The spies of warsaw (12 page)

refreshing the memory work he'd done early that morning. The first

German wire was two hundred yards or so to the west, and they

headed directly for it. They slowed down, now, feeling their way, stopping every few minutes to freeze and concentrate on listening. Only

the wind. Once, as they resumed walking, Marek thought he heard

something and signaled for Mercier to stop. Mercier reached into his

pocket, feeling for the grip of his pistol. And Marek, he saw, did the

same thing. Voices? Footsteps? No, silence, then a grumble of distant

thunder far to the east. After a minute they moved again, and found

themselves at the German wire, a snarled mass of barbed concertina

rolls fixed to rusted iron stakes driven into the earth. Mercier and

Marek, using heavy wire cutters, worked their way through it, gingerly

holding the strands apart for each other until they were on the other

side. Thirty yards forward, a second line, which they negotiated as

they had the first.

A few yards beyond the wire, Mercier stumbled--the ground suddenly sank beneath him and he almost fell, catching himself with one

hand on the earth. Soft, loose soil. What the hell was this? By his side,

Marek was probing at the ground with his foot and Mercier, resisting

the urge to use the flashlight, got down on his knees and began feeling

around in the dirt, then digging with a cupped hand. Crawling ahead,

he dug again and this time, down a foot or so in the loose soil, his

hand encountered a rough edge of concrete, aggregate; he could feel

the pebbles in the hard cement. As he dug further, Marek came crawling up beside him and whispered by his ear, "What is it?"

Dragon's tooth,
but Mercier couldn't say it in Polish. "Tank trap,"

he said.

"Covered over?"

"Yes, abandoned."

"Why?"

Mercier shook his head; no reason--or, rather, too many reasons.

They crawled forward, their knees sinking into the soft earth,

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 70

7 0 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

until they reached solid ground, which made the tank trap much as all

the others Mercier had encountered: a ditch with steep sides about

twenty feet wide, with a row of sloped concrete bollards midway

across. If a tank commander didn't see it, his tank would slip over the

edge, tilted forward against the so-called dragon's teeth, unable to

move. Not an unexpected feature in border fortifications, but the Germans had built this, then filled it in, the disturbed soil settling with

rain and time.

And Mercier knew it was not on the map, which showed a third

line of wire. This they found a few minutes later and cut their way

through it. Just barely visible, about fifty yards ahead of them, was a

watchtower, a silhouette faint against the night sky. Suddenly, from

somewhere to the right of the tower, a light went on, its beam probing

the darkness, sweeping past them, then returning. By then, they were

both flat on the ground. From the direction of the light, a shout:

"
Halt!
" Then, in German, "Stand up!"

Mercier and Marek looked at each other. In Marek's hands, a

Radom automatic, aimed toward the voice, and the light, which now

went out.
Stand up?
Mercier thought.
Surrender? A sheepish admis-

sion of who they were? Phone calls to the French embassy in Berlin?

As Marek watched, Mercier drew the pistol from his pocket and

braced it in the crook of his elbow. The light went on again, moving as

its bearer came toward them. It was Marek who fired first, but Mercier

was only an instant behind him, aiming at the light, the pistol bucking

twice in his hand. Then he rolled--fast--away from Marek, away

from the location of the shots. Out in the darkness, the light went off,

a voice said, "
Ach,
" then swore, and a responding volley snapped the

air above his head. Something stung the side of his face, and, when he

tried to aim again, the afterimages of the muzzle flares, orange lights,

floated before his eyes. He ran a hand over the skin below his temple

and peered at it; no blood, just dirt.

Silence. Mercier counted sixty seconds, seventy, ninety. The light

came back on, only for a second or two, aimed not at them but at the

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 71

H OT E L E U RO P E J S K I * 7 1

ground beneath it, then went off. Mercier thought he heard whispers,

and the faint sounds of people moving about. Was it possible they

were going to get away with this? Very cautiously, he began to slide

backward and Marek, when he saw what Mercier was doing, did the

same thing. Again they waited, three minutes, four. Then Mercier signaled to Marek:
move again
. Another ten yards, and they stopped

once more.

One last minute, then they rose to their feet and, crouched over,

went running back to Poland.

Mercier had planned to spend the night at a hotel in Katowice but

never gave it a second thought. When they reached the farm, they

climbed into the Buick and drove at speed, bumping and bouncing

over the rutted surface, turning the lights on only when they reached

the main road. Once they left Katowice and were back in the countryside, Marek said, "A close thing."

"Yes. We were lucky, I think."

"I wasn't going to let them take me, colonel."

Mercier nodded. He knew that Marek had been captured by the

Russians when he'd fought in the Polish Legion, under Pilsudski. Ten

hours only, but Marek never forgot what they did to him.

"There is one thing I want to ask you," Marek said. "Why did they

cover up their tank trap?"

"Maybe they changed their minds. Maybe it wasn't where they

wanted it. Maybe there's another one a few hundred yards north, who

can say, but that's the likely explanation. Or, if you wanted to think

another way, an army that's going to attack, with a tank force, will

get rid of the static defenses between them and the enemy border.

Because, then, they're in the way." Mercier's technical description

barely suggested what he feared. This was nothing less than preparation for war; a classic, telltale sign of planned aggression. The journalists could wring their hands from morning edition to night--War

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 72

7 2 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

is coming! War is coming!--but what he'd found in the darkness

wasn't opinion, it was an abandoned tank trap, defense put aside, and

what came next was offense, attack, houses burning in the night.

Marek didn't want to believe it. After a moment he said, "They

are coming this way, colonel, that is what you think, isn't it. German

tanks, moving onto Polish soil."

"God knows, I don't. Sometimes governments prepare to act, then

change their minds. The wire was still up."

"You'll report it, colonel?"

"Yes, Marek, that's what I do."

They drove all night long, Mercier taking a turn at the wheel for a

few hours. East of Koluszki, Marek driving again, a tire blew out and

they had to stop and change it, the iron wrench freezing their hands.

The sky was turning light as they drove into Warsaw, and when

Mercier let himself into the apartment, Wlada heard him walking

around and, frightened of a possible intruder, called out, "Colonel?"

"Yes, Wlada, it's me."

She opened the door of her room off the kitchen. "You are home

early," she said. "Thank God."

"Yes," he said. "I am. Go back to sleep."

He left his automatic pistol on the desk, now it would have to be

cleaned again. Then, as he took off his field clothing, he thought

about the letter in the drawer of his desk at the embassy, a letter

requesting transfer. That would have to be torn up.

The abandoned tank trap had worked on him--it wasn't much, as

evidence, would mean nothing to the lords of the General Staff, but it

had hit him a certain way and he could not let go of it. Then too, he

thought, settling the Barbour on its hanger, he might, if he stayed in

Warsaw, see Anna Szarbek again. See her alone, somewhere. An afternoon together. Surely he wanted to, maybe she did too.

From the other side of the apartment, Wlada called out to him.

"Good night, colonel."

Yes, dear Wlada, I am home and safe.
"Good night, Wlada. Sleep

well."

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 73

ON

HILL

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 74

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 75

7 November, 1937. The Polish Foreign Ministry, housed in an

elegant building on Saxon Square, held its autumn cocktail party in

the ministry library, removing the long polished tables, setting up

a bar--Polish vodka, French champagne, a tribute to the eternal

alliance--in front of the tall draped window at the end of the room. A

magnificent library. Ancient texts in leather-bound rows to the ceiling,

some of the works, in medieval Latin, on the national specialties,

mathematics and astronomy--Copernicus was there, among others--

at which their scholars had traditionally excelled. Always a crowd at

this party, the library's imposing gloom inducing serious, sometimes

elevated, conversation between the guests. And the fresh herring in

cream was exceptional. So transcendently good one might be mindful

of the country's right of access to the Baltic, up at Danzig.

The French contingent gathered at the embassy and departed in a

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 76

7 6 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

phalanx of Buicks, led by the ambassador and his wife, followed by

LeBeau, the charge d'affaires, then Jourdain, joining Mercier in his

car, with a splendid Marek in his most sober and official blue suit.

Last in line, the naval and air attaches.

In the library, a glittering crowd: medals galore, the uniforms of at

least eight armies and six navies. Mercier studied the faces of the

women in the room, more than one of them finding such attention not

unwelcome, but Anna Szarbek was nowhere to be found. The Biddles

were there--he the American ambassador, the couple highly visible

at the heights of the Warsovian social set--as well as the formidable

Hungarian, Colonel de Vezenyi, doyen of the city's military attaches,

accompanied by his mistress, the stunning Polish film star known as

Karenka. Mercier spent a few minutes with them, de Vezenyi infamous for his insight into the private lives of the diplomatic community. "And he was, I'm told, in the closet for two hours, trembling in his

underwear."

Mercier next found himself in the company of the Rozens, Viktor

and Malka, the former a minor bureaucrat in the commercial section of the Soviet embassy. Communists were rare in Poland; the internal security was famously relentless in hunting them down, so no

workers' marches, no petitions crying out for justice in wherever it

was that week. For a view of the world from that particular angle,

Mercier had to chat with the Rozens, or other available comrades,

whenever chance offered the opportunity. But he didn't mind; he liked

the Rozens.

How not? They were almost unbearably charming. Viktor Rozen,

half stooped from some childhood malady in Odessa, looked up at his

fellow humans, giving the fools among them the impression that they

were somehow above him. His wife was irresistibly warm and maternal, with a smile that lingered just at the edge of a laugh. What a pair!

At these affairs, always side by side--he with a monk's fringe of gray

hair, she much the taller and heavier of the two--twinkly-eyed Jewish

intellectuals, always eager to hear about your life. GRU, people said,

the Russian military intelligence service, not the thuggish NKVD, not

Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 77

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

the gentle Rozens. Was Malka Rozen the chief spy of the family, or

was that Viktor? Among local diplomats, opinion was divided.

"Tell me, dear colonel, how has life been treating you?" Viktor

Rozen said, his German softened by a Yiddish lilt.

"Very well, thank you. And yourselves?"

"Could be better, but I can't complain. But we were having a little

dispute just now, Malka and I."

"You?"

Malka's smile grew broader. "Only a little one."

"Perhaps you can decide it for us. We were wondering whatever

became of von Sosnowski."

"In prison in Germany, I believe," Mercier said. Von Sosnowski,

the center of what became known as "the von Sosnowski affair," a

handsome aristocratic Polish cavalry officer living in Berlin, had

recruited four or five beautiful German women, all of noble heritage.

First as mistresses, stupefied with love for him, and then as agents, to

spy on their employer, the German General Staff, where they, impoverished by the Great War, served as clerks.

"He was," Viktor said. "He surely was in prison, for life, poor

soul, but I've heard he's been let out."

"Of a German prison?" Malka said. "Never."

"But a little bird told me he'd been traded, for a German woman