and decide which would stay with the subsection and which would be routed to the German, French and Dutch branches.
“This sounds very odd,”he said almost immediately.
The eyes in the room shifted from their work to the unexcitable Milne.
“What does it say?” Philby asked.
“Madrid’s telling Berlin that their V-man, Arabel, has reported the formation of a convoy in the bay of Caernarvon.”
The tension in the room spiked. There weren’t supposed to be any German spies in England, not one. The intelligence services had managed to catch every agent parachuted into the countryside or paid off by the Abwehr. But here was a previously unidentified agent who was apparently watching a convoy gather in the upper reaches of northwest Wales. If true, England had a problem on its hands.
Philby grabbed the green phone sitting on his desk, a secure line to MI5. Snapping his fingers to battle the effects of his painful stammer, he called the Abwehr-research department. As the others listened to Philby’s stuttering words, it became clear the rival agency had received the same message and was equally concerned about it.
Soon, as Pujol would later discover, “the British were going crazylooking for me.” MI5 hurriedly checked the schedule of ships leaving Liverpool; none matched Arabel’s description. Scotland Yard sent agents to remote Llyn Peninsula and scoured the boggy heath and the inns for suspicious characters, but found none. Commander Ewen Montagu, MI5’s link with the Admiralty, sent a telegram saying that the Caernarvon convoy didn’t exist.The men of Section V blew out relieved breaths—Arabel was clearly a phony.
More deciphered messages came in from ISOS , handed over by the motorcycle courier. It was Arabel again, reporting that the convoy had left Caernarvon, heading south, in strength. “We know there is no bloody convoy,”Philby hissed. “Why and who is this Arabel and why is he so obviously lying?” They began watching for messages from Arabel every day. Yet the agent frustrated the men of the Iberian section by going silent for weeks before chirping up again, often with some ridiculous new bulletin: the staff of foreign embassies in London, he reported, had moved to the seaside in Brighton to get away from the intolerable heat. It was preposterous; only an idiot would even suggest such a thing. But a few of Arabel’s messages hit close to the bone, giving half-accurate reports on British armaments or naval movements that indicated some access to English ports. The Germans responded avidly to every word. “The Abwehr’s trustin this creative liar grew with every fishy message,” wrote Bristow. The Abwehr even agreed to pay Arabel’s expenses, which strangely were always given in shillings, not pounds, as if the spy didn’t understand British currency.
The proof of Arabel’s high standing came when ISOS began intercepting messages showing that the Germans were scrambling their forces to ambush the convoy from Caernarvon—a convoy that didn’t exist. The German navy diverted U-boats from their regular patrols to hunt the Allied ships; Italian fighter planes loaded with torpedo bombs were moved to Sardinia in case they were needed for an attack. Thousands of crucial man-hours, tons of fuel and important naval assets were being sent to fight a phantom. The Germans planned to ambushthe five-vessel convoy at a point east of Gibraltar.
It was incomprehensible. Even Philby, generally acknowledged to be the section’s best mind, couldn’t understand what was happening. Either the Abwehr had fallen for a con man with hazy motives, or it was a complex ruse to get Arabel to London and inside the lair of the British High Command. Philby knew his spy history: in 1939, the Abwehr had attempted a similar stratagem, drawing out the British secret service with a fake triple agent, leading to the kidnapping of two SIS agents in the Netherlands. Were the Germans using the same scheme again? Philby
“This sounds very odd,”he said almost immediately.
The eyes in the room shifted from their work to the unexcitable Milne.
“What does it say?” Philby asked.
“Madrid’s telling Berlin that their V-man, Arabel, has reported the formation of a convoy in the bay of Caernarvon.”
The tension in the room spiked. There weren’t supposed to be any German spies in England, not one. The intelligence services had managed to catch every agent parachuted into the countryside or paid off by the Abwehr. But here was a previously unidentified agent who was apparently watching a convoy gather in the upper reaches of northwest Wales. If true, England had a problem on its hands.
Philby grabbed the green phone sitting on his desk, a secure line to MI5. Snapping his fingers to battle the effects of his painful stammer, he called the Abwehr-research department. As the others listened to Philby’s stuttering words, it became clear the rival agency had received the same message and was equally concerned about it.
Soon, as Pujol would later discover, “the British were going crazylooking for me.” MI5 hurriedly checked the schedule of ships leaving Liverpool; none matched Arabel’s description. Scotland Yard sent agents to remote Llyn Peninsula and scoured the boggy heath and the inns for suspicious characters, but found none. Commander Ewen Montagu, MI5’s link with the Admiralty, sent a telegram saying that the Caernarvon convoy didn’t exist.The men of Section V blew out relieved breaths—Arabel was clearly a phony.
More deciphered messages came in from ISOS , handed over by the motorcycle courier. It was Arabel again, reporting that the convoy had left Caernarvon, heading south, in strength. “We know there is no bloody convoy,”Philby hissed. “Why and who is this Arabel and why is he so obviously lying?” They began watching for messages from Arabel every day. Yet the agent frustrated the men of the Iberian section by going silent for weeks before chirping up again, often with some ridiculous new bulletin: the staff of foreign embassies in London, he reported, had moved to the seaside in Brighton to get away from the intolerable heat. It was preposterous; only an idiot would even suggest such a thing. But a few of Arabel’s messages hit close to the bone, giving half-accurate reports on British armaments or naval movements that indicated some access to English ports. The Germans responded avidly to every word. “The Abwehr’s trustin this creative liar grew with every fishy message,” wrote Bristow. The Abwehr even agreed to pay Arabel’s expenses, which strangely were always given in shillings, not pounds, as if the spy didn’t understand British currency.
The proof of Arabel’s high standing came when ISOS began intercepting messages showing that the Germans were scrambling their forces to ambush the convoy from Caernarvon—a convoy that didn’t exist. The German navy diverted U-boats from their regular patrols to hunt the Allied ships; Italian fighter planes loaded with torpedo bombs were moved to Sardinia in case they were needed for an attack. Thousands of crucial man-hours, tons of fuel and important naval assets were being sent to fight a phantom. The Germans planned to ambushthe five-vessel convoy at a point east of Gibraltar.
It was incomprehensible. Even Philby, generally acknowledged to be the section’s best mind, couldn’t understand what was happening. Either the Abwehr had fallen for a con man with hazy motives, or it was a complex ruse to get Arabel to London and inside the lair of the British High Command. Philby knew his spy history: in 1939, the Abwehr had attempted a similar stratagem, drawing out the British secret service with a fake triple agent, leading to the kidnapping of two SIS agents in the Netherlands. Were the Germans using the same scheme again? Philby
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