plane that had strayed too near Geronimo’s course as it headed south that evening toward that fateful rendezvous with Syfret’s Force Z, but there was no report of any losses that day. Perhaps it was a Spanish plane. The incident was right astride this mysterious ship’s route of approach to Gibraltar. It was very strange.
Here was a Russian, a man named Orlov wearing what looked to be a naval officer’s jacket, carrying a strange custom made pistol with an odd light attached to it, and harboring these ear plugs that seemed to be some sort of advanced wireless device. Supposing he came from Geronimo, the man boards a ship heading west…But why? What would he be about? Could there be some mission he was undertaking in Spain? Then a dark thought occurred to him. Perhaps this man had been trying to communicate with other Russian agents and operatives in Spain waiting for him at Cadiz. He made a mental note to have Fleming’s boys have a look at that city to see what they might turn up.
Then again, if this fishing boat did indeed rendezvous with a merchant ship, it might have been heading east. Fishing boats were not permitted in the main shipping channels of the strait. He decided to have a list of all commercial traffic anywhere near Gibraltar yesterday-names, registry, destinations. That would allow him to possibly get men into each and every port of call along those routes, and he hoped there hadn’t been a convoy through the straits that day so his job would be a little easier. If this man was heading east, where would he go? Any Russian heading east, would have to be heading for Istanbul if he had any hope of getting back to Russia. Yes, that made sense. From Istanbul he could easily cross the Black Sea and link up with Soviet authorities anywhere along the Georgian coast.
Then his mind turned to the strange accounts that had surrounded this interrogation. Fortunately the transcript of the entire interview had arrived with the regular dispatches. He read it through, curious as to what the strange scope might have been on the pistol, the odd flashlight as the prisoner called it. This business about the wireless earplugs was also quite interesting. And who was this Svetlana?
The more he thought about the matter, more he came to conclude that this man might indeed have been off the ship the Royal Navy had been chasing for the last year. He might have been a pearl dropped here by Geronimo, trying to make contact with the Soviets of this day and age…buy why? Couldn’t they simply use the radio? Not without us hearing about it, I suppose. Was Svetlana his contact? That thought set his mind racing even further ahead, because if this assumption were proved true, the man could be a deliberate agent, and the information he might provide the Soviets could profoundly affect the outcome of the war, and so very much more.
Intruders, he thought. The Watch had found what looked to be the first possible case of a man at large who clearly did not seem to be what he claimed, and with marks and effects on him that led Tovey’s mind back to that fateful hour on Las Palomas Island where he had faced the commander of the ship they had come to call Geronimo, eye to eye, astounded to find he was Russian! It was now a standing order that any Russian operative found in England and the kingdom’s domains was to be closely watched by British Intelligence services. Tovey did not know it yet, except perhaps on some deep inner level of his mind, but the Cold War was already beginning in these suspicions and the orders that followed them. The reluctant allies, strange bedfellows as he thought of England and Russia, were now set at odds by this incident.
The next day he had his report on shipping traffic in hand, and checked off one after another, until he had narrowed down the possible rendezvous targets to three. He considered what to do, then picked up the phone.
“Secure line,” he said waiting for confirmation. “Get me Room 39 please. Desk 17F.” He wanted to speak with Fleming over at 3 °Commando. Yes, he thought. This was coming down to some real cloak and dagger work, and he now realized he needed reliable men who were trained in these unpleasantries. The voice on the line was curt and to the point.
“Seventeen F. What is it?”
“Admiral Jack Tovey here, Seventeen. I want to know if we might be able to get some men east to Istanbul and have a look at a certain ship-a merchant ship bound for that port as we speak.”
There was a brief pause before the voice on the line continued. “Might I know the details, sir?”
Tovey explained what he was after, and Fleming suggested the obvious-why not get a fast destroyer out after this ship?
“The thought did cross my mind, Seventeen, but I think I’d like to handle this with a little more subtlety.” If he sent a destroyer to intercept a neutral Turkish ship there would be questions, reports, documents, and perhaps even a formal protest from the Turks, not to mention the added risk that the ship would then be suspect in the enemy’s eyes as well.
“Well sir,” came the voice. “We’ve some good men in Alexandria with nothing on their duty roster now that they were unable to come to any agreement in that last meeting” Tovey noted how Fleming adroitly referenced the cancelation of Operation Agreement and the planned raid on Tobruk.
“Splendid. You pick the men, Seventeen. And here’s what I’d like you to do.”
When the call came in to Captain John Haselden at General Staff Headquarters days later he didn’t really know what to make of it. He and his men had been sitting on their thumbs in the heat of the desert, wondering what had come over the planners back in England. First they tee up a big operation for Tobruk, and then, just as suddenly, it is summarily canceled.
Haselden was a lean, competent man, just shy of forty, and with long years of experience in the desert. In fact, he had been born right there in Alexandria, the son of Henry Ernest Haselden and his Italian wife Maria Cazzani. Before the war he had worked in the cotton trade industry, supervising commerce and becoming fluent in Arabic, French, Italian and English. Like every man his age he entered the service when war came, signing on as a British liaison officer with the Libyan air force and then working directly for the General Staff of the Middle east where his language facility was put to good use.
His specialty soon became commando operations, and he was posted to the 8th Army HQ to serve as liaison with the Long Range Desert Group. In this capacity he participated in a number of operations, including Operation Flipper, the raid on Rommel’s headquarters in an ill fated attempt to capture the man hundreds of miles behind the front. Rommel wasn’t there, and when he learned of the operation he was irritated to think the British would believe he commanded from the rear.
When the new raid was announced for Tobruk, he was eager to get in the thick of things again, and just as disappointed to learn it had been called off. If he had known that he was one of the many men who were slated to die in that raid, perhaps he would not have complained so loudly. He had no idea that he was now living his second life, a new lease signed by the hand of Mother Time that would see him drawn into the ever thickening web of intrigue spinning from the spidery back of fate itself.
What in bloody hell is this about, he thought? First the whole bloody raid is knocked off, now this! Someone has a real imagination back in Whitehall, does he? First we were to get up a crew and fly cross the whole of Turkey in the dark on a pinch operation-all the way to Istanbul. Don’t we already have people in Istanbul? Of course we have. They were supposed to find this man, keep their finger in his backside, and get him to a safe house before we flew in. Two days later word comes down that the ship this man is on was met by a Russian trawler and he slipped clean away, out into the Black Sea like a whisper of fog.
“Not easy to get men out there, is it,” he said aloud now to Lieutenant David Sutherland. “What do they bloody well expect us to do about it now?”
“Easy does it, Jock.” That was Haselden’s handle with the men. “They must know what they’re about. Word is that Fleming is behind this one.”
“Fleming? I thought he was working in Madrid with the Golden Eyes now that Rushbrooke replaced Godfrey as head of the Naval Intelligence Division.”
“He’s still in Room 39,” Sutherland took a long draw on his pipe now, still staring at a map he had been studying for some time. “Still answers as Seventeen F, though anyone caught saying that outside of a secure room like this would have his balls boiled.”
“Yes, well what has Seventeen got on the stove for us, Sutherland? We were all set for this raid on Tobruk.”
“You weren’t the only one put off,” Sutherland pointed a long thin finger at Haselden now. “My Operation Angelo has also been canceled. We were going to hop out to Rhodes and visit Jerry airfields there, but that’s gone down the tubes as well.”
