"Yes, I gathered that from the sergeant, along with your rather strong opinions of our security checks."
"I believe I called them bullshit, and that's exactly what they are. . Get Karin out of her apartment, Stanley. If Reynolds found me, the rue Madeleine isn't far behind. Get her out!"
"Any suggestions?"
"Here at the Inter-Continental, blond wig and all."
"That's about the dumbest thing you could say. If Reynolds found you there, who else did he tell, and who told him?"
Chapter Twenty-One
"I'm missing something."
"You certainly are. There's another Alan Reynolds, another mole, at the embassy and he's as high up as they come. I'm moving you to the Normandie, on the pretext that Colonel Webster is being transferred back to Washington for evaluation."
"That's kind of negative, isn't it?"
"Actually, we'll probably imply that you're incompetent. The French love to hear that about Americans."
"Colonel Webster is outraged. At least I can wash out this blond hair and get rid of the uniform, right?"
"Wrong," said Witkowski.
"Keep both awhile longer. You can't go back to your own name and you've got the proper ID as Webster.
It's been leaked, and by keeping it that way we may find the mole here. The circle is tight and we're watching the few who know, and they're damned few. Maybe only the marines, Reynolds, and that fruit juiced salesman Lewis, who's probably going from door to igloo door in some tundra somewhere."
"If Reynolds leaked it to the right people, measure me for a coffin!"
"Not necessarily. You're guarded, Colonel. By the way, did Karin tell you? Wesley Sorenson has been trying to reach you. We didn't give him your cover and he didn't want it, but you're to phone him."
"It's next on my list. Call me back on my move to the Normandie, and get Karin out of harm's way. How about the Normandie?"
"For a spook, you're not entirely subtle, Latham." Drew hung up the phone and glanced at his watch. It was past midnight, past seven o'clock in D.C. He picked up the telephone and pressed the numbers for the States.
"Yes?" said the voice of Sorenson.
"It's your antiques dealer from Paris."
"Thank heavens! Sorry I was tied up, but that's another story, another massive headache, if not a catastrophe."
"Can you tell me?"
"Not at the moment."
"Then what was so urgent?"
"Moreau. He's clean."
"That's nice to hear. Our embassy isn't."
"I gather that, so judgment wise it's in your court. if you're strung out and don't know where to turn-"
"Hold it, Wcs, I have no problem with Witkowski," interrupted Latham.
"Nor do I, but we don't know who's tapped in to him."
1 4Agreed. Someone is."
"Then turn to Moreau. He doesn't know you're alive,
so before you do, reach me and I'll play the scenario for him."
"He's still cut out?"
"One of our larger mistakes."
"Incidentally, Wcs, did you ever hear of an Alan Reynolds, embassy comm center?"
"Can't say as I have."
"Wish we hadn't. He was a neo."
"Was?"
"He's dead."
"I suppose that's a blessing."
"Can't say that it is. We wanted him alive."
"Things go wrong sometimes. Stay in touch."
erhardt Kroeger labored over the fax from Bonn, a code book in his left hand, a pencil in his right.
Carefully he inserted the proper letters above the coded words of the message. The nearer he came to completing the task, the more excited was his state of mind, excited but controlled, the scientist in him demanding total concentration. Finished at last, elation swept over him. Their informer at the American Embassy had succeeded where the vaunted Blitzkriezer had failed. The mole's information was flawed, but he had found the surviving Latham! His last source remained nameless, but he claimed it was irrefutable, a person he had cultivated over the years, a woman for whom he had done many favors, now living far beyond her means.
She would not lie to him for two specific reasons, the first being her current expensive way of life; the second and far more powerful, the threat of exposure. They were the usual components in keeping an inner source on a chain.
Where the informer was in error was his conviction that the Latham who had survived the assassination attempt was not Harry Latham but his brother, Drew Latham, the Consular Operations officer. Kroeger knew that was preposterous; the evidence was overwhelmingly to the contrary, evidence from so many different quarters, it could not have been manufactured. Beyond the police reports, the press, and the government's widespread dragnet for the killers, there was the Deuxieme's Moreau and his associate. The