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There was a Polish Airline flight to London LOT 104, staged through Berlin-Schönefeld airport at ten A.M. It was held for ten minutes to enable Ludmilla Vanavskaya to board. As Wolf had pointed out, her German was adequate but not good enough to pass. Few people in London that she would meet spoke Polish. She had papers of a Polish schoolteacher visiting a relative. That would be plausible since Poland had a much more liberal regime.
The Polish airliner landed in London at eleven, gaining an hour due to time difference. Major Vanavskaya passed through passport and customs control inside thirty minutes, made two phone calls from a public booth in Terminal Two concourse, and took a taxi to a district of London called Primrose Hill.
The phone on Sam McCready’s desk trilled at midday. He had just put the phone down after talking again to Cheltenham. The answer was—still nothing. Forty-eight hours, and Morenz was still on the run. The new caller was the man from the NATO desk downstairs.
“There’s a chit came through in the morning bag,” he said. “It may be nothing; if so, throw it away. Anyway, I’m sending it up by messenger.”
The chit arrived five minutes later. When he saw it, and the timing on it, McCready swore loudly.
Normally, the need-to-know rule in the covert world works admirably. Those who do not need to know something in order to fulfill their functions are not told about it. That way, if there is a leak—either deliberate or through sloppy talk—the damage is reasonably limited. But sometimes it works the other way around. Sometimes a piece of information that might have changed events is not passed on because no one thought it was necessary.
The Archimedes listening station in the Harz Mountains and the East Germany-listeners at Cheltenham had been told to pass to McCready without delay anything they got. The words Grauber or Morenz were particular triggers for an instant pass-on. But no one had thought to alert those who listen to Allied diplomatic and military traffic to pass what they picked up to McCready.
The message he held was timed at 4:22 P.M. on Wednesday evening. It said:
Ex-Herrmann
Pro-Fietzau.
Top urgent. Contact Mrs. A. Farquarson, nee Morenz, believed living London stop Ask if she has seen or heard of or from her brother in last four days endit.
He never told me he had a sister in London. Never told me he had a sister at all, thought McCready. He began to wonder what else his friend Bruno had not told him about his past. He dragged a telephone directory from a shelf and looked under the name of Farquarson.
Fortunately, it was not a terribly common name. Smith would have been a different matter entirely. There were fourteen Farquarsons, but no “Mrs. A.” He began to ring them in sequence. Of the first seven, five said there was no Mrs. A. Farquarson to their knowledge. Two failed to answer. He was lucky at the eighth; the listing was for Robert Farquarson. A woman answered.
“Yes, this is Mrs. Farquarson.”
A hint of German accent?
“Would that be Mrs. A. Farquarson?”
“Yes.” She seemed defensive.
“Forgive my ringing you, Mrs. Farquarson. I am from the Immigration Department at Heathrow. Would you by chance have a brother named Bruno Morenz?”
A long pause.
“Is he there? At Heathrow?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, madam. Unless you are his sister.”
“Yes, I am Adelheid Farquarson. Bruno Morenz is my brother. Could I speak to him?”
“Not at the moment, I’m afraid. Will you be at that address in, say, fifteen minutes? It’s rather important.”
“Yes, I will be here.”
McCready called for a car and driver from the motor pool and raced downstairs.
It was a large studio apartment at the top of a solidly built Edwardian villa, tucked behind Regent’s Park Road. He walked up and rang the bell. Mrs. Farquarson greeted him in a painter’s smock and showed him into a cluttered studio with paintings on easels and sketches strewn on the floor.
She was a handsome woman, gray-haired like her brother. McCready put her in her late fifties, older than Bruno. She cleared a space, offered him a seat, and met his gaze levelly. McCready noticed two coffee mugs standing on a nearby table. Both were empty. He contrived to touch one while Mrs. Farquarson sat down. The mug was warm.
“What can I do for you, Mr. ...”
“Jones. I would like to ask you about your brother, Herr Bruno Morenz?”
“Why?”