and facing the very real prospect of military action, he needed to know that he would survive. While providing the necessary reassurance, Madam Krauss gently extracted details of the date and strength of the planned military incursion. Breathlessly, she passed the information to Greta, and Greta passed it to Arvid.
Encrypting the information took an hour of concentrated work. The result was 244 characters arranged in groups of four on a single page. These he transcribed onto a piece of rice paper no bigger than a stamp, using a fine pen and a magnifying glass. Finally, the rice paper carrying the coded message was rolled into a narrow tube and inserted into a cigarette. The cigarette was placed in a pack with about 12 others, and the pack was carried by a courier for transfer to his contact at the Soviet Embassy, a cultural attaché called Alexander Korotkov.
#
Arvid also arranged to meet his contact at the American Embassy. Donald Heath, First Secretary at the embassy, carried a brief for the nascent US Intelligence service. When they met at an Embassy reception on New Year’s Eve, Arvid had found a willing outlet for his intelligence. Born in Germany, Arvid had studied in the United States. His wife, Mildred, was a US citizen. As a committed Marxist his first loyalty was to the Soviets, but he was happy to share any intelligence he could gather with the Americans – or anyone else for that matter – as long as it helped to hasten the downfall of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.
Both men were thin, weedy individuals, Heath more so than Arvid. Both had receding hairlines, Heath’s the more advanced of the two. Heath was not one to tolerate stupidity, his thin lips and the line of his mouth creating an expression of distrust, if not outright hostility. They preferred to meet in the open, as both men were heavy pipe smokers. On this occasion they met in Heath’s office. The room was soon full of aromatic smoke.
Heath listened with interest to Arvid’s information. “How solid is this, Arvid?”
“Rock solid.”
“I’ll pass it on. You know I appreciate every morsel you give me. And everything you’ve given me so far has been priceless. It’s golden. Washington is more than grateful…”
Arvid sensed a ‘but.’
“But I’m concerned about your other activities.” He pulled a leaflet from his briefcase and placed it on his desk. “Is this one of yours?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“You do realize these are all over Berlin? They’re everywhere. If you’d dropped a ton of them from an airplane you couldn’t have done a better job of spreading them around. And what’s this nonsense about Hitler’s niece.”
“It’s a story. She died in mysterious circumstances. Mud sticks. There may even be a grain of truth in it. The point of the story is to shake the people out of their complacency. Life is too soft, and everything seems to fall into their laps since Hitler took over as Chancellor. We want them to think for themselves and not swallow every feel-good story published in the national press.”
“Well, I’d like to ask you, in the strongest possible terms, to put a stop to these activities. They raise the stakes enormously, drawing attention to your network when you should be keeping as low a profile as possible, collecting valuable Intel. That’s the most effective way you can fight for Germany. This…” He stabbed at the leaflet with the stem of his pipe. “This rubbish is not helping anyone.”
Arvid took a deep breath. “The broadsheet leaflets are the most direct way that I can strike a blow against the Nazis. This is my country, Donald. I can’t sit on my hands and do nothing while insidious Nazi propaganda worms its way into the minds of our young people.”
Chapter 16
September 1938
Greta saw very little of Adam during September, and when she did see him he never had time to talk to her. Something important was afoot, but she couldn’t find
Encrypting the information took an hour of concentrated work. The result was 244 characters arranged in groups of four on a single page. These he transcribed onto a piece of rice paper no bigger than a stamp, using a fine pen and a magnifying glass. Finally, the rice paper carrying the coded message was rolled into a narrow tube and inserted into a cigarette. The cigarette was placed in a pack with about 12 others, and the pack was carried by a courier for transfer to his contact at the Soviet Embassy, a cultural attaché called Alexander Korotkov.
#
Arvid also arranged to meet his contact at the American Embassy. Donald Heath, First Secretary at the embassy, carried a brief for the nascent US Intelligence service. When they met at an Embassy reception on New Year’s Eve, Arvid had found a willing outlet for his intelligence. Born in Germany, Arvid had studied in the United States. His wife, Mildred, was a US citizen. As a committed Marxist his first loyalty was to the Soviets, but he was happy to share any intelligence he could gather with the Americans – or anyone else for that matter – as long as it helped to hasten the downfall of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.
Both men were thin, weedy individuals, Heath more so than Arvid. Both had receding hairlines, Heath’s the more advanced of the two. Heath was not one to tolerate stupidity, his thin lips and the line of his mouth creating an expression of distrust, if not outright hostility. They preferred to meet in the open, as both men were heavy pipe smokers. On this occasion they met in Heath’s office. The room was soon full of aromatic smoke.
Heath listened with interest to Arvid’s information. “How solid is this, Arvid?”
“Rock solid.”
“I’ll pass it on. You know I appreciate every morsel you give me. And everything you’ve given me so far has been priceless. It’s golden. Washington is more than grateful…”
Arvid sensed a ‘but.’
“But I’m concerned about your other activities.” He pulled a leaflet from his briefcase and placed it on his desk. “Is this one of yours?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“You do realize these are all over Berlin? They’re everywhere. If you’d dropped a ton of them from an airplane you couldn’t have done a better job of spreading them around. And what’s this nonsense about Hitler’s niece.”
“It’s a story. She died in mysterious circumstances. Mud sticks. There may even be a grain of truth in it. The point of the story is to shake the people out of their complacency. Life is too soft, and everything seems to fall into their laps since Hitler took over as Chancellor. We want them to think for themselves and not swallow every feel-good story published in the national press.”
“Well, I’d like to ask you, in the strongest possible terms, to put a stop to these activities. They raise the stakes enormously, drawing attention to your network when you should be keeping as low a profile as possible, collecting valuable Intel. That’s the most effective way you can fight for Germany. This…” He stabbed at the leaflet with the stem of his pipe. “This rubbish is not helping anyone.”
Arvid took a deep breath. “The broadsheet leaflets are the most direct way that I can strike a blow against the Nazis. This is my country, Donald. I can’t sit on my hands and do nothing while insidious Nazi propaganda worms its way into the minds of our young people.”
Chapter 16
September 1938
Greta saw very little of Adam during September, and when she did see him he never had time to talk to her. Something important was afoot, but she couldn’t find
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