An Ordinary Guy, Operation Saponify. Andrew Gilbrook
Jenny saw me enter her face changed from worried to a half-smile. She knew my friendly face meant things should be easier for her. I sat opposite her with the door and the Border Control Officer guarding the door behind me.
“So, Jenny, you are disappearing rather quickly, what’s happened? You know you are breaking Karen’s heart leaving her,” I began trying to make her believe this was personal rather than official.
“Am I under arrest, what are you doing with me? What’s the charge?” she asked quite coldly
“I could have you arrested for spying, I don’t want to do that, so, it depends on the next few minutes, you decide your fate. It’s a stupid move leaving, you’ve exposed yourself as being a spy, for what organisation, Israeli?” I asked her.
“No, not Israeli, I have no choice but to leave. I’ve been four years in MI6, I’ve given them almost nothing of any use. I asked you to find Hitler, but you gave me Peiper instead,” she spoke looking down at the table, I was a little surprised she talked so much, our friendship must have made some difference.
“Who’s them? You are exactly, right, and if you had waited, as I asked you to, you would have been given information on Hitler, a doubly stupid move to leave, but to leave after getting Peiper’s information, that’s so stupid, such a small player in the Nazi world,” I said
“They don’t think so, they say he’s a big player in HIAG,” Jenny continued. HIAG (German: Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS, literally ‘Mutual aid association of former Waffen-SS members’ a far-right neo-Nazi group).
“I had no choice, they were going to pull me out as I had gotten so little from MI6, four years was enough for them. Now, I am to go because of Peiper,” Jenny realised she had said too much and stopped short of telling me more.
“What’s going to happen to Peiper, something unhealthy I assume?” I asked her
“I can’t say. Are you going to try to stop them?” she asked me
“No, I’m not in the business of interfering in the business of other people’s business,” I said, a weak attempt to relax her with a half-joke line.
“Do you have something on Hitler? You know where he is?” she asked me, I knew a little about him, I was on a track that was proving to be interesting, but I wanted her to believe I had more.
“You will never know what I know about Hitler. So tell me, that folder you originally gave me, did you create that?”
“No, the folder was genuine, it crossed my desk as I said,” this answer left me with a further quandary, who had compiled it and why? Was there another spy inside MI6?
“How did you pass the information out? Give me something I can use to take the heat off you,” I asked her further.
“Ok, I’ll give you this, the ice-cream van at the Imperial War Museum is a conduit,” she knew she had to give me something.
“Good God, I’ve bought ice-cream from that van,” I remembered my first interview at Century House in 1971, I had arrived early and walked down to the museum to pass some time away. I had bought an ice-cream while looking at the two huge guns in the front garden of the museum. It was just a short walk from Century House.
“So why this?” she said looking around the room with her eyes
“Personal, you are breaking Karen’s heart. Personal, you used me,” I knew all along Jenny was using me for something, I gave her the information, if I had her arrested, it would implicate me. I wasn’t sure if Jenny realised this. But I had discovered that the fortress walls of the Intelligence Service had yet again been breached and somehow I’d have to report this without implicating Karen or myself. I reached across the table and held Jenny’s hand with both of my hands to try to convey friendship and to some extent the love there might be between us.
“If I let you get on your plane today, can you promise me that you stay in touch with Karen, she is crying her eyes out at home. She loves you, you are, were, her best friend, you don’t have to leave her behind. Please promise,”
“I can’t it was all an act, I’m working for a dangerous organisation,” she said looking down again
“We had sex, I saw how you were such close friends, how you acted, and that wasn’t an act,” I said to her. Jenny’s eyes looked toward the female security guard by the door, she must have reacted to my statement about sex. Jenny didn’t reply.
“Keep in touch, it doesn’t matter that you are in whatever organisation, you are a lovely girl, you have a heart I know. Don’t break Karen’s heart,”
“Ok,” Jenny spoke the one word half-heartedly, I wasn’t sure if she meant it. There wasn’t much I could do right now, but I’d end this on a happy note.
“Both of us will miss you, we will both miss your sex, that threesome was the best thing that has happened to us,” I said deliberately, nodding my head back and rolling my eyes toward the woman behind me at the door, I heard the guard choke slightly on hearing my words. Jenny realised what I was doing, trying to embarrass the poor woman. She was smart enough to go along with the joke being played on the poor girl.
“Yeh, I supposed our sex was good, I won’t forget the taste of both of you too quickly,” we both half-smiled at the joke and the discomfort of the female guard.
There was little I could do here, I could have Jenny followed but it would mean exposing myself and Karen to all kinds of scrutiny, maybe we’d even lose our jobs if I wasn’t careful. I had to let this spy go. I didn’t feel any guilt. None of the Cambridge five or others had been prosecuted for being double agents in the Intelligence Service. Why should this small pawn get arrested, and she hadn’t taken any British Secrets, only information on a Nazi that I had given her. Still holding Jenny’s hand I stood up
“Ok, let’s, get you on your plane,” I asked the female guard, now flushed red, to lead us to the flight gate. I walked with Jenny, I was sad she was going to leave, I hate losing friends because I find it so hard to make them. She couldn’t help having a heritage that needed her to find Nazi’s that had been the cause of her family deaths. I understood her motive. We reached the flight gate without saying much, the three of us sat and waited for boarding onto the plane to begin. I watched her onto the plane and stood at the window and watched the flight take off to make sure she’d left the country.
I found Karen still in the office, waiting, should need her to do anything more for me.
“Has she gone?” she asked me.
“I’m afraid so,” Karen cried at losing her best friend of four years. “She said she will stay in touch, I understand now why she has to go,”
“She was a spy?” asked Karen
“Yes, amazing how she beat the whole system,” I answered
Karen had also received a reprimand for getting too close to me.
“But, how did they know we were seeing each other, how did they know we had sex together, the three of us?” Damn this was going to be awkward to explain to this lovely lady.
“I think that may have been my fault,” I said
“Why, how, what?” she asked
“Well,” I had no choice but to be honest with Karen “I had Jenny deep checked, a deep investigation,” I saw the anger rise in Karen, we had never argued before and this was going to be the first time.
“You had my home bugged,” she screamed
“No, not me the team do that,” I said in a vain attempt to lessen the accusation, it wouldn’t help me.
“You arsehole, you knew and you did that with me, sex, you knew there would be cameras hidden and you let me have sex with you, and, and, and Jenny. I tell you now, find those tapes and destroy them or we will fall out big time,” all I could