Alan Furst - The Spies of Warsaw

“I am sorry to hear that, but perhaps it’s for the best. This kind of behavior can’t be tolerated.”

“Not by me, it can’t.”

A growing silence, end of conversation. Willi stood and considered a Heil Hitler, but sensed that Gluck was one of those officers indifferent to such gestures, so squared his shoulders, came to attention, and saluted with his voice. “Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer.”

“You are dismissed, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer,” Gluck said. “I will need to use the telephone.”

21 April, 10:15 A.M.

Tesin railway station. Halbach was prompt to the moment, the remnants of his fugitive life in a cheap suitcase, briefcase clamped beneath his arm. Then the two of them, the French aristocrat and the Nazi professor, boarded the 10:32 train to Prague. It would not be a long trip, just over an hour, but time Mercier meant to use, if he could find a vacant compartment. This was, with a tip to the conductor, available, and, as the train got under way, Halbach wondered aloud why they were going to Prague.

“In Prague there is a certain photographic studio, run by a discreet gentleman, who will take your passport picture. The service is expensive, but the photograph will be properly affixed to your new passport. It is a service much in demand, lately.”

“I’ve known such people,” Halbach said.

“Also in Prague, a private bank-a very private bank-called Rosenzweig, principally a Jewish bank. Does that offend you, Herr Halbach?”

“Not at all, I don’t care about the Jews. Hitler’s a fanatic on the subject, and, time was, we thought that might be the end of him, but to date he has his way with them.”

“The Rosenzweig Bank will accept your Swiss francs, no questions asked, and transmit them to a numbered account at a bank in Zurich.” Mercier reached into his pocket and withdrew a slip of paper on which he’d copied, very carefully, the number sent to him by de Beauvilliers. “You’ll want to keep that safe, and I would memorize it as well, because this is an anonymous account. Similar arrangements have been made for your friend Elter.”

“When will I have the passport?”

Mercier handed it over. “A new life,” he said.

“As Herr Braun, I see.”

“A common name.”

“My fifth or sixth. It will serve.”

“Do you have a family, Herr Halbach?”

“I did. A wife and child.”

“They can travel with you, on this passport.”

“No, that’s finished, that part of my life. After the murders of ‘thirty-four I had to go underground, so I sent them away. For safety’s sake I no longer know where they are, nor do they know where I am. Whatever might happen to me, I could not bear the idea that they would share my fate.”

“And Sergeant Elter?”

“He does have a family: a wife, three children.”

“You knew him well?”

“Well enough. When you work secretly, there is endless time to kill, waiting for this, waiting for that, so people talk. He’s a common enough fellow, Pomeranian by birth, a steady family man. Perhaps his single distinction is a commitment to politics-he loved the party, it was a second home to him. It meant, to Elter, the raising up of a defeated nation, the return of pride, the end of poverty. Poverty is a dreadful business, Herr Lombard, a bitter thing, and particularly hard on those who’ve known better times. Every day, a small humiliation. It is, to the French, la misere, the misery, and that’s the proper word. Elter was an idealist, as was I, but it did not destroy him. He escaped, because he never held a high position in the Front. And he was never betrayed.”

“Still, he could be, no?”

“I suppose it’s possible. Under interrogation a fellow member might say his true name, but there are not many left who know it, I’m one of the last.”

“You may have to remind him of that, Herr Halbach.”

Perhaps Halbach believed he would be asking a favor of his former comrade, but now the price of Swiss francs had been quoted. “Tell me about him,” Mercier said.

“In his forties, precise, finicky. Bald, with a monk’s fringe, eyeglasses, not at all remarkable, the office clerk. Much absorbed in hobbies, as I recall, stamp and coin collections, model trains, that sort of thing.”

“Perhaps a dog? He walks at night?”

“He had a bird. A little green thing-he would whistle to make it sing.”

“You last saw him when?”

“A year ago, he came to Czechoslovakia to report to Otto-they’d discovered a spy in the organization. Two of our people almost arrested by the Gestapo. They shot through the door, the Gestapo shot back, and taunted them as they died.”

“How did he know that?”

“A neighbor.”

“Was Elter in the war?”

“Not in combat. He was a supply clerk, in the rear echelon. And a clerk he remains at the General Staff office, in charge of buying paper and pencils, typewriter ribbons, paper clips, and what have you, and keeping track of it all. They may be Germany’s great warriors, on the Bendlerstrasse, but, if they want a pencil, they must ask little Elter.”

“Does he gamble, perhaps? Visit prostitutes?”

“Gamble? Never, he pinches every pfennig. As for prostitutes, maybe now and then, when things are difficult at home.”

“Herr Halbach, here is an important question: do you believe he will cooperate with you, as an old friend, seeking his help?”

Halbach took his time, finally saying, “There must be a better reason, I fear.”

“Then we will provide one,” Mercier said.

The photography studio was in a quiet residential district, a small shop, dark inside, with a little bell that jingled merrily when the door was opened. Inside, painted canvas flats with a hole for the jocular customer’s head, allowing him to be photographed as a golfer, a clown, or a racing car driver. Halbach’s photo was added to the passport in an office at the back of the shop, where a radio at low volume played a Mozart symphony. It was a well-used passport, with several entry and exit stamps, that gave the bearer’s profession as “sales representative” and so completed Halbach’s cover identity. Mercier was relieved to see that the photographer worked with infinite care, consulting a notebook that specified the proper form for every sort of document used by the the nations of the continent. When the job was done, the man addressed Halbach as Herr Braun and wished him good luck.

Next, a men’s clothing store where Halbach was outfitted, the sort of suit, hat, and raincoat appropriate for a representative of the fine old Solvex-Duroche company. He now looked prosperous, but he was still Julius Halbach, not only homely but distinctive. Mercier fretted over this but could do nothing. False beard? Wig? Tinted spectacles? No, theatrical disguises would make Halbach look like a spy, surely the last thing Mercier wanted.

The people at the bank, a large room on the fourth floor of a commercial building, were genteel and all business-this was simply the transmission of currency, and Mercier suspected it went on all day long. They did not ask to see a passport, simply wrote out a receipt, having deducted their commission from the amount to be wired. As Mercier and Halbach descended in the elevator, Mercier handed over a hundred reichsmark, to use as pocket money, and told Halbach to rip up the receipt and, when opportunity provided a trash can, to throw it away. After lunch, they took the train back to Tesin, then crossed easily into Poland. There followed another train ride, to Katowice, where they stayed at the railway hotel.

On the morning of 23 April, a taxi took them to the outskirts of the city, where, at a garage that was little more than an old shed, Mercier bought a car. Not new, but well cared for, a 1935 Renault Celtaquatre, a two-door saloon model. Not too bad from the front-a fancy grille-but the bulbous passenger compartment ruined the look of the thing. “Very practical,” the garageman said, “and the engine is perfect.” Mercier drove around the corner and removed the last two items from beneath the false bottom of his valise: a Swiss license plate and the accompanying registration. After changing plates-he had to work at the rusty screws with a coin-they drove into Germany.