The Unlikely Spy

"The Unlikely Spy" is a spy novel written by Daniel Silva, set during World War II. While some of the exact characters and events may be fictional, the book is based on very real events- the attempt by the Allies to use British intelligence to cover up the true plans for D-Day. The deception plan was called Operation Fortitude, and Double Cross also played a role. Specifically, the book has a backdrop a subset of Fortitude referred to as Fortitude South.)

Plot summary

Alfred Vicary, a British university professor, is brought into the British intelligence unit MI5 by Winston Churchill to assist with the attempts to confuse Nazi Germany about the true plans for D-Day. While the true invasion is planned for Normandy, Vicary is one of the agents involved in the fabrication of the fictional First United States Army Group, which is supposedly poised to invade at Calais. He uses double agent Karl Becker as a part of this process.

However, there is a grave threat to this plan: All of the poorly-trained German Abwehr agents have been captured, but Abwehr officer Kurt Vogel has a small group of highly trained agents still in Britain, the chief one being Anna Katerina von Steiner, working under the alias Catherine Blake. This a grave threat because a real German agent could reveal the deception of Operation Fortitude, the Germans would expect an invasion at Normandy, and would plan accordingly. The invasion would fail horribly.

Catherine Blake, since she is a rather attractive woman in addition to being a trained spy, successfully romances US Navy officer Peter Jordan, a gifted American engineer who is working on an artificial-harbor complex for the true invasion. She breaks into Jordan's safe and photographs the highly secret documents therein. She then hands the film off to fellow agent Horst Neumann, who takes it to the Portuguese embassy. A Portuguese diplomat smuggles the film back to Europe in the diplomatic pouch.

Once this method is found out, Peter Jordan is given faked documents to put in his safe, which the book calls Operation Kettledrum.

Catherine Blake and Horst Neumann nearly succeed with a daring escape plan- up from London to Hampton Sands (a small village that is the base for Neumann) in a stolen van, then from Hampton Sands to another small village on the North Sea coast. From there, they would take a small rickety fishing boat to meet a waiting U-boat, which would take them back to Germany. (If they had made it back to Germany, the entire operation very well would have succeeded, because they would have brought their knowledge back with them.)

However, they are in sight of the U-boat and about to transfer onto it when hostage Jenny Colville sabotages the fishing boat's fuel lines, bringing the boat to a standstill. Royal Navy corvettes fire at the boat, immediately killing Catherine and Horst.

The book shares many plot elements with the earlier Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett. However, a key element not present in the earlier book and playing a key role in Silva's are constant intrigues and internal power struggles going on within British Intelligence itself, with Professor Vicary eventually finding that he had been throughly deceived and manipulated by his own superiors.