To this, Mercier had to say yes.
"Some people I know may not be so much the enemies of France
as you would think. Do I need to elaborate?"
"No, Dr. Lapp. I believe I perfectly understand you."
Without speaking, Dr. Lapp acknowledged this understanding.
Did he bow? Did his heels come together? Not overtly, yet something
in his demeanor implied such gestures without the actual performance.
Mercier left the library, collected Madame Dupin, and hurried her
out to the car. "Did something happen?" she said.
"It did." Before Marek could pull away from the curb, Mercier
took a pad from his pocket and feverishly made notes, trying to reproduce the conversation with Dr. Lapp.
"Something good, I hope."
"Maybe," Mercier said. "It won't be up to me."
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*
The following morning, he was in Jourdain's office as the second secretary was hanging up his coat. When they were settled at the table,
Mercier read from his notes. "Astonishing," Jourdain said. "It sounds
like he wants to open some sort of secret channel between us and the
Abwehr. "
"Shall I report the contact?"
Jourdain drummed his fingers on his desk. "You're taking a
chance either way. If you report immediately, they may say no. But, if
you don't do it now, eventually you will, and then they'll have a
tantrum."
"Why on earth would they say no?"
"Caution. Fear of provocation, false information, trickery. Or
some variety of internal politics."
"That would be foolish, Armand."
"Yes, wouldn't it though. Because I suspect this contact was carefully planned and could lead to important information. First of all,
what was Dr. Lapp even doing there? Surely he wasn't invited as a stray
German businessman. No, he was invited as an Abwehr officer. So, he
asked the consul--or someone above him asked someone above the
consul--to arrange for both of you to attend the dinner. Don't forget
that Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, is an ally of Germany. May I see
the notes?" Mercier handed the pad to Jourdain, who turned a page
and said, "Yes, here it is. He manages the conversation in such a way
that he makes a seemingly spontaneous reference to the submarine
service in Kiel. And that means he's referring to Admiral Canaris,
head of the Abwehr and captain of a submarine in the Great War. Better, if he truly served in Kiel, he is likely a friend of Canaris--a friend
for twenty years. So, he is more than reliable."
"And Canaris is, potentially, disloyal?"
"Maybe. One hears things, wisps, straws in the wind, but who
knows. What is certain is that the Abwehr loathes the SD: Hitler,
the Nazis, the whole nasty business. It's as much social as it is poli-Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 203
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tical, the Abwehr see themselves as gentlemen, while the Nazis are
simply gangsters. And the Abwehr, as part of the General Staff of the
Wehrmacht, does not want to go to war."
"Why me, Armand?"
"Why not you? This all came about because your spy lost his nerve
on a train. And then word got around that it was a French officer who
fought off an SD abduction up on Gesia street. So Dr. Lapp wonders,
Who is this Colonel Mercier? Looks up your Abwehr file, sees that you
served with de Gaulle, sees that you're progressive and not part of the
old Petain crowd. Then he goes back to his boss and says, 'Let's
approach Mercier, we think he can be trusted.' "
"Trusted?"
"His balls are in your hand, Jean-Francois--he has to assume you
won't squeeze."
"Why would I?"
"Exactly. They have you figured out."
"I mean, what could I make them tell me? I was up half the night,
thinking about what happened, and I finally realized that the information I most want, from the Guderian bureau, the I.N. Six, is the one
thing I'll never get, not from the Bendlerstrasse--they won't betray
their own."
"Correct."
the names of my fellow prisoners."
"Of course he knew. He spent a lot of time, preparing for his
chance meeting, which is plain old good intelligence work. Really, it's
too bad about the Nazis--if Dr. Lapp and his friends ever took power,
Germany would be a very useful ally." Jourdain extended his index
finger and pointed east, toward Russia.
"Is there any chance of that?"
"None. Blood will flow, then we'll see."
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A
SHADOW
OF WAR
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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
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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 brui
sed 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
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A S H A D O W O F WA R * 2 0 9
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,
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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
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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.
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AW
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."
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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."