Every Spy a Traitor, page 28
He’d not seen Comrade Ivan for the best part of a year and was now in a state of shock because he’d been told by someone who swore he’d seen it with his own eyes that Ivan had been killed in the fighting at Ebro a few months earlier.
But Ivan was still very much alive: his enormous frame slightly reduced, maybe, but the way the tiny blue eyes trained on him, and his pungent odour – a combination of garlic and strong tobacco – were unchanged, along with his insistence on speaking in heavily accented English and when he didn’t refer to him by his nickname – Sova – he called him ‘Doug’, pronounced ‘Duck’, even though Marsh preferred Douglas and also thought his Russian was better than Comrade Ivan’s English, which was saying something.
But Comrade Ivan was one of the few people Marsh didn’t argue with. He’d first met him when he joined the Sixteenth Battalion of the Fifteenth International Brigade – known as the British Battalion – in early 1938, just after the Battle of Teruel, and he’d been singled out because he spoke Russian and had recently been in Moscow.
Comrade Ivan announced he’d been selected to assist the GRU – it was as unclear as that – and they’d be keeping an eye on him and at first that hadn’t been as menacing as it sounded. He was taken to a training camp near the French border and treated very well and over the next year or so received what he had to acknowledge was preferential treatment, not least at the Battle of Ebro, when the company he commanded was pulled out of a suicidal attack minutes before it began.
The International Brigade had been dismantled in September 1938 and the members of the British Battalion were ordered to return home, but Douglas Marsh didn’t march with the Brigade on its final parade through Barcelona in October and nor was he among the three hundred or so British volunteers who were treated like heroes when they arrived at Victoria station at the beginning of December.
Instead, he’d slipped away and found an abandoned house in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi quarter of Barcelona, and a unit of the Republican Army only too willing to recruit him. They weren’t minded to ask him too many questions and that was how Marsh found himself running a small unit of a dozen other foreigners.
Now there were just five of them left and Barcelona was about to fall. Franco’s Nationalists had crossed the Ebro in early January, ten days earlier they’d captured Tarragona to the south and were now approaching the city from the north-west: Manresa and Tibidabo had fallen and Comrade Ivan had just told him they were on the banks of the Llobregat.
Marsh didn’t need a map of the city to know how close they were: he could see the smoke and smell it too, and for the past week they’d heard far more incoming artillery than outgoing. The Catalan sky was heavy with Heinkel bombers attacking the city.
‘The fascists will have captured the city by the end of the week at the latest,’ said the Russian, his normally expressionless face now looking worried. As ever, his head was very still. ‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll fight to defend the city. Maybe General Rojo—’
‘Forget General Rojo – the battle is lost.’
‘Then we’ll head for Figueres: I hear the Republicans still hold the city.’
‘I mean, when all of Spain is lost, what will you do then, Doug?’
Marsh hesitated because he knew Comrade Ivan and the GRU better than this: they didn’t allow discussion or the expression of an opinion and this felt like a test.
‘I’ll go back to the Soviet Union: I’ll continue the fight against fascism from there. I’m not returning to Britain.’ That felt like the right answer.
Comrade Ivan shook his head and Marsh worried he’d failed the test but then, quite unexpectedly, the Russian smiled and said to listen carefully.
‘Your orders are to return to Britain. The Communist Party there is a useful vehicle for Soviet Intelligence agencies. The Comintern’s OMS has people there and so does the NKVD. We want you to be the GRU’s eyes and ears inside the Communist Party. Europe is in turmoil and we need to have influence in London. You look disappointed, Doug?’
Douglas Marsh said, no, not at all… if that was how he could best serve the Soviet Union and the cause of peace and socialism then, of course, he would do whatever was required. He’d travel to France and—
Ivan shook his head again. ‘Too dangerous. Go to the British Consulate on Diagonal; there’s a Royal Navy ship called the HMS Greyhound currently off the coast waiting to evacuate British citizens. They won’t take combatants, certainly not from the Republican side, but we’ve prepared paperwork to show you’ve been working with orphans in Aragon. You have the identity of Oliver Lord: only use that name until you get back to Britain. Tell them you’re religious. They’ll like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘The British will like that you’re religious. They’ll trust you then and won’t suspect you of being a Republican or a communist. But you need to get a haircut and shave off that beard.’
Ivan looked at Marsh: he had a wild appearance, hair everywhere and his skin tanned and leathered and stained with filth. When he had first met him, he had a pale complexion, like someone who spent most of his time in a library.
‘Go upstairs and get a haircut. Then take a shower. There’s a change of clothing in the bathroom and a few things in a small case, including a Bible. Tell me, who are the other guys you’re with?’
‘They’re my comrades, Ivan: we’ve been together for months.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Otto’s a German Jew, Jens is Danish, and Jack and George are brothers from London.’
‘And do they know you’re Douglas Marsh?’
Marsh said yes, but there was really no need to worry: he trusted them implicitly and they were all good socialists and he was sure he could persuade the British consulate to allow them onto the boat too. Ivan said he’d better get a move on.
‘Where are the comrades waiting for you?’
‘A bar round the corner on Pàdua – the one with green shutters.’
* * *
Douglas Marsh felt much better after his haircut, shave and shower and with the clean set of clothes he felt totally refreshed. The barber had given him a large shot of strong Spanish brandy in a cup of equally strong coffee with no milk and when Marsh looked in the case Ivan had left for him there was an envelope full of cash and he decided that once he’d collected Otto, Jens, Jack and George from the bar where he’d told them to wait, he’d be able to buy them all a decent meal before they headed off to the British Consulate.
But when he got to the bar on Carrer de Pàdua the door was locked and the street silent as startled eyes stared at him through shuttered windows.
He stood there trying to decide what to do and almost immediately heard small arms fire just ahead of him and he had enough experience by now to know it was from a semi-automatic: six quick shots, a pause, and a shout and six more. He ran in the direction of the gunshots: on the other side of Avenida de la República Argentina. He saw some movement on Carrer de Velázquez and by the time he got there two figures were hurrying away.
On the ground were the bodies of his four comrades, Otto’s face turned towards him and one other body – possibly that of Jack, still moving.
He only hesitated for a moment or two, his head dropping and then he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and his eyes too as he pulled himself together.
He’d had just over a year of this: getting as close as it was possible to a comrade and then losing them.
The only way to cope was to move on.
To the north, a flight of Heinkels banked over the city.
Douglas Marsh headed to the British Consulate.
Behind him, Ivan watched from the shadow of a deep doorway and nodded to himself.
As long as Marsh remained alive and got to London, he was safe too.
Chapter 26
London
February–March 1939
The situation he found himself in was so complicated and so… well, crazy was the only word for it… that Cooper caught himself thinking of those plays he’d been dragged along to by his mother which were meant to be comedies, where one person was romantically involved with another who in turn was interested in someone else, who also…
Suffice to say that they involved much heavy-handed innuendo, with members of the cast running around the stage and into the wings shrieking, and badly constructed doors slamming and risqué suggestions of ‘activities’, as his mother called them, offstage.
They were called farces and that neatly summed up Cooper’s current predicament. He’d been a Soviet spy and then he’d rather cleverly – or so he’d thought – wriggled himself out of that, only to then become a British spy, which was awkward, certainly, but not nearly as awkward as being a Soviet spy because at least he was no longer a traitor. But now, so it seemed, he was a Soviet spy once more while at the same time as being a British spy.
Neither side knew he was spying for the other, so in that sense, he wasn’t a double agent.
Indeed, if only he were something as straightforward as that.
* * *
Much to Randall’s discomfort – he said he really did need to lock up and it was getting terribly late – Osip insisted they’d remain in his office in Store Street because he and Mr Cooper had much to talk about.
‘It’s nice and warm here and this is a most comfortable chair and I see you have a drinks cabinet, Mr Randall, so I suggest you open it and then go and wait in another room, ideally on the floor below.’
Randall made a fuss about unlocking the drinks cabinet and took out a quarter-full bottle of Scotch and a couple of not exactly shiny glasses and said they really couldn’t leave it too late and Osip dismissed him with a wave of the hand and said to make sure he shut the door behind him.
The Russian waited until Randall’s footsteps had disappeared down the stairs before removing his large overcoat and then poured them each a generous measure of whisky and from a box on the desk found a cigar, which he lit with some difficulty. Each time he put the cigar to his lips he licked them.
He leant back in Randall’s chair, all the while looking terribly pleased with himself, as well he might. Cooper imagined that if you were a Russian spy master who’d been careless enough to lose an agent even before he’d started, it probably didn’t go down awfully well in Moscow.
He did ask Cooper if he had an explanation for all this and Cooper said he wasn’t sure what he meant, and Osip said he meant disappearing and now calling himself Christopher Shaw.
Cooper shrugged and said that when he returned from Moscow the pressure of things had got on top of him and he needed a break before he got in touch and Osip looked at him as if he didn’t believe a word but to his surprise he shrugged and said that was in the past and the main thing was that he was here now and how was he getting on?
‘Getting on with what?’
‘Getting on with your original mission, which was to join the Foreign Office or the War Office.’
Cooper felt sick and very hot. ‘These things take time, you don’t just join, you know.’
‘So, you’ve applied?’
‘After a fashion, yes.’
‘What does “after a fashion” mean?’
‘It means I’m making enquiries about applying – I’m in the process of it. It wouldn’t have been any good if I’d applied straight after I returned from Moscow, because of the state I was in. I worried I could give the game away at an interview and you wouldn’t have wanted that, would you?’
‘Maybe not straight after, but almost eighteen months? To me that sounds like a poor excuse. I could be forgiven for suspecting that you have had second thoughts and no longer wish to work for the Comintern!’
Cooper was glad a screen of dirty cigar smoke had formed between him and Osip because he worried his reaction would somehow betray him, but then the Russian swept the smoke away with a chubby hand, revealing an innocent smile.
‘But you are a very lucky comrade, Mr Cooper! Moscow has decided on a different mission for you.’
Osip paused and glanced towards the door, eyeing it suspiciously, and then shifted his bulky frame so that he was leaning forward, pushing aside a tall pile of papers on Randall’s desk. He gestured towards Cooper.
‘Come forward, you’ll hear me better. From now on, I’m going to use your codename: Bertie. I’ll be honest with you, there are tensions within Moscow – there always are – but these days they have become quite marked, not least in the area of intelligence. As well as the Comintern, for whom we work, there are other bodies involved in intelligence-gathering: the NKVD and the GRU both work in a clandestine manner and, of course, there’s the Soviet Foreign Ministry, which operates through the Soviet Embassy here in London. There is a degree of co-operation between the different organisations, but, if I’m honest, there’s an even higher degree of competition and even hostility. Comintern is very concerned that we need to be better informed about what our comrades are up to and in particular we wish to be better informed on what is happening within the British Communist Party. Do you know much about it, Bertie?’
Cooper replied that of course he’d heard of the British Communist Party and had even bought their newspaper – the Daily Worker, wasn’t it? – on occasion and he understood that it had a Member of Parliament and was quite influential in certain trade unions and Osip looked impressed.
‘That’s a good start. You are to get involved in the Communist Party of Great Britain: we want regular reports on its activities and the names of people who are influential within it. We are also particularly interested in anyone who could be suspected of representing these other Soviet organisations, namely the NKVD, the GRU and the Foreign Ministry. It’s not an easy task, but it’s a most important one.’
Now, not only was he spying for two countries simultaneously, but he was also being asked to do so on the same subject.
* * *
For a few days Cooper toyed with the idea of disappearing altogether – he still had the funds, after all. But he knew that with both the British and the Soviets looking for him the odds on surviving very long were slim.
Spying for both on the British Communist Party was just about feasible because, after all, it was what he did anyway.
In the weeks after meeting Osip in Store Street he developed a modus operandi which was more or less manageable.
In the evenings in Willesden, he would take to his room after dinner and type out his reports for The Annexe: he’d deliver two or three of them a week – running to as much as half a dozen closely typed pages, cramming in as much detail as possible. The Annexe lapped up dates and names and even the gossip and rumour which King Street seemed to thrive on. On other evenings or at weekends, Cooper still attended meetings of the Communist Party or educational events put on by it and its various front organisations.
He’d post the reports through the letterbox of a nearby Annexe safe house on his way into King Street. Once he’d started working for the OMS, he began making duplicate versions of the report: he’d leave King Street as early as he could and stop at his flat in Dorset Square and type up a new and slightly more abridged version of the same report, this time for a different master.
He became adept at tailoring his reports. It was simpler for The Annexe – more factual and more of a starting point for his face-to-face debriefs with Burton or Clarke, which took place at least once a week. For Osip, there was far more of what he’d describe as artistic licence, though he accepted that some may say it was closer to fiction.
To that end, he invented a cast of characters and realised they’d work perfectly in a new novel. They possessed an authenticity he could now see The Jewels of Europe lacked. Somehow, the reports rang true, with a heart and a flow which made the novel seem stilted in comparison.
He came up with a women called Barbara he claimed he’d encountered at a number of educational events and he wasn’t sure if her surname was Hardie or Harvey and he thought she lived in Enfield but it could be Edgware and she spoke very good Russian and he’d overheard her saying she often travelled there and he was sure she had NKVD contacts… and then there was Piers, well-spoken and rumoured to be a minor aristocrat, who was a regular at meetings in Central London and was known to be very generous… and Malcolm, which he didn’t think was his real name, surname possibly Stanley, but almost certainly a secret Trotskyite… and a young Indian man called Rajesh who he believed was a medical student at Barts… and a Jewish man called Gold-something or the other replete with a long nose and stooped shoulders and sallow complexion who Cooper thought couldn’t be trusted but was very sharp – he thought Osip would buy that because his experience in Moscow had been that Russians didn’t trust Jews, even though they made up half of the Politburo – and half a dozen others, all with something about them which he hoped would intrigue the OMS.
And a couple of these – Barbara Hardie or Harvey in particular – had very good contacts inside King Street, which Cooper pointed out was the headquarters of the Communist Party. And here he added information he hoped Osip would be able to verify, thus putting him in a good light because it would show his reports were credible.
He listed all the people he could think of in King Street: he mentioned Cliff Milne in passing – he called him Clifford Mills, hoping that slight error would have more of a ring of truth about it – and said he was rather mysterious and there were rumours he may be involved with one of the Soviet Intelligence agencies. He even made an oblique reference to himself – a ‘pleasant young man called Frank’ who seemed to work for Mills, though after he handed that report to Osip, he immediately regretted it. It was frivolous and unnecessary.
And he wrote a long report on Sidney Dunn: possibly a Trotskyite spy, he said, connected with Mills and one of the Soviet agencies were rumoured to have killed him in his home in Stepney. He even provided the address and the date he was killed, but added that he couldn’t verify this, it was just a rumour – but he knew Osip would check it out and find out most of the story happened to be true.
