* * *
On that first day of August 1941, Duško Popov was lunching with one of the ladies he had recently been seeing in the privacy of his room. She was an American, the young wife of a financial magnate, on her way home to New York from Switzerland. Even though she occupied all his attention, and from their laughter you could tell that they were clearly enjoying each other’s company, Duško could not relax, unable to ignore the Englishman. The man had somehow managed to get a table next to theirs in the restaurant and he spent his lunch eavesdropping on their conversation, which, to be honest, was just lighthearted nonsense of no interest to anyone but the flirting couple.
After they finished their coffee, Duško escorted the young woman to her hotel, where her husband was waiting for her; he was too concerned with his business to worry about the company his wife was keeping. Instead of going to the promenade, as he usually did, Popov decided to return to the Palácio. The fatigue of the previous night had caught up with him. Lino was, of course, waiting for him at the front door.
‘Monsieur Popov, I asked around,’ the concierge said in a conspiratorial voice. ‘He is indeed English, his name is Fleming. Ian Fleming. He is registered as working for the Ministry of Agriculture. He is staying in the room right opposite yours. He’s probably a secret agent.’
Popov said nothing, he merely smiled his thanks and slipped a tip into Lino’s pocket as he always did.
‘How do you learn all these things?’
The concierge did not answer. He stopped the conversation in order to help an old lady who was lost.
‘Come on, at least tell me how you know he is a secret agent,’ Popov persisted.
‘How do I know?’ It was next to impossible to get an answer out of the moustachioed Lino. But he was prompted by another note slipped unobtrusively into his pocket. ‘I remember him from before. He was here not long ago, but under a different name.’
‘Maybe he’s just on the run. Lots of people like that use false names.’
‘People on the run don’t come back. And this man has huge telephone bills. That’s a sure sign that he’s reporting something to somebody.’
‘I’ll take you on faith, but then give me one good reason why anyone would be following me? Of what interest would I be, and to whom?’
‘Don’t sell yourself short, Sir,’ Lino laughed before dropping his voice, as if telling a joke. ‘Here everybody is following somebody else. They are following you as well. He’s probably not the only one, it’s just that the others are more discreet about it... But one thing is for sure: he is following you today. Please come over here for a moment.’
They stepped to the side, so as not to be visible from the front door. And a minute later, there was Fleming, they could see him through the glass picture window, heading their way. His long strides brought him rapidly to the front door. Manuel opened it with a ‘Good afternoon’. The Englishman returned the greeting as relaxed as relaxed could be and then spotted the grinning Popov waiting to ambush him. As if caught in the act, the Englishman looked away, turned red in the face and left more quickly than he had arrived.
‘Maybe the guy has a little crush on Monsieur?’ laughed the concierge.
* * *
The room was cool and in semi-darkness. Duško walked in but did not carry out his routine inspection. He had stopped doing that a long time ago; there was no point. Whenever he checked his room he invariably found signs that it had been searched, but that never bothered him particularly because he knew there was nothing compromising to be found.
He sat down on the chair and looked at himself in the mirror. The day had left him slightly sunburned. He slowly undid his tie and took off his shoes. He headed for the bathroom and standing barefoot on the cold stone floor he noticed something: the toilet seat was up. That pleased him but first he finished what he had come to do, flushed the toilet and only then climbed onto the toilet bowl, rolled up his sleeve and reached down into the water tank above. The packet was unusually big this time. He opened the tin box, unwrapped the waterproof cloth and found what he was expecting. The envelope said: $38,000. As agreed a few days earlier, the Abwehr had sent him the money he needed for America. He crumpled the thin tin of the box into an unrecognizable little ball, slightly bigger than a marble, then he tore up the cloth, set fire to it and held it over the sink to burn. He threw the remains into the toilet, flushed the water again, leaving not a trace of the packet, except, of course, for the money. He put it in the drawer of the night table next to his bed, without counting it. Germans were not prone to lie, and even if he had discovered a mistake, he was unlikely to be compensated.
* * *
‘Bonsoir, Monsieur Popoff. Bonne chance. Good luck,’ the liveried security man wished him, bowing as he opened the door to the casino.
It was a warm night. The casino was full. Popov had noticed that his English shadow had abandoned him, which made him very happy, but as soon as he entered the casino he spotted him again, sitting at the roulette table with some German officers, placing his paltry bets, one chip at a time. And losing each time. He was so focused on squandering his money that he did not immediately notice Popov, but once he did he looked him up and down, from head to toe. He noticed the elegant bow tie, the amber cufflinks, the white dickey, the polished shoes and bulge under the silk lapel of his tuxedo. He presumed Popov was carrying a gun.
Popov was in no hurry. He sat down at the bar, ordered a drink, looked around and casually started up a conversation with a Frenchwoman who had a very pale complexion and copper-red hair. By the second glass she was telling him her life story. She was travelling, she herself did not know where to go. She had been stuck here for months because her mother was ill. Although Duško had heard too many stories like this before, he listened to her attentively, all the while gazing into her eyes as if he understood her suffering, and for the first time in a long while she felt that somebody really cared about her. At the right moment, when he sensed that she had overcome her fear of strangers, he invited her to join him at the card table and play a little baccarat just for fun. She surprised herself by saying yes.
* * *
The baccarat table was quiet. A very short Lithuanian of unprepossessing appearance was holding the bank. He probably was not as rich as he wished to appear, and having nothing else to offer, he opted for a bombastic display of confidence. Popov had seen him before, strutting around the casino. Instead of stating the ceiling when holding the bank, as was the norm, he had the strange habit of high-handedly announcing ‘Banque ouverte’, which meant that there was no ceiling. This is considered improper among serious gamblers because it would mean accepting all bets, giving an unlimited advantage to people with money to risk.
‘Banque ouverte,’ he said again.
Again the croupier did not warn him about breaking the established rules; instead, without giving it a second thought, he invited the players to place their bets.
Perfect! Popov had hit upon a sure bet of his own. And he would have a large audience for it. The Englishman had made a mistake; Popov did not have a gun in his tuxedo pocket, it was a big wad of money, thirty-eight thousand dollars to be exact. Popov had meant to put it in the hotel safe but he was side-tracked and forgot about the money in his pocket. It came in handy now.
So the arrogant Lithuanian now handed our Duško the trump card he was waiting for. Popov first let everybody at the table place their bets and then took the wad of money from his pocket and tossed it onto the green velvet table as casually as if he was tossing a penny into a fountain for good luck.
‘Thirty-eight thousand US dollars,’ he announced. Nobody was likely to match that amount of money.
Everybody at the table was probably rich in some way, but few of them had had the opportunity of seeing so much cash piled up in one place. Let alone of seeing somebody toss it onto the table like a pack of cigarettes. The bundle of greenbacks was so thick that Popov could have said it was two hundred thousand dollars and they would have
believed him. The table suddenly fell silent; everybody was waiting with bated breath to see what would happen. The unassuming Frenchwoman, who had no idea what was going on, went quite still. But it was the Lithuanian who was the most upset by the situation; he had no way of beating Popov – no one in his right mind carried around that much money. No one matched Popov’s bet. The Lithuanian was in trouble and he quietly folded. Silence. According to the rules of the game, Popov had only one option left: to collect everything on the table. He had won big, but as he rose to his feet he started grumbling about the casino’s irresponsible management. He was right too. The allure of gambling is something other than raking in the money. Walking back to the bar, arm in arm with the redhead, he caught a glint of admiration in the ever-present Fleming’s eye.
* * *
That evening the casino was full until late into the night. Here in the south-west of the Continent, the sun rises later in the summer, and so what we call the small hours of the morning came later as well. But right now it was past three in the morning, which was late by any standard, and the gamblers had started drifting away. After all that drinking, Popov had to go to the toilet. Standing at the urinal, staring at the ceiling, he waited for that moment of relaxation that was so essential to passing water. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the Englishman was standing right next to him. He had to be Jarvis’s man, they obviously came from the same school, they liked to combine meetings with pissing. They were alone in the lavatory, he and his tail, standing in front of their urinals, each holding his dick, trying to pee. Popov pretended not to notice anything, but the quick glances the other man kept darting at him disturbed his concentration and he was unable to pass water. He would not have reacted had the Englishman not spoken first.
‘Tricycle?’
Popov was startled, as if he did not understand why the man was addressing him like that. He could not pretend that he thought the words were meant for somebody else, because there was no one else in the lavatory.
‘Pardon?’ Whether Popov was pretending or really was perplexed we shall never know.
‘Tricycle,’ the Englishman repeated, a little less confidently.
‘Мрш, бре, олошу, мамицу ти...’
Popov zipped up his trousers and walked out, without even washing his hands.
The meek girl and the seducer Popov spent the rest of the night chatting away in the sitting room of the casino. They whispered into each other’s ear while they danced, he self-assured, she shy and purring, all of it under Fleming’s vigilant eye. The dancing lasted until dawn at the casino but the couple retired earlier. We do not know where they went and for decency’s sake shall not follow them. We do not know if Fleming followed them, peeked through the keyhole or eavesdropped. It would not surprise us if he did.
QUID PRO QUO
Agent Tricycle appeared unannounced at the fourth-floor office of his superior officer in Rua da Emenda no. 17.
‘Hello, Jarvis!’ he said cheerfully.
‘Hello, hello, hello... To what do we owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit? It’s been less than a week since you were here.’
The relationship between Tricycle and Jarvis in Lisbon had evolved into something like a forbidden love affair. They saw each other secretly, and always only briefly. The opportunities for speaking at length were rare, like this moment in Jarvis’s office, when Tricycle would come under the pretext of visiting the consular section.
With intelligence operations, especially in wartime, you could never be certain whether somebody was a double or even a triple agent, but Jarvis was more and more convinced after every meeting that Tricycle was, mostly, a loyal agent. All the same, he wrote in every report that it was very hard for him to assess the man because he failed to understand how, despite all the risks he took, Tricycle still managed to survive and remain operative for so long. The careers of most of his colleagues usually lasted only a few months.
Jarvis was primarily concerned with security matters.
‘You were here a week ago. Maybe you shouldn’t come so often. You know that they are following your every step and movement.’
‘They know that I am asking for a transit visa for the Bahamas. The only thing they might find suspicious is that my request is going so smoothly when for others it takes months.’
‘All right then. Do you have something important to tell me or is this merely a courtesy visit?’
‘I have something important to tell you. But first I have a question. You don’t happen to know who the idiot who approached me in the casino lavatory last Thursday night is, do you?’
‘Why do you think I might know that?’
‘He called me Tricycle, and he did it while I was pissing, so I thought he might be one of your guys. That’s what you call me, and you like that sort of meeting.’
Despite this pretty strong argument, Jarvis went on shaking his head as if he did not know what Tricycle was talking about.
The trouble with spies is that nobody has unlimited confidence in them the way they often do in, say, regular soldiers. Everybody always doubts the loyalty of spies, following and checking up on them. And they are right to do so.
On the other hand, agents are aware of this distrust, and fear that their employers are in possession of information that for one reason or another they will not or cannot share with them, even though it might be of vital importance.
In an attempt to clear up a potentially dangerous situation, Tricycle offered some more details.
‘The fellow is English. His name is Fleming. Ian Fleming.’
‘Ah, Fleming!’ said Jarvis, as if recalling the name only now.
‘You know him?’
‘More or less,’ Jarvis admitted.
‘And? What can you tell me about him?’
‘Nothing. What would I have to tell?’
What troubled Tricycle was Jarvis denying that he had any connection with the incident, even though Fleming was obviously his man. That had never happened before. In the past, if Tricycle noticed that he was being followed and reported it to Jarvis, Jarvis would admit everything. This time, he was playing dumb. Tricycle had been taught to react to any irregular behaviour. Those were the rules of the game. That is how he had been trained.
‘Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?’ he persisted.
Jarvis kept dodging the question.
‘It’s got nothing to do with you, trust me. It’s completely irrelevant.’
‘Never mind then. I won’t tell you why I came. And I’m warning you it has to do with exclusive information that I think you will find very useful.’
Jarvis knew when somebody was telling the truth.
‘It’s unimportant, but go ahead, ask! What exactly interests you?’
‘On whose orders was he following me?’
‘As far as I know, nobody’s.’
‘What did he want from me, anyway? What was so important that he had to speak to me in the lavatory? We could have been overheard.’
‘Wait, weren’t you alone?’
‘Yes, we were alone, but how would he know if we were alone or not when he was as drunk as a skunk?’
‘I’m sorry, I simply don’t know the answer to that question.’
‘I have the feeling that you’re keeping something from me. That troubles me and affects my trust in you,’ said Tricycle.
Jarvis immediately changed his tone.
‘All right, all joking aside. He’s from central office and is only passing through. I don’t know why he followed you. He was not on duty. I guess he wanted to be useful. As for you and the lavatory – that’s the first time I’ve heard of it. He did not mention it in his report.’
‘He probably doesn’t remember it himself.’
‘I think, and this is just between us, that he can get a bit excited and that’s why he keeps creating problems. When he joined the service he thought he was going to be a secret agent, whereas in fact his is a desk job. He’s
been sitting in the office doing paperwork since the beginning of the war. The first time they sent him into the field he made a mess of it. In Tangiers he provoked an incident with the Spanish.’
‘What kind of incident?’
‘Some nonsense. He got a young diplomat to help him draw a big V for Victory on the runway at the airport.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because they were sloshed.’
‘All right. And then?’
‘And then, when he sobered up, he supposedly feared for his life and instead of flying back by regular transport, he hired a private plane. For around a hundred pounds.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. He was in trouble with the Admiralty.’
‘So why did they let him travel on his own again when they know he’s an idiot?’
‘They didn’t let him go on his own, he travelled with his boss and they thought he would be reasonable. He didn’t do anything stupid until the evening you saw him. His boss went to bed earlier and Fleming stayed behind at the casino. He had another drink or two and then he was on a high again. The worst thing wasn’t that he followed you, it was that he gambled all the money he had and lost. We had to lend him the money for the trip home. I understand that he won’t be budging from his desk anymore.’
Tricycle still felt that the Englishman was throwing dust in his eyes with these anecdotes.
‘Are you sure that’s all it was?’
‘I’m sure. Are you satisfied now?’
‘Yes... I suppose so.’
‘Now will you tell me what you have to say?’ the Englishman asked, genuinely curious.
‘I’ve got big news for you. I don’t know if London knows, if you’ve heard anything, but the Germans have developed a system. Mikropunkt.’
Jarvis now became deadly serious.
‘What is it?’
‘To quote von Karstoff: a new revolutionary system for sending messages. Invisible ink is used to transform them into these microdots.’
‘What exactly is it supposed to be?’
‘It’s not supposed to be, it already exists. It sounds quite simple: a letter is written on a typewriter and photographed, then the photograph is reduced to the size of a dot that is glued onto the end of a sentence in the letter and sent in the mail. You hold the letter up to the light and the microdot appears. They read it with a microscope. He showed me. You can see it perfectly.’
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