The Venetian Affair (10 page)

As Fenner finished reading, Vaugiroud handed over the sheaf of newspaper clippings. “Verification,” he said. And it was impressive. Vaugiroud had gathered every report from all the European newspapers that had joined in the attack.

“Damning,” Fenner conceded. And damnable. Even at this distance, with the lie nailed to the floor, he felt a surge of cold anger.

“As a Frenchman, I find it painful.”

“Was that the reason you did so much work on this report?”

“Partly, yes. And partly because I could not make any deductions unless I gathered the facts first. From them, I have been able to make some suggestions in this memorandum”—he reached for a small pile of closely written pages—“very lengthy, I’m afraid: so much documentation, references, additional facts. And names.” He hesitated. “You see,” he went on, “I learned more than I expected to learn when I first started on that report for Walter Penneyman.”

Fenner looked with some awe at the pile of manuscript. His French wasn’t as good as all that. This would take him several hours of concentrated work. Still, he was eager to see what Vaugiroud had written. He held out his hand, and then drew it back. “Sorry,” he said.

“You are interested?”

“Definitely.”

Vaugiroud didn’t pass over the memorandum. He said, “It would be safer for you not to see it, Mr. Fenner. But I can tell you, very roughly, at least part of it. So that you can judge if it really is worth all your trouble in helping me send it to Washington.”

Fenner hid his disappointment. Even Vaugiroud’s phrase “safer for you...Mr. Fenner” had aroused his curiosity still more: any information that was dangerous was usually worth knowing. As a onetime newsman— He caught himself sharply. Had Walt Penneyman been right? Was the old itch to know all about a story still there? He said, “That’s fair enough.”

“The memorandum is divided into four sections. First, the purpose behind the planted lie. Second, the means and methods
used to spread it. Third, the reason for its failure. And fourth—the next attempt.”

Fenner stared. “You think they will try something like this again?” The question had been jolted out of him.

“I don’t think. I know,” said Vaugiroud very quietly.

“You
know
?”

“I know that an act of violence is being planned right now. I know that it will take place soon. I know that the same propagandist is already preparing the campaign against America.”

“You don’t know time or place?”

“Obviously not. Or else you wouldn’t be sitting here listening to me. Instead, I would be talking to some Intelligence officers from NATO, or some of the international experts from our own Sûreté.”

“Sorry. That was a damned silly question of mine.”

Vaugiroud was mollified by the frank statement. “Why shouldn’t they try something like that again?” he asked, pointing to the report for Penneyman. “It was a brilliant success, except for one omission. Next time, they won’t make that mistake.”

“What was it?”

“They did not provide evidence.”

“Evidence? A letter, some kind of signed document? But that would have been a forgery, and forgeries can be disproved.”

“Disproof takes time. For the last four years, the Russians have been fabricating several letters and memorandums which could have caused serious trouble for the West. Fortunately, our governments had the time to examine them, exchange proof with each other of the falsity of the documents.”

“How did they get that time?”

“No headlines in the newspapers, Mr. Fenner,” Vaugiroud said with a tactful smile. “The documents were examined and checked, very quietly. I don’t expect you will approve of that. But it did save several unpleasant misunderstandings between the NATO allies. Looking back at last April, I now think we were very lucky.”

Fenner said thoughtfully, “The revolt broke so quickly, I suppose, that there wasn’t time to manufacture evidence?” He could imagine the added effect of some bogus correspondence between a French general and the CIA being published in
Il Paese
.

“They did very well as it was. But if they could have produced some definite evidence—such as a large sum of American dollars found in a general’s luggage or house or deposited in his bank account—what then?”

Fenner, who had been lighting a cigarette, looked up quickly.

“That amazes you, Mr. Fenner? Surely you’ve heard of planted money? What could be more definitive than a large amount of foreign currency? Oh, I grant you that, given time, we could disprove our guilt. But will we have time?”

“Do
they
have time to manufacture our guilt? There are constant crises, God knows, but—like that Algerian revolt—they can break unexpectedly for both East and West. Unless, of course—” Fenner stared at Vaugiroud “—unless they manufactured a crisis, too. Prepared everything, knew what to expect, and exploited it. To the hilt.”

“To the hilt,” Vaugiroud agreed. He smiled like a professor who was delighted with his pupil’s efforts.

Perhaps the interview could have ended with that. But Fenner wouldn’t let it. He was interested. He wanted to learn, to know.
He was still a newsman, still the man searching for answers. He forgot about time, about his own plans for the evening. And in that moment of sitting back, of lighting another cigarette to replace the one that had gone out, of framing his next sentence most carefully, he changed the whole course of his life.

“So you know,” he said, “that a crisis of some kind, an act of violence, is being planned. But how?” We’ve been doing some sharp deduction, he thought; we have made several acute inferences, but neither deduction nor inference was knowledge, actual knowledge. “You’re a trained philosopher. You don’t use the word ‘know’ meaning ‘think’ or ‘expect’ or ‘feel’. Right?”

Vaugiroud nodded gravely. “I have seen three terrorists meet regularly, twice a week, for the last month. Two weeks ago, they were joined by one of the most skilful Communist propagandists in France. I know enough about these men, their politics, their past history—” He had become deadly serious. He pointed once more to his report for Walt Penneyman. “You read, in there, about the minor officials connected with our government whose gossip helped to make the foreign journalists so bewildered about America. Their connections gave a special significance to any hints or criticisms they passed around. You understand?”

Fenner nodded. Gossip about an international crisis was only speculation if it came from a grocer or bank clerk. But from anyone connected with a Foreign Office or State Department, gossip might seem inside information.

“For that reason, I was alarmed by that crop of rumours last April. So were several of my friends who are in government service themselves. Granted that our national pride was badly hurt by the army revolt, granted that some officials at the
Elysée Palace were only too willing to hope for a scapegoat, there still remained the question: did those minor officials who gossiped really believe what they were hinting? Or were they only repeating what had been dropped very skilfully into their ears? If so, by whom? It took time and patience and tact to find out. The so-called information of the officials concerned could always be traced back, eventually, deviously, to one source. To one man and his own small group of intimates. He is in a position of trust. Not important, not policy-making level. But he is a man, in government, with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and many contacts. I have his name. Here.” Vaugiroud’s fingers tapped the memorandum on his lap. “It has a special significance for me. Because I knew him once. Under another name, of course.” He paused. “I have been searching for him for sixteen years.”

Sixteen years. Since the end of the war, Fenner thought.

“Today,” Vaugiroud went on, “his politics seem nicely left of centre, liberal without being rabid; always admirable, always acceptable. But I knew him when I was in command of a special unit of the Resistance working here in Paris. He was known only as Jacques. He was a Communist, very able; he fought bravely, risked much. A capable and intelligent young man, interested in psychological warfare. I made him my second-in-command. I trusted him. And so, on August 11, 1944, eight days before the liberation of Paris, I found myself in Gestapo hands.” Vaugiroud looked down at his crippled leg.

“Jacques denounced you to the Nazis?”

“He informed secretly.”

“Why?”

“The end of the Nazi war was in sight. That was the time
to eliminate any Resistance leaders who would oppose any Communist attempt to seize power. He was acting under orders, of course. It was part of the pattern, at that time—like the arms and the money they were beginning to steal and hide.”

“How do you know it was Jacques who informed?”

“If there were only five people called to a most secret meeting, and four appeared, and the fifth man did not, but the Gestapo did; and if in subsequent examination of these four, the Gestapo’s questions all centred around the special business of that meeting; if only two people knew about the exact business, myself and Jacques; if the Gestapo showed no interest in the fifth member of that small group; if Jacques made no immediate move to alert other Resistance units about our arrest so that they could have us traced or make an attempt to help us; if Jacques abandoned us completely, assumed leadership of my section, replaced the four of us with men of his own choosing—” Vaugiroud’s quiet voice didn’t finish his long but damningly clear sentence.

“If you only knew him as Jacques, how did you find out who he really was?”

“Life plays its jokes. I searched through Paris for sixteen years, and never could trace him. Then, two weeks ago, he walked into a café to meet a very odd group of men. It’s a small restaurant not far from here, just off the Boulevard Saint-Germain, where I lunch each day. He did not recognise me, for two reasons: I have changed a great deal, physically; and I was supposed to have died under Gestapo examination. That was one rumour I have allowed to live.”

“And he never knew your real name, or your background?”

“Just as I never knew his. It was a security measure that all
our units shared. It was supposed to mean some safety for our families.” He looked at the photograph on his desk. “Life also plays cruel tricks. She was arrested because she was the wife of Professor Pierre Vaugiroud, who was believed to be working with the Free French in London. She never told them that—” he broke off. His face became as lifeless as his voice.

Fenner searched desperately for another question. “What happened to the three others who were captured with you?” he asked sympathetically, drawing Vaugiroud away from that blank stare of grim memory.

“Two died. One stayed barely alive, as I did. The Americans freed us. And a year later—when we were fit enough—we came back to our own identities, Henri Roussin and Pierre Vaugiroud. We both had the same purpose: find Jacques. But he had dropped out of sight long before we were released from the hospital. I began to think that the Communists had transferred him to another city, another country. Or perhaps he was dead. Until two weeks ago—” Vaugiroud began to smile “—when Jacques walked into the Café Racine, which Henri Roussin owns. Jacques is now affluent, handsomely dressed, very confident in manner; a man of position, most respectable, restrained. But he is recognisable. He has aged normally, unlike Henri and myself.” Vaugiroud paused. “How old would you say I am, Mr. Fenner? Frankly?”

Fenner hedged. “About sixty-five or so, I guess.”

“You are being too polite. Even so, you add eleven years to my age.”

Fenner was shocked into silence.

“So,” Vaugiroud said, “once we found Jacques, it was easy to discover his present name. It was a double shock for me, I
must admit, when that same name was given to me a few days ago as the source from which all rumours flowed.”

“He is the propagandist you spoke of?”

“Yes. And the three men whom he joined for luncheon in the highly respectable Café Racine are the terrorists.”

Fenner was startled. A highly respectable restaurant?

Vaugiroud did not hide his amusement. “They have been meeting twice a week since the beginning of August. My friend Henri makes a point of knowing his patrons. Most of them are regular visitors—lawyers, professors, judges. These three terrorists seemed very much the same type, well dressed, circumspect, interested in good food. One was a wine merchant, another a retired industrialist, and a third a film producer. But after Jacques met them, we naturally took a closer interest in them.”

“Three rather unlikely terrorists.” Were they really that? Fenner couldn’t help wondering. The word had such supercharged emotion attached to it. Vaugiroud was really floating off the beam there. Why did good men who uncovered twisted politics seem to develop some twist of their own?

“Unlikely? They have money, brains, international contacts, intense convictions, ruthless ambition. The wine merchant is a staunch sympathiser with the Secret Army Organisation. The industrialist subsidises an activist group of right-wing nationalists. And the man who is now a film producer, a propagandist for Communist causes, a naturalised Frenchman, was previously—to my own knowledge, eighteen years ago—an organiser of Communist militants. His work was most secret, and so important that Comrade Jacques took abnormal risks to help smuggling him out of France back to Russia. I saw him only once, briefly, by accident. I didn’t remember him
until Jacques came into the restaurant. Seeing them together struck some distant memory, brought it to life. Of the four men at that table, he may be the most dangerous... Yes, they are terrorists, for they are the arrangers. They are as guilty as the men who bomb, and kill, and destroy. I believe they are more guilty; because it is their planning, and their money, that can turn vicious impulses into a concerted pattern of violence. They have the means, and purpose. In the most cowardly sense of the word, these four men
are
terrorists. Do I make myself clear?”

“Quite clear.” And I apologise: it was I who was wandering off the beam. Only, Fenner thought, only—

“Yes?” Vaugiroud had sensed his puzzlement.