The Spies of Warsaw

false bottom of his valise, take a taxi to Tempelhof airport, and fly to Le Bourget. A taxi ride to de Beauvilliers’s apartment in the Seventh Arrondissement, a report to be written, and then back to Warsaw. A job well done.

Or so he thought. In Warsaw, a hero’s welcome on Sienna street-where Anna went shopping and returned with the best Polish ham, rye bread from the Jewish bakery on Nalewki street, and a bottle of Roederer champagne. Then, later on, a black negligee, purchased for the hero’s return, which turned her shape into a pale image obscured by shadow-for as long as it stayed on. At the embassy, the following morning, again the hero. They didn’t know what he’d been doing, but they knew it was some sort of operation, and they could see he had returned safe and sound and in a good mood. “It went as you wished?” Jourdain said. Mercier said that it had, and Jourdain said, “Good to have you back.”

Over the next few days, perfectly content with meetings and paperwork, he waited for word from Paris. It came on a Monday, the eighth of May, a telephone call from General de Beauvilliers. A series of oblique pleasantries, “Overall, we are quite impressed here,” not much more than that, one had to be cautious with the telephone. And then, finally, “I’d very much like to have a talk with you, I wonder if you could come over here. I believe there’s an early flight in the morning.” Merely a suggestion, of course.

Mercier hung up and called Anna at the League office. “I’m flying to Paris tomorrow.”

A sigh. “Well, I hate to give you up. Is it for long?”

“A few days, perhaps.”

“But I’ll see you tonight.”

“You will, but that’s not why I called. Would you like to come along?”

“To Paris?” She said it casually, but there was delight in her voice. “Maybe I could. I’m supposed to be in Danzig on the tenth, but I can try to move it back.”

“Do what you can, Anna. There’s a LOT flight at eight-thirty. We can stay on the rue Saint-Simon, at the apartment. What do you think?”

“Paris? In May? I’ll just have to make the best of it, won’t I?”

9 May.

At five-thirty, he met with de Beauvilliers in an office at the Invalides, in the maze of the General Staff headquarters. Gray and Napoleonic as it was, the trees were in new leaf and birds sang away outside the window. “Surely you are the hero of the moment,” de Beauvilliers said. “I have to admit, the day we had lunch at the Heininger, I didn’t really believe it was possible, but you did it, my boy, you did it to perfection.”

“Some luck was involved. And, without Dr. Lapp-”

“Oh yes, I know, I know. Credit goes here and there, but we’ve broken into the I.N. Six, and we’ll go back for more.”

“Will you want me to handle the contact with Elter?”

“We’ll see. Anyhow I wanted to congratulate you, and I wanted to talk to you before your meeting with Colonel Bruner; he’s waiting for you in his office. First of all, you’re going to be promoted to full colonel.”

“Thank you, general.”

“Bruner will tell you again, so you’ll have to pretend to be surprised, but I wanted to be the one to give you the good news. And that isn’t all. You will want to think this over, but I’m requesting, officially, that you come here and work for me. It’s a small section, very quiet, but you’ll find people like yourself. And what we do is meaningful, sensitive, far beyond the usual staff drudgery. Does it appeal to you, colonel, work in the upper atmosphere?”

“It does. Of course it does.”

“Good, we’ll talk again, maybe tomorrow, but best go see Bruner and have your meeting.”

Mercier walked over to 2, bis, avenue de Tourville, then waited for fifteen minutes in Bruner’s reception before he was admitted to the inner sanctum. The colonel’s freshly shaved face glowed pink, and he sat at attention, puffed up to his grandest hauteur. “Ah, Mercier, here you are! A great success, our brightest star. Congratulations are certainly in order-bravo! There will be a promotion in it for you, you can depend on that, colonel.”

Mercier was dutifully surprised, and grateful.

“Yes, you’ve surely given us a view into the I.N. Six,” Bruner said. “We’ve had meeting after meeting, and we’re still working on the documents. This information will, believe me, be taken into account as we make our own plans.”

“That’s what I hoped for, colonel.”

“And so you should have. Of course, we do have to consider the possibility that we’re being misled.”

“Misled?”

“Well, it’s almost too good to be true, isn’t it. And a recruitment as well. No doubt the future material will support what we already have.”

“No doubt? Why do you say that, colonel?”

“The Germans are clever people, not in any way above misleading an opponent. It’s the oldest game in the world: guide your enemy away from your true intentions. Are you unable to look at it from that perspective?”

“I suppose I can, still …”

“Now see here, Mercier, nobody’s taking anything away from what you’ve done. You deserve credit for that, and, as a full colonel, you’ll have it. But you must accept that we have to take other possibilities into consideration, and that includes an Abwehr operation using rogue Nazis, supposedly rogue Nazis, to send us down the wrong path.”

Mercier worked hard to conceal his reaction from Bruner, but he failed. “Halbach was the real thing, Colonel Bruner.”

“Yes, so your report suggested, but how can you be sure? Was the Halbach you found the real Halbach? Or an Abwehr officer playing the role of Halbach? Well, I can’t pretend to know that for a certainty-can you?”

“Not for a certainty. Nothing is ever certain, particularly in this work.”

“Ah-ha! Now you’re on to the game! I’m not saying this is final, but it’s one view, and we would be negligent if we didn’t take it seriously. No? Not true?”

“Yes, sir,” Mercier said, now eager to be anywhere but Bruner’s office. “I understand.”

“I’m glad of that. We know you have ability, colonel, you are an excellent officer, that’s been proven. Surely wasted on an attache assignment in that Warsaw rats’ nest. General de Beauvilliers has asked for your transfer, and you can pretty much count on our agreement. Does that please you? Colonel?”

Mercier nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Well then, I won’t keep you. I expect you’d like to go out and celebrate.”

Mercier walked home through a rich spring afternoon, a Parisian spring, that mocked him in every way. Amid chestnut blossoms fallen on the sidewalk, the outdoor tables of a cafe were at full throb with city life-the lovers, with their hands on each other; conversing businessmen, afloat on a sea of genial commerce; the newspaper readers, solemn, intent on the politics of the day and a favored journalist’s acid comments; and the women, lovely in their spring outfits, alone with an aperitif, and perhaps, perhaps, available. A wondrous theatre, Mercier thought, each and every spring, now, next year, forever.

As he walked, his soldier’s heart steadied him. Bruner and his cronies, all the way up to Petain and his cronies, had denied him, would not have their version of military doctrine spoiled by what he’d learned-there would be no German tanks, no attack through the forests. The current thinking could not be wrong, because they could not be wrong.

Had they betrayed France? Or just betrayed Mercier? He would, in time, find a way to accept their decision and in the future, working for de Beauvilliers, he would certainly press on, trying to prove that his discovery had been true. That’s what an officer did, forever, down through the ages. If an attack failed, you gathered your remaining troops and attacked again. And again, until they killed you or you took their position. He knew no other way. Yes, he was angry, and stung. No, it didn’t matter. He could only remain true to himself, there was no other possibility.