Pathway to Japanese Literature

1

The Russo-German international liaison train cut through the Polish wilderness as it raced straight toward Berlin.

In the early summer of 1911, as it left the Russian border behind and approached that area, a vast green carpet spread out on both sides of the train windows.
The wind carried the fragrance of plants, refreshing and pleasant.
The young Russian Ruof Melikov—who had reserved an entire first-class compartment while rushing from Moscow to Paris—found his nostrils tickled by the plant's scent. When he looked out the window, instead of the desolate scenery that had stretched before, there now lay well-tended farmland.
Rows of white poplars and red-tiled farmhouses stood there.
This was the realm of Western Europe.
Melikov luxuriated in the train's speed, utterly entranced.

After making a brief stop at Posen Station and starting again, shortly thereafter came the sound of a man and woman arguing in the corridor outside his compartment—prompting Melikov to peer out and look.
The conductor was vulgarly berating an elegantly dressed woman in her mid-twenties—who had apparently boarded at Posen—over some matter.
The woman wasn’t backing down either.
There had apparently been some mix-up with her ticket, and the compartment she was supposed to have reserved wasn’t available.
In a tone characteristic of a pampered noblewoman, the woman was fiercely berating the conductor.

“I just bought this ticket at Posen, but three hours ago when this train was stopped two or three stations ahead, I had them call from the station to reserve a compartment.”
“See? It’s all clearly written here—from the train number down to the compartment number.”

“Even if you say that, it’s full—there’s nothing to be done.”

“‘It can’t be helped,’ you say? Then what do you propose to do?”
“Do you mean to leave me standing here?”
“You’re treating me like an utter fool.”

“Don’t be ridiculous."
“You can’t just stand there—you’re in the way.”
“You’ll get off at the next station.”

“What did you just say?”

“What nonsense. You’re getting off at the next station, I said.”
“I said get off at the next station.”

“How dare you be so rude!”
“Tell me your name. I’ll have you reported.”

It all began with such exchanges, and now the conductor was wielding his authority as he bellowed.
The woman seized the moment to burst into hysterical tears.
Because it was such a commotion, even Melikov couldn’t remain silent.
The conductor’s manner of speaking was quite overbearing, and Slavs are hot-blooded by nature.
Flaring up, though no one had asked him, he rushed out to aid the woman.

“Conductor, you don’t know how to address a lady passenger. This is inexcusably rude! Once you realize it’s a ticket mix-up, even if you can’t resolve it fully, shouldn’t you at least attempt to arrange a compartment? Come now—there’s no need for you to cry so much.” Shielding the woman, he glared daggers at the conductor.

Countess von Linden—a female state detective directly affiliated with the German government residing on Dorotheen Street in Berlin—had been handed an order from the foreign affairs authorities four days earlier.

Today, four days later, a diplomatic courier transporting important secret documents from the Russian Foreign Ministry to the Russian ambassador stationed in Paris would pass through via the Russo-German international liaison train.
A diplomatic courier carries on their person diplomatic materials of importance that cannot be sent through the mail.
They’re something like swift couriers—every country employs them as needed.
Ciphers are meant to be changed frequently, but since new keywords and such cannot be sent via registered mail or similar methods, diplomatic couriers are selected to personally undertake the task of delivery.
They are not a standing force.
Generally, they send young diplomats—not even secretaries—for this purpose.

Now, this communiqué from the German Foreign Ministry was what the female spy Countess von Linden had received.
A Russian diplomatic courier carrying a secret missive from the court of Nicholas Romanov to the embassy in Paris would pass through Germany.
The spy’s role regarding this matter was understood without a word being spoken.
Countess von Linden knew exactly what needed to be done.

At that moment, when she looked at the "written profile"—which the head of the intelligence division had silently handed to her after plucking it from a meticulously categorized bookshelf—

Ruof Melikov—32 years old, a White Russian Tatar.
Greek Orthodox.
Former Imperial Guard Company Commander.
Fluent in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish; with some understanding of Burmese.
His brother was a trader residing in Burma.
Melikov was known as an anti-Germanist.
He also detested Britain and America.
His character was prone to superstition; regarding his own religion, ideology, and convictions, he stood as an absolute fanatic.
He was easily moved to passion and partial to feminine charms.
Chivalrous.
Brave.
Impervious to bribery.
With characteristic German thoroughness, every minute detail had been scrutinized.
For understanding this diplomatic courier's profile, such preliminary intelligence sufficed.
Having internalized it all, Countess von Linden completely adopted "the role of a pampered noblewoman" and boarded at Posen Station along the route.

With that settled—since a formidable-looking gentleman had intervened on behalf of the detained woman—the conductor abruptly backed down, bringing the matter to a swift conclusion.
Through Melikov’s intervention, a compartment was finally arranged.
Countess von Linden was as delighted as if she had met Buddha in hell—or rather, God, since this was the West.
Overwhelmed with delight, she said:

“If you find yourself with any leisure time in Berlin, please do stop by—even for a moment.”
She handed him an elegant business card embossed with a crest. “My husband will surely wish to meet you properly to express his gratitude—if you do stop by.”

It was a dinner invitation.
She was a graceful woman.
Because she kept emphatically referring to "my husband," Melikov felt reassured—if she had a husband, then all was well.
However, he hadn't exactly promised to visit.

On that train, besides Countess von Linden, another German intelligence operative had already boarded and been keeping watch over Melikov.
That unhelpful conductor was him.
Everything had been properly arranged.
The argument had been staged.

Of course, the plan was to proceed directly to Paris.
There was a transfer in Berlin.
While waiting for the connecting train in Berlin during this layover, Melikov recalled the young countess with whom he had just disembarked and parted ways.
He hadn’t exactly promised to visit.
Staying overnight in Berlin would be acceptable.
Moreover, since she had a husband and was a woman of status, there shouldn’t be any significant impropriety in paying a visit.
The Countess had already imprinted such allure upon him.
She was a beautiful woman.
Parting with a handshake in the station’s bustle like that felt rather unsatisfying.
After somehow convincing himself through various rationalizations, Melikov dropped off his suitcase at the hotel.
Before long, this thirty-two-year-old White Russian Tatar—Greek Orthodox, former Imperial Guard company commander, superstitious fanatic prone to emotional fervor, chivalrous and brave with no prospect of bribery—stood at the entrance of the Dorotheen Street residence, smiling amiably.
When he arrived, to his surprise, the beautiful Countess von Linden was on the verge of tears.
She explained that a relative in Stuttgart had fallen critically ill and that her husband—the Count—had just rushed there.
Since she showed him the telegram, the chivalrous Melikov took it all at face value.
Though the husband was away, he couldn’t simply leave, so it was decided he would stay and enjoy himself at leisure.
Before long, dinner was served.
On the table were delicious food, fine wine, and the Countess’s charm.
Wine and spirits.
He drank heartily.
That description had lacked one crucial detail.

His Excellency the Former Imperial Guard Company Commander was a fierce drinker. Countess von Linden thought it necessary to insert a clause stating he drank alcohol as a fish drinks water. He simply wouldn't get drunk. His mind remained sharp, and every now and then, as if suddenly remembering something, he would quietly slip one hand beneath the table to press or stroke the area around his abdomen over his tunic. So he's wearing the secret stomach band there, the Countess noted to herself, discreetly keeping a watchful eye from her side.

They redoubled their efforts to get him drunk.

They redoubled their efforts to get him drunk, but no effect was apparent.
There was no helping it.
To put this man to bed, they needed stronger liquor.
A quick exchange of glances passed between Countess von Linden and the butler serving them.
From the next bottle of spirits brought out, the Countess discreetly ensured only he was urged to drink while she merely pretended to partake.
Within thirty minutes, they had fashioned a living corpse of a Greek Orthodox believer.
They gently carried the utterly overwhelmed and limp fanatic up to the Countess’s bedroom.
The nimble-fingered specialist spy who had been waiting in another room was summoned and promptly began examining Melikov’s body.
Melikov had brought along a bulging briefcase that looked important—keeping it near his feet throughout the meal—but it was surely stuffed with old newspapers meant to divert attention.
The spies ignored such decoys.
Under the Countess’s direction, they swiftly unfastened the abdominal clasps.
As expected, he wore a sturdy leather belt directly against his skin.
There was a pocket.
Though secured with a special lock, the spy skilled in manual work deftly opened it without damaging the mechanism and extracted the documents.
After photographing them in the basement, they immediately returned the papers to Melikov’s pocket, relocked it, and refastened his clothing buttons as before.
Melikov remained deep in slumber.

2

What exactly these documents extracted from Melikov’s stomach band and photographed were remains unclear even now, though some accounts assert they contained the sensational full text of a secret Russo-French treaty.
However, it is said that because of this, during the European Great War, Russia found itself strategically outmaneuvered against Germany.

Aihirer, one of the intelligence operatives, was also stationed at the Dorotheen Street house that night.
While the others took the documents extracted from the belt to the basement for photography, Aihirer kept watch over Melikov lying unconscious on the bed.
All of Melikov's belongings had been removed from his clothing and arranged on a small table beside him.
Aihirer, wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, was inspecting each item when his eyes suddenly fell upon Melikov's fountain pen.
It was conspicuously thicker than necessary.
When he disassembled it with suspicion, a secret letter—written in fine script on premium Japanese tissue paper and tightly rolled—emerged from where the ink tank should have been.
This too was promptly photographed and returned to the fountain pen.
At the time they hadn't fully understood its significance, but this turned out to be the cipher key needed to decrypt the main text extracted from the leather belt—without it, that extraordinarily complex ciphertext would have remained utterly unreadable.
It was for this feat that Aihirer's name became remembered among Germany's spies.
After restoring all belongings to their original positions and the departure of every spy except the Countess, Melikov gradually regained consciousness.
Finding himself lying on the bed with Countess von Linden smiling sweetly beside him, he started in surprise and attempted to sit up when—

“Oh, you’re awake? You fell asleep at the table, so I had you brought here. You slept quite soundly.”

Startled, Melikov hurried to the bathroom and quickly checked his belongings. The pocket of his stomach band remained securely locked, with everything exactly in its place.
Finding nothing missing nor any signs of tampering, he returned to the bedroom relieved—only to discover the beautiful Countess von Linden changing into her nightclothes while emanating an intense allure.

However, Melikov must have harbored considerable suspicion within.
With no concrete evidence and himself complicit in the shadowy reception, he arrived in Paris feigning ignorance—but upon reporting to the embassy to fulfill his duties as a diplomatic courier, he vanished without a trace.

After that, the Great War began.
Russia would meet such a fate.
They likely never searched for Melikov’s whereabouts, but the reason he suddenly vanished was later revealed through the confession of the extraordinary female spy Mata Hari—also known as Countess von Linden—after her execution.

The famous dancer-spy Mata Hari, who operated against the backdrop of World War I, stood as the crowning episode among those accompanying the war.

The resounding roar of artillery served as the accompaniment to this story.
The sky-rending roar of bombers reverberated through every page.
The radios of various nations relentlessly pursued Mata Hari’s capture, blaring like burning lamps.
With just one of her reports, submarines kicked up from the seabed and surfaced in the dead of night.
The steel monster that first appeared at the time—the super-dreadnought tank *Maaku IX*—also dominated this entire narrative with its overwhelming bulk and fangs of gunfire.

From generals, staff officers, and army ministers occupying key positions to a crown prince and even two emperors—all were made to dance to the rustle of garments trailing behind the delicate beauty Mata Hari as she moved among them.

Mata Hari—according to the “legend” she herself favored—was an Oriental of demonic disposition.
Born an innate vamp in Central India, she secluded herself in a secret temple sanctuary to master the art of enthralling men before abruptly emerging into a Europe roiling with turmoil. Wielding her bewitching beauty, uncanny charisma, and sensual figure as weapons, she ensnared countless figures occupying seats of political power—and when war came, even vast armies like clouds were driven to their graves in an instant by a single stratagem of hers. To hear this told, Mata Hari seems a figure of wondrous legend—yet in truth, Mata Hari was an utterly ordinary woman.
She possessed no special talents beyond her seductive body and face.
Indeed, it could be said that precisely because she was merely a beautiful yet ordinary woman, she was able to accomplish such daring feats.

Mata Hari was a crucial component of that colossal secret apparatus known as the German spy organization, which, in the midst of World War I, devised strategies and fought with every ounce of modern intelligence at its disposal.
To recount the life of Mata Hari here must be a recollection as vivid as today's sun, hinting at complexities akin to modernity itself, yet resplendent enough to evoke the Arabian Nights.

There exists a so-called autobiography of Mata Hari.
According to this, she was born in Cirebon, Java, to a wealthy Dutch banker and a mother renowned as a famous Javanese beauty.
At fourteen she was sent to India to become a priestess at a mystic temple, destined to dance before the gods as a chaste virgin for life.
The name Mata Hari was bestowed by ascetics who praised her beauty—it meant “the eye of dawn.”
When this “Eye of Dawn” turned sixteen, Lord Campbell MacRae—a Scottish nobleman commanding India’s garrison headquarters—saw her dancing at an altar and secretly spirited her from the temple.
Lord and Lady MacRae maintained their lavish Indian lifestyle while raising two children until tragedy struck: A native gardener poisoned their eldest son out of obsessive love for Mata Hari—who then shot him dead with her husband’s pistol.
This scandal forced their hasty return to Europe.
Their marriage collapsed upon arrival.
After entrusting her daughter to a convent and securing divorce papers,Mata Hari sought independence across fin-de-siècle Europe—a deceptive calm before war’s tempest.

Regarding that time, Mata Hari wrote as follows.

“In the end, I resolved to take the European stage with the dances I had danced and mastered in Indian temple sanctuaries, striving to introduce the mystical Eastern soul.”

Then came the time when she was performing at the Berlin Theater.
At the request of a senior government official, she became both a hostess at banquets and—as a dancer—was tasked with entertaining the Russian Ambassador then staying in Berlin.
For this purpose, Mata Hari was provided with a lavish house on Dorotheen Street, where she first began styling herself as Countess von Linden and continued residing in that mansion.

Thus, Mata Hari found herself ensnared—without knowing exactly when—by the German intelligence apparatus, an iron door that, once peered into, permitted no exit save through death.

“As Countess von Linden, I realized for the first time that I had been working as a spy for the German Empire without conscious intent.”
“And I even began to feel interest as I realized it was work best suited to my nature.”

Mata Hari wrote this confessional autobiography in prison awaiting the day of her execution. Psychologically speaking, this was a situation where one could expect nothing but facts—and strictly factual ones at that—from that pen. Nevertheless, given that she engaged in professional espionage not out of patriotic sentiment but merely for monetary gain, she must have been a congenital liar. It appears that through the experience of being a spy who lived by falsehoods itself, she had further honed her craft, and telling falsehoods had become second nature to Mata Hari. This so-called deathbed autobiography of hers—still believed by some as the "Legendary Mata Ari"—was entirely fabricated.

From start to finish, she was a fraud.

However, her being an extraordinary beauty was no legend.
This alone was reality.

Her limbs rounded and delicately undulating, her height nearing six feet—she embodied the mermaid of warm seas as conceived by Western sensualists. She went so far as to proclaim herself a half-breed of Indian descent. Perhaps there had been Black ancestry mixed into her lineage—her sun-kissed amber skin further enhanced her allure and provoked others' curiosity. Large hazel eyes emitted a languid glow. An ambiguous smile drifted across strong lips. An expression blended eroticism and cruelty.

3

In short, she was a pawn.
Mata Hari’s expertise lay solely in manipulating men’s desires—she was nothing but a lewd and ordinary woman—yet it goes without saying that the German spy apparatus operating behind this ordinary Mata Hari was anything but ordinary.
It was this apparatus that had utilized Mata Hari on such a grand scale.
A courtesan-like beauty moved from border to border as a smiling spy.

It was wartime.
It had even become a historical episode.

When educational system reforms occurred in Turkey and a committee was established, their first step became sending 150 Turkish students abroad for study.
With selections completed, the next stage—determining where to send them—proved problematic.
Opinions diverged endlessly, with no resolution in sight.

Amidst the commotion, Britain, France, and Germany—the so-called three advanced nations—each desiring to attract these students to their own countries, began presenting favorable terms and launching self-promotions. There erupted a ferocious competition for students akin to hotel touts vying for patrons.

At first glance, it might seem inconsequential wherever Turkish students chose to study abroad in relation to Europe's balance of power—but that was not the case.
This was because, though they were now mere students, each one was a handpicked elite scholar.
For when these students returned after studying abroad—having mastered political science, economics, engineering, and all manner of specialized fields at foreign universities—they would stand at the vanguard of Turkish reform, steering national policy as ministers and councilors to drive Turkey forward. Thus where these scholars studied now essentially determined whether Turkey ten or twenty years hence would be painted in British hues, tinged with French tints, or shaded German—in short, it decided the future of relations with Turkey at this very moment.
The three nations—each planning to expand investments and develop trade routes centered on Turkey and the Near East—naturally entered into fierce competition as they all insisted, “They must come to our country.”

However, with Germany’s position deteriorating, all exchange students were likely to be snatched away by Britain and France.
This became a matter affecting Germany’s vaunted cultural prestige.
The government grew increasingly desperate.
Through various probes, it emerged that Prince Abbas Nuri—an Egyptian royal then staying in Paris with ties to Egypt’s Governor-General and an ardent anglophile-francophile—held absolute sway over Turkey’s Education Reform Committee, steering the majority toward Britain and France.

The exchange students had already been allocated to universities in two countries—Britain and France—and were steadily making preparations for their departure.
It was March 1912.

Then, a report raced from spies in Paris to Berlin.
It appeared His Highness Prince Abbas Nuri—rushing from Paris to Constantinople to settle the student exchange matter—would pass through Berlin and stay there for two or three days.
With seduction deemed their optimal tactic, an order was issued to Mata Hari on Dorotheen Street.

If this were a Japanese melodrama, it would be the moment when a thoroughly informed tough madam—fresh from bathing and seated before the vanity—bares her skin and embarks on an elaborate makeup application.
She stood poised and ready.

A full government reception.
The Egyptian flag.
A military band and honor guard.
Heightened security.
The photography team—despite this being an unofficial trip—found Berlin Station in tremendous commotion upon arrival. His Highness Prince Abbas Nuri wondered in amazement how they had discovered his itinerary.
Yet being welcomed so lavishly wasn’t unpleasant to him.
As a Eurasian heiress and brilliant dancer, Mata Hari was introduced to His Highness at the inaugural dinner party.

The rest was straightforward.
Proceeding according to plan, Mata Hari’s seductive charm drew His Highness to her Dorotheen Street residence.
Her allure pulled him past the parlor and into her bed.

Prince Abbas Nuri must have taken quite a liking to Mata Hari.
When morning came—exactly as the government had intended—he proposed taking her with him to Constantinople.
Germany’s strategy had been not merely to keep Mata Hari by His Highness’s side for one night, but to have her cultivate his goodwill while they maneuvered from the flanks.
But just as Mata Hari was delightedly preparing to accompany him to Turkey, an unexpected telegram arrived from Egyptian contacts in Paris, reducing this German scheme to ashes.
His Highness Prince Abbas Nuri had altered his plans and rushed back to Paris.

It remains widely known that within France’s wartime intelligence agency existed a masked figure designated “The Second Intelligence Officer”—a formidable operative who clashed wits with German spy networks and plagued them relentlessly.
To this day, it remains unclear who exactly this was, but it is said that “The Second Intelligence Officer” detected danger in Prince Abbas Nuri’s movements and abruptly recalled him.
There is also a conspiratorial theory that His Highness himself was actually a comrade of French intelligence and had voluntarily explored the Dorotheen Street residence in such a manner.
Starting with that incident involving Russian diplomatic courier Ruof Melikov, since a series of bizarre incidents had occurred at this residence, spies from at least France and Russia had long since set their sights on the grand mansion on Berlin’s Dorotheen Street and its beautiful mistress—the Countess von Linden, absent her count.

Not long after this occurred, the house on Dorotheen Street was abruptly closed down.
From this point onward, Mata Hari would become a spy among spies—crossing borders at will and wandering through nations.
She truly began her operations.

The tale of Java was but a veneer of lies—she had been born on August 7, 1876, in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden.
Her family ran a modest bookstore.
Her father was Adam Zell, and her mother’s name was Autje van der Maclen.
There was neither a “Morning Eye” nor a “Night Eye.”
Her real name was Marguerite Zelle.
Though claimed to be an inland Indian temple, it was in truth a religious school near the capital city of Heig where she received an education intended for nuns.
Yet she had already broken free from her girlhood and married.
Of course, her husband belonged to no aristocracy.
If pressed, he might be called an aristocrat of the barracks.
To the “Morning Eye” of later years, the uniform of young British officer MacLee—visiting the Netherlands on leisure—might have seemed sufficiently noble.
Shortly after their union, MacLee received orders to join the Indian garrison.
Margaretha Zelle—later known as Mata Hari—followed in his wake.

So she did go to India—that much was been true.
But it was said that when one lived in southern climes, inherent traits became accentuated, and dormant personalities emerged.
That young officer had been MacLee.
He drank like a man possessed.
He bought.
He hit.
He became out of control.
Moreover, since his salary alone proved insufficient, Margaretha had to borrow money from his colleagues on her husband’s orders.
To make matters worse, he insisted she do whatever they asked—no matter what—and bring back the money regardless, which was utterly cruel.
They were young colonial soldiers.
Many were single.
In a place surrounded by Black women, Margaretha stood out as a beauty even among white people.
Under demands and coquetry, they all began vying to lend her money.
Before long, it became impossible to tell whether Mrs. MacLee remained a married woman or had become a camp follower attached to the regiment.
Such a life continued.
Margaretha too gradually grew accustomed and unfazed.
The foundation for Mata Hari’s later exploits had been laid during her time in India.
In her autobiography, she romanticized that period somewhat, claiming she had served as a shrine maiden before the gods.

During this time, she learned a little dancing.
Of course, she hadn’t danced in any temple; she likely intended to ensure she could make a living performing in vaudeville halls even after returning to Europe.
The name Mata Hari was, needless to say, self-chosen and self-proclaimed.

Upon returning to Europe four years later and divorcing, she began touring for the first time as the dancer Mata Hari.
The dancing itself was undoubtedly little more than her own brand of haphazard performance, but it was her nudity that made her famous.
Moreover, billed as an Oriental, she was treated as a novelty everywhere, and in no time at all, she gained influential patrons.
With her own version of “I came, I saw, I conquered,” in her homeland of the Netherlands—the Prime Minister himself; in Berlin—that famously stylish Crown Prince leading government dignitaries; and in France—the Minister of War—each sought her affections and temporarily obtained them.
As for the rest—men of repute and obscurity—she herself could not remember their number.

It was much later that she settled into the house on Dorotheen Street, but even now, no German has forgotten this residence alongside Mata Hari's activities. In the neighborhood, they had only ever thought an immensely wealthy woman lived there. Of course, the furniture and interior decorations were extravagantly lavish, but large mirrors had been positioned at every conceivable angle throughout each room, allowing one to peer in from unexpected vantage points through refraction. Even when alone in the room, had one noticed the arrangement of these mirrors and the grille over the ceiling vent, they would have become acutely aware of countless unseen gazes pressing from all directions—above, below, left, and right. The silk-wrapped electric wire that appeared to be the splendid floor lamp's cord was in fact connected to the listening device in the adjacent room. What's interesting is the basement wine cellar. It boasted a vast stock to suit the palates of people from various nations. Wines of every origin and vintage went without saying—firewater, palm wine, cognac, whiskey, gin, rum, tequila... and even Saki. *Saki* here refers to liquor. It's possible that some Japanese dignitaries may have been treated to this *Saki* liquor directly from Mata Hari's own hand.

Having received confidential orders to secure Major Erik Henderson—deeply suspected of being a British intelligence operative—and extract certain secrets, Mata Hari was now hastening toward the Sofia region.

4

H21 was Mata Hari's code number as a German spy cell. It was her alias.

This Mata Hari also found herself thoroughly outmaneuvered by British intelligence officer Major Erik Henderson.
Major Henderson was a man renowned within British special intelligence as a master operative—a ruddy-faced individual who remained perpetually smiling yet could deliver bitingly sharp actions when needed, less a military man than a correspondent-type figure extending journalism’s tentacles.
H21 charged headlong into this; had Mata Hari been a woman of foresight, she might have realized through this failure that her identity as a German spy was more widely known than expected, compelling considerable caution—but this dancer-spy was inherently disposed to spy for spying’s sake, with more than a touch of reckless courage akin to a blind snake striking without fear.
She remained utterly unfazed and continued to operate vigorously thereafter.
In the end, she had been mercilessly manipulated by German intelligence, fated to dance all the way to her death.

In Sofia, having been introduced by German Ambassador Gertz, Mata Hari met Henderson.
The purpose was to extract a certain secret diplomatic matter between Britain and Afghanistan.
However, given that her opponent was a skilled operative of established reputation, she hadn’t expected any significant gains from the start—but precisely for that reason, this was Mata Hari’s moment to showcase her own prowess.
At the time, while German intelligence operatives were covertly operating regarding ongoing negotiations between Germany and Afghanistan, the plan was this: if they could detain Henderson’s attention around Mata Hari for just a short while—keeping him from interference—that alone would constitute success. Beyond that, should an opportunity arise, she might even pull some strings in Britain’s relations with Afghanistan.
She applied her skills with full force.

When introduced, she cast a smile from her deep brown eyes upon the tall Englishman,

“Oh, could that be Major Henderson? I feel as though we might be old friends. Have we not met somewhere before, Major?”

She said in a sweetly modulated tone—a voice dipped in honeyed cadences. Her smile was bewitching, the sort the Orient would call "a nation-toppling grin." Maintaining this expression, she struck a pose both inviting and provocative, radiating a fragile allure that seemed ready to shunder at the merest touch. Yet the Major’s voice came parched and disinterested, like dust settling on velvet.

“Was that so? Wherever could we have met?”

“No, Major. I do remember now—that time in Bombay, India.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s quite right—I’ve recalled it myself.”

“Oh my! Where? Where could that be?”

“Dorotheen Street, Berlin—Number 188.”

“Oh!” Caught off guard, Mata Hari instantly concealed her agitation and recovered her composure. “That may be the case. You see, I travel to so many places that I sometimes make the most outrageous mix-ups with people and locations—it’s quite embarrassing. Why, I’ve journeyed all across Europe! It is my artistic aspiration to express the spirit of the Orient through dance.”

She made grand pronouncements.
Erik Henderson chuckled. “That Oriental spirit—”
he struck straight through with his words.
“I hear that Oriental spirit has been acquired by Europe’s foremost troublemaker.”

Leaving H21—now rendered completely ineffective—behind, Henderson turned his smile toward the others.
Mata Hari bit her lips in frustration, but there was nothing she could do.
She reported exactly that.

Mata Hari—variously called the Dancer-Spy, the Dancing Female Detective, and other romanticized names—was indeed a dancer, but she was certainly no artist.
She was nothing more than a frivolous spectacle—dressing however she pleased in the nude.

Her appearance only served to inform Erik Henderson of the urgency of the situation.
Seeing that woman show up there, he glared with suspicion, certain their ilk must be up to something elsewhere.
Because he had a lead, Erik Henderson flew to Afghanistan that very night.

It was Henderson’s dramatic exploits in Afghanistan that made the German special intelligence agency gnash their teeth in frustration, and following this incident, reports of danger surrounding Henderson became frequent.
To such an extent was Germany’s vaunted intelligence division left thoroughly outmaneuvered there by a single British man with sandy-colored hair.

The German government had proposed a secret treaty to the tribal king of Afghanistan.
After repeated negotiations, they finally managed to reach the stage of signing a provisional treaty.
It was a secret pact known to none beyond the foreign ministry leadership.
Carrying the draft approved by the Kaiser under strict secrecy, a top operative of the independent special intelligence agency departed Berlin.

He transported secret diplomatic documents.
This was a full-fledged case of what is termed a diplomatic courier.
To avoid standing out as much as possible, they did not secure special duty compartments.
They deliberately boarded while blending in with ordinary passengers.
Along with the original German text, they carried an Afghan translation so that the tribal king could read it.
The problem lay in this translated text.

Upon close examination, they found numerous mistranslations.
Moreover, these errors could be interpreted more favorably for Afghanistan than what appeared in the original text.
If the tribal king—utterly unaware of this deception—were to review that deliberately distorted translation and think “Ah, this seems acceptable” while smilingly preparing his signature, Germany would gain immediate advantage.
This was their scheme—a secret tongue stuck out in triumph.
It might seem underhanded, but such were the standard mechanisms for expanding national power under imperialism; Germany committed no exceptional injustice.
When dealing with smaller nations particularly, every country had brazenly perpetrated rather terrible acts without compunction.
This they called international morality.

It may seem absurdly foolish, but Germany attempted to deceive Afghanistan into letting them get away with something through methods akin to a mischievous tenement student reading letters favorably to a blind person.
What exactly it was has never been clearly determined.
It appears to have been some sort of agreement regarding wartime railway line security—that kind of issue.

They sealed the two copies of the treaty draft’s original translation into a brown leather bag and secured it with a specially designed lock.
The skilled operative kept his eyes wide open and maintained an unrelenting grip on the bag.
To ensure absolute thoroughness, two intelligence operatives—unacquainted with each other and each believing themselves to be the sole agent—alternated between shadowing and concealing themselves as they followed him.
Since the courier didn’t know either operative’s face, this spy-tailing-spy arrangement created redundant layers of security.
In fact, during this period, Germany had institutionalized what could be called a spy-vs-spy apparatus—selecting their sharpest veteran operatives for perpetual surveillance of other agents without ever lowering their guard.
It was an ironic situation—given that these were individuals engaged in espionage themselves, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t switch sides at any moment.
Therefore, even spies surveilling spies proved insufficiently reassuring, prompting them to deploy spies who surveilled those spies—or more precisely, spies surveilling spies who surveilled spies—with yet another layer above them. In any case, it became a journey undertaken by three strangers.
They reached Afghanistan without incident along the way, whereupon the leather bag containing secret documents was immediately deposited in the German consulate’s safe.
At the consulate, these three men—meeting face-to-face for the first time—startled one another upon realizing they were all fellow spies.

“Oh, you too?”

“What? You were one too? I did think some shady-looking guy was tailing me.”

“But I didn’t notice you were one. You were sleeping all the time, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”
“Keep your mind’s eye open.”

“Who knows.”
“Seems fishy.”
“Full of holes.”

“Don’t talk nonsense! The essence of being a spy lies in navigating between truth and deception.”

“Hahaha.”

With the consulate staff now joining in—as befitted these swaggering Germans—they roared with laughter and clamor when, without even a knock, the door swung open and a figure lumbered in: tall, muscular, sandy-haired—none other than British Major Erik Henderson, who by their own intelligence reports should have been in Sofia utterly infatuated with Comrade H21. The entire group froze in stunned silence.

Henderson—having single-handedly commandeered the stage—approached the table with a merchant’s exaggerated obsequiousness befitting his triumphant moment, then abruptly pulled two documents from his pocket and slammed them down.

“Gentlemen,”
Striking a slightly dramatic pose, he declared, “This translation of the treaty text is utterly inaccurate.
“It’s riddled with mistranslations.”
“Since it was so egregious, I’ve just now taken the liberty of bringing these errors to His Majesty the Tribal King’s attention.”
“His Majesty is absolutely furious.”
“The Germans are simply outrageous.”
“Perhaps you should study Afghan more thoroughly—”

Erik Henderson had brought and now thrust before their eyes the two “Top-Secret” documents they had assumed were safely inside the leather bag deposited in that very safe.
At this display of skill—like that of a Western tailor named Ginji—they could only click their tongues in reluctant admiration for their enemy’s prowess.
Henderson had thoroughly proven his mettle.

By the way, what was H21 up to?

5

70 Kenigergrätzel Street, Berlin.

German State Intelligence Headquarters.

H21 had been summoned there.

Storm clouds gathered.

Europe’s skies and earth hung unnaturally dark, pregnant with the metallic scent of approaching war. Somewhere faintly—so faintly—warning bells tolled through the heavy air. The atmosphere itself had thickened, coiled tight like a spring awaiting release. All stood ready for the spark to ignite. Such was the world’s suspended breath.

Those select few privy to the German diplomatic staff’s secrets knew precisely when and where that first stone would be cast into history’s pond. Yet even Kaiser Wilhelm himself could scarcely have imagined the tsunami it would unleash. The appointed day arrived at last—August 1914’s fateful dawn.

The Great War.

Mobilization orders.
Troop deployments.
Train station kisses.

Bankers, carpenters, university professors, butchers, journalists—Paul, Chaaden, Kachinskii—all were now clad in khaki and steel helmets.
Advances, trenches, hand-to-hand combat, hand grenades.
Artillery fire echoed.
The roar of bombers filled the sky.

At the spy headquarters on Kenigergrätzel Street in Berlin, Mata Hari received her orders.
"Proceed immediately to Paris," they commanded. "Exert all efforts, employ every means necessary, and obtain the trust of a certain French cabinet minister—it would later become clear who this was."
Detailed reports on the individual’s character and conduct, along with methods for approaching him most naturally—all were provided simultaneously.
This target extended beyond that single cabinet minister.
Individuals occupying key positions across all sectors must be enveloped in her web of allure in as great numbers as possible.
Above all, she must not let escape the influential figures in the army, navy, and civilian shipping sectors.
H21 was to give them everything she possessed and promptly report every piece of intelligence extracted from them without delay—to which one additional note had been appended.

“There is an exception that must not be forgotten. Under no circumstances, in any form, was H21 to actively display any speech or behavior that might probe for information from that certain cabinet minister. This alone must be strictly observed.”

So went the orders. She understood them, but this final rationale refused to settle in her mind. If probing the biggest target was forbidden, then for what purpose was she risking her life to get close? She couldn’t comprehend the motive behind it. But having already spent several years in the intelligence department, she was well aware of the danger of rashly countering. All orders were to be swallowed whole—not to be chewed over or spat out at one’s discretion. Mata Hari silently nodded.

She held Dutch citizenship.
She crossed the border without difficulty and entered Paris.
This was not her first time in Paris.
Previously there had been numerous prominent figures from political and business circles who patronized this nude dancer.
They were a bourgeois crowd who had others wage war while they idled about.
Upon hearing Mata Hari would return, they waited on tiptoe in anticipation.
A splendid apartment had been secured in Neuilly.
Even in wartime, Paris’s lights remained resplendent.
Around Queen Mata Hari swiftly coalesced a gaudy “court of chatter, lust and fashion,” its members vying to prove themselves her most favored.
That this beautiful libertine of an era should bear such an unpoetic designation as H21 was something not even Buddha could have foreseen.
The court’s foremost figure—who had long targeted a certain French cabinet minister named Méteil as his ultimate prize—became Mata Hari’s patron through recruitment.
Yet while keeping this exquisitely concealed from outsiders, he made frequent discreet automobile excursions to the Neuilly apartment after cabinet meetings.
There remained that strict command.
Though utterly perplexed by it, Mata Hari kept silent and asked nothing.
The minister for his part said nothing.
However much others discussed the war whenever they gathered, the two maintained an unnatural avoidance of the topic in their conversations.

Instead, she gathered secrets among her other lovers. Since she lavished her favors particularly on Allied officers, she had no shortage of intelligence to report. My ex-husband was a British officer—Makurii, who once went to India with me. It was not a lie. Because she made such statements with an innocent face, no one found it strange when Mata Hari occasionally displayed military interests and knowledge rare for a woman. With an innocent smile, she skillfully wrapped questions that touched on critical points. They were soldiers on leave from the front lines. Each man believed the woman to be his, and his alone, mistress; in the throes of their bedchamber antics, she would gently speak to them. At times, there would be adorably naive questions, and then suddenly—as if by some impulse—she would ask something so pointed it made them gasp. On their side, there was an underlying eagerness to talk about the war that they couldn’t contain. They all spilled everything. All of that would become cipher telegrams by the next morning and would fly to Berlin via dedicated channels. At that time, Mata Hari’s activities were truly remarkable. It was Paris, after all.

It was wartime.
Sexual morality became utterly lax.
Mata Hari found conquering various men more intriguing than the spying itself.
This time it was her job, and funds were generously provided.
Time, place, and person—all three elements aligned as she danced on the front lines of that historic espionage battle.

It was Margarie’s restaurant.

It was the night of the Red Cross charity ball.
Under bright lights, with a table of delicacies at the center, a gentleman and a lady were exchanging witty banter with Focke.
Mata Hari, her bronzed and carnal arms and shoulders bared by the new-style décolleté, lifted her flushed eyes—knowing nothing but coquetry—and smiled at her counterpart, Mr. Norman Ray of the Allied Marine Service.
The ostrich feather fan swayed languidly, sending forth scented breezes.
No matter what, this place simply wouldn’t feel right without the air of Place Vendôme or Rue de la Paix.
Grands Boulevards already carried the scent of Coty.

“Darling, you haven’t given me anything lately.”
It sounded crass, but that was essentially what she said.

“I do want a Spanish mantilla, but they say you can’t find one anywhere in Paris now.
“Oh, how dull.”

“What? A Spanish mantilla—that’s what you want?
“I see.”

Mr. Norman Ray immediately brightened his expression and leaned forward.
Because Mata Hari—who had been in an inexplicably foul mood and somewhat unmanageable that evening—had suddenly brightened like clearing weather and begun pleading like a girl, he must have been as delighted as if the Kaiser himself had surrendered.
He stiffened into formality and accepted.

“Very well. I will arrange to have it urgently sent from Spain.”
“I’ll wire the special agent in Barcelona and have it sent on the next available ship—it’s no trouble whatsoever.”

“Oh, how marvelous! So when will it arrive?”

Mr. Norman Ray was a director of the merchant ship service.
He was a man who had engraved the movements of Allied steamships into the folds of his brain.

“Wait a moment.”
He counted the days as he calculated.
“Today being Tuesday—and with the Corona scheduled to depart Barcelona at midnight on Thursday..."
“Assuming the Corona arrives at Saint-Nazaire next Wednesday, then yes, it should undoubtedly arrive by Friday.”

Mata Hari had been listening with unnaturally gleaming eyes when Mr.Ray finished speaking; she turned away as if having already lost interest in the mantilla and stifled a small yawn.
Mr.Norman might have said something like "How reliable you are."

The next day, Mata Hari was calling the town of Brest via long-distance telephone.
A man claiming to be her brother spoke from the other end of the line.
One of the relatives had fallen ill late Thursday night and contracted pneumonia.
"I’ll be admitted next Wednesday, so I’d like you to come nurse me until then"—Mata Hari said this over the phone.
Immediately, a telegram flew from Brest to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
The telegram’s text appeared to be a café in Brest placing an order for canned sardines.
How many dozen, by what month, day, and time they were to arrive, how to send them—and from Rotterdam, the cipher telegram would vanish into the depths of the sea.

Three days later, on Friday—it was midnight.

The Bay of Biscay—that place was always stormy.
That night saw a particularly violent tempest, the entire sea churning like soap suds.
The Corona—loaded with Allied provisions and having departed Barcelona’s port the previous night—had swaddled every window in blankets to smother stray light, swaying like a leaf as it strained forward through the gale.
With Portugal’s coastline slipping past to starboard, it plowed into Biscay’s turbulent heart.
A lookout clung to the foremast beneath skies sagging with wind-torn stratocumulus clouds that blurred all distinction between sea and air.
Visibility had been obliterated entirely.

Ahead, the tip of a periscope broke through the waves.
It was close enough range that torpedoes weren’t necessary.
A slender gun turret emerged.
Seawater cascaded like a waterfall along the submarine's hull.
Brushing through the dark water surface, the emergency alarm blared inside the Corona.
Drowning out that scream, gunfire roared in rapid succession.
It sank in seventeen minutes.
No one survived.
Since the promised mantilla had also sunk, Mr. Norman Ray had expected Mata Hari to be greatly disappointed, but she was not that disappointed—which was only natural.

6

In the European Great War, people of all skin colors had appeared on its stage—a spectacle that, in retrospect, resembled a grand kaleidoscope of resplendent chaos. Yet peering closer, one saw at the vanguard of its spy frontlines a single brown-skinned woman dancing utterly naked.
That was H21, Mata Hari.

The broadcast image of a Dutch noblewoman of mixed Oriental blood.
Banquets.
Champagne.
Dances.
Chic and expensive clothing.
That nation-toppling "melancholic smile" of hers.
The backdrop was Paris in 1914 and 1915, dimly lit by lamplight out of fear of Zeppelin raids.

For H21—who viewed life as a series of adventures—the conditions could be said to be perfect. Holding secrets close, she swam through a sea of men. She sat deep in conversation with one of her encircling knights at a café table. After a while, she suddenly called a waiter, and Mata Hari ordered wine. Wine is categorized by region and vintage year, and connoisseurs have quite exacting standards, but this female customer also seemed particular about wine, voicing various fussy preferences, so the waiter wrote them down and withdrew. The wine cellar was in the basement.

Before long, the waiter searched the cellar and brought up the specially ordered bottle; as for the wine, well, this would do—but five days later...
A transport ship—loaded with black colonial soldiers even on its deck covers—that had been rushing from French Africa was attacked by a German submarine near the coast of Algeria.

And not just one or two ships.
The exact number of sinkings was not disclosed until after the war, but at that time transport ships shuttling between North Africa and Marseille were being targeted somewhere in the Mediterranean with clockwork precision—so unnervingly accurate that it raised serious concerns about leaked transportation routes or schedules.
These were all cases where Mata Hari had lured personnel from the merchant vessel Saavis to cafés to extract information, encoding messages through wine vintages while fellow German spies—disguised as waiters—infiltrated bars, cafés and restaurants throughout the region.
Even today many European waiters are German-born, but during wartime they systematically coordinated to establish an extensive spy network.
By Mata Hari’s later confession they had sunk eighteen vessels using this method.

Now, it was said that female spies could not be trusted for long, but this wasn’t because women were dishonest or talkative—no, rather, since dishonesty was one of the essential elements of being a spy, being quite dishonest was perfectly acceptable.
The problem lay in how they occasionally found themselves fallen in love with.
But when the very man they were meant to spy on fell for them, the trouble only began.
They would become unsure which side’s spies they were, inevitably sensing great danger—yet Mata Hari alone harbored no such concerns.
It was said she was a woman devoid from the very beginning of a heart that could fall in love.
She possessed such an insensitive nature that she perceived neither joy nor grief even when causing the deaths of numerous men with a single cipher telegram.
Since this did not stem from patriotic fervor, without that motivation, it was not work a woman could endure even for a single day.

However, even this Mata Hari would occasionally engage in something resembling love.
Only with a young Russian who had enlisted in the French volunteer army at the outbreak of war—and whose name remains unknown.
Some accounts say he was a British officer named Daptain Marlew.
Soon blinded by an artillery shell, he retreated to the rear.
Only toward this blinded veteran did Mata Hari direct a measure of genuine affection, ardently writing him heartrending letters.
When he was to be admitted to the convent hospital in Vittel, Mata Hari too went there from Paris—a journey motivated half by love and half by duty.
Vittel was one of the French Army’s important “aerial bases.”

As a preface: during the Great War, airplanes were extensively used to infiltrate spies into enemy territory—carrying them over front lines at night, penetrating deep across borders, and dropping them by parachute.
Or they would land stealthily.
Both Allied and German forces did this, but there was no way to guard against it in the vast countryside’s dark nights.

At the hospital in Vittel, Mata Hari tended to her blinded lover while growing increasingly intimate with squadron officers.
No sooner had she thought this than strange things began happening one after another, plunging the aircraft into panic.
As mentioned earlier, spy-laden planes departing from Vittel Airfield would vanish into German airspace—vanishing completely as if by some prior agreement, never to return.
No matter where they landed, a German squad would be lying in wait—pilots and passengers shot dead on sight, planes captured intact—ensuring none ever came back.
Though deemed mysterious, with Mata Hari present in Vittel, there was nothing mysterious about it at all.

Eventually, having apparently grown tired of the blind volunteer soldier as well, Mata Hari returned alone to Paris.

A chauffeur-driven car was waiting at the station.
While having the car head toward Nuri's apartment, she found the Parisian streetscape outside familiar.
She had been vaguely thinking of other matters when the sudden stop jolted her back to awareness—this wasn't Nuri.
Mata Hari started upon realizing they had come to an unfamiliar street district.

The car door was opened, and a voice instructed her to get out.
She got out. Five or six men immediately surrounded her.
Mata Hari swiftly discerned their courteous demeanor masked nothing but cold hostility reshaped into polite form.

“Madam, this way please――.”

Fear gripped Mata Hari for the first time, but she was well accustomed to feigning nonchalance.
Playing the part of a "thoroughly bored noblewoman," she protested with practiced elegance for a time, but was finally led into a windowless chamber deep within the building.
Beyond a massive desk buried beneath document stacks stood an elderly gentleman with eyes like tarnished bronze.
Though clad in civilian tweed, he carried himself with the authority of a battle-hardened general—this was none other than the notorious Second Intelligence Officer.
Needle-sharp questions began pricking at Mata Hari in relentless succession.

“It appears you’ve been frequently meeting with Germans under surveillance—what is the nature of these engagements?”

The Second Intelligence Officer kept up his urgent pursuit while scanning reports on the desk.
Mata Hari would later describe her feelings during this interrogation as having her kimono stripped away layer by layer—an apt metaphor from a nude dancer.
She desperately maintained her evasion tactics against the torrential barrage of questions.
Having finally hit a stone wall, she now stood metaphorically naked before them.
The Second Intelligence Officer grinned slyly.

“In other words, you’re saying you were investigating the movements of the French Army and Navy and reporting on them.”

In Mata Hari’s hand remained her final trump card.

“Yes.
“But I’ve been acting for the Allied forces.
“I do have considerable acquaintances among the German intelligence department, but my late husband was a British officer, and most of my current friends hold prominent positions within the Allied forces.
“To tell the truth, I had been waiting for such an opportunity to present itself.
“I am fully prepared.
“I know various facts unfavorable to the German military, and since they’ve been led to believe I think as they do—meaning they consider me an ally—I can extract any information.
“I beg you to allow me into the French intelligence agency.
“As per your orders, I will uncover whatever you require and ensure it proves useful to you.”

She was resorting to labored sophistry.
In any case, since she had undoubtedly made a full confession, Mata Hari was supposed to be immediately “disposed of” as a result.
In reality, this hardline argument had gained considerable traction, but the Second Intelligence Officer considered.
Mata Hari’s close friends were all influential figures across both military and diplomatic spheres.
To send this one through death’s gate required evidence—evidence so overwhelming it bordered on excess.
Otherwise, troublesome objections would likely pour forth from major stakeholders in every quarter.
This one simply couldn’t be handled like some common spy—so those encircling the Second Intelligence Officer began trading whispers.
They debated and rebutted without resolution.
From her position across the room, Mata Hari veiled her large eyes with every ounce of beguiling charm she could muster and fixed her gaze intently on the proceedings.

Once the consultation reached a decision, The Second Intelligence Officer turned back to Mata Hari and smiled.

“Very well, Madam. We shall leave your suspicions as suspicions for now and grant you this single opportunity to demonstrate your loyalty to France.”
“As our comrade, we hereby formally induct you into the French Special Intelligence Agency.”
“You are to be dispatched to Belgium.”
“We have embedded thirty of our agents within the German forces occupying that territory—I shall now furnish you with their roster.”
“While they’ve performed admirably, recent intensification of enemy counterintelligence activities has severely hampered our ability to collect reports.”
“Your mission is to consolidate intelligence from these thirty operatives and deliver it personally to my office in Paris.”

With a sigh of relief, Mata Hari answered.

"I will comply."

Departing with every convenience provided, she crossed the English Channel.
The Franco-Belgian border being under German military control, she attempted to infiltrate via sea from Britain.
However, the British government disregarded Mata Hari's claim that she needed to visit her suddenly ill daughter in the Netherlands.
Without sending her to either the Netherlands or Belgium, Sir Basil Tamson—Chief of Scotland Yard's Special Higher Police Section—secretly exiled her from Formas Port to improbable Spain under suspicion of being a shady character.
Though Mata Hari was now ostensibly a spy for France—their ally—Britain should have logically extended cooperation and protection. Yet this had been prearranged through a French request with all preparations meticulously completed; everything formed part of the Second Intelligence Officer's scheme within the French Secret Service.
He had sought to manufacture incontrovertible evidence.
This would later become apparent.

7

Among the French intelligence operatives who had infiltrated the German-occupied zone in Belgium was an Italian named Ignazio Vitellio.
The first to notice this man’s suspicious movements had been Paris’s Second Intelligence Officer—information that should never have leaked had managed to leak out quite thoroughly.
Something was off.
When they discreetly kept an eye on him, it became clear that this Ignazio Vitellio was engaged in what intelligence operatives called “double dealing.”
To the German army he was a German spy; to the French army he was a French spy—wearing two faces, he pretended to be a loyal agent for both sides, passing information from right to left and left to right.
Positioning himself between them, he alone profited handsomely.
This was intolerable.
Everything lay exposed.
Yet to both sides, he remained undeniably a loyal spy.
He drew pay from both armies.
Profit drove his zeal, and his vigorous activity endeared him to each camp.
It was a case of the right hand not knowing what the left did—the man was ruthlessly efficient.
The Second Intelligence Officer had been the one to uncover Ignazio Vitellio’s double face.

To punish this one and to obtain irrefutable evidence exposing Mata Hari’s true identity—a two-for-one stroke. Truly a Parisian brimming with panache, worthy of Arsène Lupin himself.
He had devised an ironic method.

Though Mata Hari had not been granted permission to go to Belgium and had instead been dispatched to an odd destination like Spain, just as the Second Intelligence Officer had anticipated, the roster of French spies in Belgium handed to her upon departing Paris had been fully reported to German intelligence operatives stationed there.
While putting on the appearance of working as a spy for France this time, Mata Hari had in fact intended it all as a temporary escape; from the very beginning, her true plan had been to present the roster to the German intelligence department immediately upon entering Belgium with it, systematically dispose of every last one, and eradicate that thirty-member French spy network.
However, since British interference had prevented her from going herself, she had at least secretly reported the thirty individuals’ names and addresses; upon receiving this information, the German intelligence operatives stationed there leapt into action.
There was no need to search.
They raided the thirty addresses and, of course, simply executed them by firing squad.
With that, they set out, each taking on separate tasks.

They divided their tasks and set out to make arrests—this much went smoothly—but they managed to bring in only one individual, while the other twenty-nine remained impossible to locate no matter what they tried.
This was precisely why they couldn’t be found.
Apart from the single person who had been apprehended, the remaining twenty-nine were entirely fictional creations of the Second Intelligence Officer—figments that had never existed from the very beginning.

The one apprehended was Ignazio Vitellio, an Italian listed first on the roster.
“Hmm, this should be our comrade,” the group muttered in puzzlement, scratching their heads—but the German side, sensing clear signs of critical information being leaked, had already intensified their investigative efforts.
With Ignazio Vitellio being designated as the sole French spy, various pieces began falling into place for them.
There was no time to lose.
They decided to unreservedly accept this ironic gift from the Second Intelligence Officer.
One hour after the roster reached Belgium, Ignazio Vitellio stood before a firing squad and was executed in a volley of gunfire.

Two days later, this report reached Paris and made The Second Intelligence Officer smile faintly.

Madrid, the city of the sun, stood perched like a solitary jewel on a desert-like plateau. At its Grand Hotel, in the room adjacent to Mata Hari's quarters, a young British officer on leave affected the air of a hero savoring his idle days. His name was Stanley Randolph—Artillery Captain. Shortly after H21 arrived in Madrid, Dr. Kruup, local representative of the German intelligence branch, came calling with urgent news.

Deep in England's Middle Essex countryside, they had constructed a park-like compound encircled by twenty-foot stone walls. The anomaly lay in those unnaturally towering barriers. Undoubtedly some grave secret lay within—but what? This mystery consumed German operatives in the region. Their best intelligence suggested a meticulously crafted replica of modern battlefields inside—as if they had excised an actual warfront segment. Trenches snaked through barbed wire entanglements beside shell craters large enough to swallow men whole. Machine gun nests hid beneath artificial hills while isolated cottages stood watch over synthetic marshes. Day and night roared the thunder of gasoline engines beyond those walls. Local whispers spoke of trials for a strange new tractor shaped like moth larvae—an armored beast said to haul water and shells through no-man's-land while crushing all terrain beneath its treads. British military insiders called this reality by its blunt name: Tank.

Thus came Mata Hari's orders: probe Captain Randolph at the Grand Hotel. An artilleryman would surely know secrets about this monstrous vehicle. The target? A young officer idling between war deployments—precisely her specialty. Failure was inconceivable.

Within a few days she would succeed in extracting every piece of information possible.
But in Madrid, the gleaming eyes of special intelligence agencies did not belong solely to Germany.
British spies, sensing the risk of secrets leaking from Captain Randolph's behavior, urgently reported to their superiors and sought instructions.
The captain abruptly received strict orders to withdraw from Madrid and proceed north to Paris.
This meant Mata Hari too had to accompany Randolph to Paris—but having just been captured by the Second Intelligence Officer and subjected to such an ordeal, Paris had become her cursed ground.
One such experience was more than sufficient.
There she tried throwing a tantrum for the first time, though of course refusal would never be tolerated.
Propelled by assurances and threats alike, she reluctantly left Madrid behind for Paris.
Blackmail stood as standard practice for intelligence departments; those who disobeyed orders would find comrades pulling strings to sell them out to local authorities.
For German spies surrounded on all sides, the protocol was clear: once you incurred your intelligence chief's disfavor, swift disposal in darkness awaited—and once that happened, no sanctuary remained.
This Mata Hari knew intimately, being well-acquainted with countless examples of operatives who had writhed free from the spy network only to meet precisely orchestrated, inexplicably cruel deaths wherever they fled.
There was no alternative.
She returned to Paris.

However, it was not solely because she had been coerced by the intelligence department.
Her knights in Paris—where many were influential government figures—had also been vigorously urging her to return.
Since one of the most enthusiastic among them was that certain cabinet minister, she likely reasoned that with such protection in place, things would be secure.
As the story so far had shown, Mata Hari was courageous and daring in the best light—reckless to the point of near-delinquency in the worst.
Trusting in her luck, she reentered the lion’s den she had once escaped—but this time, she did not emerge alive.

She had never experienced financial difficulties.
Far from struggling, Mata Hari’s lifestyle at that time reached the pinnacle of extravagance, and this trip was one of utmost luxury.
A coded telegram had been dispatched from the German Embassy in Madrid to the German ambassador to the Netherlands: once Mata Hari arrived in Paris, 35,000 marks in specie were to be disbursed through the Dutch Embassy in that city.
This was immediately remitted by the German intelligence agency in Amsterdam via the designated route.
Mata Hari herself showed clear signs of having been extremely cautious about this return to Paris.
She wrote letters to a certain cabinet minister and prominent lovers, detailing her dealings with the Second Intelligence Officer and the “inconvenience” she had suffered.
Influential lovers wrote in unison: "Rest assured we’ll never allow such rudeness again," desperate in their determination to summon her back.
After parting with Captain Stanley Randolph, they entered Paris separately.
A promise to secretly meet in Paris and enjoy themselves to the fullest.

As promised, Randolph was waiting at the station, and under the escort of the German spy group, they lived together for about a week.
During that time, Mata Hari had managed to uncover some of the tank-related secrets Randolph had carried over from Madrid.
Soon afterward, Randolph was recalled to Britain.

In this mission, H21 could hardly be deemed successful.
Yet this was no failing of hers—the British vigilance guarding against leaks of secrets concerning the newly invented super-dreadnought-class land tank “Maaku IX” proved extraordinarily stringent, leaving even Mata Hari powerless to penetrate it.
Stanley Randolph himself knew little beyond the narrow slice of expertise assigned to him.
No matter how intimate lovers might be, one cannot reveal what one does not know—thus Mata Hari failed to achieve the expected results. Thus was born the engine-powered tank: a new war machine destined to play a pivotal role on future battlefields and revolutionize modern field tactics.
As previously stated, it was Britain that had invented it.

However, H21 must have uncovered some information.
When tanks—tested relentlessly—suddenly appeared on the front lines with monstrous steel frames resembling prehistoric beasts charging recklessly forward, the Germans showed surprisingly little alarm.
If anything, they seemed prepared with newly developed artillery; specially designed shells rained down instead, stunning the British forces.
The tanks demolished everything in their path—even machine gun nests fortified with cement bricks—yet from enemy lines came oddly shaped bullets that riddled their supposedly impenetrable ironclad plating with holes.

Convinced this couldn’t be possible, British spies mobilized through various operations—and in doing so, exposed for the first time the romance between Captain Stanley Randolph and Mata Hari.

8

In the parlor of a Paris apartment, a beautiful woman bent over her male friend and pressed a passionate kiss upon him.
From that kiss came specially designed bullets detonating against steel monsters on the Western Front.
In this causal relationship—symbolizing modern intelligence networks—we saw an astonishing pattern emerge: intricate and multicolored.

March 1917.
A secret telegram flew from Berlin headquarters to Mata Hari.

"The prior order prohibiting all proactive measures—interrogation, investigation—against a certain cabinet minister is rescinded.
We have learned French high command plans a full-scale offensive across all fronts imminently.
Ascertain its commencement date by any means necessary."

This made Mata Hari think.
She understood for the first time.
Until now, she had been prohibited from broaching war-related topics with that minister alone.
Even when he raised such matters herself had to avoid them.
Berlin had known full well that Mata Hari was not his enemy.
With others one might manage, but extracting information from this cabinet member while avoiding all suspicion of espionage would prove impossible.
It was safer to maintain mere friendship—allowing her to remain in Paris under maximum convenience.
But now she could no longer afford such caution.
“By any means necessary” meant death for H21.
Until this moment she had retained one alibi against capture.
That minister is my lover—had I wished, I could have learned anything. Yet as proof I’m no spy: despite this perfect position, have I ever once discussed the war with him?
Now even this sole counterevidence would fail.
Failure meant instant death. Disobeying Berlin’s orders meant quiet exposure to French authorities.
Either way awaited death.
Standing between two deaths, Mata Hari chose a spy’s demise.

On April 9 of the same year at dawn, Marshal Nivelle roused his entire army and launched a full-scale attack.
The plains of Champagne.
Yet those who had lain in wait through Mata Hari’s forewarning proved merciless.
The German forces—deemed unprepared—had readied vast defenses; when met with their ferocious counterassault, Allied troops crumbled into catastrophic defeat.
For an instant, even destiny itself seemed balanced upon this pivot of war.

When Mata Hari, having pulled a chair to the window of her room, was sunbathing nude, it was the morning of the sixteenth of the same month.
The door opened without a knock, and three men entered.

“H21! Put on your kimono and come with me.”

Mata Hari was not surprised.
She merely directed an imploring gaze toward the man who appeared to be the leader of the group.

"I would like to change into my kimono in another room—"

Of course, it was not permitted.
While wrapping her naked body under the leader’s surveillance, Mata Hari thought frantically.
From being addressed as H21 and by her German intelligence agency code number alone, she knew her final hour had come.
The other two began conducting a house search throughout the apartment.
Mata Hari, realizing that the eyes of the man fixed upon her as she dressed in her kimono saw not a beautiful woman in such a state but merely a spy from an enemy country, felt sorrow.

When she finished putting on the kimono, her attitude suddenly turned resolute.

“Since you gentlemen have arrived，the room seems to have taken on an unpleasant odor.” Having said something harsh，“Let us burn some incense.”

Beside her stood a small table bearing an Indian incense burner—a green bronze urn crowned with a gold-decorated lid.
Mata Hari struck a match and swiftly dropped it through the small hole in the lid.
White smoke rose.

The French special agents who had been monitoring rushed over and removed the incense burner’s lid. The letter hidden at the bottom was beginning to burn. They grabbed it out and crushed it out. They tried reading it. There was a signature reading “M ―― Y”.

They were all love letters. The handwriting was that of a steady man past his middle years, with splendid prose. No matter who they asked, Mata Hari did not answer. Even without her answering, only the Second Intelligence Officer within the intelligence agency knew who the letter’s author was. Yet the signature “M――Y” appeared both definitive and elusive. When they pressed her on that point, Mata Hari remained resolutely silent. She had preserved these love letters with the intention of presenting them to campaign for clemency in a critical moment, but now that this critical moment had arrived, she attempted to burn them. Moreover, she absolutely refused to reveal the man’s name. Lonely men will sometimes confide great secrets to prostitutes they encounter on their travels. At times, such women would attempt to protect men’s secrets with their very lives. This final shred of resolve that Mata Hari displayed—resembling that of a prostitute—could be called pitiful yet heroic.

The place of her imprisonment was Saint-Lazare Prison.

Mata Hari was brought before a military tribunal.
That reputation had been widely publicized in newspapers across Europe and indeed the entire world, so some readers may still remember it.
It was a secret trial.
Only what could be reported was being made public, and that solely at the discretion of the Second Intelligence Officer.
Her records had been traced back to her residence on Dorotheen Street in Berlin and the time of her meeting with Major Henderson, establishing that she had been a person of interest to Britain and France in that sense since then.
That the European War had been anticipated ten or even twenty years prior, and that each nation had busied itself with military preparations and spy warfare—this fact alone makes clear.

Paris, as if belatedly startled by the covert schemes of German intelligence agents, ceaselessly emitted high-powered radio waves from the Eiffel Tower's wireless station in an attempt to disrupt any suspicious cipher telegrams, however slightly.
Simultaneously, the cipher of the French special intelligence agency was altered at once.
Mata Hari continued to assert her innocence, claiming she had never dreamed of being a German spy, but soon, on July 25, 1916, the verdict of execution by firing squad was passed.
The pleas for mercy from all quarters were so intense that she, utterly convinced of their effectiveness, composed that fabricated confessional memoir with leisurely composure there in Saint-Lazare Prison.

Three nuns stayed constantly by her side, ceaselessly preaching about God and urging confession.
Mata Hari sneered and made no attempt to listen.

It was the morning of the execution, August 11 at 5:00 AM.

Sister Marie stood before the solitary cell,

“You’ve danced for others until now.”
“How about dancing for yourself this morning?”

There, Mata Hari performed her usual improvised Oriental dance before the black-robed nuns.
She was a somewhat comical, endearing presence.

Midway through the dance, heavy footfalls approached along the prison’s stone corridor.
In such cases—to prevent abruptly startling the death row prisoner by making them mentally prepared—they deliberately approached from afar with audible footsteps.
Mata Hari, adorned in finery as if attending a soirée, left people aghast.

Smiling, she was led out to the execution ground.

It is said that Pierre du Mortesac—one of her many "lovers" and her most ardent admirer—had secretly whispered this to Mata Hari.

“Given military protocol, we must carry out the execution by firing squad—we cannot bend the law.”
“So we’ll perform the execution as a formality.”
“It’s a staged act.”
“The bullets used in the execution are blanks—they’ll make noise but won’t harm you at all.”
“Afterwards, arrangements have been made to transport what will be treated as a corpse beyond national borders.”

Whether out of compassionate intent to console her temporarily or with malicious meaning—it was a matter of perspective—but in any case, after having such things whispered to her, Mata Hari had believed them completely. Therefore, with a glamorous demeanor unbefitting someone bound for the execution ground, she stood before the ramparts of Vincennes. A squadron of dragoons stood waiting, rifles at the ready. Mata Hari remained utterly convinced it was all theater. She waved her hand cheerfully and greeted the firing squad.

The shots rang out.
When Mata Hari realized the bullets weren’t blanks, her shock—and the way witnesses reportedly covered their ears at her scream—suggested she must have met death with extraordinary defiance.
That seemed only natural.
It had been executed like a treacherous ambush.

At the execution ground, Pierre du Mortesac and a host of her self-styled knights stood packed together.
The coroner nudged Mata Hari’s bullet-riddled corpse with his boot tip as it lay sprawled on the earth—

“Is there any next of kin present?”

No one stepped forward.

In many countries, it was the same—the Mata Hari incident was being wielded as a political tool.
The problem was a certain cabinet minister whose signature corresponded to M—Y, who had been writing love letters to Mata Hari.
Who was M—Y?
And so, the uproar began.
Marshal Nivelle and his faction—utterly crushed in the full-scale offensive at Champagne—would never accept this; the military clique would not stand for it.
Interior Minister Louis Malvy—Louis Malvy—was singled out as the scapegoat.

“M—Y has to be Malvy.”
“The handwriting matches, and the person fits perfectly.”
“Malvy sold our homeland to Germany through that dancer spy.”
“Traitor.”

This outcry spread, and Malvy's public trial commenced.
Four former prime ministers stood in defense, but wartime conditions had made the military domineering.
The Nivelle faction's military clique prevailed, and Mr. Malvy was ousted and sentenced to seven years of exile.
When peace was eventually restored and society hungered for the establishment of public order, Mr. Malvy—pardoned by President Elliott—rejoined the cabinet, but the parliamentary opposition had not forgotten him.

“Mata Hari!”
“Mata Hari! Mata Hari!”

Completely cornered by heckling and repeatedly left stranded at the podium, he had his health ruined by seven years of shame and suffering.
He collapsed.
He was a man of considerable talent, but withdrew from politics shortly thereafter.

Two years later，a certain female journalist obtained a startling confession from General Messimy—who had been one of the military clique members that hounded Mr. Malvy and served as Minister of War during the Great War.
Mata Hari’s lover M—Y was none other than General Messimy.