"You may have used the right word, Bobby. Gestapo, as in the Nazi lexicon."
"What are you saying?"
To you know a woman named Phyllis Cranston?"
Certainly. She's the secretary to what's-his-name, the third or fourth attache below the ambassador's chargE d'affaires.So what?"
"Did she tell you who a Colonel Webster was and where he was staying?"
"As a matter of fact she did, but she didn't have to."
"What do you mean?"
"Who do you think set up the communications between the embassy and the wandering Colonel Webster? Two, or was it three changes of hotels. Between your movements and Mrs. de Vries's, even Witkowski couldn't keep it all straight."
"Then everything was kept under wraps?"
"I believe the overused phrase, 'maximum classified,"
was affixed to the equally abused 'order of the day." Why do you think I was so harsh with Cranston?"
"I didn't know you were."
"I demanded to know how she knew. I even threatened her with exposure, which wasn't easy for me because my mother was an alcoholic. It's a rotten disease."
"What did she tell you?"
"She fell apart, crying and mumbling some religious claptrap.
She'd been on a hinge the night before and her defenses were nowhere."
"You must know her pretty well."
"You want it straight, Drew?"
"That's why I'm here, Bobby."
"My wife and I went to one of those embassy receptions, and Martha-she's my wife-saw Phyllis hanging around the bar and lapping up the booze. I figured, how else could a normal person get through one of those functions without an edge on, hell, I've done it myself. But Martha knew better; she'd lived through my mother's last years with us. She told me to try to help her, that she needed help due to 'low self-esteem' and phrases like that. So I tried and obviously failed."
"Then you never mentioned to anyone else who I was or what hotel I was at?"
"Good God, no. Even when that prick Cranston works for came sniffing around about your staff and resources, I told him I hadn't the vaguest idea who was taking over for you. I was grateful that Phyllis had gotten my message about keeping her mouth shut."
"Why was he sniffing around?"
"That part sounded legitimate," replied Durbane."
"Hell, everyone knows Consular 0 - erat ions doesn't overp see the embassy's kitchen menus. He said he'd been approached by a French developer and asked to invest in some hot real estate.
He thought your staff might check out the guy's legitimacy. It's par for his course, Drew. Cranston says he spends more time lunching with Paris businessmen than with those who could do us some good over here."
"Why didn't he go to Witkowski?"
"I didn't have to ask him to know why. This isn't a security matter; he can't use an arm of the embassy for a personal financial transaction."
"What am I, a little toe?"
"No, you're more like a roving outer eye, overlooking the inner operations of a major consular post, which could be interpreted as advising personnel regarding their behavior, financial and otherwise. At least that's what your official curriculum vitae suggests."
"Someone should rewrite it," said Latham.
"Why? It's deliciously obscure."
Drew leaned back in his chair, arching his neck, his eyes briefly on the white ceiling, and sighing audibly.
"I owe you an apology, Bobby, and I truly mean that. When I learned from Phyllis Cranston that you were one of the two people she told about who and where I was, I jumped -no, slid-into the wrong conclusion. I thought it was bolstered by what happened the other night when the ncos damn near killed me in the embassy car with that son of a bitch .. . what did he call himself? .. . C-Zwdif The timing seemed-well, it seemed off center."
"It was," agreed Durbane, "and there was a good reason why the Nazis got there before we did-"
"That was it. How come?"
"C-Zw61f. We discovered it the next morning and included it in the. report Your German driver gave the high frequency calibrations of our backup interior radio to his friends miles away and left the switch on transmit. They heard everything you said from the time you left the embassy. When you called me for two backups, they moved quickly."
"Christ, it was so simple, and I never thought to look down at the radio casing!"
"If you had, you would have seen a small red dot in the center of the panel, signifying transmissions "Goddammit!"
"For heaven's sake, don't blame yourself. You'd been through a terrible evening; it was the wee hours of the morning and you