Leon Uris (28 page)

Columbine, a past master in this operation, took his instructions and nodded.

“A final matter,” Gorin said. “The KGB defector may have revealed the existence of Topaz to the Americans.”

“I was wondering about that,” Columbine said. “I learned just before I came today that Devereaux is on the way to Paris ... aboard an American Air Force jet.”

“That could mean Topaz, the missile business ... or both. What about Devereaux’s movements?” Gorin asked.

“I was able to find out,” Columbine said, “that several months ago he went on a series of weekend or overnight trips out of Washington. Apparently he did not travel far. He left and returned by automobile, often in the company of Nordstrom. One conversation brought out the words ‘Maryland countryside.’ In recent months his trips have taken him closer, a shorter drive, again often in Nordstrom’s company. The only clue would be ‘Bethesda Naval Hospital.’ ”

Gorin stopped, mulled .... “Bethesda Naval Hospital,” he grumbled.

“It’s close to Washington and is used by a number of Congressmen and high-ranking military. At times, American Presidents have been interned there. Therefore, elaborate security measures are commonplace.”

“That fits with what we know,” Gorin said. “The defector had a history of heart trouble. He could well be at that hospital. Your main objective, and this is imperative ... is to totally discredit Devereaux.”

“You know that’s not so easy,” Columbine said. “He has a spotless reputation and friends and he thinks fast. We’ve tried to smear him and set him up time and again. La Croix isn’t being taken in so fast. Even though he and Devereaux have different politics, La Croix respects him too much.”

“Well,” Gorin said, “we’ll make a deal with him. Devereaux will have to join us.”

“He’ll never make a deal. He’s too damned honest.”

“Big men have big blind spots,” Gorin answered. “Devereaux has his and we know what it is. He’ll deal.”

Columbine stopped, stepped on his cigarette butt, took another one from the pack, flicked on his lighter and cupped his hands to keep the flame. He looked up, his gray eyes staring curiously at the Russian.

“Devereaux has a mistress in Cuba,” Gorin said. “Juanita de Córdoba. She was probably a member of his operation.”

“You’re a fool, Gorin. He’s too smart to get himself involved beyond a casual affair.”

“Big men have big blind spots,” the Russian repeated. “He’s insanely in love with her. Why else would the head of an intelligence section personally attempt to take a boat into Cuba to get his woman?”

Columbine sucked at the cigarette without comment.

“When the time comes, he’ll make a deal with us to save her life. I’ll see you here next Friday.”

Columbine watched the Russian disappear down the path in the fast-fading light. He wondered if at last he had found the elusive key to destroy his archenemy, André Devereaux.

F
RANCE HAD FALLEN!

The beginning for André Devereaux was his town of Montrichard in the Loire Valley, named for the river that flowed through this, the garden of France.

The Loire Valley, magnificent with its hundred great châteaux, their lakes, their formal gardens, their woodlands. The playground of royalty and a mistress of history for over a thousand years.

It was Orléans of Joan of Arc.

It was Charlemagne and his Abbey of Pont-Levoy, the oldest school in all of Europe.

It was the resting place of Leonardo da Vinci and the Castle of Chambord, enriched by the hand of his genius.

Oh, the castles of the Loir-et-Cher! Chaumont and Montrésor and Amboise, where da Vinci died, and the Castle of Chenonceaux with its five arches built over the Cher River itself!

It was the staggering rock at Le Puy crowned by the statue of the Black Virgin.

It was the hunt. The ride for the boar and the fox behind the magnificent hounds of Cheverny.

It was the grape of Tours and the sparkling bubbles of Vouvray and the scrubby farms and goat cheese of Sancerre.

Montrichard, the home of André Devereaux, lay in the heart of this France. Cobblestone streets and dramatic cliffs fell to the white sand beaches of the Cher. The winery of Montmousseau on the edge of town had its vats dug deeply into cliffs built during the Roman occupation. Around it stretched fields of raspberries and strawberries to augment the grape.

Primitive ancient troglodyte houses built in the cliffsides were still used by the peasants during the grape-picking season.

Montrichard! The Hill of Richard the Lion-heart, named after the King of England who stopped there on his return from the Crusades.

These days it sat in sadness, for France had fallen.

The nation was divided in half. A few kilometers to the south of Montrichard, where the Cher flowed in its gentle course to Chenonceaux, there was now a border. Montrichard was in Occupied France. Beyond the border, a sham government of collaborators with the Germans had established its capital at Vichy and was led by the once honorable Marshal Pétain.

When France fell, André Devereaux was twenty years old and an apprentice lawyer in his father’s office. The elder Devereaux, a landholder of considerable means, was now the head of a long-honored family in the district.

The Château Devereaux stood on the west edge of town, on the road to the Castle of Chenonceaux, and consisted of twenty-eight rooms, modest as chateaux went in that area.

Life was orderly. As the only son, André lived in preparation to assuming the family responsibilities in an area no longer given to upheaval.

The only thing that marred this pastoral existence was the sudden, tragic death of André’s mother which orphaned him as an infant. It was an automobile accident for which his father took the blame and an overwhelming burden of guilt.

As a sensitive boy, the longing for his mother, complicated by his father’s self punishment, set off a conflict of emotions.

Some two months after the fall of France, André looked up from his desk late one morning to see his best friend, Robert Proust.

Robert’s behavior seemed strange and nervous.

“What goes?” André asked.

“Could you come to lunch at La Tête Noire?”

“Certainly.”

“There is someone I want you to meet.”

“What’s so mysterious?”

“You’ll see.”

Later, at La Tête Noire Restaurant, Robert led André to a secluded table. There sat a lean, handsome young man in his early twenties. He was introduced as Jacques Granville from the nearby town of Blois. Jacques had been an officer during the fighting, but had escaped capture and returned to his home.

“Robert said you are an old friend,” Jacques said, uncorking the wine.

“Yes,” André answered. “We went to the school at Pont-Levoy Abbey together.”

Jacques poured the wine. “We are all schoolmates then. It is my school, too.”

Robert Proust, a small, plain, shy fellow, sipped the wine nervously. “Jacques, Monsieur Granville, has many connections in Blois to ... help people.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Robert here said I could speak freely with you.”

“But of course.”

“We are helping Jews,” Robert said.

“What do you mean, helping them?”

“I am half-Jewish, as you know,” Robert said.

“I never really thought about it,” André answered.

“Things are getting difficult, very difficult, for the Jews in Occupied France. The Germans are no-good bastards. First, public humiliation. Now their property, beatings. God knows what next. Many of the Jews in Occupied France are trying to cross the border into Vichy France. We are establishing an underground railroad.”

“Why?”

“They are Frenchmen,” Jacques Granville said eagerly, “and they are in trouble. Other Frenchmen are turning on them as things grow more difficult.”

“That’s disgraceful,” André said.

“Robert suggested I see you because I understand your father owns several farms along the Cher River.”

“Yes.”

“Would you be willing to help Jews?”

“Of course,” André answered without hesitation.

Proust and Granville drew deep breaths, exchanged looks. Jacques leaned forward on his elbows. “It could be dangerous business.”

“The Germans can go to hell. I hate them,” André said. “What do you need of me?”

“Can the tenant farmers on your father’s farms be trusted?”

André mulled. “We have four small farms on the Cher. Two of the men I would vouch for.”

“Good,” Granville said. “Now, as you know, the Berry Canal runs parallel to the Cher River. The area in between is where the Germans have their border patrols. If we can observe the German patrols from one of the farmhouses and establish some kind of pattern, then we can slip the Jews over the river into Vichy France.”

The idea was both fascinating and frightening to young André. He felt deep guilt because, unlike Robert who was a year older, he had not fought against the Germans.

“I will help,” he said, “if you will agree not to tell my father.”

Flamboyant Jacques Granville flashed a broad smile. Bland Robert Proust merely nodded.

“Welcome, comrade,” Jacques said, and the three of them shook hands.

T
HE
C
HER WAS A
lazy river with a slow, untroubled movement. In many sectors, centuries of sand had built up a network of shallow bars and submerged islets.

André and his friend Robert Proust had swum the river and fished and boated on it from earliest memory. It was a simple matter for them to know at what places one could wade all the way across.

Telling his father that he had found a girl friend in Blois, André set up an excuse to spend several nights a week studying the movement of the German patrols between the Berry Canal and the river. The Germans were unbelievably methodical. One could set a clock by their appearance.

In Blois, Jacques Granville acquired a half-dozen bicycles, which he hid in a barn. With the pattern of the German patrols established, André alternated with Jacques and Robert in coming to the barn, where five Jews from Blois awaited nightly. They cycled fourteen kilometers to the crossing place and were led over to Vichy France. A horse-drawn wagon picked up the bicycles and returned them to the barn.

Some nights all three of them worked along with other members of the ring from Blois, and two or three trips were made across the river. The operation became so successful that another ten bicycles were acquired.

In the six months that followed, nearly three thousand Jews and other illegals wanted by the Nazis were spirited over the Cher from Occupied France to Vichy France.

“André,” his father fumed. “What is this monkey business? You are with that girl in Blois all night and you sleep all day. Either marry her or find a woman closer to home.”

André yawned his apology.

When he became too worn out to do his job properly, he broke down and confided in his father, who approved of the activity with a great deal of pride. From then on, André worked with the people in Blois on a full-time basis. It was the true beginning of his intelligence career.

One night he showed up at the barn and there were no Jews. Robert Proust and Jacques Granville came in shortly after, frightened and excited.

“I received a warning,” Jacques blurted, “that the Germans have been watching us for the last couple of days.”

“Oh, God!”

“I’m sure they’re waiting to learn our system and find all the underground stations before they close in. It will give us a chance to get away.”

“Run?”

“Yes,” Robert said shakily. “We must flee now. Everyone in Blois has scattered. I’ve packed some things for you.”

“Papal I have to tell him good-bye.”

Jacques gripped him and shook his head, No.

“I must.”

“It could implicate your father if you see him now. We’ll get a message to him when we can.”

“Who informed on us?”

“Frenchmen,” Jacques Granville spat. “Frenchmen trying to kiss the asses of the Germans. And it’s the French police looking for us along with the Germans.”

“The sons of bitches ...”

“Come on, André, let’s get going.”

That night they fled to Tours and were hidden in an attic which had been a station in the underground. By morning they learned that they, and the rest of the Blois ring, were the objects of a massive manhunt.

Each night they shifted to a new hiding place in Tours, awaiting help from the underground. After a week, a grizzled old man who was called Duval visited them.

“We’ve got you cleared as far as Bordeaux. The organization there will give you papers and certificates stating that you have tuberculosis. With TB papers you will be able to travel to rehabilitation centers in the foothills of the Pyrenees.”

He spread a map on the rough-hewn table and squinted, leading his finger to the French-Spanish border.

“Here it is, Cambo. You will be able to make contact with a guide to take you over to Spain.”

“From there?”

Duval shrugged. “I can only give you one name, that of a Miss Florence Smith in the British Embassy in Madrid. We believe she is MI-5, British Intelligence. She’s helped a number of our people get to French North Africa.”

Duval gave them money. “I’m sorry we have no papers. You’ll have to get those in Bordeaux. It’s going to be a hard journey. You’ll have to walk by night and live off the land. And remember, the bastards in Vichy are just as bad as in Occupied France.”

“We’ll make it,” Jacques said, with much doubt in his voice.

“Tonight I will come back and show you the way. And, boys, I want to thank you for what you have done. I am a Jew. You’ve taken my whole family over the Cher. God knows what would have happened if they had had to stay.”

Two months later, André Devereaux, Robert Proust, and Jacques Granville arrived in the town of Cambo near the French-Spanish frontier. They were shabby, half-starved, and nearly penniless.

Before them loomed the monstrous barrier of the mountains known as the Pyrenees.

A
NDRÉ
D
EVEREAUX SPENT HIS
twenty-first birthday in Cambo. He had grown a beard, a rather handsome one, that belied his age.