never forget it," said Drew firmly.
"What about that night?"
"It was early morning, actually, when Sous-directeur Bergeron ordered me to come immediately to his office at the Deuxieme. I did so, but he was not there. However, I knew he was in the building, for the guards at the gate made sarcastic comments about his rudeness to them, and how he interrupted my sleep, no doubt to assist him to the toilet. I was afraid to leave. I waited until he showed up; he did so carrying a very old file from the cellar archives, so old it had not been entered into the computers. The iolder itself was yellow with age."
"Isn't that unusual?" asked Latham.
"There are thousands upon thousands of files in the archives, monsieur. Much work has been done in transposing them, but it will take years before the job is complete."
"Why is that?"
"Experts, among them historians, are called in to validate their inclusion, and as with governments everywhere, funds are limited."
"Go on. What happened?"
"Jacques instructed me to take the file and deliver it personally to a chateau in the Loire Valley, using a [email protected] vehicle with papers he signed himself that overrode any police interference in the event I was stopped for speeding, which he ordered me to do.
I'casually asked him why it was so necessary at this hour, could it not wait until morning? He became furious and shouted at me, yelling that we-he and I-owed everything to this place, this man.
That it was our sanctuary, our refuge."
"What place? What man?"
"Le Nid de IAigle is the chateau. General AndrE Monluc, the man."
"The something 'eagle'
"The Eagle's Nest, monsieur. Monluc, I'm told, was a great general of France, honored by De Gaulle himself."
"So you think Bergeron may have escaped there?" said Drew.
"Sanctuary and refuge are the words that come back to me. Also, Jacques is an intelligence expert; he knows the multiple barriers he must surmount to leave the country. He will need help from resourceful associates, and the combinaison of a great general and a chateau in the Loire would appear to fit his situation. I hope this will be of some assistance to you."
"It will, and I hope we won't have to see or speak to each other again. Thank you, Franqois." Latham hung up the phone and turned to the others.
"We've got the name of the general jodelle was hunting, the traitor who he said fooled De Gaulle. Also where he lives, if he's alive."
"That was a pretty strange one-sided conversation, cb1opak.
Why don't you fill us in?"
"Back off, Stanley, I made a deal. That man's been living in his own personal hell far longer than he deserved, and he never killed anyone for the Nazis. He was a water boy and a messenger with a gun to his family's collective head. Bottom line: I made a deal."
"I've made more than I can count," said the ambassador.
"Tell us what we have to know, Drew."
"The general's name is Monluc, AndrE Monluc-"
"Androi," interrupted Karin.
"That's where the code name came from."
"Right. The chiteau's called the Eagle's Nest, in the Loire Valley.
Franqois thinks Bergeron may have fled there because he once called it a sanctuary in a moment of anger and perhaps fear."
-When?" Witkowski broke in.
"When did he call it that?"
"Very astute, Stanley," replied Drew.
"When Bergeron ordered an old, buried file on Monluc to be delivered there -the night jo.delle killed himself in the theater."
"Thus removing any possible connection between jodel le and the general," said the ambassador.
"Does anyone know anything about this Monluc?"
"Not by name," answered Latham, "because the classified files that contained it were also removed from Washington. But the preliminary documentation on jodelle detailed his accusation, an accusation that lacked any evidence, say nothing of proof. It's why D.C. intelligence considered him a madman. He claimed that a French general, a leader of the Resistance, was in reality a traitor who worked for the Nazis. It was Monluc, of course, the man who ordered Jodelle's wife and children executed, and had Jodelle sent to a death camp."
"The younger child who survived being Jean-Pierre Villier," added Karin.
"Exactly. According to Villier's father-the only father he ever knew-jodelle's suspicions obviously reached the unknown general, who protected his cover while becoming rich with Nazi gifts of gold and expropriated valuables."
"I think I should have that mythical meeting with the French President," said Courtland.
"Write a complete report on everything, Drew. Dictate it to a secretary or two, whatever you need, just do it quickly, say in an hour or so, and have it