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transferred there.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œOn January 1 a Kurt Neumann was arrested and taken there on a specific charge. See?”
    He passed the list to Owen.
    â€œThe last document is a public notice listing the names of certain people arrested and convicted of illegal trading in foreign currency. One of the names is Günther Reichenbach. He was arrested on December 18.”
    â€œVery interesting,” Owen said. “Perhaps you’d care to explain.”
    â€œCertainly,” Wyman said. “All these men were members of network ERF1O6F, headed by Josef Grünbaum, code-named ‘Dovetail’. Dovetail was a small-time criminal who indulged in theft, pimping and black-market activities. His allegiance to us was strictly mercenary, though he was of some use. Whenever there were military exercises in Thuringia he was able to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. He also had some useful friends in the Volkspolizei , and he tipped us off about the first Brandt visit to Erfurt in ’70. I was his case officer.
    â€œNow to the meat of the story. Here is a copy of the Thüringer Neueste Nachrichten , dated May 6. This article here—” he tapped the paper—“completes the picture. Dovetail was shot while resisting arrest at the scene of a café brawl on the night of May 5. Taken to an army hospital, dead on arrival. Or so we are led to believe.”
    â€œAre you suggesting that Dovetail was blown?”
    â€œSince they have been rounding up his network one by one, I can reach no other conclusion. And there lies the problem. Dovetail’s set-up was an F-network: so how were the Germans able to arrest the members before the leader? You will note that all the arrests precede Dovetail’s own. But that is supposed to be impossible; none of these people knew the identity of the other members of the network. So if they were arrested before Dovetail, the question arises…”
    â€œOf how the Germans could have discovered the network?” Owen nodded thoughtfully. “Tricky one, that.”
    â€œIndeed,” Wyman said. “You see, F-networks were established to avoid precisely this situation. The only people who knew the names of Dovetail’s group were Dovetail himself and us. Assuming that Dovetail did not sabotage his own network…”
    â€œGood God!” Owen exclaimed. It had dawned upon him at last. “Are you saying that we’ve got a leak in the Department?”
    â€œNo. I’m merely asking you for a better explanation. The only record of network ERF1O6F is kept in one file in this department. As with all F-networks, funding was channelled entirely through the leader, in this case Dovetail. The only entry on the central payroll is ‘Dovetail’, with the network number. All communication with the network was conducted exclusively with Dovetail himself.
    â€œTherefore, there are only two ways in which ERF1O6F could have been exposed. The first is if Dovetail himself was discovered and made to reveal the identity of his accomplices. The second is if someone here passed on the details of ERF1O6F’s personnel to the Germans.”
    â€œGood God,” repeated Owen. “This is monstrous.”
    There was a pause as Wyman allowed Owen to register the full implications of his discovery. Wyman noted with quiet amusement a series of Ministerial memoranda on Owen’s desk. They were all concerned with saving money. Wyman knew that within a day the same memoranda would be circulated throughout the Department under Owen’s name.
    â€œThe Minister will have to be told,” Owen said.
    â€œOf course,” Wyman said. “And he will want to know what we’re going to do about it.”
    â€œYes.” Owen toyed nervously with his pencil. There were lingering traces of ear-wax on its point. “This is what every departmental head dreads, Wyman.”
    It occurred to Wyman that Owen must have