Double Cross

by Ben MacIntyre

  The London winter wrapped around Lily Sergeyev like a soggy cloak. Her kidneys ached. She spent long hours alone in the Rugby Mansions flat, although Maritza Mihailovic, double agent Snark, was seldom far away. Every few days, Mary Sherer would march in with her attaché case, a model of brisk efficiency. Together they would draft and redraft letters for Kliemann, cover letters to the address in Lisbon containing idle chat with messages beneath in secret ink. “The information doesn’t seem to make much sense,” Lily wrote in her diary. “Bits of conversations mentioning ranks and badges; trains supposedly seen in stations; information obtained by chance by overhearing conversations in the train.” She visited her relatives near Bristol, with Mary in attendance. Forces for the Normandy landings were already assembling in the area, but in her letters Lily described “lonely countryside and empty main roads which were in fact bustling from dawn to dusk and through the night, with troop movements.”

  Tar Robertson explained the plan in broad terms: “For the last few months the Germans have been desperately trying to find out where we plan to land our forces. With your help, we can make them think that we have made our preparations to invade an area which in fact we have no intention of going anywhere near. If we succeed, the Germans will concentrate their troops in the worst possible places to cope with the landing when it is finally launched.” Lily was not told that the real target was Normandy, nor that Calais was the cover target: “I don’t try to guess what all these scraps might add up to. Obviously the Germans will make certain deductions from them,” she wrote in her diary.

  Lily had expected to find excitement as a double agent. Instead, she was miserable. Mary Sherer and Gisela Ashley (whom she knew as “Louisa”) took her to lunch at Chez Kampinski restaurant and tried to cheer her up. Lily liked Louisa—they called each other “Ducky”—but could not warm to Mary, so proper, so reserved, and so entirely unsympathetic to Lily’s moods. Theirs was a head-on collision of culture and personality: the emotional, temperamental Frenchwoman and the buttoned-down, aloof Englishwoman. “I want to love and hate; to be alive,” wrote Lily. “I find the English cold, uncommunicative, undemonstrative, impenetrable. I would like to see Mary laugh, or cry, or scream; I would like to see her face express something. To me she seems almost an automaton.” Lily sensed, rightly, that beneath the no-nonsense manner was a far more vulnerable and interesting person. “There is something about Mary, in the way she twists her legs in a spiral, in the way her stockings come down like a corkscrew, in the way she walks with a long stride, swinging her arms and perhaps humming a little song, which doesn’t fit in with the tough face she wants to show the world.”

  Lily repeatedly demanded to be reunited with Babs, but the response was always noncommittal and evasive. She fired off increasingly irate telegrams to O’Shagar, the MI6 officer in Gibraltar, asking for news of the dog. In a note to Tar, Mary warned that Treasure was becoming “very unreasonable” and that a major explosion was brewing. “Treasure is very upset about the absence of her dog, and has seriously threatened that if the dog does not arrive soon she will not work anymore. I think this can be dealt with but it will mean a scene.” Mary was not as unsympathetic as she seemed; she was a dog lover herself and felt for Lily; but in Mary’s world, rules were sacred. “I do not quite know what we can do to help, because if we have the dog sent over here officially it will have to go into quarantine, which from Treasure’s point of view would be as bad as having it in Gibraltar. I am afraid that Treasure’s American boyfriend has let her down and has no intention of smuggling the dog over here for her, I am wondering whether we could get the Royal Navy to help via Commander Montagu.” Britain was preparing for battle on an epic scale, and MI5 was seriously considering whether to deploy a navy submarine to fetch a small dog, illegally, in order to placate a volatile double agent.

  Lily had long complained of what she called “her internal troubles.” In December she was “seized with a fit of shivering and trembling.” Mary told her to snap out of it. “You cannot be ill. You haven’t any right to!” It was a joke, but not the sort that Lily appreciated. Ailing, lonely, and filled with self-pity, Lily was spoiling for a fight. The ensuing exchange is detailed in her diary:

  “Mary, it’s obvious now that my pilot isn’t going to bring Babs over. Could you do something about it?”

  “No: I have already told you so.”

  “Do you mean to say that you refuse to keep the promise made to me by Benton?”

  “We can’t help it if you were promised something contrary to the regulations.”

  “In that case I don’t have to keep the promise I made to work with you. From now on you can get on alone.”

  Mary Sherer was furious. Her ingrained sense of duty simply did not accept that, in the middle of a war, someone could simply withdraw cooperation: “You refuse to work?”

  “Certainly.”

  “But it’s stupid. You know we need you.”

  “Nevertheless, my work is not worth a small dog.”

  “You act like a spoilt child! You want something and you mean to have it. Well, you can’t. You’re ill. You’ll change your mind when you have thought things over.”

  Mary stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  The next day, Christmas Eve 1943, Lily made a rambling entry in her diary. “My brain is empty of thoughts. I’m lighter than the air, I’m gliding across the ceiling. I’m going to die.” Maritza, the housekeeper/spy, alerted Mary, who sent an urgent message to MI5 headquarters: “Treasure is behaving in an eccentric manner, despite her fever, wandering around in her pyjamas, and sitting on the floor in the drawing room. Snark found her dancing.”

  Delirious, Lily was rushed to St. Mary’s Hospital. Dr. Hanfield Jones examined her and diagnosed chronic kidney stones. When she came around, Mary Sherer was at her bedside. Lily was unwell, but not nearly as ill as she believed. The combination of a high fever and a highly developed sense of drama had convinced her that she was on her deathbed.

  “It seems I won’t live,” she told her case officer, with a gust of Gallic melodrama.

  “Nonsense,” said Mary Sherer.

  (“I love the way Mary says nonsense,” Lily later wrote. “She says it with so much conviction.”)

  Tar Robertson arrived the next day, carrying a bunch of jonquils and daffodils. Lily was feeling better but still convinced she was dying, with maximum melodrama: “I don’t want to die here. If I died now, my soul would get lost in the fog.”

  Robertson, usually so affable and cheery, struck Lily as oddly ill at ease. But she was feeling too weak for another row. She drifted off to sleep.

  Over the next three weeks, Lily regained her appetite and some of her spirit. In early January, Lily sent a message in secret ink to Kliemann explaining that her long silence had been due to illness. She had obtained a Hallicrafter “Skyrider” radio that could receive but not transmit messages, she told him, and would be listening for his messages on the agreed frequency. B1A’s technicians duly set up the radio. Treasure could now receive orders and questions directly from Kliemann. His first message was encouraging: “Information very interesting—Letters arrive well—Continue.” Kliemann signed off with flirty courtesy: “You are very charming.”

  A dark shadow fell across Lily’s brightening mood with the arrival of a telegram from Gibraltar sent by Kenneth Larson, the American pilot who had agreed to bring over her dog, explaining that he had been forced to leave Babs in Algiers. The tone of the message struck her as odd. She showed it to her cousin: “Why should he have left Babs in Algiers? I wonder if it’s the truth. Maybe he has become attached to Babs and just wants to keep him.”

  When she raised the matter of her dog with Tar Robertson, he changed the subject. Mary Sherer also declined to discuss it. Lily’s sister Bimbo was living in Algiers: she would write and ask her to find out what had happened to Babs.

  Mary Sherer had ambitions for Treasure. It was all very well receiving messages from Kliemann, but
in order to play a full part in Operation Bodyguard, she needed her own wireless set. Then, like Garbo, Brutus, and Tricycle, she would be able to relay important misinformation instantly. “Treasure could be used by us for deception,” Mary told Tar. “She could cover various districts and could quote several reliable sources, notional and actual. The first message from the Germans indicated their confidence in Treasure. But she cannot be used for Overlord or other deception unless she gets her W/T [wireless transmitter].”

  They tried to prod the sluggish Kliemann into providing a radio by reporting increased military activity: “There is something in preparation,” Lily told him. “I must have the promised radio transmitter.” Kliemann did nothing at all. Mary grumbled: “If we let him ‘arrange’ matters, either he won’t know how to do it, or else it will take him so long that we will miss our opportunities.” They would have to set the ball rolling.

  Mary Sherer drew up a bold plan: Lily should go to Lisbon, meet up with Kliemann, and get him to hand over a radio. It was a gamble, given Lily’s volatility, but Sherer told Tar she was sure it would pay off: “I believe, and I think you will agree, that Treasure is very capable of carrying out such a mission very successfully.” Tar gave his approval.

  A cover story was drawn up to explain how Lily had managed to travel to Portugal. She would tell Kliemann that through her cousin Elizabeth Hill, a Cambridge academic, she had obtained a job in the film division of the Ministry of Information, working on the scripts of propaganda films to be shown in formerly occupied countries when these had been liberated from the Nazis. She would explain that she had been sent to Portugal to interview refugees and gather “first-hand information about conditions in those countries.” It was a rather thin story, but Mary was bullish: “You’ve made Kliemann swallow bigger pills than that.”

  One evening, after a long day spent rehearsing her cover story with Mary, Lily returned to the flat to find a letter waiting from her sister, postmarked Algiers. She read the first sentence over and over, in stunned disbelief. “My poor Darling, I hate the pain I will give you, but it’s better you should know, so as not to make plans for the future: you will not see your Babs again: he has been run over.” Her dog, probably the only thing she had ever truly loved, the only creature to have shown her unconditional love, was dead.

  Lily was distraught. “Everything is indifferent to me now. The circle of loneliness has closed around me; I am alone, absolutely alone.” The account of Babs’s death made no sense to her. Why had the dog been taken to Algiers? If he was in the care of the authorities, how had he been run over? Why had her handlers seemed so shifty when the subject was raised? Why had they failed to honor the promise to bring Babs to Britain? When Mary Sherer arrived later that day, she said nothing about Babs, though Lily was convinced she knew what had happened to her beloved dog and had known for some time. First the grief; now came the boiling anger. Lily was in no doubt: the British had killed her dog. And she may have been right.

  Lily believed, fervently and furiously, that Babs had been sacrificed by MI5, his death arranged as a convenient solution to a tiresome problem. Perhaps Babs was “bumped off,” sacrificed to the demands of war, or perhaps his death really was accidental. The fate of Babs the dog is a mystery, and likely to remain so. MI5’s archives have been routinely “weeded” since the war, but when a file is declassified, it is usually accompanied by a file index that lists, in chronological order, all the items in the original file. In other words, one can see what has been removed. Between November 25 and December 29, 1943, no fewer than nine separate items were entered in the Treasure file relating to Babs. The index entry headings are specific: “Report from Mary Sherer on Treasure and the dog”; “Notes of enquiry re: quarantine regulations with regard to Treasure’s dog”; “To SIS request for enquiries to Gibraltar re: Treasure’s Dog”; “Note re: Treasure’s dog”; and so on. Every single one has been taken from the file and destroyed.

  Mary Sherer was surprised how well, after her initial distress, Lily took the news of Babs’s death. She seemed “in good spirits and much more enthusiastic about her case” and eager to get to Lisbon and see Kliemann. Had she read Lily’s diaries, Mary would have formed a rather different impression. Lily was a born actress, a slave to her feelings, but also quite adept at hiding them when she wanted to. “I can change my skin quite easily now,” she wrote. Agent Treasure was in deep mourning for Babs and quietly plotting revenge.

  16. Artist Paints a Picture

  Johnny Jebsen was getting cold feet. His disgust with the Nazi regime was undimmed, but something in his mottled conscience rebelled against the idea of betraying his German colleagues. Moreover, the danger from the Gestapo seemed to have receded. Kammler, the corrupt Lisbon Abwehr officer, had sent in a report claiming that Dusko Popov must be a double agent since his reports had deteriorated “both in quantity and quality” and pointing the finger of suspicion at Jebsen. On hearing this, Jebsen launched a personal appeal to Admiral Canaris, the Abwehr chief, protesting “violently against machinations by Kammler to discredit him” and declaring his “intention of throwing up his work and returning to Berlin to enlist in the army” unless he was allowed to go to Lisbon to handle the Popov case in person. The bluff worked. Canaris ruled that Kammler’s denunciation had been “malicious” and packed him off to the eastern front.

  Spiteful or not, Kammler’s suspicions were spot on, and Canaris’s motives for dismissing them were, like everything the admiral did, opaque. Canaris was almost certainly plotting against Hitler. Jebsen was sent to Lisbon with vague orders to improve “the cover under which correspondence with agents is carried out.” Reassured that he was no longer in immediate peril, Jebsen hinted to Kenneth Benton of MI6 that perhaps it would be better if, after all, he remained independent. He was firmly told that it was too late to back out but reassured that “if, as he says, he wishes to do everything possible to damage the Nazi regime, then he need have no scruples in dealing with us.” Jebsen’s wobble was over: “He was convinced that he had taken an irrevocable step and that it was only consistent with his anti-Nazi principles that he should henceforth participate actively and not merely passively in the fight against the present regime in Germany.” Agent Artist was on the team, for better or worse, and forever.

  The British now had, for the first time, a spy deep within the Abwehr, working “unconditionally” for the Allied cause. “The fact that Johann Jebson [sic] is prepared to give us information through Tricycle offers enormous possibilities,” observed Guy Liddell. But Jebsen was also a potential liability. A report to Churchill laid out the danger.

  A difficult situation has arisen since [Tricycle’s] spymaster has recently been in touch with British authorities in Madrid and has told them he is under serious suspicion from the Germans and might have to ask for asylum in the UK. He said he saw no hope of German victory and that if he could get a British passport which would enable him to live in peace after the war, he might be prepared to consider any reasonable offer. While this spymaster has in his possession an enormous amount of knowledge which would be very valuable, his defection at the present time would compromise agents who are working under him, and in whom hitherto the Germans have had confidence, such as Tricycle himself.

  Popov’s Tricycle network was not the only asset at risk. Jebsen simply knew too much. He knew which spies the Germans were running (or believed they were running) in Britain. If he passed on this information to British intelligence, and those agents continued to function, then he would know they were under British control. For the first time, a major disagreement erupted within B1A, a fierce turf war between competing case officers anxious to protect their own agents. Hugh Astor, now running Bronx, fired the opening salvo.

  If Artist is energetic in providing information, he should in due course provide us with sufficient information to effect the arrest of at least Garbo and Treasure, and it seems to me that however delicately the matter is handled, it will ultimately become obvious to Artist
that all of these agents are operating under control. Thus the fortunes of some of our most valued agents will be entirely dependent on the whims of a German whom we know to be brilliantly clever, but unscrupulous and dishonest, and who may turn over his knowledge to the Germans, either by his own volition or through force of circumstances. Artist has never acted out of loyalty to the Nazi party. It has always been his sole desire to serve his own interests. In the past it has always been to his advantage to safeguard the Tricycle organisation—this has freed him from serving on the Eastern Front and provided him with considerable scope for financial gain.

  The danger of his being discovered by the Abwehr increases with every day which passes. He may be arrested by the Gestapo and compromise our agents under the stress of interrogation or to turn his own knowledge to his advantage. The sudden loss of a large number of our B1A agents would in itself be a serious blow, but it would be far more serious if this loss occurred after the agents have embarked on the implementation of the Overlord deception plan [i.e., Fortitude], since it would enable the Abwehr to read their traffic in the opposite sense. The sole function of a B1A agent at the present time is to play a part in the implementation of the deception plan. Any agent who is unable to fulfil this role is unworthy of reservation. Clearly the Tricycle organisation can play no part in the deception plan, since the fact that Tricycle is operating under control is liable at any time to come to the knowledge of the Germans. Under no circumstances should Artist be allowed to remain in the Peninsula.

  “I agree with his arguments on all points,” wrote Tommy Harris, Garbo’s case officer. “I am quite convinced that each day longer he remains there, the risk to the whole of the Garbo case is increased. Unless steps are immediately taken to cease contact with Artist completely or evacuate him forthwith from Spain, then grave risks of blowing the Garbo case are inevitable.” If Jebsen was whisked to Britain, MI5 could “interrogate him at leisure,” argued Harris. “We would be able to glean a considerable amount of reliable information from Artist and the danger of a number of our most valued agents becoming compromised would be averted.” But if Jebsen disappeared, the Germans would immediately suspect Popov: to protect the deception plan, Agent Artist must be extracted immediately, and Agent Tricycle must be shut down.