Double Cross in Cairo (22 page)

CHEESE’S
circle of friends appeared to be mainly Greek and they discussed many military topics, such as tanks leaving the Canal Zone for Palestine; speculation about a new armoured division with Greek officers and NCOs that was to undergo special training in Syria; that the defeat at Tobruk had prevented the British from launching a planned assault on Crete; that Greek troops had recently left Kabrit; of an invasion of Crete set for October or November; of a Greek brigade in Alexandria; and news of a Greek brigade in the desert; and of special training at Kabrit.

A casual acquaintance in Alexandria told
CHEESE
that he had noticed less traffic on a desert road, and seen many Greek soldiers in the port. A Greek merchant friend was credited with the news that there were troops in Palestine wearing black berets. A French sailor claimed there were many small troop transports in the harbour at Alexandria, and he had encountered members of the Queen’s Regiment on leave, some Greek aviators and soldiers from Australia. A Greek soldier had asserted that Greek troops were only sent to the front for training. And a group of Greek contacts opined that the departure of the Greek Brigade from Kabrit meant the planned attack on Crete would be postponed until September, and disclosed that no assault on Crete could take place until the training at Kabrit had been completed.

A journalist, codenamed
SYRIAN
, gave
CHEESE
two useful political items in early 1945. One was that relations between ministers had broken down to the extent that Marram had threatened to resign; the other was the news that there was to be a pan-Arab conference held in Egypt later in the year to which the leaders of all Arab countries would be invited.

Other items came from radio broadcasts, such as the news that
General Sir Bernard Paget had replaced General Wilson, and sheer rumour, and that there was talk in the port that ‘several battleships including an aircraft carrier’ had sailed south.

As ‘A’ Force’s confidence grew, there were many, many more ‘unconscious sources’ who were not formally part of
CHEESE’S
network, but inadvertently gave him useful tit-bits. A journalist who had been with Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia had replaced John Talbot, the Reuter’s correspondent who had been taken prisoner with two photographers in June 1944. He said he was now attached to 3 Corps HQ, and was going to Alexandria. A London Scottish officer in the London Division mentioned he was joining 168 Brigade; an RB officer belonging to the 15th Motor Division was responsible for another report about the 33rd Motor Brigade. An 10th Armoured Brigade officer based at Suez worked on the staff of 3 Corps, to which his brigade belonged, was going to Alexandria to join the rest of his staff. A Greek officer had been on a course recently to learn English methods of extracting information from enemy PoWs; a 46th Division officer remarked that he would be leaving Alexandria in two weeks’ time. A New Zealand nurse stated that the New Zealand troops in Cairo belonged to the 6th New Zealand Division. An 8th Armoured Division officer based in Cyrenaica said he had been in Kabrit for the past two weeks. A Gloucester Hussars officer who had been in Tobruk talked about the town’s barrage balloons and claimed that a South African brigade was there, and that parachute troops were expected shortly.

Between 29 April and 10 September 1943
CHEESE
sent seventy messages to Bari, of which five came from his ‘ESR friend’: Commando training centre in the Canal area; Commando training centre on the Little Bitter Lake: landing exercises; Passenger traffic to be restricted from 17 July; Troops embarked at Suez; Troops returned to Suez.

Two Greek officers in
CHEESE’S
office who joined the ATB from Syria provided five messages: one was a captain working on Greek
statistics; Transfer of Greek troops from Syria postponed; Captain on leave. Future plans delayed until Captain back from Syria; Greek division to be transferred soon.

A Greek interpreter friend is working at Divisional HQ. Leave expires 20 June. Possible date of invasion; Working at 56th Division HQ; arrival of Greek Division delayed.

During this period
MISANTHROPE
was busy, and contributed the content of nine messages:

CHEESE
himself reported having observed:

Between 1 January and 29 June 1944
CHEESE
transmitted a total of sixty-eight messages, of which eleven were identified as having been personal observations. In this category came

A further eleven messages were attributed to information gleaned from
CHEESE’S
‘ESR friend’. He commented on such subjects as

Under the grouping ‘learned in the office’,
CHEESE
reported that ‘General Paget has been to Cyrenaica and Mersa Matruh, Visited air
troops at Gambit and armoured troops at Tobruk, also Greek sailors. Read order for officer to go overseas; going to HQ 16 Corps, he thinks destination will be India.’

Between 8 July and 28 December 1944
CHEESE
sent fifty-five messages, most based on his own views, among them reports such as ‘Have not seen 3 Corps here for some time; I think 15 Division has left Cairo but sometimes see trucks at Abbassia bearing sign of the white unicorn; I think HQ of 11th Army still here as we still see sign of seal balancing globe in the town; Have not seen sign of chequerboard for a long time. Increase in number of English soldiers here, most wear sign of yellow axe; No longer see sign of 3 Corps here, think it must have left; Speculation running high in office and town following Turkey’s rupture of relations with the Reich; Signs of yellow axe and yellow hammer seen in Cairo, yellow axe is sign of 78th English Division; Head of Civil Affairs Bureau returned here after a tour of Libya; Think the airborne division may be English but contains Indian units; Have not noticed any reduction in numbers of New Zealand and South African troops here. I think 6 New Zealand and 7 South African Divisions still in Egypt; Among officers who took part in conference with General Paget were Generals Stone, Scobie and McConnell. Air Marshal Park and Admiral Rawlings; Several trucks in town bearing sign of 15th Division; At HQ yesterday three trucks with sign of head of red elephant on blue square; Section of my office which deals with former Italian islands is about to complete preparations for leaving; Number of British officers wearing sign of “Y”; Not seen sign of 8th Armoured Division for a long time; No longer see here sign of yellow axe but have recently seen several trucks with sign of white unicorn; See no more Poles in Cairo; Section which deals with Greek islands has left my office but is still in Egypt; Have heard nothing of an Indian Armoured Division; Only see few Indian troops here; Think HQ 3 Corps has left Egypt for Italy; The King
has dismissed cabinet of Nahas from power and Ahmed Naher has formed a coalition cabinet; Much emotion in Greek circles following German evacuation of Athens; Heard nothing of battleships at Alexandria; Seen several English officers wearing sign of gold star on red and blue square. This is emblem of GHQ India; Seen Royal Artillery officer wearing flash “cinque ports” on sleeve; Think airborne division no longer in the Middle East as the parachutist sign not seen here now.’

Finally, there was the last tranche of signals, twelve of which were transmitted between 2 January and 10 February 1945. In his very last signal
CHEESE
reported that ‘shipping between Turkey and Egypt will soon start again.’ Thereafter, the channel fell silent, leaving the Abwehr completely in the dark about the fate of their master-spy.

S
IME’s efforts to support
CHEESE
financially proved very frustrating, but the ingenious solution eventually decided upon was Operation
HATRY
, a scheme inspired by the financial conman Clarence Hatry who was imprisoned in London in 1929 and credited with being the catalyst for the crisis of confidence which resulted in the Wall Street Crash a few days later. SIME’s version of
HATRY
was considered likely to be plausible to the Abwehr, and one based on a similar dilemma in London where a double agent codenamed
TATE
had run low on funds and had been replenished by the appropriately named Plan
MIDAS
, the expedient of having a Jewish intermediary circumvent the currency regulations by passing cash locally to a nominee when a similar sum had been deposited in his account abroad, in his case in the United States.
HATRY
, named after the famous financial fraudster, called for virtually the same model. An unscrupulous Jewish merchant in Cairo, Henri Cohen, was identified by
CHEESE
as a suitable candidate for the transaction, although the execution of the plan proved very complex.

The background was that
CHEESE
was essentially a mercenary and had been risking his life since his original recruitment by Levi
in April 1941 when he had received £150, and he had been asking for further funds since 28 June 1941. His sixth message, on 14 August 1941, was a request for financial support, but all efforts to pass him the money had failed, and one of those attempts had resulted in the loss of a submarine, the
U-372
in August 1942.

The destruction of an entire U-boat employed by the Abwehr as a means of funding an individual spy, whatever his importance, must have been a heavy blow for both the Kreigsmarine, which was prevented from learning anything about the circumstances of the sinking through the deliberate isolation of the crew who were kept in quarantine for the remainder of the war, and for the Abwehr, which suffered the loss of a trusted courier and the money he was carrying. However, in December 1942 there was renewed evidence that the Abwehr had found a replacement courier, for earlier in the month
CHEESE
had been given 27 December as a firm delivery date, and on 4 January 1943 was promised that the courier would be in Cairo ‘in the next few days’.

Paradoxically, because
CHEESE
had acquired employment at OETA, the pressure on him had been relieved somewhat as he now allegedly had a regular source of income, but nevertheless SIME was keen to learn more about the courier, and suspected that the man might be
GULL
, an agent who was already known to James Robertson. Based on a very casual interview he conducted on 3 January,
GULL
had a legitimate excuse for travelling to Istanbul where, according to
TRIANGLE
, he had been of interest to the Abwehr. Robertson judged
GULL
to be just a little too ‘glib’ in his cover story, and strongly suspected him to be the Abwehr’s chosen route based on his personal communications which had been routinely intercepted by censorship.

Unfortunately, SIME faced an additional problem at the ‘mousetrap’, the flat at 20 Rue Galal, the site chosen by
CHEESE
for the money-drop, where the building was of such a nature that, according to the BGM, it would have been quite easy for the packet to be delivered to a different apartment. As SIME observed in a memo:

Furthermore, the block was inhabited by mainly Greeks and Italians, many of whom were thoroughly anti-British. SIME felt that if the courier could not be absolutely certain of identifying the correct flat he probably would not endanger himself by making enquiries, but would report his dilemma to the Abwehr, by which time SIME would have recommended a new address, thereby solving the problem.

SIME had taken considerable precautions to allow the money-drop to take place, and briefed
MISANTHROPE
on 11 October 1942
about the need to enable the transaction in preference to arresting any intermediary or courier. It was explained that

SIME’s plan for the meeting between
CHEESE’S
representative and the Abwehr’s courier were planned to the last detail:

As a fallback, SIME anyway went through the motions of recruiting
GULL
as an ordinary agent, remaining entirely silent about the suspicions concerning his true role.

Thus, on 24 December, the Abwehr informed
CHEESE
that it had been impossible to change the agreed arrangements, and that the courier intended to make the delivery on Sunday 27 December. This turn of events led SIME to speculate that the courier had left Turkey before he could be warned, or perhaps that there was another network in Cairo already which had been entrusted with the task. In any circumstances it was thought likely that the courier might employ a ‘conscious or unconscious Egyptian messenger’ to make the final delivery, the moment of greatest vulnerability. The situation was further complicated by the unconnected police raid which had scared off
CHEESE
and left SIME wondering about how to handle the new tenant, Pietro Fuimo, and his family. Should they be indoctrinated into the operation and told to receive the Abwehr’s package of money? In the end, Robertson opted to instruct Fuimo to accept any packet from a stranger and receive a gratuity of £30 for his trouble but, as it happened, nobody turned up. Fuimo, who had been interned for fifteen months as an enemy alien, had been released in
January 1942 because of ‘his intense anti-Fascist feelings’. Nevertheless, in September 1942, Robertson contemplated his re-internment as a security precaution to prevent any leakage relating to Nicossof, whom he briefed about under the alias ‘Paul Orloff’, the name under which he could receive letters at the National Hotel.

On 6 January 1943
CHEESE
announced that he had found a much better money drop, at Souk el Tewfikieh 6. Specifically, the address was apartment 16, on the fourth floor, with an entrance next to the Café Soleil where a flat had been rented, at additional cost to him, by his
amie
, who would take up residence there on 14 January.

A further, unexpected complication occurred when the
BGM
, destined for her walk-on part as
MISANTHROPE
, genuinely fell ill in March 1943, and announced that ‘her services would not be available until at least April’. This problem arose just when the Abwehr had instructed
CHEESE
to keep the flat at Souk el Tewfikieh 6, a demand that SIME had suggested ‘may be taken to indicate that a further attempt will be made to deliver the money’. These two challenges led James Robertson to set out the options:

PLAN 1.