The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [83]
The previous night she had dined with two officers, one of whom she believed was attached to the Abwehr. ‘She told me that her husband might have mentioned the Abwehr connection, but I think this German had been one of her lovers in the past,’ explained Tommy. But Sneum was more interested in what the German had said than in his level of intimacy with Emmy. For when she had asked how long the war was likely to last, the officer had replied: ‘Since you hate this war so much, you may soon have our scientists to thank.’
‘It may have been nothing,’ Emmy told Tommy as she recounted the conversation. ‘Perhaps just some vague boast.’
Emmy had asked her German friend what he meant, but the other officer sitting at their table had looked uncomfortable and quickly changed the subject.
Sneum was anxious to get to the bottom of this casual remark as soon as possible. He decided to have Christophersen send Rabagliati an account of the conversation, so that the British could interpret it as they saw fit. In the meantime, he would send Mrs Valentin back into action.
‘Emmy,’ he said bluntly, ‘you must attach yourself to this man in any way you see fit.’
She looked surprised by the suggestion, but Sneum ignored any hint of indignation that she might have wanted to convey. ‘She told herself she did it for the cause, but she liked doing it anyway,’ suggested Tommy mischievously in his later years.
The tension between Sneum and Christophersen was rising by the day. Their radio transmissions were tortuous, and not once had they received a reassuring word from Britain. With no contact from London, there was no proof that Rabagliati was receiving their intelligence.
Christophersen continued to show signs of losing his nerve completely. As far as Sneum was concerned, someone who looked too nervous to blend into the Copenhagen scenery was a liability who would get them both caught if something wasn’t done soon. Christophersen was no help with the communication problems either, continuing to blame the equipment while Sneum increasingly blamed the operator. Sneum recalled:
Christophersen was probably still thinking of escaping, so I took charge of the radio at the end of each transmission we attempted. He still had the crystals, which corresponded to the wavelengths we used. You couldn’t get the same crystals made in Denmark, so I couldn’t transmit without him, but he couldn’t transmit without me either. You couldn’t get more than one crystal in the transmitter at a time, and I think he must have been going around with four different crystals each day. If he had been caught by the Germans, they would have known our frequencies. It was ridiculous.
Just as worrying for both men was the suspicion they shared that their transmissions to Britain had not been successful. Something needed to be done, otherwise it was likely that much of Tommy’s work would go to waste.
One lunchtime during the second week in November, Christophersen took an irate Sneum to a smoke-filled bar in central Copenhagen and led him towards a young man who was sitting alone in a dimly lit corner. After looking anxiously around the bar and then threateningly into the seated man’s eyes, Sneum pulled up a chair. Already livid that he had been led into the company of a complete stranger without any warning, Sneum was speechless when Christophersen said: ‘I want you to meet my brother, Thorbjoern.’
For Christophersen, this meeting was like life insurance. Tommy realized that if he tried to liquidate Sigfred, the radio man would quickly be missed. Others within his family might also know of Sneum’s threats. ‘The introduction of Thorbjoern changed things,’ remembered Sneum. ‘To kill a man you were working with on security grounds was one thing. But to kill a couple of people was too much. Thorbjoern was innocent; and then there might have been other parties to deal with, too.’
Seeing Sneum’s face darken, Christophersen defended his decision to involve