The Unlikely Spy

Then the Pelican came for him.

 

Hawke called Boothby. Hawke was a good boy.

 

 

 

 

 

The Pelican was German, Jewish, and a Communist; Boothby saw the possibilities immediately. He had been a Communist street brawler in Berlin in the 1920s, but with Hitler in power he thought it best to find safer shores. He emigrated to England in 1933. The NKVD knew about the Pelican from his days in Berlin. When they found out he had settled in England they recruited him as an agent. He was supposed to be a talent spotter only, no heavy lifting. The first talent he spotted was Boothby's agent, Hawke. At the next meeting between Hawke and the Pelican, Boothby appeared out of nowhere and put the fear of God into him. Pelican agreed to go to work for Boothby.

 

Are you still with me, Alfred?

 

Vicary, listening at the window, thought, Oh, yes. In fact, I'm four moves ahead of you.

 

 

 

 

 

In August 1939, Boothby brought Hawke to MI5. On Boothby's orders, the Pelican told his Moscow controllers that his star recruit was now working in British Intelligence. Moscow was ecstatic. Pelican's star rose. Boothby used Pelican to funnel true but harmless material back to the Russians, all of it allegedly from his source inside MI5--Hawke--all information the Russians could verify from other sources. Pelican's star soared.

 

In November 1939, Boothby sent the Pelican to the Netherlands. A young, arrogant SS intelligence officer named Walter Schellenberg was making regular trips into Dutch territory under an assumed name to meet with a pair of MI6 agents.

 

Schellenberg was posing as a member of the Schwarze Kapelle and was asking the British for assistance. In truth, he wanted the British to give him the names of real German traitors so he could arrest them. The Pelican met Schellenberg in a cafe in a Dutch town just across the border and offered to work for him as a spy in Britain. He admitted he had done a job or two for the NKVD, including recruiting an Oxford boy named Hawke, who had just joined MI5 and with whom Pelican was still in regular contact. As a sign of goodwill the Pelican presented Schellenberg with a gift, a collection of Asian erotica. Schellenberg gave Pelican a thousand pounds, a camera, and a radio transmitter and sent him back to Britain.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1940, MI5 reorganized. Vernon Kell, the old director-general who founded the department in 1909, was abruptly fired by Churchill. Sir David Petrie took charge. Boothby knew him from India. Boothby was kicked upstairs. He turned over the Pelican to a case officer--an amateur like you, Alfred: a solicitor, though, not a professor--but he kept a firm hand on him. Pelican was too important to be left to someone who barely knew his way to the canteen. Besides, the Pelican's dealings with Schellenberg were getting damned interesting.

 

Schellenberg was impressed with the Pelican's first reports. The material was all good but harmless stuff--munitions production, troop movements, bomb damage assessment. Schellenberg drank greedily of it, even though he knew it was coming from a Jewish Communist who had worked as a talent spotter for the NKVD. He and the rest of the SS despised Canaris and the professional intelligence officers at the Abwehr. They mistrusted the information Canaris was giving the Fuhrer. Schellenberg saw his opportunity. He could create a separate network in Britain that reported directly to him and Heinrich Himmler, bypassing the Abwehr altogether.

 

Boothby saw an opportunity too. He could use the Pelican network for two purposes: to verify misinformation being sent to Canaris through the Double Cross system and at the same time to sow mistrust between the two rival intelligence organizations. It was a delicate balancing act. MI5 wanted Canaris to remain on the job--after all, his agency had been totally compromised and manipulated--but a little palace intrigue was good too. British Intelligence could blow gently on the flames of dissension and treachery. Boothby started feeding Schellenberg information through the Pelican that raised questions about Canaris's loyalty--not enough for Schellenberg to plunge the dagger into the Old Fox's back, mind you, just enough to put the bloody thing in his hand.

 

In 1942, Boothby thought the game had spun out of control. Schellenberg compiled a lengthy list of Canaris's sins and presented it to Himmler. The Double Cross committee decided to throw Canaris a bone or two to untie the noose around his neck--high-grade intelligence he could show to the Fuhrer to prove the Abwehr's effectiveness. It worked. Himmler stuck Schellenberg's file in the drawer, and the Old Fox stayed on the job.

 

 

 

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