Codename Tricycle by Miller Russell

Author:Miller, Russell [Russell Miller]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-09-11T23:00:00+00:00

After long discussions with Popov, it was agreed that he should try and explain away his lack of up-to-date intelligence by adopting a defiant attitude. He had always made it clear to the Germans that he only worked for them for money, and for no other motive, and as the money had ceased to arrive, he had ceased to work. As a result all he had picked up in the last three months were dinner-table indiscretions. He was to say that his references to forthcoming good information in his traffic were inserted merely to spur the Germans on to pay him.

If Popov was worried about what lay ahead, he was certainly not showing it. ‘Tricycle showed great confidence in his ability to survive his meetings in Lisbon,’ Wilson noted. ‘His story is thin and cannot be expected to survive searching interrogation, but he is satisfied his personal relations with Johnny Jebsen and von Karsthoff will pull him through.’7

Von Karsthoff was unquestionably the key to Popov’s survival and here there was reason to be optimistic. First, von Karsthoff and Popov were on good terms; they liked each other. More importantly, it was very much in von Karsthoff’s interests that Popov not be exposed as a double agent. Such exposure would reflect badly on the Abwehr and very badly on von Karsthoff, who was likely to find himself on the Russian front in short order, if not facing a court martial. Lastly, British intelligence was certain that von Karsthoff was on the take, creaming off a slice of the money channelled from Berlin for payments to agents in Britain under Plan Midas. Thus there was every reason why von Karsthoff should believe Popov, providing he was able to present a reasonably credible, word-perfect cover story and convince the German that his poor performance in the United States was entirely due to lack of funds. If he started making mistakes or contradicting himself, he was in trouble; if the Germans brought in an expert interrogator, his story was likely to fall apart.

While Wilson and Wren had warned Popov of the grave risks entailed, neither man had mentioned the fact that numerous signals had been intercepted indicating that the Germans no longer trusted him. To do so would have revealed the Ultra secret – the very last thing MI5 wanted Popov to know. MI5 accepted there was a strong possibility that he would be arrested, and if he knew that British intelligence had cracked the Enigma code, he could not be expected to keep this information secret under torture by the Gestapo.

Whether Popov would have made a different decision had he known of the intercepts is doubtful. The truth was that he was thoroughly sick of working under the aegis of the FBI and had tired of the inactivity and the frustration of being a spy in name alone. He wanted to get back into the game, what he called ‘the duel of wits, the aura of unrefined danger’.8 Tar Robertson made no secret

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