Agent in Berlin, page 16
It was seven o’clock when the train pulled into Bern. Basil Remington-Barber was there to meet him. He greeted Barney like an honoured guest who’d unexpectedly accepted an invitation to a remote country house. Basil shepherded him out of the station and across Bahnhofplatz to the Schweizerhof.
‘In my opinion, Barney, this is possibly the best hotel in Switzerland, let alone Bern. Wonderful place. Not many of our visitors stay here – budgets and all that – but I persuaded the ambassador’s secretary that you need to be here because’ – he tugged Barney’s coat sleeve to stop him, indicating he should come closer – ‘the Germans have started putting guests up here. Their embassy on Willadingweg is becoming quite the hive of activity and it’s useful to have an excuse to pop in and out of the hotel to see who else is here.’
Half an hour later they were in a restaurant in an ancient building on Kreuzgasse. On the short walk there, Basil told him this was his favourite restaurant in Bern – in Switzerland in fact – the food was wonderful, the wine list ‘a work of art’ and it was as if it had been designed as a meeting place for spies.
Barney could see what he meant. They had to ring a bell in an unremarkable doorway to be admitted and then a maître d’ guided them along uneven floors through the low-ceilinged building to their table, which was in its own alcove and completely private from any other diners.
The service was discreet and unobtrusive and the food excellent, though Barney found himself worrying about the bill and quite how Piers Devereux would view his expenses claim but Basil must have sensed his concern because he said not to worry, this meal was on the embassy and Sir George was a terribly decent sort even though he was technically an envoy rather than an ambassador.
‘Can you see us avoiding war, Barney? I gather you spend a good deal of time in Germany.’
‘Not as much as I’d like, Basil, one has to be careful these days. I ration my visits but I am going on to Berlin from here – after Zurich.’
‘Good idea: the train from Zurich is probably the best way in, assuming you’re not on any list. What cover are you using?’
‘I’m diplomatic here but in Germany I’m Edward Campion, representing a college in London. Not sure how much longer I’ll be able to use that though, these days no one is interested in coming to study in England – apart from the Jews, and they struggle to get out.’
‘This could be one of your last visits there… I say, here’s the côte de boeuf, looks splendid – deserves it’s very own bottle of red, wouldn’t you agree?’
They returned to the subject of war. Barney said he was by no means certain either way whether there would or wouldn’t be a war. ‘I’m a betting man, Basil, and if you asked me for odds I’d say evens, but in our line of work it doesn’t pay to be an optimist, does it? Best to assume the worst and then work back from there: if we don’t plan for it then we’re not really doing our job, are we?’
Basil grunted in agreement and pointed his knife at the bowl of potato Lyonnaise, indicating Barney should help himself.
‘You do realise of course, Basil, that if – God forbid – we go to war then you’ll rather be our front line here, won’t you?’
The other man nodded, a resigned look on his face. ‘Indeed – ask for some mustard, if you wish, Barney, I can’t abide the stuff but it’s not against the rules. I was hoping to retire, you know, but I can’t see that happening for a while. I’ve been told that we’ll need to beef up the station here once we start to exchange fire, so to speak. Looks like London want me to do it on the same budget though. I have been told we’ll get reinforcements from Berlin: apparently, I can have my pick of the station there. Do you know them?’
‘I keep my distance from them but Foley’s a good sort, but I doubt they’d send him here. One chap I’ve had dealings with who I rate highly is Noel Moore – do you know him? He works with Foley in the Passport Control Office. I’d suggest putting in a request for him when the time is right. I do have a favour to ask from you though, Basil.’
‘Go on.’
‘I have a potential agent in Berlin, someone I’ve been keeping my eye on. I think they could be first class but they’re on a very long fuse, personally I don’t think they’ll sign up until we’re at war. In that case I need to find a way of letting them contact us and I thought you could help – maybe running a totally reliable address they could send a message to?’
Basil paused as he tried to dislodge some meat from between his teeth. ‘Sorry about that, yes, of course. Come to the embassy at ten tomorrow morning. It’s on Thunstrasse, on the other side of the River Aar. You can take a taxi, but if you fancy a walk, cross over on Kirchenfeldbrücke, my favourite bridge in the whole of Switzerland. Everyone there knows what I do, of course, but do remember to play along with the charade that I’m a commercial attaché, eh? My father’s family would be outraged to think I was in trade!’
* * *
After his visit to the embassy on the Thursday, Barney Allen travelled to Zurich, where he remained until the following Tuesday. He was hoping to make contact with a senior official from the German Finance Ministry whom Werner had tipped him off about: the man was based temporarily at Germany’s consulate in Zurich where he ‘moved currency around’, as Werner put it. Werner had heard – through a friend of someone who knew him – that this man was known to have reservations about the regime and was about to be posted back to Berlin, which he wasn’t happy about. It was all rather vague, but Barney had learnt this was so often how contacts were made: following up on a rumour, moving cautiously – taking the temperature, Piers called it. If it was true and the man did indeed ‘have reservations about the regime’ then it would still be a long step from that to spying for the British, but that was how it started.
But Zurich didn’t go well: on the Friday Barney tracked down where the man lived, delivered a note there leaving a telephone number for him to call to discuss ‘matters of mutual interest’, but to no avail. He watched his house over the weekend but never saw the man and on the Monday, telephoned him at work and said they had mutual friends in Berlin, but the man put the telephone down and took no more calls after that. Barney watched the consulate but it was a busy building and he couldn’t be sure what the man looked like. All in all he felt he’d not handled matters as well as he could have done and left Zurich with his tail between his legs.
The journey to Berlin took up all of Tuesday. They crossed the border into Germany at Friedrichshafen, which was as straightforward as Basil had assured him it would be – Not quite the same if you try and get out of Germany though!
He arrived at Anhalter Bahnhof as it got dark and used the underpass from the station, under Askanischen Platz, directly into the Excelsior Hotel. The hotel was not as luxurious as the Kaiserhof or the Adlon but it was large and given the atmosphere in Berlin he calculated its anonymity could be an advantage.
He rang Werner in the morning from a telephone box round the corner from the hotel. Werner didn’t sound as pleased to hear from Barney as he normally did: there was a noticeable edge to his voice.
‘Are you alone?’
‘Of course I am, you know I never have anyone back here. I didn’t realise you were in Berlin.’
‘I only arrived last night. I did say I was coming.’
‘You said in May.’
‘It is May.’
A pause as if Werner was checking what month it was. ‘Yes, but… you didn’t say exactly when.’
‘I never do actually, but enough of this friendly chit-chat, we need to meet today… Hello, are you there?’
‘Yes, I was thinking – where are you staying?’
‘The Excelsior.’
‘Very well… I’ll tell you what, on Obentraut Strasse there’s a shop selling gentlemen’s hats: wait in the doorway of the office block next door. I’ll meet you there in an hour.’
Werner was half an hour late and Barney was furious. A foreigner – anyone in fact – standing in a doorway in Berlin for that length of time could arouse suspicion. He’d got through five cigarettes as he waited. Eventually a dirty black Volkswagen drove past, sounded its horn and then parked just up the road. Werner leaned out of the driver’s window and waved.
‘I didn’t know you’d got a car?’
‘I haven’t.’
‘So what is this, Werner, a horse and cart?’
‘It’s not my car, Barnaby, I pay a man in the apartment below me to let me use it from time to time. I thought we’d drive out to Grunewald Forest: it’s quiet there. We can talk.’
‘Can’t we talk in the city, Werner?’
‘We can, Barnaby, but things are getting so much worse, that’s one of the things I wanted to discuss with you. In the past few weeks, the situation has deteriorated considerably. There are more police on the streets and there seem to be Gestapo everywhere. I’ve heard of so many people being arrested, mostly for crimes that didn’t exist even months ago. My neighbour – the one who lends me this car – he told me he was in a food shop last week and a woman in the queue made a casual remark about how expensive everything was these days – not even blaming the regime – and another man in the shop pulled out his Gestapo badge and took her away. Last week I was stopped on the train to Dresden and they started to question me for no reason and only just seemed satisfied when they saw I’m a Party member.’
‘You should have told me, Werner.’
‘I’m telling you now! I just feel it’s as if… I don’t know how to put it, it’s as if the city’s closing in on me. Everything I do seems to be a risk, so I thought it would be a good idea to come out here. I used to come here before… you know.’
‘What about now, won’t we look suspicious?’
‘Less suspicious than in the city.’
They parked the Volkswagen and walked in silence into the forest. Werner obviously knew the area well, they turned off the main path and headed through the dense trees until they came to a narrower path. The canopy of the trees was now so high it was noticeably darker.
‘We met in Cologne at the end of February, didn’t we, Barnaby?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And we discussed Tadashi Kimura and Arno Marcus then, didn’t we?’
‘And the SS friend of yours—’
‘I don’t want to talk about him at the moment.’
‘I’d quite like to.’
‘I need to talk about the others first. You said you wanted something from Kimura to check he’s genuine and then we could get Arno out of Germany and to England.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Well he did give me some documents, Barnaby, and I passed them on to you and I’ve heard nothing since. You told me how Japan was a priority, any intelligence we could get on them would be invaluable and I got you a document from their embassy, but there’s been no response. They’re getting very impatient; it’s been over two months now. Surely you see the urgency of this? We have the opportunity to have a well-placed source inside the Japanese embassy and I don’t know what’s going on. Even when – if – you do give me the go-ahead to get Arno out of Berlin it is still going to take time to arrange. I’ve already told you; this place gets more dangerous by the day and I—’
‘I’d keep your voice down, Werner, there’s really no need to shout.’
‘No one can hear us here: we’re in the middle of a bloody forest!’
‘It took a month for anything from Mr Kimura to arrive in London, in fact I think it was early April, so we’ve only had it for one month.’
‘I told you, he had to find the right documents and then the right time to copy them. It was never going to be quick.’
‘I accept that, but of course once the documents arrived in London they had to be translated and then analysed: taking a view as to whether they’re genuine or whether they’re sophisticated fakes and we’re being taken for a ride – that’s a very difficult call, Werner. The Japanese are very practised in the art of disinformation. The main document was to do with a co-operation agreement between the Kriegsmarine and the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was an exceedingly complex document and we needed our Royal Navy chaps to have a look at it and well… the long and the short of it is that it was only while I was in Zurich that I heard everyone agrees it is genuine – and jolly useful, which is putting it mildly. One’s sense that having a better awareness of Japan’s intentions was a priority has been vindicated, I believe. There is a general agreement that this document does indicate that Japan does indeed have hostile intentions, so the view inside the Service is that we want whatever we can get from Kimura. You can get a move on now and get Arno on his way. You said it’ll cost a lot?’
‘There are obviously bound to be costs, Barnaby.’
The Englishman stopped and handed an envelope to Werner. ‘There’s five hundred Reichsmarks in here. Now what about this SS friend of yours: when did you last see him?’
‘I’ve not seen him since the night I copied those documents.’
‘Why not?’
‘I was waiting to see what you said and, in any case, he’s not really my type – he came into the bed wearing his SS uniform, for Christ’s sake, Barnaby.’
‘I’m not sure I want to know that kind of detail actually, Werner. The view in London is that this material is also first class, he’s an excellent source and needs to be looked after. The von Brauchitsch document was very useful but the Army chaps were more excited with the lists of names, ranks and military units. That’s bloody useful for them, so more of the same, please. You’re going to need to resume your friendship with Untersturmführer Harald Fuchs.’
Werner nodded in a resigned manner and Barney said he was doing an excellent job what with the diplomat and the SS chap and he reckoned he deserved a good meal as a thank-you. Werner said it would be safer to meet for lunch the following day as Sundays tended to be busy and the atmosphere in the city felt less tense. He knew a place that had recently opened on Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Platz.
The restaurant was ideal and Werner was considerably more relaxed than he’d been the previous day. They discussed how it would now be best for him to distance himself from Holborn College and concentrate on his family business. Barney would write a letter severing Werner’s relationship with the College, pointing out Werner’s increasingly hostile attitude to Britain. They also talked about what would happen in the event of war between the two countries and agreed Werner would remain in Berlin but be inactive for the first couple of months, just in case…
When they left the restaurant, they strolled into Französische Strasse. Barney said he was going back to the hotel and would remain in Berlin for a few more days but wouldn’t contact Werner on this trip unless it was urgent. Werner agreed: he said that sounded safer and he now had plenty to get on with anyway. They stopped by the cathedral: Werner said he was going to head back to his apartment and the two men shook hands and slapped each other on the shoulder and Barney watched as Werner headed south with that familiar spring in his step.
He felt relieved: Werner had clearly needed to vent his worries and Barney realised he’d probably not made enough allowance for the pressure he worked under. He was pleased Werner seemed to be back to normal and he was also pleased with how well things were going in Berlin. Piers was also delighted: he’d told Barney how he liked to think of a properly functioning network of spies as being like a wolf pack.
‘I thought the idea was for these agents to be independent of each other – to be unaware of each other’s existence?’
‘Up to a point, Barney, but there’ll be a time when you need them to act together – no animal does that more effectively than a pack of wolves, whatever danger they face.’
Barney was thinking of his pack of wolves, roaming the streets of Berlin. It was quite busy and Barney wasn’t taking much notice of what was around him. Had he done so, as he’d been trained to do, then life would have turned out very differently.
Chapter 16
Berlin
May 1939
Barney Allen woke around eight o’clock on the morning of Monday, 8 May having slept better than he’d done for some time. Ever since he’d met Sophia von Naundorf in August 1936, he’d been hoping to recruit her as an agent. If asked to give odds on turning the disillusioned and unhappy wife of a senior SS officer into a British agent he’d have said 33/1 at least: a long shot but worth a try.
When he’d first met Sophia, he’d asked if they could keep in touch and she’d replied it would be nice to hear from him but only call during the day and never at weekends.
He’d waited until March the following year to call when he was in Berlin: she said she was busy and maybe he could call another time, which he did that November, but this time she sounded nervous and said this wasn’t a good time so he waited until the middle of 1938. She paused when he said who it was, as if thinking about what to do. She was happy he’d called, she said, but now wasn’t… perhaps in a few months? The last time he’d called was in January when she reacted in a similar manner, though this time he thought he detected a degree of hesitancy in her voice.
But this time it was a very different matter. He’d waited until the Thursday morning to telephone her.
‘Good morning – I do hope I’m not disturbing you, it’s Edward Campion. We last—’
‘Edward – how nice to hear from you! Are you in Berlin?’
Barney Allen said he was and he’d brought some wonderful English weather with him and they both laughed. He wondered if perhaps she’d like to meet for coffee?
‘Not before the weekend, please, it won’t be convenient then. Perhaps Monday? Maybe if you call me around this time and we can arrange where to meet.’
Barney had planned to tell Werner about Sophia when they’d met for lunch on the Sunday. If she showed any sign of being prepared to work for the British then he wanted Werner to run her. It would be good for them to meet while Barney was still in Berlin. He wanted to make the introductions himself and he suspected Werner and Sophia would get on well. But first he needed to be sure about Sophia.
