The Unlikely Spy

31

"It's called Operation Mulberry," Admiral Canaris began, "and as of now we don't have the slightest idea what it's all about."

A smile flickered across Brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg's lips and evaporated as quickly as summer rain. When the two men had ridden together earlier that morning in the Tiergarten, Canaris had not told Schellenberg the news. Catching a glimpse of Schellenberg's reaction now, Canaris felt no guilt about keeping it from the young general. Their horseback meetings had one unspoken ground rule: each man was expected to use them for his own advantage. Canaris decided to share or withhold information based on a simple formula: did it help his cause? Outright lying was frowned upon. Lying led to reprisals, and reprisals spoiled the affable atmosphere of the rides.

"A few days ago, the Luftwaffe shot these surveillance photographs." Canaris laid two enlargements on the low, ornate coffee table around which they were seated. "This is Selsey Bill in the south of England. We are almost certain these work sites are connected to the project." Canaris used a silver pen as a pointer. "Obviously, something very large is being hastily constructed at these sites. There are huge stockpiles of cement and steel girding. In this photograph a scaffolding is visible."

"Impressive, Admiral Canaris," Hitler said. "What else do you know?"

"We know that several topflight British and American engineers are working on the project. We also know that General Eisenhower is intimately involved. Unfortunately, we are missing one very important piece of the puzzle-the purpose of the giant concrete structures." Canaris paused for a moment. "Find that missing piece, and we may very well solve the puzzle of the Allied invasion."

Hitler was visibly impressed with Canaris's briefing. "I have just one more question, Herr Admiral," Hitler said. "The source of your information-what is it?"

Canaris hesitated. Himmler's face twitched, then he said, "Surely, Admiral Canaris, you don't think anything said here this morning would go beyond this room."

"Of course not, Herr Reichsfuhrer. One of our agents in London is getting the information directly from a senior member of the Mulberry team. The source of the leak does not know he has been compromised. According to Brigadefuhrer Schellenberg's sources, British Intelligence knows about our operation but has been unable to stop it."

"This is true," Schellenberg said. "I have it from an excellent source that MI-Five is operating in crisis mode."

"Well, well. Isn't this refreshing, the SD and the Abwehr working together for a change instead of clawing at each other's throats. Perhaps this is a sign of good things to come." Hitler turned to Canaris. "Perhaps Brigadefuhrer Schellenberg can help you unlock the riddle of those concrete boxes."

Schellenberg smiled and said, "My thoughts precisely."

32

Catherine Blake tossed stale bread to the pigeons on Trafalgar Square. A stupid place for a rendezvous, she thought. But Vogel liked the image of his agents meeting so near the seat of British power. She had entered from the south, having crossed St. James's Park and walked along Pall Mall. Neumann was supposed to come from the north, from St. Martin's Place and Soho. Catherine, as usual, was a minute or two early. She wanted to see if he was being followed before deciding whether to proceed. The square shone with the morning's rain. A chill wind rose from the river and whistled through a pile of sandbags. A sign pointing to the nearest shelter swayed with the gusts, as though confused about the direction.

Catherine looked north, toward St. Martin's Place, as Neumann entered the square. She watched his approach. A thick crowd of pedestrians jostled along the pavement behind him. Some continued on St. Martin's Place; some broke away and, like Neumann, walked across the square. There was no way to know for certain whether he was being followed. She scattered the rest of the bread and got up. The birds startled, broke into flight, and turned like a squadron of Spitfires toward the river.

Catherine walked toward Neumann. She was especially anxious to deliver this film. Jordan had brought home a different notebook last night-one she had never seen before-and locked it in his safe. That morning, after he left for his office in Grosvenor Square, she returned to the house. When Jordan's cleaning lady left, Catherine slipped inside, using her keys, and photographed the entire book.

Neumann was a few feet away. Catherine had placed the rolls in a small envelope. She withdrew the envelope and prepared to slip it into Neumann's hand and keep walking. But Neumann stopped in front of her, took the envelope, and handed her a slip of paper.

"Message from our friend," he said, and melted into the crowd.

She read the message from Vogel while drinking weak coffee in a cafe in Leicester Square. She read it again to make certain she understood it. When she finished she folded the note and placed it in her handbag. She would burn it back at her flat. She left change on the table and went out.

Vogel began the message with a commendation for the work Catherine had done so far. But he said more specific information was required. He also wanted a written report on every step she had taken thus far: how she made her approach, how she gained entry to Jordan's private papers, everything he had said to her. Catherine thought she knew what that meant. She was delivering high-grade intelligence, and Vogel wanted to make certain the source was not compromised.

She walked north up Charing Cross Road. She paused now and again to gaze into shop windows and check to see if she was being followed. She turned onto Oxford Street and joined a bus queue. The bus came right away and she climbed on board and took a seat upstairs near the rear.

She had suspected the material Jordan brought home would not paint a complete picture of his work. It made sense. Based on the watch report given to her by the Popes, Jordan moved between a pair of offices during the day, one at the SHAEF headquarters on Grosvenor Square and another smaller office nearby. Whenever he carried material between the two offices it was hand-cuffed to his wrist.

Catherine needed to see that material.

But how?

She considered a second bump, a chance meeting on Grosvenor Square. She could entice him back to his house for an afternoon in bed together. It was fraught with risk. Jordan might become suspicious about another coincidental encounter. There was no guarantee he would go home with her. And even if he did it would be almost impossible to sneak out of bed in the middle of the afternoon and photograph the contents of the briefcase. Catherine remembered something Vogel said to her during her training: When desk officers grow careless, field agents die. She decided she would be patient and wait. If she continued to enjoy Peter Jordan's trust, eventually the secret of his work would appear in his briefcase. She would give Vogel his written report, but she would not change her tactics for now.

Catherine looked out the window. She realized she did not know where she was-still on Oxford Street, but where on Oxford Street? She was concentrating so hard on Vogel and Jordan that she had momentarily lost her bearings. The bus crossed Oxford Circus and she relaxed. It was then she noticed the woman watching her. She was seated across the aisle, facing Catherine, and she was staring directly at her. Catherine turned away and pretended to look out the window, but the woman still was staring at her. What's wrong with that damned woman? Why is she looking at me like that? She glanced at the woman's face. Something about it was distantly familiar.

The bus was nearing the next stop. Catherine gathered up her things. She would take no chances. She would get off right away. The bus slowed and pulled to the curbside. Catherine prepared to get to her feet. Then the woman reached across the aisle, touched her arm, and said, "Anna, darling. Is it really you?"

The recurring dream began after she killed Beatrice Pymm. It starts the same way each time. She is playing on the floor of her mother's dressing room. Her mother, seated before her vanity, powders a flawless face. Papa comes into the room. He is wearing a white dinner jacket with medals pinned to his breast. He leans over, kisses her mother's neck, and tells her they must hurry or they will be late. Kurt Vogel arrives next. He is wearing a dark suit, like an undertaker, and he has the face of a wolf. He is holding her things: a beautiful silver stiletto with diamonds and rubies in the shape of a swastika on the grip, a Mauser with a silencer screwed into the barrel, a suitcase with a radio inside. "Hurry," he whispers to her. "We mustn't be late. The Fuhrer is extremely anxious to meet you."

She rides through Berlin in a horse-drawn carriage. Vogel the wolf is loping easily in their wake. The party is like a candlelit cloud. Beautiful women are dancing with beautiful men. Hitler is holding forth at the center of the room. Vogel encourages her to go talk to the Fuhrer. She slips through the shimmering crowd and notices everyone is looking at her. She thinks it is because she is beautiful but after a moment everyone has stopped talking, the band has stopped playing, and everyone is staring at her.

"You're not a little girl! You're a spy for the Abwehr!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Of course you are! That's why you have a stiletto and that radio!"

"No! It's not true!"

Then Hitler says, "You're the one who killed that poor woman in Suffolk-Beatrice Pymm."

"It's not true! It's not true!"

"Arrest her! Hang her!"

Everyone is laughing at her. Suddenly she is naked and they laugh even more. She turns to Vogel for help but he has run away and left her. And then she screams and sits up in bed, bathed in sweat, and tells herself it was only a dream. Just a silly, bloody dream.

Catherine Blake took a taxi to Marble Arch. The episode on the bus had left her badly shaken. She chastised herself for not handling it better. She had rushed off the bus, alarmed, after the woman called her by her real name. She should have stayed in her seat and calmly explained to the woman that she was mistaken. It was a dreadful miscalculation. Several people on the bus had seen her face. It was her worst nightmare.

She used the taxi ride to calm down and think it through. She knew it was always a remote possibility-the possibility that she might run into someone who recognized her. She had lived in London for two years after her mother's death, when her father was assigned to the German embassy here. She had attended an English school for girls but made no close friends. She came to the country one other time after that-with Maria Romero on a brief holiday in 1935. They had stayed with friends of Maria and met many other young, rich people at parties and restaurants and theaters. She'd had a brief affair with a young Englishman whose name she could not remember. Vogel had decided it was an acceptable risk. The chances of actually bumping into someone she knew were remote. If she did she was to have a standard response: I'm sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else. For six years it did not happen. She had grown careless. When it did happen she panicked.

She finally remembered who the woman was. Her name was Rose Morely, and she had been the cook at her father's house in London. Catherine barely remembered her-only that she cooked rather poorly and always served the meat overdone. Catherine had had very little contact with the woman. It was amazing she recognized her.

She had two choices: ignore it and pretend it never happened or investigate and try to determine the extent of the damage.

Catherine chose the second option.

She paid off the driver at Marble Arch and got out. Dusk was fading quickly into the blackout. A number of bus routes converged on Marble Arch, including the bus she had just fled. With luck, Rose Morely would get off here and change for another bus. The bus she was on would turn down Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner. If Rose stayed on the bus, Catherine would try to slip on without her noticing.

The bus approached. Rose Morely was still in the same seat. As the bus slowed she got to her feet. Catherine had guessed right. The bus stopped. Rose disembarked from the rear doorway.

Catherine stepped forward and said, "You're Rose Morely, aren't you?"

The woman's mouth dropped open in surprise. "Yes-and you are Anna. I knew it was you. It had to be. You haven't changed a bit since you were a little girl. But how did you get here so-"

"When I realized it was you, I followed in a taxi," Catherine said, cutting her off. The sound of her real name, spoken in a crowd of people, made her shudder. She took Rose Morely by the arm and headed into the gloom of Hyde Park.

"Let's walk for a while," Catherine said. "It's been so long, Rose."

That evening Catherine typed her report to Vogel. She photographed it, burned it in the bathroom sink, then burned the ribbon, just as Vogel had taught her. She looked up and caught sight of her own reflection in the mirror. She turned away. The sink was black with the ink and the ash. Her fingers were black too, her hands.

Catherine Blake-spy.

She picked up the soap and began working it through her fingers.

It was not a difficult decision. It was worse than she could have imagined. I emigrated to England before the war, she had explained, as they walked along the pathway in the gathering darkness. I couldn't bear the thought of living under Hitler any longer. It was truly horrifying, the things he was doing to the Jews especially.

Catherine Blake-liar.

They must have given you a rough time.

What do you mean?

The authorities, the police. A whisper: Military Intelligence.

No, no, it wasn't difficult at all.

I work for a man named Commander Higgins now. I care for his children. His wife was killed in the blitz, poor dearie. Commander Higgins works for the Admiralty. He says anyone who entered the country before the war was assumed to be a German spy.

Oh, really?

I'm sure Commander Higgins will be interested to know you were not harassed.

There's no need to mention any of this to Commander Higgins, is there, Rose?

But there was no escaping it. The British public was very aware of the threat posed by spies. It was everywhere: the newspapers, on the radio, in the movies. Rose was not a foolish woman. She would mention the encounter to Commander Higgins, and Commander Higgins would telephone MI5, and MI5 would be crawling all over central London looking for her. All the meticulous preparation that went into creating her cover would be blown away because of one chance encounter with a domestic who had read too many spy thrillers.

Hyde Park in the blackout. It might have been Sherwood Forest if not for the distant drone of traffic on Bayswater Road. They had switched on their blackout torches, two pencils of fragile yellow light. Rose carried her shopping in her other hand. Goodness, try feeding children on four ounces of meat a week. I'm afraid they're going to be stunted. A grove of trees loomed ahead of them, a shapeless black blob against the last light in the western sky. I have to be going now, Anna. So nice to see you. They walk a little farther. Do it here, in the trees. No one will see. The police will blame it on some ruffian or refugee. Everyone knows street crime has reached alarming levels in the West End with the war. Take her food and her money. Make it look like a robbery that went wrong. It was lovely seeing you after all these years, Rose.

They parted in the trees, Rose walked north, Catherine south. Then Catherine turned around and walked after her. She reached into her handbag and withdrew the Mauser. She needed a very quick kill. Rose, I forgot something. Rose stopped and turned around. Catherine raised the Mauser and before Rose could utter a sound shot her through the eye.

The damned ink wouldn't come off. She lathered her hands once more and scrubbed them with a brush until they were raw. She wondered why she hadn't become sick this time. Vogel said it would be easier after a while. The brush took the ink away. She looked up in the mirror again, but this time she held her own gaze. Catherine Blake-assassin.

Catherine Blake-murderer.

33

Alfred Vicary felt an evening at home might do him some good. He wanted to walk so he left the office an hour before sunset, enough time for him to make it into Chelsea before becoming stranded in the blackout. It was a fine afternoon, cold but no rain and scarcely a wind. Puffy gray clouds, their bellies pink from the setting sun, drifted over the West End. London was alive. He watched the crowds in Parliament Square, marveled at the antiaircraft guns on Birdcage Walk, drifted through the silent Georgian canyons of Belgravia. The wintry air felt wonderful in his lungs, and he forced himself not to smoke. He had developed a dry hacking cough-like the one he had during final exams at Cambridge-and he vowed to give the damn things up when the war was over.

He crossed Belgrave Square and walked toward Sloane Square. The spell was broken; the case was in his thoughts again. It never really left him. Sometimes he was able to push it slightly farther away than others. January had turned to February. Soon spring would come, then the invasion. And whether it would succeed or fail might be resting squarely on Vicary's shoulders.

He thought about the latest decoded message sent to him by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. The message was sent the previous night to an agent operating inside Britain. The message contained no code name but Vicary assumed it was one of the spies he was pursuing. It said the information received thus far had been good but more was needed. It also asked for a report on how the agent had contacted the source. Vicary looked for a silver lining. If Berlin needed more intelligence, it did not have a complete picture. If it did not have a complete picture, there still was time for Vicary to plug the leak. Such was the bleak nature of the case that he took heart from logic like that.

He crossed Sloane Square and drifted into Chelsea. He thought of evenings like this a long time ago-before the war, before the bloody blackout-when he would walk home from University College with a briefcase bulging with books and papers. His worries had been much simpler then. Did I put my students to sleep with my lecture today? Will I finish my next book before deadline?

Something else occurred to him as he walked. He was a damned good intelligence officer, no matter what Boothby might say. He was also well suited to it by nature. He was without vanity. He didn't require public praise or accolades. He was perfectly content to toil in secret and keep his victories to himself. He liked the fact that no one knew what he really did. He was secretive and private by nature, and being an intelligence officer only reinforced that.

He thought of Boothby. Why did he pull Vogel's file and lie about it? Why did he refuse to forward Vicary's warning to Eisenhower and Churchill? Why did he interrogate Karl Becker but not pass on the evidence of a separate German network? Vicary could think of no logical explanation for his actions. They were like notes that Vicary could not arrange into a pleasing melody.

He arrived at his home in Draycott Place. He pushed back the door and waded through several days of unanswered post into his darkened drawing room. He considered inviting Alice Simpson to dinner but decided he didn't have the strength for polite conversation. He filled the bath with hot water and soaked his body while listening to sentimental music on the wireless. He drank a glass of whisky and read the newspapers. Since his induction into the secret world he no longer believed a word in them. Then the telephone started ringing. It had to be the office; no one else ever bothered to call him any longer. He struggled out of the bath and covered himself in a robe. The telephone was in the study. He picked up the receiver and said, "Yes, Harry?"

"Your conversation with Karl Becker gave me an idea," Harry said without preamble.

Vicary was dripping bathwater on the papers scattered over his desk. The cleaning lady knew it was verboten even to consider entering his study. As a result it was an island of academic clutter in his otherwise sterile and immaculate home.

"Anna Steiner lived in London with her diplomat father for two years in the early twenties. Rich foreign diplomats have servants: cooks, butlers, maids."

"All true, Harry. I hope this is leading somewhere."

"For three days I've been checking with every agency in town, trying to find the names of the people who worked in that household."

"Good idea."

"I've got a few. Most are dead; the others are old as the hills. There was one promising name, though: Rose Morely. As a young woman she worked as a cook in the Steiner house. Today I discovered she works for a Commander Higgins of the Admiralty at his house in Marylebone."

"Good work, Harry. Set up an appointment first thing in the morning."

"I planned to, but someone just shot her through the eye and left her body in the middle of Hyde Park."

"I'll be dressed in five minutes."

"There's a car waiting outside your house."

Five minutes later Vicary let himself out and locked the door behind him. He realized at that moment that he had completely forgotten about his lunch date with Helen.

The driver was an attractive young Wren who didn't make a sound during the short journey. She took him as close to the scene as she could-about two hundred yards away, at the bottom of a gentle rise. The rain had started up again, and he borrowed her umbrella. He climbed out and softly closed the door, as though arriving at a cemetery for a burial. Ahead of him he saw several long beams of white light bouncing back and forth, like miniature searchlights trying to pick a Heinkel bomber out of the night sky. One of the beams caught his approach, and he had to shade his eyes from the glare. The walk was longer than he estimated; the gentle rise was more like a small hill. The grass was long and very damp. His trousers were soaked from the knee down, as though he had just forded a stream. The torch beams were lowered like swords at his approach. A Detective Chief Superintendent Something-or-Other took him gently by the elbow and walked him the rest of the way. He had the good sense not to speak Vicary's name.

A tarpaulin had been hastily erected over the body. The rain pooled in the center and spilled over one edge like a tiny waterfall. Harry was squatting next to the ruined skull. Harry in his element, Vicary thought. He looked so casual and relaxed hovering over the corpse, he might as well have been resting in the shade on a warm summer's day. Vicary surveyed the scene. The body had fallen backward and landed with its arms and legs spread wide, like a child making angels in snow. The earth around the head was black with blood. One hand still clung to a cloth shopping bag, and inside the bag Vicary saw tins of vegetables and some kind of meat wrapped in butcher's paper. The paper was leaking blood. The contents of a handbag were strewn about the feet. Vicary saw no money among the things.

Harry noticed Vicary standing there silently and came over to him. They stood side by side for a long moment, neither speaking, like mourners at a graveside, Vicary softly beating his pockets for his half-moon reading glasses.

"It could be a coincidence," Harry said, "but I really don't believe in them. Especially when it involves a dead woman with a bullet through the eye." Harry paused, finally showing emotion. "Christ, I've never seen anyone do it like that. Street thugs don't shoot people in the face. Only professionals do."

"Who found the body?"

"A passerby. They've questioned him. His story seems to check out."

"How long has she been dead?"

"Just a few hours. Which means she would have been killed in the late afternoon or early evening."

"And no one heard the shot?"

"No."

"Perhaps the weapon was silenced?"

"Could have been."

The superintendent came over.

"Well, if it isn't Harry Dalton, the man who cracked the Spencer Thomas case." The superintendent glanced at Vicary; then his gaze returned to Harry. "I'd heard you were working for the irregulars now."

Harry managed a weak smile. "Hello, guv."

Vicary said, "I'm declaring this a security matter as of now. You'll have the necessary paperwork on your desk in the morning. I want Harry to coordinate the investigation. Everything should go through him. Harry will draft a statement in your name. I want this described as a robbery that went wrong. Describe the wound accurately. Don't play around with the details of the crime scene. I want the statement to say the police are searching for a pair of refugees of undetermined origin seen in the park around the time of the murder. And I want your men to proceed with discretion. Thank you, Superintendent. Harry, I'll see you first thing in the morning."

Harry and the superintendent watched Vicary limp down the hill and vanish into the soggy blackness. The superintendent turned to Harry. "Jesus Christ, what's his bloody problem?"

Harry stayed in Hyde Park until the body was taken away. It was after midnight. He hitched a lift from one of the police officers. He could have called for a department car but he didn't want the department to know where he was going. He got out of the car a short distance from Grace Clarendon's flat and walked the rest of the way. She had given him his old key back, and he let himself inside without knocking. Grace always slept like a child-on her stomach, arms and legs sprawled, a pale foot poking from beneath the covers. Harry undressed quietly in the dark and tried to slip into bed without waking her. The bedsprings groaned beneath his weight. She stirred, rolled over, and kissed him.

"I thought you'd left me again, Harry."

"No, just a very long, very dirty night."

She leaned on one elbow. "What happened?"

Harry told her. Harry told her everything.

"It's possible she was killed by the agent we're looking for."

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

"It was bad. She was shot in the face. It's hard to forget something like that, Grace."

"Can I make you forget?"

He had just wanted to sleep. He was exhausted, and being around a body always made him feel dirty. But she began to kiss him, very slowly at first, and softly. Then she was begging him to help her out of her flowered flannel nightshirt, and the madness began. She always made love to him as if she were possessed, clawing and scratching at his body, pulling at him as if trying to draw venom from a wound. And when he entered her she wept and pleaded with him never to leave her again. And afterward, as she lay next to him sleeping, Harry was struck by the most awful thought of his life. He found himself hoping her husband would never come back from the war.

34

They gathered around a large model of a Mulberry harbor the following afternoon in a secret room at 47 Grosvenor Square: senior American and British officers assigned to the project; Churchill's personal chief of staff, General Sir Hastings Ismay; and a pair of generals from Eisenhower's staff who sat so still they might have been statues.

The meeting began cordially enough, but after a few minutes tempers flared. There were charges and countercharges, accusations of foot-dragging and distortion, even a few quickly regretted personal insults. The British construction estimates were too rosy! You Americans are being too impatient, too-well, too bloody American! It was the pressure, they all agreed, and they started over at the beginning.

With little more than three months remaining until D-Day, the Mulberry project was falling hopelessly behind schedule. It's the bloody Phoenixes, drawled an English officer who happened to be assigned to one of Mulberry's more successful components.

But it was the truth: the giant concrete caissons, backbone of the entire project, were perilously behind schedule. There were so many problems it might have been funny if the stakes weren't so high. There were critical shortages of concrete and critical shortages of steel for reinforcement rods. There were too few construction sites and no room in Britain's south coast harbors to moor finished units. There were shortages of skilled workers, and the workers they had on the job were weak and malnourished because there were critical shortages of food.

It was a disaster. Without the caissons acting as a breakwater, the entire Mulberry project was unworkable. They needed someone to go to the construction sites first thing in the morning to make a realistic assessment of whether the Phoenixes could be completed on time, someone who had overseen large projects and knew how to make design modifications in the field once construction was under way.

They chose the former chief engineer of the Northeast Bridge Company, Commander Peter Jordan.

35

The Hyde Park shooting made the first editions of the London evening papers. All the papers printed quotes from the bogus police statement. Investigators were treating the murder as a robbery that went wrong; police were searching for two men thought to be Eastern European in origin-very probably Polish-seen near the site of the murder shortly before it occurred. Harry even had invented two rather vague descriptions of the suspects. The newspapers all bemoaned the shocking rise in violent street crime in the West End that had come with the war. The stories contained accounts of men and women who had been beaten and robbed in recent months by bands of roving refugees, drunken soldiers, and deserters.

Vicary felt a tinge of guilt as he leafed through the newspapers at his desk early that afternoon. He believed in the sanctity of the written word and felt bad about misleading the press and the public. His guilt was easily assuaged. It was impossible to tell the truth-that Rose Morely might very well have been murdered by a German spy.

By midafternoon Harry Dalton and a team of officers from the Metropolitan Police had pieced together the final hours of Rose Morely's life. Harry was in Vicary's office, his long legs propped up on the desk, so that Vicary was treated to a view of his worn soles.

"We interviewed the maid at the home of Commander Higgins," Harry said. "She said Rose had gone out to do her shopping. She went most afternoons before the children arrived home from school. The receipt we found in her bag was from a shop in Oxford Street near Tottenham Court Road. We interviewed the shopkeeper. He remembered her. In fact he remembered almost every item she purchased. He said she bumped into another woman that she knew, a domestic like herself. They took tea together at a cafe across the street. We spoke to the waitress there. She confirmed it."

Vicary was listening intently, studying his hands.

"The waitress says Rose crossed Oxford Street and queued for a westbound bus. I put a man on as many buses as I could. About a half hour ago we found the ticket collector who was on Rose's bus. He remembered her very well. Said she had a brief conversation with a very tall, very attractive woman who jumped off the bus in quite a hurry. Said that when the bus arrived at Marble Arch, the same very tall, very attractive woman was waiting there. He said he would have called us on his own, but the papers said the police already had their suspects and neither one was a very tall, very attractive woman."

A typist poked her head in the door and said, "Sorry to interrupt but you have a call, Harry. A Detective-Sergeant Colin Meadows. Says it's urgent."

Harry took the call at his desk.

"You the same Harry Dalton that cracked the Spencer Thomas case?"

"I'm the man," Harry said. "What can I do for you?"

"It's concerning the Hyde Park shooting. I think I have something for you."

"Spill it, Detective-Sergeant. We're under a bit of time pressure over here."

"I hear the real suspect is a woman," Meadows said. "Tall, attractive, thirty to thirty-five years old."

"Could be. What do you know?"

"I've been working the Pope murder."

"I read about it," Harry said. "I can't believe someone had the balls to slit the throats of Vernon Pope and his girl."

"Actually, Pope was stabbed in the eye."

"Really!"

"Yeah," Meadows said. "And his girlfriend got it in the heart. One stab wound-surgical, almost."

Harry remembered what the Home Office pathologist had said about the body of Beatrice Pymm. The last rib on her left side had been nicked. Possible stab wound to the chest.

Harry said, "But the papers-"

"You can't trust what you read in the papers, can you, Harry? We changed the descriptions of the wounds to weed out the crazies. You'd be surprised how many people want to take credit for killing Vernon Pope."

"Not really. He was a right bastard. Keep going."

"A woman matching your girl's description was seen entering the Popes' warehouse the night Pope was killed. I have two witnesses."

"Jesus Christ!"

"It gets better. Immediately after the murder, Robert Pope and one of his muscle boys broke into a boardinghouse in Islington looking for a woman. It seems they had the wrong address. Took off like a pair of jackrabbits. But not before they roughed up the landlady."

"Why am I hearing this only now?" Harry snapped. "Pope was killed nearly two weeks ago!"

"Because my super thinks I'm on a wild-goose chase. He's convinced Pope was killed by a rival. He doesn't want us to waste time pursuing alternative theories, as he puts it."

"Who's the super?"

"Kidlington."

"Oh, Christ! Saint Andrew?"

"One and the same. There's one other thing. I questioned Robert Pope once last week. I want to question him again but he's gone to ground. We haven't been able to locate him."

"Is Kidlington there now?"

"I can see him sitting in his office doing his bloody paperwork."

"Keep watching. I think you'll enjoy this."

Harry nearly killed himself sprinting from his desk into Vicary's office. He told it very quickly, running over the details so fast that Vicary twice had to ask him to stop and go back to the beginning. When he was finished, Harry dialed the number for him and handed Vicary the receiver.

"Hello, Detective Chief Superintendent Kidlington? This is Alfred Vicary calling from the War Office… I'm fine, thank you. But I'm afraid I need your rather serious help. It's about the Pope murder. I'm declaring it a security matter as of now. A man from my staff will come to your office right away. His name is Harry Dalton. You may remember him… You do? Good. I'd like a complete copy of the entire case file… Why? I'm afraid I can't say any more, Superintendent. Thank you for your cooperation. Good afternoon."

Vicary rang off. He slammed the palm of his hand onto the desk and looked up at Harry, smiling for the first time in weeks.

Catherine Blake packed her handbag for the evening: her stiletto, her Mauser pistol, her camera. She was meeting Jordan for dinner. She assumed they would go back to his house together afterward to make love; they always did. She made tea and read the afternoon newspapers. The murder of Rose Morely in Hyde Park was the big news of the day. The police believed the murder was a robbery that spun out of control and ended in murder. They even had a pair of suspects. Just as she thought. It was perfect. She undressed and took a long bath. She was toweling her wet hair when the telephone rang. Only one person in all of Britain knew her number-Peter Jordan. Catherine pretended to be surprised when she heard his voice at the other end of the line.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel dinner. I apologize, Catherine. It's just that something very important has come up."

"I understand."

"I'm still at the office. I need to stay here very late tonight."

"Peter, you're not obliged to give me an explanation."

"I know, but I want to. I have to leave London very early tomorrow morning, and I have a lot of work to do before then."

"I'm not going to pretend I'm not disappointed. I was looking forward to being with you tonight. I haven't seen you for two days."

"It seems like a month. I wanted to see you too."

"Is it completely out of the question?"

"I'm not going to be home until at least eleven o'clock."

"That's fine."

"And I have a car picking me up at my house at five in the morning."

"That's fine too."

"But, Catherine-"

"Here's my suggestion. I'll meet you in front of your house at eleven. I'll make us something to eat. You can relax and get ready for your trip."

"I need to get some sleep."

"I'll let you sleep, I promise."

"We haven't been sleeping much lately."

"I'll do my best to restrain myself."

"I'll see you at eleven."

"Wonderful."

The red light shone over Boothby's double door for a very long time. Vicary reached out to press the buzzer a second time-a flagrant violation of one of Boothby's edicts-but stopped himself. From the other side of the heavy doors he heard two voices elevated in argument, one distinctly female, the other Boothby's. You can't do this to me! It was the woman's voice, suddenly loud and slightly hysterical. Boothby's voice grew calmer in response, a parent quietly lecturing an errant child. Vicary, feeling like an idiot, leaned his ear against the seam in the doors. Bastard! Bloody bastard! It was the woman again. Then the sound of a door slamming. The light suddenly shone green. Vicary ignored it. Sir Basil's office had a private entrance, used only by the lord and master himself and by the director-general. It was not all that private; if Vicary waited long enough, the woman would turn the corner and he could get a look at her. He heard the sound of her high-heeled shoes, smacking angrily against the corridor floor. She turned the corner. It was Grace Clarendon. She stopped walking and narrowed her vivid green eyes at Vicary in disgust. A tear tumbled down her cheek. She punched it away, then disappeared down the hallway.

The office was dark except for the single lamp burning on Boothby's desk. The room reeked of the cigarette smoldering untouched at Boothby's elbow. Boothby was working through a file in his braces and his shirtsleeves. Without looking up, he commanded Vicary to sit by jabbing his gold pen at one of the chairs in front of the desk. "I'm listening," he said.

Vicary brought him quickly up-to-date. He told Boothby about the results of the daylong investigation into the murder of Rose Morely. He told him about the possible link between the German agent and the murder of Vernon Pope. He explained that finding Robert Pope and questioning him was imperative. He requested every available man to assist in the search for Pope. Boothby maintained a stoic silence throughout Vicary's briefing. His habitual fidgeting and pacing had been suspended, and he seemed to be listening more intently than usual.

"Well," Boothby said. "This is the first piece of good news we've had when it comes to this case. I do hope for your sake that you're right about the connection between these killings."

He began making noises about the importance of patience and legwork. Vicary was thinking of Grace Clarendon. He was tempted to ask Boothby why she had just been in his office but couldn't bear the thought of another lecture about need to know. Vicary felt terrible about it. He had miscalculated. He had put Grace's head on the block for the sake of scoring a useless point in a lost argument, and Boothby had chopped it off. He wondered if she had been sacked or had escaped with only a stern warning. She was a valuable member of the staff, intelligent and dedicated. He hoped Boothby had spared her.

Boothby said, "I'll telephone the head of the watchers straightaway, order him to give you as many men as he can possibly spare."

"Thank you, Sir Basil," Vicary said, standing up to leave.

"I know we've had our differences over this case, Alfred, and I do hope you're right about all this." Boothby hesitated. "I spoke with the director-general a few minutes ago."

"Oh?" Vicary said.

"He's given you the proverbial twenty-four hours. If all this doesn't produce a break I'm afraid you're going to be removed from the case."

When Vicary was gone, Boothby reached across his desk and picked up the receiver of his secure telephone. He dialed the number and waited for the answer.

As usual the man at the other end of the line did not identify himself, just said, "Yes?"

Boothby did not identify himself either. "It seems our friend is closing in on his prey," Boothby said. "The second act is about to begin."

The man at the other end of the line murmured a few words, then broke the connection.

Her taxi stopped outside Peter Jordan's house at five minutes after eleven. Catherine could see him standing on the pavement outside his front door, blackout torch in hand. She climbed out and paid the driver. An engine started somewhere down the street. The taxi drove off. She took a step toward Jordan and heard the roar of an engine, the sound of tires spinning on the wet street. She turned her head in the direction of the sound and saw a van bearing down on her. It was just a few feet off, too close to get out of the way. She closed her eyes and waited to die.

Dicky Dobbs had never actually killed anyone before. Sure, he had broken his share of bones, ruined his share of faces. He'd even crippled one bloke who refused to cough up protection money. But he had never actually taken a human life. I should enjoy killing the bitch. She had murdered Vernon and Vivie. She had given him the slip so many times he had lost count. And God knows what she was doing with the American officer. The taxi turned onto the darkened street. Dicky gently turned the key, igniting the van's engine. He opened the throttle a bit, feeding fuel to the motor. Then he placed his hand on the gearshift and waited. The taxi drove off. The woman started across the street. Dicky dropped the van into gear and opened the throttle full.

A soft, warm darkness surrounded her. She was aware of nothing, only a distant ringing in her ears. She tried to open her eyes but could not. She tried to breathe but could not. She thought of her father and mother. She thought of Maria and she dreamed she was in Spain again, lying on a warm rock beside the stream. There had never been a war; Kurt Vogel had never entered her life. Then, slowly, she became aware of a sharp pain at the back of her head and a great weight pressing down on her body. Her lungs cried out for oxygen. Her body retched but she still could not breathe. She saw bright lights, like comets, shooting across a vast black emptiness. Something was shaking her. Someone was calling her name. And quite suddenly she realized she was not dead after all. The retching stopped and she was finally able to draw a breath. Then she opened her eyes and saw Peter Jordan's face. Catherine, can you hear me, darling? Are you all right? Jesus Christ, I think he was trying to kill you! Catherine, can you hear me?

Neither of them felt much like eating. Both of them wanted something to drink. Jordan had a briefcase chained to his wrist-it was the first time he had brought one home with him like that. He went to the study and unlocked it. Catherine heard him working the combination of the safe, pulling open the heavy door, then closing it again. He came out and went into the drawing room. He poured two very large glasses of brandy and carried them upstairs to the bedroom.

They undressed slowly while they drank the brandy. Catherine was having trouble holding on to her glass. Her hands shook, her heart was pounding inside her chest, she felt as if she were about to be sick. She forced herself to drink some of the brandy. The warmth of it took hold of her, and she felt herself begin to relax.

She had made a terrible miscalculation. She should never have gone to the Popes. She should have thought of some other way. But she had made one other mistake. She should have killed Robert Pope and Dicky Dobbs too, when she had the chance.

Jordan sat down on the bed next to her. "I don't know how you can be so calm about this," he said. "After all, you were almost killed just now. You're allowed to show some emotion."

Another mistake. She should be acting more frightened. She should be asking him to hold her and tell her everything was all right. She should be thanking him for saving her life. She was no longer thinking clearly. It was spinning out of control, she could feel it. Rose Morely… the Popes… She thought of the briefcase Jordan just locked away in his safe. She thought about the contents. She thought about the fact that he had brought it home chained to his wrist. The most important secret of the war-the secret of the invasion-might very well be within her grasp. And if it was really there? If she could really steal it? She wanted to come out. She no longer felt safe. No longer capable of living the double life she had lived for six years. No longer capable of carrying on this affair with Peter Jordan. No longer capable of giving him her body each night and then sneaking into his study. One assignment, then out. Vogel had promised. She would hold him to it.

Catherine finished undressing and lay down on the bed. Jordan was still sitting on the edge, drinking his brandy, staring into the darkness.

"It's called English reserve," she said. "We're not allowed to show our emotions, even when we're nearly run over in the blackout."

"When are you allowed to show your emotions?" he said, still staring away.

"You could have been killed tonight too, Peter," she said. "Why did you do it?"

"Because I realized something when I saw that damned idiot bearing down on you. I realized that I was desperately, madly, completely in love with you. I have been since the moment you walked into my life. I never thought anyone would ever make me happy again. But you have, Catherine. And I'm terrified of its all going away again."

"Peter," she said softly. His back was to her. She reached up and took hold of his shoulder to pull him down, but his body had gone rigid.

"I always wondered where I was the exact moment she died, what I was doing. I know it sounds morbid, but I was obsessed with it for the longest time. It was because I wasn't there for her. It was because my wife died alone in a rainstorm on a Long Island highway. I always wondered if there wasn't something I could have done. And standing there tonight I saw the whole thing happening all over again. But this time I could do something-something to stop it. So I did."

"Thank you very much for saving my life, Peter Jordan."

"Believe me, the reasons were purely selfish. I waited a very long time to find you, Catherine Blake, and I don't ever want to be without you again."

"Do you mean that?"

"I mean it with all my heart."

She reached for him again, and this time he came to her. She kissed him again and again and said, "God, I love you so much, Peter." She was surprised by how easily the lie came to her lips. He suddenly wanted her very badly. She lay down on her back and opened her legs to him, and when he entered her Catherine felt her body rising toward his. She arched her back to him and felt him deep inside her. It happened so suddenly it made her gasp. When it was over she found she was laughing helplessly.

He laid his head on her breasts. "What's so damned funny?"

"You just make me very happy, Peter-so very happy."

Alfred Vicary maintained a restless vigil at St. James's Street. At nine o'clock he took the stairs to the canteen for something to eat. The fare was atrocious as usual, potato soup and some steamed whitefish that tasted as though it came from the river. But he discovered he was ravenously hungry and actually had a second helping. Another officer-a former barrister who looked chronically hungover-asked Vicary for a game of chess. Vicary played poorly and without enthusiasm but managed to pull out the game with a series of rather brilliant moves at the end. He hoped it was an allegory for the way the case would turn out.

Grace Clarendon passed him in the stairwell. She was clutching a batch of files in her arms like a schoolgirl carrying books. She shot Vicary a malevolent glance and clattered downward toward the dungeon of Registry.

Back in his office he tried to work-the Becker network was demanding attention-but it was no good.

Why haven't you told us this before?

I told Boothby.

Harry checked in for the first time-nothing.

He needed an hour of sleep. The clatter of the teleprinters next door, once so pacifying, sounded like jack-hammers. His tiny camp bed, once his deliverance from insomnia, became a symbol of all that was wrong with his life. For thirty minutes he moved it around his office, placing it first against one wall, then another, then in the center of the room. Mrs. Blanchard, the supervisor of the night typists, poked her head in Vicary's door, alarmed by the racket. She poured Vicary an enormous glass of whisky, ordered him to drink it, and returned the cot to its usual place.

Harry called again-nothing.

He picked up the telephone and dialed Helen's number. An annoyed man answered. Hello… Hello… Dammit, who's there? Vicary quietly replaced the receiver.

Harry checked in for the third time-still nothing.

Vicary, dejected, drafted a letter of resignation.

Ever read Vogel's file?

No.

He tore the letter to shreds and placed the shreds in his burn bag. He lay on his bed, the desk lamp shining on his face, and stared at the ceiling.

He wondered why she had become involved with the Popes. Were they operating in complicity with her, involved in espionage as well as black marketeering and protection rackets? Unlikely, he thought. Perhaps she went to them because of services they could provide: black market petrol, weapons, men to mount a surveillance operation. Vicary could never be certain until he apprehended and questioned Robert Pope. Even then he planned to put the Pope operation under a microscope. If he saw anything he didn't like he would charge the lot of them with spying for Germany and throw them in prison for a very long time. And what about Rose Morely? Was it possible the whole thing was a dreadful coincidence? That Rose had recognized Anna Steiner and had paid for that with her life? Very possible, Vicary thought. But he would assume the worst-case scenario-that Rose Morely actually was an agent too. He would conduct a thorough investigation of her background before closing the book on her murder.

He looked at his wristwatch: one o'clock in the morning. He picked up the telephone and dialed the number once more. This time it was Helen's voice on the other end of the line. It was the first time he had heard it in twenty-five years. Hello… Hello… Who is this, please? Vicary wanted to speak but could not. Oh, bloody hell! And the connection was broken.

Catherine unlocked the study door, went inside, and closed it softly behind her. She switched on the desk lamp. From her handbag she removed her camera and her Mauser pistol. She laid the pistol on the desk carefully, the butt facing her, so she could swing it up rapidly into the firing position if necessary. She knelt in front of the safe and rotated the dial back and forth. She turned the latch and the door was open. Inside was the briefcase-locked. She unlocked it with her own key, opened it, and looked inside.

A black bound book with the words TOP SECRET-BIGOT ONLY on the cover.

She felt her heart begin to beat faster.

Catherine took the book to the desk, laid it down, and photographed the cover.

She opened it and read the first page:

PHOENIX PROJECT

1. design specifications

2. construction schedule

3. deployment

Catherine thought, My God. I've actually done it!

She photographed that page and turned another.

Page after page of designs-she photographed all of them.

A page labeled CREW REQUIREMENTS-she photographed it.

Another page labeled TOWING REQUIREMENTS-she photographed it.

She ran out of film. She removed the spent film and reloaded the camera. She photographed two more pages.

Then she heard the noise upstairs-Jordan, getting out of bed.

She turned another page and photographed it.

Catherine heard him walking across the floor.

She turned another page and photographed it.

She heard water running in the bathroom.

She photographed two more pages. She would never have access to this document again, that she knew. If it truly contained the secret of the invasion, she had to keep working. While she photographed, she thought what she would do if he walked in on her. Kill him with the Mauser. No one would hear it because of the silencer. She could finish photographing the documents, leave, go to Hampton Sands, find Neumann, and signal the submarine. Keep working… And what would happen when SHAEF counterintelligence found the body of an officer who knew the secret of the invasion? They would launch an immediate investigation. They would discover he had been seen with a woman. They would look for the woman and, unable to locate her, conclude she was an agent. They would conclude the documents in his safe had been photographed, that the secret of the invasion had been compromised. She thought, Don't come in here, Peter Jordan. For your sake and mine.

She heard the sound of the toilet flushing.

Just a few more pages. She photographed them quickly. Done! She closed the binder, returned it to the briefcase, and placed the briefcase back in the safe. She closed the door quietly and spun the lock. She picked up the Mauser, pulled the slide into the firing position, and turned out the light. She opened the door and crept out into the hall. Jordan was still upstairs.

Think quickly, Catherine!

She walked down the hallway and pushed back the door of the drawing room. She put the Mauser in the handbag and the handbag on the floor. She turned on the light and walked to the drinks trolley. Calm down. Take a deep breath. She picked up a glass and was pouring herself a brandy when Peter Jordan walked in.

Harry Dalton was waiting outside the Popes' warehouse in a department surveillance van. He had two men with him, Detective-Sergeant Meadows from the Metropolitan Police and a watcher named Clive Roach. Harry was in the front passenger seat, Roach behind the wheel. Meadows was getting a few minutes of sleep in the back.

It was dawn. It had been a long and dreadfully boring night. Harry was exhausted, but each time he tried to sleep he saw one of two disparate visions: Rose Morely lying dead in Hyde Park or Grace Clarendon's face as they made love. He wanted to climb into her bed and sleep around the clock. He wanted to hold her in his arms and never let go. He was under her spell again.

The visions of Grace were broken by the sound of a van drawing up in front of the warehouse. A tall, thick man climbed out of the driver's-side door. Harry could make him out in the weak morning light.

"Know him?" Clive Roach asked.

Harry said, "Yeah. His name is Dicky Dobbs."

"Looks like trouble."

"He's Pope's main muscle boy and enforcer."

"If I was on the run I think I'd want that one around for protection."

"You're right," Harry said. "Wake up Sleeping Beauty back there."

Dobbs unlocked the judas gale and went inside the warehouse. A moment later the main door was pulled upward. Dobbs emerged and climbed back inside the van.

Roach started the engine as Meadows sat up.

Dobbs pulled the van inside the warehouse.

Roach opened the throttle and gunned the motor, nosing the van inside the warehouse before Dobbs could close the door.

Harry jumped out of the van.

Dobbs yelled, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Meadows said, "Turn around, put your fucking hands in the air, and shut the fuck up!"

Harry stepped forward and threw open the rear door of the van. Robert Pope was sitting on the floor. He looked up, smiled, and said, "Well, if it isn't my old friend Harry Dalton."

Catherine Blake took a taxi to her flat. It was early, just after dawn, the sky a flat mother-of-pearl gray. She had six hours until she was to meet Horst Neumann on Hampstead Heath. She washed her face and neck and changed out of her clothes into a nightgown and a bathrobe. She desperately needed a few hours of sleep, but she had something to do first.

It had been too close tonight. If Jordan had come downstairs a few seconds earlier she would have been forced to kill him. She told him she had been unable to sleep-she was upset about nearly being killed and thought a glass of brandy would help to calm her nerves. He seemed to accept her excuse for leaving his bed in the middle of the night, but she doubted he would buy it twice.

She went into the sitting room and sat down at the writing table. She opened the drawer and removed a single sheet of paper and a pen. On the paper she wrote four words: Get me out now! She placed the piece of paper on the desk and adjusted the lamp so the light was at the proper angle. She removed her camera from her handbag and held it to her eye. She placed her left hand next to the paper. Vogel would recognize it; there was a scar across the thumb where she had been cut during one of his damned silent killing classes. She photographed her hand and the note twice, then burned the note in the bathroom sink.

36

Harry Dalton thought, One more minute of this bullshit and I'm going to handcuff Pope to a chair and beat his face bloody. They were in a small glass-enclosed office on the warehouse floor, Pope seated on an uncomfortable wooden chair, Harry pacing like a caged jungle cat. Vicary had settled himself quietly in the shadows and seemed to be listening to different music. Harry and Vicary had not revealed their true affiliation; to Pope they were just a pair of Metropolitan Police officers. For one hour Pope had denied any knowledge of the woman whose photograph Harry kept waving in front of him. Pope's face remained bored, placid, and insolent, the look of a man who had broken the law his entire life and never seen the inside of a prison cell. Harry thought, I'm not getting to him. He's beating me.

Harry said, "All right, let's try this one more time."

Pope looked at his watch. "Not again, Harry. I've business to attend to."

Harry felt himself losing control. "You've never seen this woman before?"

"I've told you a hundred times. No!"

"I've got a witness who says this woman entered your warehouse the day your brother was murdered."

"Then your witness is wrong. Let me talk to him. I'm sure I could make him see the error of his ways."

"I'm sure you could! Where were you when your brother was killed?"

"At one of my clubs. I've got a hundred witnesses that will tell you that."

"Why have you been avoiding the police?"

"I haven't been avoiding the police. You blokes managed to find me." Pope looked over at Vicary, who was looking down at his hands. "That one ever speak?"

"Shut up and look at me, Pope. You have been avoiding the police, because you know who killed Vernon and you want to pay them back your own way."

"You're talking nonsense, Harry."

"There's a very nice lady in Islington who says you broke into her boardinghouse two hours after Vernon's murder, looking for a woman."

"Your very nice lady in Islington is obviously mistaken."

"Don't bullshit me, Pope!"

"Temper, temper, Harry."

"You've been looking for her for days and you haven't been able to find her. Do you ever wonder why she was able to elude you and your thugs?"

"No, I never wondered that because I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"Do you ever wonder why you were never able to find out where she lives?"

"I never tried because I never met the woman!"

Harry noticed a sheen of perspiration on Pope's face. He thought, I'm finally getting to him.

Vicary must have noticed it too, because he chose that moment to speak for the first time. "You're not being honest with us, Mr. Pope," he said politely, still studying his hands. Then he looked up and said, "But then, we haven't been exactly honest with you, have we, Harry?"

Harry thought, Perfect timing, Alfred. Well done. He said, "No, Alfred, we haven't been completely honest with Mr. Pope here."

Pope looked thoroughly confused. "What the fuck are you two talking about?"

"We're connected with the War Office. We deal in security."

A shadow passed over Pope's face. "What does my brother's murder have to do with the war?" His voice had lost conviction.

"I'm going to be honest with you. We know this woman is a German spy. And we know she came to you for help. And if you don't start talking we're going to be forced to take some rather drastic action."

Pope turned to Harry, as if Harry had been appointed his lawyer. "I can't tell him what he wants to know because I don't know anything. I've never seen that woman in my life."

Vicary seemed disappointed. "Well, then, you're under arrest, Mr. Pope."

"On what bloody charges?"

"Espionage."

"Espionage! You can't do that! You have no evidence!"

"I have enough evidence and enough power to lock you away and throw away the fucking key." Vicary's voice had taken on a menacing edge. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in a filthy, stinking jail, I suggest you start talking now!"

Pope blinked rapidly, looking first at Vicary, then at Harry. He was defeated.

"I begged Vernon not to take the job but he wouldn't listen," Pope said. "He just wanted to get under her skirt. I always knew there was something wrong with her."

Vicary said, "What did she want from you?"

"She wanted us to follow an American officer. She wanted a complete report on his movements around London. Paid us two hundred quid for it. She's been seeing a lot of him ever since."

"Where?"

"In restaurants. At his house."

"How do you know?"

"We've been following them."

"What does she call herself?"

"Catherine. No last name."

"And what was the officer's name?"

"Commander Peter Jordan, U.S. Navy."

Vicary immediately detained Robert Pope and Dicky Dobbs. He saw no reason to keep his word to a professional thief and liar. Besides, he couldn't have them running around loose on the street. Vicary made arrangements to have them stored on ice at an MI5 lockup outside London.

Harry Dalton telephoned the Americans at Grosvenor Square and asked whether there was a naval officer named Peter Jordan assigned to SHAEF headquarters. Fifteen minutes later someone else called back and said, "Yeah, who wants to know?" When Harry asked about Jordan's assignment, the American said, "Above your pay grade, fella-yours and mine."

Harry told Vicary about the conversation. Vicary felt the blood drain from his face.

For ninety minutes no one could find Basil Boothby. It was still early, and he had not arrived at his office. Vicary rang his home at Cadogan Square, and a testy butler said Sir Basil was no longer there. His secretary professed a guarded ignorance about Sir Basil's whereabouts; she expected him quite soon. Boothby, according to the gossip mill, believed he was stalked by his enemies and was notoriously vague about his personal movements. Finally, shortly after nine o'clock, he arrived at his office looking inordinately pleased with himself. Vicary-who hadn't bathed, slept, or changed his clothes in nearly two days-followed him inside and broke the news.

Boothby walked to his desk and picked up the receiver of his secure telephone. He dialed a number and waited. "Hello, General Betts? This is Boothby calling from Five. I need to run a check on an American naval officer named Peter Jordan."

A pause. Boothby drummed his fingers on the desk, Vicary softly kicked at the pattern in Boothby's Persian rug with the scuffed toe of his shoe.

Boothby said, "Yes, I'm still here… He is? Oh, bloody hell! You'd better find General Eisenhower. I need to see him straightaway. I'll contact the prime minister's office myself. I'm afraid we have a rather serious problem."

Boothby slowly replaced the receiver and looked up at Vicary, his face the color of ash.

Frozen fog hung like gunsmoke over Hampstead Heath. Catherine Blake, sitting on a bench surrounded by beech trees, lit a cigarette. She could see for several hundred yards in every direction. She was confident she was alone. Neumann appeared out of the fog, hands pushed deeply into his coat pockets, walking like a man with somewhere to go. When he was a few feet away Catherine said, "I want to talk to you. It's all right, we're alone." He sat down on the bench next to her and she gave him a cigarette, which he lit with hers.

She handed him an envelope containing the film. "I'm fairly certain this is what they're looking for," she said. "He brought it home with him last night-a book detailing the project he's working on. I photographed the entire thing."

Neumann pocketed the envelope. "Congratulations, Catherine. I'll make sure it gets safely into the hands of our friend from the Portuguese embassy."

"There's something else on that film," she said. "I've asked Vogel to pull us out. Some things have gone wrong. I don't think my cover is going to hold up much longer."

"Would you like to tell me about it?"

"The less you know the better, believe me."

"You're the professional. I'm just the errand boy."

"Just be ready to pull out at a moment's notice."

She stood up and walked away.

"Come in and sit down, Alfred," Boothby said. "I'm afraid we have a Force Twelve disaster on our hands." Boothby gestured toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. He had just walked in the door, and his cashmere overcoat still hung like a cape from his shoulders. He shed the coat and handed it to his secretary, who was eyeing him with the intensity of a retriever, waiting for his next command. "Coffee, please. And no interruptions. Thank you."

Vicary lowered himself into the chair. He was feeling peeved. Sir Basil had been gone three hours. The last time Vicary had seen Boothby he was rushing out the door muttering something about mulberries. The code word meant nothing to Vicary. For all he knew it was a tree that produced sweet fruit. Vicary had spent the entire time pacing his office, wondering how bad the damage really was. But there was something else that bothered him. The case had been his from the beginning, and yet it was Boothby who was briefing Eisenhower and Churchill.

The secretary came in, bearing a tray with a silver pot of coffee and dainty china cups. She placed it carefully on Boothby's desk and went out again. Boothby poured. "Milk, Alfred? It's real."

"Yes, thank you."

"What I am about to tell you is highly classified," Boothby began. "Very few people even know of its existence-a handful of top invasion planners and the men on the project itself. Even I knew only the barest details. Until today, that is."

Boothby reached inside his briefcase, withdrew a chart, and spread it over the surface of the desk. He put on his reading glasses, which he had never worn in Vicary's presence, and used his gold pen as a pointer.

"Here are the beaches of Normandy," he began, tapping the map with his pen. "Here is the Baie de la Seine. The invasion planners have concluded that the only way to bring men and supplies ashore quickly enough to sustain the operation is through a large, fully functioning harbor. Without one, the invasion would be a complete fiasco."

Vicary, listening intently, nodded.

"There is just one problem with a harbor-we aren't planning on capturing one," Boothby said. "The result is this." Boothby reached inside his briefcase again and withdrew another chart of the same section of the French coast, except this one had a series of markings depicting a structure along the shoreline. "It's called Operation Mulberry. We're constructing two complete artificial harbors here in Britain and towing them across the Channel on D-Day."

"Good Lord," Vicary muttered.

"You're about to be inducted into a very small fraternity, Alfred. Pay close attention." Boothby was using his pen as a pointer again. "These are giant steel floats that will be moored a couple of miles from the coastline. They're designed to dampen the waves as they roll toward shore. Here, they're going to sink several old merchantmen in a line to create a breakwater. That part of the operation is code-named Gooseberry. These are floating roadways with pier heads at the end. The Liberty ships will dock at the pier heads. The supplies will be loaded directly onto trucks and brought to shore."

"Remarkable," Vicary said.

"The backbone of the entire project is these things, here, here, and here," Boothby said, tapping three points on the chart with his pen. "Their code name is Phoenix. They do not rise, however. They sink. They're giant concrete and steel caissons that will be towed across the Channel and sunk in a row to create an inner breakwater. They are the most critical component of Operation Mulberry." Boothby hesitated a moment. "Commander Peter Jordan is assigned to that operation."

"My God," Vicary muttered.

"It gets worse, I'm afraid. The Phoenix project is in trouble. They're planning to build one hundred and forty-five of them. The structures are huge-sixty feet high. Some have their own crew quarters and antiaircraft batteries. They require immense amounts of concrete, steel reinforcement, and highly skilled labor. The project has been hampered with shortages of raw materials and construction delays from the beginning."

Boothby folded up the charts and locked them in his desk drawer.

"Last night Commander Peter Jordan was ordered to tour the construction sites in the south and make a realistic assessment of whether the Phoenix units can be completed on time. He walked out of Forty-seven Grosvenor Square with a briefcase chained to his wrist. Inside that briefcase were the plans for the Phoenixes."

"Good God Almighty!" Vicary said. "Why the hell did he do that?"

"His family owns the home he's living in here in London. There's a secure safe inside. SHAEF Intelligence inspected it and gave it their stamp of approval."

Vicary thought, None of this would have happened if Boothby had passed along my damned security alert! He said, "So if Commander Jordan has been compromised it's possible a major portion of the plans for Operation Mulberry have fallen into German hands."

"I'm afraid so," Boothby said. "And there's more bad news. Mulberry, by its nature, could betray the secret of the invasion. The Germans know we need ports to successfully carry out an invasion of the Continent. They expect us to stage a frontal assault on a port and reopen it as quickly as possible. If they discover we're building an artificial harbor-some means of circumventing the heavily fortified ports of Calais-they may very well conclude we're coming at Normandy."

"My God! Who in the bloody hell is Commander Peter Jordan?"

Boothby dug in his briefcase again. He brought out a thin file and tossed it across the desk. "He used to be the chief engineer at the Northeast Bridge Company. It's one of the largest bridge construction companies in America. He's considered something of a wunderkind. He was brought onto Operation Mulberry because of his experience overseeing large construction projects."

"Where is he now?"

"Still in the south inspecting the sites. He's due back at Grosvenor Square at seven o'clock. He was supposed to meet with Eisenhower and Ismay at eight o'clock to brief them on his findings. I want you and Harry to pick him up at Grosvenor Square-very quietly-and take him to the house at Richmond. We'll question him there. I want you to handle the interrogation."

"Thank you, Sir Basil." Vicary rose.

"At the very least you're going to need Jordan's help to roll up your network."

"True," Vicary said. "But we may need more help, depending on the extent of the damage."

"You have an idea, Alfred?"

"The beginnings of one." Vicary rose. "I'd like to see the inside of Jordan's house before I question him. Any objections?"

"No," Boothby said. "But softly, Alfred, very softly."

"Don't worry. I'll be discreet."

"Some of the watchers specialize in that sort of thing-breaking and entering, you know."

"Actually, I have someone in mind for the job."

Harry Dalton worked the thin metal tool inside the lock on Peter Jordan's front door. Vicary stood facing the street, shielding Harry from view. After a moment Vicary heard the faint click of the lock giving way. Harry, like a consummate professional thief, opened the door as if he owned the place and led them inside.

"You're damned good at that," Vicary said.

"I saw someone do it in a movie once."

"Somehow, I don't believe that story."

"I always knew you were an intelligent bloke." Harry closed the door. "Wipe your feet."

Vicary opened the door to the drawing room and went inside. His eyes ran over the leather-covered furniture, the rugs, the photographs of bridges on the walls. He walked to the fireplace and examined the silver-framed photos on the mantel.

"Must be his wife," Harry said. "She was beautiful."

"Yes," Vicary said. He had quickly read the copy of Jordan's service file and background check given to him by Boothby. "Her name was Margaret Lauterbach-Jordan. She was killed in an automobile accident on New York's Long Island shortly before the war broke out."

They crossed the hall and looked inside the dining room and the kitchen. Harry tried the next door and found it was locked. Vicary said, "Open it."

Harry knelt down and worked the tool inside the lock. A moment later he turned the latch and they went inside. It was furnished as a working office, certainly for a man: a desk of dark stained wood, a chair of fine leather, and, a unique feature that said much about the occupant, a drafting table and stool that an engineer or an architect might use. Vicary switched on the desk lamp and said, "What a perfect place to photograph documents." The safe was next to the desk. It was old and looked as though it weighed at least five hundred pounds. Vicary looked closely at the legs and noticed they were bolted to the floor. He said, "Let's take a look upstairs."

There were three bedrooms, two overlooking the street, a third larger room at the back of the house. The two in front were obviously guest rooms. The wardrobes were empty and there were no personal touches of any kind. Vicary led them into Jordan's room. The double bed was unmade, the shades raised on windows overlooking a small, unkempt walled garden. Vicary opened the Edwardian wardrobe and looked inside: two U.S. Navy uniforms, several pairs of wool civilian trousers, a stack of sweaters, and several neatly folded shirts bearing the name of a men's shop in Manhattan. He closed the wardrobe and looked around the room. If she had been here she had left no trace, only a faint breath of perfume that hung in the air and reminded Vicary of the fragrance that Helen had worn.

Who is this, please? Oh, bloody hell!

Vicary looked at Harry and said, "Go downstairs, quietly open the door to the study, go inside, and close it again."

Harry came back two minutes later. "Did you hear anything?"

"Not a sound."

"So it's possible she may be slipping into his study at night and photographing everything he brings home."

"We have to assume that, yes. Check out the bathroom. See if she's left any personal items here at all."

Vicary could hear Harry rattling around inside the medicine chest. He came back into the bedroom and said, "Nothing belonging to a woman in there."

"All right. I've seen enough for now."

They went downstairs again, made certain the door to the study was locked, and let themselves out the front door. They had parked around the corner. As they turned onto the pavement Vicary looked up at the terrace of houses across the street. He looked down again very quickly. He could have sworn he saw a face in a darkened window looking back at him. A man's face-dark eyes, black hair, thin lips. He glanced upward again but this time the face was gone.

Horst Neumann played a game with himself to help ease the tedium of waiting: he memorized faces. He had become good at it. He could glance at several faces-on the train or in a crowded square-commit each to memory, then mentally flip through them, the way one looks at photographs in an album. He was spending so much time on the Hunstanton-to-Liverpool-Street run that he was beginning to see familiar faces all the time. The chubby salesman who always fondled his girlfriend's leg before kissing her good-bye at Cambridge and going home to his wife. The spinster who seemed forever on the verge of tears. The war widow who always gazed out the window and, Neumann imagined, saw her husband's face in the passing gray-green countryside. In Cavendish Square he knew all the regulars: the residents of the houses surrounding the square, the people who liked to come sit on the benches among the dormant plants. It was monotonous work, but it kept his mind sharp and helped pass the time.

The fat man came at three o'clock-the same gray overcoat, the same bowler hat, the same jittery air of a decent man embarking on a life of crime. The diplomat unlocked the door to the house and went inside. Neumann crossed the square and slipped the envelope through the slot. He heard the familiar grunt as the chubby diplomat stooped to retrieve it.

Neumann returned to his spot on the square and waited. The diplomat came out a few minutes later, found a taxi, and was gone. Neumann waited for a few minutes to make certain the taxi was not being followed.

Neumann had two hours before his train. He stood up and started walking toward Portman Square. He passed by the bookshop and saw the girl through the window. The shop was empty. She was sitting behind the counter reading the same volume of Eliot she had sold him last week. She seemed to sense someone was watching her, because she looked up suddenly as if startled. Then she recognized him, smiled, and gestured for him to come inside. Neumann opened the door and walked in. "It's time for my break now," she said. "There's a cafe across the street. Will you join me? My name's Sarah, by the way."

Neumann thought, Oh, what the hell? He said, "I'd love to, Sarah."

Rain beat softly on the roof of the Humber. Cold infiltrated the interior, so they saw their breath when they spoke. Grosvenor Square was unusually quiet, indistinguishable in the blackout. They might have been parked outside the Reichstag for all Vicary could tell. An American staff car slipped into the square, headlamps shrouded. The street shone with the rain in the puddle of light thrown off by the vehicle. Two men climbed out; neither was Jordan. A moment later a motorcycle courier plunged through the darkness. Vicary reflexively thought of France.

He closed his eyes to squeeze away the images and instead saw the face of the man in the Kensington window. Probably nothing more than a nosy neighbor, he told himself. Something troubled him, though-the way the man stood a few feet back from the glass, the way the room was in darkness. He pictured the face: dark hair, dark eyes, a narrow mouth, pale skin, the features arranged in a way to obscure national origin. Maybe German, maybe Italian; maybe Greek or Russian. Or English.

Harry lit a cigarette, then Vicary lit a cigarette, and after a moment the back of the Humber was thick with smoke. Vicary wound down his window an inch to release the cloud. The cold poured in and sliced at his face.

Vicary said, "I never knew you were such a star, Harry. Every policeman in London knows your name."

"The Spencer Thomas case," Harry said.

"How did you catch him?"

"The dumb bastard wrote everything down."

"What do you mean?"

"He wanted to remember the details of the murders but he didn't trust his memory. So he kept this bizarre diary. I found it when I searched his room. You'd be surprised at the things some people put in writing."

No, I wouldn't, thought Vicary, remembering the letter from Helen. I have proven my love for you in a way that I can do for no other man. But I am unwilling to sacrifice my relationship with my father for the sake of a marriage.

"How's Grace Clarendon?" Vicary asked. He had never asked about her before and the question sounded unnatural, as though he had just asked Harry about rugby or cricket.

Harry said, "She's fine. Why do you ask?"

"I saw her outside Boothby's office last night."

"Boothby always asks for Grace to deliver files to his office personally. Grace thinks it's because he likes to look at her legs. Half the people in the department think she's having it off with him."

Vicary had heard those rumors once upon a time himself: Boothby had slept with everything in the department that wasn't nailed down, and Grace Clarendon had been one of his favorite conquests.

You can't do this to me! Bastard! Bloody bastard!

Vicary had assumed Boothby disciplined Grace over the Vogel file. But it was possible he had just overheard a lover's quarrel. He decided he would not tell Harry any more about it.

The car entered the square a moment later.

Vicary's first image of Jordan would linger with him for a long time, faintly irritating, like the odor of foul cooking trapped in clothes. He heard the low rumble of the approaching staff car and spun his head in time to see Jordan slip past his window. He saw him for less than a split second, but his mind had frozen Jordan's likeness as surely as film traps light. He saw the eyes, looking across the square, as if for hidden enemies. He saw the jawline, taut and crisp, as if steeled for a contest. He noted the cap, pulled tightly to the brow, and the overcoat, buttoned tightly to the throat.

Jordan's staff car stopped in front of Number 47. The engine started and they pulled forward very quickly. Harry got out of the car and pursued Jordan across the pavement.

The rest Vicary watched like a pantomime: Harry asking Jordan to come away and get in the second Humber, which seemed to have materialized from thin air; Jordan looking at Harry as though he were from outer space.

Harry identifying himself in the overpolite manner of a London police officer; Jordan telling him very clearly to fuck off. Harry seizing Jordan's arm, a little too firmly, and leaning over to murmur something into his ear.

All color bleeding from Jordan's face.

37

The redbrick Victorian mansion was not visible from the road. It stood atop the highest point of the grounds at the end of a ragged ribbon of gravel. Vicary, alone in the back of the freezing Humber, doused the light as he approached the house. During the drive he had read the contents of Jordan's briefcase. His eyes burned and his head was throbbing. If this document was in German hands, it was possible the Abwehr could use it to unlock the secret of the invasion. They could use it to peer through the smoke and the fog of Double Cross and Fortitude. They could use it to win the war! Vicary imagined the scene in Berlin. Hitler would be dancing on the tabletops, clicking the heels of his jackboots. And it's all because I couldn't find a way to catch that damned spy!

Vicary rubbed a clear patch in his fogged window. The mansion was dark except for a single yellow light burning over the entrance. MI5 had purchased it before the war from bankrupt relatives of the original owner. The plan had been to use it for clandestine meetings and interrogations and as lodgings for sensitive guests. Used infrequently, it had grown seedy and derelict and looked as though it had been abandoned by a retreating army. The only signs of habitation were the dozen staff cars parked haphazardly in the weedy drive.

A Royal Marine guard appeared out of the darkness and opened Vicary's door. He led him into the cold timeworn hall and through a series of rooms-a drawing room of covered furniture, a library of empty bookshelves-and finally through a pair of double doors that led into a large room overlooking the darkened grounds. It smelled of woodsmoke and brandy and faintly of wet dog. A billiards table had been pushed aside and a heavy oaken banquet table laid in its place. A bonfire burned in the huge fireplace. A pair of dark-eyed Americans from SHAEF Intelligence sat quietly as altar boys in the chairs nearest the flames. Basil Boothby paced slowly in the shadows.

Vicary found his spot at the table. He placed Jordan's briefcase on the floor next to his chair and began slowly unpacking his own. He looked up, caught Boothby's eye, and nodded. Then he looked down again and continued preparing his place. He heard doors opening and two pairs of footsteps crossing the wooden floor. He recognized one set as Harry's and knew the other to be Peter Jordan's.

A moment later Vicary heard Jordan's weight settling into the chair directly across the table from him. Still, he did not look at him. He removed his notebook and a single yellow pencil and laid them on the table carefully, as if arranging a place setting for royalty. Next he removed Jordan's file and laid it on the table. He sat down, opened the first page of his notebook, and licked the tip of his pencil.

Then, finally, Vicary lifted his head and looked Peter Jordan directly in the eye for the first time.

"How did you meet her?"

"I bumped into her in the blackout."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I was walking down the sidewalk without a blackout torch and we collided. She was carrying a bag of groceries. They spilled everywhere."

"Where did this happen?"

"Kensington, outside the Vandyke Club."

"When?"

"About two weeks ago."

"When exactly?"

"Jesus, I don't remember! It might have been a Monday."

"What time in the evening?"

"Around six o'clock."

"What did she call herself?"

"Catherine Blake."

"Had you ever met her before that night?"

"No."

"Had you ever seen her before that night?"

"No."

"You didn't recognize her?"

"No."

"And how long were you with her that first night?"

"Less than a minute."

"Did you make arrangements to see her again?"

"Not exactly. I asked her to have a drink sometime. She said she'd like that, and then she walked away."

"She gave you her address?"

"No."

"A telephone number?"

"No."

"So how were you supposed to contact her?"

"Good question. I assumed she didn't want to see me again."

"When did you see her again?"

"The next night."

"Where?"

"The bar of the Savoy Hotel."

"What were the circumstances?"

"I was having a drink with a friend."

"The friend's name?"

"Shepherd Ramsey."

"And you saw her in the bar?"

"Yes."

"And she came to your table?"

"No, I went to her."

"What happened next?"

"She said she was supposed to meet a fellow there but she'd been stood up. I asked if I could buy her a drink. She said she would rather leave. So I left with her."

"Where did you go?"

"To my house."

"What did you do?"

"She cooked dinner and we ate. We talked for a while and she went home."

"Did you make love to her that night?"

"Listen, I'm not going to-"

"Yes, you bloody well are, Commander Jordan! Now answer the question! Did you make love to her that night?"

"No!"

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"What?"

"I said are you telling me the truth?"

"Of course I am."

"You don't intend to lie to me tonight, do you, Commander Jordan?"

"No, I don't."

"Good, because I wouldn't advise it. You're in enough trouble as it is. Now, let's continue."

Vicary abruptly changed course, guiding Jordan into calmer waters. For one hour he walked Jordan through his personal history: his childhood on the West Side of Manhattan, his education at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his work with the Northeast Bridge Company, his marriage to the wealthy and beautiful debutante Margaret Lauterbach, her death in an automobile accident on Long Island in August 1939. Vicary asked the questions without notes and as if he did not know the answers, even though he had memorized Jordan's file during the drive. He made certain he controlled the pace and the cadence of the conversation. When Jordan seemed to be too comfortable, Vicary would derail him. All the while Vicary was writing religiously in his notebook. The interrogation was being recorded with hidden microphones, yet Vicary was scribbling as if his little notebook would be the permanent chronicle of the evening's proceedings. Whenever Jordan spoke, there was the maddening sound of Vicary's pencil scratching across the page. Every few minutes Vicary's pencil would dull. He would apologize, force Jordan to stop, then make a vast show of fishing out a new one. Each time he would retrieve just one new pencil-never an extra, just one. Each search seemed to take longer than the last. Harry, watching from the shadows, marveled at Vicary's performance. He wanted Jordan to underestimate him, to think him something of a dolt. Harry thought, Go ahead, you dumb bastard, and he'll cut your balls off. Vicary turned to a fresh page in his notebook and withdrew a new pencil.

"Her name isn't really Catherine Blake. And she isn't really English. Her real name is Anna Katarina von Steiner. But I will never refer to her by that name again. I would like you to forget you ever heard it. My reasons will be made clear to you later. She was born in London before the First War to an English mother and a German father. She returned to England in November 1938 using this false Dutch passport. Do you recognize the photograph?"

"It's her. She looks different now, but that's her."

"We assume she came to the attention of German intelligence because of her background and her language ability. We believe she was recruited in 1936 and sent to a camp in Bavaria, where she was given training in codes and radios, taught how to assess an army, and taught how to kill. In order to conceal her own entry into the country she brutally murdered a woman in Suffolk. We think she's murdered three other people as well."

"That's very difficult to believe."

"Well, believe it. She's different from the rest. Most of Canaris's spies were useless idiots, poorly trained and ill-suited to espionage. We rolled up their networks at the beginning of the war. But we think Catherine Blake is one of their stars, a different kind of agent. We call them sleepers. She never used her radio, and it appears she never engaged in any other operation. She simply melted into British society and waited to be activated."

"Why did she choose me?"

"Allow me to phrase the question differently, Commander Jordan. Did she choose you or did you choose her?"

"What are you talking about?"

"It's simple, really. I want to know why you've been flogging our secrets to the Germans."

"I haven't!"

"I want to know why you've been betraying us."

"I haven't betrayed anybody!"

"I want to know why you're acting as an agent of German intelligence."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Is it? What are we supposed to think? You've been carrying on an affair with Germany's top agent in Britain. You bring home a briefcase full of classified material. Why did you do that? Why couldn't you just tell her the secret of Operation Mulberry? Did she ask you to bring home the documents so she could photograph them?"

"No! I mean-"

"Did you volunteer to bring them home?"

"No!"

"Well, why were you walking around with this in your briefcase?"

"Because I was leaving early in the morning to inspect the construction sites in the south. Twenty people will verify that. Personnel security inspected my home and the vault in my study. Under certain circumstances I was allowed to take classified documents there if they were locked in the vault."

"Well, that was obviously an enormous mistake. Because I think you've been bringing those documents home and handing them over to Catherine Blake."

"That's not true."

"I'm just not sure whether you're a German agent or whether you've been seduced into spying."

"Go fuck yourself! I've had enough of this."

"I want to know if you've betrayed us for sex."

"No!"

"I want to know if you've betrayed us for money."

"I don't need money."

"Are you working in collusion with the woman known to you as Catherine Blake?"

"No."

"Have you knowingly or willingly supplied Allied secrets to the woman known to you as Catherine Blake?"

"No!"

"Are you working directly for German military intelligence?"

"That's a ridiculous question."

"Answer it!"

"No! Goddammit, no!"

"Are you involved in a sexual relationship with the woman known to you as Catherine Blake?"

"That's my business."

"Not anymore, Commander. I ask you again. Are you involved in a sexual relationship with Catherine Blake?"

"Yes."

"Are you in love with Catherine Blake? Commander, did you hear the question? Commander? Commander Jordan, are you in love with Catherine Blake?"

"Until a couple hours ago I was in love with the woman I thought was Catherine Blake. I didn't know she was a German agent and I didn't willingly give her Allied secrets. You must believe me."

"I'm not sure I do, Commander Jordan. But let's move on."

"You enlisted in the navy last October."

"That's correct."

"Why not sooner?"

"My wife is dead. I didn't want to leave my son alone."

"Why did you change your mind?"

"Because I was asked to join the navy."

"Tell me how it was done."

"Two men came to my office in Manhattan. It was clear they had already checked out my background, both personal and professional. They said my services were required for a project connected with the invasion. They didn't tell me what that project was. They asked me to go to Washington, and I never saw them again."

"What were their names?"

"One was called Leamann. I don't recall the other man's name."

"Were they both American?"

"Leamann was an American. The other one was British."

"But you don't remember his name?"

"No."

"How did he look?"

"He was tall and thin."

"Well, that narrows it to about half the country. What happened when you went to Washington?"

"After my security clearance came through, I was briefed on Mulberry and shown the actual plans."

"Why did they need you?"

"They wanted someone who'd had experience on large construction projects. My company had built some of the biggest bridges in the East."

"And what were your initial impressions?"

"I thought Mulberry was feasible technically, but I thought the construction schedule was a farce-far too optimistic. I could see right away that there would be delays."

"And what were your conclusions after the inspection you carried out today?"

"That the project is dangerously behind schedule. That the chance of actually completing the Phoenixes on time is about one in three."

"Did you share these conclusions with Catherine Blake?"

"Please. Let's not go through this again."

"You're not answering my question."

"No, I did not share those conclusions with Catherine Blake."

"Did you see her before we picked you up at Grosvenor Square?"

"No. I went to SHAEF directly from the construction sites."

Vicary reached in his briefcase and laid two photographs on the table, one of Robert Pope and the other of Dicky Dobbs.

"Have you ever seen these men?"

"They look vaguely familiar, but I can't tell you where I've seen them."

Vicary opened Jordan's file and flipped a page. "Tell me about the house you're living in."

"My father-in-law purchased it before the war. He spent a fair amount of time in London on business and pleasure and wanted a comfortable place to stay when he was in town."

"Anyone else use the house?"

"Margaret and I used it when we came to Europe on vacation."

"Did your father-in-law's bank have German investments?"

"Yes, many. But he liquidated most of them before the war."

"Did he oversee that liquidation personally?"

"Most of the work was done by a man named Walker Hardegen. He's the number-two man at the bank. He also speaks fluent German and knows the country inside and out."

"Did he travel to Germany before the war?"

"Yes, several times."

"Did you ever accompany him?"

"No. I have nothing to do with my father-in-law's business."

"Did Walker Hardegen use the house in London?"

"He may have. I'm not certain."

"How well do you know Walker Hardegen?"

"I know him very well."

"Then I suppose you're good friends?"

"No, not really."

"You know him well but you're not friends?"

"That's right."

"Are you enemies?"

"Enemies is a strong word. We just don't get along well."

"Why not?"

"He dated my wife before I met her. I think he was always in love with her. He drank quite a bit at my going-away party. He accused me of killing her to make a business deal."

"I think someone who made a remark like that to me would be my enemy."

"I thought about knocking the hell out of him at the time."

"Do you blame yourself for your wife's death?"

"Yes, I always have. If I hadn't asked her to come into the city for that goddamned business dinner she'd still be alive."

"How much does Walker Hardegen know about your work?"

"Nothing."

"He knows you're a gifted engineer?"

"Yes."

"He knows you were sent to London to work on a secret project?"

"He could probably deduce that, yes."

"Have you ever mentioned Operation Mulberry in your letters home?"

"Never. They were all cleared by the censor."

"Did you ever tell any other member of your family about Operation Mulberry?"

"No."

"Ever tell any of your friends?"

"No."

"This fellow Shepherd Ramsey. Ever tell him?"

"No."

"Does he ever ask about it?"

"All the time-in a joking manner, of course."

"Did you have plans to see Catherine Blake again?"

"I don't have plans to see her. I never want to see her again."

"Well, that may not be possible, Commander Jordan."

"What are you talking about?"

"In due time. It's late. I think we all could use some sleep. We'll continue in the morning."

Vicary rose and walked in where Boothby was sitting. He leaned down and said, "I think we should talk."

"Yes," Boothby said. "Let's go in the next room, shall we?" He uncoiled himself from his chair and took Vicary by the elbow. "You did a marvelous job with him," he said. "My God, Alfred, when did you become such a bastard?"

Boothby pulled open a door and held out his hand for Vicary to enter first. Vicary brushed past Boothby and stepped inside the room.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

Winston Churchill said, "Hello, Alfred. So good to see you again. I wish it could be under different circumstances. I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine. Professor Alfred Vicary, meet General Eisenhower."

Dwight Eisenhower rose from his seat and stuck out his hand.

The room had been a study once. There were bookshelves built into the walls, a writing desk, and a pair of wing chairs where Churchill and Eisenhower sat now. A wood fire burned brightly in the hearth, but it had failed to take the chill off the room. A woolen blanket lay across Churchill's knees. He was gnawing on the damp end of a dead cigar and drinking brandy. Eisenhower lit a cigarette and sipped black coffee. On the table between them was a small speaker, which they had used to monitor the interrogation of Jordan. Vicary knew this because the microphones were still turned on and he could hear a scrape of chairs and a murmur of voices coming from the next room. Boothby glided forward and turned down the volume. The door opened and a fifth man entered the room. Vicary recognized the tall, bearlike build: Brigadier General Thomas Betts, the deputy chief of intelligence at SHAEF and the man charged with safeguarding the secret of the invasion.

"Is he telling the truth, Alfred?" Churchill asked.

"I'm not sure," Vicary said, pouring himself a cup of coffee at the sideboard. "I want to believe him but something is bothering me, and I'm damned if I know what it is."

Boothby said, "Nothing in his background would suggest he's a German agent or that he's willingly betrayed us. After all, we came to him. He was recruited to work on Mulberry-he didn't volunteer. If he was an agent the entire time, he would have been banging on the door early in the war, trying to work himself into a position of importance."

"I agree," Eisenhower said.

"His background is sterling," Boothby continued. "You saw his file. His FBI background check didn't turn up a thing. He has all the money in the world. He's not a Communist. He doesn't bugger little boys. We have no reason to think he's sympathetic to the German cause. In short, we have no reason to suspect this man is a spy or has been coerced into spying."

"All true," Vicary said, thinking, When the hell did Boothby become chairman of the Peter Jordan fan club? "But what about this man Walker Hardegen? Was he checked out before Jordan came to the Mulberry team?"

"Thoroughly," General Betts said. "The FBI was concerned about his German contacts long before the War Department ever approached Jordan about working on Mulberry. They looked into Hardegen's background with a microscope. They didn't turn up a blessed thing. Hardegen is clean as a whistle."

"Well, I'd feel better if they took another look," Vicary said. "How in the bloody hell did she know to go after him? And how's she getting the material? I've been inside his house. It's possible she's getting into his papers without his knowledge, but it would be very dangerous. And what about his friend Shepherd Ramsey? I'd like to put him under surveillance and have the FBI look deeper into his background."

Churchill said, "I'm sure General Eisenhower won't have a problem with that, would you, General?"

"No," Eisenhower said. "I want you gentlemen to take whatever steps you feel are necessary."

Churchill cleared his throat. "This debate is very interesting, but it doesn't address our most pressing problem," he said. "It appears this fellow-intentionally or not-has delivered a very significant portion of the plans for Operation Mulberry directly into the hands of a German spy. Now, what are we going to do about it? Basil?"

Boothby turned to General Betts. "How much can the Germans discern about Operation Mulberry from that one document?"

"It's difficult to say," Betts said. "The document Jordan had in his briefcase doesn't give them a complete picture, just a damned important slice of it. There are many more components of Mulberry, as I'm sure you're well aware. This just tells them about the Phoenixes. If that document is really on its way to Berlin, their analysts and engineers are going to be poring all over it. If they're able to determine the purpose of the Phoenixes, it won't be difficult for them to unlock the secret of the artificial harbor project." Betts hesitated, his face grave. "And, gentlemen, if they're convinced we're building an artificial harbor, it's very possible they could make the leap and conclude we're coming at Normandy, not Calais."

Vicary said, "I think we should assume that is the case and proceed accordingly."

"My suggestion is that we use Jordan to lure Catherine Blake into the open," Boothby said. "We arrest her, put her under the bright lights, and turn her. We use her to funnel smoke back to the Germans-confuse them, try to convince them that Mulberry is anything but an artificial harbor meant for Normandy."

Vicary cleared his throat gently and said, "I fully agree with the second half of that proposal, Sir Basil. But I suspect the first half wouldn't be quite as easy as it sounds."

"Your point, Alfred?"

"Everything we know about this woman suggests she is highly trained and thoroughly ruthless. I doubt we'd succeed in convincing her to cooperate with us. She's not like the others."

"It's been my experience that everyone cooperates when they're faced with the prospect of a hanging, Alfred. But what are you suggesting?"

"I suggest that Peter Jordan continue to see her. But from now on, we control what's inside that briefcase and what goes home into that safe. We let her run and we watch her. We discover how she's getting the material back to Berlin. We discover the other agents in the network. Then we arrest her. If we roll up the network cleanly, we'll be able to feed Double Cross material directly to the highest levels of the Abwehr-right up to the invasion."

Churchill said, "Basil, what do you think of Alfred's plan?"

"It's brilliant," Boothby said. "But what if Alfred's fears about Commander Jordan are correct? What if he truly is a German agent? Jordan would be in a position to do irreparable damage."

"That would be true under your scenario as well, Sir Basil. I'm afraid it's a risk we're going to have to take. But Jordan will never be alone with her or anyone else for a second. As of now he is under round-the-clock surveillance. Wherever he goes, we go. If we see or hear anything we don't like, we move in, arrest Catherine Blake, and do it your way."

Boothby nodded. "Do you think Jordan can pull it off? After all, he just told us he was in love with this woman. She betrayed him. I don't think he's going to be in any condition to continue carrying on a romantic relationship with her."

"Well, he simply has to," Vicary said. "He's the one who got us into this damned mess, and he's the only one who can get us out. It's not as though we could move the chairs around and slip a professional in there. They chose him. No one else will do. They'll believe what they see in Jordan's briefcase."

Churchill looked at Eisenhower. "General?"

Eisenhower crushed out his cigarette, thinking for a moment, and then said, "If there's truly no other way to do it, I support the professor's plan. General Betts and I will make certain you have the necessary support from SHAEF to make it work."

"Then it's done," Churchill said. "And God help us if it doesn't work."

"My name is Vicary, by the way, Alfred Vicary. This is Harry Dalton-he works with me. And this gentleman is Sir Basil Boothby. He's in charge."

It was early the next morning, an hour after dawn. They were walking a narrow footpath through the trees-Harry a few paces ahead, like a scout, Vicary and Jordan side by side, Boothby looming over them from behind. The rain had stopped during the night, but the sky was still thick with cloud. The nickeled winter light bleached all color from the trees and the hills. A gauze of fog covered the ground in the low spots, and the air smelled of woodsmoke from the fires burning inside the house. Jordan's gaze settled briefly on each of them as they were introduced, but he did not offer his hand. Both remained jammed in the pockets of the jacket that had been left in his room, along with a pair of woolen trousers and a heavy country sweater.

They moved along the path in silence for a time, like old schoolmates walking off a heavy breakfast. The cold felt like a nail in Vicary's knee. He walked slowly, hands clasped behind his back, head down as if looking for a lost object. The trees broke and the Thames appeared before them. A pair of wooden benches stood on the bank. Harry sat on one, Vicary and Jordan on the other. Boothby remained standing.

Vicary explained to Jordan what they wanted him to do. Jordan listened without looking at anyone. He sat motionless, hands still in his pockets, legs stretched out before him, gaze fixed on some obscure point on the surface of the river. When Vicary finished, Jordan said, "Find some other way to do it. I'm not up to it. You'd be a fool to use me."

"Believe me, Commander Jordan. If there were some other way to reverse the damage that's been done, I'd do it. But there isn't. You must do this. You owe it to us. You owe it to all the men who will risk their lives trying to storm the beaches of Normandy." He paused a moment and followed Jordan's gaze onto the water. "And you owe it to yourself, Commander Jordan. You made a terrible mistake. Now you have to help repair the damage."

"Is that supposed to be a pep talk?"

"No, I don't believe in pep talks. It's the truth."

"How long will it last?"

"As long as necessary."

"You're not answering my question."

"That's right. It could be six days or six months. We just don't know. This isn't an exact science. But I will end it as soon as I can. On that you have my word."

"I didn't think the truth counted for much in your line of work, Mr. Vicary."

"Not usually. But it will in this case."

"What about my work on Operation Mulberry?"

"You'll go through the motions of being an active member of the team, but the truth is you're finished." Vicary stood up. "We should get back to the house, Commander Jordan. We have a few papers for you to sign before we leave."

"What sort of papers?"

"Oh, just something that binds you to never breathe a word of this for the rest of your life."

Jordan turned away from the river and finally looked at Vicary.

"Believe me, you don't need to worry about that."

38

Kurt Vogel was fussing with his collar. He was wearing his Kriegsmarine uniform for the first time in longer than he could remember. It fit before the war but Vogel, like almost everyone else, had lost weight. Now his tunic hung on him like prison pajamas.

He was nervous as hell. He had never met the Fuhrer; in fact he had never been in the same room with the man. Personally, he thought Hitler was a lunatic and a monster who had led Germany to the brink of catastrophe. But he found he was eager to meet him and, for some inexplicable reason, he wanted to make a good impression. He wished he had a better speaking voice. He chain-smoked to ease his nerves. He had smoked the entire flight from Berlin and now he was smoking again in the car. Canaris finally pleaded with him to put the damned thing out for the sake of the dachshunds. They were lying at Vogel's feet like fat sausages, glaring up at him malevolently. Vogel cracked the window and tossed his cigarette into the swirling snow.

The staff Mercedes stopped at the outer checkpoint of Hitler's Wolfschanze. Four SS guards descended on the car, threw open the hood and the trunk, and used mirrors to search the undercarriage. The SS men waved them forward and they drove a half mile toward the compound. It was late afternoon, but the forest floor burned with brilliant white arc light. Guards with Alsatians patrolled the footpaths.

The car stopped again in the compound, and again they were set upon by SS men. This time the inspection was personal. They were ordered out of the car and body searched. Vogel was shocked at the sight of Wilhelm Canaris, the chief of Germany's intelligence service, standing with his arms in the air, an SS man patting him down as if he were a beer hall drunk.

A guard demanded Vogel's briefcase, and he reluctantly handed it over. It contained the photographs of the Allied documents and the hastily produced analysis from the Abwehr technical staff in Berlin. The SS man dug inside the briefcase with a gloved hand and then returned it to Vogel, satisfied it contained no weapons or explosives.

Vogel joined Canaris, and they walked wordlessly toward the stairs that descended into the bunker. Two of the photographs Vogel had left behind in Berlin, locked in his file cabinets-the photographs of the note. The hand was hers; Vogel recognized the jagged scar at the base of her thumb. He was torn. Accede to her wishes and extract her from Britain or leave her in place? He suspected the decision would be made for him.

Another SS man waited at the top of the stairs, just in case the Fuhrer's visitors were somehow able to arm themselves during the walk across the compound. Canaris and Vogel stopped and submitted to yet another search.

Canaris looked at Vogel and said, "Welcome to Camp Paranoia."

Vogel and Canaris were the first to arrive. "Smoke now before the chicken farmer gets here," Canaris said. Vogel cringed at the remark; surely the room was thoroughly bugged. Leafing through his files, he fought off the craving for tobacco.

Vogel watched as the most powerful men of the Third Reich filed into the room one by one: Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler, Brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and Hermann Goring.

They all rose when Hitler entered the room, twenty minutes behind schedule. He wore slate gray trousers and a black tunic. He remained standing after everyone else sat. Vogel watched him, fascinated. The hair was graying, the skin sallow, the eyes red-rimmed. The dark circles beneath them were so pronounced they looked like bruises. Yet there was a daunting energy about him. For two hours he dominated the other men in the room as he led the conference on preparations for the invasion-probing, challenging, dismissing information or insight deemed irrelevant. It was clear to Vogel that Adolf Hitler knew as much, if not more, about the disposition of his forces in the West than his senior military officers. His attention to detail was astonishing. He demanded to know why there were three fewer antiaircraft guns in the Pas de Calais than in the previous week. He wanted to know the exact kind of concrete used for the Atlantic Wall fortifications and the precise thickness at which it was laid.

Finally, at the end of the conference, he turned to Canaris and said, "So. I'm told the Abwehr has uncovered another piece of information that might shed some light on the enemy's intentions."

"Actually, my Fuhrer, the operation was conceived and executed by Captain Vogel. I'll allow him to brief you on his findings."

"Fine," Hitler said. "Captain Vogel?"

Vogel remained seated. "My Fuhrer, two days ago in London one of our agents took possession of a document. As you know, we have discovered the enemy is engaged in something called Operation Mulberry. Based on these new documents we are now closer to learning exactly what Mulberry is."

"Closer?" Hitler said, his head tilting back. "So you are still engaging in guesswork, Captain?"

"If I may continue, my Fuhrer."

"Please, but I have limited patience this evening."

"We now know much more about the giant concrete and steel structures being built at several points around England. We now know they are code-named Phoenix. We also know that when the invasion comes they will be towed across the English Channel and sunk off the coast of France."

"Sunk? For what possible purpose, Captain Vogel?"

"For the past twenty-four hours, our technical analysts have been poring over the documents stolen in London. Each of the submersible units contains quarters for a crew and a large antiaircraft gun. It is possible the enemy is planning to create a huge coastal antiaircraft complex to provide additional cover for their troops during the invasion."

"Possible," Hitler said. "By why go to so much trouble to construct an antiaircraft facility? All your estimates indicate the British are desperately short of raw materials-steel, concrete, aluminum. You've been telling me that for months. Churchill has bankrupted Britain with this foolish war. Why waste precious supplies on such a project?"

Hitler turned and glared at Goring. "Besides, I'm afraid we must assume that the enemy will enjoy supremacy in the air during the invasion."

Hitler turned back toward Vogel. "Do you have a second theory, Captain Vogel?"

"We do, my Fuhrer. It is a minority opinion, very preliminary, and still open to a great deal of interpretation."

"Let's hear it," he snapped.

"One of our analysts believes the submersible units might actually be components of some sort of artificial harbor, a device that could be constructed in Britain, towed across the Channel, and installed along the French coast during the first hours of the invasion."

Hitler, intrigued, was pacing again. "An artificial harbor? Is such a thing possible?"

Himmler cleared his throat gently. "Perhaps your analysts are misreading the information provided by the agent, Captain Vogel. An artificial harbor sounds a little far-fetched to me."

"No, Herr Reichsfuhrer," Hitler said, "I think Captain Vogel may be on to something here." Hitler paced the room violently. "An artificial harbor! Imagine the arrogance, the audacity of such a project! I see the fingerprints of that madman Churchill all over this."

"My Fuhrer," Vogel said hesitantly, "an artificial harbor is only one possible explanation for these concrete units. I would caution against putting too much emphasis on these early findings."

"No, Captain Vogel, I am intrigued by this theory of yours. Let's take it to the next level, just for argument's sake. If the enemy is actually engaged in an attempt to build something as elaborate as an artificial harbor, where would he put it? Von Rundstedt, you first."

The old field marshal rose, walked to the map, and tapped at it with his baton. "If one studies the failed enemy assault on Dieppe in 1942, one can learn valuable lessons. The enemy's primary objective was to seize and open a major port as quickly as possible. The enemy failed, of course. The problem is this: the enemy knows we will deny him the use of ports for as long as possible and that we will cripple those ports before surrendering them. I suppose it is possible the enemy might be constructing facilities in Britain that would allow him to reopen the ports more quickly. That makes sense to me. If that is the case-and I stress that Captain Vogel and his colleagues have no conclusive proof it is so-I still believe it is Calais. An invasion at Calais still makes the most sense militarily and strategically. This cannot be ignored."

Hitler listened carefully, then turned to Vogel. "What do you think of the field marshal's analysis, Captain Vogel?"

Vogel looked up. Von Rundstedt's icy gaze had settled on him. He knew he had to proceed very carefully.

"Field Marshal von Rundstedt's argument is extremely sound." Vogel paused as von Rundstedt nodded in acknowledgment. "But for the sake of discussion, may I offer a second interpretation?"

"Do so," Hitler said.

"As the field marshal has pointed out, the enemy desperately needs port facilities if he is to build up supplies quickly enough to sustain an invasion force. We estimate that would require at least ten thousand tons of supplies each day during the first phase of the operation. Any of the ports on the Pas de Calais could sustain such a massive buildup-Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk for example. But as Field Marshal von Rundstedt pointed out, the enemy knows we will demolish those ports before surrendering them. The enemy also knows those ports will be heavily defended. A frontal assault on any one of them would be very costly."

Vogel could see that Hitler was fidgeting, growing impatient. He hurried things along.

"Along the Normandy coast there are a number of small fishing ports, none of them large enough to handle the necessary buildup of materiel and heavy equipment. Even Cherbourg might not be large enough. Remember, it was designed as a passenger terminal for transatlantic liners, not for discharging cargo."

"Your point, Captain Vogel," Hitler said, an edge to his voice.

"My Fuhrer, what if it were possible for the enemy to build up his supplies and equipment on open beaches rather than through a port? If that were indeed possible, the enemy could avoid our strongest defenses, land on the less heavily defended beaches of Normandy, and attempt to supply an invasion force through the use of an artificial harbor."

Hitler's eyes flickered. He was clearly intrigued by Vogel's analysis.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was shaking his head. "A scenario such as yours would be a recipe for disaster, Captain Vogel. Even in spring the weather along the Channel coast can be extremely hazardous-rain, high winds, heavy seas. My staff has studied the patterns. If history is a guide, the enemy can expect periods of good weather for no more than three or four days at a time. If he attempts to build up his forces on an open beach, with no harbor and no sheltered water, the enemy will be totally at the mercy of nature. And no portable device, no matter how ingenious, will survive a springtime gale on the English Channel."

Hitler stepped in. "A fascinating discussion, gentlemen-but enough. Obviously, Captain Vogel, your agent needs to discover more about the project. I assume the agent is still in place?"

Vogel proceeded carefully.

"There is a problem, my Fuhrer," Vogel said. "The agent feels the British security forces may be closing in-that it may not be safe to remain in England much longer."

Walter Schellenberg spoke for the first time. "Captain Vogel, our own source in London says quite the opposite-that the British know there is a leak but have been unable to plug it. Your agent is imagining the danger at this time."

Vogel thought, Arrogant ass! Who's this great source the SD has in London? He said, "The agent in question is highly trained and exceptionally intelligent. I think-"

Himmler cut Vogel off. "Surely you don't assume Brigadefuhrer Schellenberg's source is less credible than your own, Captain Vogel."

"With respect, I have no way to judge the credibility of the brigadefuhrer's source, Herr Reichsfuhrer."

"A very diplomatic answer, Herr Captain," Himmler said. "But clearly your agent should remain in place until we know the truth about these concrete objects, wouldn't you agree?"

Vogel was trapped. To disagree with Himmler would be like signing his own death warrant. They could manufacture evidence of treason against him and hang him with piano wire like they did the others. He thought of Gertrude and the children. The barbarians would go after them too. He trusted Anna's instincts, but to pull her out now would be suicide. He had no choice. She would remain in place.

"Yes. I agree, Herr Reichsfuhrer."

Himmler invited Vogel for a walk around the grounds. Night had fallen. Beyond the sphere of arc light the forest was very dark. A sign warned not to stray from the footpath because of mines. Wind stirred the tops of the conifers. Vogel could hear a dog barking; it was difficult to tell how far away because the new snow reduced all sound to a dull muffle. It was bitter cold. During the tense meeting he had perspired heavily beneath his tunic. Now, in the cold, it felt as if his clothes had frozen to his body. He craved a cigarette but decided not to risk offending Himmler further for one day. Himmler's voice, when he finally spoke, was nearly inaudible. Vogel wondered if it was possible to bug a forest.

"A remarkable achievement, Captain Vogel. You are to be commended."

"I'm honored, Herr Reichsfuhrer."

"Your agent in London is a woman."

Vogel said nothing.

"It was always my impression that Admiral Canaris distrusted female agents. That he believed they are too susceptible to emotion for clandestine work and lack the necessary objectivity."

"I can assure you, Herr Reichsfuhrer, that the agent involved has none of those shortcomings."

"I must admit I find the practice of inserting female agents behind enemy lines a bit distasteful myself. The SOE persists in sending women into France. When they are arrested, I'm afraid the women suffer the same fate as the men. To inflict such suffering on a woman is regrettable, to say the least." He paused, cheek muscle twitching, and breathed deeply of the cold night air. "Your achievement is even more remarkable because you succeeded in spite of Admiral Canaris."

"I'm not sure what you mean, Herr Reichsfuhrer."

"What I mean is that the admiral's days at the Abwehr are numbered. We have been unhappy with his performance for some time. He is at least an incompetent. And if my suspicions are correct, he's a traitor to the Fuhrer as well."

"Herr Reichsfuhrer, I've never-"

Himmler cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"I know you feel a certain loyalty to Admiral Canaris. After all, he is personally responsible for your rapid rise through the ranks of the Abwehr. But nothing you can say now can possibly change my opinion of Canaris. And a word to the wise. Be careful when coming to the aid of a drowning man. You may be dragged under as well."

Vogel was stunned. He said nothing. The barking of the dog faded slowly away, then was gone. The wind rose and blew snow across the path, erasing the border with the forest. Vogel wondered how close they laid the mines. He turned his head and glimpsed a pair of SS men trailing softly after them.

"It is now February," Himmler resumed. "I can predict with some certainty that Admiral Canaris will be dismissed soon, perhaps even by the end of the month. I intend to bring all the security and intelligence agencies of Germany under my control, including the Abwehr."

Vogel thought, The Abwehr under Himmler's control? It would be laughable if he wasn't serious.

"You are obviously a man of considerable talent," Himmler continued. "I want you to remain at the Abwehr. With a considerable promotion, of course."

"Thank you, Herr Reichsfuhrer." It was as if someone else said the words for him.

Himmler stopped. "It's cold. We should start back."

They walked past the security men, who waited until Himmler and Vogel were out of earshot before falling in quietly behind them.

Himmler said, "I'm glad we were able to reach agreement on the matter of leaving the agent in place. I think it is the prudent course of action at this time. And besides, Herr Vogel, it is never wise for one's personal feelings to cloud one's judgment."

Vogel stopped walking and looked into Himmler's desolate eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

"Please, don't treat me like a fool," Himmler said. "Brigadefuhrer Schellenberg spent some time in Madrid on another matter this past week. He met a friend of yours there-a man named Emilio Romero. Senor Romero told Brigadefuhrer Schellenberg all about your most prized possession."

Vogel thought, Damn Emilio for talking to Schellenberg! Damn Himmler for sticking his nose into places it doesn't belong! The SS men seemed to sense tension, and they drifted silently forward.

"I understand she's very beautiful," Himmler said. "It must have been difficult to give up a woman like that. It must be tempting to bring her home and lock her away. But she is to remain in place in England. Is that clear, Captain Vogel?"

"Yes, Herr Reichsfuhrer."

"Schellenberg has his faults: arrogant, too flashy, and this obsession with pornography-" Himmler shrugged. "But he's a clever and resourceful intelligence officer. I know you're going to enjoy working more closely with him."

Himmler turned abruptly and walked away. Vogel stood alone, shivering in the intense cold.

"You don't look well," Canaris said when Vogel returned to the car. "I usually feel that way after conversations with the chicken farmer. But I must admit I do a better job of hiding it than you."

There was a scratching at the side of the car. Canaris opened his door, and the dogs scampered inside and settled at Vogel's feet. Canaris rapped his knuckle on the glass divider. The engine turned over and the car crunched over the snow toward the gate. Vogel felt relief wash over him as the glare of the compound receded behind them and they returned once more to the gloom of the forest.

"The little corporal was very proud of you tonight," Canaris said, contempt in his voice. "And what about Himmler? Did you stick the dagger in me during your little moonlight stroll?"

"Herr Admiral-"

Canaris leaned over and put his hand on Vogel's arm. There was a look in his ice blue eyes Vogel had never seen.

"Be careful, Kurt," he said. "It is a dangerous game you are playing. A very dangerous game."

And with that Canaris leaned back, closed his eyes, and was immediately asleep.

39

The operation was hastily code-named Kettledrum-who chose the name and why Vicary did not know. It was too complex and too sensitive to be run from his cramped quarters in St. James's Street, so for his command post Vicary procured a stately Georgian house in a terrace in West Halkin Street. The drawing room was converted into a situation room, with extra telephones, a wireless set, and a large-scale map of metropolitan London tacked to the wall. The upstairs library was turned into an office for Vicary and Harry. There was a rear entrance for the watchers and a pantry stocked with food. The typists volunteered to do the cooking, and Vicary, arriving at the house early that evening, was struck by the aroma of toast and bacon and the lamb stew bubbling on the stove.

A watcher led him upstairs to the library. A coal fire burned in the fireplace; the air was dry and warm. He struggled out of his sodden mackintosh, hung it on a hanger, and hung the hanger on the back of the door. One of the girls had left him a pot of tea, and he poured himself a cup. Vicary was exhausted. He had slept poorly after interrogating Jordan, and his hope of catching a little sleep in the car had been dashed by Boothby, who suggested they ride back to the office together so they could use the time to talk.

Overall control of Kettledrum was Boothby's. Vicary would run Jordan and be responsible for keeping Catherine Blake under surveillance. At the same time he would try to discover the rest of the agents in the network and their means of communication with Berlin. Boothby would be the liaison to the Twenty Committee, the interdepartmental group that supervised the entire Double Cross apparatus, so named because the symbol of Double Cross and the Roman numeral for twenty are the same: XX. Boothby and the Twenty Committee would produce the misleading documents for Jordan's briefcase and integrate Kettledrum into the rest of Double Cross and Bodyguard. Vicary did not ask about the nature of the misinformation, and Boothby did not tell him. Vicary knew what it meant. He had discovered the existence of the new German network and traced the leak back to Jordan. But now he was being shoved into a supporting role. Basil Boothby was fully in command.

"Nice digs," Harry said, as he entered the room. He poured himself a cup of tea and warmed his backside against the fire. "Where's Jordan?"

"Upstairs sleeping."

"Dumb bastard," Harry said, his voice lowered.

"He's our dumb bastard now, Harry. Don't forget that. What have you got?"

"Fingerprints."

"What?"

"Fingerprints, latent fingerprints from someone other than Peter Jordan, all over the inside of that study. On the desk, on the exterior of the safe. He says the cleaning lady was never allowed to go in. We should assume those latent fingerprints were left by Catherine Blake."

Vicary shook his head slowly.

"Jordan's house is ready to go," Harry continued. "We put so many microphones in that place you can hear a mouse fart. We evicted the family across the street and established a static post. The view is perfect. Anyone goes near that house gets their picture taken."

"What about Catherine Blake?"

"We traced her telephone number to a flat in Earl's Court. We took over a flat in the building opposite."

"Good work, Harry."

Harry looked at Vicary a long moment, then said, "Don't take this the wrong way, Alfred, but you look like hell."

"I can't remember the last time I slept. What's keeping you going?"

"A couple of Benzedrine and ten quarts of tea."

"I'm going to have a bite to eat, then try to get some sleep. What about you?"

"Actually, I had plans for the evening."

"Grace Clarendon?"

"She asked me to dinner. I thought I'd take the opportunity. I don't think we're going to have much free time the next few weeks."

Vicary rose and poured himself another cup of tea. "Harry, I don't want to take advantage of your relationship with Grace, but I'm wondering if she could do me a favor. I'd like her to run a couple of names quietly through Registry and see what comes up."

"I'll ask her. What are the names?"

Vicary carried his tea across the room and stood in front of the fire next to Harry.

"Peter Jordan, Walker Hardegen, and anyone or anything called Broome."

Grace never liked to eat before making love. Afterward Harry lay in her bed, smoking a cigarette, listening to Glenn Miller on the gramophone and the clatter of Grace cooking in her tiny kitchen. She came back into the bedroom ten minutes later. She wore a robe, loosely tied at her slender waist, and carried a tray with their supper on it: soup and bread. Harry sat up against the headboard and Grace leaned against the footboard. The tray was between them. She handed him a bowl of the soup. It was nearly midnight and they both were starved. Harry loved to watch her-the way she seemed to take such pleasure from the simple meal. The way her robe parted to reveal her taut, perfect body.

She noticed him looking at her and said, "What are you thinking, Harry Dalton?"

"I was thinking how much I never want this to end. I was thinking how much I wish every night of my life could be just like this."

Her face became very grave; she was absolutely incapable of hiding her emotions. When she was happy her face seemed to light up. When she was angry her green eyes smoldered. And when she was sad, like now, her body became very still.

"You mustn't say things like that, Harry. It's against the rules."

"I know it's against the rules, but it's the truth."

"Sometimes it's better to keep the truth to yourself. If you don't say it out loud, it doesn't hurt so much."

"Grace, I think I'm in love-"

She slammed down her spoon on the tray. "Jesus, Harry! Don't say things like that! You make it so damned hard sometimes. First you say you can't see me because you're feeling guilty, and now you're telling me you're in love with me."

"I'm sorry, Grace, it's just the truth. I thought we could always tell each other the truth."

"All right, here's the truth. I'm married to a wonderful man I care for very much and don't want to hurt. But I've fallen desperately in love with a detective-turned-spycatcher named Harry Dalton. And when this damned war is over I have to give him up. And it hurts like bloody hell every time I let myself think about it." Her eyes welled with tears. "Now shut up and eat your soup. Please. Let's talk about something else. I'm stuck in dreary Registry all day with Jago and his wretched pipe. I want to know what's going on in the rest of the world."

"All right. I have a favor to ask of you."

"What kind of favor?"

"A professional favor."

She smiled at him wickedly. "Damn, I was hoping it was a sexual favor."

"I need you to quietly run a couple of names through the Registry index. See if anything comes up."

"Sure, what are they?"

Harry told her.

"Okay, I'll see what I can find."

She finished the soup, leaned back, and watched Harry while he ate the rest of his soup. When he was done she stacked the dishes on the tray and set the tray on the floor next to the bed. She turned out the lights and lit a candle on the bedstand. She took off her robe, and she made love to him in a way she never had before: slowly, patiently, as if his body were made of crystal. Her eyes never strayed from his face. When it was over she fell forward onto his chest, her body limp and damp, her warm breath against his neck.

"You wanted the truth, Harry. That's the truth."

"I have to be honest with you, Grace. It didn't hurt."

It began a few minutes past ten o'clock the following morning when Peter Jordan, standing in the upstairs library of Vicary's house in West Halkin Street, dialed the number for Catherine Blake's flat. For a long time the recording of this one-minute conversation held the distinction of the most listened-to wiretap in the history of the Imperial Security Service. Vicary himself would listen to the damned thing a hundred times, searching for imperfections like a master jeweler examining a diamond for flaws. Boothby did the same. A copy of the recording was rushed back to St. James's Street by motorcycle courier, and for one hour the red light burned over Sir Basil's door as he listened over and over again.

The first time Vicary heard only Jordan. He was standing a few feet away, his back politely turned, his eyes fixed on the fire.

"Listen, I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to call sooner. I've just been busy as hell. I was out of town a day longer than I expected, and there was no way for me to call."

Silence, while she tells him there's no need to apologize.

"I missed you very much. I thought about you the entire time I was away."

Silence, while she tells him she missed him terribly and can't wait to see him again.

"I want to see you too. In fact, that's why I'm calling. I booked us a table at the Mirabelle. I hope you're free for lunch."

Silence, while she tells him that sounds wonderful.

"Good. I'll meet you there at one o'clock."

Silence, while she says she loves him very much.

"I love you too, darling."

Jordan was quiet when it was over. Vicary, watching him, was reminded of Karl Becker and the dark mood he slipped into whenever Vicary forced him to send a Double Cross message. They killed the rest of the morning with chess. Jordan played a precise mathematical match; Vicary engaged in deception and subterfuge. While they played they could hear the banter of the watchers and the clatter of the typists downstairs in the situation room. Jordan was beating Vicary badly so Vicary resigned.

At noon Jordan went to his room and dressed in his uniform. At twelve fifteen he walked out the rear door of the house and clambered into the back of a department van. Vicary and Harry settled into their places downstairs in the situation room while Jordan was driven at speed up Park Lane like a high-security prisoner. He was taken to a secluded rear door of SHAEF headquarters in Blackburn Street and went inside. For the next six minutes, no one from Vicary's team saw him.

Jordan emerged from the front entrance of SHAEF at 12:35. He walked across the square, a briefcase chained to his wrist, and vanished into another doorway. This time his absence was ten minutes. When he reappeared, the briefcase was gone. From Grosvenor Square he walked to South Audley Street and from South Audley Street to Curzon Street. During his journey he was quietly shadowed by three of the department's best watchers, Clive Roach, Tony Blair, and Leonard Reeves. None of them saw any signs that Jordan was under surveillance by the opposition.

At 12:55 Jordan arrived at the Mirabelle. He waited outside, just as Vicary had instructed him to do. At precisely one o'clock a taxi braked to a halt in front of the restaurant and a tall, attractive woman stepped into view. Ginger Bradshaw, the department's best surveillance photographer, was crouched in the back of a department van parked across the street; as Catherine Blake took Peter Jordan's hand and kissed his cheek, he quickly shot six photographs. The film was rushed back to West Halkin Street, and the prints were sitting in front of Vicary in the situation room by the time they had finished lunch.

When it was over Blair would say it was his fault; Reeves said no, it was his. Roach, being the senior man, took responsibility himself. All three agreed she was a cut above every other German agent they had ever followed: the best, bar none. And if they ever made a mistake, got too close, fingers would surely be burned.

After leaving the Mirabelle, Catherine and Peter walked together back to Grosvenor Square. They stopped on the southwest corner of the square and talked for two minutes. Ginger Bradshaw took several more photographs, including one of their very brief kiss good-bye. When Jordan walked away, Catherine flagged down a taxi and climbed inside. Blair, Roach, and Reeves jumped into the surveillance van and followed the taxi east to Regent Street. The taxi then headed north to Oxford Street, where Catherine paid off the cabbie and climbed out.

Later, Roach would call her stroll along Oxford Street the best demonstration of streetcraft he had ever seen. She paused in at least a half dozen storefronts. She doubled back twice, once so quickly that Blair had to dive into a cafe to get out of the way. At Tottenham Court Road she descended into the underground and purchased a ticket for Waterloo. Roach and Reeves both managed to get on the train with her-Roach, twenty feet away in the same car, Reeves in the next one. When the doors opened at Leicester Square she remained still, as if she were going to continue on; then suddenly she stood up and stepped onto the platform. Roach had to squeeze through the closing doors to stay with her. Reeves was stuck on the train; he was out of the game.

She melted into the crowd on the staircase and Roach lost her momentarily. When she reached street level she quickly crossed Charing Cross Road and took the stairs back into the Leicester Square Station.

Roach could have sworn he saw her climb onto a waiting bus, and for the rest of the afternoon he berated himself for making such a stupid mistake. He rushed across the street and jumped onto the bus as it pulled away from the curb. Ten seconds later he realized he had the wrong woman. He got off the bus at the next stop and telephoned Vicary at West Halkin Street to tell him she had given them the slip.

"Clive Roach has never lost a German agent before," Boothby said, glaring at the watch report that evening in his office. He looked up at Vicary. "The man could follow a gnat through Hampstead Heath."

"He's the best. She's just damned good."

"Look at this: a taxi, a long walk to check her tail, and then into the underground, where she buys a ticket for one station and gets out at another."

"She's extremely careful. That's why we've never caught on to her."

"There's another explanation, Alfred. It's possible she spotted the tail."

"I know. I've thought about that possibility."

"And if that's the case, the entire operation is blown even before it's started." Boothby tapped the thin metal attache case containing the first batch of Kettledrum material. "If she knows she's under surveillance and we give her this, we might as well publish the secret of the invasion in the Daily Mail under a bloody banner headline. They'll know they're being deceived. And if they know they're being deceived, they'll know the opposite is true."

"Roach is convinced she didn't spot him."

"Where is she now?"

"She's in her flat."

"What time is she supposed to meet Jordan?"

"Ten o'clock, at Jordan's house. He told her he was working late tonight."

"What were Jordan's impressions?"

"He said he detected no change in her demeanor, no sign of nerves or tension." Vicary paused. "He's good, our Commander Jordan, damned good. If he weren't such an excellent engineer, he'd make a marvelous spy."

Boothby tapped the metal attache case with his thick forefinger. "If she spotted the tail, why is she sitting in her flat? Why isn't she making a run for it?"

Vicary said, "Perhaps she wants to see what's inside that briefcase."

"It's not too late, Alfred. We don't have to go through with this. We can arrest her right now and think of some other way to repair the damage."

"I think that would be a mistake. We don't know the other agents in the network, and we don't know how they're communicating with Berlin."

Boothby rapped his knuckle against the attache case. "You haven't asked what's inside this briefcase, Alfred."

"I didn't want another lecture about need to know."

Boothby chuckled and said, "Very good. You're learning. You don't need to know this, but since it's your brilliant idea I'm going to tell you. The Twenty Committee wants to convince them that Mulberry is actually an offshore antiaircraft complex bound for Calais. The Phoenix units already have crew quarters and antiaircraft guns, so it's a rather neat fit. They've just altered the drawings a bit."

"Perfect," Vicary said.

"They have some other schemes in mind to help sell the deception through other channels. You'll be briefed on those as necessary."

"I understand, Sir Basil."

They sat in silence for a time, each studying his own private spot on the paneled walls.

"It's your call, Alfred," Boothby said. "You control this part of the operation. Whatever you recommend, I'll back you up on it."

Vicary thought, Why do I feel as though I'm being measured for the drop? He did not take comfort from Boothby's offer of support. The first sign of trouble and Boothby would be diving for the nearest foxhole. The easiest thing to do would be to arrest Catherine Blake and do it Boothby's way-try to turn her and force her to cooperate with them. Vicary remained convinced it would not work, that the only way to funnel the Double Cross material directly through her was to do it without her knowledge.

"I remember a time when men didn't have to make decisions like this," Boothby said wistfully. "If we make the wrong one, we could very well lose the war."

"Thank you for reminding me," Vicary said. "You don't have a crystal ball behind that desk, do you, Sir Basil?"

"I'm afraid not."

"How about a coin?"

"Alfred!"

"A poor attempt at levity, Sir Basil."

Boothby was tapping on the attache again. "What's your decision, Alfred?"

"I say we let her run."

Boothby said, "I hope to God you're right. Give me your right arm."

Vicary stuck out his arm. Boothby shackled the attache case to his wrist.

Half an hour later Grace Clarendon was standing in Northumberland Avenue, stomping her feet against the pavement for warmth as she watched the evening traffic rushing past. Finally, she spotted Boothby's large black Humber when the driver winked the shaded headlamps. The car pulled over. Boothby threw open the back door and Grace climbed inside.

Grace shivered. "Bloody cold outside! You were supposed to meet me fifteen minutes ago. I don't know why we can't just do this in your office."

"Too many watchful eyes, Grace. Too much at stake." She stuck a cigarette into her mouth and lit it. Boothby closed the glass partition.

"Now, what do you have for me?"

"Vicary wants me to run a couple of names through Registry for him."

"Why doesn't he come to me for a chit?"

"I suppose he thinks you won't give it to him."

"What are the names?"

"Peter Jordan and Walker Hardegen."

"Clever bastard," Boothby murmured. "Anything else?"

"Yes. He wanted me to run a trace on the word Broome."

"How broad?"

"Names of our own personnel. Code names of agents, German and British. Operational code names, existing or closed."

"For Christ's sake," Boothby said. He turned and watched the traffic. "Did Vicary come to you directly, or did he make the request through Dalton?"

"Harry did it."

"When?"

"Last night."

Boothby turned and smiled at her. "Grace, have you been a naughty girl again?"

She didn't respond, just said, "What do you want me to tell him?"

"Tell him you searched for the names of Jordan and Hardegen in every index you could think of and found nothing. The same for Broome. Understood, Grace?"

She nodded.

Boothby said, "Don't look so glum. You're making an invaluable contribution to your nation's defense."

She turned at him, narrowing her green eyes in anger. "I'm deceiving someone I care about very much. And I don't like it."

"It will all be over soon. When it is I'll treat you to a nice dinner out, just like the old days."

She pulled the door latch, a little too forcefully, and put a foot out the door. "I'll let you take me to an expensive dinner, Basil. But that's all. The old days are definitely over."

She got out, slammed the door, and watched Boothby's car vanish into the dark.

Vicary waited upstairs in the library. The girls brought him the updates, one by one.

2115 hrs: The static post at Earl's Court spots Catherine Blake leaving her flat. Photographs to follow.

2117 hrs: Catherine Blake walks north toward Cromwell Road. One watcher trailing on foot. Surveillance van following.

2120 hrs: Catherine Blake catches a taxi and heads east. Surveillance van collects watcher on foot and tails the taxi.

2135 hrs: Catherine Blake arrives Marble Arch and leaves taxi. New watcher leaves the surveillance van and follows on foot.

2140 hrs: Catherine Blake catches another taxi in Oxford Street. Surveillance van nearly loses her. Unable to pick up watcher on foot.

2150 hrs: Catherine Blake leaves taxi at Piccadilly Circus. Walking west on Piccadilly. New watcher trailing on foot. Surveillance van following.

2153 hrs: Catherine Blake catches bus. Surveillance van following.

2157 hrs: Catherine Blake leaves bus. Enters Green Park on footpath. One watcher following.

Five minutes later, Harry came into the room. "We lost her in Green Park," he said. "She doubled back. The watcher had to keep going."

"That's all right, Harry. We know where she's going."

But for the next twenty minutes no one saw her. Vicary came downstairs and nervously paced the situation room. Through the microphones, Vicary could hear Jordan prowling the inside of his house, waiting for her. Had she seen the watchers? Did she spot the surveillance van? Had she been attacked in Green Park? Was she meeting with another agent? Was she trying to escape? Outside, Vicary heard the rattle of the surveillance van returning, then the soft footfalls of the dejected watchers slipping back into the house. She had beaten them again. Then Boothby telephoned. He was monitoring the operation from his office and wanted to know what the hell was going on. When Vicary told him, Boothby muttered something unintelligible and rang off.

Finally the static post outside Jordan's house came on the air.

2225 hrs: Catherine Blake approaching Jordan's door. Catherine Blake pressing the buzzer.

This piece of information Vicary did not need to know, for Jordan's house had been bugged and wired so thoroughly that the door buzzer, over the speakers in the situation room, sounded like an air-raid alert.

Vicary closed his eyes and listened. Their voices rose and fell as they moved from room to room, out of the range of one microphone and into the next. Vicary, listening to them trade banalities, was reminded of the dialogue in one of Alice Simpson's romance novels: Can I top up your drink? No, it's fine. How about something to eat? You must be famished. No, I had a little something earlier. But there is something I want desperately right now.

He listened to the sound of their kissing. He searched her voice for false notes. He had a team of officers waiting in the house across the street, just in case it all went wrong and he decided to arrest her. He listened to her telling him how much she loved him, and for some horrid reason he found himself thinking of Helen. They had stopped talking. Clinking glass. Running water. Footsteps ascending the stairs. Silence, as they moved through a dead zone on the microphone coverage. The sound of Jordan's bed, creaking beneath the weight of their bodies. The sound of clothing being removed. Whispers. Vicary had heard enough. He turned to Harry and said, "I'm going upstairs. Come get me when she makes her move."

Clive Roach heard it first, then Ginger Bradshaw. Harry had fallen asleep on the couch, his long legs dangling over the armrest. Roach reached out and smacked him on the sole of his shoe. Harry, startled, sat up, listening intently. He bounded up the stairs and nearly broke down the door to the library. Vicary had brought his camp bed from his office. He slept, as was his habit, with the light shining on his face. Harry reached down and shook his shoulder. Vicary came awake suddenly and looked at his wristwatch: two forty-five a.m. He followed Harry wordlessly down the stairs and into the situation room. Vicary had experimented with captured German cameras and recognized the sound immediately. Catherine Blake was locked inside Jordan's study, rapidly photographing the first batch of Kettledrum material. After a minute it stopped. Vicary heard the sound of papers being straightened and the door to the safe being closed. Then a click, as she turned out the lights and walked back upstairs.

40

"Well, if it isn't the man of the hour!" Boothby sang, flinging open the rear door of his Humber. "Come inside, Alfred, before you freeze to death out there. I just finished briefing the Twenty Committee. Needless to say, they're thrilled. They've asked me to pass on their congratulations to you. So, congratulations, Alfred."

"Thank you, I suppose," Vicary said, thinking, When did he have time to brief the Twenty Committee? It was barely seven in the morning: raining, colder than hell, London veiled in the dull half-light of wintry dawn. The car pulled away from the curb into the silent, shimmering street. Vicary slumped down on the seat, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes, just for a moment. He was beyond exhaustion. Fatigue pulled at his limbs. It pressed on his chest like the winner of a schoolyard wrestling match, squeezed his head like a vise. He had not slept again, not after listening to Catherine Blake photographing the Kettledrum material. What was it that kept him awake, the excitement of so skillfully deceiving the enemy or disgust at the manner in which it was done?

Vicary opened his eyes. They were heading east, across the Georgian bleakness of Belgravia, then Hyde Park Corner, then Park Lane to Bayswater Road. The streets were deserted-a few taxis here and there, a lorry or two, solitary pedestrians rushing along the pavement like scared survivors of a plague.

Vicary, closing his eyes again, said, "What's this all about anyway?"

"Remember I told you the Twenty Committee was considering using some of our other Double Cross assets to help bolster the credibility of Kettledrum in Berlin?"

"I remember," Vicary said. He also remembered he had been stunned by the speed at which the decision had been reached. The Twenty Committee was notorious for bureaucratic warfare. Each and every Double Cross message had to be approved by the Twenty Committee before it could be sent to the Germans through turned agents. Vicary sometimes waited days for the Committee to approve Double Cross messages for his Becker network. Why were they able to move so quickly now?

He was too tired to search his brain for possible answers. He closed his eyes again. "Where are we going?"

"East London. Hoxton, to be precise."

Vicary opened his eyes to a slit, then let them close again. "If we're going to East London, why are we traveling west along Bayswater Road?"

"To make certain we're not being followed by members of any other service, friendly or hostile."

"Who's going to be following us, Sir Basil? The Americans?"

"Actually, Alfred, I'm more worried about the Russians."

Vicary lifted his head and twisted it around at Boothby before letting it fall back onto the leather seat. "I'd ask for an explanation of that remark, but I'm too tired."

"In a few minutes everything will be made clear to you."

"Will there be coffee there?"

Boothby chuckled. "Yes, I can guarantee that."

"Good. You won't mind if I use this opportunity to get a few minutes of sleep?"

But Vicary had drifted off and didn't hear Boothby's answer.

The car jerked to a halt. Vicary, floating in a light sleep, felt his head roll forward, then snap back. He heard the metallic crunch of a door latch giving way, felt a blast of cold air clawing at his face. He came awake suddenly. He looked to his left and seemed surprised to see Boothby sitting there. He glanced at his wristwatch. Good heavens, nearly eight o'clock!-they had been driving the London streets for an hour. His neck ached from the awkward position in which he had slept, slumped down in his seat with his chin pressing against the top of his rib cage. His head throbbed with a craving for caffeine and nicotine. He took hold of the armrest and pushed himself into a sitting position. He looked out the window: East London, Hoxton, an ugly Victorian terrace that looked like a factory fallen on hard times. The terrace on the other side had been bombed-a house here, a pile of rubble there, then a house, then rubble-like a mouth of rotting teeth.

He heard Boothby say, "Wake up, Alfred, we're here. What on earth were you dreaming about anyway?"

He felt suddenly self-conscious. What had he dreamt? Had he talked in his sleep? He hadn't dreamt of France since-since when?-since they cornered Catherine Blake. He wondered if he had dreamt of Helen. Climbing out of the car, he was overcome by a wave of fatigue and had to steady himself by putting a hand on the rear fender of the car. Boothby seemed not to notice, for he was standing on the pavement, glaring back at Vicary impatiently, rattling loose change in his pocket. Rain fell harder now. The bleak landscape somehow made it seem colder. Vicary, joining Boothby on the pavement, breathed deeply of the raw, damp air and immediately felt better.

Boothby led the way through the front door into the hall. The house must have been turned into flats, because there were metal letter boxes on one wall. At the back of the hall-directly opposite the door-was a staircase. Vicary let the door close and they were enveloped in darkness. He reached out and groped for a light switch-he had seen one there, somewhere. He found it, flipped it. Nothing.

"They take the blackout a little more seriously here than we do up West," Boothby said. Vicary dug a blackout torch from the pocket of his mackintosh. He handed it to Boothby, and Boothby led the way up the wooden stairs.

Vicary could see almost nothing, just the outline of Boothby's broad back and a puddle of listless light leaking from the weak torch. Like a blind man the rest of his senses were suddenly alive. He was treated to a tour of foul odors-urine, stale beer, disinfectant, dried egg frying in old fat. Then the sounds-a parent striking a child, a couple quarreling, another couple noisily copulating. Somewhere he heard notes on an organ and a chorus of male voices. He wondered if there was a church nearby, then realized it was the BBC. Only then did he comprehend that it was Sunday. Kettledrum and the search for Catherine Blake had robbed him of the days of the week.

They reached the landing on the top floor. Boothby shone the torch down the hall. The light reflected in the yellow eyes of a skinny cat. It hissed at them in anger before scurrying away. Boothby followed the sound of the church services. The singing had stopped, and the congregation was reciting the Lord's Prayer. Boothby had a key. He stuck it in the lock and switched off the torch before going inside.

It was a squalid little room: an unmade bed no larger than Vicary's at MI5 headquarters, a tiny galley kitchen where coffee burned on a gas ring, a small cafe table where two men sat still as statues, listening to the radio. Both had vile Gauloise cigarettes in their mouths, and the air was blue with smoke. The lights were doused; the only illumination came from narrow windows that looked over the back of a terrace on the next street. Vicary walked to the window and looked out at an alley strewn with rubbish. Two little boys were tossing tin cans into the air and hitting them with sticks. A wind rose, lifting old newspaper into the air like circling gulls. Boothby was dumping the burnt coffee into two suspect enamel mugs. He gave one to Vicary and kept one for himself. The coffee was vile-bitter, stale, and too strong-but it was hot and it had caffeine.

Boothby used his chipped cup to make the introductions, tipping it first toward the older and larger of the two men. "Alfred Vicary, this is Pelican. That's not his real name, mind you. That's his code name. You don't get to know his real name, I'm afraid. I'm not sure even I know his real name." He tipped his mug at the second man sitting at the table. "And this fellow is Hawke. That's not a code name. That's his real name. Hawke works for us, don't you, Hawke?"

But Hawke gave no indication he had heard Boothby speak. He was not a Hawke-more like a Stick or a Rod or a Cane, cadaverous and painfully thin. His cheap wartime suit hung from his bony shoulders as if it had been thrown over a valet. He had the pallor of someone who worked at night and beneath ground. His blond hair was thinning and going rapidly gray, even though he was no older than the boys Vicary had tutored his last term at the university. He held his Gauloise like a Frenchman, between the tip of his long thumb and forefinger. Vicary had the uncomfortable feeling he had seen him somewhere before-in the canteen, maybe, or leaving Registry with a batch of files beneath his arm. Or was it leaving Boothby's office by the secret passageway, the way he had seen Grace Clarendon leaving that night? Hawke didn't look at Vicary. The only time he moved was when Boothby took a couple of steps toward him. Then he only inclined his head away a fraction of an inch and tightened his face, as if he feared Boothby might strike him.

Vicary looked next at Pelican. He might have been a writer or he might have been a dockworker, he might be German or he might be French. Polish, perhaps-they were everywhere. Unlike Hawke, Pelican stared straight back at Vicary, holding him in a steady, slightly bemused gaze. Vicary couldn't quite see Pelican's eyes because he wore the thickest glasses Vicary had ever seen, tinted slightly, as if he was sensitive to bright light. Beneath his black leather coat he wore two sweaters, a gray rollneck and a frayed beige cardigan that looked as though it had been made for him by a well-meaning relative with eyes as good as his. He smoked his Gauloise to a stub, then crushed it out, using the cracked nail of his thick thumb.

Boothby removed his coat and turned down the radio. Then he looked at Vicary and said, "Well, now. Where should I begin?"

Hawke didn't work for us, Hawke worked for Boothby.

Boothby knew Hawke's father. Worked with him in India. Security. He met young Hawke in Britain in 1935 at a luncheon at the family's Kent estate. Young Hawke was drinking and talking too much, berating his father and Boothby for the kind of work they did, reciting Marx and Lenin like Shakespeare, waving his arms at the splendid gardens as though they were proof of the corruption of the English ruling classes. After lunch Hawke Senior smiled weakly at Boothby to apologize for his son's abominable behavior: children these days… you know… rot they're learning at school… expensive education gone to waste.

Boothby smiled too. He had been looking for a Hawke for a very long time.

Boothby had a new job: keep an eye on the Communists. Especially at the universities, Oxford and Cambridge. The Communist Party of Great Britain, with love and encouragement from its Russian masters, was trolling the universities for new members of the flock. The NKVD was looking for spies. Hawke went to work for Boothby at Oxford. Boothby seduced Hawke. Boothby gave direction to his directionless heart. Boothby was good at that. Hawke ran with the Communists: drank with them, quarreled with them, played tennis with them, fornicated with them. When the Party came for him, Hawke told them to fuck off.

Then the Pelican came for him.

Hawke called Boothby. Hawke was a good boy.

The Pelican was German, Jewish, and a Communist; Boothby saw the possibilities immediately. He had been a Communist street brawler in Berlin in the 1920s, but with Hitler in power he thought it best to find safer shores. He emigrated to England in 1933. The NKVD knew about the Pelican from his days in Berlin. When they found out he had settled in England they recruited him as an agent. He was supposed to be a talent spotter only, no heavy lifting. The first talent he spotted was Boothby's agent, Hawke. At the next meeting between Hawke and the Pelican, Boothby appeared out of nowhere and put the fear of God into him. Pelican agreed to go to work for Boothby.

Are you still with me, Alfred?

Vicary, listening at the window, thought, Oh, yes. In fact, I'm four moves ahead of you.

In August 1939, Boothby brought Hawke to MI5. On Boothby's orders, the Pelican told his Moscow controllers that his star recruit was now working in British Intelligence. Moscow was ecstatic. Pelican's star rose. Boothby used Pelican to funnel true but harmless material back to the Russians, all of it allegedly from his source inside MI5-Hawke-all information the Russians could verify from other sources. Pelican's star soared.

In November 1939, Boothby sent the Pelican to the Netherlands. A young, arrogant SS intelligence officer named Walter Schellenberg was making regular trips into Dutch territory under an assumed name to meet with a pair of MI6 agents.

Schellenberg was posing as a member of the Schwarze Kapelle and was asking the British for assistance. In truth, he wanted the British to give him the names of real German traitors so he could arrest them. The Pelican met Schellenberg in a cafe in a Dutch town just across the border and offered to work for him as a spy in Britain. He admitted he had done a job or two for the NKVD, including recruiting an Oxford boy named Hawke, who had just joined MI5 and with whom Pelican was still in regular contact. As a sign of goodwill the Pelican presented Schellenberg with a gift, a collection of Asian erotica. Schellenberg gave Pelican a thousand pounds, a camera, and a radio transmitter and sent him back to Britain.

In 1940, MI5 reorganized. Vernon Kell, the old director-general who founded the department in 1909, was abruptly fired by Churchill. Sir David Petrie took charge. Boothby knew him from India. Boothby was kicked upstairs. He turned over the Pelican to a case officer-an amateur like you, Alfred: a solicitor, though, not a professor-but he kept a firm hand on him. Pelican was too important to be left to someone who barely knew his way to the canteen. Besides, the Pelican's dealings with Schellenberg were getting damned interesting.

Schellenberg was impressed with the Pelican's first reports. The material was all good but harmless stuff-munitions production, troop movements, bomb damage assessment. Schellenberg drank greedily of it, even though he knew it was coming from a Jewish Communist who had worked as a talent spotter for the NKVD. He and the rest of the SS despised Canaris and the professional intelligence officers at the Abwehr. They mistrusted the information Canaris was giving the Fuhrer. Schellenberg saw his opportunity. He could create a separate network in Britain that reported directly to him and Heinrich Himmler, bypassing the Abwehr altogether.

Boothby saw an opportunity too. He could use the Pelican network for two purposes: to verify misinformation being sent to Canaris through the Double Cross system and at the same time to sow mistrust between the two rival intelligence organizations. It was a delicate balancing act. MI5 wanted Canaris to remain on the job-after all, his agency had been totally compromised and manipulated-but a little palace intrigue was good too. British Intelligence could blow gently on the flames of dissension and treachery. Boothby started feeding Schellenberg information through the Pelican that raised questions about Canaris's loyalty-not enough for Schellenberg to plunge the dagger into the Old Fox's back, mind you, just enough to put the bloody thing in his hand.

In 1942, Boothby thought the game had spun out of control. Schellenberg compiled a lengthy list of Canaris's sins and presented it to Himmler. The Double Cross committee decided to throw Canaris a bone or two to untie the noose around his neck-high-grade intelligence he could show to the Fuhrer to prove the Abwehr's effectiveness. It worked. Himmler stuck Schellenberg's file in the drawer, and the Old Fox stayed on the job.

Boothby was pouring another cup of the obscene coffee. Vicary had been unable to finish his first cup. It sat half empty in the window, next to a dead moth that was slowly turning to powder. The little boys had been chased from the alley by the wind. It gusted, hurling rain against the glass. The room was in darkness. The house had gone quiet after the morning's activities. The only sound was the floor creaking beneath Boothby's restless pacing. Vicary turned from the window and watched him. He looked out of place in the grimy flat-like a priest in a cathouse-but he seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly. Even spies like telling secrets sometimes.

Boothby reached inside the breast pocket of his suit, pulled out a single sheet of paper, and handed it to Vicary. It was the memorandum he had written to Boothby weeks ago, asking him to issue a security alert. Vicary looked at the top left corner; it had been stamped ACTION. Next to the stamp were two nearly illegible initials: BB. Boothby reached out his hand and took the note back from Vicary. Then he gave it to Pelican.

Pelican moved for the first time. He laid Vicary's memo on the table and switched on the light. Vicary, standing over him, could see Pelican's eyes crinkle in discomfort behind the dark glasses. From his pocket he removed a German-issue camera, the same one Schellenberg had given him in 1940. He carefully took ten photographs of the document, like a professional, adjusting the light and the camera angle each time to make certain he had at least one clear negative. Then he raised the camera and pointed it at Hawke. The camera clicked twice and he put it back in his pocket.

"The Pelican is going to Lisbon tonight," Boothby said. "Schellenberg and friends have requested a meeting with him. We think they're going to give him a very thorough going-over. Before they begin their interrogation, Pelican is going to give them this film. The next time Schellenberg and Canaris ride together in the Tiergarten, Schellenberg will tell him about it. Canaris and Vogel will take it as proof that Kettledrum is good as gold. Their agent has not been compromised. British Intelligence is in a panic. Therefore, the information she's sending about Operation Mulberry must be accurate. Get the picture, Alfred?"

Vicary and Boothby left first, Boothby leading, Vicary behind him again. Descending the stairs in the dark was harder than climbing them. Twice Vicary had to reach out in the gloom and steady himself on the soft shoulder of Boothby's cashmere coat. The cat reappeared and spat at them from a corner. The foul smells were the same; only the order was reversed. They reached the bottom of the stairs. Vicary felt the soles of his shoes scraping over the soiled linoleum of the hall. Boothby pushed open the door. Vicary, stepping back outside, felt the rain on his face.

He was never happier to be out of a place in his life. Walking to the car, he watched Boothby, who was watching him. Vicary felt as though he had just peered through the looking glass. He had been given a guided tour of a secret world of deception he never imagined existed. Vicary climbed into the car. Boothby got in next to him and closed the door. They were driven to Kingsland Road, then south toward the river. Vicary glanced at Boothby once, then averted his eyes. Boothby looked pleased with himself.

Vicary said, "You didn't have to show me all that. Why did you?"

"Because I wanted to."

"What happened to need to know? I had no need to know all that. You could have tunneled my memo to Schellenberg and never told me about any of it."

"That's true."

"So why did you do it, to impress me?"

"In a way, yes," Boothby said. "You've impressed a great many people with your idea to leave Catherine Blake in place, including me. I realized I've underestimated you, Alfred-your intelligence and your ruthlessness. It takes a coldhearted bastard to send Peter Jordan back into that bedroom with a briefcase full of Double Cross. I wanted to show you the next level of the game."

"Is that how you think of this, Sir Basil, a game?"

"Not just a game, Alfred, the game."

Boothby smiled. It could be his greatest weapon. Vicary, gazing at his face, imagined it was the same smile he used on his wife, Penelope, when assuring her he had given up his latest little love.

The illusion of Kettledrum required Vicary to spend much of his day in his cramped office in St. James's Street-after all, they were trying to convince the Abwehr, and the rest of the department, that Vicary was still pursuing a German agent with access to top-secret material. He closed the door and sat down at his desk. He desperately needed sleep. He laid his head on the desk like a drowsy student and closed his eyes. When he did, he was immediately back in the grimy Hoxton flat. He saw the Pelican and he saw the Hawke. He saw the little boys in the filthy alleyway, pale malnourished legs poking from their shorts. He saw the moth turning to dust. He heard the organ music echoing through the grand cathedral. He thought of Matilda; guilt over missing her funeral flashed over him like hot water poured down his neck.

Damn. Why can't I turn it off just for a few minutes and sleep?

Then he saw Boothby, striding around the flat, telling the story of the Hawke and the Pelican and the elaborate deception he had foisted on Walter Schellenberg. He realized he had never seen Boothby happier: Boothby in the field, surrounded by his agents, Boothby drinking vile coffee from a chipped enamel mug. He realized he had misjudged Boothby or, more accurately, he had been misled by Boothby. The entire department had been. Boothby was a lie. The comic bureaucrat, preening around his grand office, the silly personal maxims, the red light and the green light, the ridiculous fetish about moisture rings on his precious furniture-it was all a lie. That was not Basil Boothby. Basil Boothby was not a pusher of paper. Basil Boothby was a runner of agents. A liar. A manipulator. A deceiver. Vicary, drifting off to sleep, found he loathed Boothby just a little less. But one thing troubled him. Why had Boothby lowered the veil? And why now?

Vicary felt himself descending into a dreamless sleep. In the distance Big Ben tolled ten o'clock. The chimes faded, only to be replaced by the muffled clatter of the teleprinters outside his closed door. He wanted to sleep for a long time. He wanted to forget about it all, just for a few minutes. But after a short while, the shaking began-gentle at first, then violent. Then the sound of a girl's voice-at first downy and pleasant, then slightly alarmed. "Professor Vicary… Professor Vicary… Please wake up… Professor Vicary… Can you hear me?"

Vicary, his head still resting on his folded hands, opened his eyes. For an instant he thought it was Helen. But it was only Prudence, a flaxen angel from the typing pool. "I'm so sorry to wake you, Professor. But Harry Dalton's on the line, and he says it's urgent. Let me bring you a cup of hot tea, you poor lamb."

41

Catherine Blake left her flat shortly before eleven a.m., a light, cold rain falling. The darkening skies promised worse weather to come. She had three hours before her rendezvous with Neumann. On dreary days like these she was tempted to skip her painstaking ritual sojourns across London and proceed straight to the rendezvous site. It was monotonous, exhausting work, constantly stopping and checking her tail, jumping on and off underground trains and in and out of taxicabs. But it was necessary, especially now.

She paused in the door, knotting a scarf beneath her chin, looking into the street. A quiet Sunday morning, traffic light, shops still closed. Only the cafe across the street was open. A bald man sat in a window table reading a newspaper. He looked up for an instant, turned a page, and looked down again.

Outside the cafe a half dozen people waited for a bus. Catherine looked at the faces and thought she had seen one of them before, maybe at the bus stop, maybe somewhere else. She looked up at the flats across the street. If they're watching you, they'll do it from a fixed position, a flat or a room over a shop. She scanned the windows, looking for any changes, any faces looking back at her. She saw nothing. She finished tying her scarf, put up her umbrella, and started walking through the rain.

She caught her first bus in Cromwell Road. It was nearly empty: a pair of old ladies; an old man who mumbled to himself; a slight man who had shaved poorly, wore a soggy mackintosh, and read a newspaper. Catherine got off at Hyde Park Corner. The man with the newspaper did too. Catherine headed into the park. The man with the newspaper headed in the opposite direction, toward Piccadilly. What was it Vogel had said about the watchers of MI5? Men you would walk past on the street and never give a second look. If Catherine were selecting men to be MI5 watchers, she would have chosen the man with the newspaper.

She walked north on a footpath bordering Park Lane. At the northern edge of the park, at Bayswater Road, she turned around and walked back to Hyde Park Corner. Then she turned around and walked north again. She was confident no one was following her on foot. She walked a short distance along Bayswater Road. She stopped at a letter box and dropped an empty unmarked envelope into the slot, using the opportunity to check her tail once more. Nothing. The clouds thickened, the rain fell harder. She found a taxi and gave the driver an address in Stockwell.

Catherine sat back in her seat, watching the rain running in patterns down the window. Crossing Battersea Bridge, the wind gusted, causing the taxi to shudder. The traffic was still very light. Catherine turned around and looked through the small porthole of a rear window. Behind them, perhaps two hundred yards away, was a black van. She could see two people in the front seat.

Catherine turned around and noticed the cabbie was watching her in his rearview mirror. Their eyes met briefly; then he returned his gaze to the road. Catherine instinctively reached inside her handbag and touched the grip of her stiletto. The cab turned into a street lined with bleak, identical Victorian houses. There was not another human being in sight; no traffic, no pedestrians on the pavement. Catherine turned around again. The black van was gone.

She relaxed. She was especially anxious to make today's rendezvous. She wanted to know Vogel's response to her demand to be taken out of England. Part of her wished she had never sent it. She felt certain MI5 was closing in on her; she had made terrible mistakes. But at the same time she was gathering remarkable intelligence from Peter Jordan's safe. Last night she photographed a document emblazoned with the sword and shield of SHAEF and stamped most secret. It was quite possible she was stealing the secret of the invasion. She could not be sure from her vantage point-Peter Jordan's project was just one piece in a giant, complex puzzle. But in Berlin, where they were trying to fit that puzzle together, the information she was taking from Peter Jordan's safe might be invaluable, pure gold. She found she wanted to continue, but why? It was illogical, of course. She had never wanted to be a spy; she had been blackmailed into it by Vogel. She never felt any great allegiance to Germany. In fact, Catherine felt no allegiance to anything or anyone-she supposed that's what made her a good agent. There was something else. Vogel had always called it a game. Well, she was hooked on the game. She liked the challenge of the game. And she wanted to win the game. She didn't want to steal the secret of the invasion so Germany could win the war and the Nazis could rule Europe for a thousand years. She wanted to steal the secret of the invasion to prove she was the best, better than all the bumbling idiots the Abwehr sent to England. She wanted to show Vogel that she could play his game better than he could.

The taxi stopped. The cabbie turned around and said, "Are you sure this is the place?"

She looked out the window. They had stopped along a row of bombed and deserted warehouses. The streets were deserted. If anyone was following her they could not go undetected here. She paid off the driver and got out. The taxi drove away. A few seconds later a black van approached, two men in the front seat. It drove past her and continued down the road. Stockwell underground station was just a short distance away. She threw up her umbrella against the rain, walked quickly to the station, and bought a ticket for Leicester Square. The train was about to leave as she reached the platform. She stepped through the doors before they could close and found a seat.

Horst Neumann, standing in a doorway near Leicester Square, ate fish and chips from the newspaper wrapping. He finished the last bite of the fish and immediately felt sick. He spotted her entering the square amid a small knot of pedestrians. He crushed the oily newspaper, dropped it into a rubbish bin, and followed her. After a minute of walking he pulled alongside her. Catherine looked straight ahead, as if she did not know Neumann was walking next to her. She reached out her hand and placed the film into his. He wordlessly gave her a small slip of paper. They separated. Neumann sat down on a bench in the square and watched her go.

Alfred Vicary said, "Then what happened?"

"She went into Stockwell underground station," Harry said. "We sent a man into the station, but she had already boarded a train and left."

"Dammit," Vicary muttered.

"We put a man on the train at Waterloo and picked up her trail again."

"How long was she alone?"

"About five minutes."

"Plenty of time to meet another agent."

"Afraid so, Alfred."

"Then what?"

"Usual routine. Ran the watchers all over the West End for about an hour and a half. She finally went into a cafe and gave us a break for a half hour. Then to Leicester Square. She made one pass across the square and headed back to Earl's Court."

"No contact with anyone?"

"None that we observed."

"What about on Leicester Square?"

"The watchers didn't see anything."

"The letter box on Bayswater Road?"

"We confiscated the contents. We found an unmarked empty envelope on top of the pile. It was just a ploy to check her tail."

"Dammit, but she's good."

"She's a pro."

Vicary made a church steeple of his fingers. "I don't believe she's out there running around because she likes fresh air, Harry. She either made a dead drop somewhere or she met an agent."

"Must have been the train," Harry said.

"Could have been bloody anywhere," Vicary said. He thumped his arm on the side of the chair. "Dammit!"

"We just have to keep following her. Eventually, she'll make a mistake."

"I wouldn't count on that, Harry. And the longer we keep her under tight surveillance, the greater the chances are that she'll spot the tail. And if she spots the tail-"

"We're dead," Harry said, finishing Vicary's thought for him.

"That's right, Harry. We're dead."

Vicary tore down his church steeple to free his hands to smother a long yawn. "Did you talk to Grace?"

"Yeah. She ran the names every way she could think of. She came up with nothing."

"What about Broome?"

"Same thing. It's not a code name for any operation or agent." Harry looked at Vicary for a long moment. "Would you like to explain to me now why you asked Grace to run those names?"

Vicary looked up and met Harry's gaze. "If I did, you'd have me committed. It's nothing, just my eyes playing tricks on me." Vicary looked at his wristwatch and yawned again. "I have to brief Boothby and collect the next batch of Kettledrum material."

"We're moving forward then?"

"Unless Boothby says otherwise, we're moving forward."

"What are you planning for tonight?"

Vicary struggled to his feet and pulled on his mackintosh. "I thought some dinner and dancing at the Four Hundred Club would be a nice change of pace. I'll need someone on the inside to keep an eye on them. Why don't you ask Grace to join you? Have a nice evening at the department's expense."

42

"I'd feel better if those bastards were in front of us instead of behind us," Wilhelm Canaris said morosely as the staff Mercedes sped along the white concrete autobahn toward the tiny sixteenth-century village of Berchtesgaden. Vogel turned and glanced through the rear window. Behind them, in a second staff car, were Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler and Brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg.

Vogel turned away and looked out his own window. Snow drifted gently over the picturesque village. In his foul mood he thought it made the place look like a cheap postcard: Come to beautiful Berchtesgaden! Home of the Fuhrer! He was annoyed at being dragged so far from Tirpitz Ufer at such a critical time. He thought, Why can't he stay in Berlin like the rest of us? He's either buried in his Wolfschanze in Rastenburg or atop his Adlersnest in Bavaria.

Vogel had decided to make something good out of the trip; he planned to have dinner and spend the night with Gertrude and the girls. They were staying with Trude's mother in a village a two-hour drive from Berchtesgaden. God, how long had it been? One day at Christmas; two days in October before that. She had promised him a dinner of pork roast, potatoes, and cabbage and, in that playful voice of hers, promised to do wonderful things to his body in front of the fire when the children and her parents had gone off to bed. Trude always liked to make love that way, somewhere insecure where they might be caught. Something about it always made it more exciting for her, the way it had been twenty years ago when he was a student at Leipzig. For Vogel the excitement had gone out of it long ago. She had done it-done it intentionally-as punishment for sending her to England.

Watch me and remember this the next time you're with your wife.

Vogel thought, My God, why am I thinking of that now? He had managed to hide his feelings from Gertrude, the way he had managed to hide everything else from her. He was not a born liar, but he had become a good one. Gertrude still believed he was a personal in-house counsel to Canaris. She had no idea he was the control officer of the Abwehr's most secret spy network in Britain. As usual, he had lied to her about what he was doing today. Trude believed he was in Bavaria on a routine errand for Canaris, not ascending Kehlstein Mountain to brief the Fuhrer on the enemy's plans to invade France. Vogel feared she would leave him if she knew the truth. He had lied to her too many times, deceived her for too long. She would never trust him again. He often thought it would be easier to tell her about Anna than confess he had been a spymaster for Hitler.

Canaris was feeding biscuits to the dogs. Vogel glanced at him, then looked away. Was it really possible? Was the man who had plucked him from the law and made him a top spy for the Abwehr a traitor? Canaris certainly made no attempt to conceal his disdain for the Nazis-his refusal to join the party, the constant stream of sarcastic remarks about Hitler. But had his disdain turned to treachery? If Canaris was a traitor, the consequences for the Abwehr networks in Britain were disastrous; Canaris was in a position to betray everything. Vogel thought, If Canaris is a traitor, why are most of the Abwehr networks in England still functioning? It didn't make sense. If Canaris had betrayed the networks, the British would have rolled them up overnight. The mere fact that the overwhelming majority of the German agents sent to England were still in place could be taken as proof that Canaris was not a traitor.

Vogel's own network was theoretically immune from treachery. Under their arrangement, Canaris knew only the vaguest details of the V-Chain. Vogel's agents did not cross paths with other agents. They had their own radio codes, rendezvous procedures, and separate lines of finance. And Vogel stayed clear of Hamburg, the control center for English networks. He remembered some of the idiots Canaris and the other control officers had sent to England, especially in the summer of 1940, when the invasion of Britain seemed at hand and Canaris threw all caution to the wind. His agents were poorly trained and poorly financed. Vogel knew some were given only two hundred pounds-a pittance-because the Abwehr and the General Staff believed Britain would fall as easily as had Poland and France. Most of the new agents were morons, like that idiot Karl Becker, a pervert, a glutton, in the espionage game only for the money and the adventure. Vogel wondered how a man like that managed to avoid capture. Vogel didn't like adventurers. He distrusted anyone who actually wanted to go behind enemy lines to work as a spy; only a fool would actually want to do that. And fools make bad agents. Vogel wanted only people who had the attributes and intelligence necessary to be a good spy. The rest of it-the motivation, the tradecraft, the willingness to use violence when necessary-he could provide.

Outside the temperature was dropping by degrees as they climbed higher along the winding Kehlsteinstrasse. The car's motor labored, tires skidding on the icy surface of the roadway. After a few moments the driver stopped in front of two huge bronze doors at the base of Kehlstein Mountain. A team of SS men carried out a rapid inspection, then opened the doors with the press of a single button. The car left the swirling snow of the Kehlsteinstrasse and entered a long tunnel. The marble walls shone in the light of the ornate bronze lanterns.

Hitler's famous elevator awaited them. It was more like a small hotel room, with plush carpet, deep leather chairs, and a bank of telephones. Vogel and Canaris stepped in first. Canaris sat down and immediately lit a cigarette, so that the elevator was filled with smoke when Himmler and Schellenberg arrived. The four men sat silently, each looking straight ahead, as the elevator whisked them toward the Obersalzberg, six thousand feet above Berchtesgaden. Himmler, annoyed by the smoke, raised his gloved hand to his mouth and coughed gently.

Vogel's ears popped with the rapid altitude change. He looked at the three men riding upward with him, the three most powerful intelligence officers in the Third Reich-a chicken farmer, a pervert, and a fussy little admiral who might very well be a traitor. In the hands of these men rested the future of Germany.

Vogel thought, God help us all.

The Nordic giant who served as the chief of Hitler's personal SS bodyguard showed them inside the salon. Vogel, normally indifferent to natural scenery, was stunned by the beauty of the panoramic view. Below, he could see the steeples and hills of Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart. Near Salzburg was the Untersberg, the mountain where Emperor Frederick Barbarossa awaited his legendary call to rise and restore the glory of Germany. The room itself was fifty feet by sixty feet, and by the time Vogel reached the seating area next to the fire he was light-headed from the altitude. He settled down in the corner of a rustic couch while his eyes scanned the walls. Huge oil paintings and tapestries covered them. Vogel admired the Fuhrer's collection-a nude believed to have been painted by Titian, a landscape by Spitzweg, Roman ruins by Pannini. There was a bust of Wagner and a vast clock crowned by a bronze eagle. A steward silently poured coffee for the guests and tea for Hitler. The doors flew open a moment later and Adolf Hitler pounded into the room. Canaris, as usual, was the last one on his feet. The fuhrer gestured for them to return to their seats, then remained standing so he could pace.

"Captain Vogel," Hitler said, without preamble, "I understand your agent in London has scored another coup."

"We believe so, my Fuhrer."

"Please, let's not keep it a secret any longer."

Vogel, under the watchful gaze of an SS man, opened his briefcase. "Our agent has stolen another remarkable document. This document provides us further clues about the nature of Operation Mulberry." Vogel hesitated. "We can now predict with much greater certainty just what role Mulberry will play in the invasion."

Hitler nodded. "Please continue, Captain Vogel."

"Based on the new documents, we believe Operation Mulberry is an antiaircraft complex. It will be deployed along the French coastline in an effort to provide protection from the Luftwaffe during the critical first hours of the enemy invasion." Vogel reached into his briefcase again. "Our analysts have used the designs in the enemy document to render a sketch of the complex." Vogel laid it on the table. Schellenberg and Himmler both looked at it with interest.

Hitler had walked away and stared out the windows toward his mountains. He believed he did his best thinking at the Berghof, where he was above it all. "And in your opinion, where will the enemy place this antiaircraft complex, Captain Vogel?"

"The plans stolen by our agent do not specify where Mulberry will be deployed," Vogel said. "But based on the rest of the intelligence collected by the Abwehr, it would be logical to conclude that Mulberry is destined for Calais."

"And your old theory about an artificial harbor at Normandy?"

"It was"-Vogel hesitated, searching for the right word-"premature, my Fuhrer. I made a rush to judgment. I reached a verdict before all the evidence was in. I am a lawyer by training, my Fuhrer-so you will forgive the metaphor."

"No, Captain Vogel, I believe you were right the first time. I believe Mulberry is an artificial harbor. And I believe it is destined for Normandy." Hitler turned and faced his audience. "This is just like Churchill, that madman! A grandiose, foolish contraption that betrays his intentions because it tells us where he and his American friends will strike! The man thinks of himself as a great thinker, a great strategist! But he is a fool when it comes to military matters! Just ask the ghosts of the boys he led to the slaughterhouse in the Dardanelles. No, Captain Vogel, you had it right the first time. It is an artificial harbor, and it is bound for Normandy. I know this"-Hitler thumped his chest-"here."

Walter Schellenberg cleared his throat. "My Fuhrer, we do have other evidence to support Captain Vogel's intelligence."

"Let's hear it, Herr Brigadefuhrer."

"Two days ago in Lisbon, I debriefed one of our agents in England."

Vogel thought, Oh, Christ, here we go again.

Schellenberg dug a document out of his briefcase.

"This is a memorandum written by an MI-Five case officer named Alfred Vicary. It was approved by someone with the initials BB and forwarded to Churchill and Eisenhower. In it, Vicary warns that there is a new threat to security and that extra precautions should be taken until further notice. Vicary also warns that all Allied officers should be especially careful of approaches by women. Your agent in London-it's a woman, is it not, Captain Vogel?"

Vogel said, "May I see that?"

Schellenberg handed it to him.

Hitler said, "Alfred Vicary. Why does that name sound familiar to me?"

Canaris said, "Vicary is a personal friend of Churchill's. He was part of the group that had Churchill's ear during the 1930s. Churchill brought him to MI-Five when he became prime minister in May 1940."

"Yes, I remember now. Didn't he write a bunch of vile articles about National Socialism throughout the thirties?"

Canaris thought, All of which turned out to be true. He said, "Yes, he's the one."

"And who's BB?"

"Basil Boothby. He heads a division within MI-Five."

Hitler was pacing again, but slowly. The tranquillity of the silent Alps always had a soothing effect on him. "Vogel, Schellenberg, and Canaris all are convinced. Well, I'm not."

"An interesting turn of events, wouldn't you say, Herr Reichsfuhrer?" The storm had moved off. Hitler was watching the sun vanishing in the west, the mountain peaks purple and pink with the high Alpine dusk. Everyone had gone except Himmler. "First, Captain Vogel tells me Operation Mulberry is an artificial harbor; then it is an antiaircraft complex."

"Quite interesting, my Fuhrer. I have my theories."

Hitler turned away from the window. "Tell me."

"Number one, he is telling the truth. He has received new information that he trusts, and he truly believes what he has told you."

"Possible. Go on."

"Number two, the intelligence he has just presented to you is totally fabricated and Kurt Vogel, like his superior Wilhelm Canaris, is a traitor bent on the destruction of the Fuhrer and of Germany."

Hitler crossed his arms and tilted his head back. "Why would they deceive us about the invasion?"

"If the enemy succeeds in France and the German people see the war is lost, Canaris and the rest of the Schwarze Kapelle scum will turn on us and try to destroy us. If the conspirators succeed in grabbing power, they will sue for peace and Germany will end up the way she was after the First War-castrated, weak, the beggar of Europe, living off scraps from the tables of the British and the French and the Americans." Himmler paused. "And the Bolsheviks, my Fuhrer."

Hitler's eyes seemed to catch fire, the very thought of Germans living under Russian domination too painful to imagine. "We must never let that happen to Germany!" he said, then looked at Himmler carefully. "I see by that look on your face that you have another theory, Herr Reichsfuhrer."

"Yes, my Fuhrer."

"Let's hear it."

"Vogel believes the information he is presenting to you is true. But he has been drinking from a poisoned well."

Hitler seemed intrigued. "Go on, Herr Reichsfuhrer."

"My Fuhrer, I have always been frank with you about my feelings for Admiral Canaris. I believe he is a traitor. I know he has had contact with British and American agents. If my fears about the admiral are correct, wouldn't it be logical to assume he has compromised the German networks in Britain? Wouldn't it also be logical to assume that the information from Canaris's spies in England is also compromised? What if Captain Vogel actually discovered the truth, and Admiral Canaris silenced him in order to protect himself?"

Hitler was pacing restlessly again. "Brilliant as usual, Herr Reichsfuhrer. You are the only one I can trust."

"Remember, my Fuhrer, a lie is the truth, only backward. Hold the lie up to a mirror, and the truth will be staring back at you in the glass."

"You have a plan. I can see it."

"Yes, my Fuhrer. And Kurt Vogel is the key. Vogel can bring us the secret of the invasion and proof of Canaris's treachery once and for all."

"Vogel strikes me as an intelligent man."

"He was considered one of the brightest legal minds in Germany before the war. But remember, he was recruited by Canaris personally. Therefore, I have my doubts about his loyalty. He will have to be handled very carefully."

"That's your specialty, isn't it, Herr Reichsfuhrer?"

Himmler smiled his cadaverous smile. "Yes, my Fuhrer."

The house was dark when Vogel arrived. A heavy snowstorm had stretched the two-hour drive to four. He stepped from the back of the car and collected his small grip from the trunk. He sent the driver on his way; he had booked a room for him at the small hotel in the village. Trude was standing in the open door, arms folded tightly against her body for warmth. She looked absurdly healthy, her fair skin pink with the cold, her brown hair streaked by the mountain sun. She wore a heavy ski sweater, wool trousers, and mountain boots. Despite the chunky clothing Vogel could see she was fit from the outdoors. When Vogel took her into his arms she said, "My God, Kurt Vogel, you're nothing but a bag of bones. Are things so bad in Berlin?"

Everyone was in bed already. The girls shared a room upstairs. While Trude prepared his dinner, Vogel went up to look in on them. The room was cold. Nicole had climbed in bed with Lizbet. In the darkness it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. He stood and he listened to their breathing and he smelled their scents-their breath, their hair, their soap, their warm bodies releasing the fragrance of the bedclothes. Trude always thought it was strange, but he loved the way they smelled more than anything else.

A plate of food and a glass of wine awaited him downstairs. Trude had eaten hours ago, so she just sat next to him and talked while he devoured the roast pork and potatoes. He was surprisingly hungry. He finished the first plate and she filled a second, which he forced himself to eat more slowly. Trude talked about her parents and the girls and how the Wehrmacht had come to the village and taken the remaining men and the schoolboys. She thanked God they had been given two daughters and no sons. She asked no questions about his trip, and he volunteered no details.

He finished eating. Trude cleared away the dishes. She had made a pot of ersatz coffee and was standing at the stove, pouring him a cup, when there was a very faint tapping at the door. She crossed the room and opened the door, staring in disbelief at the figure, dressed all in black, standing before her.

"Oh, my God," she murmured as the cup and saucer fell from her grasp and shattered at her feet.

"I still can't believe Heinrich Himmler actually set foot in this house," Trude said, her voice flat, as though she were speaking to herself. She was standing before a weak fire in their bedroom, ramrod straight, arms folded. In the dim light Vogel could see her face was damp and her body was trembling. "When I first saw that face I thought I was dreaming. Then I thought we were all under arrest. And then it dawned on me-Heinrich Himmler was in my parents' house because he needed to confer with my husband."

She turned from the fire and looked at him. "Why is that, Kurt? Tell me you don't work for him. Tell me you're not one of Himmler's henchmen. Tell me, even if it's a lie."

"I don't work for Heinrich Himmler."

"Who was that other man?"

"His name is Walter Schellenberg."

"What does he do?"

Vogel told her.

"What do you do? And don't tell me you're just Canaris's lawyer."

"Before the war I looked for very special people. I trained them and sent them to England to be spies."

Trude absorbed this information as if part of her had suspected it for a long time.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I wasn't allowed to tell anyone, not even you. I deceived you in order to protect you. I had no other reason."

"Where were you today?"

It was no use lying to her any longer. "I was at Berchtesgaden for a meeting with the Fuhrer."

"God Almighty," she muttered, shaking her head. "What else have you lied to me about, Kurt Vogel?"

"I've lied to you about nothing else, only my work."

The look on her face said she didn't believe him.

"Heinrich Himmler, in this house. What happened to you, Kurt? You were going to be a great lawyer. You were going to be the next Herman Heller, maybe even sit on the Supreme Court. You loved the law."

"There is no law in Germany, Trude. There is only Hitler."

"What did Himmler want? Why did he come here so late at night?"

"He wants me to help him kill a friend."

"I hope you said you won't help him."

Vogel looked up at her.

"If I don't help him, he'll kill me. And then he'll kill you and he'll kill the girls. He'll kill us all, Trude."