cicada

Chapter 1295 Past Events

Late at night, several men appeared near Lin Fuyilang's residence. They quickly approached the Buick sedan in which the surveillance personnel were riding. Sudo Tetsuji and others immediately drew their guns and stood guard.

However, when they saw the middle-aged man in the lead, all the agents put down their Nambu pistols. This was another group of people who came to relieve the shift.

Tetsuji Sudo handed the surveillance records to the middle-aged man and left with his men. There was not much communication between the two sides, and everything was done silently. Only a few dog barkings from the street corner proved that someone had passed by.

A few minutes later, the middle-aged man used the street light to write down the shift change time in the surveillance record. Looking at Lin Fu's mansion not far away, his eyes were unusually calm.

Agents need to stay calm at all times. From this point of view, the middle-aged man is more professional and more dangerous than the neurotic Tetsuji Sudo.

The car was quiet for a long time, and suddenly someone whispered to his companions why they were monitoring the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Finance, as the other party could not be a Red Russian spy.

Most moles betray their country for money or women, but both goals are easily obtained, and betraying the Empire does no good to a noble.

The companion glanced at the middle-aged man in the co-pilot seat and replied in a low voice: "The target has a close relationship with suspect number one. The two have met at the same location many times. The General Staff suspects that the target is a member of suspect number one's intelligence network."

The questioner suddenly realized, and then showed disdain and jealousy: "I heard that the Hokkaido country bumpkin named Sudo Tetsuji was chosen by the Minister because he found the number one suspect. He is such a lucky guy."

Hearing the conversation between his subordinates, the middle-aged man smiled slightly but did not stop them. The agents participating in this operation had all been strictly screened, and he was not worried about leaks.

On the contrary, letting the operators know more about the target will help with the next mission. At least it can eliminate everyone's fear about the target's identity and make them work more attentively.

The target is the Viscount of the Empire, the Earl's legitimate son, the General's grandson-in-law, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Finance, and any of these four identities is worthy of the General Staff's serious attention.

Once their surveillance and tracking operations are discovered, it will cause a huge shock. After all, internal review is a very sensitive matter, not to mention that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that the target is involved in the case.

Seeing that the middle-aged man did not object, the interrogator summoned up the courage to ask, "Captain, have you seen Suspect No. 1 Sorge?"

The middle-aged man was stunned for a moment when he heard this, his eyes slowly became empty, and his memory instantly went back to a winter day many years ago, when he was still a newcomer who had just joined the General Staff Headquarters.

1933 years.

Sorge arrived in Yokohama by boat. His public identity was a reporter for the German newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung in Japan. He also worked as a freelance writer for the Berlin Kurier and the Amsterdam Handelsblatt. He then came to Tokyo.

During the first few months after arriving in Tokyo, Sorge lived in an inn called Sano, which was not far from Ginza. The services were very thoughtful, and the room rates and quality were in line with his income and status.

But from the first day Sorge checked in, a strange guest appeared in the hotel, and Sorge would meet this person every time he went out.

When they met, the other party first bowed politely to Sorge, and then followed him closely.

Whether Sorge was going to the German Embassy or somewhere else, the guest would wait at the door for several hours and follow him back to the hotel, leaving only late at night and appearing again early the next morning.

Obviously, this was a spy from the Japanese counterintelligence agency. He was always silent and polite, following the person being monitored like a shadow, neither interfering nor questioning.

This person also secretly checked Sorge's room and installed a micro-eavesdropping device in the telephone, but this does not mean that Sorge has been exposed.

In fact, any foreigner entering Japan will be monitored by Japan's counterintelligence agencies, even diplomats. This is a special counterintelligence system.

Under such close surveillance, Sorge behaved very normally, wandering around the city every day, gradually becoming familiar with Tokyo's customs, roads and social conditions, and making friends with all kinds of people.

Time passed quickly and winter came. On a cold and damp evening, the biting cold wind swept across the earth with snow flakes. Sorge and a group of journalist friends were gathering at the "Golden Rhine" Hotel in Ginza.

This is a restaurant opened by German immigrants, where you can eat delicious German dishes and drink the most authentic Munich beer.

Sorge's "tail" also followed him to the hotel. He was only wearing a coat and stood in the strong wind, stamping on the ground, his face blue with cold.

Looking at the thin coat of "Tail", Sorge felt a little pity for him. He walked out of the restaurant, came to "Tail" and asked: "What should I call you?"

Tail didn't expect the target to approach him. He hesitated and replied in not very standard English: "Hiraye."

Sorge smiled and patted Hirano on the shoulder: "You must be very cold. Let's make a gentleman's agreement. I will not leave the Golden Rhine without permission before 10 o'clock. You can find a place to warm up. Take it!"

Sorge stuffed some change into Hirano's hand, and then turned around and walked back to the hotel without waiting for Hirano's answer. Looking at Sorge returning to the hotel, Hirano hesitated for a moment and went into the tavern across the street. If there was a choice, who would be willing to stand in the snow and wait for several hours?

In this way, Sorge spent a pleasant evening with his friends. His friends' conversation brought Sorge a lot of new information. He also told everyone some interesting anecdotes and they had a very happy chat.

When his friends were getting ready to go home, Sorge looked at his watch and raised his hand to greet everyone: "I promised the spy who was following me that I would stay here until 10 o'clock. That guy always follows me like I'm a spy. Give everyone another beer and put it on my account!"

"Hahahaha." Everyone laughed and sat down again.

At 10 o'clock, Hirano returned to the door of "Golden Rhine" and found that Sorge was still in the hotel. He finally breathed a sigh of relief.

In the days that followed, Hirano and Sorge seemed to have reached some kind of tacit understanding. Sorge allowed Hirano to follow him, and Hirano gave Sorge full trust.

In the Buick sedan, several Japanese spies were listening intently. The previous interrogator quickly asked, "Captain Hirano, then what happened? You became friends with suspect number one?"

The middle-aged man shook his head, stretched out his hand to catch the raindrops falling from the night sky, and turned back to warn his men: "Intelligence personnel cannot have friends. This is very dangerous, especially with a foreigner. We must remain vigilant."

The interrogator and other Japanese agents seemed to be thinking about something and whispered "Hi". They did not expect that their captain had such a connection with suspect number one. No wonder Captain Hirano was demoted after the incident.

The General Staff and the Intelligence Department were both responsible for failing to discover the identity of suspect number one in advance, so Hirano became the scapegoat.

Outside the car window, the rain was getting heavier and heavier, and the raindrops hit the ceiling with a thudding sound. The voice of the questioner was heard again in the car.

"Captain, how did we find suspect number one? Did he make a mistake while conducting his espionage activities?"

The spies all looked at Hirano. From what he had just said, they could tell that Sorge was a very professional intelligence officer and should not be exposed so easily.

Hirano thought about it and felt that it was not a secret, so he told the situation behind the case as if it were just a mission briefing.

Starting from the end of 1933, a mysterious radio station appeared in downtown Tokyo. Every time this radio station sent a message to the outside world, one or more top-secret intelligence messages would be leaked, which caused great headaches for the Intelligence Department of the General Staff.

By last year, 1940, the wiretapping had lasted for seven years, and there had been no progress in the investigation. The Intelligence Department finally adopted a seemingly clumsy approach.

The General Staff compiled a huge list, which included all suspicious persons who might leak intelligence. The number of people was as high as thousands and involved all walks of life.

For example, all foreign journalists stationed in Tokyo, business people, consultants and staff of government agencies, and even former prime ministers, military advisers, members of the Imperial Privy Council, staff of the General Staff, cabinet ministers and their secretaries, etc.

The Intelligence Department deleted one by one those people who could not possibly be involved in espionage. However, there were still several hundred people left. The intelligence personnel then used the intelligence obtained from various sources to examine and filter these people.

However, all these actions failed to prevent the mysterious radio station from sending messages to the outside world. Countless highly confidential information was leaked, making the Japanese cabinet extremely embarrassed.

Japan's response to the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact, the "Southward Advance" plan, the timetable for Germany's attack on Red Russia, and the "Outline of the Imperial National Policy under Changing Situations" decided by the Imperial Conference after the outbreak of the war between Germany and Russia, all this information fell into the hands of the Red Russians.

Red Russian diplomats questioned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with relevant documents more than once. The content was even more detailed than the documents obtained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The so-called counter-espionage work became a joke and the General Staff Headquarters lost face.

However, the Intelligence Department came to the conclusion that the spies lurking in the Japanese high-level positions belonged to the Red Russian side. Apart from that, there were no substantial discoveries and the list lost its meaning.

The Japanese spies in the Buick became more curious after hearing this, and they all turned their eyes to Hirano. They all wanted to know what happened later that led to Sorge's exposure.

Sorge not only had close relations with senior German embassy officials, he was also a member of the German Socialist Party. More importantly, he was a member of the "Wednesday Breakfast Party."

Everyone in Tokyo knew that every Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Konoe would invite a few close friends to have breakfast together.

The people involved in this activity have been strictly selected and their status is equivalent to Konoe's think tank, influencing Konoe's domestic and foreign policies to a considerable extent.

Why would the Intelligence Department target such a powerful and capable person as a suspect? Or is there some inside story that they don't know?

There are rumors within the Intelligence Department that this is not an ordinary counterintelligence operation, but a party struggle, and someone wants to oust Prime Minister Kobe.

Hirano smacked his lips, indicating that the Intelligence Department did not suspect Sorge at first, at least not the first suspect, until something happened.