The Apocalypse Watch (91 page)

“You are
insane
! Everything you say is a
lie
!”

“No, it isn’t. It was in your own words, your humble confessional in Beauvais. One way or another you knew you had to get out; sooner or later the rope would be circling around your neck. You really didn’t expect to be named director of the Deuxième; it was the only honest thing you said because you knew there were better men in other intelligence agencies. So you declared to all of us, ‘I am not a leader, I am a follower who obeys orders.’ … You were repeating, ad nauseam, the terrible words we’ve heard too often, the Nazi credo. That’s what made me pull in our supercomputer expert, just on a chance.”

“I repeat,” said Jacques Bergeron icily, “I was a war orphan, my parents were French, killed in a bombing raid, and my academic records are there for all to see. You are nothing more than a paranoid American troublemaker, and I’ll see you expelled from France.”

“Can’t happen, Jacques. You killed my brother, or, should I say, you had him killed. I won’t let you go. I’m going to jam your severed head on the highest pike of the Pont Neuf, just the way the fans of the guillotine liked it. For all your scholastic achievements, you overlooked something. Lauterbourg was never bombed, either by the Allies or the Germans. You were smuggled across the Rhine to start a new life—as a Sonnenkind.”

Bergeron stood immobile, studying Latham, a thin, cold smile creasing his soft face. “You’re really quite talented, Drew,” he said quietly. “But, of course, you will not get out of here alive, so your talent has been wasted,
n’est-ce pas
? A paranoid American, a man with a record
of violence, comes in to assassinate the director of the Deuxième—who is the Sonnenkind? After all, my predecessor, Moreau, never trusted you. He told me you lied to him consistently; it’s in his notes which I alone dutifully transcribed into his computer.”

“
You
transcribed?”

“They’re there, that’s all that matters. I am the only one who has the access key to his classified material. Whatever is there is his alone.”

“Why did you kill him?
Why
did you have Claude killed?”

“Because, like you, he had begun to peel away the layers and was centering in on the truth. It started with the killing of Monique, his secretary, and that ludicrous night at the café when a zealous idiot shot the driver of the American vehicle. It was a gargantuan error, unforgivable, for Moreau came to realize that I was the only other one who knew where you were.… Monique could have—and
would
have—given false information.”

“Funny,” said Latham, “that’s when it began for me too. That and the fact that when my brother flew in from London, he was supposedly under the Deuxième’s surveillance.”

“Easily rearranged, as it was,” said Bergeron, his pencil-thin smile broader.

“Question,” interrupted Drew angrily. “When Moreau—and
you
—learned that I was impersonating Harry, why didn’t you alert Berlin or Bonn?”

“Now you’re foolish,” replied Bergeron. “The circle was extraordinarily tight, especially here at the Deuxième. Only Claude and I knew, and there was no way to tell how restricted it was elsewhere. A leak traced to the Deuxième would compromise me.”

“That’s pretty weak, Jacques,” said Drew, staring at the Sonnenkind.

“Again your talent shines through, monsieur. Better that others make mistakes, and one crashes through the mists of errors with the reality, proclaiming himself the true Valkyrie.… Quite simply, I was waiting for
the proper time. Your American politicians know all about that.”

“Very good, Jacky-baby. And suppose I told you that everything said in here has been recorded, the frequency tuned to Lieutenant Anthony’s machine in the lobby. High tech is wonderful, isn’t it?”

J
acques Bergeron, Sonnenkind, screamed hysterically while lurching to his desk and picking up a heavy paperweight; he threw it into his window, shattering the glass. Then, with strength that belied his medium-size compact physique, he raised his chair and hurled it at Latham, who pulled François’s gun out of his belt.

“Don’t
do
it!” shouted Drew. “I don’t want to
kill
you! We need your records! For
Christ’s
sake,
listen
to me!”

It was too late. Jacques Bergeron whipped out a small weapon from his chest holster and fired indiscriminately, everywhere, anywhere. Latham dove to the floor as Bergeron ran to the door, yanked it open, and raced outside.

“
Stop
him!” roared Drew, lunging toward the hallway. “No,
wait
!
Don’t
stop him! He’s got a
gun
! Get out of his way!”

The corridor was in chaos. Two more gunshots exploded as the crowds streamed out of cubicles. A man and a woman fell wounded or killed. Latham got to his feet and ran after the Nazi, crisscrossing the intersecting hallways, shouting, “
Gerry
, he’ll have to get out through there! Shoot him in the legs, keep him
alive
!”

That order was also too late. Bergeron crashed through the reception room’s door as an ear-shattering bell echoed off the walls and Lieutenant Anthony emerged from the second elevator. The Nazi fired; it was the last shell in his magazine as the following clicks announced, but the bullet pierced the commando’s right arm. Anthony grabbed his elbow, released it, and awkwardly, in pain, fumbled for his weapon while the woman behind the desk hysterically dropped to the floor.

“You’re not going
anywhere
,” yelled the lieutenant,
trying to reach his gun with his right hand, his arm in agony, “because neither are those elevators! I alarmed both of them.”

“You are quite wrong!” screamed the neo, racing into the nearest elevator; in barely seconds the panels began to close and the deafening bell was abruptly silent. “It is
you
who are not going anywhere, monsieur!” were the Nazi’s last words.

Drew burst through the anteroom’s door. “Where
is
he?” asked Latham furiously.

“In that elevator,” replied the commando, wincing. “I thought I shorted both of them out, but I guess I didn’t.”

“Christ, you’ve been hit!”

“I can handle it, check the lady.”

“Are you all
right
?” said Drew, rushing to the receptionist, who was slowly getting to her feet.

“I’ll be better when I deliver my resignation, monsieur,” she answered, trembling and breathless as Latham helped her up.

“Can we stop the elevator?”

“
Non. Les directeurs
—forgive me, the directors and their deputies have emergency codes that put the lifts into express cycles. No stops until they reach their floors.”

“Can we prevent him from leaving the building?”

“On what authority, sir? He is the director of the Deuxième Bureau.”

“
Il est un Nazi d’Allemand!
” cried the lieutenant.

The receptionist stared at Anthony. “I will try, Major.” The woman reached for the telephone on her desk and pressed three numbers. “There is an emergency, have you seen the director?” she asked in French. “
Merci
.” She depressed the lever, dialed again, and spoke, repeating the same question. “
Merci
.” The receptionist hung up and looked at Drew and the commando. “I first called the parking area where Monsieur Bergeron keeps his sports car. He did not go through the gate. I then reached our first-floor counter. The guard said the new director just left in a great hurry. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you for trying,” said Gerald Anthony, holding his bleeding right arm.

“If I may,” asked Latham, “why
did
you try? We’re Americans, not French.”

“Director Moreau held you in extremely high regard, monsieur. He said as much to me when you came to see him.”

“That was enough?”

“No.… Jacques Bergeron was all smiles and courtesy when in the company of Monsieur Moreau, but by himself he was an arrogant pig. I prefer to believe your explanation, and, after all, he shot your very charming Major.”

They were back in Ambassador Courtland’s private quarters at the embassy, Drew, Karin with her wounded shoulder strapped, and Stanley Witkowski, who had flown in from London. The two commandos, the lieutenant’s arm attended to and in a sling, were at the hotel, alternately resting and placing generous orders for room service.

“He’s disappeared,” said Daniel Courtland, sitting in a chair near the colonel and opposite Drew and Karin on the couch. “Every police and intelligence agency in France is looking for Jacques Bergeron and nothing’s turned up. Every public and private airport and customs checkpoint in Europe has his photograph with a dozen computerized composites of what he may be disguised as—
nothing
. He’s no doubt safely back in Germany among his own, wherever they are.”

“We have to find out where that is, Mr. Ambassador,” said Latham. “This Water Lightning failed, but what’s next, and will
it
fail? Their long-range plans may be on hold, but the Nazi movement isn’t stopped. Somewhere there are records and we have to
find
them. Those bastards are all over our world, and they’re not calling off their act. Just yesterday a synagogue in Los Angeles and a black church in Mississippi were burned to the ground. Several senators and congressmen who rose to denounce those incidents were accused of covering up their own sympathies. It’s all a goddamn mess!”

“I know, Drew, we all know. Here in Paris, in the predominantly Jewish arrondissements, shopkeepers’ windows
were smashed, the word
Kristallnacht
spray-painted on the walls. It’s becoming a very ugly world. Very ugly.”

“When I left London this morning,” said Witkowski quietly, “the papers were filled with the slaughter of several West Indian children, their faces hacked off with bayonets—their
faces
. The German ‘
Neger
’ was written in colored crayons around the corpses.”

“In God’s name, when will it
stop
!” exclaimed Karin.

“When we find out who they are and where they are,” replied Drew.

The telephone rang on the ambassador’s antique table that he used as a desk. “Shall I answer it, sir?” asked the colonel.

“No, thanks, I’ll get it,” said Courtland, getting out of the chair and crossing to the table. “Yes?… It’s for you, Latham, someone called François.”

“He’s the last person I ever expected to hear from again,” said Drew, rising and walking quickly to the table. He took the phone from the ambassador. “François …?”

“Monsieur Lat’am, we must meet somewhere privately.”

“There’s nothing more private than this telephone, believe me. You just spoke to the American ambassador, and his phone is as sterile as any can be.”

“I believe you, for you have kept your word. I am interrogated, but only for everything I know, not for what I was.”

“You were in a lousy, untenable position, and as long as you cooperate to the fullest, you can go home to your family.”

“My gratitude is beyond words, monsieur, as is my wife’s. We have discussed everything—I withheld nothing from her—and together we decided I must make this call, for what it may be worth to you.”

“What is it?”

“I must take you back to the night old Jodelle killed himself in the theater where the actor Jean-Pierre Villier was performing. Do you recall?”

“I’ll never forget it,” said Drew firmly. “What about that night?”

“It was early morning, actually, when
Sous-directeur
Bergeron ordered me to come immediately to his office at the Deuxième. I did so, but he was not there. However, I knew he was in the building, for the guards at the gate made sarcastic comments about his rudeness to them, and how he interrupted my sleep, no doubt to assist him to the toilet. I was afraid to leave. I waited until he showed up; he did so carrying a very old file from the cellar archives, so old it had not been entered into the computers. The folder itself was yellow with age.”

“Isn’t that unusual?” asked Latham.

“There are thousands upon thousands of files in the archives, monsieur. Much work has been done in transposing them, but it will take years before the job is complete.”

“Why is that?”

“Experts, among them historians, are called in to validate their inclusion, and as with governments everywhere, funds are limited.”

“Go on. What happened?”

“Jacques instructed me to take the file and deliver it personally to a château in the Loire Valley, using a Deuxième vehicle with papers he signed himself that overrode any police interference in the event I was stopped for speeding, which he ordered me to do. I casually asked him why it was so necessary at this hour, could it not wait until morning? He became furious and shouted at me, yelling that we—he and I—owed everything to this place, this man. That it was our sanctuary, our refuge.”

“What place? What man?”

“
Le Nid de l’Aigle
is the château. General André Monluc, the man.”

“The something ‘eagle’ …?”

“The Eagle’s Nest, monsieur. Monluc, I’m told, was a great general of France, honored by De Gaulle himself.”

“So you think Bergeron may have escaped there?” said Drew.

“
Sanctuary
and
refuge
are the words that come back to
me. Also, Jacques is an intelligence expert; he knows the multiple barriers he must surmount to leave the country. He will need help from resourceful associates, and the
combinaison
of a great general and a château in the Loire would appear to fit his situation. I hope this will be of some assistance to you.”

“It will, and I hope we won’t have to see or speak to each other again. Thank you, François.” Latham hung up the phone and turned to the others. “We’ve got the name of the general Jodelle was hunting, the traitor who he said fooled De Gaulle. Also where he lives, if he’s alive.”

“That was a pretty strange one-sided conversation,
chłopak
. Why don’t you fill us in?”

“Back off, Stanley, I made a deal. That man’s been living in his own personal hell far longer than he deserved, and he never killed anyone for the Nazis. He was a water boy and a messenger with a gun to his family’s collective head. Bottom line: I made a deal.”