by Howard Blum
It wasn’t that long ago that, swallowing his pride, he’d written a plaintive letter to Stephenson’s secretary, a Miss Greene. He’d hoped to make the note sound like a routine follow-up about payments due for his work on The Quiet Canadian, but it wound up seeming rather desperate: “The sum I mentioned to you—£150 . . . —is less than half I have been getting as a Professor, and is really the minimum I can manage on to meet my commitments . . . as well as an invalid mother in Ireland.” He was still waiting on that check.
Hyde also knew that things would only get worse on his return to London. His second marriage, or what was left of it, was falling apart. How could he afford another divorce? If he had to give up his home, where would he live?
His only hope, it was increasingly clear, was Betty. After days listening to her stories as they traveled through Ireland, he knew that his initial instincts had been right: the spy code-named Cynthia was money in the bank. He could spice up the tales Betty was telling him, and the glossy Sunday papers would clamor for the rights. He could already hear the newsboys: Read all about it! Sexy spy fights for king and country in her bedroom! It would be the big killing he needed to set himself right.
His barrister’s mind started churning. What he needed to do was form a company with Betty. Otherwise, British taxes would gobble up the lion’s share of the royalties. A right-sounding name popped into his mind: Cynamont, a combination of Cynthia and Montgomery. It had a nice corporate ring, he decided.
But would Betty appreciate the ingenuity of his scheme, or would she be suspicious? Would she think he was up to something underhanded, that the maneuver was meant not merely to defeat the taxman but to cheat her of her fair share?
That was the thing about spies, Hyde had learned over the years—they always suspected something. And with good reason: it was the only way to survive. Paranoia was the occupational disease of those who lived in the secret world. The cure, though, was worse. The day you let down your guard was the day you made your fatal mistake.
Add money to the equation, and your everyday spy’s paranoia became a grade-one psychotic episode. Agents, like psychiatrists, look for motives, and money is far up on the list. If Betty got it into her head that he was stealing from her, he’d later remember worrying, there’d be no way he’d ever get her to relinquish that bit of foolishness. Not only would Cynamont never come into existence, their entire literary collaboration might fall by the wayside too. And then he’d be stuck at the bottom of the deep hole he’d dug, with no way out.
Looking for reassurance, he might have asked himself whether money was what really drove Betty. Would she focus on corporations, or how the pot was divvied up?
Like every handler, the textbook acronym MICE—Money, Ideology, Coercion, Excitement—had been hammered into his head during training. Those were the motives that drove recruits to take the big risks that came with the covert life. But greed had nothing at all to do with Betty’s service. Ideology—doing her part to defeat Hitler—and even more, excitement—the thrill of living dangerously—were what attracted her. These were the keys to her character.
Perhaps if he stressed the patriotic importance of the story he wanted to tell and the uproar these previously classified tales would cause, that would convince Betty to go along with the rest of his plan, corporation and all. It would be a classic distraction ploy: get the target thinking about one thing, and they’ll forget about another.
But as he drove toward Dublin, Betty sleeping next to him in the passenger seat, he decided it would be wiser to put off any discussion of profits and a corporation until they were back in London. He’d introduce Betty to his literary agent, and Iain could give her an objective view of things. Patience, in business as in espionage, was an operational virtue.
For now, though, his path was clear. The dogged journeyman reporter, he would keep Betty talking. He would extract the rest of her adventures, and they would give him a chance at a new, solvent life.
Chapter 35
MAY I SPEAK TO MR. Howard?” Betty had dialed the Atwater number as soon as she entered her room in the Hotel Lexington. She hadn’t even waited to take off her coat; ever since Paul Fairly had given her the note, she’d been like a Thoroughbred at the starting gate. All Fairly could do was sit mutely on the bed, watching and waiting.
Receiver pressed to her ear, Betty tried to be patient while someone went to find Mr. Howard. She knew, of course, that “Howard” was one of the Service’s favorite code names; Jack Shelley had used it often.
“This is Mr. Howard speaking.”
“Well, this is Mrs. Pack.”
“Mrs. Elizabeth Pack? Why, we’ve been trying to contact you everywhere. Lisbon, Washington, Panama, Santiago—all over the place. But you’ve been one jump ahead the whole time. Anyhow, where are you now? I want to see you as soon as possible.”
“I am here in New York, in the Hotel Lexington. To be precise, room 2215.”
Fairly had gotten off the bed and now stood very close to her. The palm of his hand traveled softly up her back.
“Fine, I’ll be right over,” said Howard.
Fairly had begun to massage her neck slowly, his fingertips a steady caress. Betty swooned. She knew she had to get off the phone.
Apologizing, she told Howard that she had “some urgent business to take care of.” She’d meet him in her room in an hour.
Even before she hung up, Fairly had started to undress her. She turned and embraced him. Locked together, they tumbled happily into the big bed.
EVERY HANDLER HAS HIS OWN “handwriting,” his own style of dealing with his agents. Some assume a parental attitude, the concerned and benevolent patriarch who will sagely guide his charge through the secret world. Others play the hero: I’ve been there, done it all in my time, and expect nothing less than the same from you.
John Howard—his real name was John Arthur Reed Pepper, although Betty didn’t know it at the time—was too young to assume a fatherly demeanor and too inexperienced to pass himself off as the veteran secret agent. Blond, blue-eyed, and boyish, he was a businessman Stephenson had recruited from one of his many corporations and turned into a spy.
Pepper was only a few years older than Betty and, without thinking too much about it, he handled their initial interview as if he were an upperclassman sitting down to talk to a prospective freshman. The BSC was a newly created branch of the Secret Intelligence Service, and he wanted to give the new recruit a sense, carefully edited, naturally, of what the organization would be doing in America. At the same time, he’d also be sizing up the candidate, seeing if she’d be right for what Stephenson had in mind.
Betty, for her part, unashamedly set out to sell herself. She had no doubt that Pepper was fully versed in her operational history; that was why the Service was interested in her, after all. Nevertheless, Betty was proud of what she had accomplished. With great enthusiasm—and a little reinvention to improve upon things when necessary—she went over all the old ground.
She talked about her years in Spain, her exploits during the civil war, building up to the time when, shaking with fear, she had worked with Leche to pull off the daring Spanish prison escape. Then she was back in tense prewar Europe, in bedrooms in Warsaw and on dark streets in Prague, working hand in hand with Shelley while passing on a trove of top-secret intelligence to London. And finally she was in Chile and then on to Cuba, writing articles, yet always watching and listening, making the most of her journalistic cover.
Shrewdly, she gave Pepper a hint of her family connections, how in her youth she’d been introduced to everyone in Washington who mattered, and still had access to the highest in the land. She also made sure he realized that although she was born in Minneapolis, she’d spent her formative years abroad; both her French and Spanish were faultless.
Betty was candid about her marital status, but at the same time presented things in the most favorable professional light. She was still married to Arthur, and that, she pointed out, gave her both diplomat
ic status and a British passport. And yet they were very much estranged; their divorce was simply a matter of paperwork. It would not be too much of a stretch to reinvent herself, using her maiden name; she’d be Elizabeth—Betty to her friends—Thorpe, freelance journalist.
Pepper listened attentively, all the time taking measure of the new recruit. Then it was his turn. The usual procedure was to be deliberately vague about what the operative would be asked to do. “It is the kind of thing that calls for courage and initiative,” was the customary gung-ho explanation. A warning was also standard, though more to gauge the novice’s reaction than because of any genuine concern for the trouble she might wind up in: “The Neutrality Act can land you in prison. In this work you cannot register as the agent of a foreign power, as the law requires; it would give the whole show away. And if you are caught, we haven’t heard of you. You understand that?”
In Betty’s particular case, Pepper also felt he needed to explore her loyalties. She was an American, and she’d be working as an agent for a foreign government. That could be a complication. He wanted to be satisfied that her allegiance to England ran deeper than her marriage—an unhappy one, at that—to a British citizen.
Painstakingly, he kept tapping at the same spot: “Our primary directive from the PM [Churchill] is that American participation in the war is the most important objective for Britain.” He wanted to know if Betty, despite America’s official stance of neutrality, would be willing to work toward that goal.
“Our best information,” he continued, “is that the forces of isolation, a front here for Nazism and Fascism, are gaining, not losing ground. How do you personally feel about these forces? For example, the America First movement?
“Do you feel strongly enough on these matters to work for us in your own country? To spy on your fellow Americans and report to us?”
Betty was unruffled. “As you know,” she said, “I’ve got a British passport. Even if you regard me as an American, it is the British cause I want to help. Or if you like, the Anglo-American cause, for I have a strong feeling that the United States will soon be in this thing up to the neck, same as the British.”
For once she did not need to invent or improve upon the reality: her commitment to the defeat of Nazism was absolute. As for the personal risks she’d be taking, well, the truth was that it just made the battle so much sweeter.
After a spirited hour, it was settled. Betty was precisely the sort of agent the BSC was looking for as they established themselves in America. And intelligence work was what she’d wanted all along. Each would serve the other well.
“I think I can promise you,” Pepper concluded, “that you shall work for us.” His tone was formal, yet genial, as if he were an old boy accepting someone into his club; which, in its way, was the case. “But I am afraid I cannot tell you right now exactly what form the undercover side of your activities will take. In any case, I have to consult the chief about that.”
“I see,” said Betty, disappointed. She felt she had waited long enough; she wanted to rush off on her next mission. “Then what do you want me to do now?”
It was an obvious question, and Pepper had prepared his answer. He had simply been waiting to see if a deal would be made. Now that he was certain, he shared his plan: “I want you to go down to Washington and rent a house or apartment, a house for choice, in some good neighborhood like Georgetown. Where you will be able to work and receive people. And do some discreet entertaining.”
Discreet entertaining. The words hung heavily in the room.
Finally Betty spoke. “And when do I start?”
“The sooner the better. As soon as you find somewhere suitable, let me know and I’ll come down and see you and we can discuss the next move.”
Now officially her paymaster, Howard asked, “How much money will you need? Of course we will pay the rent of the place and what it costs to live there.”
Betty thought for a moment and then suggested an inconsequential monthly stipend. Things were at last working out just as she’d always hoped, and she didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize the opportunity.
“All right,” said Howard, although he doubted the figure would cover her expenses. He decided he’d simply send a check each month for the amount he thought sufficient, the payment issued by a BSC cover account at a discreet Wall Street bank. “We’ll see how it works out.”
And he gave her some operational advice. “Don’t be in a hurry. It may take a couple of months or even three before you are ready to begin operating.”
Betty understood. She was eager, but she also knew cover needed time to take root and grow. Security was a genuine concern: America was officially neutral. And while the BSC had a tacit working relationship with US intelligence, it was an increasingly tenuous one. British agents caught working in the country faced the possibility of arrest or deportation. She’d need to take care not to attract the attention of the FBI.
There was one last matter to be decided. “And I shall call you—what?” asked Pepper. Standard tradecraft required that for security Betty needed a code name.
Betty’s mind went blank. She could not think of any name that felt right.
“I’ve got it,” Pepper announced, as happy as any father at a christening. “Cynthia! That’s what I am going to call you. That’s the name by which you will be known from now on in the Service.”
At 3327 O St., her house in Washington, DC—as secure a house as any spy could want, Betty decided.
Photo by Bernard Anthony Wood
O Street in the Georgetown section of Washington was cobblestoned and tree-lined, just a short stroll from the tow canal that guided traffic along the Potomac River. The house at number 3327 was a pretty, nicely proportioned nineteenth-century Georgian with tall dark-shuttered windows. There were high ceilings and polished wood floors and a small garden in the back that received a sliver of afternoon sun. But more important than her new home’s charms were its operational qualities. Betty decided it was as secure a house as any spy could want.
The neighborhood was as quiet as a graveyard at night; anyone snooping around would be sure to attract attention. And the sitting room and master bedroom overlooked O Street; she’d be able to glance out the window and see who was coming. But best of all, the garden wall hid a door to an alleyway that exited onto Thirty-Third Street. A watcher monitoring the front door would never suspect that a back way into the alley existed. It was the perfect escape route.
Pepper sent Betty the $700 she needed for two months’ rental deposit, and she moved into the house in February 1941. When they met later that week in New York, he gave Betty her marching orders: “Go out in Washington society and look up your old friends and acquaintances. You can say that you have become a newspaperwoman and are writing articles about the war. After all, you were doing that in Chile so it shouldn’t be difficult.”
Pepper was right; it wasn’t difficult. She still had connections in Washington. Her mother continued to flit about town, always busy with luncheons and dinners. And her younger sister was also living in the city. Betty had not been very close to Jane; while Betty liked her cocktails, she felt Jane liked them too much. But Jane’s husband owned the Roosevelt Hotel downtown, and Betty, the pragmatic agent, suspected that the day could arrive when she’d need a discreet hideout. And the Roosevelt was always filled with important people. A friendship with its owner, or at least his wife, might come in handy. She put aside her reservations about her sister and worked to renew their faded friendship.
Then almost overnight, or so it seemed, Betty’s name appeared in the Social Register, the same book she’d studied with bewilderment as a young girl. It was what her mother had always wanted, although Cora would probably have been less approving if she knew her daughter’s inclusion had more to do with tradecraft than any social ambitions. And after a discreet phone call suggested that people in the highest places would like things to move forward, the British Information Service gave Betty accredi
tation as a freelance reporter.
Yet as Betty prepared for her next mission, there was, as she candidly confessed to Hyde, one unanticipated “mishap.” One that “might have seriously interfered with my work if immediate steps had not been taken.” She was nearly three months pregnant with Fairly’s child.
“I had learned a good deal since my marriage,” she explained to Hyde with a philosophical practicality, “and made no amateur attempts to get rid of it as I had done before. This time I had an abortion. It cost me quite a lot of money and I was ill for a fortnight, but there were no aftereffects. I never told my lover in the U.S. Intelligence anything about it.”
When she recovered, she was prepared to launch her new operational life in America.
Chapter 36
BETTY HAD ALL SHE NEEDED: a convincing cover, a comfortable safe house for “discreet entertaining,” years of derring-do experience in the field, a shrewd handler, and best of all, an evil adversary who needed to be crushed. The only thing missing was a mission.
It was a great moment in history. Britain was preparing to make what Churchill feared could prove to be a last stand. Betty was eager to join the fight, to do her part. Yet Pepper kept her standing on the sidelines. And what made the waiting so much harder—Betty now understood and conceded to Hyde—was that she needed to slay her own demons too. A terrible yet all-too-familiar restlessness swept through her as the long days in the house on O Street passed.
Each week she reported at a prearranged time to a room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Manhattan. There she was debriefed by a shrewd and formidable woman who, although clearly American, spoke French as fluently as Betty did. Betty knew her only as Marion; not until years later did she learn her contact’s full name, Marion de Chastellaine, or that the New Jersey native had earned a law degree at the Sorbonne and had lived in high style in Romania for many years with her businessman husband and their two children.