"How, Claude?" asked De Vries, sitting on the bed in her room at the Bristol Hotel, where they had decided to retreat, each entering separately.
"Your embassy is not the only place that's been infested."
Moreau turned from the window, his expression a mixture of sadness and anger.
"My own office has been compromised."
4'you mean the sacrosanct [email protected] Bureau actually has a mole or two?"
"Please, Drew," said Karin, shaking her head, conveying the fact that Moreau was deeply disturbed.
"I did not say the Bureau, monsieur." The [email protected] chief locked eyes with Latham and spoke coldly.
"I said my own office."
"I don't understand." Drew lowered his voice, the sarcasm now absent.
"There's no way you could, for you do not know our system. As le directeur, my whereabouts must be known at all times in case there are emergencies. Outside of Jacques, who helps me plan my days, I give them to only one person, a subordinate who works closely with me, one whom I trust completely. This person wears a beeper and can be reached any time of day or night."
"Who is he?" Karin sat forward on the bed.
"Not he, I must reluctantly say, but she. Monique d'Agoste, my secretary of over six years, but more than a secretary, a confidential assistant. She was the only one who knew about the cafe-Lmtll she told someone else."
"You never had the slightest doubts about her?" continued Karin.
"Did you about Janine Climes?" asked Drew.
"No, but then, she was the ambassador's wife."
"And Monique is unquestionably my wife's closest friend. In fact, my wife suggested her to me. They went to university together and Monique was trained at the Service d'Etranger, where she worked during a disastrous marriage. All those years, they were like schoolgirls together .. . and now it's all so clear." Moreau stopped and crossed to the desk where Latham sat. He picked up the phone and dialed.
"All those years," repeated the chief of the [email protected], waiting for the call to be completed.
"So amiable, so caring.. .. No, you were not the targets, my friends, I was. The decision was made, my time was up. I was found out."
"What are you talking about?" pressed Latham from the chair.
"I regret that I cannot tell even you that." Moreau held up his hand and spoke French into the phone.
"Go to Madame d'Agoste's residence in the St. Germain at once and take her into custody.
Bring along a female officer and have the prisoner immediately strip-searched for possible self-administered poison.. .. I will answer no questions, just do as I say!" The Frenchman hung up the phone and wearily sat down on the small love seat against the wall.
"The maddening sorrow of it all," he mused softly.
"That's two different things, Claude," said Drew.
"You can't be mad and sorry at the same time; at least one's got to outweigh the other where your life is concerned."
"You can't just leave things suspended, mon ami," added De Vries.
"Considering everything we've been through, I submit we deserve some sort of explanation, vague though it may be."
"I keep wondering how long she planned this, how much she learned, how much she revealed-"
"To whom, for God's sake?" demanded Latham.
"To those who report to the Brijderschaft."
"Come on, Claude," Drew went on.
"Give us something!"
"Very well." Moreau leaned back in the chair, massaging his eyes with the fingers of his left hand.
"For three years I've played a dangerous game, filling my pockets with millions of francs, which will be mine only if I fail and their cause succeeds."
"You became a double?" De Vries broke in, startled, and rising from the bed.
"Like Freddie?"
"A double agent?" Latham got out of his chair.
"Like Freddie," continued the [email protected] chief, looking at Karin.
"They were convinced I was a convenient and powerful informer, but it was a strategy that could not @e entered into the Bureau's records."
"On the assumption, no matter how remote, that you were 'infested," De Vries completed emphatically.
"Yes. My great weakness was that I could not find a safety net.
There was no one, no one in official Paris I felt I could trust.
Bureaucrats come and go, the more influential ones into private business, and politicians are sworn companions of the wind. I had to act alone, without authorization, a highly questionable 'solo," as the term goes."
"My God!" exclaimed Drew.
"Why did you put yourself in that position?"
"That part I cannot tell you. It goes back a long time and must remain a forgotten event'.. . except to me.""If it's forgotten, can it be so important, mon