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controlled by the British counterintelligence apparatus.
    At that point MI5 began dimly to glimpse an awesome and tantalizing prospect: with a bit of luck, they could control and manipulate the entire German espionage network in Britain .

    “TURNING AGENTS into double agents instead of hanging them has two crucial advantages,” Terry wound up. “Since the enemy thinks his spies are still active, he doesn’t try to replace them with others who may not get caught. And, since we are supplying the information the spies tell their controllers, we can deceive the enemy and mislead his strategists.”
    “It can’t be that easy,” said Godliman.
    “Certainly not.” Terry opened a window to let out the fog of cigarette and pipe smoke. “To work, the system has to be very near total. If there is any substantial number of genuine agents here, their information will contradict that of the double agents and the Abwehr will smell a rat.”
    “It sounds exciting,” Godliman said. His pipe had gone out.
    Terry smiled for the first time that morning. “The people here will tell you it’s hard work—long hours, high tension, frustration—but yes, of course it’s exciting.” He looked at his watch. “Now I want you to meet a very bright young member of my staff. Let me walk you to his office.”
    They went out of the room, up some stairs, and along several corridors. “His name is Frederick Bloggs, and he gets annoyed if you make jokes about it,” Terry continued. “We pinched him from Scotland Yard—he was an inspector with Special Branch. If you need arms and legs, use him. You’ll rank above him, of course, but I shouldn’t make too much of that—we don’t, here. I suppose I hardly need to say that to you.”
    They entered a small, bare room that looked out on to a blank wall. There was no carpet. A photograph of a pretty girl hung on the wall, and there was a pair of handcuffs on the hat-stand.
    Terry said, “Frederick Bloggs, Percival Godliman. I’ll leave you to it.”
    The man behind the desk was blond, stocky and short—he must have been only just tall enough to get into the police force, Godliman thought. His tie was an eyesore, but he had a pleasant, open face and an attractive grin. His handshake was firm.
    “Tell you what, Percy—I was just going to nip home for lunch,” he said. “Why don’t you come along? The wife makes a lovely sausage and chips.” He had a broad cockney accent.
    Sausage and chips was not Godliman’s favorite meal, but he went along. They walked to Trafalgar Square and caught a bus to Hoxton. Bloggs said, “I married a wonderful girl, but she can’t cook for nuts. I have sausage and chips every day.”
    East London was still smoking from the previous night’s air raid. They passed groups of firemen and volunteers digging through rubble, playing hoses over dying fires and clearing debris from the streets. They saw an old man carry a precious radio out of a half-ruined house.
    Godliman made conversation. “So we’re to catch spies together.”
    “We’ll have a go, Perce.”
    Bloggs’s home was a three-bedroom semidetached house in a street of exactly similar houses. The tiny front gardens were all being used to grow vegetables. Mrs. Bloggs was the pretty girl in the photograph on the office wall. She looked tired. “She drives an ambulance during the raids, don’t you, love?” Bloggs said. He was proud of her. Her name was Christine.
    She said, “Every morning when I come home I wonder if the house will still be here.”
    “Notice it’s the house she’s worried about, not me,” Bloggs said.
    Godliman picked up a medal in a presentation case from the mantelpiece. “How did you get this?”
    Christine answered. “He took a shotgun off a villain who was robbing a post office.”
    “You’re quite a pair,” Godliman said.
    “You married, Percy?” Bloggs asked.
    “I’m a widower.”
    “Sorry.”
    “My wife died of tuberculosis in 1930. We never had any