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with
    saddle soap--Mercier always caught a whiff of it in Vyborg's presence, mixed with the smell of the little cigars he smoked.
    Vyborg was a senior officer in the intelligence service, the Oddzial
    II--the Deuxieme Bureau, named in the French tradition--of the Polish Army General Staff, known as the Dwojka, which meant "the
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    two." Vyborg worked in Section IIb, where they dealt with Austria,
    Germany, and France; Section IIa occupied itself with the country's
    primary enemies--thus the a --Russia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, and
    the Ukraine. Did Vyborg's section run agents on French territory?
    Likely they did. Did France do the same thing? Mercier thought so,
    but was kept ignorant of such operations, at any rate officially ignorant, but it was more than probable that the French SR, the Service des
    Renseignements , the clandestine service of the Deuxieme Bureau, did
    precisely that. Know your enemies, know your friends, avoid surprise
    at all costs. But the discovery of such operations, when they came to
    light, was always an unhappy moment. Allies were, for reasons of the
    heart more than the brain, supposed to trust each other. And when
    they demonstrably didn't, it was as though the state of the human
    condition had slipped a notch.
    "Have the last one," Vyborg said, refilling Mercier's coffee cup.
    "For you, Anton."
    "No, I must insist."
    Gracefully, Mercier acceded to diplomacy.
    Breakfast over, Vyborg lit one of his miniature cigars, and Mercier
    a Mewa--a Seagull--one of the better Polish cigarettes.
    "So," Vyborg said, "the Renault people will be here the day after
    tomorrow." A delegation of executives and engineers was scheduled to
    visit Warsaw, a step in the process of selling Renault tanks to the Polish army.
    "Yes," Mercier said, "we are ready for them. They're bringing a
    senator."
    "You'll be at the dinner?"
    From Mercier, a rather grim smile: no escape .
    Their eyes met, they had in common a distaste for the obligatory
    social engagements required for their work. "It will be very boring,"
    Vyborg said. "In case you were concerned."
    "I was counting on it."
    "You'll be accompanied?"
    Mercier nodded. With no wife or fiancee, he would be with the
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    deputy director of protocol at the embassy, who served as table partner to Mercier, and one other bachelor diplomat, when the need arose.
    "You've met Madame Dupin?"
    "I've had the pleasure," Vyborg said.
    "Where is it?"
    "We sent a note to your office," Vyborg said, one eyebrow arched.
    Don't you read your mail? "A private dining room at the Europejski,"
    Vyborg said. "They're going to watch a field maneuver earlier in the
    day, so they're sure to be exhausted, which will make the evening even
    more amusing. Then we're going on to a nightclub--the Adria, of
    course--for dancing until dawn."
    "I can't wait," Mercier said.
    "It's obligatory. When the purchasing delegation went to Renault
    in Paris, they were taken to some naughty cancan place--they're still
    talking about it--so . . ."
    "Will you buy anything?"
    "We shouldn't, but there's always a possibility. They want to sell
    us the R Thirty-five, which was demonstrated when the delegation visited the factory. This visit is supposed to close the deal."
    "The R Thirty-five isn't so bad." Mercier, officially loyal to the
    national industries, had to say that and Vyborg knew it. "For infantry
    support."
    Vyborg shrugged. "A thirty-seven-millimeter cannon, one machine
    gun. And they only go twelve miles an hour, with a range of eighty
    miles. The armour's thick enough, but you don't get much machine
    for the money. Truthfully, if it wasn't French, we wouldn't bother, but
    this is up to Smigly-Rydz's office." He meant the inspector general of
    the Polish army. "And they may have to bow to political pressure, so,
    potentially, our tank