Among Basil’s skills was pickpocketing, very useful for a spy or agent. He had mastered its intricacies during his period among Malaysian gunrunners in 1934, when a kindly old rogue with one eye and fast hands named Malong had taken a liking to him and shown him the basics of the trade. Malong could pick the fuzz off a peach, so educated were his fingers, and Basil proved an apt pupil. He’d never graduated to the peach-fuzz class, but the gentleman’s wallet and document envelopes should prove easy enough.
He used the classic concealed hand dip and distraction technique, child’s play but clearly effective out here in the French hinterlands. Shielding his left hand from view behind a copy of that day’s Le Monde, he engineered an accidental street-corner bump, apologized, and then said, “I was looking at the air power of les amis today.” He pointed upward, where a wave of B-17s painted a swath in the blue sky with their fuzzy white contrails as they sped toward Munich or some other Bavarian destination for an afternoon of destruction. “It seems they’ll never stop building up their fleet. But when they win, what will they do with all those airplanes?”
The gentleman, unaware that the jostle and rhetoric concealed a deft snatch from inside not merely his overcoat but also his suit coat, followed his interrupter’s pointed arm to the aerial array.
“The Americans are so rich, I believe our German visitors are doomed,” said the man. “I only hope when it is time for them to leave they don’t grow bitter and decide to blow things up.”
“That is why it is up to us to ingratiate ourselves with them,” said Basil, reading the eyes of an appeaser in his victim, “so that when they do abandon their vacation, they depart with a gentleman’s deportment. Vive la France.”
“Indeed,” said the mark, issuing a dry little smile of approval, then turning away to his far more important business.
Basil headed two blocks in the opposite direction, two more in another, then rotated around to the train station. There, in the men’s loo, he examined his trove: 175 francs, identity papers for one Jacques Piens, and a German travel authority “for official business only,” both of which wore a smeary black-and-white photo of M. Piens, moustachioed and august and clearly annoyed at the indignity of posing for German photography.
He had a coffee. He waited, smiling at all, and a few minutes before four approached the ticket seller’s window and, after establishing his bona fides as M. Piens, paid for and was issued a firstclass ticket on the four p.m. Cherbourg — Paris run.
He went out on the platform, the only Frenchman among a small group of Luftwaffe enlisted personnel clearly headed to Paris for a weekend pass’s worth of fun and frolic. The train arrived, as the Germans had been sensible enough not to interfere with the workings of the French railway system, the continent’s best. Spewing smoke, the engine lugged its seven cars to the platform and, with great drama of steam, brakes, and steel, reluctantly halted. Basil knew where first class would be and parted company with the privates and corporals of the German air force, who squeezed into the other carriages.
His car half empty and comfortable, he put himself into a seat. The train sat… and sat… and sat. Finally a German policeman entered the car and examined the papers of all, including Basil, without incident. Yet still the train did not leave.
Hmm, this was troubling.
A lesser man might have fumbled into panic. The mark had noticed his papers missing, called the police, who had called the German police. Quickly enough they had put a hold on the train, fearing that the miscreant would attempt to flee that way, and now it was just a matter of waiting for an SS squad to lock up the last of the Jews before it came for him.
However, Basil had a sound operational principle which now served him well. Most bad things don’t happen. What happens is that in its banal, boring way, reality bumbles along.
The worst thing one can do is panic. Panic betrays more agents than traitors. Panic is the true enemy.
At last the train began to move.
Ah-ha! Right again.
But at that moment the door flew open and a late-arriving Luftwaffe colonel came in. He looked straight at Basil.
“There he is! There’s the spy!” he said.
“A book code,” said Basil. “I thought that was for Boy Scouts. Lord Baden-Powell would be so pleased.”
“Actually,” said Sir Colin, “it’s a sturdy and almost impenetrable device, very useful under certain circumstances, if artfully employed. But Professor Turing is our expert on codes. Perhaps, Professor, you’d be able to enlighten Captain St. Florian.”
“Indeed,” said the young man in the tweeds, revealing himself by name. “Nowadays we think we’re all scienced up. We even have machines to do some of the backbreaking mathematics to it, speeding the process. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But the book code is ancient, even biblical, and that it has lasted so long is good proof of its applicability in certain instances.”
“I understand, Professor. I am not a child.”
“Not at all, certainly not given your record. But the basics must be known before we can advance to the sort of sophisticated mischief upon which the war may turn.”
“Please proceed, Professor. Pay no attention to Captain St. Florian’s abominable manners. We interrupted him at play in a bawdy house for this meeting and he is cranky.”
“Yes, then. The book code stems from the presumption that both sender and receiver have access to the same book. It is therefore usually a common volume, shall we say Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare. I want to send you a message, say ‘Meet me at two p.m. at the square.’ I page through the book until I find the word ‘meet.’ It is on page 17, paragraph 4, line 2, fifth word. So the first line in my code is 17-4-2-5. Unless you know the book, it is meaningless. But you, knowing the book, having the book, quickly find 17-4-2-5 and encounter the word ‘meet.’ And on and on. Of course variations can be worked — we can agree ahead of time, say, that for the last designation we will always be value minus two, that is, two integers less. So in that case the word ‘meet’ would actually be found at 17-4-2-3. Moreover, in picking a book as decoder, one would certainly be prone to pick a common book, one that should excite no excitement, that one might normally have about.”
“I grasp it, Professor,” said Basil. “But what, then, if I take your inference, is the point of choosing as a key book the Right Reverend MacBurney’s The Path to Jesus, of which only one copy exists, and it is held under lock and key at Cambridge? And since last I heard, we still control Cambridge. Why don’t we just go to Cambridge and look at the damned thing? You don’t need an action-this-day chap like me for that. You could use a lance corporal.”
“Indeed, you have tumbled to it,” said Sir Colin. “Yes, we could obtain the book that way. However, in doing so we would inform both the sender and the receiver that we knew they were up to something, that they were control and agent and had an operation under way, when our goal is to break the code without them knowing. That is why, alas, a simple trip to the library by a lance corporal is not feasible.”
“I hope I’m smart enough to stay up with all these wrinkles, gentlemen. I already have a headache.”
“Welcome to the world of espionage,” said Sir Colin. “We all have headaches. Professor, please continue.”