Agent in Berlin, page 32
‘Furthermore,’ said Brookes, ‘our understanding is that Hitler regrets the fact that this country and France declared war against Germany in 1939 rather than vice versa. We think persuading him to declare war against the United States will appeal to his vanity, to his desire to be seen as a powerful military leader, a man in control of his country’s destiny.’
* * *
Pssst!
Sophia von Naundorf was hurrying home from swimming on a bitterly cold Wednesday morning. Since the invasion of Russia people commented wryly that the weather had worsened – a convoluted joke along the lines of forgetting to close the windows. Her hair was damp and she just wanted to get home and have a hot bath.
Pssst!
She heard it as she walked past a deep doorway on Schloss Strasse but carried on and ignored the sound once again as it appeared to follow her and when she quickened her step, she became aware of a figure coming alongside her, its shoulders hunched and head bowed low as was hers, meaning that for a moment she couldn’t make out who it was.
‘I presume you’re heading back to your apartment?’
A scarf covered the lower part of Jack Miller’s face, making his voice slightly muffled. She said she was.
‘Is your maid in?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Send her on an errand that will keep her away for at least an hour and then leave the door to the back staircase open: I’ll come up in half an hour. You could have a coffee waiting for me if you wish.’
Thirty minutes later they sat opposite each other in the sitting room, the fire blazing away.
‘You’re able to get coal?’
‘What do you think, Jack – that SS officers are deprived? But don’t think our lives are free from hardship – this is the last of the proper coffee. You look worried?’
‘I could be wrong and I’ve said nothing to London but I’m worried they may be on to me.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think – the social democrats? The Gestapo of course!’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘It’s only a suspicion, Sophia, but the other day I was followed when I left the Propaganda Ministry. I even walked all the way back to Sächsische Strasse, which stretched them a bit, but certainly I recognised three faces who were with me all the way. And most days I see someone watching the apartment. I managed to get a message to Tadashi that under no circumstances should he come anywhere near the place. Of course, it could be my imagination. It’s possible that with the strain I’ve been under I’m sensitive to anything like this – paranoia, I think they call it. But I don’t think it’s my imagination.’
‘Are you sure they didn’t follow you today?’
‘I managed to catch a tram on the Kurfürstendamm and then get off it while it was moving. I walked for another hour before I went to wait opposite the stadtbad on Krumme Strasse. Could I have another coffee?’
He followed her into the kitchen and leaned against the sink.
‘I know you’re going to tell me that I’m an American journalist in Berlin and it would be surprising if they weren’t keeping their eyes on me but… this seems more serious, if that’s the right word: sinister, maybe? I think someone may have been in the apartment last week, though it’s such a mess I can’t be certain. Since then, I’ve avoided passing anything on to the courier, not even a message telling them I’m laying low for a while.’
‘Should you leave Germany maybe?’
He’d spotted a bottle of schnapps on the side and was wondering whether to ask for some. ‘Not yet, not yet… there’s still too much to do, Sophia. The situation with Japan and the United States… it’s heading towards war. I can’t leave now. In any case…’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry… I’m not sleeping. I spent most of last night watching the street from a gap in the curtain: I’m certain a Gestapo car was parked opposite for a couple of hours around three o’clock. London have ordered me to brief Tadashi about something, they say it’s very urgent, an absolute priority. I’ve already told you I’ve instructed him not to come to my place but this briefing, it needs to be in person and…’
‘And you want me to do it?’
* * *
At the last meeting of the Frauenschaft Sophia had attended they’d impressed on those present how the organisation needed a higher profile. One way of doing that, they said, was to distribute copies of Frauen-Warte: ‘then people will see all the good work we do!’
She’d taken a bundle of copies and volunteered to distribute them, which was why just two nights after meeting with Jack Miller in her apartment she was at the side entrance of Tadashi Kimura’s apartment building on Brücken Allee. The old man on the first floor refused to come to the door; the woman on the second floor – Jack had warned Sophia about her – was polite enough and of course took a copy but Sophia got the impression she was frightened more than anything else. There was no one on the third floor so she posted a copy through the letterbox and then knocked on the door of the fourth-floor apartment.
Tadashi Kimura was calm when he opened the door and saw her. She asked if he was interested in a copy of Frauen-Warte and gestured that he should invite her in.
‘I can’t stay for more than five minutes, any more than that would look suspicious.’
‘Is it about Arno?’
‘No – you don’t need to worry about him.’
‘Jack told me not to contact him. I have some film here: can you pass it on?’
‘Give it to me. You need to listen carefully. Jack is busy but has a message for you from London…’
In the end she was in the apartment for ten minutes as she explained carefully what Jack had told her. If Japan is to declare war on the United States, then it would be desirable for Germany to declare war on them too… this should be presented of course as being in the interests of both Japan and Germany and…
‘…and of the United Kingdom too?’
Sophia shrugged. ‘Jack asks what the atmosphere is like at the embassy at the moment?’
Tadashi laughed. ‘Frantic and very tense. Something is clearly imminent. Ambassador Kurusu is heading to Washington but there’s no expectation of a diplomatic solution. In the last week there’s been a tightening of security – whether they suspect someone is passing on material or whether it is to do with the military situation, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m seeing less sensitive material so I’m being more cautious. The film I’ve just given you, it’s from last week. I don’t know when I’ll next have something to pass on. You can tell Jack that as of yesterday Admiral Yamamoto’s fleet was still at Hittokapu Bay. They need to be aware of that.’
She promised to return in a week or two and he urged her to be careful.
The following morning, she went for a swim at the stadtbad where in the Member’s Club she slipped the film and a note about what Tadashi had told her into Jack’s locker.
* * *
Very early that same morning a slight man wearing a suit too big on him met with Ambassador Ōshima in his private residence.
Kuzumi Kobayashi had arrived in Berlin at the beginning of November with the cover of a clerk in the consular department. Ōshima and the military attachés were the only ones aware of his true identity as a senior officer in the Kenpeitai, the Japanese secret police.
‘Have you concluded your investigation, Kobayashi?’
Kobayashi removed his spectacles and then put them back on before licking his thumb and turning over a page in his notebook. ‘I have concluded the first stage in my investigation, Ambassador.’
‘And your conclusions?’
‘My interim conclusion is that I agree with Tokyo that someone in this embassy is leaking material to the British and that material is reaching Washington.’
‘Which I’ve already told them is ridiculous – do you have proof?’
‘Not as such, sir, but I—’
‘Well there we are then – as I thought, no proof! Maybe the leaks are in Tokyo.’
Kuzumi Kobayashi stood up and ceremoniously handed a sheet of paper to the ambassador, bowing as he did so.
‘What is this?’
‘A list of suspects, sir.’
‘You have no proof but you do have suspects? That’s ridiculous!’
‘All of the people on this list had access to the documents we know may have been leaked.’
‘Half of my diplomats are on this list: maybe I ought to be on it too!’
‘I have compiled it in order, sir – the diplomats who have had access to the largest amount of leaked information are at the top.’
‘That is plainly ridiculous: Tadashi Kimura is up there – he’s one of my most trusted men. We have a clan connection, for heaven’s sake.’
‘I require you to allow me to place the diplomats at the top of the list under special surveillance, sir.’
Hiroshi Ōshima said very well, but this was going to be a waste of his time and he didn’t want anything to disrupt the important work these men were doing.
Chapter 35
Berlin
November and December 1941
Eleven… twelve days spanning the end of November and start of December, during which time Jack Miller felt like a reluctant witness to the last days of the world.
The enormity of the information he was privy to was hard to bear and he occasionally felt a mad urge to share it with people he barely knew like the cafe owner on Berliner Strasse who served him the freshest rolls and topped up his coffee for nothing, or the old woman in the threadbare shawl who spent all day sweeping the front of the apartment block next to his.
All this was a consequence of Tadashi Kimura’s behaviour, which had become increasingly manic during the course of November. On her second visit to Brücken Allee Sophia had been shocked at the diplomat’s behaviour. He’d hurried her into his apartment, tearful and panicked, and paced the room with a glass of whisky shaking in his hand.
It will be any day now… why aren’t you passing on these messages? Whose side are you and the American on? The atmosphere at the embassy… everyone is suspicious these days… I don’t trust you… you’re German… and a woman…
Sophia and Jack met the next morning, he entering her apartment through the basement and the side door, which opened onto the back staircase.
‘He’s panicking, Jack – he’s in a terrible state – and drunk.’
‘Hopefully it was just the drink talking and once he sobers up… maybe he needed to get things off his chest.’
‘He doesn’t trust me, that’s clear.’
‘I think he’s just on edge, Sophia, we all are and—’
‘He clearly doesn’t like women. I’m not sure it’s a good idea me going to see him again. I think you need to go and tell him to lay low for a while, not to pass on any intelligence for a week or so and then see how he is. What do you think?’
Jack shrugged.
‘Do you still think you’re being followed?’
‘Funnily enough there’s been no sign of it for the past week, maybe it was my imagination after all!’
* * *
It hadn’t been Jack Miller’s imagination.
The Gestapo officer assigned to investigate Jack Miller was none other than Karl Henniger, the man who’d handled the British woman Maureen Holland and had arrested and interrogated Werner Lustenberger.
Since the inconvenience of Werner’s death, Henniger was only trusted with routine cases, one of which was Jack Miller. The American had become a suspect only because the Propaganda Ministry had taken exception to the tone of his coverage of Germany’s defeat in Switzerland. They’d detected the use of humour and took offence at his references to the Eastern Front and were particularly offended by the phrase ‘Germany’s normally lightning-paced attack’.
What annoyed them most though was the protection he seemed to enjoy from the Reich Sports Office and especially the Reichssportführer. They persuaded the Gestapo to investigate him, though a growing backlog of cases in Berlin meant this took a few months to sort out.
Karl Henniger began his investigation in the middle of the September. He had the American’s apartment on Sächsische Strasse watched, questioned his neighbours and when he could get his hands on enough men, had him followed. It was all rather intermittent and somewhat half-hearted. From the outset there was nothing to suggest Jack Miller was anything other than what he appeared to be – an American journalist covering sport and scratching a reasonable living out of it.
Everyone they spoke to commented he was a nice enough person who never broached any awkward subjects. The cafe owner on Berliner Strasse insisted he never mentioned politics – or rationing. Henniger had even managed to get into the apartment one day and although he had to keep the search quick, there appeared to be nothing suspicious, though he had to say it would have been difficult to find anything given the state of untidiness.
In October Henniger put a request in to the Abwehr station in Washington DC for them to check whether Miller’s articles were indeed being printed in any American newspapers. After initially saying they had more important things to do, by mid-November they came back and said he was actually quite prolific.
Henniger’s report to the Propaganda Ministry said Miller appeared to be above suspicion and it was agreed he no longer needed to be watched. But as Jack Miller faded from suspicion Tadashi Kimura came under the spotlight.
Kuzumi Kobayashi – the Japanese secret police agent – was unimpressed by Ambassador Ōshima’s insistence that Kimura was to be trusted because of a clan connection. Kuzumi Kobayashi came from a humble background with no links to the Samurai and invoking it only made him look harder.
Tadashi Kimura was at the top of his list because the material he had access to correlated with the information the Kenpeitai suspected had been passed to the Americans. Kimura seemed to be on edge and nervy, the security staff reported he was often the last diplomat to leave the embassy.
There were even rumours about him having been seen in the past at clubs in Berlin frequented by homosexuals. Kobayashi treated these as just rumours: the man was, after all, married, although it was some time since he’d seen his wife. He’d not applied for home leave though, which was odd.
Henniger could have asked for Kimura’s apartment on Brücken Allee to be searched but decided to wait until he had more evidence. The Gestapo had a small unit that worked with the friendly diplomatic missions and they agreed to have Kimura followed. They promised to follow him from work for a few days and watch the apartment. They’d speak to neighbours.
* * *
It was a Friday evening – 28 November – when Jack Miller visited Tadashi Kimura’s apartment. He knew full well he was taking an enormous risk but felt he had no alternative. He planned to ask the diplomat to give him all the latest intelligence and then suggest he keep his head down for a couple of weeks. He managed to enter the block through Bellevue Park at its rear, climbing through a hedge and creeping along the small garden to the side entrance and then up to Kimura’s apartment.
Tadashi Kimura seemed calmer than Sophia had described him. He was still wearing his dark suit and explained he’d only just returned from work and how was Jack and was there any news on Arno?
He replied that as far as he was aware Arno was well and Tadashi asked what he meant by ‘as far as he was aware’ and Jack said it was just a turn of phrase – what he meant was no news was good news and he was sure Arno was looking forward to seeing him.
‘But you wouldn’t tell me if it was bad news?’
‘I can’t imagine what bad news there could possibly be, Tadashi: Arno is in England, which is as safe for him as anywhere in the world.’
‘And what about me – when am I going to England?’
Jack noticed the diplomat was becoming agitated now, removing his jacket and tie and walking up and down the room before pausing by a shelf to remove a whisky bottle from it.
‘After Christmas.’
‘Really – why didn’t you tell me?’
‘That’s the reason I’m here: I wanted to tell you in person. Early in January, we’ll get you to England.’
Tadashi stopped pacing the room and sat opposite Jack with a disbelieving look on his face. ‘No sooner?’
‘It takes time to make arrangements but London wanted me to tell you it’s all being sorted. Please don’t ask too many questions, Tadashi, because I don’t know the details yet.’
His mother used to call it a white lie, which he’d always understood as a lie that your parents told you. In his book, a lie was a lie but this one appeared to have served its purpose, whatever its colour. Tadashi appeared calmer and Jack told him that although there was nothing to worry about, he ought to stop gathering any intelligence for a few days, maybe even a week or two.
Tadashi shook his head. ‘It will be too late!’
‘What will?’
‘It is very difficult in the embassy – there is more tension and I think more security. The last material I gathered for you was a week ago, I haven’t felt able to risk it since. I have a film here I can give you. Since then, I have memorised much of what I’ve seen and heard. If I told you now, would you be able to make notes?’
Jack said he had very good shorthand so, yes… please tell me what you can.
Over the next hour Tadashi spoke in a quiet voice, pausing only to sip his whisky or answer questions.
Admiral Yamamoto’s fleet sailed out of Hittokapu Bay on Kasatka two days ago… the 26th… There are six aircraft carriers, including Sōryū, Zuikaku and Hiryū… they’re carrying more than four hundred aircraft – yes, four hundred… It’s heading east, the objective is to attack the United States Navy but I’m not sure of the intended target… I do know the voyage will take a few more days… I overheard Ambassador Ōshima talking with the Naval attaché this morning and they said something about the 4th December…
