The spies of warsaw (13 page)

spying on the Poles, at the behest of the SD people--Heydrich, that

crowd."

Slowly, Mercier shook his head. "No, not that I've heard, anyhow."

"You see?" Rozen said to Malka. "The colonel is a great friend of

the local administration, surely they would have mentioned it. Too

good not to mention, no?"

"They don't tell me all that much, Herr Rozen." The seeming

ingenuousness of the probe made Mercier smile.

"No? So maybe they don't. But I heard von Sosnowski was here in

Warsaw, a broken man, his hair gone white in prison, drinking, living

in penury in a room somewhere."

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7 8 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

Mercier, about to respond, was distracted by a loud guffaw from a

nearby guest and looked over Malka's shoulder to discover the man at

Anna Szarbek's apartment, Maxim, in conversation with a gentleman

wearing a monocle and an official sash. At Maxim's side, Anna Szarbek, dressed pretty much as she'd been for the night at the Europejski,

looking up at Maxim, acknowledging his joke with a smile. A rather

tolerant smile, Mercier thought; or was it, perhaps, a
forced
smile?

The Rozens followed his eyes. "Friends of yours?" Viktor said.

"No, not really."

"That's Maxim Mostov," Viktor said, "the Russian emigre. He

writes for one of the local newspapers." A shadow crossed his face.

"So sad, how some people abandon us, some of the brightest." He

shook his head in sorrow.

"How does he come to be here?" Mercier said.

"Oh, he knows everybody, goes everywhere," Viktor said. "People

love to see their names in the newspapers."

"He writes gossip?"

"No, dear colonel, not quite. Feuilletons, observations on the

passing scene, an elevated form of gossip, perhaps. In the Soviet

Union, before he emigrated, he did much the same thing, I believe."

"So why leave?" Malka said. "He was a well-known journalist, in

Moscow."

"Not everybody wants to build socialism, my love," Viktor said,

half joking. Turning to Mercier, he said, "He was replaced, they're all

replaced, those who abandon us. It isn't an easy life, where we come

from: chaotic, dreadful in winter, at times disappointing--why not

admit it? But, colonel, better than what we had before. Do you see it

that way?"

"More or less," Mercier said. "Every country has its difficult

side."

"So true, that's so true," Malka Rozen said, touching Mercier's

arm. "And we all must help each other, otherwise . . ."

"Oh, I suppose we can go it alone," Viktor said, "if we have to, but

friends are always welcome. That's just human nature."

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O N R AV E N H I L L * 7 9

"Very welcome," Malka said. "It's in the Russian soul to appreciate friendship."

That's enough of that.
Mercier finished his vodka. "I believe I may

have a little more of this," he said, preparing his escape.

Viktor nodded.
Yes, yes, run away.
"Call us sometime, dear

colonel. A home-cooked dinner makes for a nice change, in the diplomatic merry-go-round." He moved closer to Mercier and lowered his

voice. "We know what the world thinks of us, colonel, but, every now

and then, when trouble comes knocking at the door, we're good people to know. Yes?"

Mercier smiled, and bowed his head to indicate that he understood.

In the Buick, headed back to the embassy, Jourdain seemed distracted,

not his usual self. "Did you have the vodka," Mercier said, "or the

champagne?"

"Champagne. But I just held the glass in my hand. You?"

"The vodka. Maybe a little more than I should've."

"I saw you conspiring with the Rozens. Did they make advances?

Try to recruit you?"

"Yes, as always."

"They're incorrigible," Jourdain said fondly. "I expect they have a

monthly quota, like everyone else in that accursed country. That's the

way Moscow thinks--
x
number of solicitations equals
y
number of

recruits. I know bachelors who swear by it."

"I don't think I'll change sides, Armand, not just yet."

"Were they after anything in particular?"

"They asked about von Sosnowski. Supposedly traded by the Germans and now back in Warsaw."

"That's good to know about, if it's true. The German propaganda

put his story about as lurid nonsense, sex and espionage, but that's not

the whole story. Sosnowski used the darkroom in the cellar of the Polish embassy to develop negatives of photographs of
Wehrmacht
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8 0 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

uments. Then one day another Polish agent, this one secretly working

for the Germans, went to hang up
his
negatives--phony product--

and discovered the real thing: elements of the German battle plans

for France and Poland. Not comprehensive--memoranda, first drafts,

sketches. One of Sosnowski's girlfriends was in charge of burning the

wastepaper at the end of the day, but she photographed it for Sosnowski. The gorgeous Benita von something. She was beheaded, eventually, and so was her friend. Barbaric, the hooded executioner with

the axe, but I suppose not much worse than the guillotine. One of the

other women disappeared, probably right into the SD. As for Sosnowski, the Poles might well have traded to get him back."

"French battle plan?" Mercier said. "Did we see that?"

"I don't know; that was in 1934, before I was posted here, but we

might have. Still, three years old. General Staff plans change all the

time. It wouldn't be worth much now, certainly not worth annoying

the Poles."

They rode in silence for a time, then Mercier said, "Is anything

wrong, Armand?"

Jourdain looked at Mercier, not pleased that whatever it was

showed. "I've lost one of my people," he said.

"Bad luck," Mercier said.

"Can't be helped, it does happen, but it's always a shock. He went

to work one morning, then, pfft, gone."

"In Germany?"

"Here." Jourdain flicked his eyes toward Marek's back--he was

trusted, but not
that
trusted.

"Anything I can do, you'll let me know."

"I'll have to write a dispatch. Paris will be irritated--how much

I'm not sure, but they won't like it."

"Well, that makes two of us."

"Your little foray in the west? Shooting at German border

guards?"

"Bruner was incensed."

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O N R AV E N H I L L * 8 1

Jourdain laughed. "Nothing quite so safe and warm as an office in

Paris."

"Yes, a lovely fall afternoon, a window looking out on the

Champ-de-Mars. '
Merde,
look what Mercier's done!' " He smiled and

spread his hands; life was hopeless. "To hell with them, Armand."

Jourdain's face showed agreement. "I just feel bad about it. He

was a decent fellow, the real reptiles always seem to survive."

14 November, 8:22 a.m. In Glogau, in the SD office above the toy shop

on Heimerstrasse, one of the secretaries in Major Voss's office

answered the telephone, then passed the call immediately to Voss.

"Yes?"

The voice identified itself as an SS sergeant stationed at the passport
kontrol
at the Glogau railway station. "We have made a possible

identification, sir, of your person of interest."

"Better than the one last week? This is turning into a comedy."

"We hope so, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer. The subject's passport is

issued to one Edvard Uhl, U--H--L. He left on the eight-fourteen

express to Warsaw, and he fits the description provided by your

office."

"So did the last three, sergeant."

"We regret the errors, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer."

"Very well, let's hope you're right, this time."

Voss hung up. He shouted to one of his lieutenants; the man came

running into his office. "We have
another
one--half the men in Germany have bulbous noses. The name this time is Edvard Uhl, find out

immediately who he is, but first get somebody on the eight-fourteen

express to Warsaw."

The lieutenant looked at his watch, panic in his eyes.

Idiot
. In the mock-gentle voice a frustrated parent might use on a

stupid child, Voss said, "Send a wireless telegraph message to Zoller,

in Leszno, and tell him to get on the train. The Poles take their time

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checking passports; they won't be leaving Leszno for thirty minutes.

And make very sure, lieutenant, that genius Zoller takes with him the

description we've issued. Would you do that for me, lieutenant? I

would so, appreciate, it, if, you . . .
would
!" Voss resumed his normal

growl. "And as for information on this man"--Voss looked at his

watch--"you have twenty minutes."

The lieutenant, palms sweating, ran out of the office. "
Bar-gumf,
"

he said, under his breath, the German version of a frog's croak.

He was back in eighteen minutes, having bullied clerks--Voss

could hear him shouting on the phone--in government bureaux from

Glogau to Berlin. The major looked up from a railway timetable

spread across his desk.

"Herr Edvard Uhl is a resident of Breslau," the lieutenant said. "I

have the address. He is employed by Adler Ironworks in the same city,

where he is the senior engineer on a tank design project for the Krupp

company. According to his employer, he is this morning at the office of

a subcontractor in Gleiwitz."

"And the photograph?"

"On the way, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer, by motorcycle courier from

Breslau."

"Get that woman in here, immediately. Anything else?"

"Herr Uhl has received an exit visa, to visit South Africa. For himself only, not his family."

Voss nodded, and rubbed his hands. "A scenic country, lieutenant.

But he'll never see it."

15 November, 5:45 a.m. Standing amid a silent crowd of factory workers, Mercier rode the trolley to Praga for his meeting with the engineer

Uhl. It was snowing, not the massive snowfall of the Polish winter, but

a taste of the future--big, lazy flakes drifting through the gray light,

the street white in some places, wet and shiny in others. Would Uhl

show up for the meeting? Maybe not. He'd wobbled badly, the last

time out. So, probably not. Mercier put it to himself as a bet and

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O N R AV E N H I L L * 8 3

decided he'd bet
no
. And then? Then nothing. Uhl would never be

betrayed to the Germans, not by him, not by anyone. Because if Uhl

was compromised, all he'd given them would be compromised as well,

not that the Germans could do much about it. Change the tank

design? The other possibility, that Uhl might have been arrested, was,

to Mercier's thinking, unlikely. He'd sent the promised postal card--

Hans was enjoying his visit to Warsaw, which meant all was well in

Germany.

Mercier stepped off the trolley car at the third stop in Praga,

walked past the burnt-sugar smell of the candy factory, and down the

narrow alley to the nameless bar. Particularly nameless that morning;

the lone drinkers lost in their shot glasses, the bartender bored with

the morning paper, one office worker in a shabby suit, untasted coffee

going cold in his cup. And, bet lost, Edvard Uhl, sitting at a table in the

far corner.

After they'd greeted one another, Mercier said, "And the train ride

yesterday, Herr Uhl, how was it? Packed with Gestapo men?"

"All was normal," Uhl said. "From Gleiwitz to Glogau, only a few

passengers. Then, on the express to Warsaw, a crowd, but nothing out

of the ordinary, just the usual people looking into the compartment to

see if there were any seats."

Mercier nodded:
there, that's better.
"So now, to work, Herr Uhl."

Uhl had brought the formula for the case-hardened steel to be

used for the new tank bodies, as Mercier had requested. "It's in here,"

Uhl said, gesturing toward his newspaper. "I had to copy it by hand,

the roneo machine was in use all morning." Otherwise, not much new

in Breslau: design work on the
Ausf B
version of the
Panzerkampf-

wagen 1
continued, none of the specifications had changed, the final

engineering blueprints would soon be completed.

"Our next meeting will be the fourteenth of December," Mercier

said, feeling for the envelope of zloty in the pocket of his battered

overcoat. "I will look forward to copies of the blueprints."

"The fourteenth?" Uhl said.

Here we go again.

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"Not the fourteenth, I'm afraid," Uhl said. "I cannot come to

Warsaw until the night of the seventeenth."

"Why not the fourteenth?"

"I must go to Schramberg, on business."

"Schramberg?"

"In the Black Forest. There are three of us going, from the ironworks, all engineers. We are to observe tank exercises; then we will be