Page 19 of Echoes of Betrayal

Jack’s days were long and had begun to blend one into the other, and apart from a routine signal from Lizzie to establish connection with him at Bletchley, he had heard nothing more from her. No news is good news, he told himself. Nevertheless, he read and reread the scrap of paper, imagining what she must be doing in Bern.

The relief he felt that she wasn’t behind enemy lines was palpable, and he surprised himself by settling in effortlessly at The Eight Bells. Once the rowdy regulars stumbled out of the bar each evening, the place fell into the kind of rural tranquillity he’d only experienced in the French countryside, and even with Lizzie away, he slept through the night.

His days at Bletchley were crammed with activity, and the increased flow of intelligence he had access to fascinated him. He’d already organised one drop of false information for the traitor via the agent he’d briefed at Baker Street. The operation was continuing as planned, but now the SOE wouldn’t risk feeding Germany information they knew not to be true.

Jack was gaining a fresh perspective on the machinations of the intelligence Bletchley passed to Baker Street, and he was enjoying the work. He had even scheduled a meeting with a senior SIS officer to discuss how they might improve the pipeline, and his optimism grew when he saw how helpful his new assistant, Fletcher, was. She handled the incoming and outgoing flow of paperwork that passed across his desk and was a real asset. The powers that be were supporting him and were giving him proper access just as Val had requested.

One evening after a busy afternoon, his eyes grew heavy, and he fought a sudden wave of drowsiness as he pored over a transcript. Shaking himself awake, he took a brisk walk outside and went to get a coffee from the nearby hut. When he returned to his desk, he saw Fletcher had left a new file for him. He flicked through the contents, and his eyes were drawn to a decrypted message about movements on the Eastern Front. His fatigue lifted, and his interest piqued because this was just the type of material he needed to create the false intelligence he hand-picked for the Germans.

Sometime later, he raised his head to light a cigarette and realised the usual hum in the hut had vanished, and all he could hear were the cries of birds and wildlife bedding down for the night. The other workers must either have left for the day or gone for dinner in the canteen. His stomach rumbled, but he was too engrossed in the papers to go and eat. There was something odd about the Eastern Front intelligence assessments, and in his drowsy state it had taken him a while to put his finger on it, but then it hit him.

Fletcher, presumably not realising Jack shouldn’t have access to Swiss reports, had compiled material from a wide range of sources, and they included intercepts from Switzerland. This took his thoughts straight back to Lizzie in Bern. Had she seen these reports during her work in the cipher room? It was a shame he couldn’t connect with her more easily, but all communication had to go through official radio channels via Baker Street and then be forwarded on to him.

Jack shrugged off his annoyance and continued combing through the Bletchley intercepts, which were decoded German communications. It struck him again how precise they were. He read and reread them to make sure he wasn’t mistaken, but came to the same conclusion. The Bletchley intercepts were extraordinarily detailed in a way he had never seen at Baker Street. A rush of excitement gripped him. His mission was to gain access to more of what the SOE suspected the SIS kept hidden behind the Bletchley curtain, but this was far more than he’d dared hope for. The SIS were gatekeepers, which was the source of the almost constant friction between the two organisations. What he saw here was raw intelligence rather than the routine, sanitised summaries they received in London.

Jack rolled up his shirt sleeves, fully alert now, as the thrill of what he knew to be a revelatory discovery rocked his whole being. If this packet of materials was anything to go by, the SIS had been holding out on them so much that it seriously affected their ability to do their jobs. A red-hot fury surged through him as he remembered all the courageous agents in occupied territory whom they had lost through a lack of reliable intelligence on the ground. Granted, this transcript about the Eastern Front wouldn’t save their agents or Resistance people directly, but it made Jack wonder what else the SIS had concealed from them.

Jack wished he could question Fletcher about the source, but she was nowhere in sight. He vaguely remembered her asking if he needed anything else before saying goodnight earlier, when he was fighting his lethargy. He lit another cigarette and drained his cold mug of coffee, knowing he was running on fumes but too engrossed to tear himself away from the reports. He’d hit a seam of gold. This was the first batch he’d received since arriving at Bletchley that had been this informative about movements on the Eastern Front. If they had a continuous flow of intelligence of this quality, no wonder the tide had turned, and the Allies were winning.

Jack blew smoke over his head and watched the rings merge with the chilled air and disappear into the hut roof. He cast his mind back to exactly what he’d requested from his assistant. Had he set a different expectation that resulted in this higher quality of intelligence? He must know so that he could repeat his request.

At Baker Street, he didn’t see Swiss intelligence reports as they had no direct bearing on his work. Jack recalled his earlier request and ran through the details. He had asked Fletcher for the latest Eastern Front assessments so he could gauge what was happening before he created the next false information drop. He hadn’t even considered the pipeline between Bletchley and Baker Street because he’d compartmentalised that element of his mission to be tackled separately, hence the meeting he’d arranged with the SIS agent.

Jack glanced at his watch and saw it was past 10 p.m. He had to be in early in the morning for his meeting, and his stomach was groaning loudly, so reluctantly he tore himself away for the night.

Over a late supper in the busy canteen, which seemed to be open continuously and was never empty of diners because of the large number of staff on rotating shifts, he turned his discoveries over in his mind. As he chewed the last bite of the uninspiring meal of reheated stew and stale bread, the sense that his findings didn’t add up troubled his tired brain.

Something wasn’t right, and it was all he could do to stop himself from running back to the secure registry to sign the documents back out. But he was too weary and wasn’t thinking straight. It would be more productive to get some rest and return to the puzzle the following morning after his early meeting.

It was a clear night, and as he exited the Bletchley Park gates with a nod and a goodnight to the guard; he walked back through the silent streets, under the starry sky towards The Eight Bells. He passed the occasional cottage with blacked-out windows, and he knew he was about to uncover something huge. Jack could feel it in his gut, and his gut never lied.

CHAPTER 18

Lizzie entered the cipher room late in the afternoon. The workload on her desk had increased, but Tom spoke to her at lunchtime and said he really needed her on a shift today. Officially, her part-time role in the cipher room was secondary to her translation work, but it was just as vital to her mission that she monitor the SOE developments from Bern. This was her route for staying in touch with Baker Street and her opportunity to get another message to Jack without attracting attention.

Tom raised his head from where he sat hunched over his desk and quickly shoved some papers into a folder out of sight. If Lizzie hadn’t known he was an SOE agent, the movement would have been a clue he had something to hide and wasn’t carrying out routine administration for the Legation.

Lizzie cast her eyes around and wondered just how many secrets this room had witnessed. She smiled at Tom. ‘Sorry I’m a bit later than estimated. Pemberton has so much work, I’ve barely had time for anything else this past week.’

Tom nodded as if he’d heard it before. ‘Yes, I know from your predecessor it can be a busy post. Makes one wonder, doesn’t it?’

Lizzie neared Tom and lowered her voice. ‘Switzerland is certainly a busy trading hub. I hadn’t expected such a volume of business in wartime.’

Tom cast her a strange look, and she thought he was going to say more, but then he swiftly got down to the task at hand. ‘We’d better get you started as there’s a lot to do. You’ll miss dinner this evening otherwise, and I don’t want to be accused of working you into the ground.’

Unrest stirred in Lizzie’s chest as she contemplated their exchange, but now she settled at the table where Tom had arranged a pile of communications for her to work through.

‘I don’t think Pemberton has any such concerns,’ Lizzie said, laughing softly.

‘I did as much as I could alone, but I’m afraid things are firing off on all cylinders in different directions. Thank you for coming to the rescue.’

‘Of course,’ Lizzie said. ‘Whatever you need.’

Lizzie bowed her head and turned her attention to the decrypted data waiting for her attention. The flow of work was much like the last time, and she soon entered a kind of trance as she used the coded system and methodically worked through the messages. Tom had gone to get them tea and biscuits, as it looked like they would both be working through dinner, when she recognised another of the same style of message that had troubled her last time. It was a military assessment of the Eastern Front, and it specified the exact areas where German troops were based. A jolt of surprise shot through her as she scribbled the details down fast with her pencil.

Why would this type of top-level intelligence flow back to Bern through a Foreign Office diplomatic channel? She considered whether to mention it to Tom, but hesitated. Her training was never to reveal more than she needed to, which protected operations and saved lives, but often left her isolated and with no one to turn to. Lizzie decided to message Jack. This was exactly the kind of red flag she’d been trained to spot, and now she felt certain something wasn’t right. How far she could trust Tom in such a situation, she couldn’t be sure, but she couldn’t afford to risk finding out the hard way.

When Tom returned, he placed the mug of piping hot tea on her desk and a couple of biscuits on a plate next to it. ‘We can’t run on thin air,’ he said.