admire practicality, especially the humbling practicality of the dethroned rich, who find ways of rebuilding their resources. You do the same in America, and you're even more blatant about it. A multimillionaire entrepreneur loses his companies, or his hotels, or his various enterprises, loses everything. Then he regains his fortunes, and you make him a hero. We're not so different, Drew. The overlord becomes the vilified underdog, then with a burst of energy reclaims his throne. We applaud him, regardless of the moralities involved.
As to what the count hopes to gain from the Nazis, who really knows?"
"Let's hear the tape."
"You may, of course, but it merely confirms Strasbourg's orders to have Madame Courtland at the Louvre at one o'clock this afternoon."
Washington, D.C. It was shortly past five o'clock in the morning, but Wesley Sorenson could not sleep. Slowly, quietly, he got out of the twin bed next to his wife's, and walked softly across the master bedroom toward his dressing room.
"What are you doing, Wcs?" said his wife sleepily.
"You went to the bathroom barely a.half hour ago."
"You heard me?"
"Only most of the night. What is it? Have you got a medical problem you haven't told me about?"
"It's not medical."
"Then I mustn't ask, must I?"
"Something's wrong, Kate, something I'm not seeing."
"That's hard to believe."
"Why? It's the story of my life, looking for the missing pieces."
"Are you going to look for them in the dark, my dear?"
"It's late morning in Paris, not dark at all. Go back to sleep."
"I shall. It'll be quieter."
Sorenson plunged his face into a sink of cold water practices of the field returning-put on his bathrobe, and walked downstairs to the kitchen. He pressed the button on the automatic coffeemaker, programmed by their housekeeper after the previous night's dinner, waited until nearly a cup was filled, poured it, and trudged into his study beyond the living room. He sat down at his eight foot-long desk, sipped coffee, and opened a lower drawer for a pack of his "absolutely forbidden" cigarettes-practices of the field returning.
Gratefully inhaling the pacifying smoke, he picked up the phone on his elaborate console, checked for intercepts, and dialed Moreau's private line in Paris.
"It's Wcs, Claude," said Sorenson after hearing the brief, curt "Oui?" over the phone.
"It's my morning for Americans, Wesley. Your cantankerous Drew Latham just left with the lovely, if enigmatic, Karin de Vries."
"Where's the enigma?"
"I'm not sure yet, but when I learn, so will you. However, we're making progress. Your incredible discovery, Janine Clunitz, is leading us right along. Our Sonnenkind is behaving predictably within her sphere of unpredictability." Moreau described the events of the morning in Paris as they pertained to the ambassador's wife.
"She's to meet with Strasbourg at the Louvre early this afternoon.
We'll have them covered, naturally."
"The Alsace Strasbourgs are a hell of a story, if I remember correctly."
"You do, and the count takes it several steps further."
"Elsass-Lothringen?" asked the director of Cons-Op.
"No, those are the additional steps, but we'll climb them later, my friend. The ambassador, his schedule remains, no?"
I "His schedule remains, yes, and we're lucky if he doesn't fall apart and strangle the bitch."
"We're prepared for him here, I assure you.. .. Now, what about you, mon ami? What is happening on your side of the Pond?"
"Only the most unholy mess you can imagine. You know those two Nazi killers-what are they called?"
"I presume you're talking about the two Witkowski sent to Andrews Air Force Base."
"They're the ones. They spewed out garbage that could bring down the administration if it was released publicly."
"What are you saying?"
"They say they have direct and specific evidence linking the Vice President and the Speaker of the House to the neo-Nazi movement in Germany."
"That's utterly preposterous! Where is this so-called evidence?
"The inference was that they could pick up a phone, call Berlin, and the documentation would be forwarded immediately, presumably by fax."
"It's a bluff, Wesley, surely you know that."
"Certainly, but a bluff that could include false documents. The Vice President is furious. He wants a full Senate hearing and has gone so far as to line up a slew of enraged senators and congressmen of both parties to refute the allegations."
"That might be an imprudent course of action," said Moreau, "considering the climate over there, the witch hunts "
"That's what I have to make clear to him. All I can think of is what impact even the phoniest of 'official evidence' would have on our frenzy-feeding media. Government letterheads, especially intelligence letterheads, and most especially German intelligence letterheads, can be copied in