Page 39 of Echoes of Betrayal

When this war was over, Britain would desperately need a total refurbishment from top to bottom. Public services were barely operating under the strain of the lack of resources. Jack’s mind wandered away from intelligence matters and into the concerns the country would face when the enemy was finally neutralised. Victory and bringing Hitler’s regime to its knees would be sweet, but he predicted that the aftermath of rebuilding Britain would be far more challenging than most realised. They had been on a war footing and then plunged into an emergency mode for such a long period that it would take all their strength as a nation.

A sense of pride surged in Jack’s chest as he alighted from the train and looked around him on the station platform. There was a mother holding her little boy’s hand, coaxing him to walk faster. As she passed Jack, she smiled and wished him a good morning. There was an old man carrying a small case and being escorted by the station guard until a woman stepped forward to greet her father. She was clearly delighted to welcome him, steering him carefully by the arm and along the platform. As Jack exited the station, he spotted an adolescent boy wearing a cap, his trousers tucked into bicycle clips, cycling out of the car park.

These were just ordinary people going about their business, doing the best they could in the circumstances. Something about the rural scene buoyed Jack’s spirits and reminded him what they were fighting for. Yes, there were impressive things to celebrate about Britain, such as the parliament that had stood for centuries and Victorian engineering that made his rail journey possible, but at that moment, what felt most precious was seeing British people living their lives, caring for their loved ones and trying to build a life worth living.

Jack walked directly to The Eight Bells for a shave and a change of clothing, where he was greeted by the landlady clearing away the breakfast dishes.

Pausing when she spotted him, she said, ‘Well, there you are! I don’t mind telling you, I’ve been worried about you.’

Jack apologised for not telling her in advance that he would be away and assured her he was fine but had been called back to London to check on his mother.

The landlady’s eyes softened. ‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

Jack took a few minutes to chat with the landlady. Bletchley Park rightly had a reputation for being a mysterious place, and the more he could make himself seem like a very normal civil servant, the better for everyone. These small interactions with the locals were an integral part of that. He accepted the landlady’s kind offer of a late breakfast and enjoyed a piping hot cup of tea as he browsed the newspaper. Whilst the Red Army continued to make gains on the Eastern Front, and the tone of the newspaper was more hopeful for an Allied victory than ever, air raids and German bombing of London had resumed, and other major cities were being hit.

Fletcher asked if he had a pleasant trip when he entered the hut, and she presented him with a pile of documents marked for his attention. Jack thanked her and lit a cigarette before settling down to work.

On the train journey, his thoughts kept circling back to the anomalies that both he and Lizzie had noticed in the Swiss intercepts. The wonderful thing about quiet train journeys was that they allowed one time to think, uninterrupted, and as the wheels tapped the rails in a hypnotic rhythm, it occurred to Jack that this was the piece of the puzzle he must search for. There had been so much going on, from collating suitable material for the double agent to pass to Berlin, assessing the latest developments in France, and the dangers for Hannah and The Lavender Network, as well as collecting data on the flow of intelligence to Baker Street via the SIS. When the train came to a grumbling stop at one station, what had been bothering him, without him realising why, struck him.

The Swiss anomaly was the thread to pull, and his instincts told him it would unravel the mystery of whatever secret Aubrey Gould was guarding so fiercely.

After dealing with the immediate demands in his pile of papers, he turned his attention to the more important matter at hand. Jack asked Fletcher for several specific intercepts to study that he had not seen before, but that his higher-level security gave him access to. As always, Fletcher was a wonder of quiet efficiency, producing everything he requested like a magician.

It wasn’t until the clock on the hut wall ticked over to 5 p.m., and he was growing weary from his lack of sleep the previous night and his early start, that he found it. His mind was foggy from tiredness, and he almost missed it, and had to reread the decryption several times to be sure.

Could it be?

But there it was in black and white. The message had surfaced in Swiss-routed radio traffic before Bletchley's own internal distribution had finished processing it.

That’s what had been bugging him, but he’d almost overlooked the significance in the swirl of events. Jack lit another cigarette and narrowed his eyes as he considered what possible reason there could be for top-secret intelligence to be routed via Switzerland. His thoughts switched immediately to the Soviets, who always did their utmost to embed themselves in other intelligence networks. Had they infiltrated via the Swiss channel?

Bern was a key spy hub, with all the principal agencies operating there. Of course, the US could be involved, trying to access their channels by the back door, but as their allies, they already shared intelligence. Germany would be the obvious suspect, but the intelligence was about their own movements, so its helpfulness to them was limited. Swiss counterintelligence stuck its fingers in every pie, desperately trying to control its neutrality narrative, which was crumbling all around them as it became clear just how much they were cooperating with the Nazis to fund the war. Why would the Swiss feed German troop movements into the system? He shook his head. No, it made no sense. In their silent game of claiming neutrality whilst being in bed with the Germans in war production and laundering of assets, they were extractors of intelligence, not contributors. They were desperate to contain the truth within their own borders, not distribute it to other agencies.

Jack ran his hand over the paper and held it up to the light that shone from his desk lamp. It was always worth checking if there was a secret code within the code, but nothing caught his attention. It seemed like a straightforward intercept, but there was nothing about it that made sense.

In one of the latest messages from Lizzie, she’d again mentioned something odd in the cipher room decrypts, and now he saw clearly how it might connect to this thread. The only explanation was that someone was feeding vital intelligence about German troop movements into the system directly from Switzerland. But who had the motive to do such a bizarre thing?

One by one, Jack ticked off the culprits and imagined their potential motives, but nothing made sense. Tiredness had passed him by, and he was alert again now, poised on the edge of something huge. He could sense it was within reach, and he recognised the feeling from when he was about to make a significant breakthrough.

Half an hour later, his brain was still trying to connect the pieces, and he was growing frustrated, not knowing what to look at next. He wished he could take some reports and messages back to the pub and continue studying them after dinner in the privacy of his room, but that was out of the question. Jack combed through the relevant messages again, and something clicked. Something tied it to the Soviets, but what?

Fletcher appeared over his shoulder. ‘Sir?’

He turned, shielding the messages. ‘Yes, are you off for the day?’

‘No sir. It’s not that. Gould has asked that you return the batch you had me withdraw from the security register earlier.’

‘Oh, and why’s that?’

Fletcher’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Apparently, they are above your security level and should not have been released.’

Jack sat up straight. This was not a coincidence, and the hairs on his neck stood up. ‘Gould said that?’

Fletcher nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I received an order from him a few minutes ago, commanding me to gather the materials and return them without delay.’

‘You’d better do so then,’ Jack said, assembling the papers and passing them to her.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, still flustered.