Saturday, December 10 linked both sides of Lonsdale’s network. In the early afternoon Lonsdale had met Houghton and Gee at their old rendezvous in Waterloo Road and in the early evening Lonsdale had parked his car about twenty-five yards from the Krogers’ home in Cranley Drive. It had stayed there until just before noon the following day.
It was decided at a meeting between Morton and MI5 liaison that the arrest of the five suspects and the subsequent handling of the case should revert to MI5 and Special Branch who had been kept informed of the last six months’ surveillance.
Shapiro’s meeting with Harris had not been smooth.
“You’ll be required to give evidence and so will your team but the rest is out of our hands now.”
“But why? They’re there for the taking.”
“And Special Branch will take them.”
“But we’ve done the hard grafting all the way.”
“Which was what you were told to do.”
“How do I explain all this to my chaps who’ve sweated their guts out for months?”
“You don’t explain. You send them back to the pool with your congratulations and praise them for a job well done.”
“Can I ask you a very frank question, sir?”
“Yes—but I might not answer it.”
“Was there ever a reason why we—SIS—were told to take on this operation?”
“Yes—a very good reason.”
“You know the reason?”
“Yes. I was one of the three people who made the decision.”
“But I can’t be told what the reason was?”
“I’m afraid not.”
For a moment Harris locked eyes with his senior and then he turned and headed for the door. As he opened the door Shapiro called out.
“Harris.”
“Sir.”
Shapiro nodded. “Well done. Keep at it.”
Harris was plainly neither amused nor mollified by the official pat on the back.
The spy network’s regular, first Saturday in the month, meeting on January 7 was the last. Houghton had deviated from his usual routine and had parked his car at Salisbury Station and he and Ethel Gee had caught the 12.32 train to Waterloo. The train arrived at 3.20 p.m. At 4.30 Lonsdale arrived outside the Old Vic Theatre, parked his car and stood on the corner of the street. Houghton and Gee crossed from Lower Marsh to where Lonsdale was standing. They walked past him without acknowledging him and he turned and followed them, catching up with them a few moments later.
Gee was carrying a shopping basket and Lonsdale took a parcel from it. It was then that a Special Branch officer walked past them, turning to face them as he said, “You are under arrest.” The parcel was found to contain four Admiralty Test reports and a cassette of undeveloped film. When it had been processed it was of 230 pages of an Admiralty book entitled “Particulars of War Vessels.”
At 6.30 p.m. that evening SB officers knocked on the door of 45 Cranley Drive and the Krogers were arrested.
25
When the brief radio message came through that Lonsdale and the others had been arrested and that there was hard evidence of espionage, Shapiro checked with the teams still covering Grushko and Maguire-Barton. Grushko was at his flat and was alone.
When Shapiro rang the bell it was a couple of minutes before Grushko opened the door. Shapiro held up his ID card and Grushko shrugged and looked back at him.
“What is it you want?”
“I’d like to come in and talk to you.” And there was real surprise on Grushko’s face when Shapiro responded in Russian. For a moment he hesitated and then he opened the door wider and Shapiro walked in. He had seen photographs of the room way back and it looked much the same.
Grushko said, “I’ll have to leave in ten minutes. What is it you want?”
Shapiro smiled and sat down on the couch as he pointed at an armchair. “Let’s make ourselves comfortable, comrade.”
Grushko sat reluctantly. “I haven’t got much time.”
“It’s going to take quite a time, Comrade Grushko, so you might as well relax.”
“What is this all about?”
“Well now. We’ve got a problem. You’ve been rather a naughty boy and we’re not sure yet what we’re going to do about you. You haven’t any diplomatic immunity so we could put you on trial, or we could ship you back to Moscow. Or we could just talk—and co-operate—and leave it at that.” Shapiro smiled. “We don’t have a lot of evidence to put before a court. But enough. Enough to show that you’ve been involved in espionage. You’ve not been all that successful I’ll admit, but it’s enough to get you two or three years in prison.” He paused. “And when we eventually send you back to Moscow they wouldn’t be very happy with your performance here. If we just send you back without taking you to court they’ll be even more unhappy with your operation in London. We’d just have to let them know that you’d been so amateurish, so inept, that we just smiled at your efforts and sent you back.” He looked at Grushko. “You do understand what I mean, don’t you?”
“What the hell is it you want from me? I don’t understand all this …” he waved his arm dismissively “… all this rubbish.”
“Oh, but you do, Grigor. You know that I’m being very generous with you. Giving you a chance to just go about your journalistic work on Monday morning as if nothing had happened. No trouble from Moscow and no trouble from us.” He paused. “That is, if you behave yourself in future.”
“What is it you want to know?”
“Let’s start with Maguire-Barton. Tell me about him and his relationship with you.”
Grushko shrugged. “He just wanted a few free trips abroad.”
“So why did he use a faked passport?”
“He thought he might be criticised for taking too many journeys to Warsaw Pact countries.”
“He could have avoided such criticism by not going. So why was it so important to him?”
For
