Leon Uris (23 page)

“Then there isn’t anything you wish to correct?”

“There is nothing I wish to comment on.”

“Would you say that this organizational chart of the SDECE is accurate?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you find anything missing?”

André studied the diagram for several moments but did not answer the question.

“There is something missing,” Kuznetov went on. “It is part of Robert Proust’s Secret Operations which will be put under the direction of Ferdinand Fauchet. It will be known as Section P and be composed largely of a group of French scientists now in training who will be placed in American research and industry.”

“America is our ally. We have a regular exchange program of scientists.”

“But Section P has a totally different purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“Not just surveillance, carried out by every country even on its friends, but actual spying. Section P will conduct industrial and scientific espionage on the United States.”

André felt the eyes of the others hard on him. “It is a lie,” he said softly.

“Section P will spy on the United States as though the United States were the enemy of France,” Kuznetov repeated.

“You are telling me that as national policy in 1962 the government of France is deliberately organizing a unit to commit espionage on America?”

“Yes.”

“It is a lie,” André repeated. “It is unthinkable.”

“It is also good intelligence to think of the unthinkable.”

André’s humiliation before friends and colleagues was becoming total. He knew he had to keep his composure at all costs. Then he was stricken with the sickening thought that Boris Kuznetov’s information had thus far shown itself to be foolproof.

“I may continue?” Kuznetov said.

“Of course.”

“On your next trip to Paris either Robert Proust or a superior in SDECE will advise you of Section P and order you to implement this operation through your office in Washington.”

“If what you say is true, everyone knows my attitude.”

“Precisely. Nordstrom, McKittrick, the head of CIA. You are completely trusted. That is why Section P can become a masterpiece of deception. In Moscow KGB likes the operation so well they plan to use it as the key to their own industrial espionage in America.”

For the first time in two decades, André Devereaux became unraveled before an adversary. He stood livid and cracked his fist on the desk. “You are trying to mortify France! You dare accuse my country of collaborating with the Soviet Union! You lie!”

André hushed abruptly, shocked by the sound of his own voice. He had committed a grievous error before men of his own breed. “It’s fantasy,” he said harshly.

“We deal in fantasy, do we not?” Kuznetov answered, taking off his glasses and setting them on the table wearily and rubbing his eyes. He felt sorry for what he was doing to André Devereaux. He put his glasses back on and searched the faces of the Americans he had come to know. They were hushed with disbelief.

“I am Boris Kuznetov,” he said in almost a whisper. “At the time of my defection I was chief of an ultrasecret division of KGB, the Anti-NATO Section.”

No one present had known of its existence and they were dumbstruck.

“The information gathered by Section P will get back to Moscow in the same way we received the NATO documents. Topaz,” he said slowly, “is the code name for Frenchmen working inside the French government as agents of the Soviet Union. They are everywhere, in every department in the military, in every ministry. The SDECE is riddled with them. Members of Topaz go clear up to the top level of government. Topaz No. 1 is a man who carries the code name of Columbine. If you find out who Columbine is, then you will have uncovered a person who is extremely high in the personal entourage and has the ear of President Pierre La Croix.”

“Are you charging that the President of France is being advised and briefed by a Soviet agent?”

“Precisely,” Boris Kuznetov said, “precisely.”

S
NATCHING PROMINENT
C
UBANS FROM
the “fatherland” was routine these days. The refugee trade was brisk. After André turned the valise of gems over to the FBI for delivery to their new owners he set out, with Mike Nordstrom’s help, to arrange a boat for Juanita de Córdoba. A simple plan was evolved, built around an extremely fast boat manned by a crew and skipper who were old hands on the Cuban run. They knew the place to land, the time, the Cuban patrol schedules. They could be in and out of Cuban territorial waters in short order under cover of night, and, if trouble came, could outrun any pursuers.

In one of the paradoxes of Cuban-American relations, it was still possible to speak by telephone between the two countries. With the escape plan locked up, André spoke with Adam by prearranged code then returned to Washington and dispatched the plan by diplomatic courier and waited for the green light by return diplomatic mail.

Brigitte Camus entered André’s office, stopped before his desk. He glanced up to his secretary, a woman obviously filled with displeasure.

“Has the courier arrived from Havana?”

“Yes,” she answered, “he is on the way in from the airport. He’ll be at the Chancellery at any time.” She continued her display of annoyance by slapping an airline ticket on his desk loudly.

André pretended to be unaware and examined his round-trip ticket from Washington to Miami. “If all goes well,” he said, “I’ll be back at my desk in seventy-two hours.”

“If all goes well,” she snapped.

Brigitte Camus had been a most dedicated, closemouthed and loyal associate. In the decade of their relationship she was party to most plans, undertook important responsibility, and on occasion André even sought out her advice.

On rarer occasions, Brigitte Camus volunteered advice whether it was solicited or not.

“You will kindly not hover over my desk,” André said.

“Before you fire me,” she always opened such conversations, “I have something to say and I intend to say it.”

André flipped his pen down, took off his glasses, and leaned back in his leather chair resignedly. “In that case, you might as well sit down and be comfortable.”

Brigitte remained standing. “It is dangerous for you to go back into Cuba.”

“What makes you think I’m going into Cuba?”

“Why haven’t we contacted any one of a dozen agents in the Florida area who could go in and bring Juanita de Córdoba out? How about Pepe Vimont?”

“Perhaps I plan to speak to Pepe in Miami. Did that occur to you? Did it occur to you I might just want to be present when the boat returns?”

“You may be the best intelligence man in the world but to me you are a very bad liar. And you know full well that a man in your position does not take part in these operations. It violates every rule in the business.”

He was properly exposed. No use to try to fool this woman. “For years,” André said softly, “I have planned operations and rotted inside ... waiting. There have been times, you know them, when I have sent men and women to their death. What if I had been there in place of them? I could have come through it every time. Brigitte,” he continued with uncommon familiarity, “Brigitte, this once I must do it myself. If anything should go wrong. If she is lost and I’m not there ... then maybe I wouldn’t want to go on, myself.”

Brigitte’s anger softened to pity. “I’ll have to understand, Monsieur Devereaux.”

“The Ambassador is not to know.”

“Yes.” She began to leave, then stopped. “There is another letter on my desk from Madame Devereaux. This time she addressed the outer envelope to me and pleaded that you do not return it unopened as you have the others. Before you go to Miami, please read it.”

“No.”

“If anything should happen, please don’t leave her with an unopened letter.”

“She left me with cause. It still exists. I will not be a hypocrite so long as the most important thing in my life is to get Juanita de Córdoba out of Cuba. I know we’re star-crossed but I can’t stop this illusion of mine of a life with her ....”

“And if the illusion dies?”

“Why should Nicole be the butt of my folly? She’s still young and handsome enough to make for herself the kind of life she can deal with.”

“Don’t you know that Nicole will take you back on any terms and she’ll be damned lucky.”

“Return the letter.”

Brigitte shook her head. “How can such a wise man be such a fool?”

“I have dealt in logic all my life. This time I intend to be a complete fool.”

The secretary from the message center knocked and entered. Brigitte signed for a bundle of letters. She fingered through them quickly, found the courier message from Alain Adam in Havana and zipped it open.

André adjusted his glasses.

MY DEAR ANDRÉ,

I am sorry our telephone conversation was so frustrating but I can say that I was happy beyond words to hear your voice and know you had arrived safely in Miami.

I have your letter of instructions about getting Juanita to Point Lucia on the Cape Saturday night and although the fishermen you mentioned are prepared at this end, there are other events that have to be explained.

When I left you at the airport I went immediately to Juanita’s villa to take her to the sanctuary of the Embassy. She was not there and I could get no information on her whereabouts.

I had to turn my efforts to the balance of our plan. After several futile hours I literally bullied my way into Che Guevara’s office and warned him we were on to a plot to kidnap you.

The rest of your departure from Cuba is history. Thank God you made it.

I tried hourly for the rest of the day to reach Juanita without success. Next morning I phoned and was answered by someone new in the villa who informed me rather tersely that she was not available.

I sent Blanche to the villa in an Embassy car on the pretext of a social call and there she relates a bizarre turn of events. Juanita was apparently not herself and barely hospitable to Blanche. She begged off outside social engagements on the pretext that she was feeling ill. Blanche was hopeful that some sort of note or sign could be passed but it was obvious the encounter was being closely watched.

Next day I went to the villa myself. A pair of militia were at the gates. I was unable to establish much except that her houseman, cook, and gardener had all been replaced. She seemed a virtual prisoner.

The day before yesterday she made her first public appearance since your departure. The occasion was the dedication of a new hospital. I made it a point to attend the ceremony in the last hope of being able to establish contact and inform her about the boat.

André, my dear comrade. I choke with pain as I write these words. Juanita showed up on the arm of Rico Parra. She was closely guarded at all times, making it impossible for me to speak to her more than a perfunctory greeting. I loathe having to tell you this but the rumor is around that she has become Parra’s mistress.

It appears, my dear André, that Juanita bargained for your life and is now paying off her end of the bargain.

Blanche and I share your grief.

Your affectionate friend,

ALAIN ADAM

André sat like a wax statue. “Cancel the flight to Miami,” he mumbled harshly. “I swear ... as long as she is alive I will find a way to get her out of Cuba.... I swear it ...”

I
NSPECTOR
M
ARCEL
S
TEINBERGER PARKED
his car on Boulevard Murat and proceeded on foot to his flat some two blocks away. With so many new cars, parking had become a large headache in Paris these days.

He walked, hands clasped behind him, head bowed, consumed in thought and oblivious to the game of kickball being played around him by surging, screaming youngsters.

The odors of the variety of foods being cooked seeped into the stairwell and hallway as he climbed the winding stairs to his flat.

Sophie greeted him at the door, took his hat, coat, scarf, umbrella. He bumbled off absent-mindedly to the kitchen, took the lid off the pot of steaming pungent cabbage borscht, their usual Thursday night meal, and passed his blessings on it as he always did.

His wife was of Polish origin. They had met as inmates of the Dachau concentration camp. Some fifty of her immediate family had perished in the extermination ovens, leaving her as sole survivor. After the liberation they were separated in that confusion of human movement. By some miracle they found each other again when Marcel read one of the hundreds of thousands of messages desperately and pathetically pinned on the walls of the refugee centers:

MARCEL STEINBERGER—I AM ALIVE, IN VIENNA AND AWAITING TRANSPORT TO PALESTINE—CONTACT ME THROUGH HIAS (HEBREW IMMIGRANT AID SOCIETY), VIENNA—SOPHIE PERLMUTTER.

Like most concentration-camp couples they felt that their son Émile had to live in the name of a hundred murdered relatives. He was considered by them a very special gift of God to enable the continuation of a family name that was once believed destroyed, and like most concentration-camp couples they tended to be overindulgent. But young Émile grasped the meaning of his own existence and took little advantage of it. Tonight the father and son worked together on math problems the boy had been saving, until they were called to the table.

Émile and Sophie were talkative, but Marcel had detached himself and toyed listlessly with his food. He was immersed in the puzzle of his mission.

Marcel had spent six years directly after the war hounding down wanted war criminals. He was relentless and dedicated, and he now assailed his present assignment with the same sense of vengeance.

So far, Colonel Galande and Guillon showed no reason to be suspect. Further reports from ININ had come to the Sûreté to the effect that nothing could be found out of order on the three non-French.

Everything pointed again to Henri Jarré, the embittered, vitriolic American-baiter, as the man passing the NATO documents.

“Marcel, eat your borscht, it’s getting cold.”

He complied noisily.

But how? Inspector Steinberger was reputed to the best second-story man in the Sûreté. He had waited for a weekend when Jarré and his wife would be out of Paris and personally entered and tooth-combed the Jarré flat.