Double Cross in Cairo Read Free

they often clashed and she occasionally banished him to a neighbouring pension, the Hotel Metropoli.
    In 1939 Levi told the British consul in Genoa, Alfred G. Major, that he had been approached by the Germans to spy in Holland, and had been encouraged to accept the assignment. Subsequently, between December 1939 and June 1940, he had been in touch with the French Deuxième Bureau and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in Paris where a former MI5 officer, Geoffrey W. Courtney headed the station. A former MI5 officer, Courtney had been transferred to Paris in 1938 from the Cairo station.
    Upon his return to Genoa, his German contact, Hans Travaglio, had persuaded him to go to Egypt with a wireless transmitter to collect military information, and this scheme was approved by Count Scirombo, a senior Italian intelligence officer and formerly the Italian consul in Cairo. Levi was briefed in Bari and the plan changed. He would be sent a wireless after he had arrived in Cairo, probably through the Hungarian diplomatic bag, and he was required to send his encrypted messages in French. He was supplied with two questionnaires, one Italian and one German, and a list of contacts in Budapest and Belgrade, and given the address of two Abwehr officers, Otto Eisentrager and Dr Delius, in Sofia. He was warned to avoid any contact with German consulates in Turkey, for fear of attracting the attention of the British or Turkish authorities, but was told he could obtain assistance from any German consul in a neutral country simply by mentioning ‘Emile from Genoa’.
    SIS would later identify Hauptman Eisentrager as an Abwehr personality first identified in a report dated 12 June 1939 who used the alias ‘Major Otto Wagner’ and held a post in Ast III in Berlin. Helater appeared in two ISOS decrypts, in October and November 1940, probably working in Sofia, responsible for the collection of economic and Air Force intelligence. Significantly, an ISOS intercept dated 9 November 1940 asked Eisentrager ‘if and when the apparatus was leaving Sofia for Egypt and how long the transport was expected to take’. As SIME later commented, ‘it seems not improbable that this message referred to the original arrangement for providing Levi with a transmitter’. After the war, MI5 learned that Wagner, an attorney from Mannheim fluent in Bulgarian, was Eisentrager’s true name and that was his codename.
    Levi’s supervision was to fall to Sonderfuhrer Clemens Rossetti, an Abwehr personality who frequently appeared in Abwehr traffic handling agents across the Middle East. According to SIS, Rossetti had headed the Genoa Abstelle until the end of 1940 when he was replaced by Travaglio, whom SIME described as
    Born in Munich, age about forty-five. Over 6ft in height, broad shoulders and stout build. Very large head – when buying hats always found difficulty in obtaining the correct size. Dark brown hair, very thin, particularly in the centre of the scalp. Ruddy fair complexion, fat cheeks. Clean shaven. Eyes dark brown (?). Large nose. Large mouth with full lips, three or four gold teeth. Rounded double chin. Large thick ears. Large very fleshy hands. Big feet. Speaks German with Bavarian accent. Walks ponderously. Large scar on left side of abdomen said to have been the result of a flying accident during the 1914–18 war, when he was a pilot.
    Travaglio is very fond of music, particularly opera; plays the piano and sings himself. Jovial disposition and enjoys company. Has a fund of humorous stories about Hitler and Mussolini in particular. Generous, open-handed and romantic nature; professes to be deeply influenced by scenic beauty. Is an amateur antique collector, Levi considers Travaglio to be a very patriotic German but not a good Nazi. He confided to Levi on one occasion that hehad been an agent in peacetime, travelling under cover of a guide for German tourist parties, particularly in Italy. He also stated (in