[email protected] has him under protection. They'll follow him everywhere."
"Again, our new friend, Drew Latham, and I hope you are a friend-"
"Completely. Believe that."
"You really don't know talented actors. They can walk into a building looking like themselves, then reappear on the street as someone else. A shirt stuffed under their jackets, their trousers baggy, their walk different, and God forbid there's a clothes shop inside."
"You believe he might have done something like that?"
"It's why I'm so frightened. When we spoke last night, he was very strong in his decision, and Jean-Pierre is a strong man."
"That's what I told Bressard when he drove me to the embassy."
"I know. It's why Henri insisted on speaking to him, to lend his voice against any involvement."
"I'll check with Moreau."
"You will call me back, of course."
"Of course." Drew hung up the phone in his embassy office, checked his index for the Deuxieme Bureau, and called its chief.
"It's Latham," he said.
"I was expecting your call, monsieur. What can I say? We lost the acteur, he was too clever for us. He went into Les Halles, a circus of confusion to begin with. All those stalls-meats, flowers, chickens, ligumes-total chaos. He passed through a butcher market and not one of our people saw him come out either side!"
"They were looking for someone he wasn't. What are you going to do now?"
"I have units checking out the less desirable of our streets. We must find him."
"You won't."
"Why not?"
"Because he's the best actor in France. But he's got to show up at the theater tonight. For Christ's sake, be there, and if you have to, put him under house arrest tomorrow.. .. If he's still alive."
"Please, do not suggest .. ."
"I've been down in those streets, Moreau; I don't think you have.
You're too elite; your sophisticated strategies have nothing to do with the sewers of Paris, where he probably is."
"Your insult is unwarranted; we know more about this city than anyone on earth."
"Good. Then go took." Drew hung up the phone, wondering whom else he could call, what else he might do. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his office door.
"Come in," he said impatiently.
An attractive dark-haired woman in her early thirties and wearing large tortoiseshell glasses walked in, carrying a thick file folder.
"I believe we've found the materials you asked for, monsieur."
"Excuse me, but who are you?"
"My name is Karin de Vries, sir. I work in Documents and Research."
"A euphemism for everything from 'sensitive' to 'maximum classified."
"Not all of it, Monsieur Latham. We also have road maps, as well as schedules for airports and rail transport."
"You're French."
"Flemish, actually," corrected the woman, her accent soft but unmistakable.
"However, I've spent a number of years in Paris, including studies for my degrees at the Sorbonne."
"You speak excellent English-" "Also French and Dutch, including the Flemish and Walloon dialects, of course, and German," interrupted De Vries quietly, "with equal reading skills.?
"That's some talent."
"It's not at all unusual, except perhaps the in-depth reading, the abstractions and the use of idioms."
"Which is why you're in Documents and Research."
"It was a requirement, naturally."
"Naturally.. .. What did you find for me?"
"You asked us to research the laws of the [email protected] des Finances, explore whatever cracks might exist with respect to foreign investment, and bring the information to you."
"Let's have it." The woman came around the desk, placed the file folder in front of Drew, and opened it, revealing a sheaf of computer printouts.
"That's a lot of data, Miss de Vries," said Latham.
"It'll take me a week to go through it, and I haven't got a week. The world of high finance isn't one of my strong suits."
"Oh, no, monsieur, most of this contains extracts from the laws supporting our conclusions, and case histories of those caught violating those laws. Their names and short summaries of their manipulations are on only six pages."
"Good Lord'it's far more than I asked for. You did all this in five hours?"
"The equipment is superb, sit, and the ministry was extremely cooperative, even to the point of interceding our modems."
"They didn't object to our invasion?"
"I knew whom to contact. He understood what you were after and why."
"Do you?"
"I'm neither blind nor deaf, monsieur. Enormous funds are being transferred through Switzerland into Germany to unknown illegitimate individuals or accounts using the Swiss procedure of subjecting handwritten numbers to spectrographs."
"And the identity of those numbers?"
"Wired instantly back to Zurich, Bern, or Geneva, where they are inviolate. Neither confirmed nor denied."
"You know a great deal about these procedures, don't you?"
"Allow me to explain,