Spymistress

By Aviv Rubinstien
Based on the Book by William Stevenson

Notes on the world:

-Status, wealth and family dictates what you can and cannot do.
-Nazis believe in the superiority of the Aryan race.
-The British believe that gentlemanly wars should be fought by gentlemen. Even spies
should be of high class.
-To the British, what something looks like, is as important as how effective it is.
-Communism is the only thing worse than Nazism.
-To the British, Nazis aren’t evil because they’re killing Jews, they’re evil because their
imperialism encroaches on British imperialism
-This is true for everyone except a select few.
 Act I
Romania 1932: A lavish party. Romania 1932. We scan through the party, we don’t know who
we’re supposed to be following just yet. But we hear Vera’s voiceover:

‘Spy thriller use a simple formula: You take three things a long way apart—An old blind woman
spinning in the western Wighlands, a barn in Norway, a little curiousity shop in London kept by
a Jew with a beard. Not much connection between the three? You make a connection.’ (p59)

Along with the voiceover we see images:

-A blind ODETTE SANSOM toils away at a sewing machine.
-A barn on fire on the western countryside.
-A young boy LEO MARKS, 14, making shoes in a shop. His elderly Jewish grandfather behind
him.

Then back to the party. we find her, VERA ATKINS, 24, beautiful, cold. She chats up
FRIEDRICH WERNER VON DER SCHULENBURG, 50s, a balding diplomat. She flirts with
him. It’s all very calculated. She wows him with her ability to speak English and Romanian
perfectly. Schulenburg shows off for Vera, touting his rank (German ambassador to Romania)
and his knowledge of current events.

INTERCUT WITH: A basement. Vera, still in her party attire hustles into the wine cellar, careful
not to be noticed. She scribbles coded words on a piece of paper. CX, Intrepid, Stalin, Oil,
Sabotage, Phoenix, Bismarck, Nazi.

Meanwhile Schulenburg tells Vera that Otto von Bismarck told him that Romania was a window
to the Soviet Union, and he was in place to avoid war with Russia at all costs. He tells her that
Bismarck is a defender of the Jews (p8). Vera points out that Bismarck founded an ethno-
nationalist newspaper in Prussia. This intrigues Schulenberg more. He asks her to call him Fritz.

Meanwhile, in the basement, Vera finishes scribbling her notes. As she trots up the steps from
the privacy of the wine cellar, she runs face first into Schulenburg. Her heart stops.

He reaches into his pocket. Vera braces for something. He hands he a note asking for a secret
rendezvous.

London: In an office, Vera meets with WILLIAM STEPHENSON, 35, short, but quietly
charming. She delivers information regarding Schulenburg to Stephenson, who in turn tells her
that the British Royal family sees Hitler as their only protection against Stalin. Chamberlain is
dead set on appeasing Hitler because the British people, still reeling from The Great War, will
want to avoid another war with Germany at all costs. Stephenson instructs Vera to extract more
information from Schulenburg. Perhaps they can kill Hitler before he has a chance to enact his
plans.
Romania: Vera enters her family home. Careful that she’s not followed. Inside, she uncovers a
box of artifacts from her family—namely her father Max Rosenberg. That’s right, Vera is
Jewish!

We flash back to see Vera’s relationship with Max as a child. Specifically, him telling her that
countries like Jews when they’re useful, but the moment they outlive their use, the secret files
come out.

A few weeks later, Vera is out for a drive with Schulenburg. He must wave Nazi flags from his
vehicle. Vera’s heart stops at seeing the coach.

Their meeting is discrete. He tells her of his task to engineer a Nazi-Russian peace pact. He tells
her of his ambivalence between helping the Nazis and saving the country that he loves. He thinks
Hitler is a mad dog, but would never be able to hold onto power.

Vera returns home to find a letter from Stephenson demanding that she move to London. He has
a full-time job for her. (p14)

Once face to face, Stephenson explains as a part of his cover as a businessman he got a chance to
inspect German steel plants and it looks like they’re preparing for war. He introduces Vera to a
group known as “Our Mutual Friends”, High Society business-types who secretly railed against
the Nazis. There Vera meets HUGH DALTON, the only parliamentarian worth a damn.
Vera’s new job would be as a secretary-translator at Stephenson’s Steel Company, this will allow
her to pass into German territory to gain information for Dalton.

Now that one cover is secure, in order to help create her domestic cover as a British aristocrat,
MARY STEPHENSON introduces Vera in to London High Society. At a debutant ball, Vera
deflects questions about her past, while charming young men. Many of the high society types
express happiness at Hitler’s plan. With Hitler ruling Europe, it would leave Britain control of
the middle east and Asia. And after all, they’re just Jews. “I can’t think why the Jews make such
a fuss over a few dozen of their people” (p20).

The high society dinner isn’t all bad, because Vera comes across Stringbag (given the name for
piloting a four-winged plane through enemy fire). They bond over their common dark senses
humor.

Stringbag takes Vera up in his plane. She jokes that she doesn’t know whether she’s smitten with
him or his plane.” (p21). Stringbag insists that modern weapons are not what wins a war. Who
cares how armored a train is when you can blow up a bridge with a couple of stick of dynamite.

Berlin 1935: On another drive with a beleaguered Schulenburg he says “Two million Nazi’s
can’t tell 70 million Germans what to do. British diplomats are listening to Nazi bigwigs at
cocktail parties, instead of venturing into street bars where ordinary Germans as openly when
the British will help overthrow the Nazis.” (p35).
Vera holds her head high as she travels through Berlin, seeing the Nazi ideology spread. Inside
she’s shaking.

London 1938: Vera is tasked to investigate Communist Sympathies among the poorer sections
of London. While exploring the East End, Vera is impressed with the gumption and resilience of
the poor. Even though they feared another Great War. But also anti-Jewish sentiment is on the
rise. Rumblings that a British army war veteran and surgeon advocated gas chambers as the most
efficient solution to the Jewish problem. And that Communism was a Jewish theory, invented by
Jews to pollute the rest of the world (p57).

Chamberlain addresses parliament asking for appeasement for the Germans. Churchill begs
against it.

Stringbag and Vera engage in a night of hard drinking and gallows humor about the whole thing.
What else is there to be done?

When Vera returns home, she finds a message from Schulenburg revealing a little information.
HORST KOPKOW is the new head of the Gestapo. They’ll have to put their visits on hold, lest
Kopkow catch and kill her. Signed “Old Fritz”

Stephenson instructs Vera to reveal very little in return, for Schulenburg may be compromised
by the third Reich.

That night Vera has visions of HORST KOPKOW, a weasel-y little prick. Grinning smugly as he
executes a JEWISH SPY in front of her husband and children.

Inciting Incident

Vera approaches HUGH DALTON and asks him to use his considerable influence to sway the
British army into creating a brigade made of Jews and commoners, the ones ready to fight and
with the most to lose. They would work for SIS and sabotage German steel mills, rail stations,
etc. (p42) “The only cracks in germany’s armor will be in the factories, spies could point out the
weak spots to trained saboteurs who could wreak more havoc, at least cost and with more
precision than aerial bombers. ‘In the the building of tanks, I tell you what/There is always
somewhere a weakest spot”

Dalton, after asking Vera of her background and religion (which she lies about), tells Vera of
STEWART MENZIES, deputy general of the SIS, and a real asshole who would prefer the
clandestine fighting done by gentlemen of high class.

Dalton asks where she got this notion of closework, which is when Vera plops a book on his
desk: Housewife’s ABC’s of Homemade Explosives, by Collin Gubbins.

Vera goes to meet COLLIN GUBBINS, 40s, brash, Scottish, and head of an unofficial “Section
D – D for Destruction”. Gubbins: Policy is run by those who waver between opportunism and
morality-- if dumped in a cannibal’s cooking pot, would see the cannibal’s point of view” (p46)
To show how “badass” he and his men are, Gubbins introduces Vera to Freddie Winterbotham, a
Canadian pilot NOC (non-official cover) who joined the French Aeronautical Research Corp,
which was secretly in a joint venture with French Intelligence rebels.

INTERCUT WITH THE EVENTS: Winterbotham flies over Germany taking picture with
cameras hidden in the wings of his plane. After an emergency landing, Winterbotham convinces
German officers that he is a Nazi sympathizer and finagles his way to meeting Hitler and
Kopkow, Vera is more interested in the meeting with Kopkow.

Vera asks why he didn’t just pull out a pistol and kill the bastard. Gubby thinks this is hilarious.
And a mistake they’re not going to make twice. Vera has passed the test.

Winterbotham reports that France has a dirth of men, so any resistance forces will come from
women (p55), besides no one expects them. France is under pressure from England to cut its
army in half as to not provoke Hitler to retaliate. Could Vera raise an all female army in France?

Vera turns the offer down. There are more pressing matters. The Germans are prepping to invade
Poland before the British can supply them with RAF airplanes. But the big news is: Polish
Scientists had come into possession of a German code-breaking machine.

“We know very bad men plan very bad things. We must find out who they are and kill them. It’s
not your Christian approach. It’s not your English fair play. It means forgetting the freedoms of
the Germans. But they lost their freedom when they voted Hitler into power. Whitehall says we
mustn’t blow up German factories. Yet the RAF dropped bombs of Arabs when pious Lord
Londonderry was air minister.” (p68)

Vera steals stationary from Whitehall (the headquarters of the SIS) and forges documentation
authorizing resources for the “Mutual Friends” and to authorizing ‘Military Mission Number 4’.
Gubbins and Vera were to bring the polish-held code breaking machines to England and help
prepare Poles to fight an underground war. (p77)

On the eve of her mission, Vera and Stringbag drink at a pub. (Polish vodka story p67). She tells
Stringbag that she will die on her mission, and to prepare himself for her fate.

Act II
Paris 1939: MM-4 begins with Vera and Gubby boarding a train to Mareilles, looking like
traveling salesmen. Gubby is uncomfortable playing the role, but Vera takes to the charade
easily.

On the train to Marseilles, Gubbins describes their rendezvous contact: GENERAL ADRIAN
CARTON DE WIART: One eye, one arm. If they can make it Warsaw, he will get them to the
enigma machines.
The train, repeatedly gets sidetracked to allow emergency transport of British troops. Gubbins
tells Vera how inefficient conventional ground troops are, even air raids. But the British won’t
forsake that for closework.

Marseilles: Vera and Gubbins (and the rest of their team) arrive 36 hours late. A British warship,
the HMS Shropshire (headed for India) is unaware of the detour they had been ordered to make
to Alexandria. Vera talks her way onto the boat. (Maybe Ruth Jew story here p74)

The space tight, that night, Vera, Gubbins and the handful of other troops sleep on the deck of
the Shropshire.

Alexandria, August 31st: Vera, Gubby and company wait in the Alexandria seaport as Germany
mobilizes against Poland. There is no way to fly to Poland without clipping German airspace.
Gubby returns with a wad of Egyptian currency.

Gubbins and Vera speed in a cab to the British Imperial Airways Office.

Once there, Vera and Gubbins work their respective magic to get an RAF Commander to allow
them to fly to Warsaw.

The planes, however, must make emergency landings in Athens when on Sept 1, Germany
invades Poland and all RAF fighters are recalled.

Athens: At the polish legation in Athens, Gubby finds two Polish airline pilots, drinking in a pub
after having been grounded. Vera lies and tells the pilots that they’re British secret service, and
one of them agrees to fly them to Romania (they’ll get shot down immediately if they try to fly
into Poland).

Vera, Gubby and the group narrowly escape the Athens airport amid a hail of gunfire from Greek
officials.

Romania: Once in Romania, Gubbins and the rest of the men dress in their British Army
uniforms (considering Britain just declared war on Germany.) Vera meets up with Ruth Klueger,
Romanian Mossad agent to help arrange her travel to Poland. (Ruth Jew Story p74) Ruth is used
to transporting people in the other direction.

Vera learns that Adolf Eichman’s plan is to force Jews to flee through Romania to Palestine as a
part of the plan to deepen Arab hostility toward Britain’s Balfour declaration. Ruth also tells
Vera of the existence of Dachau concentration camp, and how the Nazis are rounding up Jews,
sending them to the camps and gassing them. Right now it’s just conjecture.

Ruth leads Vera and company to a train yard where the men get to work repairing a broken-down
train. They travel through the night into Poland.

Warsaw: The next morning, a dozen uniformed British soldiers, Gubby in a kilt, and Vera
march through Warsaw.
They march into General Carton de Wiart’s office, who remains unimpressed with the feats it
took the team to get there. There’s a problem. The code machines are worthless without three
POLISH CODE BREAKERS to operate them.

Gubbins radios Whitehall for backup, assistance, now that this is open war, he thinks they will
get supplies. Whitehall responds in the negative. “every week is of value to us in increasing our
reserves and improving the security of the base from which our offensive operations will be
ultimately be launched. The Poles should carry on as best they can.” (p93)

In a letter to Stringbag, written in code, Vera tells him that she’s getting to work trying to arm
Polish resistance through the back channels that got them to Warsaw in the first place. That
she’ll probably die there. That if she can get out, the code breakers are coming too.

MARIAN REJEWSKI, JERZY ROZYCKI and HENRYK ZYGALSKI prepare for their journey
out of Poland. Jerzy says good bye to his WIFE and DAUGHTER.

Vera sneaks the code breakers onto a train to Bucharest where the British legation would be
waiting with Visas.

Bucharest: The group arrives at the British legation to find a riot. The Romanian Prime Minister
has been assassinated and German propaganda blames the British. Thinking fast, Gubbins sends
his troops back to Egypt (so they will not be viewed as assassins.)

Meanwhile, Vera finds a French diplomat whom she had met in London (high society parties)
and arranges for the codebreakers to board a train to Paris. To sweeten the deal, Vera agrees that
the Poles were work for French intelligence, not Britain. Gubbins opts to stay in Romania to
construct a plan on how to aid Poland.

London: Vera marches into Dalton’s office and demands more resources for Section D.

Gathering the Team

1940: On a walk through the new SOE on Baker Street, Vera recounts to her bosses Hugh Dalton
and MAURICE BUCKMASTER an assassination attempt made on Hitler’s life. (Kopkow is
present at this assassination attempt) (p106). Dalton instructs Vera to recruit spies to help 1) gain
intelligence. 2) sabotage 3) train civilian armies in France 4) run safe houses (knowns as
letterboxes) in France for other agents.

What about Poland? If France falls so does England, Poland can wait. Plus there’s no way into
Poland.

In a pub, Vera finds VIRGINIA HALL, they talk of her escape from Vichy, France where she
was a nurse with an ambulance service. Vera convinces her to go back to France to raise a
civilian army. Hall wonders if Cuthbert will give her a problem. Vera tells her, if so, Cuthbert
should be eliminated. Hall lifts her dress to reveal a wooden leg. That’s Cuthbert.
Ringway Airport, Manchester: Vera psychs up VIOLETTE SZABO who readies herself for a
practice jump. The idea is she throws the suitcase tied to a tether, and when the line goes slack,
she pulls her chute.

Stringbag flies the plane. Violette jumps, but pulls her chute too late and breaks her ankle.

INTERCUT WITH: Szabo getting dropped behind enemy lines for real!

Vera sends a letter to Old Fritz asking about the German alliance with Russia.

At a high society party, Schulenburg, in the midst of listening to an anti-Jewish tirade, receives
the letter from Vera.

Old Fritz returns a letter of his own assuring Vera that the German-Russian alliance is strong.

On the ground, KRYSTYNA SKARBEK approaches, telling Vera that she heard people were
looking for idiots to jump out of planes. “Germans behave like bullies when they move in packs,
but piss their pants when separated from their pals.”

In Gubbin’s office, Vera tells Gubby of Krystyna, how she set fire to a nun (p161-164). Krystyna
enters and insists there’s a way back into Poland. She just had to ski over the mountains.

At SIS, STEWART MENZIES tells his assistant that he’s worried about SOE infiltration from
communists and Nazis. He calls in a YOUNG AGENT who he tasks to infiltrate SOE.

At a high society party, Vera recruits NOOR INAYAT KHAN, a gentle, soft spoken, Indian
princess fluent in English, French and Russian.

In his lab, LEO MARKS, 20, a Jewish, coding genius shows Vera, Szabo, Noor Khan, Virginia
Hall and a handful of other spies, including TOMMY YEOTHOMAS, (plus the SIS spy), a list
of silk cyphers that can be used for coding messages.

He teaches each spy a poem cypher and gives them code names. YeoThomas is White Rabbit,
Szabo is Three Blind Mice. The poem cypher must have one intentional spelling error to indicate
that the agent hasn’t been compromised.

An indecipherable code comes in. Something garbled and broken. Vera breaks it with ease. It’s
like a crossword puzzle. Vera, with her ear to the radio transmitter learns that Germany has
invaded Russia, and now Russia is an ally. Now Gubbins has seen everything!

Vera scribbles out a letter to Old Fritz asking is he’s okay.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, Schulenberg is arrested by the soviets for his ties to Germany.

Stringbag teaches emergency landing techniques to a handful of recruits including Noor.

Leo pulls Vera aside and tells her that Virginia Hall needs no assistance with her cypher because
she has a photographic memory.

CUT TO: Virginia Hall in warehouse in France, training her civilian militia.
CUT TO: A German power station blowing up in France.

Back in her warehouse, Virginia Hall congratulates herself with her team.

In his dimly-lit office: Kopkow laments, “I’d give anything to ring the neck of that Canadian
bitch”

Gubbins, Buckmaster and Vera sit in Buckmaster’s office, going through a list of agents: Chuck
Yaeger, Christopher Lee, Julia Child, Roald Dahl, Noel Coward, all ready for their assignments.
They snuff out the SIS spy, and send a spy of their own, Julia Child to infiltrate SIS, Gubbins
objects to sending Odette Sansom into the field, saying she’s too temperamental and stubborn.
Buckmaster overrules him and tells Vera to send her out. They have a shortage of good agents.

In the hallway, Buckmaster indicates that he knows Atkins true identity. He deduced it by
discovering that there was no citizenship records for Vera Atkins. He leaves the threat right
there. Vera locks eyes with Stringbag…

Vera prepares VICTOR FREDRICKS for release in Hungary. She checks his cover story.
Listens to him speak in four different languages. She tells him of the rumors of Concentration
Camps and Germans gassing Jews. It’s his mission to recon the torture. She gives him his silk
cypher and removes the labels from his clothes. She tells him he’s probably going to die there,
and to mentally prepare himself for it. She gives him the L pill. A cyanide capsule to use instead
of succumbing to torture. He understands.

QUICK MONTAGE:
*Victor Fredericks dropping behind enemy lines.
*Bombs drop as Germany pummels France England.
*Krystyna Smuggling Weapons into Poland
*Chuck Yaeger training an army in France
*Odette Sansom transmitting in the dark of night.
*Violette Szabo, dressed provocatively, romancing a Mark.
*The White Rabbit (Tommy YeoThomas) lays in a coffin as two FRENCH WOMEN transport
him across the border. They’re stopped by the Gestapo and narrowly talk their way out of it.

Vera voiceover about traveling according to the phases of the moon. (p )

Manchester: On a countryside campus, Vera, in the middle of a tour, talks with Stephenson and
BILL DONOVAN— another wealthy American investor— of their group’s success. They are
accomplishing more and for less money than the RAF, but the British government continues to
put all their resources behind conventional military strategy. She leads them to a train track
where they find ROLANDE COLAS tied to the track. The exercise is supposed to switch the
oncoming train at the last minute, but there’s something wrong. Everyone scrambles to try to
help Rolande. Vera yells. And whoops. It turns out to be a training exercise, and the train misses
Colas completely. (p136-137)

Donovan asks who came up with this torturous scenario. Vera introduces them to IAN
FLEMMING. Flemming, speaking out of turn, tells Donovan of OPERATION RUTHLESS
(p133).

INTERCUT WITH: OPERATION RUTHLESS (p133).

Vera, fearing Donovan and Stephenson’s reactions, redirects them to Gubbins who, with
CHARLES FRASIER SMITH, head of Q gadgets. He teaches a group of spies how to locate
weak areas in transformers, rail roads, and how to hide explosives in dead rats. Krystina really
likes this idea. Virginia Hall too.

Things Fall Apart

Paris 1942: An entire safe house, Code Name: Prosper, is broken up by Gestapo.

London: Leo Marks, in love with Noor and afraid for her life, begs Vera to call her back, Vera
wirelesses Noor and tells her to return immediately. Noor turns down the offer.

That night at her home, Vera receives a coded transmission from “Peter”. It’s a letter from
Kopkow threatening Vera and asking her to join him. Vera is shaken. Stringbag comforts her.

The White Rabbit demands to be sent back to France, but Gubbins hesitates, saying he knows too
much. The White Rabbit insists he can stand up to torture: If you can get through the first few
minutes of torture, you’ve got it made. Everything beyond that is a small inconvenience” (p241)

Vera implores them to send him (and points out the hypocrisy of sending untrained, unready
women).

Menzies approaches Hugh Dalton with the news the Vera has been compromised and is now
working for the Nazis or the Russians. Dalton takes this news seriously.

Meanwhile, a perfect code comes in from Gilbert Norman. One without a spelling error.
Buckmaster blames an overworked-but-not compromised Norman. Vera speaks up, but
Buckmaster silences her with a look. Buckmaster responds: You have forgotten your true check,
be more careful next time.

In his office, Kopkow listens to coded British transmissions. He pulls a name out. Sansom.

CUT TO: A foot chase on a war-torn Paris street. Odette runs for her life from the encroaching
Germans.
She makes her way into her bunker hideaway and begins destroying all the information that
adorns the walls.

England: Vera is furious at the news of Odette’s capture, blaming Odette for staying in the same
safe house for too long. She begs Buckmaster and Dalton for more resources, but all the money
is going to the “gentlemen” in the RAF.

France: Tommy YeoThomas goes to a meetup. “You must be Shelly”. It’s a trap. He’s rounded
up by the Gestapo.

England: Gubbins and Buckmaster are furious that Vera and Leo Marks let The White Rabbit
back into the field. Violette Szabo volunteers to break him out of his prison camp. Buckmaster
protests. He can’t hide his love for Violette.

France: Odette is taken to a concentration camp. There she meets Kopkow. He tells her is told
that she’s condemned to death on two counts, to which she respons, "Then you will have to make
up your mind on what count I am to be executed, because I can only die once." 

MONTAGE: Vera’s agents get captured, and killed.

*MADELIEINE DAMERMENT, a young agent, gets dropped directly into a field surrounded by
Germans.
* Odette sees the horrors of the concentration camp, people resorting to cannibalism. She meets
Peter Churchill, another British spy.
*Chuck Yaeger narrowly escapes France on a boat.
*At the French prison camp, Szabo breaks in and provides papers and clothes to help
YeoThomas escape. She kills 40 people. He barely makes it out, but Szabo is shot dead. (Story
on P279-280)
*Rolande’s radio transmission is intercepted/indecipherable code (p280)
*Krystyna waits to jump from a plane. The winds are too high. She gets impatient and jumps
anyway, fractures her hip. Claims it’s only bruised.
*Noor Khan, sleeping in her bed in France is awakened in the middle of the night by a knock on
the door. Without thinking she answers in English. The Gestapo breaks down the door and takes
Noor.
*After dropping an agent into France, Stringbag takes fire.

Gubbins wakes Vera solemnly. He tells her that they’ve been completely compromised, that
Stringbag is missing-presumed dead. Vera shows no emotion. She completely shuts down.
Gubbins tells Vera that Dalton, Menzies and Buckmaster want to see her.

In a clinical room, Vera is interrogated by Dalton, Menzies, and Buckmaster for potentially
being a spy. If she’s not a spy then she’s incompetent. So which is it? She’s asked if she knows
Horst Kopkow. She’s asked if he’s contacted her. Buckmaster exposes Vera’s heritage. She is
mortified.

She knows too much to be fired, and they’re not sure if they need to imprison her as an enemy
alien or execute her. They leave her with next to no authority in the managing of her spies.
Vera retorts that her loyalty wouldn’t be questioned if they thought she was of noble birth, a
male or Christian. Menzies can’t help but agree.

As Vera leaves she sees Leo being led in to be interrogated. How convenient…

Act III
1944: Krystyna begs Vera for aid to Poland. They’ve only made two successful drops in the past
four months. Vera, with tears in her eyes, lights a cigarette and says “I’m sorry. Something’s
going on at high levels I don’t understand. Our foreign office and Washington are obsessed with
one thing: What will Stalin think if we help you?” Krystyna responds: Power is as power does.

The White Rabbit visits Vera, now languishing behind a desk, resigned to never having control
of her girls again. He inspires her, telling her that Violette killed 40 people on her way to rescue
him. He tells her that he heard La Marseilles through the vents in his dungeon in the
concentration camp. But it’s too late. The British are going to get their big gentlemanly war that
they wanted. Operation Overlord (the invasion of Normandy) is only weeks away. They share a
moment. The White Rabbit all but admits his feelings for Vera. She is barely consoled.

That night at the pub, Vera drinks alone, watching Virginia Hall wine-and-dine young spies
returning from their duties. She very clearly is trying to get them to admit that they’ve been
compromised. None of them bites. Hall and Vera lock eyes with understanding.

Gubbins approaches Vera. He talks of his greatest regret, not being able to raise a Polish militia
so Poland could defend itself. Now Poland is completely in the hands of the soviets. Vera: “I
need to go back to a time that seems enviably predictable. It helps deal with so much
uncertainty.” Gubbins and Vera commiserate, the Americans are bound to fall into the same
quagmire as the British. Throwing money and bombs at the problem. D-Day will fail if the allies
continue to reject closework.

Gubbins tells Vera of Peggy Knight (p267), she knows that Peggy was poorly trained, dropped
into the wrong region and executed, but Gubbins reveals is that she was deliberately sacrificed,
dropped into France with misinformation in order to give the Germans about D-Day. It didn’t
work.

Vera is disgusted that SOE would knowingly sacrifice one of her girls. She’s ready to give it all
up. Nothing makes sense anymore.

When Vera returns home, The White Rabbit is waiting for her. Vera preemptively rejects his
advances. That’s not why he’s there. He puts her in the car, won’t tell her where they’re going.

As the drive gets longer and the night gets darker, Vera begins to suspect The White Rabbit of
being an assassin. She readies her defense.
Until they arrive at their destination: An unmarked house on the countryside. Vera doesn’t want
to go in. The White Rabbit persuades her.

Inside sits Winston Churchill and his assistant DESMOND MORTON. White Rabbit introduces
the two. He says that Vera has some specific resource requests that are going unanswered:
White Rabbit: You asked SOE to create a gigantic guerrilla with the order to Set Europe Ablaze.
The flames are dying in official channels”

Churchill (p240): You short-circuited those official channels. This might make trouble for you.”
Then he breaks into a cherubic smile “But I shall see that no such thing shall be allowed to
happen.

Vera outlines for Churchill the effectiveness of her girls and the need for them to be utilized
when the troops surge. After a back and forth (p240) Churchill asks what Vera needs.
Aircraft: 100 RAF planes with pilots, autonomy for Vera and her agents.

Churchill: Why does Menzies tell me you’re a spy for the Soviets?

She exchanges a look with The White Rabbit. He nods with acceptance.

Vera admits to Churchill her true heritage. She’s not British but Romanian. She’s Jewish.

Churchill will give her 78 planes. That’s all he can spare.

D-Day (Operation Overlord)

Vera makes an impassioned speech to her girls: Krystyna, Virginia, Rolande Colas, The White
Rabbit, Chuck Yaeger, many other, younger spies who we don’t know as well.

She ultimately reveals who she, Max Rosenberg’s daughter. She asks them to fight for England
and for her.

INTERCUT WITH: (p273-300)

Leo Marks: “whoops” in an already broken code corresponds with the fictional USFAG (US
First Army Group, thanking them for their help and supplies for their attack on Pas-De-Calais
(not the actual D-Day target).

Kopkow: intercepts the code and boasts of fooling the SOE.

DECEPTION TEAMS: Parachute into Pas-De-Calais (once again, not the actual D-day target).
Once on the ground, they unload wind up gramophones with the sounds of tanks and military
chatter.

Downrange, German soldiers are fooled by this ruse and call for backup.
Virginia: Congratulates Vera, and says she can’t wait to get back to France. The home office
was boring her to tears.

Krystyna: Tells Vera of compact powders that can eat through metal. Like the axel of a car. So
easy, a school child could do it.

CUT TO: Two young SCHOOLGIRLS apply powder to a German army transport vehicle. They
quickly disappear into the night.

Krystyna drops back into North of France. Munitions in hand. She takes the place of the man
who took the place of Peter Churchill (where’s Peter Churchill!?), leading a secret Polish army.

Odette: Around the walls of Odette’s prison camp, young girls and boys on bicycles circle
screaming “BBC Standby” messages. Odette knows what this means. The allies are coming. She
and Peter hatch a plan to get them out of there. Peter claims to be related to Winston Churchill,
and Odette his wife.

Virginia Hall: in France, leads her 2500 person civilian army against German troops. They
attack from all around in the streets, smothering a German battalion.

Roland Colas: makes strategic cuts to a train track in the south for France. She drops a portion
of it off a bridge.

CUT TO: Train after train holding German troops is stranded in a line that stretches for miles.

Chuck Yaeger: leads guerilla troops against panzer (military cars and tanks) divisions, leaving
traps and blowing them up with IEDs.

Pearl Witherington blows up a munitions depo.

Kopkow puts a reward on Pearl Witherington’s head. He commands his officers to exact
revenge for the guerilla tactics on French Citizens.

CUT TO: Krystyna wirelesses Vera, telling her of a schoolboy who claimed POW status because
he was working with an American GI group. The Germans cut out his tongue and eyes and
bayonetted him to death. Vera transmits: German terrorist reprisals will only inflame civilian
resistance.

German Soldiers take refuge in a farmhouse barn. Outside, an old FARMER’S WIFE lights the
barn on fire, killing the soldiers inside.

Paris: Vera unites two resistance factions, Communists and Gaullists against the Nazi enemy. A
resistance fighter approaches Vera asking her to help him set up a Jewish brigade. Vera grins.

Kopkow: Orders the liquidation of every concentration camp.

Noor Kahn: Faces a firing squad in Dachau. She links arms with her fellow prisoners.

The White Rabbit: Helps innocent Poles escape concentration camps. One of them asks him
when they can return to the fight. As they escape, she sees the Gestapo guards destroying
documents.

Victor Fredericks: breaks into Dachau to find he’s too late.

In Odette’s concentration camp, she and Peter are marched toward the chambers. They see the
guards scrambling and think it’s time to make their move. Odette steps out of line and asks for
the guard’s attention.

Buckmaster: Appears toward the end of Vera’s speech. Saying that he would never let Menzies
or SIS stifle what he knew was true.

Leo Marks: As bombs drop overhead, he describes successes to Vera: It took the 77th German
Armored Division 13 days to make a 36 hour journey.

Four Months Later

In Churchill’s office, bombs go off overhead. Vera coolly lights a cigarette. Stephenson, Dalton,
and Buckmaster are all in attendance. Stephenson admits that SOE was instrumental in the
success of Operation Overlord.

Churchill plans to tour Normandy tomorrow and tell Stalin that Britons are out enjoying the
sunshine. An obvious lie, but important in the growing fight against the soviets.

Vera tells the group of another attempt made on Hitler’s life, the 31st, after which he claimed he
was invincible. Churchill insists that they’ll get him. They’ve just turned the tide of the war.

Churchill tells Vera of the death of Schulenburg, Hitler found out he was anti-Nazi and
specifically requested that he be hung publicly and the pictures in the papers. Vera tries not to let
this get to her.

She asked how Hitler discovered it.

Cut to: Odette, Peter and a third officer, ride in a Mercedes Benz through the countryside. They
are delivered to Kopkow, who is thrilled to be able to deliver relatives of the Prime Minister back
to him. He’s about to turn coat.

Back in the office: Vera asks about her missing spies. Churchill apologizes, there’s no money or
resources in order for Vera to go looking for her girls.

1945
Vera walks quietly on the SOE campus. Snow falls. It’s a distinct difference to the last scene.
Peaceful. The war is over.

After a moment, Leo Marks joins her. He’s in the middle of a big project: combing through old
transmissions of agents looking for their whereabouts.

Vera tells him that Stalin is shoveling homeless Jews into Palestine, as the Nazis did, in order to
ignite Arab tension against the British. They’re going to have another war on their hands.

After all the Jews went through, and after all they did for Britain, the politics are still the same.
Leo tells Vera that he was “initially rejected as a cryptographer by the SIS because I am a yid of
the shopkeeper class.”

Leo heads back to return searching for the missing girls. Vera tells him that she called Noor
back. She tried to save her. Leo tells Vera a story of when he was training Noor and she refused
to lie (p297-298)

When Vera returns to her office, Buckmaster introduces her to their newest double agent,
HORST FRIGGIN KOPKOW. He’s going to help them defeat the communists. They size each
other up silently. Kopkow smiles. He won. She asks him if it’s true that 1.5 million people had
been killed at Auschwitz. “No! No! It was 2,345,001” Kopkow replies.

Vera comes very close to shooting him on the spot.

Vera marches into Gubbin’s office, ready for a fight, when Gubbins tells her he’s been fired.
None of this makes any sense to him anymore. It’s a gentleman’s war once more. He tells her
Krystyna is stuck in Cario—she was given a special Middle East movement job, looking for
rusting cargo shups whose owners would run the naval blockade to deliver refugees to Palestine.
She’ll fight for what she believes in, no matter the nation.

That night, Vera talks with the White Rabbit. He expresses his feelings for her once again, but
she resists. She feels the same cannot get emotionally entangled again, ever. She tells him of the
story she heard: sixty-two railway cars entering Auschwitz each crammed with children under
eight. All gassed and burned. The wife of a German death camp officer boarded a train and saw
the horrors. And he cremated her to keep her from telling… And Kopkow is now on their side.

She also tells him of Gubbin’s greatest regret: Not building a Polish army, letting bureaucracy
get in the way. The White Rabbit advises her not to make the same mistake. To hurry before SIS
reincorporates SOE.

1946: Auschwitz: Vera, dressed as a Russian soldier uses fake papers to enter the soviet-held
concentration camp. She asks to see Rudolf Hess. I will not leave his cell until he tells me
everything.

She sits in the cell with Hess and questions him about the fate of her girls. One by one. As we
pull back and FADE OUT.
TITLE: Vera worked tirelessly trying to find the whereabouts of her missing spies. She visited
over ______ camps.

TITLE: Records of the SOE’s role in WWII were mysteriously destroyed in an office fire.

TITLE: After Collin Gubbins retired from the army he became the managing director of a carpet
and textile manufacturer.

TITLE: After the war, Maurice Buckmaster rejoined the Ford Motor Company, serving in
Dagenham as Director of Public Affairs.

TITLE: Odette Sansom and Peter Churchill were married in 1946. She divorced Churchill in
1956 and married another former SOE officer, Geoffrey Hallowes in the same year. She died in
1995

TITLE: In 1947, Chuck Yaeger became the first human being to break the sound barrier.

TITLE:  In 1951, Virginia Hall joined the Central Intelligence Agency working as an intelligence
analyst on French parliamentary affairs. She worked alongside her husband as part of the Special
Activities Division.

TITLE: Krystyna Skarbek unable to return to Poland, moved to London and became a shop girl
at Harrod’s. In 1952, at the age of 37, she was stabbed to death by a spurned lover.

TITLE: After providing the British with information against the Soviets, Horst Kopkow lived a
long life and died of pneumonia in a hospital in Germany in 1996.

TITLE: Ian Flemming wrote the James Bond series of novels and based the character of
Moneypenny on his Spymistress Vera Atkins.

TITLE: After testifying at a war crimes trial that resulted in the execution of seven female camp
guards, Vera remained silent about her role as SOE Spymistress in WWII until 1998, in the
morning.

TITLE: Vera Atkins died in the year 2000. Her wishes were to have her ashes spread across the
English Channel.

Spymistress