This had never happened to her before. She was bright and conscientious, and her employers had always regarded her as a treasure, despite her sharp tongue. But her current boss, Herbert Woodie, was going to tell her she was fired, as soon as he worked up the courage.
Two Danes working for MI6 had been arrested at Kastrup aerodrome. They were now in custody and undoubtedly being interrogated. It was a bad blow to the Nightwatchmen network. Woodie was a peacetime MI6 man, a long-serving bureaucrat. He needed someone to blame, and Hermia was a suitable candidate.
Hermia understood this. She had worked for the British civil service for a decade, and she knew its ways. If Woodie were forced to accept that the blame lay with his department, he would pin it on the most junior person available. Woodie had never been comfortable working with a woman anyway, and he would be happy to see her replaced by a man.
At first Hermia was inclined to offer herself up as the sacrificial victim. She had never met the two aircraft mechanics-they had been recruited by Poul Kirke-but the network was her creation and she was responsible for the fate of the arrested men. She was as upset as if they had already died, and she did not want to go on.
After all, she thought, how much had she actually done to help the war effort? She was just accumulating information. None of it had ever been used. Men were risking their lives to send her photographs of Copenhagen harbor with nothing much happening. It seemed foolish.
But in fact she knew the importance of this laborious routine work. At some future date, a reconnaissance plane would photograph the harbor full of ships, and military planners would need to know whether this represented normal traffic or the sudden buildup of an invasion force-and at that point Hermia’s photographs would become crucial.
Furthermore, the visit of Digby Hoare had given an immediate urgency to her work. The Germans’ aircraft detection system could be the weapon that would win the war. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the key to the problem could lie in Denmark. The Danish west coast seemed the ideal location for a warning station designed to detect bombers approaching Germany.
And there was no one else in MI6 who had her ground-level knowledge of Denmark. She knew Poul Kirke personally and he trusted her. It could be disastrous if a stranger took over. She had to keep her job. And that meant outwitting her boss.
“This is bad news,” Woodie said sententiously as she stood in front of his desk.
His office was a bedroom in the old house of Bletchley Park. Flowered wallpaper and silk-shaded wall lights suggested it had been occupied by a lady before the war. Now it had filing cabinets instead of wardrobes full of dresses, and a steel map table where once there might have been a dressing table with spindly legs and a triple mirror. And instead of a glamorous woman in a priceless silk negligee, the room was occupied by a small, self- important man in a gray suit and glasses.
Hermia faked the appearance of calm. “There’s always danger when an operative is interrogated, of course,” she said. “However-” She thought of the two brave men being interrogated and tortured, and her breath caught in her throat for a moment. Then she recovered. “However, in this case I feel the risk is slight.”
Woodie grunted skeptically. “We may need to set up an inquiry.”
Her heart sank. An inquiry meant an investigator from outside the department. He would have to come up with a scapegoat, and she was the obvious choice. She began the defense she had prepared. “The two men arrested don’t have any secrets to betray,” she said. “They were ground crew at the aerodrome. One of the Nightwatchmen would give them papers to be smuggled out, and they would stow the contraband in a hollow wheel chock.” Even so, she knew, they might reveal apparently innocent details about how they were recruited and run, details which a clever spycatcher could use to track down other agents.
“Who passed them the papers?”
“Matthies Hertz, a lieutenant in the army. He’s gone into hiding. And the mechanics don’t know anyone else in the network.”
“So our tight security has limited the damage to the organization.”
Hermia guessed that Woodie was rehearsing a line he might speak to his superiors, and she forced herself to flatter him. “Exactly, sir, that’s a good way of putting it.”
“But how did the Danish police get to your people in the first place?”
Hermia had anticipated this question, and her answer was carefully prepared. “I think the problem is at the Swedish end.”
“Ah.” Woodie brightened. Sweden, being a neutral country, was not under his control. He would welcome the chance of shifting the blame to another department. “Take a seat, Miss Mount.”
“Thank you.” Hermia felt encouraged: Woodie was reacting as she had hoped. She crossed her legs and went on, “I think the Swedish go-between has been passing copies of the illegal newspapers to Reuters in Stockholm, and this may have alerted the Germans. You have always had a strict rule that our agents stick to information gathering, and avoid ancillary activities such as propaganda work.” This was more flattery: she had never heard Woodie say any such thing, though it was a general rule in espionage.
However, he nodded sagely. “Indeed.”
“I reminded the Swedes of your ruling as soon as I found out what was happening, but I fear the damage had been done.”
Woodie looked thoughtful. He would be happy if he could claim that his advice had been ignored. He did not really like people to do as he suggested, because when things went well they just took the credit themselves. He preferred it if they ignored his counsel and things went wrong. Then he could say, “I told you so.”
Hermia said, “Shall I do you a memo, mentioning your rule and quoting my signal to the Swedish Legation?”
“Good idea.” Woodie liked this even better. He would not be allocating blame himself, merely quoting an underling who would incidentally be giving him credit for sounding the alarm.
“Then we’ll need a new way of getting information out of Denmark. We can’t use radio for this kind of material, it takes too long to broadcast.”
Woodie had no idea how to organize an alternative smuggling route. “Ah, that’s a problem,” he said with a touch of panic.
“Fortunately we have set up a fallback option, using the boat train that crosses from Elsinore in Denmark to Helsingborg in Sweden.”
Woodie was relieved. “Splendid,” he said.
“Perhaps I should say in my memo that you’ve authorized me to action that.”
“Fine.”
She hesitated. “And. . the inquiry?”
“You know, I’m not sure that will be necessary. Your memo should serve to answer any questions.”
She concealed her relief. She was not going to be fired after all.
She knew she should quit while she was ahead. But there was another problem she was desperate to raise with him. This seemed like an ideal opportunity. “There is one thing we could do that would improve our security enormously, sir.”
“Indeed?” Woodie’s expression said that if there were such a procedure he would already have thought of it.
“We could use more sophisticated codes.”
“What’s wrong with our poem and book codes? Agents of MI6 have been using them for years.”
“I fear the Germans may have figured out how to break them.”
Woodie smiled knowingly. “I don’t think so, my dear.”
Hermia decided to take the risk of contradicting him. “May I show you what I mean?” Without waiting for his answer, she went on, “Take a look at this coded message.” She quickly scribbled on her pad:
She said, “The commonest letter is
“Obviously.”
“In the English language, the letter used most commonly is
