The Prime Minister's Secret Agent (2 page)

The waiter bowed again. “Yes, sir. So sorry, sir—”

“—and bring us each one of your fabulous Martinis. Plymouth Gin, of course.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” The waiter swiftly made his way back to the bar.

Fleming called over, “And my good man—make sure they’re shaken, not stirred.”

As befitting his cover as a Nazi agent, Popov took a Pan American Dixie Clipper flying boat from San Ruiz, Portugal, to New York, and then traveled by train on to Washington, DC. He was carrying
seventy thousand dollars in cash, four telegrams containing eleven German microdots, a hardcover copy of Virginia Woolf’s
Night and Day
—which he would use for coding radio messages back to London—and a torn business card to identify himself to a German agent in New York City. He used one of the microdots to bring the Pearl Harbor questionnaire—which he intended to give to Hoover.

Popov arrived at Union Station in Washington, then took a taxi to the Beaux-Arts-designed Mayflower on Connecticut Avenue. He checked in using the U.S. dollars he’d been given by his German handler. The first thing he did after tipping the bellman for his bags was to search his penthouse suite for listening devices. He didn’t trust the FBI. He didn’t trust the Nazis. He didn’t trust anyone except himself, really.

Placed about the rooms were vases of exquisitely made orchids in cut-glass Waterford vases. He pulled the flowers out. One by one, he checked every vase, and in every one, microphones were attached to the stems of the silk flowers—FBI-issued, from the looks of them.

Popov unzipped his suitcase and took out several boxes of medical cotton wool, kept for just such occasions. He wrapped each microphone in each vase individually, smiling as he did so. It would have been too easy just to destroy the mikes; leaving them, but keeping them from actually recording anything, was a much more elegant solution.

Despite jet lag, he had a reputation to uphold. A quick shower and shave, a bespoke dinner jacket, a splash of lavender-scented Pour un Homme de Caron, and he was ready to go to hear jazz at the Howard Theatre.

After days of interminable bureaucratic delays, Popov finally was able to have his audience with Hoover. The head of the FBI was an autocratic man, whose public image was that of puritanical morality. He was stocky, with a fleshy face and tightly set lips.

After a string of late nights, Popov arrived freshly shaved and lightly scented with cologne, hair slicked back with pomade. Although he’d met a number of times with Percy Foxworth, chief of the FBI’s Special Intelligence Service and principal liaison with British Security Coordination, this was his first meeting with Hoover. The FBI director didn’t bother to stand as Popov was ushered into his office by a stern-faced secretary.

He met Popov’s eyes with a baleful glance and then a brusque “Sit down.”

Popov did, looking around Hoover’s office. It was spacious, but spartan and meticulously clean, with a large American flag and an enormous bronze eagle presiding. The room smelled of floor wax and window cleaner.

“I realize this meeting is unusual,” Popov said, crossing his legs and taking out a cigarette, “but it’s urgent. I have information you must see—a matter of the United States’ national security.” Popov handed over a sheaf of bills, a few telegrams, and a personal letter.

“No smoking in here,” Hoover barked. Then, “What’s this?”

Popov put away his unlit cigarette but gave a Cheshire-cat smile. “Information from the Abwehr. A questionnaire from the Japanese—about Pearl Harbor.”

Hoover examined the bills, turning them backward and forward, holding them up to the light to check for invisible ink. He found nothing. And nothing on any of the other papers. “Don’t joke with me, Popov—you’ll regret it.”

“Sir, I assure you that all the information from the Abwehr is contained in those documents.”

“Fine, I’ll have one of our cryptographers take a look at them.”

Popov’s smile spread over his leonine face. “No need. Is there a microscope in the building? Tweezers?”

Calls were made and when a young and cowed minion finally procured both, Popov picked up a seemingly nondescript telephone bill and held it in the slanted light from the window, showing Hoover how one of the full stops had a reflective coating. Carefully, Popov lifted the dot from the paper with the tweezers, and then put it under the microscope. He gestured to Hoover to look.

The director of the FBI stood and begrudgingly did.

Popov’s smile broadened. “In that particular dot, you will find the Abwehr questionnaire, which we believe is research for Japan’s Taranto-style attack on Pearl Harbor.”

Hoover’s face turned red. “Sit down, Popov,” he snapped, starting to pace.

Popov continued, “The U.S. fleet in the Pacific operates on an inflexible schedule—at sea for certain lengths of time and at port in between. If someone is able to figure out this schedule, a sneak attack while the ships are docked at Pearl—most likely on a Sunday—is a clear possibility.”

“Attack on Pearl Harbor.” Hoover rounded on his desk, and pounded on it with his fist to emphasize each word. “Ridiculous! The Japs wouldn’t dare! We all know that you’re a rich man, a popular man, a
handsome
man—”

“I’m a spy,” Popov interrupted, also standing. “I’m not a spy who turned into a playboy, I’m a man who’s always lived very well who’s turned into a spy. That’s my cover, and it’s a superb one. However, if I were undercover as a factory worker, I’d work as a factory worker.”

“Why don’t you, then?” Hoover spat.

“Because the Germans, who have known me for decades as an
idle playboy, would be suspicious. But please believe me, if I thought it would help our common cause, I’d live on bread and water, in the worst slum you could procure.”

“With your own agendas and access, of course. You work for the Nazis, you work for MI-Six—now you’re allegedly trying to help us! Where are your loyalties, man? Do you even have any?” He sat and waved one hand. “Get out.”

Instead Popov took out his cigarette. This time he lit it. “I have brought you and the United States of America a serious warning, on a silver salver, indicating exactly where, when, how, and by whom your country is to be attacked.”

“And even if this preposterous questionnaire points to an attack, which I doubt—looks like routine surveillance to me—what do you want in exchange?”

“I want you to pass it along to President Roosevelt, to the Secretary of State, to the Secretary of War, to the heads of the Army and Navy. To that poor bastard Kimmel, who’s the Commander in Chief of the Fleet in Pearl Harbor. To any of your boys looking after Ambassador Kichisaburō Nomura in Washington and the Japanese consulate in Honolulu. They all need to know what’s coming—and they’ll need to coordinate their efforts.”

Hoover’s eyes narrowed. “What else do you want?”

“The Germans want me to go to Hawaii, to keep an eye on Pearl, to create a spy network there, to feed information to their Japanese agents there. It’s the ideal position for me to send crucial information to you.”

Hoover snorted. “You want to sit out the war on Waikiki Beach, Mai Tai in hand, courtesy of the U.S. government? Add a few hula girls to your roster of showgirls and movie stars and burlesque dancers, heh?”

Popov was trying valiantly to hold his temper. “We all have our areas of expertise, Mr. Hoover. Mine is the life of an international
playboy. But just because of that, or even in spite of that, don’t disregard me, or my message. I think a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is imminent. And President Roosevelt needs to be warned.”

Hoover gave a braying laugh. “I do believe you’re trying to teach me my job, Popov!”

Popov shook his head. “I don’t think anyone could teach you anything.” He stood and clicked his heels together. “Sir.” He left.

“Good riddance!” Hoover called after him. He gestured through the open door to his secretary, a stern-faced plump older woman in glasses and pearls. “File this,” he said, holding out the document with the tips of two fingers, as though it carried plague germs.

The secretary entered his office. “File it under what, sir?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just get rid of it.”

Maggie Hope had thought that summer in Berlin was hell, but it was nothing compared to the inferno of darkness that now raged in her own head, even as she was “safe as houses” in Arisaig on the western coast of Scotland.

A mixture of shame, anger, guilt, and grief had become a miasma of depression, which followed her everywhere, not at all helped by the lack of daylight in Scotland in November. She’d once heard Winston Churchill describe his own melancholy as his “Black Dog,” but didn’t understand it. She’d pictured a large black dog with long silky fur and dark, sad eyes, silently padding after his master.

But now she knew the truth: The Black Dog of depression was dirty and scarred, feral and rabid. He lurked in the night, yellow eyes gleaming, waiting for a chink in the armor, a weakness, a vulnerability, a memory. And then, jaws wide and fangs sharp, he would leap. She had trouble sleeping, and when she did finally fall unconscious, she had nightmares.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Maggie had a few moments in the morning, when she first woke up, when she didn’t remember her nightmares, or any of what had happened. Those were blessed moments, innocent and sweet. Until her mind started working again, and the sharp ache returned to her heart. She remembered what had transpired in Berlin. Remembered that her contact, Gottlieb
Lehrer, was dead—a devout Catholic who’d shot himself rather than be taken by the Gestapo for questioning. Remembered that she herself had killed a man.

“It was self-defense,” the analyst she’d been ordered to see by Peter Frain had told her. “It’s war. You don’t need to torture yourself.” And yet, even though he’d shot first, and she’d killed in self-defense, the man’s eyes—sad and reproachful—haunted her.

As did the high-pitched voice of the little Jewish girl being pushed into a cattle car in Berlin, destined for Poland. “I’m thirsty, Mama,” she’d cried, “so thirsty.”
What happened to her?
Maggie often wondered.
Did she die on the train? Or later in the camp? Could she still be alive?
Because now that Maggie—and most of the rest of the world—knew that the Nazis were capable of killing their own children, calling it “Operation Compassionate Death,” she didn’t hold any hope at all for the children of Jews.

And as if that weren’t enough burden, her mother, Clara Hess, a Nazi Abwehr agent, was imprisoned in the Tower of London—and asking to talk with her. She was also scheduled to be executed soon, if she didn’t share some of the top-secret information she possessed.

And then there was John Sterling, with whom she’d worked at Number 10 for Mr. Churchill during the Battle of Britain. And had almost been engaged to marry. And who’d become an RAF pilot and been shot down near Berlin. And even though she’d managed to rescue them both and get them safe passage from Berlin to Switzerland, their return to London had been, well, less than romantic. More of a romantic disaster, really.

Maggie turned over beneath the scratchy gray wool blankets, reflexively reaching for the hard outline of the German bullet, which had just managed to miss her heart. Dumb luck was what had saved her—and allowed her to kill her attacker, instead. The doctors in Switzerland, and then in London—even one of her best
friends, Chuck, a nurse—had wanted her to have the bullet removed, but she refused. She called it her “Berlin souvenir.”

I’m dead inside
, she thought, not for the first time since she’d made it to Arisaig.
Worse than dead—if I were dead at least I wouldn’t have to remember everything anymore
.

On her nightstand, the black Bakelite clock ticked, and she reached over to turn it off before the alarm rang. Maggie concentrated on breathing—in and out, in and out. Even that caused pain, as though she had a shard of ice in her heart.

Maggie had heard the expression
heartache
before, of course, but never thought it would be so literal. So much pain, physical pain in her heart. But the heart was just a muscle, an organ, made to pump blood—not to feel things. So was it stress? Adrenaline? What made it hurt so much? Of course, the brain wasn’t much better—the brain could be a hellish prison of despair and pain and emptiness. Who knew that the brain could be such a traitor?

It didn’t help that it was coming up on Thanksgiving—and even though she’d lived in Britain since 1938, Maggie still missed her Aunt Edith, a chemistry professor at Wellesley College. She missed the United States sometimes too, truth be told. She missed its innocence—or was it ignorance?—of war, its clear skies and untouched cities. Not to mention unlimited hot water and unrationed food. Although she was British by birth, she’d been raised in the U.S., and even though she’d made a choice to throw her lot in with the Brits when war started, she missed her aunt and her friends and their broad, flat, nasal accents. She missed Thanksgiving. She missed turkey and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. She missed Boston and Cambridge. She missed America.

Maggie sighed and then rose, washed her face and brushed her teeth in the rust-tinged water in the enamel sink, and changed into her clothes, the brown twill jumpsuit all the instructors wore over layers of thermal underwear and wool socks, plus standard-issue
thick-soled boots. She twisted and then pinned up her long red hair with her tortoiseshell clip. If she’d been doing office work, as she had been doing at Number 10 Downing Street, she would have put on the pearl earrings that her Aunt Edith had given to her when she’d graduated from Wellesley in ’37—but not only were they inappropriate for her job as an instructor at an SOE camp, she’d lost them somewhere in London after returning from Berlin.
Not that anyone cares about anything as frivolous as earrings anymore
. But they were another symbol of everything she’d lost.