41
Beauvais. Zero hour plus twenty minutes. The general’s son arranged for an army vehicle to drive Latham, Karin, and the two commandos down to Paris. And, as insignificant things keep occurring during cataclysmic events, their luggage had arrived from the Königshof Hotel in Bonn. It was in the back of a van that provided their transportation to the City of Lights, a city that until twenty-one minutes before would have been a city in panic.
“We’ll stay at the same hotel,” said Drew as all bade good-bye to their French colleagues in the Beauvais waterworks and started for the door and the ancient elevator. “And you two,” he continued, addressing Captain Dietz and Lieutenant Anthony, “you can tear Paris apart, all expenses paid.”
“With what?” asked the captain. “I don’t think we have two hundred francs between us, and our credit cards, along with any other means of identification, are up in Brussels.”
“In about four hours, a grateful government of France will supply you with hard cash, say fifty thousand francs apiece. How about it, think it’s initially enough? More to come, of course.”
“You’re nuts,” said Anthony.
“No, I’m not, I’m mad. Mad as hell.”
“Monsieur, Monsieur Lat’am!” exclaimed one of the numerous military aides, rushing out of the waterworks office into the dark stone hallway. “You are wanted on the téléphone. It is urgent, monsieur!”
“Wait here,” said Drew. “If it’s who I think it is, the conversation will be courteous but over quickly.” Latham returned with the aide and picked up a phone nearest the door. “Cons-Op here.” The gruff voice on the line told him it was not the man he had expected.
“Well done, chłopak!” fairly shouted Colonel Witkowski from London. “Harry would have been proud of you.”
“I’ve heard that twice too often, Stanley, but thank you. It was a team effort, same as in hockey.”
“You can’t really buy that horseshit.”
“Oh, but I do, Stosh. And it started with Harry, when he said to that tribunal in London, ‘I brought out the data, it’s your job to evaluate it.’ We didn’t do it right.”
“I’ll let that pass until we’re not on a phone.”
“Good idea. The thread’s there and we missed it.”
“Later,” interrupted Witkowski. “What do you think about Bonn?”
“What do you mean? What about Bonn?”
“Haven’t you been told?”
“Told what?”
“The whole damn Bundestag is in flames! There are over a hundred fire engines from all over the place trying to put it out. Didn’t Moreau call you?”
“Moreau’s dead, Stanley.”
“What?”
“Killed in his own impenetrable underground parking lot.”
“Jesus Christ, I didn’t know!”
“How could you? You’re in London, undercover, I presume.”
“When did it happen?”
“Hours ago.”
“Still, the Deuxième is your alternate control. You should have been told about Bonn.”
“I guess somebody forgot. It was a crazy night.”
“What is it, Drew? You’re not yourself.”
“Who could be after tonight.… You asked me what I thought about the Bundestag fire, so I’ll tell you. That son of a bitch Jäger was writing his own memoirs. I’ve got to go, Stosh, there’s someone I have to see before the fires go out. Talk to you in Paris.”
* * *
The foursome had adjoining suites at the Hotel Plaza-Athénée, where the early sun broke through the drapes of the tall windows. It was 6:37 in the morning, Karin de Vries deep in sleep as Latham crawled silently out of the bed. He had hung up his civilian clothes before disrobing; he put them on and walked through the door into the huge communal sitting room where the two commandos were waiting, both in their innocuous jackets and trousers.
“One of you has to stay here, I told you that,” said Drew. “Remember?”
“We flipped for it,” replied Dietz, “and you’re stuck with the Thin Man, although I think it’s a bad option. I’m the superior officer, for God’s sake.”
“And your job may be rougher than ours. The embassy marine unit is outside, but they can’t enter the hotel without tipping off the neos, if there are any. If there are, you’ve got only your own firepower and a radio to get our men up to the second floor very damn fast.”
“You really think the neos have gone so deep?” asked the lieutenant.
“My brother was killed while under maximum security; Claude Moreau was executed within his own secret environs. What do you think?”
“I think we should get going,” said Anthony. “Watch that lady, Captain. She’s very special—in an academic way, of course.”
“Please don’t break my heart,” said Drew as he and the lieutenant gathered up their weapons. “The car’s in back, we go through the cellar.”
“Monsieur Lat’am!” The guard at the underground parking area of the Deuxième Bureau recognized the name on the clearance log and was close to tears. “Is it not a terrible tragédie? And right here, where it could never happen!”
“What do the police say?” asked Drew, studying the face of the man.
“They are as bewildered as we are! Our magnificent director, may he be at peace with the almighty, was shot inside the gates yesterday morning, his body found at the far end. Everyone in the building was questioned by the Sûreté, their whereabouts examined; it went on for hours, the new director like a furious tiger, monsieur!”
“Were your exit logs checked?”
“Certainement! All personnel who had left were taken into custody, I understand. They say there is nothing to enlighten anyone.”
“Are most of the people here now? I know it’s early.”
“Almost everyone, monsieur. I’m told that there are conferences on every floor. See, behind you, three other automobiles await entrance. Everything is tohu-bohu!”
“What?”
“In chaos,” said Lieutenant Anthony softly. “Pandemonium, sir.”
“Thank you, guard.” Latham pressed the accelerator of the rented car and sped through the open gate into the cavernous shadows of the underground parking area. “Keep your hand on your weapon, Lieutenant,” he said as he swung the automobile into an open space.
“It’s already on it, boss man.”
“You know, that’s an irritating title.”
“I don’t know why, you earned it.… You think a stray neo or two could still be down here?”
“If I could call the hotel and talk to your buddy, I’d give you a better guess.”
“Why don’t you? You’ve got the cellular.”
“Because I don’t want to wake up Karin. She’d barrel-ass down here, and that’s the last thing we need.”
“Then I guess I ought to tell you,” said Anthony.
“Tell me what?”
“A few hours ago, when we checked into that fancy hotel and you phoned Deuxième security to say where we were, Dietz monitored every telephone there with a little device we carry that picks up intercepts. There weren’t any, so he pulled the plug on your bedroom phone—”
“He what?”
“We both agreed you two needed sleep. I mean, look at the facts, we’re younger than you guys, and we’re obviously in better shape—”
“Will you two Boy Scouts stop trying to help us across the street!” exclaimed Drew, yanking the cellular phone out of his inner breast pocket and dialing. “I’m still running this opera, remember?”
“If an important call came through, we would have woken you up. Is that so hard to take?”
“Suite two-ten and eleven,” said Latham to the hotel switchboard; it was instantly picked up.
“Yes?”
“Dietz, it’s Latham. What’s the status?”
“We think you were on the mark, Cons-Op,” replied the captain, his voice low. “A couple of minutes ago the embassy gyrenes radioed me from the street
. A heavy-metal vehicle pulled around the east corner and two gumballs got out and walked around to the front, separately. They just entered—”
“Are they neos?”
“We don’t know yet, but the desk is cooperating—hold it! The hotel override is lit up.” The seconds seemed like minutes to Drew until Dietz came back on the line. “Unless all statistics lie, you were on the mark. They pressed the button for the second floor.”
“Get the marines in!”
“You think I won’t?”
Suddenly a loud, echoing horn erupted behind Latham. “I think you took someone’s parking space,” said the lieutenant.
“Tell them to shove it!”
“Hey, why don’t we just move?”
“Then you hold the phone. Christ, the neos just went into the hotel! The second floor!” Drew backed out of the space.
“There’s no one on the line. The captain is a devious field guy; if they come to the door, they’ll wish they hadn’t.”
“Is the line dead?” asked Latham, swinging into another space.
“He hung up, if that’s what you mean.”
“Get him back!”
“That’s not a good idea, sir. He’s got work to do.”
“Shit!” exploded Drew. “Now I know I’m right.”
They were joined in the elevator by five other men and two women, all speaking near hysterical French. Latham kept staring at one face after another, the blur of pinched features, squinting and then bulging eyes, strained voices, and pronounced throat veins became a cartoonlike montage of screaming animals, each trying to outscreech the other. Without thinking, Drew reached over a shoulder and pressed the floor he vaguely remembered having pressed before on Moreau’s instructions. Two stops were made prior to the button Latham had punched; he and the lieutenant were alone as they ascended to the top floor.
“What were they saying?” asked Drew. “I caught some of it, not much.”
“They don’t know what the hell is going on, but if you want to know the bottom line, they’re all concerned about their jobs.”
“I suppose that’s natural. When this kind of thing happens, nobody’s above suspicion; and when that happens, the clean sweepers come out of the government woodwork.”
“You mean a lot of babies get thrown out with the bathwater?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” The elevator stopped, the door opened, and both men walked out into the anteroom, whose various doors led to the corridors and offices of the clandestine operations agency. Latham approached the middle-aged receptionist and spoke. “Je m’appelle Drew—”
“I know who you are, sir,” said the woman pleasantly in English. “You were here to see Monsieur le Directeur several days ago. We are all still in shock, I’m afraid.”
“So am I. He was my friend.”
“I’ll inform our new director that you’re here. He came straight down from Beauvais—”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” interrupted Latham.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Considering what’s happened, he’s got to be busy with so many problems, he doesn’t need any interference from me. My coming here is inconsequential; I left some articles in the Deuxième car. Is the agent named François inside? I believe he drove the director down from Beauvais.”
“Yes, he is. Shall I ring his office?”
“Why bother? He’d probably call Jacques—forgive me, your new director—and I really don’t want to interrupt him. Certainly not over a pair of shoes.”
“Shoes …?”
“French, you see. The best, and quite expensive but worth every franc.”
“Naturellement.” The receptionist pressed a button on her desk; a buzzer from a door on the far right erupted and there was the click of a lock. “His office is down that hallway, the third on the left.”
“Thank you. Excuse me, this is my associate, Major Anthony, United States Army, Special Forces.” The lieutenant snapped his head toward Drew in surprise as Latham continued. “He’ll remain here, if you don’t mind. He speaks fluent French … and probably Urdu, for all I know.”
“Bonjour, madame. Mon plaisir.”
“Je vous en prie, Major.”
Drew opened the anteroom door and walked into the narrow gray corridor, moving rapidly to the third door on the left. He knocked once, opening the door quickly, startling François, who was asleep, his head on the desk. He shot up, lurching back into his chair. “Qu’est-ce que se passe?”
“Hello there, Wheelman,” said Latham, shutting the door. “Catching a little nap? I envy you, I’m tired as hell.”
“Monsieur Lat’am, what are you doing here?”
“I have an idea you may know, François.”
“Mon Dieu, know what?”
“You were close to Claude Moreau, weren’t you? He knew your wife, her name, Yvonne … your two daughters.”
“Oui, on a less-than-familiar basis, monsieur. We all know one another, our families as well, but from a distance.”
“And you’re pretty tight with Jacques Bergeron too, Moreau’s top gun.”
“Tight?”
“You and Jacques, Jacques and you, chief driver and chief aide, always together with your boss, the intrepid trio bound by years of working together. Regular ‘Mousquetaires.’ So ordinary, so usual, so easy to accept because you see them every day.”
“You talk in riddles, monsieur!”
“Hell, yes. Because it is a riddle, a riddle based in utter simplicity. Who would question the sight of the three of you or the grief of the two who escaped being killed? A couple of hours ago, when I called here to tell Jacques where we were staying, guess who I got?”
“I do not have to guess. You spoke to me, Monsieur Lat’am.”
“Everyone goes up a big notch, don’t they?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about!” said François, leaning forward, his right hand slipping across the edge of the desk to a drawer. Suddenly he yanked it open, but Drew lunged over, slamming it shut with such force on the driver’s wrist that he began to scream, the roar cut short by Latham’s fist smashing into François’s mouth. The Frenchman fell back, chair and body crashing to the floor. Drew was instantly over him, grabbing him by his throat and pulling him up, slamming him against the wall, the weapon in the drawer now in Drew’s hand.
“We’re going to talk, Wheelman, and your conversation had better be enlightening, or your life is over.”
“I have a family, monsieur, a wife and children! How can you do this?”
“Have you any idea how many families—fathers, mothers, children, and grandchildren—were torn apart in the fucking camps, forced to walk naked into cement compounds only to emerge as corpses, you son of a bitch!”
“I was not even alive then!”
“You never heard of those things? Thousands were French, rounded up and sent to their deaths! That never bothered you?”
“You don’t understand, monsieur. They have ways to make you cooperate.”
“Such as? And if you lie, I won’t bother to use your gun, I’ll simply snap the carotid arteries on both sides of your neck and it’s finis time. You see, like the radar specialist in Beauvais when he looks at his screen, I can tell by the eyes. I hope I don’t make a mistake.… Jacques Bergeron is a neo, isn’t he?”
“Yes.… How could you possibly know?”
“When you’re tired and you’re lost, you go back over everything. It had to be someone who had access to all the information, someone who knew where the players were every moment. At first we thought it was Moreau; he was on a list that made us afraid to work with him; hell, I couldn’t tell him a damn thing. Then he was cleared by the only man who could clear him, my boss. So who was it? Who knew where I was, whether it was a restaurant in Villejuif with my brother, or one hotel or another when I kept moving? Who knew that Karin and I were in a sidewalk café one night with Claude, where we were all nearly killed except the owner got us out of there? Who faked the
Metro incident with Dr. Kroeger, the gunshots, the man who claimed he saw ‘Harry Latham’ on the train that sped away? There was no Harry Latham, because I was Harry and I wasn’t there! The answer to every one of those queries was a man called Jacques.”
“I don’t know of these things, I swear by the sight of a bleeding Christ on a cross, I do not know!”
“But you know he’s a neo, don’t you? A deep—perhaps the deepest Nazi—in France. Am I right?”
“Yes.” François exhaled his breath until there was none left. “I had no choice but to keep silent and do his bidding.”
“Why?”
“I killed a man and Jacques saw me do it.”
“How?”
“I strangled him. Try to understand, monsieur, I work long hours, sometimes I am away for days at a time, my family is neglected—what can I say?”
“A hell of a lot more,” said Drew.
“My wife found a lover. I could tell, as every husband can, when darkness envelops the bed. I used the resources of the Deuxième to find out who he was.”
“Not exactly official business, right?”
“Certainly not. But what I did not know was that Jacques was monitoring my every inquiry, my every telephone call.… I set up a meeting with this individual, a rotten hairdresser with a record of debts and failed salons, and we met in an alley in the Montparnasse. He made obscene references to my wife’s behavior, laughing as he did so. I went mad and attacked him, killed him viciously. As I walked out of the alley, Bergeron greeted me.”
“So he had you.”
“The rest of my life in prison was the alternative. He had taken photographs with an infrared night camera.”
“Yet you and your wife are back together, isn’t that so?”
“We are French, monsieur. I am not a saint either. We have made peace with each other and our marriage is solid. We have our children.”
“But you worked with Bergeron, a Nazi. How can you justify that?”
“The rest of my life in prison—how would you justify it? My wife, my children, my family. And, monsieur, I never killed for him, never! He had others to do that, I refused.”