Topaz - Leon Uris [74]
“America is our ally. We have a regular exchange program of scientists.”
“But Section P has a totally different purpose.”
“What purpose?”
“Not just surveillance, carried out by every country even on its friends, but actual spying. Section P will conduct industrial and scientific espionage on the United States.”
André felt the eyes of the others hard on him. “It is a lie,” he said softly.
“Section P will spy on the United States as though the United States were the enemy of France,” Kuznetov repeated.
“You are telling me that as national policy in 1962 the government of France is deliberately organizing a unit to commit espionage on America?”
“Yes.”
“It is a lie,” André repeated. “It is unthinkable.”
“It is also good intelligence to think of the unthinkable.”
André’s humiliation before friends and colleagues was becoming total. He knew he had to keep his composure at all costs. Then he was stricken with the sickening thought that Boris Kuznetov’s information had thus far shown itself to be foolproof.
“I may continue?” Kuznetov said.
“Of course.”
“On your next trip to Paris either Robert Proust or a superior in SDECE will advise you of Section P and order you to implement this operation through your office in Washington.”
“If what you say is true, everyone knows my attitude.”
“Precisely. Nordstrom, McKittrick, the head of CIA. You are completely trusted. That is why Section P can become a masterpiece of deception. In Moscow KGB likes the operation so well they plan to use it as the key to their own industrial espionage in America.”
For the first time in two decades, André Devereaux became unraveled before an adversary. He stood livid and cracked his fist on the desk. “You are trying to mortify France! You dare accuse my country of collaborating with the Soviet Union! You lie!”
André hushed abruptly, shocked by the sound of his own voice. He had committed a grievous error before men of his own breed. “It’s fantasy,” he said harshly.
“We deal in fantasy, do we not?” Kuznetov answered, taking off his glasses and setting them on the table wearily and rubbing his eyes. He felt sorry for what he was doing to André Devereaux. He put his glasses back on and searched the faces of the Americans he had come to know. They were hushed with disbelief.
“I am Boris Kuznetov,” he said in almost a whisper. “At the time of my defection I was chief of an ultrasecret division of KGB, the Anti-NATO Section.”
No one present had known of its existence and they were dumbstruck.
“The information gathered by Section P will get back to Moscow in the same way we received the NATO documents. Topaz,” he said slowly, “is the code name for Frenchmen working inside the French government as agents of the Soviet Union. They are everywhere, in every department in the military, in every ministry. The SDECE is riddled with them. Members of Topaz go clear up to the top level of government. Topaz No. 1 is a man who carries the code name of Columbine. If you find out who Columbine is, then you will have uncovered a person who is extremely high in the personal entourage and has the ear of President Pierre La Croix.”
“Are you charging that the President of France is being advised and briefed by a Soviet agent?”
“Precisely,” Boris Kuznetov said, “precisely.”
7
SNATCHING PROMINENT CUBANS FROM the “fatherland” was routine these days. The refugee trade was brisk. After André turned the valise of gems over to the FBI for delivery to their new owners he set out, with Mike Nordstrom’s help, to arrange a boat for Juanita de Córdoba. A simple plan was evolved, built around an extremely fast boat manned by a crew and skipper who were old hands on the Cuban run. They knew the place to land, the time, the Cuban patrol schedules. They could be in and out of Cuban territorial waters in short order under cover of night, and, if trouble came, could outrun any pursuers.
In one of the paradoxes of