After that ride, Andymond almost disappeared. He rarely works in the Red Building, and I rarely see his black Rolls-Royce in Plimpton Manor.
I don't know where he is in the intelligence system and what he does.
One day I woke up from a nap and Peter was waiting outside my dorm door. He handed me a slip of paper with a phone number on it, and told me that if I needed him in an emergency, I would call that number.
This is the only thing Andymond left me before he left.
Afterwards he devoted himself to a world beyond my reach, political struggles.
Plimpton Manor was as quiet as ever, with a strong academic flavor. I spend all day in the office guessing the key, dealing with the "mystery" of constant adjustment, and gradually forgetting our separation.
In early November, Office One deciphered Operation 'Moonlight Sonata'. Germany planned to bomb Coventry late at night on the 14th. I reported the ciphertext according to the procedure.
On the afternoon of the 12th, I once again received a mysterious telegram from Berlin.
The content is still very short: the late night of the 14th, the bombing of Newcastle, "Moonlight Sonata", believe me.
I was stunned with the translated phone. The information that the bombing site is Coventry has been submitted to the Air Force Liaison Department at Plimpton Manor, and a preparedness plan should be under preparation. Before that, the content of the mysterious telegram and the "fans" have maintained a high degree of consistency, I did not expect the difference this time.
Raphael just finished repairing a "mysterious" decryption machine, and sat across from me drinking coffee.
He commented on the "Moonlight Sonata" operation with Jewish shrewdness: "Allen, don't you find it strange? I don't know what the Germans are thinking."
"strangeness?"
The deciphered telegram is still in the folder on the table. He took it, opened it, and pointed it out to me: "Well, usually the German air raids on us have encrypted the city names twice, haven't they? The last bombing of the South Cape London was encrypted as 'Bomb S12', and when Birmingham was bombed it was 'Bomb B32'. The Germans have a set of code names for our city, but this 'Moonlight Sonata' doesn't work."
Where Raphael's slender finger pointed, the German wrote in German: "The location of 'Moonlight Sonata' is Coventry." "There is no secondary encryption!" I suddenly understood: "It stands to reason that it should be It's encrypted twice!"
"That's why I said it was strange." Rafael shrugged: "Or they believed too much that the 'mystery' could not be cracked, so they forgot to encrypt it?"
But I don't think things will be that simple. Because the mysterious telegram clearly pointed the bombing site to another city—Newcastle. This is an important shipbuilding base for the Royal Navy on the Atlantic coast!
I tried to call the phone number Anderson had left behind, but no one answered after beeping a lot.
Since his personal assistant, Anne, went to the occupied area, Andymond's phone has always been unanswered. He didn't trust others, and he didn't have time to answer the phone.
I felt that I had inadvertently come into contact with a truth that I had to convey to Andrew. Only he will understand me and agree with me.
The mobilization of the air force will take several days. If it is later, the people of Newcastle will not have time to prepare for a sudden air strike. Those people who were once alive will become the funeral of this seaside city together with parks, fountains, and children's playgrounds.
I dialed persistently, and finally heard a stiff male voice: "Hello, Mr. Garcia, go straight. He is busy now and can't answer your—"
"Peter?" I interrupted him. "I'm Alan, Alan Custer. Put Anderson on the phone!"
Peter seemed to hesitate for a moment, then said, "Wait a minute."
I heard the sound of the microphone being placed on the wooden table, and the sound of his leaving footsteps. Five minutes later, Anderson answered the phone. His voice was very soft: "I'm in a meeting, Alan. What happened?"
"Did you know about the bombing of Coventry on the 14th?"
"The report came up, I saw it," he said.
"It was a double bombing, and the locations were Coventry and Newcastle." I swallowed, and said with difficulty: "The citizens must be evacuated."
"Alan, now fax the new telegram and report, and then give a copy to the Air Force Liaison Office." Andemon seemed to be smiling: "Don't be so nervous, we have time."
I hesitated for a moment: "There is no report, not the information deciphered by 'fans'. Someone from the Berlin Intelligence Bureau sent me such a message. I think he can be trusted."
Andemon was silent over there.
"Alan, I'm at 7 Downing Street, the Cabinet Operations Office. Come here with the materials, and I'll wait for you here." He thought for a while and added, "Be careful on the road. I love you."
I hopped into an army jeep and urged the driver along. The Cabinet Operations Office at 7 Downing Street, I went once to see C. It was the same white building with long steps and heavy security.
Andemon was waiting for me under the white embossed arcade outside the conference hall on the second floor.
He was dressed very formally, in a stiff dark blue uniform with shiny boots and even epaulettes. I don't know how to recognize the military rank on the shoulder badge. I should ask him when I think I have time.
Andman saw me, put his index finger up on his lips, and smiled with his eyes bent: "Don't worry, go in and talk. We are discussing 'Moonlight Sonata'. That's why I asked you to come. The Prime Minister today No, you don't have to be nervous."
He pushed open the door of the conference room behind him, let me in sideways, and introduced me: "Gentlemen, this is Alan Castor of the Cryptography Academy, breaker of 'Mystery'. He may have brought us ' Moonlight Sonata' latest news."
The conference room was very empty, and there were only five people, including Anderson, sitting around a heavy old oak round table. At one end of the conference room was a map of Europe, and next to it was a blackboard and chalk, filled with place names in English and German. In the center of the round table is a British sand table with a map of cities and roads. A small red triangular flag flies where Coventry is. Probably for reasons of confidentiality, the meeting room has no windows, and a soft orange light pours down from the overhead chandelier, covering the entire round table.
I don't know the members who attended the meeting, maybe I saw it in the newspaper but didn't pay attention. Anderson was the youngest of them all. Everyone had very serious expressions, and the atmosphere was uncomfortably suppressed.
I was surprised to find that C was among them. He looked a little tired, looked at me through half-moon glasses, and held out his hand: "Hello, Alan, we meet again."
I haven't seen him in half a year, he seems to be much older. I suddenly remembered what Andmon said, "He has made too many mistakes, and he is not suitable for the current position of the Intelligence Agency."
Andrew didn't tell me what meeting it was, and I didn't ask. I later speculated that perhaps this was Prime Minister Churchill's war cabinet, and I happened to attend one of its regular meetings. What I have seen are those who control the direction of war in the wind and cloud. After the war, the only known Prime Minister's cabinet was John Anderson, the Speaker of the Secret House, and Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary. Anderson is the fifth who is not in the public range.
As he said, intelligence agencies are always in the darkest corners of politics and never enter the public eye. There is no loyalty here, only the choice between trust and distrust, betrayal and not betrayal.
I explained my meaning as briefly as possible, and wrote the decryption method of the mysterious code from Berlin in the blank space of the small blackboard.
Except for Andrew and C, the other four listeners seemed uninterested. They only care about results.
"So, you think Newcastle is the real place to be bombed?" C's light blue eyes stared at me through the lens: "Do you believe this information?"
"I think this is a German trick." I said, "They planned to bomb two target cities, but they deliberately used two encrypted transmission methods separately. One is a 'mystery', and the other is unknown to us. And this The place name of Coventry was not encrypted this time, as if the other party deliberately told us the target of the attack, and then tested... tested whether we would take precautions."
"Hitler may begin to suspect that his intelligence has leaked, but he doesn't know how it leaked out - he is testing us. If Coventry, which was encrypted with 'mystery', made a defensive counterattack in the air raid, and another intelligence Newcastle, whose system is encrypted, does not have it, which means that "Mystery" has indeed been deciphered. If there is a defensive operation in Newcastle, then there is a problem with another intelligence system. "Mystery" is safe. The unknown person in Berlin may only Knowing one of the locations, she then tried to pass on Newcastle, the target city of 'Moonlight Sonata' to us. Every word of her message so far has been accurate."
No one echoed my point of view, no one expressed their views lightly, and there was only oppressive silence in the air. I stood in front of the small blackboard, holding up half a piece of chalk, and felt so stupid.
Andmon's face looked a little pale under the light.
He stopped me suddenly, with a soft and calm voice: "Alan, I understand. You can go back first and leave the password. I will take care of the rest."
I put down the chalk in my hand, and I heard C ask: "Alan, just now you said that 'she' was trying to send you a message. We want to know who this 'she' is, and how did you communicate with Berlin without the knowledge of the intelligence agency?" Get in touch."
Andemont interrupted him: "I will personally ask about this matter. Alan, you go back first."
I stood where I was, opened my mouth, and closed it again.
"These are just my guesses. I didn't take the initiative to contact the Berlin Intelligence Service. I just happened to decipher a code that kept sending us messages. As I said just now, its key is my birthday." I said very Difficult: "I suspect the sender of the code is my mother, Jan Castell. She works for the Berlin Intelligence Service."