The Case Officer (19 page)

François was nattily dressed in a double-breasted blue seersucker suit
and white shoes. His longish blond hair, streaked from the sun and maybe a
bottle, was combed back away from the finely chiseled features of his almost
too handsome face. His pale blue eyes searched the crowd for MacMurphy, but
they missed him, and he took the stairs up to the street two at a time. Mac
followed close behind, and their eyes met when GUNSHY turned to look back down
when he reached the top.

“
Ah, tu et là! Comment va tu?
”
They shook hands firmly.

“Couldn’t be better, François.
And how are you? You look great.”

“I feel great, too. I took your
advice and started working out and running. My girlfriends love the new me.
They think I have the air of an American with all my new muscles!” He flexed
his arm for emphasis.

Mac laughed. “I see your ego
hasn’t shrunk any since the last time I saw you. And your punctuality hasn’t
changed any, either, by the way.”

“Sorry, Mac,” he said petulantly. “I didn’t get back to my flat until
almost six. Then I had to shower and change and.... Ah well, I made it here as
fast as I could. I didn’t want you to have to hang around till nine.”

“
Tant pis
. No problem. At
least you’re here. Let’s walk up to La Coupole and get a bite to eat. Are you
okay on time?”

“
Oui,
I have all night. No
date tonight,
malheureusement
. What is this about? Are you here on
business or pleasure?”

“Business, but it’s always a
pleasure to see you, François.”

“
Ah oui
. I know the game.
First you must, how do you say, build a little rapport, then the requirements
come,
n’est-ce pas
? You are the same,
mon vieux
.” Despite his
words, François could not hide his pleasure over seeing Mac again. “So we are
going back to work, yes?”

“I’ll tell you all about it over
dinner. I can already taste that Le Coupole
filet au poivre
.”

Chapter Forty-Five

T
he famous old restaurant was
already packed with tourists and Paris’s beautiful people, and those who like
to bask in the light of the beautiful people, but a ten Euros note to the
maitre
d’hôtel
got them a table by the windows without a wait.

They ordered mixed salads,
filets
au poivre
with
pomme frites
, and François chose an excellent bottle
of Chateau Margeaux Bordeaux to wash down the steaks. The wine cost more than
the rest of the meal, but François’s delicate stomach could not handle house
wines, or so he claimed. “Now,
this
is wine that
soothes
the
stomach, not aggravates it,” he purred as he slowly savored the Bordeaux,
letting it sit in his mouth before each dainty swallow.

Mac outlined the proposed audio
operation and tasked François with investigating the occupants of the apartment
building adjacent to the Chinese Embassy. He suggested first getting the
occupants’ names from the mailboxes in the lobby and then checking them out in
the phone book, public records, and discreetly through François’s police
contacts.

Mac explained that the ultimate
goal was to gain access to one or more of the apartments for a few hours for
the purpose of drilling into the Chinese Embassy and installing a microphone
and transmitter in the common wall between the two buildings.

“I also need you to locate a
suitable listening post within transmitter range,” he added. ”The LP apartment
will have to be no more than about 300 meters line-of-sight from the target.
Less if the signal has to pass through too many buildings.”

“I have the strong feeling that this is going to interfere with my August
vacation,” said François with eyes raised quizzically and mouth down turned in
a comical pout.

“Absolutely,” Mac agreed, nodding his head for emphasis.

“
Merde alors!
Why do you
fellows always pick
le mois d’août
for your operations? Do you not know
that all civilized people go to the
Midi
during summer vacation time?
This is not the first time you did this to me, you know. You remember that
little job we did against the Russian code room a few years ago? That was in
August, too. You interrupted my whole summer, and I almost lost a testicle to
that guard goose that woke up too soon and bit me as we went back over the
fence. Remember that one,
mon vieux
? What do you say about that? That
fucking guard goose piece of shit almost castrated me.”

“Something half the women in
Paris would like to do to you…
n’est-ce pas
?”

“
Ah oui
.... Perhaps, but
what about the other half?” said François, leering.

Mac laughed. “You are a unique character, François Leverrier, you truly
are. But don’t worry, your family jewels will be safe and sound on this op. We
don’t have to put any guard dogs or geese to sleep, and we won’t be jumping any
fences. All you have to do is sweet-talk your way into one of those apartments
for us. Do you have any questions?”

“No.
Je comprends bien
. I
suppose you would like me to pay for this.” He gestured to the table, where
dishes and utensils and glasses and napkins were all that remained from their
most enjoyable repast. 

“No. I’ll get it. But the green
eyeshade folks are going to have a heart attack when they see the price of the
wine. And, by the way, you are on expenses from this moment—that is, as long as
you don’t forget to bring me the receipts,
ça va
?”

François nodded as Mac drew a
stack of Euros from his pocket and counted out enough to cover the meal. He
dropped the money on the bill and passed François a slip of water soluble paper
with contact instructions for their next meeting. François glanced at the note
and Mac asked, “
Ça va
?”

François looked at the note
again, committing the instructions to memory. Then he assented, “
Oui, ça va
.
See you then.” He dropped the note into his water glass as they rose from the
table. Then they shook hands and disappeared separately into the night crowd of
Montparnasse.

Chapter Forty-Six

E
arly Saturday morning Mac and
Wei-wei drove to Normandy in Wei-wei’s car. They stayed at the quaint
Auberge
de la Plage
in Trouville, just across the bridge from the more famous but
touristy Deauville. They toured around the town, walked the beach and dined on
Coquille
St-Jacques, Moules Normande
, and fresh fish and shrimp prepared to
perfection.

After dinner they drank large
fist-sized snifters of aromatic
Vieux Calvados
in a neighborhood bar and
took another long walk along the beach. At night, snuggled together under the
covers and drifting to sleep in each other’s arms, they were grateful for the
mattress’s sag that worked to bring them even closer…not that they needed any
outside help. They made love over and over in the big old four-poster bed with
the sag in the middle.

On Sunday morning they drove south along the coast toward Cherbourg so
that Mac could make another of his regular pilgrimages to the invasion beaches
of Arromanches, Omaha, Juno, Sword, and Utah, and his uncle’s grave in the
sprawling, manicured, U.S. military cemetery.

They walked silently among the thousands of perfectly aligned crosses
and six-pointed stars and read the dates: June 6, June 7, June 7, June 6, June
8, and on and on and on…

They stood for a long time in front of his Uncle Walter’s grave—one of
so many young men killed on these beaches on the first days of the invasion
that helped to bring an end to the war in Europe—and felt very close and very
vulnerable.

They finally turned, each still with an arm around the other’s back,
holding each other even closer now, thinking “what-if” thoughts—what if
something happened to one of them? Not an unreasonable thought, given Mac’s
occupation…and even Wei-wei, working out of embassies around the world, was
significantly more vulnerable than the average secretary at a desk somewhere in
Heartland, U.S.A. They left the cemetery and returned to the car, breaking
apart only when it was time to get inside it, yet still not breaking their
thoughtful, and appropriate silence.

Their lovemaking that evening was
sweet, soulful, appreciative. They caressed, treasured each other and held each
other close. Something was different between them during this whole Paris
reunion. They were closer than ever before. More needy. They savored each
other’s body and lingered long in the comfortable embrace of each others’ arms.

Mac kissed Wei-wei’s burnished
body from the top of her sweet-smelling scalp to the tips of her dainty toes,
and she caressed every inch, every cranny of Mac’s strong physique. When they
at last had stopped tasting of each other’s satiated body, they lay in a
languorous afterglow, arms entwined around bodies, enjoying the physical
closeness and each thinking how much he or she had missed the other during
their separation before Mac had been sent back to Paris. He kissed her tenderly
and fit his body snugly into hers. “Good night,
cherie. Fait des bons rêves
…”

They returned to Paris early Monday morning almost
regretfully. Both were refreshed and ready to tackle the week ahead, but sorry
to have the weekend come to an end.

Chapter Forty-Seven

O
ver the next two weeks, Mac held
compartmented clandestine meetings with TRAVAIL and with GUNSHY on an almost
daily basis…much too frequently to suit the case officer, because one of the
basic rules of operational security was being bent.

The pressure to produce always
resulted in sacrifice of operational security. Efficiency and production
usually won over security. It happened all the time in the intelligence
business, and it was the thing that “flaps” were made of. Mac was fully aware
of the risks involved in meeting too frequently with his assets, but he needed
his casings fast to keep the Director off Rothmann’s back, and Rothmann off
his.

He was also introduced to
SKITTISH by Bob Little in a meeting in a room at the sprawling Intercontinental
Hotel on the Rue de Rivoli. The meeting was already in progress when Mac
arrived – he did not want to spend any more time in the company of  Bob Little
than he had to.

Little was noticeably nervous at
Mac’s presence. The agent was introduced to Mac in alias as Roland Petit. Mac
explained that he was interested in the movements of the Chinese COS, Huang
Tsung-yao, and other members of the station.

He gave SKITTISH contact
instructions for their exclusive use and said he would be calling a meeting
with the young waiter sometime within the next week or so. After setting up
their own meeting arrangements, MacMurphy left the pair to complete their
operational meeting. He could contact SKITTISH if he needed him, but was under
no obligation to do so if he didn’t.

Chapter Forty-Eight

B
oth support assets, Le Belge and
François, had worked tirelessly, day and night, and the results of their
efforts showed.

Le Belge woke up with the Chinese
in the morning and put them to bed at night. His poor little dog had sore paws
from all of the walking during his surveillance tours around the embassy
building. He had learned that Huang’s office was, as MacMurphy had predicted,
indeed on the top floor of the Embassy, in the rear, and on the side adjacent
to the target apartment building.

He had confirmed MacMurphy’s
suspicions by carefully observing light patterns in the building. He noted that
by dusk, almost all of the windows were illuminated. Then, one by one, they
began to go out until there were usually only two office windows above the
first floor reception area that remained illuminated. One on the third floor in
the front, adjacent to the Spanish Embassy, which he identified as the commo
room, and the other on the top floor rear next to the apartment building.

That, he determined, was Huang’s
office. “It’s just like you suspected,” he told Mac. “He works late…on the top
floor, in the back of the building. You were right on the money, Mac!”

MacMurphy had provided Le Belge
with a physical description of Huang, and when the lights remained on until
late in the evening in the most likely location, TRAVAIL decided to take a
closer look. He accomplished this with the help of powerful binoculars from a
nearby rooftop. Ascending to the roof of the nearby building as inconspicuously
as possible, he gained a vantage point and discreetly trained his binoculars on
the window of the top-floor office at dusk, when he was less likely to be
observed himself while doing his peeping Tom routine.

There was no question in his mind
that the tall, slender, balding, overworked, Oriental man who remained at his
desk until long after the others had quit was indeed Huang Tsung-yao, the MSS
Chief of Station.

Chapter Forty-Nine

G
UNSHY’s independent reporting
confirmed TRAVAIL’s. He had cleverly obtained copies of the architectural
blueprints of both the embassy and the adjacent apartment building through one
of his friends who worked in the records section of the
Mairie
of Paris’
8
^th
arrondissement.