Topaz - Leon Uris [73]
On the lower right side of the board he filled in a single large square: “Service 7—Administration.”
On the far right he wrote, “Service 5—Action.”
Subdivisions under the Action Section were “A/1—Paramilitary” and lastly “FFF—Secret Operations.”
Kuznetov set the chalk down, brushed his hands clean, and was assisted back into the wheelchair. Then he addressed André.
“FFF, your Secret Operations Section, is directed by one of your closest friends, Robert Proust. His code name is Panorama.”
The silence in the room remained intense, and André bore a stone face.
“FFF has particular interest to us all, as you will soon learn. FFF has sprouted a baby, a new subsection. Your friend Robert Proust has as his chief henchman one Ferdinand Fauchet. Do you know Ferdinand Fauchet?”
André nodded faintly.
“Well, let me enlighten our American friends. Ferdinand Fauchet keeps his office at Orly Field under the guise of a customs control. Actually, his office is rigged out with some remarkable listening apparatus, camera equipment, and ingenious devices for picking locks and breaking seals. He is an expert at opening and photographing the contents of diplomatic pouches which are not properly sealed. So be careful when your diplomatic mail passes through Paris.”
André felt shaky but controlled it.
“Let me tell you some more about Robert Proust and his henchman, Fauchet. Fauchet is the SDECE liaison with certain French gangsters and underworld people who carry out most of the actual kidnapings, beatings, and killings for Secret Operations. Two years ago, Fauchet purchased a small but exquisite hotel, the Miami, located on Rue Montparnasse. But, you see, it does not belong to him. It belongs to the French Secret Service.”
Sid Jaffe licked his lips, remembering that he had visited the bar and restaurant of the Miami on a number of occasions, once with Michael Nordstrom, who now exchanged a glance with him.
“The underworld has supplied a number of very high-class prostitutes who are extremely well trained. They work diplomatic receptions for the SDECE, usually under the guise of being models or even housewives. An amorous or drunk diplomat is apt to leave the reception in the company of one of these young ladies and be taken to the Miami. Or a married diplomat may want to rendezvous with a so-called married girl in this group and she’ll also take him to the Miami. Every room is wired and can be photographed by hidden cameras.”
Kuznetov scratched the end of his nose, trying to recall a figure. “If memory serves me correctly, there are twenty-two thousand phone taps in France and four thousand in Paris off a central switchboard. But back to Ferdinand Fauchet. Sometimes he doesn’t use gangsters, but instead asks a fanatical right-wing organization to carry out assassinations. For example, the three German industrialists who were murdered last year in Switzerland in what appeared to be an automobile accident. Because of their sudden demise, a French firm was able to get a NATO contract for short-range rockets and carriers that had been about to be awarded to the Germans.”
Kuznetov continued to detail other murders and operations that could be known to someone with remarkable contacts. André managed to maintain his outward appearance of calm, but inside him a storm was raging.
“All you have told us.” André said, “is that you have some extremely good sources of information about the workings of the SDECE.”
“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.