Early in the morning, at 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the British Empire, a day of intense and busy work has begun.

A tired Winston Churchill was reading the reports from MI5 and MI6, and for the past two days he was feeling terrible, sleeping poorly, and always nervous about what was going to happen, and in order to dispel this ominous feeling, he sent a series of telegrams to the front, and the most important thing was the North African front, where he thought the Germans would make a fuss. Within two days he sent five telegrams in quick succession to the Eighth Army and Lieutenant General Montgomery. The prime minister's secretary remembers very well that Montgomery responded politely to the first four telegrams, but by the time of the fifth, the good-natured lieutenant general probably couldn't help it, and directly took the fourth telegram back and sent it again. He remembered clearly that when he received the identical telegram and asked again if it had been sent by mistake, only to be met with an angry response from the North African side: "Hell, we've said what we need to say four times, and since your memory is so poor, I'll remind you again." ”

In response, he did not dare to show it to the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister was very pressed by the Eighth Army's reply, and after thinking about it for a long time, he finally decided to take it as it was, in case they got angry, it might be a mistake from the front, and let them reissue it again -- he could take the opportunity to remind them to send something different.

By the time he brought the callback, he found that all his worries and preparations were unnecessary, and the Prime Minister was listening to the report of General "C" Menzies, judging by the tension of the scene and the surprise of the Prime Minister himself. He should have lost his mind about the telegrams from the North African front.

"Prime Minister, last night the super-secret was badly breached. You know the power of the solidification ******, if you put it into a dense area. The destructive power can be imagined, and although the final losses have not yet been fully calculated, I think it will be very large, very large. Menzies, who had always been cautious, used two very in a row, and he said in frustration, "If the translators can be retrained, then our code-breaking power will be almost finished after the loss of this group of cryptographers, and more importantly, more importantly." The fact that the Germans were able to change the code and bomb the manor with precision proves that they have definite information, and that there may be people in our upper echelons. ”

Menzies's remark is certainly not alarmist: behind every new code-breaking mechanism is a process of logical argumentation and algorithm verification by a large number of cryptographers and mathematicians. The translator is nothing more than the person who puts their ideas into practice, the former is the designer of the building, and the latter is nothing more than the construction team. This is a core secret that only a fairly high-ranking person would know, if not that the Germans had someone in the top. How can it be so accurate?

"This secret was bought with blood and lives by the entire city of Coventry. But why do they know? How did the Germans learn about this? Who cooperated with them to drop bombs? Who exactly are the German spies hiding among us? To check! Get to the bottom of it! Find out! Churchill roared through gritted teeth.

In the 1940 British air war, the German side had expressed doubts about the possible leakage of the Engeney code code, so it specially formulated an air attack on the city of Coventry City for verification, this news was of course also grasped by the British side, after repeated thinking and decision-making, Churchill finally decided not to take any defensive and diversion measures and let the Germans bomb, and even in order to avoid suspicion even the normal defense force was weakened. In the "Horror Night", 50,000 buildings were destroyed across the Coventry metropolitan area. 50,000 shops were damaged and more than 600 residents were killed. 150 of the bodies were buried in the same cemetery because they were unrecognizable, and Coventry became the most heavily bombed city in Britain during the Battle of Britain.

Now that the Germans have easily destroyed the estate and taken away the "golden egg" that the Prime Minister has been firmly guarding, how can he not be furious?

"How much time will it take to rebuild our codebreaking system? How much to invest? Churchill asked with red eyes and a change of subject.

"I'm afraid it's hard...... These experts and scholars are not reproducible, and the equipment used to decipher the code has been destroyed, and I think it will be ...... to rebuild," Menzies pondered for a moment, and after considering it for a long time, he said, "I think it will take at least two years to combine the personnel, the troops, the equipment, and the complexity of the new German cipher, which is still a small amount." ”

"2 years?" Churchill stared at Menzies, his eyes as if they were about to burst into flames, "How much will happen in two years?" How many more people are we going to die? ”

Menzies was speechless, and did not dare to look at the Prime Minister's angry face, so he could only bow his head and remain silent.

At the moment when the atmosphere was tense, the intelligence adjutant suddenly came in and reported: "Prime Minister, General Menzies, the search force has come to report that the fire has been completely extinguished, and it is currently judged that there are no survivors, and the missing group of personnel have also been found." ”

"Good!" Churchill jumped up from his seat, his whole face shining brightly, "Where are they?" Are there any practical difficulties? The order goes on, wherever they are and no matter which force is currently in contact with them, give them the best protection at once and send them to London, we cannot afford to lose another one. ”

"I'm afraid...... Is it hard? The adjutant's face was ugly.

"What do you mean by that?" Churchill's face suddenly elongated.

"All the experts we found are dead......," the adjutant reported in a low tone, "except for one expert who was shot in the head and died, the rest of them all died in a pond, and most of them were killed with daggers, and all the bodies were dumped in the pond afterwards, and the water inside turned red." The killers were very professional, and the troops examined several recovered bodies, all of which were killed with a single knife. The salvage at the scene is still going on, and I am afraid that there will be 50-60 victims, and the scene is quite tragic......"

When Churchill heard this, he sat down as if he had been electrocuted, and muttered to himself, "How so? How so? ”

"Now it's clear that the Germans should have infiltrated a special operations squad, which guided the planes to the targets and at the same time carried out the massacre of the survivors - their goal was clear and direct, our super secret." Menzies remained calm, "Judging from the situation just now, there may be a lot of them, and they must have mixed in disguised as our troops - otherwise there would be no way for so many people to hide their whereabouts." ”

"How did this happen? Check it out for me! Check it out! Immediately! Right now! Right away! Churchill roared, "Also, if you want to lay a net for me, this team must still be hidden somewhere, they can't sneak away during the day, and they have to dig three feet into the ground to find out for me." ”

After another half an hour, more news poured into the Prime Minister's office: the bodies of all the gendarmes were found at the gendarmerie station in the town, there was no sign of a firefight, all of them had been dealt with with by daggers, and the methods were the same as those by the pond, very skilful and ruthless, and it was expected that the same people had done it; According to the recollections of other local residents, three cars, one jeep and two military trucks, all dressed in gendarmerie uniforms, entered from outside yesterday evening, and they ignored the normal movement and change of guards; Then the Navy sent a report that three stolen vehicles had been found by the harbor guard during the day yesterday, and after comparison and verification, it was confirmed that they were vehicles that had appeared near the manor - they must have landed from the port; The radar station reported that yesterday it was discovered that several planes of our army had returned home ahead of schedule, and after verification and verification, they did not keep track of them, and now it is suspected that these planes were German planes disguised as our army that had come to drop bombs.

One clue after another came out, and the wartime cabinet members who had received the bad news had gathered at the Prime Minister's Office, and they all saw that Churchill was like crazy and scolded all sides, scolding the Air Force, the Navy, the gendarmerie, the Army unit that was closest and the first to rush to the rescue, and the intelligence agency......

The phone rang suddenly, and the adjutant picked it up, and there was a hurried and anxious voice on the other side, and he nodded again and again as he listened, and then said, "Please wait a moment." ”

"The head of one of our search and rescue teams would like to report back to you directly."

"Yes." Churchill took the microphone, "I'm Winston Churchill, who are you?" ”

"Your Excellency Prime Minister......" The voice on the other side trembled a little, I don't know whether it was panic or nervousness, but the reporting process was quite fluent, "After discovering that the town of Bletchley was on fire late last night, we rushed to the scene to rescue as soon as possible, and on the way we met a mathematician who claimed to be 'MacDonald', who told us that he was a survivor of the air raid by the secret unit in the manor, and also said that a group of survivors were taken hostage by the Germans. Due to the tense atmosphere at the scene, the very poor sight, and the fact that the other party can speak fluent native English and has a work badge issued by the government department, we believed his words, and pursued him in the direction he directed, at dawn today, we still did not catch up with the so-called German spy force, we became suspicious of him, wanted to control and verify it, in the resistance he detonated the grenade he was carrying, he himself was killed on the spot, and our captain, Major James, was killed along with several other soldiers. We asked the government to verify the identity of the 'McDonald' researcher and confirm that he was a spy - all traces of the scene were still preserved, but the pursuit could not continue, and we lost our target......"

"I'll find someone to verify." Churchill hung up the phone and sat down decadently, "Another clue is broken." ”

Years later, the secretary wrote in his published memoirs: "...... At that moment, the sky of the British Empire fell, and the Prime Minister was furious and helpless, saying something very disrespectful to him - that day he was like an old dog who catches and bites whom. (To be continued.) )