The Spies of Warsaw

A SHADOW OF WAR

11 March, 1938. In Warsaw, one lately heard the expression przedwiosnie; an ancient term for this time of year, it meant “prior to spring.” The streets were white with snow, but sometimes, early in the morning or toward evening, there was a certain gentle breeze in the air-the season wasn’t turning yet, but it would. The softening of winter was not so different in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, an aristocratic village at the edge of Paris where, in centuries past, the French had stored royal fugitives from across the Channel, in expectation of the ascent of Catholic monarchy to the English throne. They’d given that up, more or less, by March of 1938, and now used one of the former exile mansions to hide the two Russian spies from Warsaw.

Separately and together, the Rozens had been interrogated. First the handwritten autobiography, then the questions, and the answers, and the new questions suggested by the answers. The Rozens told them everything, revealed a treasure trove of secrets going back to 1917, when, young and idealistic, they’d given themselves to the Russian revolution that would change the world. Which it certainly had-producing counterrevolutionary fascist regimes in Hungary, Italy, Roumania, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, and Germany. Fine work, Comrade Lenin!

And so, in cities across the continent, quite a number of individuals sipped their coffee on the morning of the eleventh, blissfully unaware that their names and indiscretions were filling the pages of Deuxieme Bureau files and that this information would presently, in some cases anyhow, be forwarded to the security service of whatever nation they called home. Therefore, again in some cases, tomorrow would not be a better day.

For instance, the emigre Maxim Mostov, a literary journalist in Warsaw. At dawn, as the przedwiosnie breeze brushed tenderly against his bedroom window, he slept peacefully with a proprietary arm thrown over his new mistress, a sexy Polish girl who worked as a clerk at the Warsaw telephone exchange. Sexy and young, this one-the loss of his previous girlfriend had bruised his self-esteem, so here in bed with him was some exceptionally succulent compensation.

The four men from the Dwojka certainly thought so, giving one another a meaningful glance or two as she struggled into a bathrobe. Leaving the bedroom door open-please, no jumping out the window, not this morning-they permitted the couple to get dressed, then escorted Maxim back to the Citadel. And if he’d been frightened by the knock on the door and the appearance of the security service, the march through the chill stone hallways of the Citadel did nothing to soothe his nerves. Nor did the two men across the table, military officers who wore eyeglasses; for Maxim, an intimidating combination.

He had, of course, done nothing wrong.

Malka and Viktor Rozen had been-well, not really friends, more like acquaintances. That was the proper word. And did he know that they were officers of the Soviet spy service? Well, people said they were, and he’d suspected that people might be right-but such rumors often went around, in a city like Warsaw. And what had he told them? No more than gossip, the very things he wrote about, quite publicly, in his feuilletons.

So then, had he accepted money?

Maybe once or twice, small loans when he found himself in difficult circumstances.

And had the loans been paid back?

Some of them, he thought, as best he could remember, possibly not others; his life was chaotic, money came and went, he was always busy, going about, finding stories, writing them, this and that and the other thing.

And did he have family in the USSR?

He did, one surviving parent, two sisters, uncles and aunts.

Perhaps the Rozens mentioned them, now and again.

In fact they had. Asked after their health, in the normal way of people from the same country.

Did they say, for example, that they were worried about them-their health, their jobs?

No, not that he could remember. Maybe once, a long time ago.

At that point, the two officers paused. One of them left the room and returned with a third, this one rather formidable, tall and thinlipped, with pale brush-cut hair, who wore the boots of a cavalry officer and was, from their deference toward him, senior to the interrogators. He stood to one side of Maxim, hands clasped behind his back.

“We will continue,” the lead interrogator said. “We want to ask you about your friends. People you know in the city. Later, we’ll ask you for a list, but for the moment we want to know if they helped you.”

“Helped me?”

“Told you things. Gossip, as you called it, about, for example, diplomats, or anyone serving in the Polish government-the kind of people you met at social events.”

“I suppose so. Of course they did-when you talk to your friends, they always tell you things: where they’ve been, who they’ve seen. It’s common human discourse. You have to talk about something besides the weather.”

“And did you pass any of this information on to the Rozens?”

“I might have. There’s so much…. I can’t think of anything specific, not anything … secret, not that I can recall.”

“Very well. Take, for example, your former friend Pana Szarbek, who I believe you intended to marry. She is employed by the League of Nations, did she tell you things about her work? Things about, say, contacts in foreign governments?”

Here Maxim paused. Evidently, the subject of his former fiancee was a painful one-he’d been hurt, was now likely angry about her leaving him for another. Which was, for Maxim, as for much of the world, quite normal, as it was also normal to feel that those who have hurt you should themselves be hurt in return, unless you were the sort of person who didn’t care for the idea of spite.

“Well?” the interrogator said. “Do you understand the question?”

“Yes.”

“And so?”

“I don’t remember her doing that. She didn’t often speak about her work, not in specific terms. If she had a troublesome case she might say it was difficult, or frustrating, but she never spoke of officials. They-for example, tax authorities-were simply part of her job.”

The interrogator looked past Maxim, at the tall officer standing to his left, then said, “Now, what contacts did you have with employees of the Polish government?”

In Warsaw, the endgame of the Rozen confessions went on for more than a week. Senior officers of a major on the Polish General Staff confronted him when he arrived for work-they were, at least technically, responsible for what he’d done, so the wretched job fell to them. They spent an hour with him, then placed a revolver on his desk, left the office, and closed the door. Fifteen minutes later he reappeared, weeping, and trying to explain. They sent him back inside and, soon enough, were rewarded with the sound of a shot. The hotel maids were visited at home-one didn’t want to go stirring up the guests-where the scenes varied: some tears, some defiance, some absolute silence, and one case where a young woman slipped out a back door and was never seen again. As for the rest, from factory workers to a company director, they were arrested, questioned, tried in secrecy, and sent to prison. Not all of them; some were actually not guilty-the Rozens, confessing for their lives, had been somewhat overzealous in the naming of informants. As for Maxim Mostov, he was, after lengthy discussions within the senior Dwojka administration, deported. Driven to the Russian frontier and put on a train.

21 March.

The vernal equinox arrived with a slow, steady rain. The grimy snow of winter began to wash away, and though Warsovians ruined their shoes and cursed the slush, they felt their spirits soar within them. Similarly, Colonel Mercier, who admitted to himself, the evening of the twenty-first, that he was as happy as he’d ever been. The apartment Anna Szarbek had found on Sienna street was not unlike an artist’s studio. One large room-with adjoining kitchen and bath-on the top floor, with grand windows slanted toward the sky. “Have you ever wanted to be a painter?” he said.

“Never.”

“Does this studio not inspire you?”

“Not to paint, it doesn’t.”

He saw her point. It had become their preference to make this place home to their love affair. Not that the Ujazdowska apartment wasn’t elegant and impressive, it was, but a private loft better suited their private hours. Sometimes they ate at the small restaurants of the quarter, but mostly they lived on cheese and ham-now and then Anna managed to produce an omelet-drank wine or vodka, smoked, talked, made love, and had some cheese and ham.

Mercier’s vocational existence had, thank heaven, returned to normalcy. He had reported the contact with Dr. Lapp to 2, bis, and the response had been … silence. “They’re frozen solid,” Jourdain had theorized. “Either that, or they’re fighting over the bone.” This was all well and good, Mercier thought, but somewhere down the road there would be a telephone call or a letter and he would have to bid or fold his cards-he couldn’t pass. But if 2, bis wasn’t in a hurry, neither was he.

Anna stood at the window, watching the raindrops slide down the glass, her mood pensive. “I did hear something disquieting,” she said. “I ran into the janitor’s wife at the market-the janitor who works where I used to live-and she said that Maxim had been taken away by some sort of civilian police, returned, with an escort, to pack whatever he could, and left. He told her he was being sent back to Russia.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Mercier said.

“It can’t be true, I tell myself, that you had anything to do with this.”

Mercier was startled, but didn’t show it. It took only a few seconds for him to work out the sequence of events, beginning with the Rozens’ defection. “I have no need to do such things,” he said.

“No, it’s not like you,” she said slowly, as much to herself as to him.

“It sounds as though he’s been deported. Maybe he was selling information-to the wrong people, as it turned out.”

“Maxim? A spy? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. Foreign journalists will sometimes take money, from, as I said, the wrong people.”

She left the window and sat in an easy chair. “I suppose he might have done something like that. He never had enough money, felt he’d never reached his proper place in the world. He was desperate to be important-loved, respected-and he wasn’t.”

“What I can tell you is, if he’s been deported, he’s lucky not to be in prison.”

Anna nodded. “Still, I feel sorry for him,” she said. Then, looking back at the window, “Will this stop soon, do you think? I wanted to go for a walk.”

“We can take the umbrella.”

“It’s not very big.”

“It will do.” Mercier stood. “I think we left it by the door.”

The vernal equinox came to Glogau as well, but there, in the SD office above the toy shop, it rained bad news. That morning, Sturmbannfuhrer August Voss received a formal letter from his superior in Berlin. In the next room, the lieutenants heard a prodigious oath and, faces tense, looked up from their work and stared at each other. What now? On the other side of the wall, Frogface Voss tore the letter into strips, then had to piece them back together to make sure his eyes had not deceived him. They hadn’t. The axe had fallen; he was being transferred to Schweinfurt. Schweinfurt! What was in Schweinfurt? Nothing. A ballbearing factory. Such an office would handle internal matters only. A visitor from Holland? Follow him! A complaint about the government, overheard in a tavern? Haul the traitor in! Filthy, silly, local nonsense-Gestapo country, the SD little more than a spectator. And, to drain his cup of humiliation down to the last miserable dreg, his chief lieutenant was to be promoted and would supervise the Glogau office. The reorganization to be completed in thirty days from this date.

So, now that French bastard had really done it. With trembling hand, he snatched up the telephone receiver and called Major Meinhard Peister, his friend Meino, in Regensburg.

27 March.

Meino and Willi and Voss rode the train up to Warsaw. They’d wanted to drive in Willi’s new Mercedes, but the Polish roads in March could be more than an adventure, so they took a first-class compartment on the morning express. They weren’t alone, a young couple had the seats by the window, but something about the three men made them uncomfortable, so they got their valises down and went looking for somewhere else to sit. “That’s better,” Willi said, with a wink, once they were gone.

“We’ll need a car, up there,” Meino said. He’d put on weight, now more than ever the gross cherub.

“It’s all arranged,” Voss said. “They’ll pick us up at the station.”

From his briefcase, Meino produced a bottle of schnapps. “Something for the trip.” He pulled the cork, took a sip, and passed the bottle to Willi, who said “Prost” before he drank. Then he said, “What do you have in mind, Augi?”

“Give him something to remember,” Voss said. He nodded up at his valise.

“What’s in there?”

“You’ll see.”

“Been a long time since we did this,” Meino said.

“A few years,” Willi said. “But I haven’t forgotten how.”

“Remember that giant pig, up in Hamburg?” Voss said.

“Tried to run away? That one?”

“Who?” Meino said.

“The communist-the schoolteacher.”

“Screamed for his mama,” Willi said.

Meino laughed. “That one.”

“We’ll want to get him alone somewhere,” Willi said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Voss said, taking a turn with the schnapps. “My people up there have been watching him. It may take a day or two, but he’ll be alone sooner or later. Or he’ll be with his doxy.”

“Nothing like an audience,” Willi said.

“Better,” Voss said. “For what I have in mind.”

In Warsaw, they were picked up by Winckelmann, driving the Opel Admiral, and taken to a commercial hotel south of the station. “Likely he’s home for the night,” Winckelmann said. “But we’ll see about tomorrow.”

“I can’t stay here forever,” Willi said.

“He’s at the embassy a lot of the time, but he goes out to meetings. That would be the best, if you want to get him alone.”

“That’s what we want,” Voss said.

“See you in the morning,” Winckelmann said. “Eight-thirty.”

They went out that evening, to a nightclub up on Jasna street called the Caucasian Cave that Winckelmann had suggested-one of the so-called “padded nightclubs,” walls covered with heavy fabric to keep the riotous noise inside. The club was in a cellar, with a doorman who wore the big fur hat common to the Caucasus. They ate lamb on skewers, an old Jew played the violin, and a few of the girls got up to dance-girls in heavy makeup, gold earrings, and low-cut peasant blouses. One of them sat on Willi’s knees and tickled his chin with a feather. “Care to go outside?” Willi said, in German. “To the alley?”

“The alley! You must be kidding me,” she said. “You boys come over from Germany?”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t see many, in here.”

“We go where we want.”

“I guess you do. Staying at a hotel? I might come up and visit you.”

“Not tonight.”

“With your wife, Fritz?”

“Not me.”

“Well, I’m not an alley girl,” she said, hopping off. She walked away, flipping the back of her skirt up to reveal her thighs. “See you later,” she said, over her shoulder, “unless you find a cat.”

“Quite a mouth, on that one,” Meino said.

“Maybe we’ll come back here,” Willi said, “with twenty divisions. Then she’ll sing a different tune.”

They ordered another round of vodkas, told stories, and roared with laughter. This was the life! But as the evening wore on, the clientele changed, and Jews in sharp suits, with slicked-down hair, began to appear, well known in the club, greeted heartily. They looked sideways at the three Germans, and one of them whispered with the girl who’d sat on Willi’s knees.

Voss sniffed the air and said, “It’s starting not to smell so good in here.”

“Time to move on,” Meino said.

They tried one more place, the Hairych, on Nalewki street, but there they overheard the gangster types talking about them in Yiddish, so they went back to the hotel, drank for a time, and went to their rooms. The next morning they drove around with Winckelmann, got a glimpse of the Frenchman, walking to work, then spent the rest of the day in the car, bored and irritated. They stayed at the hotel on the twenty-eighth, waiting for a telephone call from Winckelmann, but it never came. Willi began to complain, he’d taken time off from work, but he couldn’t hang around Warsaw forever. “Maybe we’ll just go see him tonight,” he said. “At his apartment.”

But Voss didn’t like that idea, and neither did Meino.

A cold, mean little drizzle on the morning of the twenty-ninth, the worst weather possible for Mercier’s aching knee, and a dreary day in store. He had correspondence to answer, dispatches to write, a meeting in the morning, another in the afternoon, and then, at five, he had to go out to Wola, the factory district at the western edge of the city, to the Ursus Tractor Company on Zelazna street, which manufactured automobiles and armoured vehicles. There would be a tour of the plant; then he was to meet with the managing director in his office. Walking to work, leaning on his stick, Mercier grumbled to himself, “Fine day to visit a factory.” The dispatches took forever-information had to be looked up-and, at the meetings, he could barely force himself to concentrate. It was just the kind of day when one didn’t care about anything.

At twenty minutes to five, Marek picked him up outside the embassy and set off for Wola. It wasn’t all that far, but the drive seemed to take forever. Finally they reached the Wola district, deserted at this hour, the night shifts at the factories already at work. Set well back from Zelazna street, across a railroad track, the Ursus plant: vast buildings of soot-colored brick, beneath a low gray sky at twilight. Marek stopped the car and said, “When shall I pick you up?”

Mercier calculated. “Come back at seven. I know this will take at least two hours.”

“I can stay, colonel, if you like.”

“No, don’t bother. See you at seven.”

With a sigh in his heart, Mercier walked across the tracks, then down a brick walkway to the administration building. A senior manager was waiting for him and took him off to the production sheds. Pure industrial hell. Giant machinery, banging away to wake the dead, rattling chains, showers of sparks, and the manager shouting over the din: here the armoured cars are assembled; they weigh this much; the clearance is this high. Mercier peered at the engines while the workers, in grease-stained overalls, smiled and nodded. He dutifully made notes and was eventually shown a completed vehicle, where he sat in the turret, cranked the handle and, lo and behold, the thing swiveled. Slowly, but it worked. Still, he knew what could happen to these cars-blown over on their sides, pouring smoke and flame-if they ever went to war. He’d seen it.

They walked for what felt like miles, then he was taken to see the managing director. An amiable gentleman, in a handsome suit, anxious to impress the French visitor. Again the weight, the speed, the thickness of plate, the firing rate of the gun. Coffee was served, with a plate of dry cookies. Skillfully, Mercier played the role of honored guest, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Lately, he liked to imagine Anna Szarbek, down at his house in the Drome, dogs in front of the fireplace, everything he cared for, gathered up together, safe at night.

The director accompanied him to the front door; he left the building and took a few steps along the brick walkway. Now where was Marek? Across the tracks, Zelazna street was empty and dark, lit only by a single lamp at a distant intersection. He looked at his watch, 6:48, and thought about going back inside; the drizzle would have him soaking wet if he stood there until the Buick appeared. Then three men came around the corner of the building, and the one in the middle raised a hand and said, in German, “Good evening, colonel, we want a word with you.”

What was this?

The one in the middle suddenly moved faster, and Mercier could see something in his hand. For a moment, it didn’t make sense, not at a factory, this time of night, for it looked like a riding crop, the leather loop at the end circling the man’s wrist. He ran the last few steps toward Mercier, his face contorted with rage, and swung the riding crop, which lashed Mercier across the cheek and knocked his hat off. Mercier stepped backward and raised his hands, taking the next blow on his palms. For a second, no feeling; then it burned like fire.

“Get his hands,” the man said.

The other two advanced, Mercier swung at them with his stick, which hit the one on the right-the one with a big belly-across the forehead. Mercier had swung as hard as he could, using both hands, and he thought the stick might break, but ebony was a hard wood; the impact produced only a thud, and the man sat down on the brick walkway and held his head. Meanwhile the tall one, with a dueling scar on his cheek, had grabbed Mercier’s arm and hung on to it as his friend swung again, a downstroke that landed on Mercier’s shoulder. Mercier kicked at the man with the riding crop, lost his balance, and fell on his back, the tall one landing on top of him. The man was panting, his breath foul and reeking of alcohol. As Mercier tried to push him off, he growled, “Stay still, you French bastard.”

“Fuck you,” Mercier said, and tried to hit him with his forearm.

The man with the riding crop, cursing wildly, stumbled around Mercier, trying to find an angle for another blow. Then, from the direction of Zelazna street, a gunshot, and he stopped dead, riding crop frozen at the top of its swing. The tall one rolled off Mercier and struggled to his feet. “Time to go,” he said. The two of them went to help their friend-he groaned as they stood him upright-and, moving quickly, trotted around the corner of the building and disappeared. Mercier’s instinct to pursue them was immediately suppressed.

Looking toward the direction of the shot he saw a broad shape running across the railway tracks-Marek-who arrived a moment later, extended a hand to Mercier, and said, “Where did they go?”

“Was that your shot?” Mercier retrieved his stick and hat.

“It was. When I parked on Zelazna there was another car there, and a little man jumped out and aimed a pistol at me. Said something like Halt!”

“And?”

“I took the Radom from my coat and shot him.” What else? Out in the darkness, the sound of a powerful engine, accelerating as the driver shifted up through the gears, then fading into the distance. Marek said, “Do you need help, colonel?”

Mercier shook his head, one finger cautiously touching the burning welt on his cheek. “What happened next?” he said.

Marek shrugged. “You know. He fell down.”

Slowly, they walked across the tracks toward the Buick, Mercier’s knee aching with every step. “Who were they?” Marek said.

“No idea,” Mercier said. “They spoke German.”

“Then why …?”

Mercier couldn’t answer.

They climbed into the car and Marek drove up Zelazna, then took the first right into a long street, dark and empty, wet pavement shining in the headlights. Peering through the cleared space made by the windshield wipers, Mercier saw what looked like a mound of discarded clothing, half on the sidewalk, half in the street. Marek nudged the brake and, when the mound became a man, stopped the car and they both got out. The factory wall that met the sidewalk had windows covered with wire mesh and, from somewhere inside, came the slow, rhythmic drumming of a machine. For a moment, they stared down at the body, its face wedged into the gutter, then Marek slid his foot beneath the man’s waist and turned him over. “That’s him,” he said. A flowered tie lay over to one side, and there was a small red hole in the pocket of the shirt. “What did they do? Throw him out of the car?”

“Looks like it.”

“Afraid of being stopped, I guess. With a body in the trunk.”

The face was blank, eyes open. Like the others, he wasn’t anybody Mercier had ever seen. Marek bent over and patted the man’s pockets, found a wallet, and handed it to Mercier. Inside, a Polish identity card with the name Winckelmann-a name he’d heard from Vyborg-and a photograph of the man he’d come to think of as the weasel. He looked down at Winckelmann’s face and realized that in death he’d become a different self.

“What now, colonel? The police?”

“No. Just put the wallet back.”

“So, nothing we know about,” Marek said, clearly relieved.

“Nothing we know about.”

Mercier was supposed to be at Anna’s at seven-thirty, and when he came through the door she was startled, then turned his chin to look at the welt.

“I was attacked,” he said, before she could ask. “One of them hit me.”

“Attacked? Who attacked you?”

“I don’t know who they were.”

“What did they hit you with? Come into the light.”

She was very agitated, touching his cheek with her fingers and anxious to care for him. “You sit there. I’ll get a cold cloth.” Mercier doubted it would help but knew better than to say so. She ran cold water on a clean dish towel, then pressed it to his face. “Hold that there,” she said. “What makes such a horrid mark?”

“A riding crop.”

“No! Who would do such a thing?”

How much to tell her? “They were Germans, and I suspect it was revenge of some sort, but please, Anna, don’t ask anything about that part of it.”

“Your work,” she said, angry and disgusted.

Mercier nodded.

“They could have killed you, you know.”

“I’ll have to think up an explanation. I walked into a door-something like that.”

“A drunkard’s explanation, my dear.”

“Hmm. Very well, then it was a drunk who hit me.”

“Dreadful. Will you not tell them the truth, at the embassy?”

“I can’t,” he said. “There would be endless difficulties.”

“Then say nothing. An absurd domestic stupidity, too silly to explain.”

He thought for a moment, then said, “Of course, what else.”

“Does it feel better?”

“Yes. The cold helps.”

She rose abruptly, went looking for her purse, and lit a cigarette-she insisted on buying imported Gitanes at the fancy tobacco shop-and almost immediately the studio smelled like a French cafe. She did not return to her chair, but walked to the windows, then turned and faced him. “What makes you think they won’t try something again?” she said, her voice now sharpened to a lawyer’s edge. “Or do you believe they were … satisfied?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But if I brought this to my superiors as a problem, they might decide to end my assignment here.”

“They’re not pleased with you?”

“Not especially. Or, rather, not all of them. It’s sometimes true that the more you succeed, in an organization, the more enemies you make.”

“Always true,” she said. She returned to the easy chair and shook her hair back. “Know what?”

“What?”

“I think you like this kind of war.”

He shrugged. “Like isn’t the word, but the job has grown into me. I wanted to quit, a few months ago, but not now. Now there’s a particular operation under way. It’s important, possibly very important.”

She smiled and said, “Is it ever difficult for you that you can’t speak openly of such things?”

“Very difficult,” he said. “Especially here, with you.”

“Oh well,” she said. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” She busied herself with the compress, putting more cold water on the towel. “Does this make it feel better?”

He said it did, and the conversation turned to their evening together-going out, doing something, a change. A search of the newspaper turned up a French film, and an hour later they went to the movies.

5 April.

At last, a response to the contact with Dr. Lapp. But it did not arrive in any of the forms Mercier had anticipated. Not cabled dispatch, not letter by pouch, and not, thank heaven, Bruner’s appearance in Warsaw, which Mercier had feared. No, it came by mail, a personal letter to his apartment, in lovely blue script. Undated, with no heading. A secret communication? Yes, in a way it was.

My dear colonel,

Kindly forgive the delay in answering your communication, but it inspired a most disheartening turmoil in these parts-your rural connection will have given you the opportunity to observe chickens in a barnyard beset by a playful dog.

In any event, it will be my pleasure to continue discussions with the individual in question, and much the best to do so in this city, where we can meet quietly, privately, and in comfort. A telephone call to Auteil 7407-a local call, naturally-will initiate a meeting the same day, and no mention of names will be required. This method of contact is exclusive to the individual in question.

Please be good enough to destroy this letter, which finds you, I trust, in good health and good spirits.

With my most sincere good wishes,

Aristide R. J. de Beauvilliers

10 April.

And then, in time, a second communication. Had Dr. Lapp foreseen the frenzy that his offer would produce within the French General Staff? Mercier suspected he had. Mercier suspected that Dr. Lapp was one of those senior officers in the shadow world with a sophisticated sense of human behavior-not a visionary, a cynic-and a man who understood that, at the end of the day, the Abwehr, the Deuxieme Bureau, and all the rest of them worked pretty much the same way. This time the communication came in the form of a note that arrived in a sealed envelope delivered by a private courier. It said simply that it would be good to see Mercier again and suggested the following day, at 5:15 in the afternoon, at the Gorovsky Bookstore, 28, Marszalkowska. And signed, Dr. L.

For the event-and Mercier informed no one, in the spirit of de Beauvilliers’s letter, where he was going or why-he wore his best suit and a freshly laundered shirt, with somber tie-and made sure to enter the store at precisely 5:15. At this hour, there were only two or three customers, and he found Dr. Lapp, now in his traditional bow tie, in the back. When he looked up and saw Mercier, he said, “Do you know this book?” He held it up, Rosja-Polska, 1815–1830,and said, “Szymon Askenazy, one of their great historians. There are actually quite a few.”

“Do you read comfortably in Polish, Dr. Lapp?”

“I do, though I must keep a dictionary at hand.”

Mercier found this combination-Buster Keaton reading esoteric Polish history-modestly amusing. Dr. Lapp closed the book and put it back in its place on the shelf. “I believe the office will be more comfortable,” he said.

“The manager won’t mind?”

Dr. Lapp’s smile was impish. “We own the store, colonel. And it does very nicely.”

The office had drifted, over the years, to a state of comfortable decay-peeling paint, water stains on the ceiling, furniture worn out years ago-with stacks of books on the desk, in bookcases, on the floor, everywhere. A private world, calm and lost, the view through the cloudy window a courtyard where a wooden bench encircled a giant elm. Only the telephone, an antique from the twenties, told the visitor that he was not in the previous century. On the walls, posters for art exhibitions and concerts-the French were avid for culture, whether they liked it, understood it, paid for it, or not, but the Poles beat them hands down. Dr. Lapp sat in the desk chair, its wheels squeaking as he drew himself up to the desk. “Any luck, colonel?”

“Yes, though they took their time answering my dispatch.”

“I rather thought they might.”

“But very good luck, I believe. I’ve had a communication from a man called de Beauvilliers, General de Beauvilliers.”

Dr. Lapp allowed Mercier to see that he was impressed, and said, “Indeed.”

“You know who he is?”

“I do. The perfect choice.”

“He suggests that you meet with him in Paris. Would that be satisfactory?”

“It would.”

“I’ve brought along a telephone number he sent; he will see you the day you call. And you needn’t mention your name, the number is for your exclusive use.” Mercier placed a slip of paper on the desk.

“Very thoughtful of him. You couldn’t have made a better choice.”

“It wasn’t up to me, Dr. Lapp, this was General de Beauvilliers’s personal decision.”

“Even better,” Dr. Lapp said. “A General Staff is always a field of divergent opinions-ours is no different-but among these officers there are always two or three who have an intuitive understanding of what the future might hold.”

“One wouldn’t have to be all that intuitive to understand Herr Hitler’s intentions.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you, but you’d be wrong. Do you know the Latin proverb Mundus vult decipi, ergo decepiatur? Herr Hitler’s favorite saying: The world wants to be deceived, therefore let it be deceived. And he isn’t wrong. Newspapers on the continent explain every day why there won’t be war. And I assure you there will be, unless the right people determine to stop it.”

“I can only hope this meeting is a step in that direction,” Mercier said.

“We shall see.”

For a moment, Mercier paused. Here was an opportunity-take it, or not? He had from the Rozens a name, Kohler, an affiliation, the Black Front, and a target, the I.N. 6 bureau of the German General Staff. And, if Dr. Lapp couldn’t help him take a step forward, then no one could. “I wonder, Dr. Lapp,” he said slowly, “if I might ask you a favor.”

“One may always ask, colonel. Are you asking at General de Beauvilliers’s behest?”

Mercier paused, then said, “No, it’s nothing he suggested, for this conversation, but I don’t believe he’d mind, if he knew.”

“You’ve been honorable, colonel, which I appreciate. You haven’t … taken advantage … of a situation that could put me in real danger. So then, what sort of favor do you require?”

“I’ve become interested, in the course of my work here, in the Black Front, Hitler’s most determined enemies in Germany.”

Delicately, Dr. Lapp cleared his throat. “I do know who you mean, colonel, and regret that they haven’t been more effective. But I suggest you go carefully with this crowd, those who remain with us-most of them are in the ground, or wherever the Gestapo put them. Very extreme, these people. Captain Rohm, before he was murdered in ‘thirty-four, recommended that the conservative industrialists be hanged. Dear me.”

“I will be careful, Dr. Lapp; I would greatly prefer to remain aboveground. But I cannot move forward on a certain project until I obtain information that only a senior Black Front member might possess.”

Dr. Lapp leaned toward him and folded his hands on the desk. “Now,” he said, “I must ask you if this project involves German interests, or is it particular to the interests of the Nazi party, the present regime? And, please, colonel, an honest answer.”

This last was, Mercier understood, a veiled threat. “To the best of my knowledge, the interests of the Nazi party.”

Dr. Lapp nodded, then looked at Mercier in a way that meant I hope you know what you’re doing. “Have you pen and paper?”

Mercier produced a small pad and a fountain pen.

“The man who might help you is hiding in Czechoslovakia, in the town the Poles call Cieszyn and the Czechs Tesin-much-disputed territory, as you’ll know. Presently he uses the name Julius Halbach, because he is hunted by the SD and the Gestapo. As a member of the Black Front, under yet another alias, he served directly under Otto Strasser and was active in the clandestine radio operation that broadcast propaganda into Germany. Last year, the head of that operation was murdered by SD operatives at an inn near the German border, but Otto Strasser and Halbach escaped.

“Halbach is a man in his mid-fifties, and his story is typical. At one time he was a professor of ancient languages-Old Norse, Gothic, and so forth-at the university in Tubingen. In the late twenties, there was some sort of scandal, and he was forced to resign, his life ruined. Typical, as I said; the Nazi party was built on ruined lives-a failed career, the bitterness that feeds on injustice, redemption promised by a radical political movement.

“Now comes the difficult part, which is that you may speak with him, and you might wish to offer him money, but you may not threaten him. And that is because we talk to him, through the good offices of an extraordinary woman, the kindest old soul in the world, a piano teacher in Tesin. I doubt he knows that he’s talking to us, but he is forthcoming-so don’t bruise him, agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Currently, he is employed as a teacher at a private academy in Tesin and rents a room in a house at six, Opava street. And, I should add, I don’t know what your plans are but I would not, if I were you, postpone this contact too long. He remains active in the Black Front underground, writing anti-Nazi pamphlets that are smuggled into German Silesia, and, because this infuriates the security services, he is not long for this world.”

Mercier put away his pad and pen. “Thank you,” he said.

“I hope it will help.”

“Surely it will. And, Dr. Lapp, should you require further assistance, you know where to find me. Otherwise, we’ll meet at diplomatic events in the city.”

“No doubt we shall. With all the formality of sworn enemies.” Dr. Lapp was amused and showed it, the Keaton prune face breaking into a sunny smile.

Mercier stood, and they shook hands. “I wish all my enemies …” he said, not bothering to finish the thought.

“Indeed.”

Mercier was in his office early the following morning, laboring away at what he now called, for his personal use only, Operation Halbach. This was not easy, but the excitement of the chase drove him on, hour after hour, until midday, when a luncheon at the Hotel Bristol intervened, followed by a long meeting, and cocktails with the Roumanians at six. Then, to make up for lost time, he took the dossier off to Sienna street, where he sat at the kitchen table while Anna stroked his hair and looked over his shoulder. “Ahh, funny little numbers.”

“It’s hard to work, at work.”

“I know too well,” she said.

“Only an hour.”

She blew gently on the hair at the back of his neck. “Take your time, my dear, I like conscientious men.”

He didn’t answer, took a roneo of a Tesin town map, and ran a finger down Opava street.

Anna went off to bathe, returned in a towel, lay back on the bed-the towel chastely arrayed across her middle-retrieved her book, and turned on the radio. “It appears we’re in for the night.”

“I fear we are.”

“When you tire of it, come and say hello.”

Later, she crawled under the covers and fell asleep, and at mid-night he joined her. But she was restless, lay awake in the darkness, then got out of bed and prowled around the room. “Can’t sleep?” he said, rising on one elbow.

“Not right now.”

He lay back down, watched her white shape in the darkness as she paced about, and finally said, “Are you looking for something?”

“No, no. I’ll come back to bed in a minute.”

By late morning of the following day, 13 April, he’d finished his plans for the operation and sent a dispatch off to de Beauvilliers, marked for the general’s eyes only. This was no business for 2, bis-not directly from him, it wasn’t. De Beauvilliers would have them provide what was required, but he would not ask, he would simply order, and the internal politics of the bureau would be successfully tamed.

The response took some time, and it was 17 April when the general’s courier showed up at Mercier’s office in the chancery. A young man in civilian clothes, he introduced himself as an army captain. “I came over on the train,” he said, “and I’m going back on the morning express, so best look through this now, and you’ll have to sign for it.” He removed a few files from a small valise and pried up the false bottom. “German border control, Polish border control, I hope I don’t have to do this again.”

Mercier did as the captain suggested, licking his thumb as he counted hundred-reichsmark notes.

“It’s all there,” the captain said. “And there’s a verbal message from General de Beauvilliers. ‘Please be careful, do try very hard not to get caught. And best to avoid a visit to the casino.’ “

“Assure him I’ll be careful,” Mercier said. He signed the receipt.

The captain said, “The valise is for your use, naturally,” wished Mercier Bon courage and good luck, and went off to a hotel.

19 April.

Tesin, Czechoslovakia-Cieszyn to the Poles-the former Duchy of Teschen, held over the years by this prince or that empire, changing sides with European wars and royal marriages as the centuries slid past. Just another small town, the usual statue and fountain in the central square, but grim and poor as one left the center and traveled out toward the edge, in the direction of the coal mines. On Hradny street, rows of narrow houses, women on their knees out on the stoops, with buckets and rags, trying to scrub away the Silesian grime. After Hradny, Opava, where the signs above the shops turned from Czech to Polish, and a tiny bar stood across the street and down the block from number 6. Four stools, two tables, a miniature Polish flag by the cash register.

Mercier had made his way to Tesin on a series of local trains, sitting in second-class carriages, then taken a room in the hotel by the railway station. And stayed out of sight, keeping to his room, emerging only twice-once to buy a cheap briefcase, then, an hour later, setting out for the long walk to Opava street. He was being as cautious as he could be, for this was no normal operation. A normal operation would have included a supporting cast: cars and drivers, a couple with a child, old men with newspapers under their arms. And of this drama he would have been the star, summoned from his dressing room only when the moment came to take center stage and deliver the grand soliloquy. But not this time. This time he had to do the work by himself.

He ordered a beer. The man behind the bar brought him a pilsener, then lingered a moment, taking a good long look at him. And who the hell are you? It was that kind of neighborhood. But the beer was very good. He turned on the stool and stared out the window, the melancholy stranger. Out past two well-attended strips of flypaper, the house on Opava street. Where a child now climbed the steps, home from school, swinging a blue lunchbox as she disappeared through the door. Next, a woman came out with a net bag, and returned fifteen minutes later with her marketing. Mercier had a second beer. The barman said, “Warm day, we’re having.”

Mercier nodded and lit a Czech cigarette from a packet he’d bought at the railway station. It was after five when a man, dressed in worker’s blue jacket and trousers, entered the house across the street. Mercier looked at his watch: where was Halbach? Two young women came through the door, joked with the barman, then took one of the tables and began to conspire, heads together, voices low. Mercier now realized he could hear music. In a room above the bar, someone was playing a violin-playing it well enough, not the awful squeaks of the novice, but working at the song, slower, then faster. A song Mercier knew, called “September in the Rain”; he’d heard it on Anna’s radio at Sienna street. Was this, he wondered, a classical violinist, forced to play in a nightclub? A man with a small dog came into the bar, then two old ladies in flower-print dresses. And then, suddenly, Mercier was again overtaken by a certain apprehension, a shadow of war. What would become of these people?

Busier now, out on Opava street-work was over for the day-time to chat with neighbors, time to walk the dog. Mercier ordered his third beer, set a few coins down on the counter, and looked back out the window in time to see Julius Halbach enter 6, Opava street. Anyhow, a man who looked like a teacher, in his mid-fifties, tall, wearing an old suit, expensive a long time ago, and carrying a bulging briefcase. Mercier glanced at his watch: 5:22. I hope you’re Halbach, he thought, as the man plodded wearily up the steps and disappeared through the door. Too much to ask for a photograph, he’d decided, before his meeting with Dr. Lapp. That would have been dangerously close to an act of treason, whereas, a genial conversation in a bookstore, while conferring on another matter …

Mercier stayed where he was, now numb and slightly dizzy from an afternoon of beer drinking, for another thirty minutes, then gave up. The family was home, their lodger was home, in for the night. Tomorrow would be the day, 20 April, 1938, at approximately 5:22 in the afternoon. Tomorrow, Herr Halbach was in for the shock of his life.

Mercier stopped at the cafe across from the railway station, had a sausage and a plate of leeks with vinegar, bought a newspaper-Tesin’s Polish daily-and returned to the hotel. Was the room as he’d left it? Yes, but for the maid, who had moved his valise in order to mop the floor. Opening the valise, he was relieved to find his few things undisturbed, though the important baggage stayed with him, in the briefcase.

It was quiet in Tesin, a warmish evening of early spring. When Mercier pulled the shade down, a streetlamp threw a shadow of tree branches on the yellowed paper. He turned on the light, a bulb dangling from the ceiling, and worked at the newspaper-what he wouldn’t give for a Paris Soir! Still, he could manage, once he got going. Henlein, the leader of the Sudetenland German minority in Czechoslovakia, had given a speech in Karlsbad, making eight demands on the government. Basically, he called for the Czechs to allow German-speaking areas to have their own foreign policy, in line with “the ideology of Germans”: a demand that surely came directly from Adolf Hitler, a demand that could never be met. The fire under the pot was being stoked, soon it would boil.

Then, on the same page, news that the Anschluss, joining Austria to Germany, had been approved in a plebiscite by Austrian voters. A triumph-nearly all the Austrians had voted, ninety-nine to one in favor. Now there was a victory that deserved the word rousing! Just below that, a correspondent reporting from the Spanish civil war; the city of Vinaroz had been taken by Franco’s forces, isolating the government-held city of Castile from Catalonia. Another victory for fascist Europe. Mercier turned the page. A grisly murder, a body found in a trunk. And the soccer team had lost again. Followed by a page of obituaries. Mercier threw the newspaper on the floor.

He lay there, smoked, stared at the ceiling. He had no desire to read, and sleep was a long way off. On the other side of the wall, a man and a woman in the adjacent room began to argue, in a language Mercier couldn’t identify. They kept it quiet, secretive, almost a whisper, but the voices were charged with anger, or desperation, and neither one would give in. When it didn’t stop, he got up, went to the window, and raised the shade. Across the square, the outdoor terrasse of the cafe was busy-a warm night, spring in the air, the usual couples with drinks, a few customers alone at tables, eating a late dinner. Then the barman walked over to a large radio set on a shelf and began fiddling with the dials. Mercier couldn’t hear anything, but most of the patrons rose from their tables and gathered in front of the radio. He rolled the shade back down, undid the straps on his briefcase, and made sure of its contents.

20 April.

Mercier strolled up Opava street at 5:10 P.M., but Halbach was nowhere to be seen. Keeping the house in sight he walked to the corner, then started back the other way. He felt much too noticeable, so turned into a cross street where he discovered a tram stop. Was this how Halbach returned from work? He waited for ten minutes, then walked back out onto Opava, and there he was, almost at the house. Mercier moved as quickly as he could and caught up to him just as he reached the door. “Herr Halbach?”

Frightened, Halbach spun around and faced him, ready to fight or run. “What is it? What do you want?”

“May I speak with you a moment?”

“Why? Is it about the bill?”

“No, sir, not that at all.”

Halbach calmed down. Mercier was clearly alone; the secret police came always in pairs, and late at night. “Then what? Who are you?”

“Is there somewhere we can speak? Privately? I have important things to tell you.”

“You’re not German.”

“No, I’m from Basel-a French Swiss.”

“Swiss?” Now he was puzzled.

“Can we go inside?”

“Yes, all right. What’s this about?”

“Inside? Please?”

Downstairs, the family was at dinner. Mercier could smell garlic. Halbach called out “Good evening,” in Polish, then climbed the stairs and opened a door just off the landing. “In here,” he said. “Just leave the door open.”

“Of course,” Mercier said.

A small room, meagerly furnished and painted a hideous green. On one wall, a clothes tree held a shirt and a pair of trousers; on the other, a narrow cot covered by a blanket, and a nightstand with four books on top. At the foot of the cot, a single rickety chair completed the furnishings. The window looked out on the plaster wall of the adjacent building, so the room lay in permanent twilight. Halbach put his briefcase down and sat on the edge of the cot, while Mercier took the chair. When he was settled, Halbach opened the drawer in the nightstand, then gave him a meaningful look, saying, “Just keep your hands where I can see them.”

Mercier complied immediately, resting his hands atop the briefcase held on his knees. Was there a pistol in the drawer? Likely there was. “I understand,” he said. “I understand completely.”

For a moment, Halbach stared at him. He was, Mercier thought, perhaps the homeliest man he’d ever seen: a long narrow face, with pitted skin, and small protruding ears emphasized by a Prussian haircut-gray hair cut close on the sides and one inch high on top. His Hitler-style mustache was also gray, his neck a thin stem-circled by a collar a size too large-his restless eyes suspicious and mean. “Well?” he said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Lombard. I represent a chemical company in Basel. My card.”

Mercier drew a packet of cards from his pocket and handed one of them to Halbach, who said, “Solvex-Duroche?”

“Solvents for the metals industry.”

Halbach studied the card, then put it on the nightstand. “What would you want with me?” Suspicion was slowly giving way to curiosity. “I’m a teacher.”

“But not always. Or, rather, that is your vocation. It is your political history that brings me here.”

Halbach’s hand moved toward the drawer, Mercier feared he was about to be shot. “Please, no violence,” he said softly. “I’m here to make an offer, nothing more than that, and if you’re not interested I’ll go away and that will be the end of it.”

“You said politics … meaning?”

“Your resistance to the present government in Berlin.”

“You know who I am,” Halbach said, an accusation.

“Yes, I do know that.”

“So, you’re no chemical salesman, Herr Lombard, are you.”

“Actually, I am, but that’s no part of our business today.”

“Then who sent you?”

“That I can’t tell you. Suffice to say, powerful people, but not your enemies.”

Halbach waited for more, then said, “How did you find me?”

“As I said, powerful people. Who know things. And, I feel I should point out, it wasn’t all that difficult to find you.”

“In other words, spies.”

“Yes.”

“Not the first I’ve encountered, Herr Lombard. And no doubt working for the Swiss government.”

“Oh, we never say such things out loud, Herr Halbach. And, in the end, it doesn’t matter.”

“To me it does.” He had suffered for his politics, he wasn’t about to compromise his ideals.

“Then let me say this much-a neutral government is not a disinterested government, and, as I said before, in this instance on your side.”

Now Halbach was intrigued-he’d spent enough time with Mercier to sense he needn’t be afraid of him, and felt the first flush of pride that “powerful people” were interested in him. Which, of course, they should be, despite his present misery.

Now Mercier advanced. “Tell me, Herr Halbach, this life you live now, as a fugitive, how long do you expect it to last?”

“For as long as it does.”

“Months?”

“Certainly.”

“Years?”

“Perhaps.” A shadow settled on Halbach’s face. He knew it couldn’t be years.

“You read the newspapers, you’re aware of Hitler’s intentions in Czechoslovakia-what’s going on in the Sudetenland.”

“Casus belli.” Halbach flipped the tactic away with his hand, his voice rich with contempt.

“True, a reason for war, and perfectly transparent to those who understand what’s going on. Still, Hitler may well send his armies here. What then? Where will you go?”

“To a cellar somewhere.”

“For months? Or days?”

Halbach would not give him the satisfaction of an answer, but the answer hung unspoken in the air.

“You asked why I was here, Herr Halbach. I’m here to offer you sanctuary.”

“Sanctuary,” Halbach said. The word had its effect.

“That’s correct. The people I represent want you to continue your resistance, but you cannot do so in Czechoslovakia. The Gestapo will find you, today or tomorrow, and the result for you will be very unpleasant. Very, very unpleasant. With the best of luck, it’s only a matter of time.”

“What is this sanctuary?”

“Money, and a new nationality.”

“How much money?”

“Five hundred thousand Swiss francs.”

“That’s a fortune!”

Mercier’s brief nod meant, of course it is, but not for us.

“Five hundred thousand, you said?”

“I did. And a Swiss passport. The passport of a Swiss citizen, not the papers of a foreign resident.”

“For nothing more than writing a few pamphlets?”

“No, there is more.”

Silence in the little room-quiet enough to hear the family eating dinner below them. Halbach lowered his voice. “And what would that be, Herr Lombard?”

“A visit to an old friend, a request-a request accompanied by the same offer I’ve made to you, so you will not go empty-handed, a few days’ work on his part, a successful result, and then, for both of you, new lives. Wealthy lives. Safe lives.”

Now Halbach saw the trick. “All this you offer would be in the future, naturally, and conditional. Just around the corner, just up the road.”

“No, sir, it doesn’t work like that. Simply agree, and I will hand you a hundred and fifty thousand Swiss francs.”

“Now? This minute?” Halbach stared at the briefcase.

“Yes.”

“How do you know I won’t accept the money and disappear?”

“Because then you will have stolen it, Herr Halbach. Stolen it from us.” Again, silence. Mercier waited, the soul of patience; he could almost see Halbach’s mind working, back and forth. Finally Mercier said, “What will it be, sir, shall I be on my way?”

Halbach’s voice was barely audible. “No,” he said.

“Then we are in agreement?”

Halbach nodded. He’d begun to grasp the very sudden turn his life had taken, and he didn’t like it, his expression sour and resigned, but, really, what choice did he have?

“Please understand,” Mercier said, his hands now holding the sides of the briefcase, ready to hand it over, “that your actions will be directed against the Hitler regime, not against the German people, not against your homeland. We know you would never agree to harm your country, misguided though it might be.”

Halbach didn’t answer, but Mercier sensed that he’d accepted the distinction-this wasn’t treason, this was resistance. From the foot of the stairs, a woman’s voice. “Herr Halbach? Will you be having your dinner?”

“Not tonight, thank you,” Halbach called out.

Mercier handed him the briefcase. It was heavy and full: thirty packets, bound with rubber bands, of fifty hundred-franc notes. Halbach unbuckled the straps and opened the flap, took out one packet, counted twenty, riffled the rest, and put it back. When he looked up at Mercier his face had changed; the reality of the banknotes had struck home.

“And three hundred and fifty thousand more, Herr Halbach, when the work is completed.”

“In cash?”

“There’s a better way, a bank transfer, but I’ll explain that in time.”

Halbach again looked in the briefcase. No, he wasn’t dreaming. “What do I have to do, for all this? Kill somebody?”

“A train ride to Berlin. A conversation.”

Halbach stared, opened his mouth, finally said, “But …”

Mercier was sympathetic. “I know. I know, it’s risky, but not foolish. With a Swiss passport, hiding in a small hotel, you’ll be reasonably safe. And I’ll be there with you. Of course, danger is always part of this business. For me to come here today is dangerous, but here I am.”

“I’m a wanted criminal, in Germany.”

“You won’t be in Berlin for more than a week, and, except for arrival and departure, you will be visible for only one evening. We want you to contact a man who used the alias ‘Kohler,’ an old comrade of yours, from the Black Front, now serving in a section of the General Staff, and make the same offer to him that I’ve made to you.”

Mercier had worked this sentence out and memorized it. The question he didn’t want to ask was: Do you know Kohler? Because a simple “Who?” would have ended the operation.

“Hans Kohler,” Halbach said, his voice touched with nostalgia. After a moment, working it out, he said, “Of course. Now I see what you’re after.”

Casually, Mercier said, “I expect he serves under his true name.”

“Yes, Elter. Johannes Elter. He is a sergeant in the Wehrmacht. Luckily for him, Strasser ordered that every man in the Front use a nom de guerre.”

Not so lucky. It had left Kohler vulnerable to just the sort of approach that Halbach was going to make. But, Mercier thought, there was plenty of time for that, now was not the moment.

“When will this meeting take place?” Halbach asked. He rebuckled the briefcase and placed it on the floor beside him.

“Soon. Political events are moving quickly; we don’t want to get caught up in them. We leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! My classes, at the school-”

“Class is canceled. The Herr Professor is indisposed.”

“I have a friend in Tesin, Herr Lombard, a friend that’s made a great difference to me, the way I’ve had to live here. I would like to say goodby.”

Mercier’s voice was as gentle as he could manage. “I am sorry, Herr Halbach, but that won’t be possible. If she’s been a confidante, she’ll understand, and a postal card from you, in Switzerland, will let her know you’ve reached safety.” He rose and offered his hand-Halbach’s palm was cold and damp. “Enough for tonight,” Mercier said. “We’ll meet tomorrow, ten-fifteen at the railway station. Try to get some rest, if you can, it will be a busy day.”

“Tomorrow? We go into Germany?”

“Oh no, not at all. We go to Prague, then back east and into Poland. An easy crossing.”

21 April. Sturmbannfuhrer Voss’s friend Willi-fake dueling scar on his cheek, von now leading his surname-was well-liked at 103 Wilhelmstrasse, the SD’s central office in Berlin. Properly submissive to his superiors, genial to his underlings, quite a good fellow, and sure to rise, when the time was right. And when would that be, exactly? War would do it, but Hitler was such a little tease when it came to war, showing his drawers one day, then giggling and running away the next. Austria he had-the plebiscite on the Anschluss had been a stroke of genius. Czechoslovakia he would have, though that would require force of arms; the Czechs were a stubborn, stiff-necked crowd, blind to their best interests, and they rather liked having their own nation. And those arms were still in production; all across Germany, the factory lights burned until dawn. Would it be this year? Probably not, maybe the following spring. More likely 1940. And some very sage gentlemen were saying 1941.

But war was only one way, there had to be others. For instance, a triumph. Some daring operation run against the French or the English. Willi, however, did not run operations, he worked in the SD administration. Certainly important, if you knew how these things worked, though not the sort of position that produced a stunning success. Still, there had to be some way, for a smart chap like Willi to find a path to the top.

For example, a visit to the urinals in the bathroom on the third floor. Obersturmbannfuhrer Gluck, August Voss’s superior, the former Berlin lawyer, regularly answered the call of nature around eleven in the morning, so Willi had observed. And so, that morning, he too heard the call. Gluck, when Willi arrived, was just buttoning his fly. Willi said good morning and addressed the porcelain wall. Gluck washed his hands, dried them, and began to comb his hair. When Willi was done, he stood at the sink next to Gluck and said, “Fine speech, the Fuhrer gave last night.”

Gluck’s nod was brusque. He set the comb carefully on his part, then drew it across his head.

“You are Sturmbannfuhrer Voss’s superior, are you not, sir?” Willi said.

“I am. What of it?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering … if something’s gone wrong with him.”

“What would be wrong?”

“I’m not sure. Do you have a moment, sometime, when we could talk?”

“Now is a good time. Why not come along to my office?”

Gluck had a most pleasant office, quite large, with a view out over the Wilhelmstrasse, the government neighborhood of the city. Down below, Grosser Mercedes limousines with swastika flags above the headlights, generals strolling with admirals, motorcycle couriers rushing off with crucial dossiers, a military beehive. Gluck sat formally at his desk. He had, Willi could see by the photograph next to the telephone, a very attractive wife and two handsome sons, both in SS uniform. Gluck waited patiently, then said, “Something I should hear about?”

“I believe you should.” Willi was just a bit hesitant, not happy about what needed to be said. “He’s an old friend, Voss is, from the early days of the party. And, I always thought, the best sort of officer. Keen, you know. Quite the terrier.”

“And?”

“A few weeks ago he invited me and another friend to go up to Warsaw. A change of scene, see the night life, bother the girls. Just a holiday away from family life, a chance to be naughty. When you work hard, it can be just the thing.”

“I suppose it can.” Though not for someone like me.

“So there we were, having a good time. But then he drags us off to some factory district. Where we wait around, while I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. He’d been drinking, more than usual I’d say, and you couldn’t reason with him; better to just go along. Then he sees some fellow in a French uniform come out of a factory-apparently he was waiting for him, because he runs off and, and attacks him. Pulls a riding crop from under his coat and beats him on the face.”

Gluck kept his composure. Pressed his lips together and seemed thoughtful, but that was all. “He did mention something about this, I don’t recall when it was. He’d lost a suspect, which is surely regrettable, but not the end of the world. However, Voss took it badly, personally, saw it as-how to say-a vendetta.”

“I couldn’t believe my eyes, when it happened. Then, after we returned home, I wondered if he didn’t perhaps have some difficulty in his private life, something that could be resolved, informally, with your help.”

“I know of no such problem. And it wouldn’t matter if I did.”

“No, of course not. I wasn’t going to say anything but I did worry about it, and then, when I chanced to see you this morning, I thought I’d better mention it. Before anything else happens.”

“You were right to do so, Sturmbannfuhrer. Did he tell you what he had in mind, before you went to Warsaw?”

“He didn’t. We were just going to have a good time, as I said.”

“And you were how many?”

“Three.”

“You don’t name your other friend, but I guess I can understand that.”

“I will if you order me to, sir.”

“No, let it be.”

“I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news.”

“For the good of the service, you had to be. And much better that I know about it, because, if he blows up again, and it becomes known, I’m the one who will suffer.”

“Will you confront him, sir?”

“I don’t plan to, at the moment.”

“Because, if you do, I would respectfully ask you not to say how you came to learn what he did. We have friends throughout the service, and I don’t trust Voss to keep silent.”

“You needn’t worry about that, and I would ask the same of you. This is one of those incidents that is best managed quietly.”

“You can depend on me, sir, to keep it that way.”

Gluck slouched sideways in his chair, an official burdened with one more problem on a day when there would be many more. He met Willi’s eyes and said, “I appreciate what you’ve done; I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you. And, if some day you need a friend, let me know. I’m not an ungrateful man.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Of course it is the end for your friend Voss, sad to say, at least in this organization. He will be returned to duty in the SS; trust them to find something more suited to his … his particular character.”

“I am sorry to hear that, but perhaps it’s for the best. This kind of behavior can’t be tolerated.”

“Not by me, it can’t.”

A growing silence, end of conversation. Willi stood and considered a Heil Hitler, but sensed that Gluck was one of those officers indifferent to such gestures, so squared his shoulders, came to attention, and saluted with his voice. “Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer.”

“You are dismissed, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer,” Gluck said. “I will need to use the telephone.”

21 April, 10:15 A.M.

Tesin railway station. Halbach was prompt to the moment, the remnants of his fugitive life in a cheap suitcase, briefcase clamped beneath his arm. Then the two of them, the French aristocrat and the Nazi professor, boarded the 10:32 train to Prague. It would not be a long trip, just over an hour, but time Mercier meant to use, if he could find a vacant compartment. This was, with a tip to the conductor, available, and, as the train got under way, Halbach wondered aloud why they were going to Prague.

“In Prague there is a certain photographic studio, run by a discreet gentleman, who will take your passport picture. The service is expensive, but the photograph will be properly affixed to your new passport. It is a service much in demand, lately.”

“I’ve known such people,” Halbach said.

“Also in Prague, a private bank-a very private bank-called Rosenzweig, principally a Jewish bank. Does that offend you, Herr Halbach?”

“Not at all, I don’t care about the Jews. Hitler’s a fanatic on the subject, and, time was, we thought that might be the end of him, but to date he has his way with them.”

“The Rosenzweig Bank will accept your Swiss francs, no questions asked, and transmit them to a numbered account at a bank in Zurich.” Mercier reached into his pocket and withdrew a slip of paper on which he’d copied, very carefully, the number sent to him by de Beauvilliers. “You’ll want to keep that safe, and I would memorize it as well, because this is an anonymous account. Similar arrangements have been made for your friend Elter.”

“When will I have the passport?”

Mercier handed it over. “A new life,” he said.

“As Herr Braun, I see.”

“A common name.”

“My fifth or sixth. It will serve.”

“Do you have a family, Herr Halbach?”

“I did. A wife and child.”

“They can travel with you, on this passport.”

“No, that’s finished, that part of my life. After the murders of ‘thirty-four I had to go underground, so I sent them away. For safety’s sake I no longer know where they are, nor do they know where I am. Whatever might happen to me, I could not bear the idea that they would share my fate.”

“And Sergeant Elter?”

“He does have a family: a wife, three children.”

“You knew him well?”

“Well enough. When you work secretly, there is endless time to kill, waiting for this, waiting for that, so people talk. He’s a common enough fellow, Pomeranian by birth, a steady family man. Perhaps his single distinction is a commitment to politics-he loved the party, it was a second home to him. It meant, to Elter, the raising up of a defeated nation, the return of pride, the end of poverty. Poverty is a dreadful business, Herr Lombard, a bitter thing, and particularly hard on those who’ve known better times. Every day, a small humiliation. It is, to the French, la misere, the misery, and that’s the proper word. Elter was an idealist, as was I, but it did not destroy him. He escaped, because he never held a high position in the Front. And he was never betrayed.”

“Still, he could be, no?”

“I suppose it’s possible. Under interrogation a fellow member might say his true name, but there are not many left who know it, I’m one of the last.”

“You may have to remind him of that, Herr Halbach.”

Perhaps Halbach believed he would be asking a favor of his former comrade, but now the price of Swiss francs had been quoted. “Tell me about him,” Mercier said.

“In his forties, precise, finicky. Bald, with a monk’s fringe, eyeglasses, not at all remarkable, the office clerk. Much absorbed in hobbies, as I recall, stamp and coin collections, model trains, that sort of thing.”

“Perhaps a dog? He walks at night?”

“He had a bird. A little green thing-he would whistle to make it sing.”

“You last saw him when?”

“A year ago, he came to Czechoslovakia to report to Otto-they’d discovered a spy in the organization. Two of our people almost arrested by the Gestapo. They shot through the door, the Gestapo shot back, and taunted them as they died.”

“How did he know that?”

“A neighbor.”

“Was Elter in the war?”

“Not in combat. He was a supply clerk, in the rear echelon. And a clerk he remains at the General Staff office, in charge of buying paper and pencils, typewriter ribbons, paper clips, and what have you, and keeping track of it all. They may be Germany’s great warriors, on the Bendlerstrasse, but, if they want a pencil, they must ask little Elter.”

“Does he gamble, perhaps? Visit prostitutes?”

“Gamble? Never, he pinches every pfennig. As for prostitutes, maybe now and then, when things are difficult at home.”

“Herr Halbach, here is an important question: do you believe he will cooperate with you, as an old friend, seeking his help?”

Halbach took his time, finally saying, “There must be a better reason, I fear.”

“Then we will provide one,” Mercier said.

The photography studio was in a quiet residential district, a small shop, dark inside, with a little bell that jingled merrily when the door was opened. Inside, painted canvas flats with a hole for the jocular customer’s head, allowing him to be photographed as a golfer, a clown, or a racing car driver. Halbach’s photo was added to the passport in an office at the back of the shop, where a radio at low volume played a Mozart symphony. It was a well-used passport, with several entry and exit stamps, that gave the bearer’s profession as “sales representative” and so completed Halbach’s cover identity. Mercier was relieved to see that the photographer worked with infinite care, consulting a notebook that specified the proper form for every sort of document used by the the nations of the continent. When the job was done, the man addressed Halbach as Herr Braun and wished him good luck.

Next, a men’s clothing store where Halbach was outfitted, the sort of suit, hat, and raincoat appropriate for a representative of the fine old Solvex-Duroche company. He now looked prosperous, but he was still Julius Halbach, not only homely but distinctive. Mercier fretted over this but could do nothing. False beard? Wig? Tinted spectacles? No, theatrical disguises would make Halbach look like a spy, surely the last thing Mercier wanted.

The people at the bank, a large room on the fourth floor of a commercial building, were genteel and all business-this was simply the transmission of currency, and Mercier suspected it went on all day long. They did not ask to see a passport, simply wrote out a receipt, having deducted their commission from the amount to be wired. As Mercier and Halbach descended in the elevator, Mercier handed over a hundred reichsmark, to use as pocket money, and told Halbach to rip up the receipt and, when opportunity provided a trash can, to throw it away. After lunch, they took the train back to Tesin, then crossed easily into Poland. There followed another train ride, to Katowice, where they stayed at the railway hotel.

On the morning of 23 April, a taxi took them to the outskirts of the city, where, at a garage that was little more than an old shed, Mercier bought a car. Not new, but well cared for, a 1935 Renault Celtaquatre, a two-door saloon model. Not too bad from the front-a fancy grille-but the bulbous passenger compartment ruined the look of the thing. “Very practical,” the garageman said, “and the engine is perfect.” Mercier drove around the corner and removed the last two items from beneath the false bottom of his valise: a Swiss license plate and the accompanying registration. After changing plates-he had to work at the rusty screws with a coin-they drove into Germany.

They stopped only briefly at the German border kontrol, two Swiss salesmen traveling on business, but Halbach stiffened as the guard had a look at his passport. “So now we spend an afternoon looking at the scenery,” Mercier said, as the striped crossarm was lowered behind them. But Halbach was not to be distracted, he sat rigid in the passenger seat, and Mercier could hear him breathing.

A good road, heading north to Berlin; all the roads in Germany were good now, a military necessity for a country with enemies east and west. Mercier drove at normal speed; it would take some six hours to reach Berlin, and he did not want to arrive in daylight. Halbach maintained his brooding silence, lost in his own world. Earlier, with a new life ahead of him and one last mission to be accomplished, he’d been expansive and relaxed, but now came the reality of Germany, and it had reached him. For Mercier, it was not so different from the drive to Schramberg-town after town with signs forbidding Jews, swastika flags, uniformed men on every street. The symbols of power, raw power, the state transcendent. Halbach ought to be used to it, he thought-he was, after all, a member of the Nazi party, a left Nazi but a Nazi nonetheless-but now it meant danger, and the possibility, the likelihood, that his new life would be destroyed before it had barely begun. Once again, he would lose everything.

A typical April day for Central Europe, changeable and windy. The skies darkened, raindrops appeared on the windshield, the wipers squeaked as they rubbed across the glass. From Gleiwitz they traveled north to Breslau, a three-hour drive. As they crossed the Oder, the sun broke through the clouds and sparkled on the dark current. On to Glogau, where Mercier stopped at a cafe, bought liverwurst sandwiches and bottles of lemonade, and they had lunch in the car. When they stopped for gas in Krossen, the teenager who worked the pump stared at Halbach, who turned away and pretended to look for something in the glove compartment. At dusk: Frankfurt. Mercier’s knee began to throb-too long in one position-but Halbach, it turned out, had never learned to drive. Mercier got out and walked around the car, which helped not at all. In the center of Frankfurt, a policeman directing traffic glowered at them and waved angrily: move! Halbach swore under his breath. A coal delivery truck broke down in front of them, the driver signaling for them to go around, and Mercier almost hit a car coming the other way. He was sweating by the time they reached the western edge of the city. Then, finally, at 7:30, the eastern suburbs of Berlin.

“Where do we stay?” Halbach said. “The Adlon?”

Berlin’s best, and just the sort of place where Halbach might encounter somebody from his past. Dangerous, so de Beauvilliers, or his trusted ally at 2, bis, had specified Der Singvogel, the Hotel Blue-bird, out in the slum district of Marianfelde. Mercier had never been in Berlin. Halbach had visited a few times, but the Tubingen professor of Old Norse was useless when it came to directions. They stopped, asked for help, got lost, but finally found their way to Ostender Strasse, parked the car, and, baggage in hand, entered the Singvogel.

“My God,” Halbach said. “It’s a brothel.”

It was. To one side of the reception desk, a blond Valkyrie with rouged cheeks, wrapped tight in the streetwalker’s version of an evening gown, was flirting with two SS sergeants, splendid in their black uniforms and death’s-head insignia. One of them whispered in her ear and she punched him in the shoulder and they both had a merry laugh. The other SS man took a long look at Mercier and Halbach. Drunk, he swayed back and forth, steadying himself with a meaty hand on the counter. He turned to the woman behind the desk and said, “Such fancy gents, Traudl. Better see what they want.”

Traudl was big and flabby, with immense upper arms that trembled when she moved and chopped-off hair dyed jet black. “Staying the night, boys?”

“That’s right,” Mercier said. “Maybe a few days.”

The SS men whooped. “That’s the thing!” the drunken one said. “Get your prick good and red!” He caught Halbach staring at him and said, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“The girls are in the bar,” Traudl said, before this went any further. “When you’re in the mood.”

“Watch out for the skinny one,” the Valkyrie said. “I know that type.”

Traudl looked at the keys on the board behind her. “I give you thirty-one and thirty-seven …”

“Maybe they want to share,” the SS man said, his voice suggestive.

“… five reichsmark a night, pay now and I’ll show you upstairs.”

Mercier paid for three nights and Traudl led them to the staircase. She more skated than walked, her carpet slippers sliding over the scuffed linoleum floor.

The rooms were cubicles, partitions ending a foot below the ceiling, with chicken wire nailed over the open space. “Toilet down there,” Traudl said. “Enjoy yourselves, don’t be shy.” She gave Halbach a big wink and pinched his cheek. “We’re all friends here.”

Mercier had worked in worse places-by candlelight in muddy trenches-but the Singvogel was well up the list. It was the SS men, Mercier suspected, who led the songfest in the bar below, starting with the Horst Wessel song, the classic Nazi anthem, and moving on to the SS favorite, the tender “If Your Mother Is Still Alive….” Only a prelude. As the night wore on, the bordello opera was to lack none of its most memorable moments: the breaking glass, the roaring laughter, the female screams-of mock horror and, once, the real thing, God only knew why-as well as the beloved duet for grunts and bedsprings, and the artful cries of the diva’s finale.

Still, they had to work. It helped that Halbach knew where Elter lived, in a tenement in the Kreuzberg district. It was also time, at last, to tell Halbach what he needed from the I.N. 6 office. “But only two contacts, between you and Elter,” he said. “Of course we must be especially careful the second time, when documents will be delivered. If you are betrayed, that’s when it will happen.” Downstairs, the shouts and crashing furniture of a good fight.

“That will bring the police,” Halbach said.

“Not here. They’ll take care of it.”

They listened for the high-low siren, but it never came. “Remember this,” Mercier said. “It is Hitler and his clique who want to take the country into war, but there could be nothing worse for Germany. Remind Elter of that. His work on our behalf will provide information that can impede their plans, which would be the highest possible service to the German people. If war comes here, they are the ones who will suffer.”

“Yes, the moral argument,” Halbach said sourly, not at all convinced.

“You know what to do if it doesn’t work.”

And, to that end, the following afternoon, Mercier and Halbach left the hotel and drove to the central area of the city, where the former bought a camera, and the latter made a telephone call.

24 April, 6:20 P.M.

In darkness, but for the lights twinkling on the station platform, the train clattered down the track. A freight train, eight cars long: two flatcars bearing tanks, an oil tanker, a mail car, its lit windows revealing canvas bags and a brakeman smoking a cigar, and finally a caboose. The train sped past the station-the stationmaster held a green flag-slowed for a curve, then accelerated down a long straightaway, through a field with grazing cows. Smoke rose from the stack of the locomotive, which blew its whistle, two mournful cries in the night. Ah, the railway crossing. The bar came down; a produce truck waited on the road. Then a sharp grade, climbing to a bridge that crossed a stream, a descent, and a long curve, which led to another station. The train slowed and rolled to a perfect stop beneath a water tower.

There followed a moment of appreciative applause, and someone turned on the lights. “Well done,” said a man with a beard, squatting down to examine the locomotive at eye level. Others agreed. “Quite perfect.” “A good run.”

Johannes Elter said nothing. Only stared, wide-eyed, at the apparition in the doorway, which searched the room, then waved to him. The weekly meeting of the Kreuzberg Model Railway Club, in the basement of a local church, was one of the few pleasures in his humdrum existence, but now, even here, his past had returned to haunt him. “A former acquaintance,” he explained to the man beside him, a stockbroker with an estate in the Charlottenburg district.

Halbach circled the trestle tables, then offered his hand. “Good evening, Johannes. Your wife said I would find you here.”

Elter returned the greeting, a smile frozen on his face.

“Can we speak for a moment?” There was no conspiracy in Halbach’s voice, but, in a pleasant way, he meant privately.

“We can go upstairs,” Elter said.

“Don’t be too long,” the stockbroker said. “We are electing officers tonight.”

“I’ll be right back,” Elter said. Coming directly from work, he wore the uniform of a Wehrmacht corporal.

Halbach, heart pounding, followed Elter up the stairs to the vestibule. The church beyond was empty, the altar bare. It had been Lutheran once but now, in line with the dictates of the Nazi regime, was home to a rather secular denomination known as “German Christian.” Elter waited until Halbach climbed the last step, then, his voice low and strained, said, “What are you doing? Coming here like this.”

“Forgive me,” Halbach said. “I had to come.”

“Has something changed? Are you now free to go anywhere?”

“No, they are after me still.”

“You could ruin me, Julius. Don’t you know that?” Elter’s face was ashen, his hands trembling.

“It was Otto who sent me to see you,” Halbach said.

Elter was stunned. “He’s alive?”

“He is,” Halbach said. “For the time being.”

“Where …?”

“I mustn’t say, but what’s happened is that he’s fallen into the hands of foreign agents.”

Silence. Finally Elter said, “Then that’s it.”

“It need not be. But they will turn him over to the Gestapo and, if they do, he’ll be forced to tell what he knows. And that will be the end, for me, for you, for all of us who are still alive.” Halbach let that sink in, then said, “Unless …”

Elter’s voice broke as he said, “Unless what?”

“It depends on you. On you alone.”

“What could I do?”

“They want information, from the office where you work.”

“That’s espionage! Who are they?”

“They are Swiss, or so they say. And they offer you two things if you comply: a Swiss passport, in a new name, and five hundred thousand Swiss francs. So you must choose, Johannes, between that and the Gestapo cellars.”

Elter put a hand on his heart and said, “I don’t feel well.” Down below, the lights went out and another train began its run, the locomotive tooting its whistle.

Halbach reached out and rested his hand on Elter’s arm. “This was inevitable,” he said, not unkindly. “If not today, tomorrow.”

“My God, Julius, why do you do this to me? I was always a faithful friend.”

“Because of that, I do it.”

“But I don’t have information. I know nothing.”

“Trash. That’s what they want. Papers thrown away in the waste-baskets.”

“It’s burned! Every bit of it, by the janitors.”

“When?”

“At nine in the evening, when they come in to clean the offices.”

“You must do it before nine.”

“But there’s too much; how would I carry it out of the building?”

“They want only the material from the section that works on plans for war with France: three days of it. Leave the rest for the janitors.”

“I thought you said they were Swiss.”

Halbach grew impatient. “Oh who knows what these people are up to, they have their own reasons. But the money is real, I know that personally, and so is the passport. Here, have a look.” Halbach reached into his jacket and handed Elter the Braun passport.

Elter looked at it, then gave it back. “I don’t want to leave Germany, I have a family.”

“That’s up to you. Your money will be in an account in Zurich. You’ll be given the number and the passport on Friday. You’ll have to put in a photograph, but they will tell you how to manage that.”

Elter looked suddenly weary. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you want to die, Johannes?”

Elter’s voice was barely audible. “No.”

Halbach waited. Finally, Elter shook his head, slowly, sickened by what life had done to him. “Friday, you said?”

“At the Hotel Excelsior. In the Birdcage Bar. Come in civilian clothing, put the papers in a briefcase. Seven-thirty in the evening. Can you remember?”

“Seven-thirty. The Birdcage Bar.”

Halbach looked at his watch. “Walk me out, Johannes.”

They left the vestibule and stood for a moment in the doorway of the church. Across the street, Mercier was sitting behind the wheel of the Renault, clearly visible with the driver’s window rolled down.

“Is that one of them?” Elter said.

Halbach nodded. “Old friend,” he said, “will you still shake hands with me?”

Elter sighed as he took Halbach’s hand. “I never imagined …” he said.

“I know. None of us did. It’s the wisdom of the gods-to keep the future dark.”

In the car, Mercier watched the two men in the doorway. The one in uniform turned, and stared into his eyes with a look of pure hatred. Mercier was holding the camera below the window; now he raised it, looked through the viewfinder, and pressed the button.

Mercier wasted no time. His valise and Halbach’s suitcase were already in the trunk of the Renault. Now he wound his way out of Kreuzberg and onto the road that ran north to Neustrelitz. Beside him, Halbach leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. “Not very far, is it?”

“Three hours, no more than that.”

“Will he be at the bar?”

“I trust he will. Do you agree?”

“I’m not sure. He’ll think about it, try to find a way out. And then … well, you’ll see, won’t you.”

A fine spring night. The road was dark and deserted and Mercier drove fast. It was 11:30 when they reached the city of Rostock and, a few minutes later, the port of Warnemunde. At the dock, the ferry-a ferry from a cartoon; its tall stack would pump out puffs of smoke in time to a calliope-was already taking on passengers, headed across the Baltic to the Danish port of Gedser. Just up the street, at the edge of the dock, a customs shed held the border kontrol, where two passengers waited at the door, then entered the shed.

“Shall I walk you through the kontrol?” Mercier said.

“No, I’ll manage.”

“There’s one last train for Copenhagen tonight, on the other side. Of course, once you’re in Denmark, you may do whatever you like.”

“I suppose I can. I’d almost forgotten, that sort of life.”

“Will you fly to Zurich?”

“Perhaps tomorrow. The funds will be there?”

“We are true to our word,” Mercier said. “It’s all in the account.”

Halbach looked out the window; the two passengers left the customs shed. “And will this,” he said, “all this, make any difference, in the long run?”

“It may. Who knows?”

Halbach climbed out of the car, retrieved his suitcase from the trunk, returned to the passenger side, and looked in at Mercier, who leaned over and rolled the window down. “Likely I won’t see you again,” Halbach said.

“No, likely not.”

Halbach nodded, then walked toward the dock. At the door to the customs shed, an older couple, poorly dressed, entered just as he arrived. Then, a moment later, Halbach followed them. Mercier waited, the Renault engine idling. The ferry creaked as it rose and descended on the harbor swell. Mercier checked the time: 11:39. A sailor walked down the gangway and stood by one of the bollards that held the mooring lines. Now it was 11:42. Somebody in the customs shed reached out and closed the door. Had something gone wrong? They couldn’t get this close, just to … Five minutes, six, then ten. Should he go to the shed? To do exactly what? Above the door, the breeze toyed with the red and black flag. 11:51. The sailor at the bollard began to unhitch the mooring rope, and the ferry tooted its cartoon horn, once, and again. A few passengers had gathered at the railing, looking back into Germany. Mercier’s hands gripped the wheel so hard they ached, and he let go. Now the couple left the shed, the man supporting the woman with an arm around her waist. When the sailor called out to them the man said something to the woman, and they tried to hurry. Mercier closed his eyes and sagged against the seat. Not now. Please, not now. The sailor tossed the mooring line onto the deck and strolled over to the other bollard. Two crewmen appeared at the end of the gangway, ready to haul it aboard.

Then Halbach came out of the shed, tall and awkward, running, holding his hat on his head as he ran. At the end of the gangway, he turned and looked at Mercier, then disappeared into the cabin.

Mercier took a hotel room in Rostock; then, early the following morning, drove back to Berlin and, at the northern edge of the city, parked the car. Carefully, he searched the interior and the trunk, found no evidence left behind, and locked the doors. There it would remain. He took a taxi to the Adlon and settled in to let the days pass. He felt much safer now that Halbach was no longer in the country, and he had to work to keep elation at arm’s length. Because Elter might not show up at the Birdcage Bar, because the Gestapo might show up instead-if he’d been caught in the act, or if he’d been so foolish as to go to his superiors. Or, really, was that so foolish? Play the contrite victim, tell all, hope for the best.

No, Mercier told himself. That look of murderous hatred had revealed something of Elter’s true self-the brute inside the clerk. Mercier had not been displeased by that look, far from it. It meant secret strength, just what Elter would need to do what he had to. Save Otto Strasser? Save Halbach? A joke. Elter would save Elter. And then, struggling along on a corporal’s pay, war on the horizon, welcome to Switzerland.

The Adlon was busy, only a luxurious double had been available. A warm room, and very comforting, lush fabrics in subdued colors, soft carpet, soft light. Mercier took off his shoes to stretch out on the fancy coverlet, stared at the ceiling, missed Anna Szarbek. The telephone on the desk tempted him sorely, but that was out of the question. Still, there was something about these lovely rooms, not just flattering-only success brought you to such places-but seductive. Now he wanted her. She liked nice things, nice places. She would march about in her bare skin, showing off her curves. He rose from the bed, went to the telephone, and ordered dinner brought to the room. Better to stay out of sight. Friday.

28 April.

Hotel Excelsior. A vast beehive of a hotel, buzzing with guests-the swarm concentrated at the reception counter and spread out across the lobby. Mercier waited his turn at the desk, signed the register, and handed over the Lombard passport-this was not the Singvogel. A bellboy took his valise and they rode the elevator to the eighth floor, as the operator, wearing white gloves, called out the floor for each stop. In the room, he tipped the bellboy and, after he’d left, paused before the mirror: anonymous as he could be, in dark blue overcoat, gray scarf, and steel-gray hat. He left the valise in the room and descended to the lobby.

Across from the reception, the Birdcage Bar. Mercier pushed the padded door open, and yes, there it was, as advertised: a gilded cage suspended from the ceiling, its floor covered with oriental pillows for the comfort of the bird presently in captivity, an indolent maiden, very close to nude but for her feathered costume and tight gold cap. At rest when Mercier entered, she now rose, circled the cage, went to her knees, held the bars, and reached out for a passing guest, who circled the outstretched hand with a nervous laugh and rejoined his wife at their table.

Standing at the bar, Mercier surveyed the tables in the room. Elter? Not yet, it was only 7:20. Surveillance? No way to tell, dozens of people, drinking and talking; it could be any of them. Would this contact have been safer under a railway bridge? Maybe, but too late now. Mercier left the bar, and found a chair in the lobby, a potted palm on one side, a marble column on the other. Elter came through the door at 7:28, wearing hat and overcoat and carrying a large briefcase by its leather handle. He peered about him, found the neon sign above the door to the bar, and headed across the lobby. Mercier watched the entry doors-two dowdy women with suitcases, a young couple, a beefy gent holding a newspaper, who walked toward the elevator. Mercier stood up and hurried over to the bar. Elter was just inside, looking around, not sure what to do next-every table was taken. “Herr Elter,” Mercier said, “would you please come with me?”

Mercier led him to the elevator and said, “Eight, please.” Above the door, a steel semicircle, where an arrow moved over the floor numbers as the car rose. Four. Five…. Eight. Mercier got out, Elter followed, and they walked together down a long empty hall. It was very still inside 803, a common hotel room with a print of an old sailing ship above the bed, and almost dark, but for the ambient light of the city outside the window. Mercier left it that way, he could see well enough. “Please put the briefcase on the bed,” he said.

Elter stood at the window. Mercier opened the briefcase. Papers, of various sizes, many of them crumpled and straightened out, sketches, memoranda, a study of some sort, several pages long. From the pocket of his jacket he brought out a manila envelope, its flap unsealed. “You’d best have a look at this,” he said to Elter.

“Very well,” Elter said, his voice quiet and firm.

Mercier opened the envelope and handed Elter a Swiss passport. “There is an address in here, a photography studio in Prague. They will complete the passport for you. Can you go to Prague?”

“Yes. I don’t see why not.”

“In this envelope is also an account number and the address of a bank in Zurich. The account holds five hundred thousand Swiss francs, you need only submit the number. Is that clear?”

“It is.”

“Did you tell anyone about this?”

“I most certainly did not.”

“Your wife?”

“No.”

“Best keep it that way, until you leave Germany.”

“I have no intention of leaving.”

“Well, that’s up to you.” Mercier snapped the briefcase closed and picked up his valise. “It would be best,” Mercier said, “if you remain in this room for fifteen minutes.”

Elter was studying the bank information, hand-printed on a square of notepaper. “There is one thing I wanted to ask you,” he said.

“Yes?” Mercier had taken a step toward the door, now he turned back.

In the darkened room, the two men in hats and overcoats stood, for a moment, in silence, then Elter said, “Will you seek further information? About the I.N. Six section?”

Mercier’s mind raced. “We might.”

“I’ve thought about this night and day, since Halbach approached me. And I came to a certain conclusion. Which is, if I can be of service, and you are willing to pay …”

It was the last thing Mercier expected to hear, but he recovered quickly. “We have your address, Herr Elter. And we always pay people who help us.”

Elter nodded. “Then I’ll expect to hear from you.”

“Good night, Herr Elter,” Mercier said, turning back toward the door. “And be careful.”

“Yes, good night,” Elter said.

Mercier left the room and descended to the lobby. He checked out, retrieved his passport, found a taxi at the entry to the hotel, and returned to the Adlon.

The briefcase held seventy-three papers, now laid out on the bed in his hotel room. Some of it useless-Meet with Klaus, 4:30 Thursday-some of it valuable. A draft for a report on the fuel consumption of Panzer tanks. A hand-drawn sketch of an area within the Ardennes Forest, with arrows showing potential attack routes. A roneo copy of a forest survey map, made by French military cartographers in 1932, according to the legend in the lower corner. This copy bore handwritten symbols and numbers-meaningless to Mercier-which implied that copies of the map were being used as worksheets. A draft for a memorandum on the ground clearances of various tank models, some of the designations unknown to Mercier. Planned? In production? A significant proportion of the documents had originated with a certain Hauptmann-captain-Bauer, including a note from Guderian himself, thanking Bauer for his contribution to a discussion of meteorological patterns on France’s northeast frontier.

But what particularly interested Mercier was what wasn’t there; nothing on the subject of the Maginot Line, nothing to do with the defense system built on France’s eastern frontier-no forts, no bunkers, no pillboxes. If Germany were to invade France, the attack would come with tanks, through the Belgian forests. That was the position of the I.N. 6, that was the position of the German General Staff, that’s what was laid out in seventy-three papers on a bed in the Hotel Adlon.

Was this enough? For the generals in Paris? Well, there was more to be had; they could go back to Corporal Elter. Surely they would. A gift from the gods-the gods of greed-and entirely unanticipated. Nonetheless, a victory.

But if this was victory, it had taken him somewhere very close to exhaustion. Weary beyond strength, Mercier managed to rid himself of socks, shirt, and trousers, made sure of the lock on the door, turned off the lamp, and lay down on the other bed. He lit a cigarette and stared at the papers. In the morning, he would hide them below the false bottom of his valise, take a taxi to Tempelhof airport, and fly to Le Bourget. A taxi ride to de Beauvilliers’s apartment in the Seventh Arrondissement, a report to be written, and then back to Warsaw. A job well done.

Or so he thought. In Warsaw, a hero’s welcome on Sienna street-where Anna went shopping and returned with the best Polish ham, rye bread from the Jewish bakery on Nalewki street, and a bottle of Roederer champagne. Then, later on, a black negligee, purchased for the hero’s return, which turned her shape into a pale image obscured by shadow-for as long as it stayed on. At the embassy, the following morning, again the hero. They didn’t know what he’d been doing, but they knew it was some sort of operation, and they could see he had returned safe and sound and in a good mood. “It went as you wished?” Jourdain said. Mercier said that it had, and Jourdain said, “Good to have you back.”

Over the next few days, perfectly content with meetings and paperwork, he waited for word from Paris. It came on a Monday, the eighth of May, a telephone call from General de Beauvilliers. A series of oblique pleasantries, “Overall, we are quite impressed here,” not much more than that, one had to be cautious with the telephone. And then, finally, “I’d very much like to have a talk with you, I wonder if you could come over here. I believe there’s an early flight in the morning.” Merely a suggestion, of course.

Mercier hung up and called Anna at the League office. “I’m flying to Paris tomorrow.”

A sigh. “Well, I hate to give you up. Is it for long?”

“A few days, perhaps.”

“But I’ll see you tonight.”

“You will, but that’s not why I called. Would you like to come along?”

“To Paris?” She said it casually, but there was delight in her voice. “Maybe I could. I’m supposed to be in Danzig on the tenth, but I can try to move it back.”

“Do what you can, Anna. There’s a LOT flight at eight-thirty. We can stay on the rue Saint-Simon, at the apartment. What do you think?”

“Paris? In May? I’ll just have to make the best of it, won’t I?”

9 May.

At five-thirty, he met with de Beauvilliers in an office at the Invalides, in the maze of the General Staff headquarters. Gray and Napoleonic as it was, the trees were in new leaf and birds sang away outside the window. “Surely you are the hero of the moment,” de Beauvilliers said. “I have to admit, the day we had lunch at the Heininger, I didn’t really believe it was possible, but you did it, my boy, you did it to perfection.”

“Some luck was involved. And, without Dr. Lapp-”

“Oh yes, I know, I know. Credit goes here and there, but we’ve broken into the I.N. Six, and we’ll go back for more.”

“Will you want me to handle the contact with Elter?”

“We’ll see. Anyhow I wanted to congratulate you, and I wanted to talk to you before your meeting with Colonel Bruner; he’s waiting for you in his office. First of all, you’re going to be promoted to full colonel.”

“Thank you, general.”

“Bruner will tell you again, so you’ll have to pretend to be surprised, but I wanted to be the one to give you the good news. And that isn’t all. You will want to think this over, but I’m requesting, officially, that you come here and work for me. It’s a small section, very quiet, but you’ll find people like yourself. And what we do is meaningful, sensitive, far beyond the usual staff drudgery. Does it appeal to you, colonel, work in the upper atmosphere?”

“It does. Of course it does.”

“Good, we’ll talk again, maybe tomorrow, but best go see Bruner and have your meeting.”

Mercier walked over to 2, bis, avenue de Tourville, then waited for fifteen minutes in Bruner’s reception before he was admitted to the inner sanctum. The colonel’s freshly shaved face glowed pink, and he sat at attention, puffed up to his grandest hauteur. “Ah, Mercier, here you are! A great success, our brightest star. Congratulations are certainly in order-bravo! There will be a promotion in it for you, you can depend on that, colonel.”

Mercier was dutifully surprised, and grateful.

“Yes, you’ve surely given us a view into the I.N. Six,” Bruner said. “We’ve had meeting after meeting, and we’re still working on the documents. This information will, believe me, be taken into account as we make our own plans.”

“That’s what I hoped for, colonel.”

“And so you should have. Of course, we do have to consider the possibility that we’re being misled.”

“Misled?”

“Well, it’s almost too good to be true, isn’t it. And a recruitment as well. No doubt the future material will support what we already have.”

“No doubt? Why do you say that, colonel?”

“The Germans are clever people, not in any way above misleading an opponent. It’s the oldest game in the world: guide your enemy away from your true intentions. Are you unable to look at it from that perspective?”

“I suppose I can, still …”

“Now see here, Mercier, nobody’s taking anything away from what you’ve done. You deserve credit for that, and, as a full colonel, you’ll have it. But you must accept that we have to take other possibilities into consideration, and that includes an Abwehr operation using rogue Nazis, supposedly rogue Nazis, to send us down the wrong path.”

Mercier worked hard to conceal his reaction from Bruner, but he failed. “Halbach was the real thing, Colonel Bruner.”

“Yes, so your report suggested, but how can you be sure? Was the Halbach you found the real Halbach? Or an Abwehr officer playing the role of Halbach? Well, I can’t pretend to know that for a certainty-can you?”

“Not for a certainty. Nothing is ever certain, particularly in this work.”

“Ah-ha! Now you’re on to the game! I’m not saying this is final, but it’s one view, and we would be negligent if we didn’t take it seriously. No? Not true?”

“Yes, sir,” Mercier said, now eager to be anywhere but Bruner’s office. “I understand.”

“I’m glad of that. We know you have ability, colonel, you are an excellent officer, that’s been proven. Surely wasted on an attache assignment in that Warsaw rats’ nest. General de Beauvilliers has asked for your transfer, and you can pretty much count on our agreement. Does that please you? Colonel?”

Mercier nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Well then, I won’t keep you. I expect you’d like to go out and celebrate.”

Mercier walked home through a rich spring afternoon, a Parisian spring, that mocked him in every way. Amid chestnut blossoms fallen on the sidewalk, the outdoor tables of a cafe were at full throb with city life-the lovers, with their hands on each other; conversing businessmen, afloat on a sea of genial commerce; the newspaper readers, solemn, intent on the politics of the day and a favored journalist’s acid comments; and the women, lovely in their spring outfits, alone with an aperitif, and perhaps, perhaps, available. A wondrous theatre, Mercier thought, each and every spring, now, next year, forever.

As he walked, his soldier’s heart steadied him. Bruner and his cronies, all the way up to Petain and his cronies, had denied him, would not have their version of military doctrine spoiled by what he’d learned-there would be no German tanks, no attack through the forests. The current thinking could not be wrong, because they could not be wrong.

Had they betrayed France? Or just betrayed Mercier? He would, in time, find a way to accept their decision and in the future, working for de Beauvilliers, he would certainly press on, trying to prove that his discovery had been true. That’s what an officer did, forever, down through the ages. If an attack failed, you gathered your remaining troops and attacked again. And again, until they killed you or you took their position. He knew no other way. Yes, he was angry, and stung. No, it didn’t matter. He could only remain true to himself, there was no other possibility.

And the people on these lovely old streets? The crowd at the cafe? Would they be forced to live with a lost war? He hoped not, oh how deeply he hoped not, he’d seen the defeated, the occupied, the lost-that could not come here, not to this city, not to this cafe.

Then he sped up, walking faster now. Now he wanted to be back with people who cared for him, his private nation.

Back on the rue Saint-Simon, as Mercier let himself in the door, he heard a raucous laugh from the parlor. Then Albertine’s voice. “Is that you, Jean-Francois?”

Mercier walked down the hall to the parlor.

“Welcome back, love,” Anna said. “We’ve been having the best time.” Clearly they were. On a glass-topped bar cart, a half bottle of gin stood next to a seltzer bottle, alongside a squeezed-out lemon and a sugar bowl.

“We’ve taught ourselves to make gin fizzes, right here at home,” Albertine said. Both she and Anna were flushed, the latter sitting sideways in an easy chair, her legs draped over the arm.

“The conqueror has returned,” Anna said. “Covered in laurels.”

Mercier collapsed in the corner of the sofa, took his officer’s hat by its stiff brim and sailed it across the room, where it landed on a brocaded loveseat. “They fired me,” he said. “The bastards.”

“What?” Anna said.

“We’d best make a new batch,” Albertine said, rising unsteadily and making her way to the drinks cart.

“I gave them treasure,” Mercier said. “They threw it on the dung pile.”

“Oh, those people,” Albertine said. “I’m sorry if they’ve treated you badly, but you ought not to be so shocked.”

“What happened?” Anna said, twisting around in order to sit properly.

“I found a way to acquire important information. They, the officers of the General Staff, have chosen not to believe it.”

“Half of them are in the Action Francaise,” Albertine said, naming the high-brow French fascist organization. She worked a cut lemon around a glass corer, then poured the juice into a highball glass. “They want France to be allied with Germany, the only enemy they think about is Russia.”

“Who knows what they want,” Mercier said. “They tossed me a promotion and they’re transferring me back to Paris.”

“And that’s so bad?” Albertine said.

“My highly placed ally likely went to war, but he didn’t win. Now he’s rescued me, I’m going to work for him. I guess that’s a promotion as well.”

“Nothing quite like winning and losing at once,” Albertine said, adding sugar to the glass. “You’ll feel better in a moment, dear.”

“You’re leaving Warsaw?” Anna said.

“Yes. I don’t suppose you’d care to come along, would you?”

“Am I de trop?” Albertine said.

“No, no. Stay where you are,” Mercier said. “Could you do that, Anna? Move to Paris?”

“If you want me to. I’d have to resign from the League.”

“They hire lawyers in Paris,” Albertine said. “Even woman lawyers.”

“Well, we don’t have to decide all this tonight,” Mercier said. “But I’m not going to have us living in two places.”

“Ah, good for you,” Albertine said. Then, to Anna, “He’s the best cousin, dear, is he not? And he might do for a husband.”

“Albertine,” Mercier said. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. For now, where’s my gin fizz?”

“Just ready,” Albertine said. She brought Mercier his drink and settled down at the other end of the sofa. Then she raised her glass. “Anyhow, salut, and vive la France,” she said. “It’s the good side, and I do mean the three of us, who will win in the end.”

They didn’t.

Twenty-four months later, with Guderian in command, a massive German tank attack through the Ardennes Forest breached the French defenses, and-on 22 June, 1940-France capitulated. The former Colonel Charles de Gaulle, by then promoted to general, left France and led the resistance from London. After many adventures, Colonel Mercier de Boutillon and his wife, Anna, also made their way to London, where Mercier went to work for de Gaulle, and Anna for the Sixth Bureau, the intelligence service of the Polish resistance army.

And on 25 June, 1940, Marshal Philippe Petain accepted the leadership of the Vichy government.