The Secret Agent Read Online Free Page A

always made sure that these slips happened with one or more Germans in earshot.
    It was not until one of his new Berlin friends sponsored him for membership in the German Chamber of Commerce that Erickson’s pro-Nazism became more than a rumor. Erickson showed up at every meeting. He listened intently to the speeches and tried to understand how Nazis saw the outside world; how they spoke and flirted and did business; what they valued and what they despised. He was especially fascinated by the Gestapo men that came through Stockholm and enjoyed long, leisurely dinners with their fellow Germans. “Some of the SS men were rather decent people,” Erickson remembered, “except for the fact that they believed in Hitler and all that he stood for: murder and treachery.”
    Though entry into German circles came relatively easy, Erickson sensed there was something missing in his performance. Every imposter needs a prop, not just to fool his enemies, but for his own immersion in the role—a kind of psychological totem. One afternoon, Erickson went shopping at an art store in Stockholm, browsed the aisles, and returned home with a package under his arm. He unwrapped his purchase and carefully mounted it above the fireplace in his study, where his new friends were sure to see it. Once it was up, Erickson stepped back to eye it from across the room. The edges were straight. The glow of the fire flickered across the oiled surface, lending the object a lambent warmth. Erickson smiled. It was perfect.
    The portrait of Adolf Hitler would hang in his study until the end of the war.
    As Erickson made progress in his transformation into a Nazi, he was failing miserably as a secret agent. Talk at parties and Chamber of Commerce meetings was spiced with references to Göring and Hess, but no introductions were forthcoming. There were tantalizing references to new oil plants being built in Germany, but few specifics. Erickson tried to pursue the leads but got nowhere; the diplomats and businessmen who’d become his friends turned out to be too far from the action. Erickson realized that his real work was in Berlin and not in this distant, frozen capital.
    It became increasingly difficult to keep up the charade of being a Nazi. Erickson had already destroyed his good name, and for what? He was a non-factor in the war. He hadn’t passed a single bit of actionable intelligence to the Allies. He traveled to Germany occasionally, but met only with his old contacts, who let him tour the same refineries over and over again. He couldn’t get meetings with the officials who controlled the major oil contracts. Without those contracts, he had no excuse to visit the factories. And without those visits, he couldn’t tell the Allies where to bomb.
    Erickson didn’t give up. He showed up religiously at pro-Nazi dinners at popular Stockholm restaurants, where he soaked up the latest Wehrmacht gossip—who in the High Command was up and who was down, whose wife had a drinking problem or difficulty keeping her dresses on—while trying to ignore the disapproving gazes of former friends. The American had time on his hands to parse the reactions of his ex-pals, and he found the varieties of disgust fascinating. Some Swedes looked at him in horror, believing he’d fallen under the spell of Mein Kampf . They spotted him and quickly looked away, the blood draining from their faces. But the more sophisticated of his former friends would often catch his eye and offer a discreet smile or a nod. It took a few weeks for Erickson to figure out what was happening; eventually, he heard a piece of gossip that explained those lingering glances. These men weren’t fooled. Erickson was no National Socialist. Instead, they believed, Erickson was carrying out the long-range plot of ingratiating himself with the Hitlerites in case of a German invasion of Sweden, or a Nazi victory in the war. If either of those things happened,