“Dammit! Nothing in the paperwork at all?”
“Nothing that would make you think it was a Soviet submarine we just sent to the bottom, Skipper.”
There was something there that made Ffoulkes pose his question very carefully.
“Anything to make us think it was something else entirely, Jimmy?”
“Yes, Skipper.”
An icy hand gripped Ffoulkes’ vitals, and he understood what it was that had his Number One so agitated.
“What?”
The Lieutenant placed a sodden English five-pound note in front of his Captain.
“Souvenir. Means nothing.
“Ordinarily I’d agree with you, Skipper.”
“Ordinarily you’d agr… go on.”
The Jimmy emptied a duffel bag onto the floor, wet five pound notes creating a growing pile until he could shake no more free.
“Fucking hell… oh fucking hell…”
“Skipper, there’s more.”
“What?”
“We recovered three sealed boxes from the wreckage, Skipper. I’ve the Master-at Arms guarding them now. By my estimate they each contain five hundred.”
“Five hundred?”
“Five hundred thousand, Skipper, We’ve over one and a half million pounds of currency recovered from that boat.”
“Fucking hell!”
“Maybe it wasn’t a Russki after all. Skipper.”
“Fucking hell!”
The voice tube erupted next to Ffoulkes ear.
“Captain.”
He listened intently.
“I’ll be on the bridge immediately, Nav. Thank you.”
He replaced the pipe.
“That was the Nav. Apparently another five crates have surfaced on the port bow.”
“Fucking hell, Skipper!”
“Language, Number One.”
The two senior men made their way to the bridge, with Ffoulkes already composing an ‘Admiralty: Most Secret’ message in his mind.
By the time he and the Jimmy arrived on the bridge, the Nav reported a total of eleven crates bobbing on the surface of an increasingly agitated sea.
1102 hrs, Friday, 22nd November 1946, Downing Street, England.
Winston Churchill listened impassively as Dalziel started into the briefing on recent events in Eire and the Atlantic.
Given the sensitive nature of the content, there were only two other pairs of ears present to absorb the incredible story.
The CIGS and the First Sea Lord, respectively Lord Alanbrooke and Sir Andrew Cunningham, Baron Cunningham of Hyndhope, were simple spectators as the story of huge quantities of counterfeit cash, the IRA, and Soviet submarines played out before them.
Dalziel’s delivery was impeccable and full, so there were no interruptions until it came to the maths, when Churchill, still incredulous, sought a check on his calculations.
“So, Sir Roger, you seem to be saying that the efforts of our intelligence agencies have prevented the Communists from dumping about two hundred and sixty million pounds of counterfeit currency into our system?”
“At least, Prime Minister. We think more… much more.”
“Because you think they took half in the first run?”
“Possibly, Prime Minister. Submarine officers I have chatted to could see no reason to overload their vessel if they intended to make two runs… which we know they did from what the first visiting officer said to Éire’s G2 agent.”
“Go on.”
“Considered opinion was that, if the Soviet sub and naval commanders had anything to do with it, the load would have been split half for each trip, Prime Minister.”
“Yes, yes. That would make sense. I can see that.”
Churchill turned to Somerville and received a nod in agreement.
“There is more, Prime Minister.”
The cigar glowed as Churchill drew deeply on it, sending out a virtual smoke screen between him and his briefing officer.
“In the monitoring of discussions between senior German prisoners of war in Austria, parts of a whispered conversation were recorded. One of those speaking was Ernst Kaltenbrunner. The recording was of poor quality, but some of the words were identifiable.
He consulted the document to refresh his mind.
“…Sachsenhausen… the concentration camp near Berlin.”
“…the British money…”
“…Bernard… “
Dalziel looked up.
“Which we now know should be Bernhard, Operation Bernhard, Prime Minister.”
Churchill nodded his understanding but said nothing, so Dalziel continued.
“…safely hidden…”
“…lake…”
The naval officer finished lifting the words from the transcript of the recording.
“Subsequent rumours pointed us all towards lakes in the Alpine Redoubt.”
“Even though Kaltenbrunner mentioned Sachsenhausen, we had no idea what went on at the camp, over and above the normal horrors, until August, when we were fed information by a former member of the Polish 2nd Infantry Division. He even showed us some British five pound notes he had liberated at the time.”
“One inmate of Sachsenhausen… an Adolf Burger, made a report to the Czech Central Bank… he’s a Czech national and a Jew, so he considered that appropriate. He spoke of millions of pounds worth of counterfeit currency, not just our own, a lot of American dollars too, Sir. All produced by inmates of the Sachsenhausen Camp. He also supplied us with the name ‘Bernhard’ and linked it directly to the counterfeit money. ”
Dalziel produced one final piece of paper.
“This is an American report from April ’45, which mentions a young local girl, Ida Weisenbacher, who claimed to have seen SS soldiers putting items into Lake Toplitz in February.”
He handed over a copy to each of the listeners.
“The report had little credence over and above any other report at the time. There were constant reports from people trying to ingratiate themselves with the new occupiers, and Weisenbacher’s was no different.”
Churchill looked up from the paper, examining the Rear-Admiral over the top of his glasses.
“But it was different I assume?”
“Yes, Prime Minister, in as much as it was true. Kaltenbrunner was a frequent visitor to the area in happier times, and she named him as one of the men she saw dumping items in the water.”
No one gave voice to the thought that such a piece of information should never have been buried or ignored.
Dalziel continued.
“When the Soviets took over the area, it appears that she told her story to someone else, which resulted in the lake being investigated. We only found this out when the area was reoccupied. Fraulein Weisenbacher has disappeared, but some of the local population spoke of Soviet activity that resulted in the removal of many objects from the lake, roughly around the end of June, beginning of July.”
Dalziel brought the pile of paperwork together neatly, ensuring all the edges were perfectly aligned as he delivered the final piece of information.
“We are aware that NKVD Colonel General Serov was in the area at the time. He was the man charged with recovering the German uranium oxide and other sensitive items.”
“Good lord. We seem to have escaped a disaster by the skin of our teeth, Sir Roger. Damnedly well done to all involved… Damnedly well done. And the money is where now?”
“What was recovered from the sea is now safely within the Naval arsenal at Scapa Flow, under increased guard.”
Somerville eased himself on his seat.
“Prime Minister. That was under my orders. My inclination was to burn the bloody lot of them, but I assumed Bank of England would want a look at the damn things.”
“Quite right too, Sir James. I’ll get Hugh Dalton on it immediately. I’ll have him liaise directly with you.”