Spy and the Thief (8 page)

“What do you make of it?” Nelson repeated. “Looks like a code to me.”

“With all those proper names, yes.” Rand stared at the paper, then put it down.

“Can you break it?”

“If it’s a code, it can’t be broken without the key. A cipher is something else again.”

“Can you send it to your people in London?”

“I don’t need to do that.”

“You’ve got something, Rand? So quickly?”

“These things are my business. It’s the simplest sort of secret message, really. Just read the first letter of each word.”

“R-a-n-d-h-e-r-e-m-u-s-t-a-c-t-t-o-n-i-g-h-t.”

“Rand here. Must act tonight.
”

Colonel Nelson’s eyes hardened. “There’s our evidence. He’s still a secret agent. I’d better take him out of circulation right away. Coming along?”

Rand shook his head. “No, it’s over,” he said softly. “I’m going back to London.”

“Did you have a good trip?” Rand’s secretary asked the next morning, depositing the mail in the center of his desk.

“Yes, Gloria,” he answered. “I met a man who likes eels, and I met the eels themselves. What’s on for this morning?”

“Colonel Nelson wants to see you. He’s on his way down.”

“Oh?”

A few moments later the Colonel arrived. “It was a messy business, Rand. You should have come along.”

“What happened?”

“I had to kill the fellow. Self-defense. He tried to throw one of those damned eels at me.”

“Yes,” Rand nodded. “He would have done it that way.”

“You sound as if you almost expected him to.”

Rand closed his eyes. He was remembering Hans Suffern’s face getting older just before he admitted being Schultz, remembering how ill the man looked. “He wanted to jump into the pool and he couldn’t” Rand said. “He knew he had only a short time to live—but he didn’t have the nerve to jump into the pool.”

“You mean he wanted to die?”

“Schultz was a top German agent during the war. And he knew from our talk that I was an expert on ciphers and secret messages. Do you really think he’d be foolish enough to use such a simple cipher when he knew I’d see the message? Do you really think he’d start the message with
Rand—
a name that would mean little or nothing to his Paris contact? He started with my name so I’d be sure to catch the message. He wanted me to read it. That address in Paris doesn’t even exist. I checked it late last night.”

“But
why?”

“Because he was probably dying and wanted to spend his last days with his eels. But when I told him it couldn’t be, he preferred to die as quickly as possible. He didn’t have the courage to commit suicide, so he sent that message and ‘arranged’ to be killed.”

Colonel Nelson walked to the window. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

“Because I couldn’t be absolutely sure, and because we couldn’t take even the most remote chance.”

He knew that would satisfy Colonel Nelson—and besides, it was true. In this business can anyone ever be absolutely certain, or risk even the most remote chance? But Rand had another reason, which he added silently to himself: after all, it was the least he could do for another member of the profession—even someone on the other side.

H
IS NAME WAS PETER
Smith, and he was a spy. Or at least he had been in his younger days. Now, past 50 and with an ulcer that occasionally acted up, he found himself confined to the less exciting but nonetheless necessary phases of intelligence work. He didn’t complain, because that was not his nature. He did the job that needed to be done.

Peter Smith had made the flight from London to New York a good many times in the past, but never on such a mission as this. He was coming to America for the purpose of purchasing a Lavender Machine, a task he couldn’t have imagined a few years back.

Smith was tall and gray-haired, and carried himself like a diplomat. He had a wife and two children somewhere, but she’d divorced him long ago, when he returned to the intelligence service after his first retirement. He couldn’t really say he blamed her, but intelligence work was the only life he knew.

His plane landed at Kennedy airport, and he cleared customs in a few moments, striding quickly to the taxi stands in front of the International Arrivals Building. It was a sunny December day, more like early autumn than the beginning of winter, and he breathed deeply of the exhilarating air. Heathrow Airport had been almost fogbound when he left London.

His first night in America was spent in Manhattan, but he was up early the next morning for the trip by rented car to the sprawling machine tool plant deep in central New Jersey. Here, in this strange smoky countryside of factories and marshlands, he found the home of the Lavender Machine. He met a great many people, smiling and shaking hands, and signed for delivery of one machine while a government representative looked on.

“If you approve,” said Mr. Sine, the project manager, “we will pack the Lavender Machine in three safes for transportation to London. You may accompany them in our truck to the airport.”

Peter Smith nodded, watching Sine’s graying head as it bent over the complex assortment of forms and export licenses. The Lavender was the latest American refinement in cipher machines, and as such its manufacture was closely controlled by the Federal government. This one, being carefully packed for shipment, was only the second the British government had been allowed to purchase.

Sine pulled out a sheet of used carbon paper, crumpled it, and dropped it in the wastebasket. “That about does it,” he said.

“Yes.” Peter started to follow him out of the office, but then he hung back to light a cigarette. His years in the more undercover fields of espionage were hard to shake off, and that piece of carbon paper was almost shouting at him. Instinctively and as a professional he bent and snatched it from the basket.

Back in London two days later, Peter Smith sat lounging in the comfortable office chair opposite Rand’s cluttered desk in the Department of Concealed Communications. “Well, I brought back the Lavender Machine. But something’s been bothering me.”

Rand lit one of the American cigarettes he was partial to and turned from the window. “What would that be? I’ve approved your travel expenses.”

“It’s the American project manager, a fellow named Sine. There’s something peculiar about his entire operation.”

“Peculiar?” Rand was interested now. He’d always respected Peter Smith’s judgment.

“Well, I guess I’d have to know a bit about the machine—that is, if it’s not classified, sir.” Rand frowned at the “sir.” He was twelve years younger than Smith and had never got used to all that respect from a man who should have been above him on the ladder.

“Exactly what do you need to know, Peter?” he asked.

“If the other side had a Lavender Machine, what it would mean to us.”

Rand went back to the window, staring out at the exposed banks of the Thames at low tide. “You know most of it already. The Lavender Machine could be described as an outgrowth of the famous Japanese Purple Machine of World War II, but actually it is much closer in concept to the American SIGABA, the German ENIGMA, and our own TYPEX. In fact, the Lavender is said by its inventors to combine the best features of all these previous machines. The Japanese Purple—like their earlier Orange and Red Machines—was basically an alphabetical typewriter using coding wheels of a fairly simple sort. The Americans had actually solved the Purple system more than a year before Pearl Harbor, but they failed to realize the full significance of those vital pre-attack messages.”

“I know that part of it.” Peter Smith said. “I was more interested in the other side’s operation of the machine, sir, and how that would affect us.”

Rand nodded and continued. “The. Lavender is a rotor machine. With a knowledge of the Lavender rotors—of their wiring, specifically—and with an actual working machine to guide them, enemy cryptanalysts could determine which rotors in the set were being used for any given message, and what the initial setting was. It would be trial-and-error, a bit plodding, but it could be done if they had a machine.”

“Couldn’t the manufacturer issue new rotors for all outstanding machines?” Peter Smith asked.

“Certainly, and that’s what would be done. But all past messages would be compromised, and the future ones would be safe only if immediate action was taken.”

“Suppose we didn’t know the enemy had a machine?”

Rand lit another cigarette. “You’re trying to tell me something, Peter, get to the point.”

Peter smoothed the crumpled piece of carbon paper on the desk between them. “Since the sale and export of Lavender Machines is strictly controlled by the United States government, an export permit must be signed for each one. The permit for the machine we just purchased was signed in the presence of Mr. Sine and myself. But after the government man left, I noticed Sine disposing of a piece of carbon paper. I picked it out of the wastebasket, and found the government man’s signature on it.”

“So?”

“There was only one export document to be signed, without copies, so what was the duplicate signature needed for?”

“I see what you mean,” Rand said, speaking slowly. “You believe Sine is using the duplicate signature to forge an export document for a Lavender Machine—a machine which would find its way into enemy hands.”

“Exactly. I assume there are a number of routes for getting it out of the country.” He paused dramatically. “In view of this, I suggest that we contact the people in Washington at once.”

“There’s so little to go on,” Rand mused. “A crumpled piece of carbon paper. The machine is a matter for the National Security Agency people, and I’d hate to bother NSA with something this nebulous. It could make us look bad.”

Rand rarely worried about appearances, but the relations between America and Britain had been strained by a spy case earlier in the winter. The Americans had uncovered a Russian spy in the British Embassy in Washington. Would this be viewed as a retaliatory move by British Intelligence to discredit the Americans—especially if nothing came of it?

“But, sir, we already have a machine in Hong Kong. Our messages, and those of the Americans, could be compromised.”

Rand had to agree it was true. “Tell you what—I’m due for a trip to Washington next week. I’ll leave a few days early and look into the matter of Mr. Sine—unofficially, of course. You might come along if you can arrange for another trip to the States.”

Peter Smith smiled. “I haven’t even unpacked, sir.”

George Sine was as Peter had described him—a bespectacled man with graying hair, whose hands seemed constantly in motion. He smiled as he shook hands with Rand, but one could almost sense the calculations ticking away in his mind. “Very pleased to meet you,” he said. “I trust the Lavender arrived safely.”

“Yes, it did.” Rand had been in the country only a day, but he had to admit he was enjoying it. New York had been even more opulent than he remembered, and even the ride across New Jersey in a rented car had been pleasant.

“Is Peter Smith here with you?” asked Sine.

“He’s checking some matters in Washington.” Rand cleared his throat. It was time to get down to business. “Of course we check quite carefully on the security of our own people, and I know you must do the same over here.”

“Certainly.”

“I’m especially interested in security on the machine itself. You shipped ours to us in three small safes?”

George Sine seemed to relax a bit and nodded. “Correct. One contains the basic mechanism, a second contains rotors for additional key changes, and a third contains key lists. I explained it all to Smith.”

“And I gather there are tight security measures to prevent a machine from falling into the wrong hands?”

“Every Lavender Machine manufactured by us must be accounted for. By law we must keep a signed license in our files, and of course there are export documents if it is leaving the country, as in your case.”

They talked for a time longer and Sine took him on a brief tour of the plant, past assembly lines where dungareed girls operating wire-wrap machines worked on computer circuits, the company’s major product.

When Rand left the plant after a cafeteria lunch, he was just about convinced that Peter Smith’s misgivings were unfounded. Perhaps Smith had been in the business too long, building a complex fantasy in his own mind from a discarded piece of carbon paper. Perhaps they’d all been in the business too long.

He was to meet Peter at a neoned motel off the Jersey Turnpike, a garish affair where bored workmen were hanging up tinseled Christmas decorations for the coming holiday. He parked the car and took a room for the night, suddenly aware that he wasn’t yet accustomed to the previous day’s five-hour time change in flying the Atlantic. He’d never been able to sleep on a plane.

Peter Smith knocked on his door a half hour later. “You dozing? I didn’t expect you back from the plant so soon, sir.”

“He gave me the tour,” Rand said. “That’s enough to tire anybody. Frankly, Peter, I don’t think there’s much to it. Sine seemed straightforward, and the way he explained it, even a forged signature wouldn’t be enough to get a Lavender Machine out of the country illegally.”

“Well, sir, I’ve been checking a bit on Sine’s background. He’s divorced, playing around with a much younger girl, and has a couple of odd friends.”

“I’m sure that information could apply to any one of a thousand men without their being spies or criminals.”

“There’s something else. Sine has an interest in a small private airline that flies charter flights through the southern states. It might be a way for the machine to be taken out of the country.”

Rand was doubtful. “The customs people are pretty thorough, especially on private flights like that.”

“We could talk to this girl, and some of the others.”

“And have Washington on our neck?” Rand shook his head. “Lay off, Peter. There’s nothing here.”

He thought that settled it, and after a bit more conversation he agreed to meet Peter for dinner and went back to bed. Just a couple of hours’ sleep would freshen him for the Washington trip the following day.