by Topaz
Mike handed him a drink as he flopped into an easy chair. He sipped and sighed wearily.
“How’d it go?”
“Routine. Nothing much exciting. But I guess you’ll have to look to other sources for information out of Cuba. I’m afraid I’ve worn out my welcome. We’re all done, Mike.”
“I hope none of your people were taken.”
“Not as far as I know but they’ve become a body without a head. With any luck they can fall back into anonymity.”
“It was a hell of a job, André. A hell of a job. I don’t have to try to tell you how much you’ve done for us. As for your people, how damned fortunate they weren’t shot down against some cemetery wall.”
“It was Juanita’s skill.”
“She must be some woman,” Mike said.
“Yes, there’s no other like her. I’m going to need a boat for her. She’s in more danger than she’s letting me know.”
“You can count on our help.”
“Thanks.”
It was clear to Mike that André had gone very far with this woman. It was stupid for him to get involved. He was sorry for André but even in this business men remained men.
André set his drink on the coffee table next to the valise Juanita had given him. “Oh, here’s the mail. I was instructed not to wait, but to open it right away.” He turned the key in the lock and opened it wide, then stared, stunned. “My God!”
Michael Nordstrom stood open-mouthed as André dipped his hand in and pulled out a fist filled with jewels. Diamond and ruby and emerald stones on chokers, bracelets, watches, rings. More were wrapped in old newspaper and oilcloth. Each piece of jewelry was tagged and bore a note:
PLEASE DELIVER THIS TO MANUEL SÁNCHEZ, MIAMI—FROM HIS SISTER, CECILIA.
DELIVER TO DR. P. DARGO, MIAMI—FROM HIS MOTHER.
I BEG YOU TO SEE THAT SAMUEL LOPEZ Y GARDOS RECEIVES THIS—IT IS FROM HIS BROTHER ARTURO. I BELIEVE HE IS IN DENVER IN COLORADO.
There were over fifty pieces, each containing delivery instructions. A potpourri of sparkling tragedy.
André started to refill the bag, then stopped as he eyed something near the bottom. It was a pearl necklace bearing a sapphire pendant set off in diamonds. He knew it! A ring beside it—he knew this also! A dozen pieces at the bottom of the bag were familiar and recognized. They belonged to Juanita de Córdoba.
There was a letter written to him. He opened the envelope.
ANDRÉ MY BELOVED,
Please use these for the education of my sons. Look in on them once in a while if it is possible. They are fine boys and have the courage of their father and I know they will become fine men.
My darling, my wonderful man, you must know now that whatever comes I love you, I love you alone until the day I die. Do not look back and do not weep for me. If it were to be all done over, I would not have done anything differently. Love ... love ... love.
JUANITA
Mike watched a desperation seize André. He had never seen him like this.
“Oh my God!” André cried. “She hid it from me, Mike. Oh God. She knew and she wouldn’t tell me. Oh God! What am I going to do! Juanita ... oh, my darling ... Juanita....”
“Steady, André ... steady ... steady ....”
Part III
Topaz
Prologue
THE PRESIDENT PUSHED OFF with his toes, setting his rocking chair in motion. Near him on the leather couch sat Lowenstein, his most trusted political aide, and Marshall McKittrick, his intelligence adviser. General St. James, the Chief of Staff, fine-tuned the television set and paced.
The man being watched on the screen was Congressman Brolin of Ohio, who had mushroomed into national prominence. After his introduction as speaker before the Convention of The Society of American Veterans, Brolin advanced to the rostrum and the bank of microphones ... there was a flashing of light bulbs along with the thunder of the ovation.
Congressman Brolin had sounded the first alarm in midsummer in a series of public addresses warning the nation about the Soviet arms buildup in Cuba. At first, his speeches and articles were considered crank value, political in nature and posed to embarrass the Administration. This was no longer the case. Brolin’s words were now being heard loudly and clearly with what proved to be obvious access to inside information.
The four men in the President’s study watched intently as the white-haired solon pointed, seemingly right into the room. He charged increased Soviet shipping of arms into Cuba. He demanded that the President go to the American people or a Congressional investigation would result.
The President’s study was dead quiet for a long time after the set was cut off silencing the cheering of the audience after Brolin’s speech.
“He’s speaking in the Congress Tuesday,” Lowenstein said, “then Face the Press next Sunday.”
No need to spell out Brolin’s effect. The mail was becoming ponderous. New intelligence had just come in from the French on Cuba. That the Soviets had sent missiles now seemed to be a fact. The terrifying question of when they would be operational still hovered. Earlier that day, the President had met for two hours with a special Soviet emissary whose mission it was to promise peace and assure that the Soviet intentions were being misread.
“McKittrick,” the President said. “I want Cuba photographed from one end to the other at once. I want the job done within days. Pull out all stops.” Then, he got out of his rocking chair and looked to General St. James. “Bring in the contingency plans for the invasion of Cuba,” he said.
1
SÛRETÉ, THE NATIONALIZED FRENCH police, was headquartered in the Interior Ministry over the way from the Élysée Palace.
Department of Internal Protection, a division of Sûreté, functioned with much the same duties as the American FBI. The division was headed by one Léon Roux, an old-time career officer. He ran a highly skilled, professional police operation relatively free of the heavy hand of President Pierre La Croix.
Roux refused to become one of the new, fashionable American-baiters and greeted Sid Jaffe, an old friend, as an old friend.
The Frenchman’s movements were quick and jerky like a hummingbird’s, but otherwise his face was a prune of wrinkles, expressively cynical from years of police work.
There were coffee and amenities before Sid Jaffe got down to the business that had brought him to Paris.
“NATO documents,” Jaffe said, “dozens of them, have been stolen here and copies have been transmitted to Moscow.”
Léon Roux grunted, palmed and massaged his wrinkled face in terrible concern.
“We have the Russian translations of many of them turned over by a defector,” Jaffe continued. “We’ve broken it down to six common readers: three French, three non-French. The non-French are all back in their native countries. Nordstrom sent me here to seek your cooperation in putting the French suspects under surveillance.”
Roux nodded.
“We want it kept as quiet as possible,” Jaffe said, implying that both SDECE and President La Croix should be kept out of the immediate picture. Of course, Sid Jaffe knew of Roux’s continued fights with SDECE, and it played in his favor.
Roux looked up at the ceiling and thought out loud. “Let’s say Jaffe did not visit me with this information. Let’s say I received it as a tip through my own sources. Therefore I would be within my prerogative to act on my own. No one else would have to know for the time being, would they?”
Jaffe smiled. “You didn’t hear it from me.”
“Well now, what good Frenchmen are suspect?”
“Colonel Galande, Air Planning.”
Roux pouted his lips and waved his hand palm down with a comme çi comme ça ... maybe yes, maybe no ... gesture. “Possible. He was a Vichy French officer whom La Croix pardoned years ago. His wife was once a Communist; however, that is not a crime in France. Possible, possible.”
“Guillon, Chief of Staff’s office.”
“Extremely doubtful, eh, Jaffe?”
“Who else?”
“Henri Jarré, NATO economist.”
Léon Roux’s silence was tip enough. He called for files on the three men and asked that Marcel Steinberger be called in.
“I’m giving this to Inspector Steinberger. You’ll meet him now. Half Jew. After Auschwitz he ended up in Dachau. The Americans liberated him. He worked in your military government for four years. He is extremely pro-American, has a tight mouth and a quick mind.”
The files of the suspects and Inspector Steinberger arrived together. The Inspector was introduced to Jaffe, who watched him closely as Roux explained the mission.
Steinberger was a smallish man who outwardly showed little of the years in two concentration camps except for a tinge of madness that sparkled from his eyes now and again. It was a hollow expression of sudden detachment, a reversion that Jaffe had come to know set concentration camp victims apart from other human beings.
When the briefing was done, the three of them scanned the files. Léon Roux tore two pieces of paper from a scratch pad and passed them over his desk to Jaffe and Steinberger.
“Write the name of the man we want and I’ll do the same.”
Jaffe made a crib of his hand over his paper and scratched two words, as did Inspector Steinberger. Roux cradled a pen between his forefinger and third finger and scrawled with a flourish. The papers were passed back to him, face down. He tore off his own sheet, then turned the other two over.
All three of them carried the same words: HENRI JARRÉ.
2
ANDRÉ BACKED THROUGH THE DOOR and set his suitcases down. There was an instant feeling of emptiness without the usual greeting of Picasso and Robespierre. The living room was dark except for a small lamp between the pair of Louis XV chairs.
Brigitte Camus sat sullen in her trench coat and tam.
“Hello, Monsieur Devereaux,” she said.
He knew but feared to ask.
“Madame Devereaux is gone,” Brigitte said.
“When?”
“Right after you left for Cuba. There’s a note on the desk from her, and several letters from Michele at the office.”
He went to the desk, clicked on the lamp, and opened the envelope.
My Dearest André,
What was once love between us has turned to something else. We are saturated. It seems the days go by with a never-ending digging of barbs. There is always an air of hostility very close to the surface, waiting for the word to erupt.
I detest the slavery of your position. I’ve wanted to understand and hold up my end of things, but I cannot watch you die before my eyes.
Oh, how I long for time we cannot buy back. How I wish we were not so far down the path and committed to our unalterable ways. If we had known then what we know now, we might have been able to bring out the best in each other instead of the worst. I cannot condone what you have done with other women. I’ve lived with it, but I’ve never liked it. There is my part in this, too, I suppose, in not bringing you fulfillment.
I know I must have time to think and space away from you to think, for when I see you or hear you, I tremble with weakness.
Michele and I have been living in the apartment in Paris, and I have been visiting your father on weekends in Montrichard. He has been quite decent, considering his general opinion of all women and, thus far, has spared me being told that I am but further proof.
Michele is totally finished with Tucker. She has enrolled in the Sorbonne here in Paris and has met a young man, a François Picard, who is a journalist and also works for national television. He is quite intense and dedicated, and in many ways reminds me of you when we met. He and Michele see each other constantly.
André, my darling, if I have hurt you by this separation, I believe I would have hurt you more by remaining in Washington in our failing state.
Love,
NICOLE
The letter lingered in his hand.
“Are you hungry, Monsieur?” Brigitte asked.
“No.”
“A drink?”
“No, no thank you, Madame Camus.”
She took the letter from his hand and read it. “She is not fair.”
“I am afraid Nicole is quite correct,” André answered.
“No, she’s not right. Her life should be you. Your life is the whole world. She has to be here, to stand alongside you no matter what discomfort it causes her. But Nicole is in love with her own misery. She rejects her duty as a wife by failing to smile to you when you are weary, to give you her strength and share your fears, to give silent compassion when you are done in with tension. What she deserves is a Tucker Brown.”
“That’s enough....”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve seen you come out of the battlefield in your office into the battlefield in your home for too many years.”
“Yes, how inconsiderate of Nicole to leave me at the very time I am trying desperately to get my mistress out of Cuba. Pity of Nicole not to be broad-minded enough to understand.”
“If the situation were reversed, would Juanita de Córdoba understand?”
“Yes ... how well she would understand.”
“Then, that is the kind of woman you deserve.”
He slumped at the desk and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand and spoke in a mumble almost incoherent. “I made up this cable on the way here. It’s to Ambassador Adam in Havana and concerns a boat from Miami to Cuba. I’m going on it to bring Juanita out. I ... just don’t care to look over the mail tonight ... we have a long report to work up so we’ll be at the office late for the rest of the week ... just make sure the cable goes out in the morning....”
“You’ve had enough,” Brigitte said. “Now, shut it off for a while.” She unbuttoned her coat, deliberately. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
“No, you go home.”
“Please....”
“No, you worry too much about me as it is.”
“I’ll take your daughter’s room,” she insisted. “I want to be nearby if you wish to talk or need something. There are times when a man should not be left alone.”
3
THE DOOR BUZZER SOUNDED in the Devereaux apartment on Rue de Rennes. Nicole let in François Picard, led him to the living room, and poured him a Pernod and herself a bourbon, a carry-over of her Americanization.
“Michele will be ready shortly.”
François was piqued. “Why the devil isn’t she ever ready on time? I’ve never seen a woman who is always, always so late.”
“You’ve been spoiled, François. But for a girl like Michele, one has to pay small prices.”
He grunted, she laughed. Nicole liked this testy young man. He was in his late twenties, dressed nicely but in an unconcerned way, and sometimes in mid-conversation his mind drifted to something far away. He was as a dreamer should be.
“I read your article in this week’s Moniteur. You have a very barbed pen. I’m sure you made President La Croix quite unhappy.”
“Unfortunately, he does not read me.”
“I rather think your opinion will get back to him.”
François let out a deep sigh that reeked of frustration. “It’s not only La Croix and the people around him. The worst of it is the French people are deaf to what he is doing. A nation of fools. Eternal parade-ground soldiers. But we must go on trying, mustn’t we, Madame Devereaux?”
Nicole lowered her eyes and tucked her legs beneath her on the couch. “Yes, I know someone like that.”
François carried out the smoking of a cigarette with the same intensity that he did everything else. François Picard was a rebel in a futile cause ... quite like someone she knew. But there was a light side to him and Michele was able to bring it out.
“Are you and Michele serious?” Nicole asked abruptly.
“Would you mind if we were?”
“I never object to anything Michele does, but I will give my opinion.”
“Please.”
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“She’s lived her life a certain way. Michele is very sheltered and conscious of ... well, the emphasis has been on the social side of life.”
“I understand what you’re saying.”
“Don’t be offended, François, but this sudden new change of climate may not work out as easily as you think.”
“I’m not offended, Madame. I’m without station in life or what you call station. Moreover, I suspect that my anti-La Croix attitudes will eventually get me fired from Télévision Nationale. Then I’ll really be a struggling journalist. One does not live well on a column a week in Moniteur.”
“Enter Bohemia?”
“As long as Michele sticks, I’ll try.”
“But you’ve only known each other such a short while.”
“She does something that no else can make me do. She makes me laugh. When I come into the room, she looks at me in a certain way and always smiles and gives me the feeling she is happy because I am alive. I’ve had my share of girls. Michele is very young, but she is more of a woman than I’ve ever known. She dresses like a woman, looks like a woman, smells like a woman. She is a total woman, like her mother.”
Michele made her entrance with a weekend bag. They would drive to the coast to a place he knew near Dieppe. More than likely the Channel weather would be too foul for bathing or sunning, but there would be long soulful walks on the beach and a pleasant cottage and fireplace. They would listen to music and talk. They seemed to be able to talk endlessly.
François and Michele exchanged smiles.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“We’d better be off to beat the traffic out of Paris.”
“Have a nice weekend. I’ll look for you Sunday night.”
François assured Nicole he would not speed his sports car recklessly through the countryside, and left.
“I hate to leave you alone, Mamma.”
“Nonsense.”
