"Impressive," Vicary said. "The second reason?"

"The second reason is that we became aware late in 1943 that we had not accounted for all the German spies operating in Britain. We learned about Kurt Vogel, we learned about his network, and we learned one of his agents was a woman. But we had a serious problem. Vogel had taken such care in burying his agents in Britain that we couldn't locate them unless we brought them into the open. Remember, Bodyguard was about to go into full gear. We were going to bombard the Germans with a blizzard of false intelligence. But we couldn't feel comfortable knowing there were live active agents operating in the country. All of them had to be accounted for. Otherwise, we could never be certain the Germans weren't receiving intelligence that contradicted Bodyguard."

"How did you know about Vogel's network?"

"We were told about it."

"By whom?"

Boothby walked a few paces in silence, contemplating the muddy toes of his Wellington boots. "We were told about the network by Wilhelm Canaris," he said finally.

"Canaris?"

"Through one of his emissaries, actually. In 1943, late summer. This probably will come as a shock to you, but Canaris was a leader of the Schwarze Kapelle. Schwarze Kapelle. He wanted support from Menzies and the Intelligence Service to help him overthrow Hitler and end the war. In a gesture of goodwill, he told Menzies about the existence of Vogel's network. Menzies informed the Security Service, and together we concocted a scheme called Kettledrum." He wanted support from Menzies and the Intelligence Service to help him overthrow Hitler and end the war. In a gesture of goodwill, he told Menzies about the existence of Vogel's network. Menzies informed the Security Service, and together we concocted a scheme called Kettledrum."

"Hitler's chief spy, a traitor. Remarkable. And you knew all this, of course. You knew it the night I was assigned the case. That briefing on the invasion and deception plans. . . . It was designed to ensure my blind loyalty. To motivate me, to manipulate me."

"I'm afraid so, yes."

"So the operation had two goals: deceive them about Mulberry and at the same time draw Vogel's agents into the open so we could neutralize them."

"Yes," Boothby said. "And one other thing--give Canaris a coup to keep his head off the block until the invasion. The last thing we wanted was Schellenberg and Himmler in control. The Abwehr was totally paralyzed and manipulated. We knew that if Schellenberg took over he would question everything Canaris had done. We didn't succeed there, of course. Canaris was fired, and Schellenberg finally got hold of the Abwehr."

"So why didn't Double Cross and Bodyguard collapse with the fall of Canaris?"

"Oh, Schellenberg was more interested in consolidating his empire than running a new crop of agents into England. There was an impressive bureaucratic reorganization--offices moved, files changing hands, that sort of thing. Overseas, he threw out experienced intelligence officers loyal to Canaris and replaced them with unseasoned bloodhounds loyal to the SS and the party. In the meantime, the case officers at Abwehr headquarters went to great lengths to prove the agents operating inside Britain were genuine and productive. Quite simply, it was a matter of life and death for those case officers. If they admitted their agents were under British control, they would have been on the first train east. Or worse."

They walked in silence for a time while Vicary absorbed all he had been told. His head was spinning. He had a thousand questions. He feared Boothby might shut down at any time. He arranged them in order of importance, setting aside his seething emotions. A cloud passed in front of the sun, and it became cold.

"Did it all work?" Vicary asked.

"Yes, it worked brilliantly."

"What about the Lord Haw-Haw broadcast?" Vicary had heard it himself, sitting in the drawing room of Matilda's cottage, and it had sent a shiver through him. We know exactly what you intend to do with those concrete units. You think you are going to sink them on our coasts in the assault. Well, we're going to help you boys. . . . We know exactly what you intend to do with those concrete units. You think you are going to sink them on our coasts in the assault. Well, we're going to help you boys. . . .

"It sent panic through the Supreme Allied Command. At least on the surface," Boothby added smugly. "A very small group of officers knew of the Kettledrum deception and realized this was just the last act. Eisenhower cabled Washington and requested fifty picket ships to rescue the crews in case the Mulberries were sunk during the journey across the Channel. We made sure the Germans knew this. Tate, our double with a fictitious source inside SHAEF, transmitted a report of Eisenhower's request to his Abwehr controller. Several days later, the Japanese ambassador toured the coastal defenses and was briefed by Rundstedt. Rundstedt told him about the existence of the Mulberries and explained that an Abwehr agent had discovered they were antiaircraft gun towers. The ambassador cabled this information to his masters in Tokyo. That message, like all his other communications, was intercepted and decoded. At that moment, we knew Kettledrum had worked."

"Who ran the overall operation?"

"MI-Six, actually. They started it, they conceived it, and we let them run it."

"Who knew inside the department?"

"Myself, the DG, and Masterman from the Double Cross Committee."

"Who was the control officer?"

Boothby looked at Vicary. "Broome, of course."

"Who's Broome?"

"Broome is Broome, Broome, Alfred." Alfred."

"There's just one thing I don't understand. Why was it necessary to deceive the case officer?"

Boothby smiled weakly, as though troubled by a mildly unpleasant memory. A pair of pheasant broke from the hedgerow and shot across the pewter-gray sky. Boothby stopped walking and stared at the clouds.

"Looks like rain," he said. "Perhaps we should start heading back."

They turned around and started walking.

"We deceived you, Alfred, because we wanted it all to feel real to the other side. We wanted you to take the same steps you might take in a normal case. You also had no need to know Jordan was working for us the entire time. It wasn't necessary."

"My God!" Vicary snapped. "So you ran me, just like any other agent. You ran ran me." me."

"You might say that, yes."

"Why was I chosen? Why not someone else?"

"Because you, like Peter Jordan, were perfect."

"Would you like to explain that?"

"We chose you because you were intelligent and resourceful and under normal circumstances you would have given them a run for their money. My God, you almost saw through the deception while the operation was under way. We also chose you because the tension between us was legendary." Boothby paused and looked down at Vicary. "You weren't exactly discreet in the way you ran me down to the rest of the staff. But most important, we chose you because you were a friend of the prime minister and the Abwehr realized this."

"And when you sacked me, you told the Germans about it through Hawke and Pelican. You hoped that the sacrifice of a personal friend of Winston Churchill's would bolster their belief in the Kettledrum material."

"Exactly. It was all part of the script. And it worked, by the way."

"And Churchill knew?"

"Yes, he knew. He personally approved it. Your old friend betrayed you. He loves black arts, our Winston. If he wasn't the prime minister, I think he would have been a deception officer. I think he rather enjoyed it all. I heard that little pep talk he gave you in the Underground War Rooms was a classic."

"Bastards," Vicary muttered. "Manipulative bastards. But then, I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I could be dead like the others. My God! Do you realize how many people died for the sake of your little game? Pope, his girl, Rose Morely, the two Special Branch men at Earl's Court, the four police officers at Louth and another one at Cleethorpes, Sean Dogherty, Martin Colville."

"You're forgetting Peter Jordan."

"For God's sake, you killed your own agent."

"No, Alfred, you you killed him. You're the one who sent him out on that boat. I rather liked it, I must admit. The man whose personal carelessness almost cost us the war dies saving the life of a young girl and atones for his sins. That's how Hollywood would have done it. And that's what the Germans think really happened. And besides, the number of lives lost pales in comparison to the slaughter that would have taken place if Rommel had been waiting for us at Normandy." killed him. You're the one who sent him out on that boat. I rather liked it, I must admit. The man whose personal carelessness almost cost us the war dies saving the life of a young girl and atones for his sins. That's how Hollywood would have done it. And that's what the Germans think really happened. And besides, the number of lives lost pales in comparison to the slaughter that would have taken place if Rommel had been waiting for us at Normandy."

"It's just credits and debits? Is that how you look at it? Like one giant accounting sheet? I'm glad I'm out! I don't want any part of it! Not if it means doing things like that. God, but we should have burned people like you at the stake a long time ago."

They crested a last hill. Vicary's house appeared before them in the distance. Matilda's flowering vines spilled over the protective limestone wall. He wanted to be back there--to slam his door and sit by the fire and never think of any of it again. He knew that was impossible now. He wanted to be rid of Boothby. He quickened his pace, pounding down the hill, nearly losing his balance. Boothby, with his long body and athletic legs, struggled to keep pace.

"You don't really feel that way, do you, Alfred? You liked it. You were seduced by it. You liked the manipulation and the deception. Your college wants you back, and you're not sure you want to go because you realize everything you've ever believed in is a lie and my world, this world, is the real world."

"You're not the real world. I'm not sure what you are, but you're not real."

"You can say that now, but I know you miss it all desperately. It's rather like a mistress, the kind of work we do. Sometimes you don't like her very much. You don't like yourself when you're with her. The moments when it feels good are fleeting. But when you try to leave her, something always pulls you back."

"I'm afraid the metaphor is lost on me, Sir Basil."

"There you go again, pretending to be superior, better than the rest of us. I would have thought you'd have learned your lesson by now. You need people like us. The country needs us."

They passed through the gate and into the drive. The gravel crunched beneath their feet. It reminded Vicary of the afternoon he was summoned to Chartwell and given the job at MI5. He remembered the morning at the Underground War Rooms, Churchill's words: You must set aside whatever morals you still have, set aside whatever feelings of human kindness you still possess, and do whatever it takes to win. You must set aside whatever morals you still have, set aside whatever feelings of human kindness you still possess, and do whatever it takes to win.

At least someone had been honest with him, even if it was a lie at the time.

They stopped at Boothby's Humber.

"You'll understand if I don't invite you in for refreshment," Vicary said. "I'd like to go wash the blood off my hands."

"That's the beauty of it, Alfred." Boothby held up his big paws for Vicary to see. "The blood is on my hands too. But I can't see it and no one else can either. It's a secret stain."

The car's engine fired as Boothby opened the door.

"Who's Broome?" Vicary asked one last time.

Boothby's face darkened, as though a cloud had passed over it.

"Broome is Brendan Evans, your old friend from Cambridge. He told us about that stunt you pulled to get into the Intelligence Corps in the First War. He also told us what happened to you in France. We knew what drove you and what motivated you. We had to--we were running you, after all."

Vicary felt his head beginning to throb.

"I have one more question."

"You want to know if Helen was part of it or whether she came to you on her own."

Vicary stood very still, waiting for an answer.

"Why don't you go find her and ask her for yourself ?"

Then Boothby disappeared into his car and was gone.

64.

LONDON: MAY 1945.

At six o'clock that evening, Lillian Walford cleared her throat, knocked gently on the office door, and let herself inside without waiting for an answer. The professor was there, sitting in the window overlooking Gordon Square, his little body folded over an old manuscript.

"I'll be leaving now, Professor, if you've nothing else for me," she said, beginning the ritualistic closing of books and straightening of papers that always seemed to accompany their Friday evening conversations.

"No, I'll be fine, thank you."

She looked at him, thinking, No, somehow I doubt that very much, Professor. Something about him had changed. Oh, he was never the talkative sort, mind you; never one to strike up a conversation, unless it was completely necessary. But he seemed more withdrawn than ever, poor lamb. And it had grown worse as the term progressed, not better, as she had hoped. There was talk round the college, idle speculation. Some said he had sent men to their death, or ordered men killed. Hard to imagine the professor doing such things, but it made some sense, she had to admit. Something Something had made him take a vow of silence. had made him take a vow of silence.

"You'd better be leaving soon, Professor, if you want to make your train."

"I rather thought I'd stay in London for the weekend," he said, without looking up from his work. "I'm interested in seeing what the place looks like at night, now that the lights are back on again."

"That's certainly one thing I hope I never see again, the bloody blackout."

"Something tells me you won't."

She removed his mackintosh from the hook on the back of the door and placed it on the chair next to his desk. He laid down his pencil and looked up at her. Her next action took them both by surprise. Her hand seemed to go to his cheek on its own, by reflex, the way it would reach out for a small child who had just been hurt.

"Are you all right, Professor?"

He drew away sharply and returned his gaze to the manuscript. "Yes, I'm fine," he said. There was a tone in his voice, an edge, she had never heard before. Then he mumbled something under his breath that sounded like "never better."

She turned and walked toward the door. "Have a pleasant weekend," she said.

"I intend to, thank you."

"Good night, Professor Vicary."

"Good night, Miss Walford."

The evening was warm, and by the time he crossed Leicester Square he had removed his mackintosh and folded it over his arm. The dusk was dying, the lights of London slowly coming up. Imagine Lillian Walford, touching his face like that. He had always thought of himself as an adequate dissembler. He wondered if it was that obvious.

He crossed Hyde Park. To his left, a band of Americans played softball in the faint light. To his right, British and Canadians played a noisy game of rugby. He passed a spot where only days before an antiaircraft gun had stood. The gun was gone; only the sandbags remained, like the stones of ancient ruins.

He entered Belgravia, and by instinct he walked toward Helen's house.

I hope you change your mind, and soon.

The blackout shades were up, and the house was ablaze with light. There were two other couples with them. David was wearing his uniform. Helen hung on his arm. Vicary wondered how long he had been standing there, watching them, watching her. Much to his surprise--or was it relief, perhaps--he felt nothing for her. Her ghost had finally left him, this time for good.

He walked away. The King's Road turned to Sloane Square, and Sloane Square to quiet side streets of Chelsea. He looked at his watch; there was still time to make the train. He found a taxi, asked the driver to take him to Paddington Station, and climbed inside. He pulled down the window and felt the warm wind in his face. For the first time in many months, he felt something like contentment, something like peace.

He telephoned Alice Simpson from a phone box at the station, and she agreed to come to the country the next morning. He rang off and had to rush for his train. The carriage was crowded, but he found a seat next to the window in a compartment with two old women and a boyish-faced soldier clutching a cane.

He looked at the soldier and noticed he was wearing the insignia of the 2nd East York Regiment. Vicary knew the boy had been at Normandy--Sword Beach, to be precise--and he was lucky to be alive. The East Yorks had suffered heavy casualties during the first minutes of the invasion.

The soldier noticed Vicary looking at him, and he managed a brief smile.

"Happened at Normandy. Barely made it out of the landing craft." He held up the cane. "Doctors say I'll need to use this for the rest of my life. How'd you get yours--the limp, that is?"

"The First War, France," Vicary said distantly.