2005-06-14 Tricycle In the Fast Lane

Back in Belgrade, Popov works as a lawyer dealing with family-connected legal work of a commercial and banking nature. With the approach of war, he is approached by German agents and offered secret work. He plays for time and contacts the British secret service. He becomes a double agent from that moment and from then on for five years plays that most dangerous game of espionage, the double agent working without diplomatic immunity. He travels widely, from North Africa to Lisbon and Southern Spain (Iberia being a favoured haunt of the Abwehr, German Military Intelligence), to London, Berlin and across the Atlantic to North and South America. In the U.S.A., Popov manages to fall foul of Hoover and his F.B.I. Hoover's idea of "intelligence and security" is to make arrests with lots of publicity (just as his idea of fighting gangsterism was to have gun battles and flash-camera arrests and deaths); Popov, trained by the British and with a background in Balkan stealth, had a more subtle, sophisticated, indeed European, approach. Hoover may also have been offended by Popov's three-in-a-bed shenanigans (hence his British code-name of "Tricycle").

Although the Abwehr was obviously suspicious of him at times, it seems Popov's cover remained intact for the duration, or was it that Canaris (head of the Abwehr) was simply playing with him, perhaps wanting to use Popov as a potential channel in his own anti-Hitler plans? The answer to that probably died with Canaris (hanged near the end of the war for disloyalty to the Reich).

This is a book which can be enjoyed and read and re-read.