The Unlikely Spy(117)

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 f*ck 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.