Part 3
Let me tell you about the Hon. Louisa Scott who worked for the American Embassy while really working for the British Service. She chatted to us, Sole and I, over a fish supper, but I have to say the oysters were most disappointing and the establishment was closed down shortly afterwards.
Her position as a catering manager might not, on first appearance, have seemed to offer many opportunities for high level espionage, but of course it did put her in a position to meet and more importantly flirt with a large number of handsome young men, naïve, far away from home often for the first time and eager to impress the young lady, whether by inviting her to see their prowess on the shooting rage or to join their evenings playing poker.
The British and the Americans are not enemies. Not as such. Though it is true to say that they approach operations on very different terms and in very different ways: what the Americans might call "necessary minimum footprint" the British might call "overkill" or more commonly "scaring the horses"; what the British might call "finesse" the Americans might describe as "pussy-footing about". Certainly, they are more closely aligned than almost any other two such organisations, at least in what they think of as the main purpose of their business. They both believe in saving the World. There is just some slight disagreement on how much of the World counts and from what and whom it needs saving. But this does not mean they do not spy on each other.
So, her masters in the Service encouraged Ms Scott to employ her sexuality, to deploy what they referred to straight-faced as her "feminine wiles", to become involved with a particular naïve young marine, a Lt Jonny Willis, who was responsible for the daily operations room signals.
No need to "lie back and think of England" for Louisa; for her, this was a both pleasant and thrilling undertaking. Jonny was a good-looking man, fit and well-exercised. It did not bother her that he had a wife back in Iowa whom he missed. If anything, that made it easier for her. His needs gave her the opportunity; his betrayal gave her the excuse.
Nor were the expectations of the Service particularly onerous. They would listen in on the affair, on their chit chat over lunch or a stolen evening together, and on their pillow talk, something she found vaguely titillating. Occasionally, they would have her drop a word or phrase into conversation to lead him on one way or another, but they ordered her strictly to avoid asking him any questions, and particularly not about his work. When she questioned them, they would say it was all "psychological".
The key to code-breaking, ever since Enigma, has been to think like the enemy, know how their mind works and you can guess what they are likely to say and how they are going to say it. This gives you clues to the patterns you need to look for to being cracking their encryption. Lt Jonny Willis, working all day with the American code machines, could not help but have his patterns of thought shaped, nudged, sculpted into an image of the code setters' mind-set the way a chair moulds itself to the sitter.
This therefore was an arrangement that suited everyone very nicely until the day came when Dr Edgar, under cover of a visit to the Embassy to obtain a visa for a book tour, approached Ms Scott with some rather unwelcome news.
In his dossier, Dr Edgar possessed a memo, an internal Service document outlining their response to certain intelligence. Coded transmissions had been beamed back and forward from Langley to the Embassy in London, and the Service had, thanks to Mr Willis, decoded these and learned the contents. The Americans, it seemed, had discovered that a group of what they called terrorists had obtained what they called a "device" – Dr Edgar did not try to explain what was meant by the note that it was probably of "foreign" origin. The "device" was being shipped from North Africa to the United Kingdom, concealed among the cargo and passenger luggage of a British cruise liner. From Britain it would be flown to America to form the basis for an attack. Rather than allow that to happen, the Americans were going to sink the ship at the nearest point it could be intercepted, namely in the English Channel. So that would be a British ship sunk in British waters. And, under the 'Coventry Protocol', the Service had decided it was going to let them.
Dr Edgar explained: if the Service acted on the intelligence, if they prevented the attack or even tried to intercept the "device" themselves, maybe even spirit it away, the Americans would know that their codes were compromised. At best they would change their systems. At worst they would instigate a witch-hunt and potentially identify Lt Willis and even, through him, trace Louisa herself.
Given the goal of preventing an attack on America, the Service felt fully justified in setting protection of their assets above the lives of the passengers and crew.
The reason that Dr Edgar was seeing her was to apologise for the fact that he did not.
She tried valiantly to contact her handlers in the Service, but it was already too late. Within the last hour, a cruiser of the French navy had overhauled the liner and a boarding party had seized quite a substantial drugs haul. The liner was being escorted to harbour at Brest. The "device" had disappeared without trace. The Service, brutally efficient, cut all contact with Louisa Scott. They 'burned' her, in the jargon.
She quit her job and went back to Mummy and Daddy. She later heard that Jonny had been arrested for a little while then released but shipped back to America anyway. She did miss him but didn't feel too sorry for him. She was more concerned for herself.
And then, when a couple of months had passed, she came home to find Dr Edgar, sitting in her parents' drawing room, waiting for her.
"Have you any idea what it's been like?" she asked him. "I've spent every day looking over my shoulder, expecting some spooks in trench coats and dark glasses to bundle me into a big black sedan. Or worse!"
"Hmm," said Dr Edgar, regarding the young woman with more compassion than some of the other people he helped. "If you will put your life in my hands, I think I can broker an agreement that will satisfy the Americans and leave you to live your life."
"And you really can save me?"
"I'm sure I can," he said, before standing as Louisa's mother, Lady Scott, had entered the room.
And within the week, an American wire-tap in Paris had conveniently overheard a senior French diplomat bragging to a European Commissioner of how they had tapped into the wireless communications of "an American embassy". Uncle Sam's efforts were diverted into several happy years of research into electronic counter-measures and Louisa was left to live her life.
Dr Edgar made a third mark in his dossier. The next step, he reminded himself, would be where things became difficult.
