by Howard Blum
To her relief, the count quickly vanished out the apartment door, and Betty convinced herself there was reason to hope the two Frenchmen would not meet in the hallway. When Brousse marched into the apartment a moment later, ignored her offer of a cocktail, and stormed directly to the bedroom, she realized she’d been deluding herself: there had been no logical reason for hope at all. She had no doubt that Brousse and Grandville had met outside her apartment.
Charles shoved the bedroom door open. He stood at the threshold as if not daring to go any farther and stared out at the tangible proof of his suspicions—the unmade bed, the tangle of sheets. It looked to Betty as if he was trying to inhale any lingering scent of their coupling. Suddenly he let out a scream like a wounded animal. And then he came at her.
With one strong, harsh slap, he knocked Betty off her feet. Betty tried to get up, but Brousse would not let her. She lay on the carpet and he bent over her, slapping and punching away in his fury. The sounds he made were terrible and primitive. In a feeble attempt to protect herself, Betty raised her hands, but Brousse knocked them away roughly. He continued to hit her until all his rage finally seeped out of him.
Betty lay prostrate on the floor, in great pain. At last she managed to pull herself to her feet. She staggered to the sofa and fell into the cushions. After a moment, she raised herself up and sat with her head in her hands. Still huffing from his exertions, Brousse stood by the drinks table, pouring a large whisky.
Neither had spoken. It had all raced by so quickly, and now that it was over, what had happened still remained beyond their grasp.
The silence grew until it became impossible.
Brousse began to apologize, but Betty cut him off. She spoke carefully, with the perfect calm of a resigned anger.
“So far as our personal relations are concerned,” she said, “you had every right to give me this beating. I shall remember it to the end of my days.”
Then she paused to gather her thoughts. It was the end of a long, eventful night, and she needed to make things clear to herself as much as to Brousse. Grandville had not simply taken advantage of her susceptibility. She had let him bed her not on a whim, and certainly not out of desire, but because she was struggling to hold on to her mission. She needed to remind herself of that, as at the same time she wanted the man she loved to understand that there was an operational logic, a morality even, to her betrayal.
“I do not belong to you or anyone else, not even to myself,” she explained. “I belong only to the Service.”
She let that truth, however uncomfortable for both of them, linger. It was an articulation of her one unshakable article of faith, and she was glad she had said it. When she continued, she spoke with renewed confidence.
“When I promised to get the naval ciphers, I asked for your help. You were not in a position to give it, and I told you that I would work with anyone who could help. You were forewarned, and anything that I have done was in the line of duty.”
She concluded with a stony ultimatum: “I respect your amour-propre as a man, but if this is going to interfere with me, then we will have to part at once.”
She could, if necessary, live without Charles. But she knew she could not survive without the gratification that came from her work, her life in the secret world.
BETTY COULD NOT FACE RETURNING to the bed where she’d just been with Grandville. She told Charles to leave, and then she left too. Her mother was away, and she hoped to find some peace in the quiet of Cora’s empty apartment.
But sleep would not come. She lay in the guest bedroom, her restless mind filled with a clutter of doubts, fears, and suspicions. She thought of Stephenson, of Pepper, and of Huntington, and how she’d let all of them down. She thought of the ciphers locked away in a safe just blocks away, still taunting her, still beyond her grasp. She was afraid that Grandville would deliver on his threat. He would run to the ambassador, bellowing that he’d been approached by an American agent. Charles, she glumly predicted, would inevitably be caught up in the investigation, and just as likely the BSC and the Americans would be implicated too. Her rashness would pull everything down. It was all her fault.
When Betty finally dozed, she had a dream. She was climbing a high ladder through a fog up into the naval attaché’s office. She slipped easily through the window, located the safe, and it opened immediately to her touch. A flock of white carrier pigeons carried the ciphers away on her command. They flew like a band of angels through the blue heavens and landed peacefully on Stephenson’s windowsill in New York.
Her wonderful dream was suddenly interrupted by her mother’s maid shaking her awake. Mrs. Pack, you have a visitor, she explained. I tried to tell him you were sleeping, but he would not listen.
Betty rubbed the sleep from her eyes and saw Charles standing at the foot of the bed.
“It’s time to come home,” he said tenderly.
Not much later they were walking together back to the Wardman Park Hotel. Too much had happened, Brousse realized, for an apology to be sufficient. And, in truth, while he regretted striking Betty, he could not get the torturous knowledge that she had shared her bed with Grandville out of his mind. Still, he also knew he needed to be with Betty: he loved her. Searching for the words that would make things right, he solemnly asked that she please forget everything that had occurred last night. It was the best he could offer.
“That I cannot do,” she said. “But I readily forgive you.” She loved him too. “You must believe me: I am very sorry I hurt you.”
Betty gave him her hand and he took it. Hand in hand, they strolled on toward the hotel.
As they walked, Betty told Brousse about her dream. It was, she was convinced, a sign: there was a way to get the ciphers. “I am going to try to work out something,” she vowed.
But although she remained determined, a new concern troubled her. “I think that Count Grandville is capable of turning me in to the ambassador. I have a nasty intuition about this. It would be catastrophic if I were to be compromised.” Unashamedly she pleaded, “Everything depends on you to get me out of trouble.”
Brousse was glad for a chance to begin to make things right. “It is not difficult to outwit an imbecile like Grandville,” he said confidently. “I promise you can rely on me.”
THERE WAS NO PRETENSE OF discussion. From the start it was an interrogation, an inquisition designed to keep Brousse squirming on the rack until he confessed. As soon as he took a seat in Ambassador Henry-Haye’s office later that day, the ambassador began growling.
Do you know Mrs. Elizabeth Branch, alias Mrs. Elizabeth Pack? he demanded. Are you aware she is an American intelligence operative? Are you aware she is trying to obtain our ciphers? Has she approached you? Has she mentioned Count de la Grandville to you? Do you know, he asked, at last revealing the climax to which he’d been building, that she approached Grandville? That she offered him a fortune for our ciphers?
Brousse was prepared. He sat back amicably, completely at ease, a man with nothing to hide. He let the angry ambassador rant. Only when Henry-Haye was done did he begin to answer. He spoke without hesitation and without reproach.
Of course he knew Mrs. Pack, he volunteered with genial frankness. They lived in the same hotel, after all. She was an American woman of good family; her people were very well connected. He had seen her at parties from time to time, and she was always in the company of very senior American officials. He knew nothing about her being a spy. But he counseled caution. Given how delicate the embassy’s relations were with the Americans, it would be reckless to make accusations to the State Department without sufficient proof. There could be unfortunate repercussions.
Henry-Haye considered this advice, until finally Brousse interrupted his thoughts.
“There is something else, Monsieur Ambassador. If I may speak in total candor.”
Of course, Charles, said the ambassador.
A natural actor, Brousse hesitated. When he finally found his voice, it was as if it was on
ly after a great internal debate. His reluctance was palpable.
“Monsieur Ambassador, it troubles me to tell you that young Grandville cannot be trusted. He is indiscreet.”
The ambassador ordered him to continue.
Grandville has been spreading stories about your relationships with Mme Picot and Baroness Zuylen, explained Brousse hesitantly, as if embarrassed.
Impossible! insisted Henry-Haye. There are no stories to tell, he lied.
Brousse quickly agreed. Nevertheless, he felt he had no choice but to recount all the false tales Grandville was maliciously spreading. He made it clear that each salacious detail he uttered caused him great personal pain.
“Rumors,” the ambassador said stiffly.
Again Brousse agreed emphatically. Still, he was sorry to say, it did show how inappropriate a person like Grandville was for the heavy responsibilities that went with running the code room.
Later that afternoon, Grandville was unexpectedly summoned to the ambassador’s office. With a terse authority, Henry-Haye informed the count that he would no longer be serving as chief cipher officer. In fact, he was banned entirely from entering the code room.
UNKNOWN TO BETTY, HER ILL-CONSIDERED actions had one further repercussion.
“The youngest of my attachés”—Henry-Haye wrote indignantly to the secretary of state’s office—“now in charge of the code office, Count Jean de la Grandville, has been approached at various times, by a certain Mrs. Branch, known also under the name of Elizabeth Pack, who resides at the Wardman Park Hotel and who has insisted to obtain delivery of the secret codes of this embassy.”
But even if Betty had been aware that the US State Department knew of her intrigues, it wouldn’t have slowed her down. It wouldn’t have mattered to her that the diplomats, although ostensibly on the same side as the OSS, might very well have tried to scuttle what they perceived as an ill-advised espionage operation. It was too late. There was no longer any possibility of her backing away. She was committed to getting the ciphers, and she was prepared to take any risk. The success of the mission would be her vindication.
Chapter 49
TRUST WAS A RARE AND elusive quality in the shadowy world Betty inhabited; yet, paradoxically, it was always at the forefront of every operative’s mind. Desk man, case officer, agent in the field—it preoccupied them all. Whom could they put their faith in? Who might be quietly plotting to betray them? It was not a casual speculation: their survival depended on the choices they made.
And now, as the discussion of an Allied invasion of North Africa grew more specific and the mission to steal the Vichy ciphers took on a new urgency, both the British and the American spymasters found themselves agonizing over the same question: Can we trust Charles Brousse?
Their doubts were not provoked by anything Brousse had done; to the contrary, he had delivered product that exceeded their expectations week after week. What worried them, though, was their own deception: Betty had told her asset that she was an American agent, and he was being paid from the coffers of the US Treasury. What would happen if, or just as likely when, he discovered that his paymasters were the detested British, and the theft of the ciphers was a joint British and American operation? Would Brousse walk off in disgust? Or, even worse, in his fury would he help his Vichy cohorts set a trap? Catching the Brits in the act of burgling a foreign embassy, they could imagine him gloating, would be appropriate vengeance for the lies he had been told. Agents routinely sold out friends for greed or ambition; revenge, the spy chiefs knew too well, was an even hotter motivation.
Both Stephenson and Donovan agreed that before the mission went any further, it was necessary to make Brousse fully aware of the operational details. They’d let him hear that he was working for both America and England, and see how he took the news. Before they went behind enemy lines, they needed to know they could trust the asset who’d be leading their agent—and, no less a worry, the two intelligence agencies—into harm’s way.
Betty knew what was in store for Brousse, yet without any qualms she once again set up her lover to be blindsided, bringing him along as instructed to meet her contact. If the wise men felt they needed reassurance before things could move forward, then she was on board with that decision too. She would not let this operation fall apart.
The meet was held on neutral ground, in a safe house in Washington rather than Betty’s apartment, and Huntington ran the show. There was, by his design, no drama. Instead, in his soft, avuncular southern voice he matter-of-factly let Brousse know the previously undisclosed facts about “our”—he chose the pronoun deliberately; he wanted Brousse to feel he was part of the team—“joint operation.” Then he sat back and waited for an outburst of Gallic rage.
There was none. Brousse accepted this reality with a philosophical passivity. A new logic, after all, superseded his old antagonism. A world war was raging; France had been overrun by waves of Nazi invaders; and England, whatever its previous sins, was now formally America’s ally in a war to save Europe. He was on the side of any nation fighting the Nazis. And there was something else pushing him to march off to war with the perfidious Brits: the woman he loved was a British agent.
To demonstrate that he was not secretly nursing a grudge over the disingenuous way he’d been treated, when the conversation strayed to the war in the Pacific, Brousse volunteered that he might be able to help. During his vacation in Japan in February 1939, his wife had given him a motion picture camera as a present, and he couldn’t put his new toy down. He had shot extensive footage between Shimonoseki and Kobe in the Seto Inland Sea; mostly a banal tourist travelogue, he conceded, but the reels also included a detailed look at all the islands, bays, and inlets. Would the Americans be interested? he asked Huntington.
It was just the sort of intelligence the US Navy needed. To the analysts’ greater joy, the films turned out to deliver the genuine goods; “exceedingly interesting,” judged the navy in its official report. And in the months ahead the reels would often inform America’s naval strategy as its warships advanced toward Japan.
Brousse’s generous, well-timed gift firmly put to rest whatever lingering suspicions remained. The cipher mission, both the British and American espionage establishments decreed, could now proceed.
One not insignificant problem, however, remained. There was still no operational plan.
BETTY DIDN’T DARE TELL HUNTINGTON that a dream had inspired her. Even if she left out the part about the flock of carrier pigeons flying off with the code books, she had no doubts about the contempt with which the level-headed lawyer would treat such an admission. Instead, she presented her strategy as if it had been shaped solely by good tradecraft and diligent reconnaissance.
Every attempt so far has failed, she began. And now that the ambassador has been alerted, any pass at embassy staff will be a walk through a minefield; there’s no one we dare approach. “We shall have to do it ourselves in a direct manner,” Betty concluded definitively.
“What have you got in mind?” Huntington asked.
“Burglary.”
“How would you propose going about it?” he asked, still lost.
“The ciphers are kept in a safe in the code room. This is on the first floor, with a window overlooking a small stretch of tree-shaded lawn.”
Huntington nodded; she wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.
Betty’s words now spilled out in one breathless speech, as if she hoped that if she talked rapidly enough, the flaws in her plan would go undetected. “If I could find out the combination of the safe, I could get into the office through the windows with the help of a ladder. I could then pass the cipher books out the window to our people and hide inside until they photographed and returned them. On a dark night it would be easy.”
“Easy!” Huntington shot back. Facile solutions made him suspicious. And Betty’s climbing in through the window seemed “rather crude.”
Yet at the same time he also thought Betty was on to someth
ing. There was no hope, he agreed, of getting anyone already inside the embassy to play ball. The spies would need to steal the ciphers on their own.
All they had to do was come up with a plan for a perfect crime.
NOW, AS THEY PREPARED TO move forward, they went on operational footing. Code names were assigned: Brousse was B.10; Betty, E.11. And heightened security went into effect.
“I am from the exterminating company,” the technician sent from Donovan’s shop—a ferret, as he was called in the trade—announced to Betty when she opened her door in the Wardman Park. He was dressed in overalls, scrupulous in his pretense that he was looking for “bugs”—which, in the jargon of his profession, he indeed was. On hands and knees he crawled under the bed, through closets, and behind curtains. He lifted rugs and carpets. He picked up her telephone, looked at the underside of the console, and still not satisfied, unscrewed the receiver and carefully examined the wiring. A couple of hours later, he shared his professional opinion. “Everything is O.K.,” he told agent E.11. “You got no bugs.”
Convinced that there were no covert microphones in the rooms, Huntington designated the apartment as the mission’s tactical headquarters. The next day he brought over seemingly innocuous cardboard boxes packed with equipment—high-speed cameras, lights, and lenses—that could be used to photograph material. Then the practice sessions began. First Betty, then Brousse, went through the strenuous ordeal of learning how to photograph a document. There were, or so it seemed to the two neophytes, dozens of details—the brightness of the camera bulb, distance from the object being photographed, the speed of the film, and on and on—to know. And Huntington was a stern taskmaster. He wanted everything to be perfect. Only when they both could routinely shoot a document with speed and accuracy, when they had “the touch,” as he put it, did he put an end to the training sessions.