The spies of warsaw Read online

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  a l s o b y a l a n f u rs t

  Night Soldiers

  Dark Star

  The Polish Officer

  The World at Night

  Red Gold

  Kingdom of Shadows

  Blood of Victory

  Dark Voyage

  The Foreign Correspondent

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  THE SPIES OF WARSAW

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  A N O V E L

  THE

  ALAN

  FURSTSPIES OF

  WARSAW

  b

  R A N D O M H O U S E

  N E W Y O R K

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  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some

  well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author's imagination and are not to be

  construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and

  dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict the actual

  events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance

  to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright (c) 2008 by Alan Furst

  Map copyright (c) 2008 by Anita Karl and Jim Kemp

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-1-58836-716-7

  www.atrandom.com

  v1.0

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  As looking at a portrait suggests the impression of the subject's destiny to the observer, so the map of France tells our

  own fortune. The body of the country has in its centre a

  citadel, a forbidding mass of age-old mountains, flanked by

  the tablelands of Provence, Limousin, and Burgundy; and,

  all around, vast slopes, for the most part difficult of access to

  anyone attacking them from the outside and split by the

  gorges of the Saone, the Rhone, and the Garonne, barred by

  the walls of the Jura Alps and the Pyrenees or else plunging

  in the distance into the English Channel, the Atlantic, or the

  Mediterranean; but in the Northeast, there is a terrible

  breach between the essential basins of the Seine and the

  Loire and German territory. The Rhine, which nature meant

  for the Gauls to have as their boundary and their protection,

  has hardly touched France before it leaves her and lays her

  open to attack.

  -- Ca p ta i n C h a r l e s d e G au l l e

  The Army of the Future, 1934

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  HOTEL

  EUROPEJSKI

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  In the dying light of an autumn day in 1937, a certain Herr

  Edvard Uhl, a secret agent, descended from a first-class railway carriage in the city of Warsaw. Above the city, the sky was at war; the last

  of the sun struck blood-red embers off massed black cloud, while the

  clear horizon to the west was the color of blue ice. Herr Uhl suppressed a shiver; the sharp air of the evening, he told himself. But this

  was Poland, the border of the Russian steppe, and what had reached

  him was well beyond the chill of an October twilight.

  A taxi waited on Jerozolimskie street, in front of the station. The

  driver, an old man with a seamed face, sat patiently, knotted hands at

  rest on the steering wheel. "Hotel Europejski," Uhl told the driver. He

  wanted to add, and be quick about it, but the words would have been

  in German, and it was not so good to speak German in this city. Germany had absorbed the western part of Poland in 1795--Russia ruled

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  4 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

  the east, Austria-Hungary the southwest corner--for a hundred and

  twenty-three years, a period the Poles called "the Partition," a time

  of national conspiracy and defeated insurrection, leaving ample bad

  blood on all sides. With the rebirth of Poland in 1918, the new borders

  left a million Germans in Poland and two million Poles in Germany,

  which guaranteed that the bad blood would stay bad. So, for a German visiting Warsaw, a current of silent hostility, closed faces, small

  slights: we don't want you here.

  Nonetheless, Edvard Uhl had looked forward to this trip for

  weeks. In his late forties, he combed what remained of his hair in

  strands across his scalp and cultivated a heavy dark mustache, meant

  to deflect attention from a prominent bulbous nose, the bulb divided

  at the tip. A feature one saw in Poland, often enough. So, an ordinarylooking man, who led a rather ordinary life, a more-than-decent life,

  in the small city of Breslau: a wife and three children, a good job--as

  a senior engineer at an ironworks and foundry, a subcontractor to the

  giant Rheinmetall firm in Dusseldorf--a few friends, memberships in

  a church and a singing society. Oh, maybe the political situation--that

  wretched Hitler and his wretched Nazis strutting about--could have

  been better, but one abided, lived quietly, kept one's opinions to oneself; it wasn't so difficult. And the paycheck came every week. What

  more could a man want?

  Instinctively, his hand made sure of the leather satchel on the seat

  by his side. A tiny stab of regret touched his heart. Foolish, Edvard,

  truly it is. For the satchel, a gift from his first contact at the French

  embassy in Warsaw, had a false bottom, beneath which lay a sheaf of

  engineering diagrams. Well, he thought, one did what one had to do,

  so life went. No, one did what one had to do in order to do what

  one wanted to do--so life really went. He wasn't supposed to be in

  Warsaw; he was supposed, by his family and his employer, to be in

  Gleiwitz--just on the German side of the frontier dividing German

  Lower Silesia from Polish Upper Silesia--where his firm employed a

  large metal shop for the work that exceeded their capacity in Breslau.

  With the Reich rearming, they could not keep up with the orders that

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  H OT E L E U RO P E J S K I * 5

  flowed from the Wehrmacht. The Gleiwitz works functioned well


  enough, but that wasn't what Uhl told his bosses. "A bunch of lazy

  idiots down there," he said, with a grim shake of the head, and found

  it necessary to take the train down to Gleiwitz once a month to

  straighten things out.

  And he did go to Gleiwitz--that pest from Breslau, back again!--

  but he didn't stay there. When he was done bothering the local management he took the train up to Warsaw where, in a manner of

  speaking, one very particular thing got straightened out. For Uhl, a

  blissful night of lovemaking, followed by a brief meeting at dawn, a

  secret meeting, then back to Breslau, back to Frau Uhl and his morethan-decent life. Refreshed. Reborn. Too much, that word? No. Just

  right.

  Uhl glanced at his watch. Drive faster, you peasant! This is an

  automobile, not a plow. The taxi crawled along Nowy Swiat, the

  grand avenue of Warsaw, deserted at this hour--the Poles went home

  for dinner at four. As the taxi passed a church, the driver slowed for

  a moment, then lifted his cap. It was not especially reverent, Uhl

  thought, simply something the man did every time he passed a church.

  At last, the imposing Hotel Europejski, with its giant of a doorman in visored cap and uniform worthy of a Napoleonic marshal.

  Uhl handed the driver his fare--he kept a reserve of Polish zloty in

  his desk at the office--and added a small, proper gratuity, then said

  "Dankeschon." It didn't matter now, he was where he wanted to be. In

  the room, he hung up his suit, shirt, and tie, laid out fresh socks and

  underwear on the bed, and went into the bathroom to have a thorough

  wash. He had just enough time; the Countess Sczelenska would arrive

  in thirty minutes. Or, rather, that was the time set for the rendezvous;

  she would of course be late, would make him wait for her, let him

  think, let him anticipate, let him steam.

  And was she a countess? A real Polish countess? Probably not, he

  thought. But so she called herself, and she was, to him, like a countess:

  imperious, haughty, and demanding. Oh how this provoked him, as

  the evening lengthened and they drank champagne, as her mood slid,

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  6 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

  subtly, from courteous disdain to sly submission, then on to breathless

  urgency. It was the same always, their private melodrama, with an

  ending that never changed. Uhl the stallion--despite the image in the

  mirrored armoire, a middle-aged gentleman with thin legs and potbelly and pale chest home to a few wisps of hair--demonstrably

  excited as he knelt on the hotel carpet, while the countess, looking

  down at him over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in mock surprise,

  deigned to let him roll her silk underpants down her great, saucy, fat

  bottom. Noblesse oblige. You may have your little pleasure, she

  seemed to say, if you are so inspired by what the noble Sczelenska

  bloodline has wrought. Uhl would embrace her middle and honor the

  noble heritage with tender kisses. In time very effective, such honor,

  and she would raise him up, eager for what came next.

  He'd met her a year and a half earlier, in Breslau, at a Weinstube where

  the office employees of the foundry would stop for a little something

  after work. The Weinstube had a small terrace in back, three tables

  and a vine, and there she sat, alone at one of the tables on the deserted

  terrace: morose and preoccupied. He'd sat at the next table, found her

  attractive--not young, not old, on the buxom side, with brassy hair

  pinned up high and an appealing face--and said good evening. And

  why so glum, on such a pleasant night?

  She'd come down from Warsaw, she explained, to see her sister, a

  family crisis, a catastrophe. The family had owned, for several generations, a small but profitable lumber mill in the forest along the eastern border. But they had suffered financial reverses, and then the

  storage sheds had been burned down by a Ukrainian nationalist gang,

  and they'd had to borrow money from a Jewish speculator. But the

  problems wouldn't stop, they could not repay the loans, and now that

  dreadful man had gone to court and taken the mill. Just like them,

  wasn't it.

  After a few minutes, Uhl moved to her table. Well, that was life for

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  H OT E L E U RO P E J S K I * 7

  you, he'd said. Fate turned evil, often for those who least deserved it.

  But, don't feel so bad, luck had gone wrong, but it could go right, it

  always did, given time. Ah but he was sympathique, she'd said, an aristocratic reflex to use the French word in the midst of her fluent German. They went on for a while, back and forth. Perhaps some day,

  she'd said, if he should find himself in Warsaw, he might telephone;

  there was the loveliest cafe near her apartment. Perhaps he would, yes,

  business took him to Warsaw now and again; he guessed he might be

  there soon. Now, would she permit him to order another glass of

  wine? Later, she took his hand beneath the table and he was, by the

  time they parted, on fire.

  Ten days later, from a public telephone at the Breslau railway station, he'd called her. He planned to be in Warsaw next week, at the

  Europejski, would she care to join him for dinner? Why yes, yes she

  would. Her tone of voice, on the other end of the line, told him all he

  needed to know, and by the following Wednesday--those idiots in

  Gleiwitz had done it again!--he was on his way to Warsaw. At dinner,

  champagne and langoustines, he suggested that they go on to a nightclub after dessert, but first he wanted to visit the room, to change

  his tie.

  And so, after the cream cake, up they went.

  For two subsequent, monthly, visits, all was paradise, but, it

  turned out, she was the unluckiest of countesses. In his room at the

  hotel, brassy hair tumbled on the pillow, she told him of her latest

  misfortune. Now it was her landlord, a hulking beast who leered at

  her, made chk-chk noises with his mouth when she climbed the stairs,

  who'd told her that she had to leave, his latest girlfriend to be installed

  in her place. Unless . . . Her misty eyes told him the rest.

  Never! Where Uhl had just been, this swine would not go! He

  stroked her shoulder, damp from recent exertions, and said, "Now,

  now, my dearest, calm yourself." She would just have to find another

  apartment. Well, in fact she'd already done that, found one even nicer

  than the one she had now, and very private, owned by a man in Cra-Furs_9781400066025_3p_all_r1.qxp 3/26/08 9:29 AM Page 8

  8 * T H E S P I E S O F WA R S AW

  cow, so nobody would be watching her if, for example, her sweet

  Edvard wanted to come for a visit. But the rent was two hundred zloty

  more than she paid now. And she didn't have it.

  A hundred reichsmark, he thought. "Perhaps I can help," he said.

  And he could, but not for long. Two months, maybe three--beyond

  that, there really weren't any corners he could cut. He tried to save a

  little, but almost all of his salary went to support his family. Still, he

  couldn't get the "hulking beast" out of his mind. Chk-chk.

  The blow fell a month later, the man in Cracow had to raise the

  r
ent. What would she do? What was she to do? She would have to stay

  with relatives or be out in the street. Now Uhl had no answers. But the

  countess did. She had a cousin who was seeing a Frenchman, an army

  officer who worked at the French embassy, a cheerful, generous fellow

  who, she said, sometimes hired "industrial experts." Was her sweet

  Edvard not an engineer? Perhaps he ought to meet this man and see

  what he had to offer. Otherwise, the only hope for the poor countess

  was to go and stay with her aunt.

  And where was the aunt?

  Chicago.

  Now Uhl wasn't stupid. Or, as he put it to himself, not that stupid. He

  had a strong suspicion about what was going on. But--and here he

  surprised himself--he didn't care. The fish saw the worm and wondered if maybe there might just be a hook in there, but, what a delicious worm! Look at it, the most succulent and tasty worm he'd ever

  seen; never would there be such a worm again, not in this ocean.

  So . . .

  He first telephoned--to, apparently, a private apartment, because

  a maid answered in Polish, then switched to German. And, twenty

  minutes later, Uhl called again and a meeting was arranged. In an

  hour. At a bar in the Praga district, the workers' quarter across the

  Vistula from the elegant part of Warsaw. And the Frenchman was, as

  promised, as cheerful as could be. Likely Alsatian, from the way he

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  H OT E L E U RO P E J S K I * 9

  spoke German, he was short and tubby, with a soft face that glowed

  with self-esteem and a certain tilt to the chin and tension in the upper

  lip that suggested an imminent sneer, while a dapper little mustache

  did nothing to soften the effect. He was, of course, not in uniform, but

  wore an expensive sweater and a blue blazer with brass buttons down

  the front.

  "Henri," he called himself and, yes, he did sometimes employ

  "industrial experts." His job called for him to stay abreast of developments in particular areas of German industry, and he would pay well

  for drawings or schematics, any specifications relating to, say, armament or armour. How well? Oh, perhaps five hundred reichsmark a

  month, for the right papers. Or, if Uhl preferred, a thousand zloty, or