The Hornet's Sting (32 page)

When the detectives finally broke into the fifth-floor flat at 15 St. Annaegade, they were disappointed to find it almost entirely cleared of possessions. What Esbensen and his colleagues discovered on the table intrigued them, though, especially when they received the results of the tests that were subsequently conducted in a police laboratory. The mystery man, who had so nearly been caught, had apparently made a carelss mistake in his rush to escape, one they had reason to believe might lead to his positive identification in time. The glasses he had left behind were most unusual: one of the lenses corrected a short-sighted eye, the other a long-sighted eye. A police doctor confirmed that the condition existed in only a tiny percentage of the population. The authorities therefore started the hunt for a man whose peculiar eye problems would ultimately betray his identity, or at the very least link him to the apartment. ‘Carelessly’ leaving behind the specially prepared spectacles had worked just as Sneum, who had perfect vision, had intended.

T
OMMY WAS ON THE RUN and by now he had come to the conclusion that the British were unlikely to help him. He hadn’t heard a word from Rabagliati or anyone else in London since landing in Denmark, so he would have to rely on his own contacts, as usual. Though he needed somewhere to hide, even now he didn’t want to be too far from the action in Copenhagen. Rather than try to return to Britain, his aim was to weather the storm in the Danish capital and then continue with his mission.

There wasn’t much room at Kaj Oxlund’s first-floor flat, because Christophersen had returned as ordered. Besides, it seemed more sensible to leave Kaj to keep Sigfred under close observation. After giving the matter some thought, Sneum decided to take up a long-standing offer of accommodation in the basement of a house belonging to Professor Hagedorn, who was attempting to verify the information about Germany’s super-bomb with his friend Chiewitz. There was ample space in the basement to hide Duus Hansen’s radio apparatus; and the room was self-contained, so Tommy could have his own set of keys and move about freely. Hagedorn would simply deny all knowledge of Tommy’s presence if the latter were caught. Though such a claim would certainly be doubted, it would be the professor’s best hope of avoiding the same fate as a captured spy.

As Sneum reorganized his life, so did his estranged wife Else. The spell as a shop assistant in Copenhagen’s city center had provided a distraction from her husband’s latest disappearance. Unfortunately, with the Christmas rush over and the demand for staff reduced, she had been laid off by the Fonnesbech store. Once again she was faced with the frustrations of life as a single parent. But once again her family came to the rescue and agreed to finance a career move that might soon hand her back her precious independence.

She enrolled for a course at Miss A. Wiesel, a top secretarial college in Copenhagen. Between 10.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. each weekday, she honed her typing, stenography and book-keeping skills. The rest of the time she was happy to spend with Marianne. The college course gave her hope for a brighter professional future, even if her personal life had provided more heartache than she had anticipated.

Another estranged wife, a former friend of Else, had suffered no less from the impact of the war. Having spent her first Christmas for ten years apart from her husband, Tulle Oxlund had time to reflect upon where it had all gone wrong. Kaj’s personality had changed almost as soon as the Nazis had invaded. Then, in the summer of 1941, he seemed to have squandered a handsome inheritance on several failed business ventures. To her intense embarrassment, creditors had started knocking on their door. It was no coincidence that in this awful atmosphere their worst arguments had erupted. Before long, the fights had become violent. That was when she had known it was time to leave, for both their sakes. A formal separation was the next step, but she found it hard to erase the sweeter memories she had from many happy years of marriage.

Her first, pre-Christmas, telephone call to the marital home had thrown up more questions than answers, not least over the mystery man who had picked up the phone. Confused, Tulle called Kaj again in January 1942 to ask what was happening. He was necessarily evasive. Whatever sticky predicament he was in, he didn’t want her to know the details; nor, quite clearly, did he want her help. Sadly, she realized she was destined to remain firmly on the outside, looking in.

Tommy had only just settled into Hagedorn’s cellar when he received a visit from his new landlord and Chiewitz. The latter had some very important news. The previous night he had persuaded Niels Bohr to come to dinner. Eventually, he and Hagedorn had steered the conversation towards the possibility of a new super-bomb. As far as they could understand from Bohr, it would be based on the release of nuclear energy. And if he was right, both sides in this war had realized the hugely destructive potential of such a weapon, and would already be assessing how quickly it could become a reality.

Chiewitz continued: ‘Bohr says that in Germany two professors in particular, Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn, have been working in this field. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they have been building a bomb.’

‘But it’s possible?’ Sneum feared the answer.

‘Niels says that such a bomb could be built.’ There was a stunned silence before Chiewitz added: ‘To build it would be one thing. To control it would be quite another. That’s what Bohr told me. But he thinks there is one man who might be able to control the huge forces involved: an Italian professor called Enrico Fermi.’

As long as the Allies kept Fermi out of the clutches of the Nazis, Tommy felt there was reason to believe that this devastating new weapon might remain out of Germany’s reach, however much pressure Hitler placed on his own scientists. He recalled later: ‘Bohr believed that the Germans thought they could develop this bomb. But he didn’t think they would be able to do it in practice.’

The fact that they might try, however, was in itself a hugely important piece of intelligence. And what if Bohr was underestimating the ingenuity of the German scientists? Such a mistake had been made before. Tommy knew he had to move quickly to send the British news of what he had just learned. Fortunately, his scheduled transmission to London was imminent.

Now, more than ever, Duus Hansen’s expertise would be crucial. Within an hour, Tommy had contacted Copenhagen’s most innovative engineer and they had arranged to meet that evening in the coastal village of Skodsborg. Sneum had rented a third-floor apartment at the upper end of the quaint little holiday village in the hope of achieving clearer contact with his spymasters. Sigfred Christophersen, who now considered it too dangerous to be present during transmissions, wouldn’t be there to hinder them. Duus Hansen had given up trying to act as peacemaker between the two agents, and Tommy considered Sigfred’s abe at key moments a positive advantage. The new partnership had the right crystals and a superb new radio, so why did they need a ham-fisted wireless operator whose nerves were shot to pieces?

Duus Hansen calmly transmitted Sneum’s coded message about the potential for an atom bomb in a fraction of the time it would have taken Christophersen to perform the task. The new recruit felt confident that he must have succeeded, even though, yet again, they received no acknowledgement from England. Sneum had already warned him that the British might not see fit to reply.

There was a sense of satisfaction as Sneum and Duus Hansen left the apartment to make their way back to Copenhagen. For the first time, all their problems seemed conquerable; they were alive, they were free and they had done an outstanding job. It was the start of a highly productive phase in Tommy’s mission for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

With Duus Hansen’s increasing help and guidance, Sneum sent the British a treasure trove of information over the coming weeks: ship and troop movements, the names of key German intelligence officers in Copenhagen, lists of their treacherous assistants among the Danish police; all were detailed and dispatched across the radio waves to London with unrivalled speed and skill. In his communications, Sneum pointed to the strategic importance of certain bridges, the destruction of which would do most damage to German transport links. He also used his political background and contacts to keep Britain informed of any subtle shifts among Denmark’s major parties, with particular regard to their relations with the occupiers.

Duus Hansen later recalled this period: