who pick up the tab, don't give a pig's fart where it goes, because they'd rather watch a game show on television or read a supermarket tabloid. If you want to know the truth, we're a nation of idiots.. .. That's why you assholes may take over after all."
"Your language is offensive in the extreme," added the young doctoral candidate.
"May I remind you that there are ladies present?"
"Funny, I can't see any. Also, let me remind you that this isn't a finishing school and I'm not an etiquette consultant.. .. What I am is a supplier of last resorts. Should you need something accomplished-and the circumstances are such that you feel you can't use your own extensive resources-you come to me. The deed is done, I
take the risk, and nothing can be traced to you-as it might have been in the case of our Mr. Computer Factory and his overly curious black executive. Capisce?"
"However, as you've just pointed out," said the third woman, an elderly, gaunt lady with dark, glaring eyes, magnified by thicklensed glasses, "we have our own extensive resources. Why use yours?"
"Va bene!" exclaimed Marchetti, spreading his hands expansively.
"Then don't, and I wish you well. I simply want you to know I'm here for you if the necessity arises. That's why I invited our computer gig ante-and his friend in the Congress-to bring you here, so to clarify our concordat. On my private jets, of course."
"His friend .. . ?" asked the Pennsylvania mayor.
"I," replied a slightly embarrassed but unapologetic member of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence.
"Orders relayed from the Berlin cell. There may be a very loose cannon at the CIA who must be put under total surveillance and dealt with, if required. To use one of our people is too great a risk. Mr. Marchetti has undertaken the task. "
"So it seems we have a La Rochefoucauld marriage-of sorts," said the seventy-plus old woman with the magnified glaring eyes.
"Minor though it may be, it is one of convenience."
"In my own inadequate way, that's what I've been trying to tell you, dear lady."
"Yes, well, you've told it very well, and, as always, actions speak volumes more than words.. .. You have your concordat, Mr.
Marchetti, and I believe my associates will agree with me when I say that I'd like to leave here as soon as possible."
"The limousines are downstairs waiting for you, as are the Lears at the private airport."
"The congressmen and I will leave by the delivery entrance and drive in separate cars," said the senator.
"As you arrived, sir," agreed the Don of Pontchartrain, rising with the others.
"I thank you all from the depths of my Sicilian heart.
The conference has been a success, our concordat in place."
One by one, in varying degrees of discomfort, the American Nazis left the ornate dining room in New Orleans. The don reached under the table, snapping off a hidden switch. It stopped the operation of the roving video cameras concealed in the velour covered walls. His name, voice, and image would be excised from the tapes, the name of another, perhaps an enemy, inserted.
"Assholes," said Marchetti softly to himself.
"Our family will either be the richest in America or heroes of the Republic."
he artifacts of ancient Egypt, spectacularly large and delicately small, are among the Louvre's most fasciTriating exhibitions. The concealed shafts of illumination provide highlights and unearthly shadows, as if centuries past were given life for the present observer. Yet within that life there is the constant reminder of mortality; these men and women lived, they breathed, they made love and bore children for which they had to provide, usually from the generosity of the Nile. And then they died, rulers and slaves, their legacy both majestic and dreary; neither particularly good nor evil, they simply were.
It was within this ethereal scene that the two [email protected] agents held the tools of their profession, waiting for the meeting between Louis, Count of Strasbourg, and Janine Courtland, wife of the American ambassador. These tools consisted of a miniaturized 8mm camcorder with a voice beam capable of picking up quiet conversations twenty feet away, and a breast pocket voice-activated recorder for close encounters. The agent with the camcorder, his earplug in place, positioned himself between two huge sarcophagi, the video recorder held level, the Deuxieme officer leaning over it, concealing it, as though he were a scholar deciphering an ancient inscription. His colleague wandered about the room among the sparse crowds, sparse because it was summer lunchtime in Paris;
both men kept in contact