Topaz - Leon Uris [115]
“There is no Anti-NATO Division,” Brune blurted.
“There is,” André said. “The interrogation of this man has gone on for weeks. But only in the last several days did he tell us something of value.”
“You’ve seen him, you talked to him?”
“Yes.”
“What is your opinion?”
“I’ll stake my professional reputation that Kuznetov is authentic and accurate, and that the Soviet Union has made the greatest intelligence coup of all time.”
“You’re always seeing Communists, Devereaux,” the President said. “If this is true ... if this is true ... Brune, you will dispatch a team of investigators to Washington immediately. And I want the report personally,” he emphasized by knocking his fist on the table.
“Yes, Monsieur le President.”
“I suggest,” André said quickly, “that someone from the Sûreté go also.”
“It’s a matter for the SDECE alone,” Colonel Brune answered quickly.
“I can vouch for the fact that much of the revelation concerns internal security,” André retorted.
Brune shot a quick angry glance at André who had tricked him by having a member of the detested rival service present in order to cover himself.
“Devereaux’s suggestion is in order,” said La Croix. “Contact the Department for Internal Protection. Have Léon Roux send one of his people.”
“Yes, Monsieur le President,” Brune said harshly.
An SDECE team flew out that night for Washington. Among their number was a stranger, Inspector Marcel Steinberger of Internal Protection of the Sûreté.
3
ANDRÉ AND MICHELE WALKED along the Boulevard St.-Germain toward the Café de Flore.
“I do hope you like François,” Michele said.
“I’m certain to dislike him. It’s a father’s prerogative.”
“I’ve never known a man like him.”
“In all your twenty years.”
“He’s handsome and high-minded ...”
“Oh, Lord, Michele, spare me.”
The terrace of the Café de Flore held its usual complement of leftist journalists and students and crackpots tucked around marble-topped tables vociferously denouncing the world in general, America in particular.
André was waylaid greeting a half-dozen old friends as Michele sought out her young man. Then he spotted Ferdinand Fauchet, the feared deputy of FFF. He was beefy and wore a bright scar over one eye, planted there by the knife of a pimp. Fauchet made for Devereaux.
“I heard you’ve been in Paris on the missile business,” he said, raspy-voiced.
“Hello, Fauchet. Since when have you quit working in the sewers?”
Fauchet sucked in a breath and laughed and picked between his teeth with the nail of his little finger. “I have no affection for you, as you know, Devereaux. You have none for me. But as a colleague with many years in the service I’d like to give you some advice.”
“Well?”
“Warn your daughter about the company she keeps. He’s getting very noisy with his dirty journalism.”
Fauchet passed on. André was stung by the words. He had read Picard in Moniteur with admiration. It was the kind of battle from which he never knew how to back away, but as for Michele ...
She waved to him. André walked toward them, and after an introduction they took a booth inside and ordered Pernod. The drink offended André’s Americanized taste, but the pleasures of bourbon had not yet reached the Left Bank of Paris.
Michele pressed François’s hand. Both of them had a sad desperation about them. Lord, André thought, why do young lovers dote on misery? How nice to be an aging lover and when you walk into the room meet someone who is happy and loves in an uncomplicated way. Young people demand tragedy. He had had that with Nicole. Love for the young is a waste and a mess.
As Michele had promised, the boy was extremely intelligent, quite good-looking and enormously idealistic.
“I am a news editor and analyst on the First Channel.”
“Yes, Michele told me.”
“Monsieur Devereaux, I want to say candidly that I love your daughter very much.”
“Yes, she informed me of that, too. Well, what do you intend to do about it?”
Michele and François looked at one another like pained puppies. “We will marry as