I hardly hoped that the line would work, but I put it over with all the conviction I could and reinforced it with another dose of my invaluable whiskey. Swiss thrift overcame police prudence. He asked me if I would be prepared to divulge my financial position. With a show of some reluctance at having to produce such private matters I explained that I was in receipt of sixty-five pounds a month from England and in addition had a balance of some fifteen thousand Swiss francs in the bank. I added that I was of course prepared to have this investigated if he so desired, but naturally I would prefer to avoid the possible embarrassment of police enquiries of my bank manager. He was kind enough to accept my word and pressed for no more factual details. This was, on the whole, as well since my total finances at that moment amounted to five hundred dollars which I had in my pocketbook. The network was then in low financial water and the monthly remittance and the substantial balance were figments of my fancy.
Pressing my advantage, I asked if I could have permission to remain in the flat for the next six months. This I got; and it was renewed afterwards every six months without question. I wrote a standard letter stating that I was still in receipt of this entirely notional sixty-five pounds a month, and by return post came the permission. This was one of the few occasions when I had to bluff and trust to luck. It worked, and-1 had overcome the two main hurdles a spy has to surmount. I had a fixed and legal base, and my means of communication were secured. These two obstacles trip up ninety per cent of the spies who end their lives on the scaffold or in the cells. The victims are caught either through their means of communication- by radio monitoring or censorship - or because they have been unable to legalise themselves in the country where they are operating. It is practically impossible to be an efficient spy and be, at the same time, perpetually on the run. It was not too bad for me, as the worst that I had to expect from the Swiss was a period of imprisonment; while, if I failed to get established, I could always go quietly to ground with one of Rado's friends who had little to fear- the penalty for sheltering a spy in a neutral country being comparatively slight. Admittedly I was caught in the end, and caught through my means of communication like most of the rest. But thanks to the thrift of the Swiss and the mellowing effect of scotch whiskey I had almost three years' run for my money.
With myself legalised and the aerial installed I had merely to get the set working and contact Moscow. This was not too easy. I had already spent six weeks in dealing with the police and getting my dilatory mechanic on to the job and now I was anxious to get the set going without delay. But when I resurrected the bits of the transmitter from their hiding places and set the whole thing up, the crystal refused to oscillate. After a great deal of trial and error (after all I was not a trained radio mechanic and Hamel and his professional advice were not available to me in Lausanne) I managed to get the set to work by shortening the lead-in and installing the apparatus in the kitchen. This was not in the least convenient, but it was safer, as it ensured me against casual interruption, for it was unlikely that any unwanted guest who arrived during my transmitting times would penetrate to the kitchen. At least I could do my best to stop him and the arrangement saved my having to think up an easy and quick way of hiding the transmitter, which would have been necessary had I installed it, as I had at first wished, in my living room.
With the set now working, I had only to contact Moscow, and in my innocence I imagined this would be an easy task. Night after night, with my receiver tuned to the wave length given me in my schedule, I called at the arranged times. My tappings went out onto the unreceptive ether. Moscow could not or would not hear. Several times I almost decided to give up for the moment and go to Geneva and ask Rado to put a message over his set-which I knew now to be working in Hamel's flat-asking Moscow to listen carefully and let Rado know if I was getting through or whether the set was still faulty. I banished this temptation, as the one thing we were anxious to do was to keep the two sets as unconnected as possible. I settled down again with renewed patience and continued calling. It was all the more irritating because the whole time I could hear Moscow calling me: "NDA NDA NDA," but they continued merely to call and I could get no indication that they could hear me, merely the perpetual reiteration of the call sign, as maddening to taut nerves as a dripping tap.
Persistence, however, won its ultimate reward. On March 12 for the thousandth time I tapped out the call sign "FRX FRX FRX." Then through the hum and crackle of static and over the background noise of other signals I heard "NDA NDA OK QRK 5." (QRK 5 indicated in the "Q code" that my signals were being heard very strongly.) Contact had been established.
BLUEPRINT FOR ESPIONAGE
There now follows a description of the layout of a Red Army espionage network in theory. It is the blueprint which all networks abroad attempt to follow. I can of course speak only for the Red Army system, as that is the only one I know. I should imagine that the Red Fleet or N.K.V.D. (now M.V.D.) network would be organised on approximately the same lines. It is, in fact, an eminently practicable, simple, and effective system, giving the maximum degree of efficiency with the minimum danger of compromise.
The head of the network is, of course, the resident director. Except in exceptional circumstances, he does not reside in the country against which his network is operating but lives and directs the organisation from a convenient neighbouring country against whose interests he is forbidden to work. It naturally happens on occasions that a resident director obtains information concerning his country of residence. In such cases, in normal times, he would hand the development of the source over to another resident director whose network was directed against the first director's country of residence. For example if the resident director in Switzerland of the network against Germany discovered a source who was