The Spies of Warsaw

safety of her room. “Go run a bath, Wlada, hot water, as hot as you can get it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wlada ran ahead of them into the bathroom. Malka and Mercier held Viktor up between them. He was singing again, a children’s song. “What’s wrong with him?” Malka said, horrified.

“It’s the cold.”

When they reached the bathroom off Mercier’s bedroom, Wlada was already on her knees, finger under a stream of steaming water. “Get his clothes off,” Mercier said. As Malka began to unknot Viktor’s tie, Wlada fled.

“She is very nervous, your maid.”

“She’ll survive. Tell me what happened.”

“Someone at the embassy, a friend, a friend from the old days, suddenly wouldn’t talk to me. But it was in his eyes-he’d been questioned, I could feel it. So I knew. Then, tonight, we stayed late, but there were people in the file room, security people, and all I could do was look at one of my own operations, where I’m permitted to look, and then I went and got Viktor, and we left. As we walked down the street to our building, we saw one of their cars, so we went into a little grocery store, where we always shop, and left by the back door. Nothing new to us, conspirative work….”

“Were you able to take anything from the embassy? From the files?”

“Yes, it’s hidden in our room. But they’ll find it soon enough.”

“What sort of-” In the study, the whirring ring of the telephone.

“Go ahead, colonel,” Malka said. “I’ll get him into the tub.”

In the study, Mercier stared at the telephone for a moment, looked at his watch, ten-thirty, then picked up the receiver and, voice tentative, said, “Hello?”

“Hello, Jean-Francois, it’s me.” She paused, then said, “Anna.”

“Are you allright?”

“Is it too late to call? You sound … distracted.”

“No, some excitement here, but nothing to worry about.” There’s a naked Russian spy in my bathtub, otherwise …

“Well, it’s done. I came back on Thursday, and I’ve found a place to live. A room and a little kitchen, over on Sienna street. Seventeen Sienna street. Not much, but all I could afford.”

“Don’t worry about money, Anna.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have called, you sound-maybe not a good time to talk?” In her voice, suspicion: who are you with?

“I’ll explain later, it’s only work, but, ah, very unexpected.”

“I see. It wasn’t so good with Maxim. A lot of shouting, but I suppose I knew that would happen.”

“I can’t blame him. He’s losing a lot. A lot.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Can I telephone you at work? Tomorrow morning?”

“You still have the number?”

“Anna!”

“Very well, then. Tomorrow.”

“I can’t come over there right now. I want to, you don’t know how much, but I have to take care of this- situation.”

Her voice softened. “I can imagine.”

He laughed. “When I tell you, you’ll realize there’s no way you could have imagined. Anyhow, you’re my love, and I’ll call you, see you, tomorrow.”

“Good night, Jean-Francois.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes. Good night.”

Mercier returned to the bathroom. The door was closed. “Do you need anything?” he said, his voice rising above the running water.

“No,” Malka said. “He’s taking a bath.”

Mercier went back to the study, looked in his address book, and dialed Jourdain’s number at home. The phone rang for a long time before it was answered. Finally, Jourdain’s voice. “Yes?”

“Armand, it’s Jean-Francois. Sorry to call you so late.”

“I don’t mind.”

“The meeting with the ambassador-is it still at eight-thirty?”

“It is, in my office.”

“There was some talk of moving it to nine-thirty.”

“No, eight-thirty, bright and early.”

“Very well, I’ll see you then. Sorry if I disturbed you.”

“Don’t be concerned. Good night, Jean-Francois.”

There was no meeting. The telephone call was a signal-operations could now begin to take two Russian spies out of Poland.

1:45 A.M.

Outside, the silence of a winter night, so cold that frost flowers whitened the windows of the study. Viktor Rozen, now apparently recovered, sat near the fire, wearing Mercier’s bathrobe, his heaviest sweater, and two pairs of his socks. He warmed his hands around a glass of hot tea laced with brandy, sipping it Russian-style, through a cube of sugar held between his teeth. Malka sat by his side, smoking one cigarette after another.

“There wasn’t much to do with France,” Viktor said. “Our agents in Polish factories reported on armaments produced under French license, and we tried to reach your diplomats….” Both Rozens gave Mercier a glance. And you see how that turned out.

“Our own operations worked against the Poles,” Malka said. “A major on the General Staff, a director of the telephone company, maids at the hotels, a few factory workers. And significant penetration of the socialist parties-Moscow Center is obsessed with this, so that’s where we spent money.”

“What were the maids doing?” Mercier asked.

“Going through briefcases. Foreign diplomats, businessmen, anyone important. Including the Renault delegation from Paris, back in October. One of them kept a diary, foolish man, a, how shall I say, a very frank diary. His conquests.”

“Did you use it? Against him?”

“Who knows, what Moscow does. We just sent the photographs of the pages.”

“Well, try to remember the name-you’ll go through all that in Paris,” Mercier said.

“When do we leave?” Viktor said.

“Tomorrow,” Mercier said. “That is, today.”

“They’ll be watching everywhere,” Viktor said. “You’d better be armed.”

“Don’t worry, we’re prepared for, eventualities.”

“I hope so,” Malka said.

They sat for a time and watched the fire, logs glowing red, a fire-fall of sparks. Viktor said, “Mostly, we did what everyone does-war plans, arms production, political personalities, border defenses.” He shrugged. “I doubt it’s very much different from what you do, colonel.”

Mercier nodded-that was likely true. “Any German networks?”

“Quite a number of them,” Malka said. “But we didn’t handle them. That was the preserve of the elite.”

“Not you?”

She smiled. “Once upon a time, a few years ago, but the Jews in the service aren’t so favored, these days. They no longer trust us, the Old Bolsheviks-look what they were going to do to Viktor and me. Don’t tell the world, but Stalin’s just as bad as Hitler.”

“Why not tell the world?”

“Because they won’t believe it, dear colonel.” She threw the end of her cigarette into the fire and lit a new one.