Hitler's Spy (31 page)

This involved dinner, flowers and an intimate debriefing. ‘I found that she was entirely without funds and living at a fourth-rate hotel,’ explained Dicketts of Operation Legover.
‘She was obviously ill so I got her a doctor, paid for fruit and medicine and gave her 200 escudos. She said she would like to work for the British secret service. I think she could be very
valuable, as she is attractive and accomplished.’

And a Nazi spy. ‘Dick gave her money because she was broke,’ carped Owens, who decided to conduct his own private investigation. ‘She had a very cheap room at the Hotel Franco
and she was drawing money from the Repatriation Office. So what was she doing in a first-class carriage on the train? I asked him if he was clear about this woman, and not to get himself into
trouble. He got in a pretty vile mood. I probably stepped on his corns somewhere.’

In London – as in Lisbon – strings were being pulled. When the RAF declined to lay on a special transport, Owens and Dicketts were found places on a scheduled KLM service from Sintra
to Whitchurch due to depart on Tuesday, 25 March. Inconveniently, a storm front over the Atlantic then delayed their flight for two consecutive days. For Dicketts the wait was interminable: as well
as detailed peace proposals, for urgent
discussion over gin fizzes in Downing Street, his precious sealed envelopes contained hard intelligence that Operation Sealion, the
long-threatened German invasion of the British Isles, was pencilled in for the Easter weekend. Would Panzers and Stukas reach Addlestone before his plane left the tarmac at Sintra? Or would Ronnie
Reed remove pretty chorus girl Kay to some dubious place of safety in the wilds of North Wales?

Owens, too, was a soul in torment. In the space of a month his sidekick had usurped him as the Führer’s master spy, and obtained better room service to boot. ‘He went to Berlin,
and he had an apartment at the Adlon – which I’ve never had. He went to Hamburg, had the best hotel there, and was treated like a king. What the big stunt is I don’t know. By the
way he talked, he’d been sleeping with Hitler – and Hitler had been talking in his sleep.’

All was confusion. On a visit to Hans Ruser, the pacifist diplomatic aide who had driven him from Lisbon to Madrid, Dicketts found his flagpole adorned with a swastika flag
and
the
Union Jack.

It was all, in Ruser’s own words, a big tangle.

The KLM grounding at Sintra left everyone at sea. On Tuesday morning Jock Horsfall sped down to Bristol with Tar Robertson, anxious to collect Agents Snow and Celery from Whitchurch airport and
debrief each man separately in London. When the flight failed to arrive from Lisbon the MI5 party spent an impatient night in Bristol. The following morning, with no news from Portugal, Robertson
ordered Horsfall back up the Great West Road.

In Lisbon, Owens killed time with his faithful nurse Elizabeth Fernanda, while Dicketts attended to Marcelle Quenall at the Hotel Franco. Poor weather did little to dampen the ardour of either
man for Operation Legover.

Finally, on the morning of Thursday, 27 March, the dark skies above Lisbon cleared. In order to reduce the double
jeopardy of Spanish anti-aircraft fire and interception
by German long-range fighters, the stubby DC-3 headed west out into the Atlantic, then turned north to cross the Bay of Biscay. After a thousand miles and five posterior-numbing hours the British
coastline drifted into view through the cabin windows. Almost immediately this welcome sight was obscured by wooden panels, hastily fitted by the steward to thwart incoming spies and saboteurs.

If Walter Dicketts had expected to be whisked directly from Whitchurch to Whitehall he was sorely disappointed. In their haste to leave Lisbon both agents had failed to obtain the correct
consular endorsements on their passports, with the result that Owens was stopped short by alert immigration officials. Claiming first to be a sardine salesman, then a secret agent, his behaviour
seemed calculated to arouse suspicion. An inspection of his luggage revealed two quartz wireless crystals and led to a humiliating strip search, during which Owens’ loud protestations of
chronic ill-health and duodenal ulcers were pointedly ignored.

‘He was found to be carrying a large number of articles in his pockets including £10,000 in notes,’ ran the official report from Whitchurch. ‘There were also two fountain
pens, which he claimed to be explosive and very dangerous.’

That these were Parker, not Pelikan, mattered not a jot. Ushered into a separate cubicle, Dicketts realised that it might have been wise to remove the maker’s label from a brand new
overcoat purchased in Hamburg, and also found himself stripped down to his birthday suit. Arriving too late to curtail these indignities, Jock Horsfall and Major Stratton, the local RSLO, were able
to placate Agent Celery only with difficulty.

Had Dicketts known that Owens had forfeited his peace dividend of £5,000 within minutes of landing at Whitchurch, he might well have abandoned his high-stakes triple-cross mission on the
spot. As it was, Agent Celery now informed Horsfall that
he, too, had something to declare. At five o’clock Tar Robertson received an alarming telephone message that
called for immediate action.
‘Three 12,000-ton transports leaving Elbe with troops early morning of March 28th. Troops assembling on March 26th and are proceeding to the
Netherlands.’

Transports and troops on the move. Invasion, perhaps, or a large seaborne raid. While there would be no repeat of the infamous Cromwell alarm of 7 September 1940, when bridges were demolished
and church bells rung, Celery and Snow were hustled into separate cars and rushed back to London. Arrangements were made to accommodate Owens at 901 Nell Gwynn House, a Chelsea apartment leased by
John Bingham, one of Max Knight’s assistants and later a prolific writer of thrillers. Dicketts was driven by Jock Horsfall in the speedy Citroën, which promptly broke down near
Hungerford, forcing the party to stop overnight in a local hotel.

With Dick stuck in Berkshire, Robertson had no option but to pass the invasion alert to the Air Ministry and Admiralty in raw, undigested form. The following day two dozen Blenheim bombers flew
coastal sweeps but spotted no enemy armada. Possibly several transports weighed anchor in the Elbe; possibly the stunt was a blind. Undeniably, the German invasion spoof known as Operation Shark
was every bit as fictitious as the 200 man-eaters allegedly imported from Australia and released into the Channel in 1940.

Robertson and John Masterman set about grilling Owens first thing on Friday, arranging for a stenographer to make a verbatim transcript. The most pressing concern was his shock claim that
Rantzau had known for some time that Johnny was operating under British control. If this was true, much – perhaps all – of the double-cross system was almost certainly blown. Like the
IP Club menu fenced by William Rolph, it also raised concerns around the personal security of senior officers within MI5 and MI6.

‘When did Rantzau tell you this?’ Tar began.

‘As soon as I landed in Lisbon,’ lied Owens. ‘He said “I’ve got something very important to tell you. As your friend I want a truthful
answer.” I said, “OK, you know me.” He said, “We have information that you are in contact with British intelligence.” I said, “That’s perfectly true,
somebody squealed on me in England. I’ve been trying to tell you.” Then he said, “We know all about you. We’ve got two propositions, and if you help us we’ll see you
are OK.”’

‘So, did you help them?’

‘I said I would. That’s why I’m alive here today.’

‘How did the Doctor respond?’

‘He said they’d outlined a plan of what they wanted me to do. By the way he spoke I don’t think he’d known it more than a week or ten days. He didn’t try any rough
stuff or anything like that.’

‘No,’ said Masterman coolly. ‘In fact, he gave you ten thousand pounds.’

‘Five thousand for services rendered to date, plus a bonus for my loyalty. Besides, I had very heavy expenses in Lisbon.’

‘Did you tell Rantzau anything else?’

‘I gave him practically no information – we didn’t even bother with the questionnaire. I just told them Dicketts had everything, said I’d turned all the dope over to
him.’

‘Did he ask about the man in Radlett?’

‘I said I sent £100 and took precautions. Apparently he’s the Doctor’s best friend so he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to him.’

‘What about Caroli?’

‘I said he’d beaten it, so far as I knew.’

‘And McCarthy?’

Owens shook his head. ‘Take it from me, his name is mud. Döbler likes him well enough, but not the Doctor. Wash Mac out. By the way, they reckon the South African who never showed up
came down in a canal and sank.’

Robertson cleared his throat. ‘Let’s be clear on this, Snowy. You admitted to the Doctor that you’re operating under our control, but he’s not
worried any more of his agents have been compromised?’

‘Not as far as I know. Charlie, Gwilym Williams – he thinks they’re all one hundred per cent.’

The men from the Twenty Committee exchanged looks. Quite plainly the Little Man was lying through his acrylic false teeth. Masterman coughed loudly. ‘That, to my mind, is absolutely
incredible.’

‘The whole thing is most mysterious,’ agreed Owens. ‘He knows you’re in control of the whole of the wireless business, but I’m still to carry on. If a message is
fake I’ve got to include certain words, like “on the level”, “on the up and up”, and so on. If those words are used then the message is fake.’

Tar cast his mind back to the confrontation with Owens aboard HMS
Corunia
after the crushing failure of Operation Lamp. There, too, the Little Man had claimed to be desperately ill.
There, too, he had stubbornly refused to crack under prolonged interrogation.

‘What about Dicketts?’

‘Well, that’s the big plan. Plus he’s got instructions to buy a motorboat and pick up agents from one of the Channel Islands. Explosives and messages too. And his own
transmitter.’

‘It would seem he was busier than you.’

‘Ah – I was that sick I could barely crawl around.’ Owens lit up his umpteenth cigarette, then touched his stomach gingerly and winced as if in pain.

‘You took your time telling us you were blown, Snowy,’ Tar continued evenly. ‘I assume you warned Dick before he left for Germany?’

‘Soon as he stepped off the boat. That’s why I say he isn’t playing straight. He had no hesitation in going to Berlin, no hesitation in the world. If I’d come straight
out the blue, like
him, I shouldn’t have gone. Then he comes back full of it, and he’s got something important from Goebbels and Schacht.’

‘You’re quite certain he’s working for the other side?’

‘Absolute gospel. He got into places I’ve never been asked to go. Why should a perfect stranger be treated like that? It doesn’t sound right to me.’

‘A double-crosser?’

‘An extremely dangerous man, take it from me. Whoever’s got the most money, he’ll work for. Plus he takes dope.’ Owens paused for a moment. ‘The thing is to find
out what he’s got in those sealed packages.’

‘That’s all taken care of.’

‘Well, thank God for that. Because according to Dick, me and him have got to go round and see Mr Churchill and get the war settled.’

Robertson offered no reply. In the light of the Venlo fiasco in November 1939 the Prime Minister had refused point-blank to parlay with ambivalent Nazis who claimed to be working for peace.
Though the Blitz continued to exact a horrifying toll, and Greece and the Balkans looked likely to fall, few in the know doubted the wisdom of letting Hitler invade the Soviet Union and lose the
war on frozen battlefields a thousand miles to the east. Let the dictators destroy themselves.

As the hours wore on at Nell Gwynn House Owens’ answers became ever more tendentious, and the detail increasingly fuzzy. ‘Snow’s demeanour under interrogation gives every
impression of telling the truth,’ concluded Masterman, weary yet bemused. ‘Which, indeed, he really thinks he is doing.’ But the chair of the Twenty Committee was a history don,
not a clinical psychologist. And canny Agent Snow thought nothing of the kind.

Finally Robertson instructed Owens to draft a written summary of his stay in Lisbon, then drove with Masterman from Chelsea to Mayfair, where Dicketts had been installed in a flat off Berkeley
Square. With his lucrative peace plan derailed by
Customs officials at Whitchurch, the hapless triple agent hastily concocted a very different version of his German odyssey,
involving robust interrogation and nerves of steel, followed by lobster suppers, scuffles in nightclubs and trifling encounters with pretty young ladies and junior aides.

For B1A and MI5, of paramount concern was whether Owens had warned Dicketts that his cover was blown before entering Germany. Tar sensed that he knew the answer already. ‘Snow, being the
little rascal that he is, preferred the security of his own neck to that of his friend Celery.’

Adopting tactics tried and tested at Camp 020, Robertson and Masterman sought to resolve the conundrum by putting the two spies together in a room for the first time since landing at Whitchurch.
With a stenographer unlikely to keep pace, the confrontation was recorded direct onto acetate discs. The date, appropriately enough, was Tuesday, 1 April 1941.

All Fools’ Day.

‘You must both be aware of the seriousness of the position,’ began Masterman. ‘For us, Arthur, the essential point is the exact nature of your warning to Dick in
Lisbon.’

Owens turned towards Dicketts. ‘You didn’t know I was blown?’

‘You never told me anything about it. When did you break it to me?’

‘I believe I warned you when you came up to my room at the hotel.’

‘I don’t care what your beliefs are,’ snapped Dicketts. ‘I want to know exactly.’

‘I told you in front of the Doctor, Dick. The whole shooting match – everything about me in connection with the British Secret Service.’ Owens gestured vigorously with his
hands, as though he were back in the room at the Metropole. ‘Don’t you remember sitting there, the Doctor sitting there, and me sitting on the bed with Döbler?’