Several months later, in the winter of 1934, he was approached by a small dour man with a pair of dachshunds-Wilhelm Canaris, the new head of the Abwehr. Canaris asked Vogel if he would be willing to go to work for him. Vogel accepted on one condition-that he not be forced to join the Nazi party-and the following week he vanished into the world of German military intelligence. Officially, he served as Canaris's in-house legal counsel. Unofficially, he was given the task of preparing for the war with Britain that Canaris thought was inevitable.
Now Vogel sat at his desk, hunched over a memo, knuckles pressed to his temples. He struggled to concentrate over the noise: the rattle of the old lift as it struggled up and down the well just beyond his wall, the splatter of freezing rain against the windows, the cacophony of car horns that accompanied the Berlin evening rush. He moved his hands from his temples to his ears and pressed until there was silence.
The memo had been given to him by Canaris earlier that day, a few hours after the Old Fox returned from a meeting with Hitler at Rastenburg. Canaris thought it looked promising, and Vogel had to agree. "Hitler wants results, Kurt," Canaris had said, sitting behind his battered antique desk like an impervious old don, eyes wandering the overflowing bookshelves as though searching for a treasured but long-lost volume. "He wants proof it's Calais or Normandy. Perhaps it's time we brought your little nest of spies into the game."
Vogel had read it once quickly. Now he read it more carefully a second time. Actually it was more than promising, it was perfect-the opportunity he had been waiting for. When he finished he looked up and murmured Ulbricht's name several times as if he were speaking directly into his ear. Finally, receiving no reply, he rose and walked into the anteroom. Ulbricht was cleaning his Lugers.
"Werner, I've been calling you for five minutes," Vogel said, his voice nearly inaudible.
"I'm sorry, Captain. I didn't hear you."
"I want to see Muller first thing in the morning. Make me an appointment."
"Yes, sir."
"And Werner, do something about your damned ears. I was shouting at the top of my lungs in there."
The bombers came at midnight as Vogel dozed fitfully in his office on a stiff camp bed. He swung his legs to the floor, rose, and walked to the window as the aircraft droned overhead. Berlin shuddered as the first fires erupted in the districts of Pankow and Weissensee. Vogel wondered how much more punishment the city could absorb. Vast sections of the capital of the thousand-year Reich had already been reduced to rubble. Many of the city's most famous neighborhoods resembled canyons of crushed brick and twisted steel. The lime trees of the Unter den Linden had been scorched, as had many of the once-glittering shops and banks lining the broad boulevard. The renowned clock at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church had been stilled at seven thirty since November, when Allied bombers laid waste to one thousand acres of Berlin on a single night.
The memo ran around in his head while he watched the night raid.
ABWEHR/BERLIN XFU0465848261
TO: CANARIS
FROM: MULLER
DATE: 2 NOV 43
ON 21 OCTOBER CAPTAIN DIETRICH OF ASCUNCION STATION DEBRIEFED AMERICAN ASSET SCORPIO IN PANAMA CITY. AS YOU KNOW SCORPIO IS ONE OF OUR MOST IMPORTANT AGENTS IN AMERICA. HE IS HIGHLY PLACED IN NEW YORK FINANCIAL CIRCLES AND IS WELL CONNECTED IN WASHINGTON. HE IS PERSONAL FRIENDS WITH MANY SENIOR OFFICERS AT BOTH THE DEPARTMENTS OF WAR AND STATE. HE HAS MET PERSONALLY WITH ROOSEVELT. THROUGHOUT THE WAR HIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN TIMELY AND HIGHLY ACCURATE. I REMIND YOU ABOUT THE INTELLIGENCE HE SUPPLIED TO US ON THE AMERICAN ARMS SHIPMENTS TO THE BRITISH.
ACCORDING TO SCORPIO, A RENOWNED AMERICAN ENGINEER NAMED PETER JORDAN WAS RECRUITED BY THE AMERICAN NAVY LAST MONTH AND DISPATCHED TO LONDON TO WORK ON A HIGHLY SECRET CONSTRUCTION PROJECT. JORDAN HAS NO PREVIOUS MILITARY EXPERIENCE. SCORPIO KNOWS JORDAN PERSONALLY AND SPOKE WITH HIM BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE FOR LONDON. SCORPIO SAYS THE PROJECT IS DEFINITELY CONNECTED TO THE ENEMY'S PLAN TO INVADE FRANCE.
JORDAN IS RESPECTED FOR HIS WORK ON SEVERAL MAJOR AMERICAN BRIDGE PROJECTS. JORDAN IS A WIDOWER. HIS WIFE, THE DAUGHTER OF AMERICAN BANKER BRATTON LAUTERBACH, WAS KILLED IN AN AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT IN AUGUST 1939. SCORPIO BELIEVES JORDAN IS HIGHLY VULNERABLE TO APPROACH BY A FEMALE ASSET.
JORDAN IS NOW LIVING ALONE IN THE SECTION OF LONDON KNOWN AS KENSINGTON. SCORPIO HAS PROVIDED THE ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE AS WELL AS THE COMBINATION OF THE SAFE INSIDE THE STUDY.
SUGGEST ACTION.
Vogel noticed a wedge of light from the doorway and heard the scrape of Ulbricht's wooden leg against the floor. The bombing disturbed Ulbricht in a way he could not put into words and Vogel could never understand. Vogel removed his key ring from the desk drawer and went to one of the steel cabinets. The file was inside an unmarked black folder. Returning to his desk, he poured himself a large cognac and opened the cover. It was all there: the photographs, the background material, the performance reports. He didn't need to read it. He had written it himself and, like the subject, he had the curse of a flawless memory.
He turned a few more pages and found the notes he had made after their first meeting in Paris. Beneath it was a copy of the cable sent to him by the man who discovered her-Emilio Romero, a wealthy Spanish landowner, a Fascist, a talent spotter for the Abwehr.
SHE IS EVERYTHING YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. I'D LIKE TO KEEP HER FOR MYSELF BUT BECAUSE I AM A FRIEND I WILL GIVE HER TO YOU. AT A REASONABLE PRICE OF COURSE.
The room felt suddenly bone-chillingly cold. He lay down on his army cot and covered himself in a blanket.
Hitler wants results, Kurt. Perhaps it's time we brought your little nest of spies into the game.
Sometimes he imagined leaving her in place until it was all over, then finding some way of getting her out. But she was perfect for it, of course. She was beautiful, she was intelligent, and her English and her knowledge of British society were faultless. He turned and looked at the photograph of Gertrude and the children. To think that he fantasized giving them up for her. He had been such a fool. He switched off the light. The air raid had ended. The night was a symphony of sirens. He tried to sleep but it was no good. She was under his skin again.
Poor Vogel. I've made a shambles of your heart, haven't I?
The eyes in the photograph of his family were boring into him. It was obscene, looking at them, remembering her. He stood up, went to his desk, and locked the picture away in his drawer.
"For God's sake, Kurt!" Muller exclaimed as Vogel entered his office the following morning. "Who's cutting your hair these days, my friend? Let me give you the name of the woman who does mine. Maybe she can help you."
Vogel, exhausted from a night of little sleep, sat down and silently regarded the figure before him. Paul Muller was in charge of the Abwehr's intelligence networks in the United States. He was short, tubby, and impeccably dressed in a shiny French suit. His thin hair was oiled and combed straight back from his cherubic face. His tiny mouth was sumptuous and red, like that of a child who has just eaten cherry candy.
"Imagine this, the great Kurt Vogel, here in my office," Muller said through a smirk. "To what do I owe this privilege?"
Vogel was used to the professional jealousy of the other senior staff. Because of the special status of his V-Chain network, he was given more money and assets than the other case officers. He was also allowed to poke his nose into their affairs, which made him extremely unpopular within the agency.
Vogel removed his copy of Muller's memo from the breast pocket of his jacket and waved it in front of him. "Tell me about Scorpio," he said.
"So the Old Man finally circulated my note. Look at the date on the goddamned thing. I gave it to him two months ago. It's been sitting on his desk gathering dust. That information is like gold. But it goes into the Fox's Lair and never comes out again." Muller paused, lit a cigarette, and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. "You know, Kurt, sometimes I wonder whose side Canaris is on."