The Unlikely Spy(34)
He set the file and the soup down on his desk and switched on the lamp. He read the file through once while he sipped at the soup. It tasted like a boiled leather boot. Salt was one of the few spices the cooks had in plentiful supply, and they had used it generously. By the time he finished reading the file the second time, he had a desert thirst and his fingers were beginning to swell.
Vicary looked up and said, "Harry, I think we have a problem."
Harry Dalton, who had drifted off to sleep at his desk in the common area outside Vicary's office, got to his feet and came inside. They were a dubious pairing, jokingly referred to inside the department as Muscle & Brains, Ltd. Harry was tall and athletic, sharp-suited, with thickly brilliantined black hair, intelligent blue eyes, and a ready all-purpose smile. Before the war he was Detective-Inspector Harry Dalton of the Metropolitan Police Department's elite murder squad. He was born and raised in Battersea and still had a trace of working-class south London in his soft pleasant voice.
"He's got brains, that's for certain," Vicary said. "Look at this: doctorate of law from Leipzig University, studied under Heller and Rosenberg. Doesn't sound like your typical Nazi to me. The Nazis perverted the laws of Germany. Someone with an education like that couldn't be too thrilled about them. Then in 1935 he suddenly decides to forsake the law and go to work for Canaris as his personal attorney, a sort of in-house counsel for the Abwehr? I don't believe that. I think he's a spy, and this business about being Canaris's legal adviser is just another layer of cover."
Vicary was flipping through the file again.
"You have a theory?" Harry asked.
"Three theories, actually."
"Let's hear them."
"Number one, Canaris has lost faith in the British networks and has commissioned Vogel to undertake an investigation. A man with Vogel's background and training is the perfect officer to sift through all the files and all the agent reports to look for inconsistencies. We've been damned careful, Harry, but maintaining Double Cross is an enormously complex task. I bet we've made a couple of mistakes along the way. And if the right person were looking for them--an intelligent man like Kurt Vogel, for instance--he might be able to spot them."
"Theory two?"
"Theory two, Canaris has commissioned Vogel to construct a new network. It's very late in the game for something like that. Agents would have to be discovered, recruited, trained, and inserted into the country. That usually takes months to do the right way. I doubt that's what they're up to, but it can't be totally discounted."
"Theory three?"
"Theory three is that Kurt Vogel is the control officer of a network we don't know about."
"An entire network of agents that we haven't uncovered--is that possible?"
"We have to assume it is."
"Then all our doubles would be at risk."
"It's a house of cards, Harry. All it takes is one good agent, and the entire thing comes crashing down."
Vicary lit a cigarette. The tobacco took the aftertaste of the broth out of his mouth.
"Canaris must be under enormous pressure to deliver. He'd want the best to handle the operation."
"So that means Kurt Vogel is a man operating in a pressure cooker."
"Right."
"That could make him dangerous."
"It could also make him careless. He has to make a move. He has to use his radio or send an agent into the country. And when he does, we'll be on to him."
They sat in silence for a moment, Vicary smoking, Harry thumbing his way through Vogel's file. Then Vicary told him about what had happened in Registry.
"Lots of files go missing now and again, Alfred."
"Yes, but why this file? And more important, why now?"
"Good questions, but I suspect the answers are very simple. When you're in the middle of an investigation it's best to stay focused, not get sidetracked."
"I know, Harry," Vicary said, frowning. "But it's driving me to distraction."
Harry said, "I know one or two of the Registry Queens."
Vicary looked up. "I'm sure you do."
"I'll poke around, ask a few questions."
"Do it quietly."
"There's no other way to do it, Alfred."
"Jago's lying--he's hiding something."
"Why would he lie?"
"I don't know," Vicary said, crushing out his cigarette, "but I'm paid to think wicked thoughts."
10
BLETCHLEY PARK, ENGLAND
Officially it was called the Government Code and Cipher School. However, it was not a school at all. It looked as though it might be a school of some kind--a large ugly Victorian mansion surrounded by a high fence--but most people in the narrow-streeted railway town of Bletchley understood that something portentous was going on there. The great lawns were covered with dozens of makeshift huts. The remaining space had been trampled into pathways of frozen mud. The gardens were overgrown and shabby, like tiny jungles. The staff was an odd collection--the country's brightest mathematicians, chess champions, crossword-puzzle wizards--all assembled for one purpose: cracking German codes.