“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.”
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.”
“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 documents. 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.”
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 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.”