Lachlan removed his cap and followed her down a hallway, passing a civilian man chatting with officers in Army brown and RAF blue. The men hushed and watched as Lachlan passed but returned his “Good morning.”
What sort of place was this?
“Right through here, Lieutenant.” The receptionist opened a door and stepped back.
Inside, Cdr. Ernest Yardley sat behind a desk.
A laugh tumbled from Lachlan’s mouth. “Aye, now this makes sense.”
Yardley came around his desk and greeted Lachlan with a grin and a handshake. “Welcome to MI5’s London headquarters.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s good to see you again.”
“And you.” Yardley gestured to a red leather armchair in front of his desk. “How is your leg?”
“Much better, thank you.” But a sigh of relief slid out when he sat and took his weight off that leg.
Yardley sat behind his polished wooden desk. “For the purposes of the world at large, you have an administrative posting with the office of the Director of Naval Intelligence. Frightfully dull and yet quite hush-hush.”
So Lachlan could explain why he didn’t discuss his duties—or even want to discuss them. “I understand my duties will be anything but dull?”
“I think not. We’ll be using your knowledge of defenses and the war at sea, as well as your skills at subterfuge.”
Lachlan’s chest twinged. Those skills arose from working in tandem with Cilla, as she spouted her creative ideas in a rush of energy.
Her name tipped his tongue, but he scraped his tongue over the roof of his mouth. Yardley would never answer his questions.
“Now that you’re here, I can explain more about what we do in Section B1a. What I’m about to tell you must never leave this room.” Yardley fixed his sternest look on Lachlan.
“Aye, sir.”
“We have over a dozen double agents in our service. In December, our codebreakers broke the cipher the Abwehr uses to communicate internally. This was one of the primary purposes of Cilla’s messages to Germany. Since we knew the exact content of her messages and the Abwehr tends to transmit them verbatim to Berlin, this aided our deciphering.”
“I see.” Lachlan’s mouth drifted open. “The chicken feed...”
“I like to think it fattened our German chickens for the slaughter.” Mischief flashed in Yardley’s dark eyes. “Now that we can read their traffic, we know when and where to intercept new arrivals, we can discern whether the Abwehr trusts their agents, and we have verified that every Abwehr agent on British soil is in harness.”
“In harness?”
“In MI5 control, whether as a double agent or in custody. Every single one.”
A dam broke on a deep reservoir of anxiety, and all flowed out in a sigh and a smile. “If they’re all accounted for, then Cilla is safe.”
Yardley gave him a thin smile.
“I willnae ask, sir.”
Yardley smoothed one hand over the blotter on his desk. “Now that it’s clear the Allies will win the war, the Germans will be expecting offensive Allied operations, as they should.MI5 is determined to shift from chicken feed to strategic deception. For example, if we were planning a major operation in North Africa, we would try to convince Germany that we were invading Norway or France.”
“Aye.” Lachlan sat forward. “Hitler would transfer troops and equipment away from the Mediterranean.”
“It needs finesse.” Yardley tapped one finger on the desk. “If we’re too blatant, the Germans will realize they were fooled and believe their agents to be either incompetent or traitors—and the program will collapse.”
“But if we succeed, we could save the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers and sailors and airmen.”
“And win the war.”
Lachlan sat back in his chair. All he’d done in the past year, all his worries about compromising Allied security—now felt redeemed. Since the dawn of time, armies had labored to conceal their movements and gain the advantage of surprise. But the new age of wireless intelligence promised not only to conceal but to misdirect.
