A Gathering of Spies

by John Altman

  And yet she was unable to take much pleasure from it.

  She had gone soft, at some point.

  It was distressing.

  WOHLDORF, NORTH HAMBURG

  A sleek staff Mercedes carried Hagen up a long, wandering drive to a gabled mansion. As he stepped out of the car he saw a flicker of movement to his right—a man standing off to the edge of the porch, among the trees. The man glistened in black. After a moment, Hagen realized that the man was beckoning to him.

  After another moment, he realized that the man was Himmler.

  He smiled, as he always did when he saw Himmler.

  “Herr Reichsleiter,” Hagen said. “Heil Hitler!”

  “Heil Hitler!” Himmler said back.

  He was an officious little man, Heinrich Himmler, who looked more like a banker or an accountant than like the head of the SS. Today he was wearing the black uniform of the Gestapo, with the death’s-head insignia prominently displayed—he had wanted to frighten somebody, Hagen thought, or at least to intimidate—but on Himmler himself the outfit looked ill-fitting, several sizes too large. If one did not know what this man was capable of …

  Hagen knew what this man was capable of.

  Himmler, in Hagen’s opinion, was both the primary architect and the greatest creation of the Third Reich. Hitler was fine as a figurehead, and priceless as an orator, but with his penchant for grandiosity and his lack of ability to make concrete decisions, he needed harder men to handle the day-to-day business of Nazi Germany.

  Himmler, an ex–chicken farmer, was a hard man. Even better, his hardness was balanced, in Hagen’s view, by a great natural sympathy and sensitivity. Hagen had seen this firsthand not so long ago, when Himmler had come back from a tour of the front lines in Russia. The Reichsleiter had witnessed the execution of a hundred Russian Jews there, including women and children. The sight had put him into a state of extreme nervous agitation—and Himmler was a man who prided himself on his lack of nerves. But he had demonstrated his immense capability as well as his boundless sensitivity by his reaction to the executions. He had in structed his SS to create more humane methods of execution, even going so far as to personally tender the suggestion of gas chambers.

  They began to walk around the outskirts of the grounds without speaking. The mansion behind them was the epicenter of Germany’s wireless receiving operation; two vast underground bunkers housed dozens of booths containing radio sets and trained signal receivers. It was an Abwehr headquarters, and Hagen wondered why Himmler had requested to meet him there, of all places. Now, as they strolled through the sparse forest on the mansion’s eastern side, he realized that Himmler was waiting to gain distance from the house before speaking. Walls had ears, and Nazi walls had more ears than most.

  The day was splendid, warm and dry, with a soft wind. Hagen found himself enjoying the walk. They moved for five full minutes without speaking, past a susurrous duck pond, into the fringe of the forest. Then Himmler stopped and looked back over his shoulder to make sure they had not been followed.

  “From this place they can hear the whisper of men a thousand miles away,” Himmler said quietly, “and yet, with all their equipment, they cannot hear us, here, within a stone’s throw.”

  At forty-two, the Reichsleiter usually appeared his age, but today he seemed older. The skin under his bespectacled eyes was tight and shiny. His hair was unkempt. He had been awake all night, Hagen guessed.

  “But they have their tricks,” Himmler said. “Face away from the house when you speak. They have their tricks.”

  “Herr Reichsleiter,” Hagen said, “you look tired.”

  Himmler waved a hand dismissively. “No time for sleep,” he said. “Our enemies are all around us. They are within that mansion even as we speak, Herr Hagen. Do you doubt it?”

  Hagen shook his head. “No, Herr Reichsleiter,” he said. “I do not.”

  “They supply me with fresh evidence on a constant basis,” Himmler said with a derisive curl of his lip. “Last night I received word that Canaris has a new trick up his sleeve. A British code-breaker who is willing to trade his services for the return of his wife. But had I not received word, would Canaris himself have told me? No. Never.”

  “He is not loyal,” Hagen said.

  “Fortunately, I was able to arrive before the message was transmitted,” Himmler said. “I stood and watched myself as they received the man’s terms. Canaris, I am sure, has his own plans for this man. No doubt they involve treason. He hopes to forge a direct link with the British, I suspect, so that he can negotiate a separate peace.”

  Hagen shook his head with disgust. Himmler glanced at him. A slight smile touched his eyes, but not his lips. “You have no fear of Canaris,” he said.

  “None at all, Herr Reichsleiter.”

  “That is why you will be my agent in this matter. You will make yourself available to Canaris as the representative of the Gestapo in dealing with this man. You will make it clear that they have no choice but to accept your help. You will watch. And you will report back to me.”

  “I understand.”

  “It is possible,” Himmler said, “that this is some trick of Churchill’s. The man may only be posing as a traitor. If you find evidence to support this theory, you will not report anything to Canaris. You will report directly to me. I will decide how to best make use of the information.”

  “Yes, Herr Reichsleiter.”

  Himmler looked satisfied. He pursed his lips, then looked at Hagen as if seeing him for the first time. “I forget my manners,” he said. “How are you, my old friend?”

  “I am as well as can be expected, Herr Himmler. And yourself?”

  Himmler shrugged. “Weary,” he said. “If only all our enemies were outside of Germany, I would be less so. I can appreciate fighting the enemy. But fighting our own …”

  “Patience,” Hagen said. “They will betray themselves.”

  Himmler, unconvinced, frowned into the sun. “Sometimes I think that we’re already finished,” he said slowly. “We did not move fast enough—or perhaps we moved too fast. Sometimes, old friend, I give up hope.”

  “You need rest, Herr Reichsleiter. That is all.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Himmler said. “But perhaps what I really need is to see Canaris dangling at the end of a meat hook.”

  “If you like, we could content ourselves with one of his dogs in the meantime.”

  Himmler brightened. “If only we could,” he said, and laughed. “If only we could.”

  THE WAR OFFICE, WHITEHALL

  Three men stood in Andrew Taylor’s office, all leaning over a small stack of letters on the desk. One of the men was Taylor himself, smoking the remains of the cigarette he had pinched out after leaving Highgate; another was Winterbotham, who, for a change, had left his pipe unkindled. The third was David Smith, an expert from the Bletchley outpost of Military Intelligence, which was concerned with breaking enemy codes.

  Smith, Winterbotham reflected, was what he was supposed to be—according to the fictions of Operation Double Cross. He was a chess master of considerably more talent than Winterbotham who had been drafted into MI, along with all sorts of other civilian geniuses at the start of the war. He had broken two important German codes so far, one a naval code, one a standby of the Luftwaffe. But he (and the rest of the geniuses at Bletchley) had been unable to find any codes in the short, simple letters that Fritz Meissner had received from Anna Wagner.

  The letter that all three men were examining now, written in English, was typical of the lot:

  Dearest Fritz,

  I know I shouldn’t be writing to you but I can’t help myself. I dreamed of you last night. Why I should be dreaming of you after ten years I can’t say, but it’s happening. I spoke your name aloud and my husband asked me about it this morning. I told him you were a character in a radio show! I think he believed me.

  Is there any chance that you think of me as much as I think of you? I’m sure you never think o
f me. I’m sure you’re married by now to some nice English woman, and you probably have a family.

  Deep inside, however, I haven’t given up on you. I want you to know that. Even if you do have a family now, it doesn’t mean that we could not give each other things that family does not give. I never expect to see you again, but please know that I’m thinking of you always.

  With love,

  Anna

  “Hm,” Taylor said, and took a long drag from his cigarette. “Rather purple,” he decided.

  “For a time I was intrigued by all the Is,” Smith said. He was a slender, dark man with a perpetually knitted brow; he smelled, rather peculiarly, of brine. “See, here, how many sentences begin with the letter I? All but three. But if there’s a pattern beyond that, I can’t pick it out.”

  “Perhaps a hidden message that’s not in code,” Winterbotham said. “A secret ink?”

  Smith shook his head. “The Nazis use three kinds of secret inks. All three use a ferrous-chloride solution in water for the decryption compound. We’ve tried it. The other possibility is a microdot: The message is reduced to the size of a postage stamp, then photographed through a reverse microscope. The negative is covered with collodion, and a hypodermic needle is used to transfer the information—now infinitesimal—to the paper. Another application of collodion smoothes down the fibers of the paper. But it is still visible to the naked eye—the size of the dot on a dotted i. Unfortunately, all of these letters have been examined and reexamined. There are no microdots.”

  “The messages must be here somewhere,” Taylor said.

  “Why must they be?” Smith asked.

  “Because if they’re not, it means that the woman we’re seeking hasn’t been in contact with Meissner. If that’s true, we have no reason to think she’ll go to him with what she has now. And if that’s true, we’re in trouble.”

  “Perhaps a message hiding in plain sight,” Winterbotham said. “Perhaps the mention of a ‘radio show,’ or a ‘nice English woman.’”

  “We need more than guesses, old chap.”

  “I’m afraid you may not get more,” Smith said. “Needing something doesn’t make it any easier to find.”

  “A new ink?” Taylor suggested. “Something we haven’t seen before?”

  Winterbotham frowned. “You said that this woman severed communication years before sending these letters—if she was the one who sent them. Besides, she was never Abwehr in the first place. Why would she be the first one to use some new sort of ink? How would she get it?”

  “If—”

  “Quiet,” Smith snapped.

  They both looked at him, surprised. His brow was furrowed deeper than ever. He was holding one hand up to silence them, flaring his nostrils rhythmically, staring at the page.

  “You’ve got it,” he said then, and grinned, showing many carious, yellowed teeth. “You’ve got it. I’ll be damned.”

  “Got what?” Taylor said.

  “It, he’s got it, that’s what he’s got,” Smith said. “Not a new ink, but an old ink. An older ink than we would ever think to look for.”

  Winterbotham saw what he was saying; he grinned himself. “She’s been out of contact for years,” he said. “She wouldn’t have the means to get any of their secret inks, let alone a new one.”

  “Especially not if she had really tried to remove herself from the game at some point,” Smith said. He seemed genuinely thrilled—more at the pleasure of figuring out a difficult puzzle, Winterbotham thought, than at the service he had just rendered for England. “She must have gotten rid of whatever equipment she’d originally had long ago. She was forced to improvise.”

  “Improvisation is one of Hagen’s emphases during training,” Taylor put in.

  “I’ll be damned,” Smith said again. “That’s it. That’s got to be it. Iodine!”

  “What?”

  “Iodine, Goddamn it, iodine!”

  The ink used by Katarina Heinrich dated from the Great War. It was made from a solution of a common headache powder, Pyramidon, which could be purchased without raising suspicion at any pharmacy. The ink responded to household iodine, and as soon as Smith applied it to the backs of the letters, the men found themselves regarding the evidence they had been seeking.

  The first letter contained information on the weather, including barometric pressure, temperature, ceiling and visibility, precipitation, and wind direction.

  “She sent this one when the Nazi U-boats were busy off the coasts of New Jersey and Virginia,” Taylor said. “They sunk a handful of Allied ships, all within two months; caused quite a stir. She must have been expecting a fullscale invasion at any time. Of course, the information would be of limited value, considering the time it would take to reach Meissner. Let’s see if she came up with anything better.”

  She had. The second and third letters contained intelligence regarding an American shipbuilding plant in Kearny, New Jersey. Katarina Heinrich had included specifications on two destroyers under construction, along with brief descriptions of their blueprints. She had signed the letters with her code number: V.1353.

  “She must have found work in the plant to get such details,” Taylor said. “Rosie the Riveter indeed.”

  “Well, we’ve got her now,” Winterbotham said. His mind was already turning ahead to the next challenge—arranging and keeping a treff with the Abwehr. If Ruth could hold on in the hell of Dachau for just another few weeks …

  “We don’t have her yet,” Taylor said. “Don’t underestimate her, old chap. Meissner may appear harmless these days, but he’s one of the best I’ve ever come across, and she’s of the same breed.”

  “We know where she’s going, and roughly when. It’s just a matter of laying a trap.”

  “And springing it,” Taylor said. “Don’t forget springing it.”

  He lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of his last.

  PART TWO

  6

  LONDON

  JUNE 1943

  The air-raid sirens were blaring again.

  Clive Everett could hear them from his spot in the Piccadilly Circus Underground station, even above the murmur of people all around him. He could also hear the regular thud of antiaircraft guns, the hoarse shouts of emergency workers, and the high-pitched insectile drone of the Luftwaffe planes themselves—although the latter may have been only his imagination.

  The bombs had started up in force again, Clive knew, because the Allies had been bombing the hell out of Germany lately in order to soften up the Nazis before the inevitable landing of troops. These German retaliatory blitzes, he thought, were just sour grapes. Still, he was not unthankful. He had met more women crouched in Underground tube stations over the past two years than he had met for the ten years preceding. All the young men in England had been sent off to foreign lands, leaving the slightly older men (like himself) in what Clive considered a rather enviable position.

  Right now he had his eye on a young woman who was crouched only a few feet away from him. He could see, in the flickering light of somebody’s torch, that she seemed on the verge of tears. He could also see the swell of her breasts beneath her dress. She was about thirty, he guessed, relatively full-figured, really quite beautiful. Best of all, she looked utterly terrified.

  He inched a bit closer. Somebody to his left was crying; he ignored it. He reached the young woman, put a hand on her thigh, and said, “It’ll be okay, love. Sour grapes, that’s all it is.”

  The woman sniffled and looked up at him. “Sour grapes?” she said.

  “That’s the way I see it. Uncle Adolf’s upset because it’s finally come around to him. So he sends it right back around to us.”

  “Bloody right,” somebody behind him said.

  “Sour grapes,” somebody else said. “That’s just about right, isn’t it? Sour grapes. That’s all it is.”

  The phrase moved through the huddled masses—sour grapes, sour grapes, that’s all it is. This was the way it always was when the bombs s
tarted falling. Everybody was scared, and everybody was forced to huddle together and wallow in their terror, and so everybody looked for courage wherever they could find it. Sometimes it was a group sing-along; sometimes it was a communal turn of phrase. Clive felt a quick flash of pride at having provided this particular turn of phrase and having it picked up so quickly, but he pushed that aside. He wanted to concentrate on the young woman in front of him, who was, he could see now, not just beautiful, but exquisite. Her hair was short and dark, her face high-cheeked and lovely, her eyes a spectacular greenish gray.

  “I’m frightened,” she said.

  “Hush, love, it’s okay. Come here, let Clive give you a squeeze. There you go.”

  She huddled up against him; he could feel her quaking through a thin layer of cotton. He squeezed tightly.

  “My home,” the woman said, and sniffled again.

  “What’s that, love?”

  “It’s gone,” she said. “My home is gone. I was at the market—I heard the sirens—I was nearly home and I saw the bomb—I saw the bomb that—one more minute and I would have been inside—”

  “Shush, love,” Clive said. “It’s all right.”

  “My h-h-h-h-home—”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Everything will look better in the morning. Believe old Clive.”

  “But …” she said. The words were lost in a fresh wave of tears. The woman swallowed. Her throat clicked. She tried again. “But where—will I spend—tonight?”

  Clive smiled.

  “Never fear, love,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of room.”

  Clive Everett lived in the Highgate section of London at a confluence of streets called Pond Square. Along the south side of Pond Square (which was really more of a trapezoid than a square, and which had not been home to a pond since 1860) stood rows of modest houses, Clive’s included. Along the north side were larger houses of red brick, including the three-story Victorian that was home to Fritz Meissner.