by Philip Kerr
“Those are controlled by General Strong, as chief of Military Intelligence. Strong keeps Donovan and the OSS from seeing Magic and Ultra, and this rankles with Donovan. To get himself included in the loop, he needs to have something that Strong wants. Something to trade. And it sounds to me that these Soviet codebooks might be the answer to his problem. A quid pro quo.
“Now, as you know, Mr. President, Bill Donovan’s a great Anglophile, but he’s also a great Russophobe; and, under the influence of the British, the general holds that preventing the domination of Europe by Russia is almost as important as the defeat of Germany. He wrote a paper on the subject for the Joint Chiefs at the Quebec Conference. It’s my own impression that the general is only paying lip service to the need for cordial relations with the Russians. Really, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he is already looking for several other ways of circumventing your ban concerning intelligence operations against the Soviet Union.”
“Do you know that for a fact?”
“Let’s just say I have my suspicions. Under the lend-lease agreement, we’re building some oil refineries in Russia. It’s my strong impression that several of the employees, including the chief engineer, are also working for the OSS.”
“I see.”
“Look, sir, I’m not saying the general isn’t loyal. Nor am I saying for a minute that the OSS is a renegade organization. It isn’t. But everyone knows that Wild Bill has a tendency to be a little . . . overzealous.”
Roosevelt uttered a laconic laugh. “Don’t I know it.”
In all normal circumstances I had already said more than enough, but the plain fact was that I had been rattled by the sight of the intelligence memorandum I still held in my hand, specifically by two of the code names that appeared on it. “Rattled” didn’t really cover the way I was feeling. “Rattled” implied that the doors were still attached to the jalopy that was my life, yet I knew they had just been torn off by the ghost of my own past.
Croesus had been the code name the NKVD had given to me back in Berlin when I had reported to them about my conversations with Goebbels. That might just have been a coincidence, only it looked less so in conjunction with the other name, Söhnchen. A German word of endearment meaning “sonny” or “sonny-boy,” Söhnchen had been the name that Otto Deutsch, the NKVD’s man in Vienna, had called Kim Philby in the winter of 1933-34, when both he and I had helped Austria’s Communists to fight the Heimwehr. I had a terrible feeling that the reported meeting between Croesus and Söhnchen, dated the week commencing October 4, 1943—that could hardly be a coincidence, either— related to the conversation I had had myself with Kim Philby at the house of Tomas Harris, in London.
If I had had more time to think about it I might have drunk the rest of the martini straight from the jug and then laid my head on the fire. Instead, somehow, I kept on talking.
“Perhaps,” I heard myself suggest, “if the president were to order the general to return the codebooks to the Russians, at the Big Three Conference itself, then the Russians might view such a gesture as an act of good faith.”
“Yes, they might just do that,” admitted Roosevelt.
I took a deep breath, trying to allay the chill feeling of sickness that was still in my stomach. If the president didn’t go for my idea, there was a strong chance the Bride material might be decoded and eventually reveal the identity of Croesus. It would hardly matter to the FBI that I was no longer working for the NKVD. Nor would it matter that the spying I had done for them had been carried out against the Nazis. The plain fact of having spied for the Russians at all would be enough when seen alongside my former Communist Party membership. Enough to persuade them to tie me up and throw me in the river to see if I might float.
I had very little to lose by urging the matter further. I helped myself to another martini.
“It might even be an opportunity to give them some other stuff, too,” I said smoothly. “Miniature cameras, microdot manufacturing systems, even some German intelligence relating to Soviet ciphers which troops have captured in Italy. To help bring them into line.”
“Yes. I like your thinking. But not Ultra. Nor, I think, Magic. If the Russians ever did make another nonaggression pact with the Nazis, we might regret that.” Roosevelt chuckled. “But, my God, I’d love to see Donovan’s face when he reads this particular executive order.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and drained my glass, drunk with my small triumph. “So you’ll order Donovan to give the Soviets those codebooks back?”
The president grinned and toasted me silently with an empty glass. “It’ll serve that son of a bitch right for trying to creep around my orders.”
A little later I went out to my car and got into it. I was feeling halfway drunk, so I wound down the windows and drove slowly back to Kalorama Heights. When I parked in my driveway, I cut the motor and sat for a few moments, looking at the house but not really seeing anything. In my mind’s eye I was standing behind Franklin Roosevelt as he shook Marshal Stalin by the hand.
XII
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1943,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
AS SOON AS I ARRIVED at the Campus that Thursday morning, Doering telephoned asking me to see him in his office.
Otto Doering was everything Bill Donovan was not: patient, conservative, sedentary, and studious, the deputy director of the OSS hardly looked like the kind of man who had once worked as a horse wrangler. Doering was not a popular man at the Campus, but I respected his sharp legal mind and organizational abilities and, early on, I had formed the strong impression that Doering must have been an excellent and formidable attorney. Which is to say that I pretty much hated his guts.
When I found Doering I was surprised to discover the deputy director was with General Strong from G-2. Another army officer I didn’t recognize was also in attendance.
“Gentlemen, this is Major Willard Mayer. Willard? I think you’ve met General Strong.”
I nodded and shook hands with a slim, smooth-faced man—another lawyer, this one a professor of law at West Point. Nicknamed King George on account of his grand manner, it was correctly supposed that General George Strong had begun his military career fighting the Ute Indians.
“And this is Colonel Carter Clarke, from the Army’s Special Branch.”
Clarke was a younger but heavier man, with cold blue eyes and a pug’s broken face. The silvery gray hair that grew off the top of his head seemed to have taken fright at the brutish ideas that were concealed in the thick skull underneath. I didn’t doubt that if Strong had told him to lead a cavalry charge on a renegade Indian village, he would have drawn his saber and performed his duty without a thought.
I kept on nodding, but the feeling of relief I had enjoyed on leaving the White House the previous evening was already turning to concern: the Army’s Special Branch supervised the Signals Intelligence Service at Arlington Hall, in the northern suburbs of Washington. I wondered if the presence of these two hard-assed soldiers was linked to my earlier conversation with the president regarding Bride and Donovan’s Russian codebooks.
“Congratulations,” said the general, smiling stiffly. “I hear you’re going to be General Donovan’s executive officer at the Big Three.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, sitting down.
“Yes, congratulations,” Doering said coolly.
I guessed Doering had little or no idea why I of all people should have been ordered to attend the conference; but he could hardly admit as much in front of General Strong and Colonel Clarke. Despite the presence of the two army officers in Doering’s office, there was no love lost between G -2 and the OSS.
“What, precisely are your orders, Major?” inquired the general.
“Sir, I’m to join the USS Iowa at Point Lookout tomorrow afternoon and to await further instructions from General Donovan in Cairo.”
“I understand the president asked for you personally,” said Strong. “Any idea why?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to
ask the president that, General. I just do what I’m told.”
I watched Strong shift uncomfortably in his chair and exchange an exasperated glance with Clarke. Strong was probably wishing he could have treated me like a Ute Indian who was off the reservation.
“All right, Major,” Clarke said. “Let’s try this on for size. Are you able to shed some light on why the president has ordered us to provide some technical assistance to Soviet military intelligence? Portable microfilm sets, some intelligence captured from the Germans in Italy relating to Soviet ciphers, that kind of thing. Do you have an idea what might have put this notion into his head?”
“I believe the president is very concerned that the Big Three Conference should be a success, sir. When I saw him last night, in connection with a report he had asked me to write regarding the Katyn Forest massacre, he indicated he was considering a number of initiatives designed to gain the trust of the Soviets. Although he mentioned nothing specific, I imagine this technical assistance you describe is part of one of those initiatives.”
“And what is your opinion of the wisdom of extending this kind of help to the Soviets?” asked Strong.
“Is the general asking for my personal opinion?”
“He is,” said Strong and lit a hand-rolled cigarette made of a rather barbarous and pungent tobacco.
It seemed obvious that Strong greatly resented the very idea of the United States returning Donovan’s captured Soviet intelligence codebooks before he had a chance to use them on the Bride material. It seemed equally obvious that it was in my best interests to try to dissemble a little, in an attempt to gain the general’s trust, just in case Strong and Doering were planning some sort of scheme to circumvent the president’s orders.
“Then, frankly, I have my doubts, sir. It seems to me that defeating the Nazis will leave a power vacuum in Europe, and unless we are extremely careful, it might be filled by the Soviet Union. I think the families of more than four thousand Polish officers massacred by the NKVD in the Katyn Forest might legitimately argue that the Russians are not much better than the Nazis. Whatever we give the Soviets now in the way of intelligence-gathering might easily end up being used against us.”
I was just regurgitating Donovan’s Quebec paper for the Joint Chiefs; given the enduring enmity that existed between the general and the chief of the OSS, it was highly unlikely that Strong would have read Donovan’s paper himself. With the general nodding thoughtfully, I pressed on.
“It’s my opinion that we should maintain the greatest possible vigilance concerning Russian capabilities and intentions. Only, I don’t see how that’s possible so long as the president continues to forbid intelligence operations against the Soviet Union. If defeating the Nazis is the only thing we achieve in Europe, I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that we will have lost the war.”
I shrugged.
“You asked me for my personal opinion. As I said, my discussions with the president centered on a report I prepared concerning the Katyn Forest massacre.”
“Yes, of course,” said General Strong. “A terrible business. Nevertheless, we simply can’t ignore the wishes of the president regarding his own intelligence initiative vis-à-vis the Soviets. And since you’re going to see Donovan, and Donovan is going to meet General Fitin of the NKVD at the Big Three, it’s probably best that he puts this technical assistance the president wants us to afford the Soviets into the hands of Fitin personally. In other words, when you go aboard the Iowa tomorrow, Major, we want you to take with you a package you’re to give Donovan when you see him in Cairo.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Naturally,” said Doering, sounding rather paternal, “you’re to take special care of this package. After all, we don’t want this equipment falling into the wrong hands.”
“Of course,” I said.
“That’s why we came down here,” explained Strong. “To impress upon you the need for strict security in this matter.”
“I don’t think you can get more secure than the biggest battleship ever built.”
Doering stood and, from behind his desk, picked up a navy blue grained-leather suitcase and placed it beside my chair. Glancing down, I saw the initials WJD underneath the handle. It was Donovan’s case. “You’re to give this to General Donovan,” said Doering. “Everything he needs for the Russians is inside it.”
“Is it locked?” I asked.
“Yes. I have one key, and General Donovan has the other.”
“Then I guess that’s everything. If you don’t mind, sir, I’m going to take the rest of the day off. I have to pack a suitcase of my own.”
I picked up the case and left Doering’s office congratulating myself that at least I would not have to encounter the deputy director’s cold, humorless face for another five or six weeks.
Downstairs I tidied my desk, said a few good-byes, and then walked out of the Campus. Placing the case in the trunk of my car, I sat in the driver’s seat and contemplated my next move. Not for a moment did I accept Strong’s account of what was inside Donovan’s case. From the weight of it, there had to be more than just a few rolls of microfilm, some miniature cameras, and a microdot manufacturing system. And why hadn’t they given me a key? The only possible answer was that there was something else in the case that they did not want me, and, by extension, the president, to know about. Unless, of course, I was already under suspicion and the whole business with the case was just a trap.
I decided it was imperative I saw what was in the case before I handed it over to Donovan in Cairo. There was only one thing to do.
I started the car and drove to Eighteenth Street, close to the millionaire mansions on Massachusetts Avenue. I parked outside Candey’s Hardware Store, a curiously narrow little place below a custom tailor’s shop set amid a row of tall town houses.
Opening the car trunk, I inspected the locks on the case carefully. The quality of the luggage and the manufacturer’s mark, “LV,” indicated it was a Louis Vuitton, likely bought in Paris or London. Rehearsing my story, I removed the case, closed the trunk, and went inside.
I would have recognized Candey’s blindfolded, just from the smell. Chunk glue, birdseed, hardware cloth, Mason jars full of paint, mineral spirits, and alcohol dispensed from fifty-five-gallon drums made Candey’s as distinctive as a beauty parlor selling just one brand of perfume. It was also the place where almost everyone in government went to get tools sharpened and keys cut.
I placed Donovan’s case on the long wooden counter in front of a white-haired clerk who looked as if he’d been there when the store opened in 1891.
“Was there something in particular?” he asked, his teeth hanging a couple of tendrils of saliva from top to bottom lip, like paper-hanger’s glue.
“I’ve just come back from London,” I explained. “Which is where I bought this case. Just as I was leaving town we were bombed and somehow I managed to mislay my keys. It’s a rather expensive case and I’m reluctant to break it open. Can you open it for me? I mean, without breaking the locks?”
The clerk gave me the once-over, and deciding that I hardly looked like a thief in my tailor-made gray flannel suit, he shouted back into the shop.
“Bill? We’ve got a gentleman here who needs you to open a suitcase.”
Another clerk came along the counter. This one was wearing a bow tie, an apron, armlets to protect the sleeves of his shirt, and enough hair oil to grease every pair of hedge shears on the wall behind him. He let me repeat my explanation and then regarded me with slow disbelief. Outside a streetcar roared past the narrow window, causing a temporary eclipse inside the shop. When the daylight returned I saw that he was inspecting the locks.
“Nice-looking piece of luggage. I can see why you don’t want to break the locks.” He nodded and began to experiment with various types of key.
Fifteen minutes later I was leaving the store with a new set of keys for Donovan’s case. I drove north to Kalorama Heights.
&nbs
p; As soon as I was through the door I hoisted the case onto the dining table and, using the new keys, opened the lid. Inside the blue-moiré-silk-lined suitcase were several rolls of film, some camera equipment, and a large parcel wrapped in brown paper. I fetched a magnifying glass from my study and examined the parcel carefully, checking to see if there was anything about the paper in the way it had been wrapped that might tip off Donovan that it had been opened. Only when I was thoroughly satisfied there was not, did I carefully peel away the Scotch tape and unwrap the parcel.
There were ten files, all of them from the Signals Intelligence Service at Arlington Hall, and containing dated, enciphered Soviet telegrams sent and received by Amtorg—the Soviet trading agency—and several diplomats in the Soviet Embassy. All of the files were labeled BRIDE: TOP SECRET. A letter from a Colonel Cooke explained in detail what I had already guessed.
FROM: LT COLONEL EARLE F. COOKE
B BRANCH/CRYPTANALYTIC
U.S. ARMY SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
ARLINGTON HALL STATION
4000 LEE BOULEVARD
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA.
TO: GENERAL W. J. DONOVAN,
OSS, CAIRO
November 11, 1943
Re: BRIDE
Dear General Donovan,
I understand from General Strong and Colonel Clarke in G-2, that we have a short window of opportunity to make use of the Soviet onetime cipher you have in your possession before you are obliged to comply with the President’s wish that the same onetime pad be returned to General Fitin of the NKVD. In order to take full advantage of this window I am enclosing copies of all intercepts for you to loan to General Stawell of the British SOE in Cairo, together with the onetime pad, with a view to his people being able to decipher the BRIDE intercepts.
As you know, Lieutenant Hallock has recently demonstrated that the Soviets are making extensive use of duplicate key pages assembled in onetime pad books and that even a single duplication of a onetime pad cipher might render Soviet traffic vulnerable to decryption.
