rounding the trunk to the driver's side as Latham opened the door at the curb.
"The old man shouted that he had failed; he had tried but failed."
"But what had he tried? What did he fail to do? What was it?"
"The end of his road, perhaps," replied Henri, starting the car and heading into the street.
"The knowledge that at long last the enemy was beyond his reach."
"To know that, to really know it, he had to have found that enemy, and then understood that he was helpless. He knew. he was considered a madman; neither Paris nor Washington thought he was credible, and he'd been rejected, hell, thrown out of the courts. So he went out on his own to find his enemy, and once he found it .. . him .. they, something happened. They stopped him cold."
"If that was the case, instead of merely stopping him, why didn't they kill him?"
"The couldn't. Because if they did, it would raise too y many questions. Kept alive until he died, and at his age and in his condition, that wasn't far off, he was just another delusional drunk.
But if he was murdered, his crazy accusations might appear more credible. People like me might begin digging, and his enemy can't afford that. Alive he was a nothing, killed he's something else."
"I fail to see your point as it pertains to Jean-Pierre, my friend."
"Jodelle's enemies, the group here in France that I'm convinced is linked to the Nazi movement in Germany, are way down deep, but they've got eyes and ears above the ground. If the old man made contact, the least they'll do is follow up on his suicide. They'll be on the lookout for anyone asking questions about him. If there's any truth in what Jodelle claimed, again they can't afford not to.. . And that leads me back to the missing OSI files in Washington.
They were stolen for a reason."
"I see what you mean," said Bressard, "and now I'm definitely against Villier's involvement. I'll do my best to stop him; Giselle will help. She's as strong as he is, and he adores her."
"Maybe you weren't listening a while ago. He said none of us could stop him. He wasn't acting, Henri, he meant it."
"I agree, but you've brought in another equation. We'll sleep on it, if any of us can sleep.. .. Do you still have your flat on the rue du Bac?"
"Yes, but I want to stop at the embassy first. There's someone in Washington I have to call on a secure line. Our transport will get me home."
"As you wish."
Latham took the elevator down to the embassy basement complex and walked through a white, neon-lit corridor to the communications center. He inserted his plastic access card into the security receptacle; there was a brief, sharp buzz, the heavy door opened, and he walked inside. The large air-cooled, dust-filtered room, like the corridor, was pristine white, the panoply of electronic equipment lining three walls, the metal glistening, a swivel chair placed every six feet in front of its own console. Due to the hour, however, only one chair was occupied; traffic was lightest between two and six o'clock in the morning, Paris time.
"I see you've got the graveyard, Bobby," said Drew to the sole occupant across the room.
"You holding up?"
"Actually, I -like it," replied Robert Durbane, a fifty three-year-old communications specialist and senior officer of the embassy's comm center.
"My people think I'm such a good guy when I assign the shift to myself;, they're wrong, but don't tell them. See what I have to work on?" Durbane held up a folded London Times, the page displaying the infamous Times crossword puzzle and lethal double crostic.
"I'd say that's adding masochism to double duty," said Latham, crossing to the chair to the right of the operator.
"I can't do either one, don't even try."
"You and the rest of the youngsters. No comment, Mr.
Intelligence Man."
"I suspect there's gravel in that remark."
"Wear sandals on the driveway.. .. What can I. do for you?"
"I want to call Sorenson on scrambler."
"He didn't reach you about an hour ago?"
"I wasn't home."
"You'll find his message .. . that's funny, though, he spoke as if you and he had been talking." , "we did, but that was nearly three hours ago."
"Use the red telephone in the cage." Durbane turned and gestured toward a built-in glass cubicle fronting the fourth wall, the glass rising to the ceiling. The "cage," as it was called, was a soundproof, secure area where confidential