Mitchell, resident in Kent, informed her of “roads to beaches widened and concrete barriers removed,” suggesting a mass military deployment toward the coast. She helped to focus attention on Scandinavia, relaying a conversation with Commander Sir Guy Domville, who “believes Denmark place for invasion. S. Norway may be occupied.” Her reports were calculated to maintain German uncertainty about the date: “Invasion seems imminent,” she reported on April 25. “Many US troops leaving west coast for S. E. Command.” A few days later, she corrected herself: “Prime Minister’s conference indicates invasion not imminent. Montgomery still training invasion force.”

  As Emile Kliemann had instructed, Lily Sergeyev headed to Bristol to stay with her relatives and toured the south coast by bicycle, while never leaving London. “I make imaginary visits to places which I did not know existed, and from which I bring back rich harvests of information,” she wrote in her diary. “In this world of fiction, I spend my time in trains, clubs, messes, canteens. I transmit a hodgepodge of descriptions of badges, vehicles, tanks, planes and airfields, garnished with conversations overheard, from which the Germans cannot fail to derive the correct conclusions.” Like many spies, caught up in the make-believe, she began to wonder who she really was. “For three years I have been acting a part.… If I survive the war, will I be able to readapt? Will I be able to become normal again?”

  Mary was pleased with Lily’s compliant attitude and her apparent recovery from the death of Babs: “She is working hard on her transmissions,” she told Tar. Inside, Lily was still seething, and her resentment was redoubled by some ill-advised penny-pinching on the part of MI5. She was told to make her own way to Hampstead by Tube: “I don’t think it would break the War Office to take me there by car,” she grumbled. She was moved out of Rugby Mansions and into a smaller flat at 39 Hill Street, where she had to pay rent, albeit reduced. A stern note from John Marriott instructed her: “The furniture, fittings and books will be maintained in the condition that they are now in and expenses for cleaning etc. will be paid promptly. I shall expect you to carry out this undertaking.” It was the wrong tone to use to an agent who had just risked her life. As Lily pointed out, Kliemann was e
ating out of her hand—“The German intelligence service seems entirely satisfied with the information I supply. From time to time there are congratulations in their messages.” The British, on the other hand, were charging her rent and telling her to keep the carpet clean.

  MI5 refused to reimburse Lily for her lost suitcase, while O’Shagar, the MI6 officer who had promised to look after Babs when she left Gibraltar, had also failed to send on the case’s contents: Lily demanded their return, but her possessions were irretrievably lost in the fog of war. The suitcase had contained a jade necklace, a chamois leather pillow, two dozen handkerchiefs in a red leather case, and, oddly, “three shoes (not pairs) valued at £12.” Lily reckoned the total value was £128 2s. 6d. but said she would settle for £50. MI5 declined to pay her a penny.

  “I think we ought NOT to pay up,” declared Marriott, and listed the reasons why: “She has no legal claim. She has behaved in an unreasonable fashion in the past and may therefore do so again. She is trying to bully us.” John Masterman agreed: “We owe nothing.” Mary Sherer was appalled:

  Treasure is not a money grubber. In view of what she has accomplished and what we hope to get out of her case, I urge you very strongly to reconsider your decision. I have had a difficult time with Treasure on more than one occasion in the past and it will not make things any easier if she has a private grudge against the department and British authorities on the whole because of their apparently niggardly behaviour towards her for the sake of £50.

  But the bosses were adamant. John Masterman did not like women in general, and Lily in particular, considering her “exceptionally temperamental and troublesome.”

  A few days later, as she and Mary were preparing a wireless message, Lily remarked darkly: “It is very difficult not to take advantage of one’s strength when one is the strongest.” Mary assumed she was referring to the parsimony of MI5 with its “meticulous accounts.” Most likely she was alluding to her own secret strength: the knowledge that a couple of undetected dashes in a mass of Morse could bring the entire Double Cross system crashing down.

  Dusko Popov arrived back in Britain on April 13 with a spring in his step, a fresh batch of questionnaires, and a wad of cash. His last days in Lisbon had been spent wrangling over money, the sort of negotiation at which Popov excelled. He told Aloys Schreiber he wanted a staggering $150,000 as an advance payment on future information about Allied invasion plans and declared that “any further activities on his part would depend on the receipt of the stipulated sum.” When this was relayed to Berlin, the demand was flatly refused. Popov was offered just 1,500 Swiss francs a month. He threatened to resign. This gave Wilhelm Kuebart, the officer who had ousted von Karsthoff, an “uncomfortable feeling” about Popov, “as it seemed to him highly improbable that an agent who was really independent and acting for himself could afford to threaten the Abwehr in this manner.” Even MI5 considered Popov’s demands “outrageous” and his threat to quit an unauthorized gamble. In the end, Popov was given $14,000, with the promise of more to come. Before leaving, he had been interviewed again by Schreiber, who told him to find out the date and target of the invasion, which attacks would be real, and which merely diversions. If the landings started, he should “stay in London and give up-to-date news on what was happening.” Schreiber also asked him to report on bomb damage when the V1s started landing, but Popov refused, saying they could “send some lower-grade agent round to look for holes in London.”

  Popov and Jebsen spent a last night together at the casino in Estoril. At dawn, they shook hands and parted, but as Popov was walking away, Jebsen called him back: “I just wanted to have a good look at you,” he said. “It’s going to be a while. I feel we are going in different directions.” Then he walked away.

  Back in London, Popov was ebullient, convinced the Germans had “complete faith in him.” Schreiber had no idea he was playing a double game. The Germans were paying good money. Johnny was safe. “Tricycle is now considered to be the Abwehr’s best agent in the UK,” MI6 reported.

  The B1A case officers pored over Popov’s latest offerings from the other side, which included a long questionnaire largely composed of wishful thinking: “What are Churchill’s prospects of remaining at the helm? How is his health? Does he by any chance already think of retiring, and if so, when?” To which the answers were: “good,” “good,” “no,” and “never.” Popov’s briefcase contained no fewer than five typed reports from Jebsen on aircraft production, industrial output, military reserves, and the restructuring of German intelligence: he noted the rise of SS officer Walter Schellenberg, “personally agreeable and quite ruthless,” who would eventually take over as intelligence supremo.

  Popov was “not unduly worried” for Jebsen’s safety, since the Gestapo had apparently rescinded an order to have him arrested if he returned to Germany. Even so, Tar insisted “it was much safer that he should remain in Lisbon rather than return to Germany, where he might find himself in an awkward position, under which his nerves would give way.” Before leaving Lisbon, Popov learned from Marie von Gronau that the SD was “sending a representative to interrogate Artist at the end of April or beginning of May in Lisbon, in order to clear up certain financial matters,” but this was no cause for concern. “These allegations have nothing to do with activities on behalf of the British, but relate to questionable financial transactions. He is satisfied that he can easily clear himself. The intended interrogation is likely to be a formality, so that the file against Jebsen can be closed.” Popov was convinced his friend was finally “free from danger.”

  MI5 knew otherwise.

  On February 11, Hans Brandes, using the code name “Ballhorn,” sent a message to Berlin reporting that Jebsen was asking suspicious questions and “trying to find out about Ostro.” The message was intercepted and decoded at Bletchley Park. Under British instructions, Jebsen was investigating the fake agent Paul Fidrmuc, whom MI5 had considered eliminating a few months earlier. Another intercepted message referred to “oral reports made by Ballhorn,” indicating that Brandes had been snitching during his trip to Berlin. The next day brought further evidence of his duplicity, when Brandes reported that through the secretaries Jebsen “learns everything” that happened in the German intelligence station. Schreiber fired off his own message to Berlin: “As cannot continue to work in such circumstances, it is urgently requested that Grass and Von Gronau be immediately recalled, giving routine reduction of staff as justification in order not to give Johnny prior warning.”

  What was Brandes up to? Why was he dripping poison into his superiors’ ears about a man supposed to be his friend? Brandes “might be playing some deep game for his own interests,” thought Wilson, “possibly with the ultimate intention of blackmailing Artist, or ourselves. He is far from stupid and quite unscrupulous, as are so many spoilt children of rich German industrialists.” Brandes had recently been ordered to send his agents “to France for instruction.” But Brandes had no agents. He had made them all up, and he was now trying to find a way of “worming, or bribing, his way out of this dilemma.” Ratting on Jebsen would divert attention. “It may well be that in order to prevent his being discovered he is trying to build himself up with the Abwehr by unmasking Artist.” Ambitious and avaricious, Brandes knew how much money was being passed to Popov and what Jebsen and von Karsthoff had made on the side. A postwar investigation revealed that Brandes was “very jealous of the fact that Artist was in touch with Tricycle, the best German secret intelligence man in England. Brandes wanted to get rid of him so that he might get the credit for Tricycle’s work.”

  The evidence of Brandes’s treachery presented MI5 with an appalling dilemma. If Jebsen was warned that his friend was betraying him, he would immediately wonder how MI5 had come by that information and perhaps conclude that the British must be intercepting German wireless messages. At all costs, Most Secret Sources must be protected. After an intense debate, it was agreed that MI6 would pass on a general warning to Jebsen, hinting that Br
andes should not be trusted because some of what he had told Jebsen had turned out to be inaccurate. A telegram was sent to Charles de Salis in Lisbon: “Strong impression that Brandes is playing a game of his own and may be trying to provoke Artist into confidences which he might use for his own interests. Instruct Artist not to expose himself in any way to Brandes, even if this restricts his acquisition of information on our behalf.” De Salis was not told that MI5’s “impressions” came from Most Secret Sources. Wilson, meanwhile, sounded out Popov on how well Jebsen might hold up under interrogation, should he be arrested. Popov replied that he had “absolutely no doubts whatsoever that Artist would never betray Tricycle or confess his own work for the British under any normal form of interrogation [but he] doubts his powers to withstand any physical violence.”

  Jebsen had been “hasty in assuming that the clouds have quite rolled away.” A storm was gathering with terrifying speed. On April 16, Schreiber informed Jebsen that they had both been ordered to travel to Biarritz, in the south of France, to meet the paymaster of the reformed German intelligence service and discuss Popov’s demands for money. Sensing a trap, Jebsen refused to go, claiming that this would blow “his cover” as an independent businessman, since traveling to France required official German approval. Schreiber insisted the telegram from Berlin “should be looked upon as an order” and said refusal to obey “would be considered desertion.” Jebsen dug in his heels. Schreiber reported this back to Berlin and headed off to Biarritz alone. Jebsen, deeply alarmed, told Brandes what had happened; Brandes immediately sent a telegram to Berlin: