Leon Uris

by Topaz

  He sat down, looked at the column once more, then lifted his interoffice phone. “Send Ferdinand Fauchet to me right away,” he said.

  François and Michele slept tight in each others arms. The phone rang. François yawned to wakefulness and groped for the instrument. “Hello,” he said sleepily.

  “Hello. I am calling for Monsieur Devereaux. He was working late and just left headquarters and said Michele might be with you.”

  “She’s here. Do you wish to speak to her?”

  “No. It is not necessary. Monsieur Devereaux asked me to phone and tell her to come home immediately.”

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “He didn’t say, but he did seem rather urgent.”

  “Yes, I’ll have her come home.”

  Michele insisted François stay where he was, that it was not necessary for him to drive her to the apartment. He gave in, and when they kissed good-bye it was past midnight.

  Ferdinand Fauchet, parked across the street, watched her leave the building, get in Picard’s car, and drive off. When she was out of sight, Fauchet nodded to four waiting thugs. They entered Picard’s building.

  François was about to turn off the light when the knock came at the door. He padded over to it unsuspectingly, certain that Michele had forgotten the car keys.

  He opened the door. Two blows from blackjacks hit him at once in the mouth and on the temple.

  8

  VASILI LEONOV TIED ON his falling pajama pants and examined himself in the bathroom mirror. He had a slight hangover from the night of partying. Americans were good sports. Leonov had enjoyed the give and take of ideological debate, the off-record inside jokes, and the lack of formality. Yes, Americans were extremely pleasant fellows.

  Leonov opened the medicine cabinet and fished about for those wonderful American products. First a Bromo. He grimaced as he downed the fizzy stuff, smacked his lips together and reached for the aerosol spray can and lathered his face. A new stainless steel blade went into the razor. He scraped.

  A knock on the door.

  “Enter!”

  Leonov’s male secretary stopped opposite the toilet bowl and cleared his throat.

  “Well?”

  “Comrade Leonov, I have just received a telephone call from the White House. The President has cancelled his meeting with you today.”

  “Eh? What’s this all about?”

  “It has just been announced that he is going to speak on television today.”

  In the eternal gloom of the Soviet Embassy, Leonov, the Soviet Ambassador and Resident and a half-dozen of the top staff assembled before the television and watched with heart-pounding anticipation.

  In the study of the American President, one of his female secretaries swiped at his unruly hair with a brush and comb an instant before the cameras focused.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

  “Good evening, my fellow citizens. The government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere ....

  “... capable of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City ....

  “Additional sites, not yet completed, appear to be designed for intermediate-range ballistic missiles....

  “ ... and thus capable of striking most of the major cities in the Western Hemisphere.

  “... In addition, jet bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, are now being uncrated and assembled in Cuba, while the necessary air bases are being prepared....”

  Vasili Leonov grabbed the arms of his chair to hide his tremor. He dared not look right or left at his stunned and frightened colleagues. The American President now spoke with powerful righteousness, without threat. Yes, he was the silent cowboy who had been pushed too far and he was shooting for the heart. He continued on to denounce the Soviet Union’s deliberate lies in the Cuban deception and he flung the gauntlet down by saying that American courage and commitments should never be doubted by friend or foe.

  “All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back ....

  “... We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.

  “... I call on Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace.... I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination .... He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction....”

  In the Caribbean some two hundred warships of the United States Navy straddled the sea routes to Cuba as their patrol planes swept in search.

  From underground bastions, maximum alerts were flashed to the far-flung American military bases.

  B-47s with nuclear bombs dispersed from military airfields to civil airports to evade destruction in the event of a Soviet missile attack.

  Fifteen dozen intercontinental ballistic missiles, enough to obliterate the cities and factories and military bases of the Soviet Union, were readied to fire from their silos.

  Strategic Air Command put their B-52 bombers into an airborne alert. While part of them circled and waited for the order to strike, those on the ground were ready to take to the air and head for Soviet targets within fifteen minutes.

  Divisions of Army and Marines were combat-ready and poised to swarm into Cuba by land, by air, and by sea.

  Other fighter-bombers with close to a hundred percent destructive capability were straining to make a beeline to wipe out the Cuban missile sites.

  This, the quickest, quietest, and most brilliant roundup of military power, had been accomplished without major detection. It was now in place and coiled to back up the words of the young man who now spoke to a startled world.

  In the Soviet Embassy, they sat shaken and un-moving after the President had left the air. Even Vasili Leonov’s years of studied poise abandoned him.

  He knew he had made the ancient blunder. The bully’s bluff had been called. Not only had the myth of the President’s lack of courage been exploded but he had made a shrewd decision. He had taken his own strongest point, his navy, and pitted it against the Soviet Union’s weakest point, their navy. He had skillfully chosen a battlefield to give him every advantage ... a meeting on the high seas.

  The Organization of American States unanimously and swiftly backed the American position.

  In the United Nations, the outraged American Representative called the Soviet Union to task and demanded the dismantling of the Cuban bases.

  And on the high seas, ships of the Soviet Union with their death cargoes inched toward Cuba for the confrontation with the United States Navy. And while the American people arose in anger, they and the entire human race wondered if they were living the last moments of its final folly.

  9

  ANDRÉ PARKED HIS CAR several blocks from the Place de la Madeleine and continued on foot in order to shake his followers. They were a clumsy pair and he was able to lose them quickly.

  He entered the red velvet world of Lucas Carton’s restaurant. Alex and a half-dozen members of the staff greeted him with great warmth for this was the restaurant of generations of Devereaux.

  “How is your father?” Alex asked.

  “I haven’t had the opportunity to get to Montrichard this trip, but he’s faring quite well.”

  “Please tell him I asked for him.”

  “Thank you.”

  Alex personally escorted André to one of the private dining salons on the second floor. In a moment a bottle of bourbon was produced and Alex went through the ritual of hand-crushing the ice with a small hammer for André’s Manhattan while André st
udied the menu. He decided on Sole à la Carton, a specialty of the house.

  “Madame Devereaux has arrived.”

  “Please show her up.”

  There was no embrace or touch or scarcely a word as she was seated. She asked for a drink and lit up nervously. After the drink arrived they were closed in, and André asked that they not be disturbed until he rang for further service.

  Nicole had that facility to always rise to a given situation with an appearance of loveliness. He commented on how beautiful she looked.

  “Thank you.”

  “I haven’t been able to answer your calls,” André said, “for the usual reasons. I run out of hours in a day.”

  “I know you must be very busy during this crisis.”

  “Yes, Nicole.... I asked you to come to Paris because of Michele. She’s taken the disappearance of François Picard extremely hard.”

  “Is there no word?”

  “No. I can’t even get information from Robert.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he’ll never return and we’ll probably never learn what really happened to him.”

  “Oh Lord....”

  “I’m afraid it’s what you call a clean job. They intended to make an example of him. Michele is going to have to go through a long and difficult period of adjustment. She’d better start now. Her place is with you. You can give her the time and the comfort she needs.”

  “She hasn’t even answered my phone calls, André.”

  “Don’t take that personally. She’s pent it all up inside. Just before I came I talked to her, told her you were coming to take her to Montrichard. She finally opened up. She’s crying it out now ... and she said ... she wants her mother very much.”

  “Poor baby ... André, let’s go....”

  “There are some things in the world that are unforgivable,” he said, “and one of them is to walk out on a plate of Sole à la Carton. Alex would be offended beyond repair. Seriously, let her have it out alone.”

  Nicole nodded that she understood. An awkward silence descended. André pressed the service bell. Nothing was said until the soup was tasted and complimented upon.

  “What about us?” Nicole asked shakily.

  “I don’t think we should have a confrontation now. It’s quite enough with the Russians and Americans about to meet in the Atlantic.”

  “I’ve had a long time to think things over,” she said.

  “Yes ... I suppose there’s a lot to say.”

  “When I first realized what kind of life I had condemned myself to I wanted to come back regardless of the past rights or wrongs. I was going to hang on to you at any price ... under the guise of calling it love ... under the excuse that you must accept a person you love with all her faults.

  “When we married,” she said, “we brought into the marriage the things which made us fall in love. We also brought in our childhood, our demons, our weaknesses. The things that can kill any marriage if they are allowed to flourish. A woman like me demands from her husband certain rights, certain recognitions, certain equalities. When a woman wins these ... she’s not a woman anymore.

  “The man rarely has the woman he needs ... but the one he gets. There are some who can’t do it for their man. A rare few who can and will. But most ... and these are the worst ... are those who won’t. We spend our energy in erecting defenses ... not daring to look into ourselves ... but only to justify our ineptness.

  “A marriage asks of a woman ... skill, and just plain damned hard work. And we’re too stupid and too lazy so we hide behind our defensive barriers and viciously repel what we believe to be attacks.

  “If I had known I might have coped with the demon you brought into the marriage, your confusion over your mother. You tried to find mother’s love from me ... the love she denied you by death. And at the same time you tried to kill her through me.

  “In my final act of desperation I tried to act out the fantasy that if I behaved like her, like two women, I would have a chance with you. I made myself believe it was something you always wanted me to do.”

  André’s face became drawn. He knew that in her dark groping she had dared to open locked doors ... her own ... and his.

  “From the beginning, André, you closed me out of a part of your life. You threw up a wall and said, ‘I never forgave my mother for dying and leaving me alone, so I can never commit myself to any woman fully. Come close, but not too close. If you get too close, I’ll reject you.’ I lived in fear that you would find in some other woman what I was unable to provide you with. Much of what you call my possessiveness is just plain fear. And if I could not help you when you needed me, perhaps it was because you really didn’t want that help. You were afraid of needing me too much and I might let you down ... as your mother did.”

  “So ... none of us is clean, right?” he asked.

  “No, André, none of us is clean. I can’t buy back the mistakes ... but by God, I’m going to know what I’ve done and I’m going to make a life, somehow or other....”

  Nicole sat on the edge of Michele’s bed in a scene once played so very long ago and believed by both of them to be forgotten.

  “Oh, Mamma ... Mamma!”

  “Shhh ... I’m here now.”

  “I’m so ashamed I didn’t talk to you when you called.”

  “You don’t have to explain a thing, Michele,” she said tucking the blankets firmly about her daughter and stroking her hair.

  “Papa is trying to hide it from me ... but I know. I’m never going to see François again.”

  “It’s in God’s hands now, darling. Michele ...”

  “What, Mamma?”

  “In a strange sort of way, you are very lucky.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Twenty years ago, if I had started giving your father what you gave to François from the beginning I wouldn’t be alone in the darkness now.”

  “But you’ve given....”

  “Not really. Like most women I went into it asking, ‘What’s in it for me? What kind of life is he going to make for me?’ I never really asked of myself, ‘What can I do for him?’

  “And so, we cook our meals because a meal has to be cooked. But we don’t go into the kitchen filled with joy because what we are doing is going to bring happiness to our husbands. We cook to protect our position, for praise or just because it’s our duty. And when we make love we do what is necessary and expected for our own selfish reasons. How many women make love to a man because of the joy it gives him? Yet only through that joy can a woman really know what it is to be a woman. I’ve never known, Michele, because to be a woman is to give. And you’ve known that from the beginning.”

  Michele turned her head to the pillow.

  “Don’t cry and don’t pity yourself. You didn’t ask for an easy way when you set sail with a man like François.”

  “Mamma ... is it too late for you and Papa?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  The girl’s eyes fluttered, then closed from the sedative. Nicole leaned over and kissed her cheek. André was in the hallway and the bedroom door was open. She wondered if he had heard.

  “We’ll get her through this,” Nicole said.

  As André stared at his wife, that old feeling which had never entirely gone came back strongly. He wanted to reach out and touch the half dozen strands of gray hair at her temples. A short time ago she would have been worried sick about them. But now they seemed so in place and so charming. It was nice that Nicole was accepting her age gracefully and without panic and self-pity.

  Yes, he wanted her but he knew that in the morning he would want Juanita de Córdoba more. So, he would have neither.

  “Will you be leaving for Montrichard soon?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll see that she gets to Paris when you have free time.”

  “Thank you, for everything.” He turned for his study.

  “Is there anything I can get you?” she asked.

  “No.�
� André entered his study, adjusted his glasses, and hunched over his papers. He looked up to her and they stared through the open door for a long time. She realized she had come to him too late and perhaps with too little. Her husband belonged to Juanita de Córdoba. Strangely, she felt no malice. But she also knew that there would never be another man for her but André Devereaux and she would wait.

  10

  AS SOON AS RICO PARRA’S chauffeur drove the car into the grounds of Casa de Revolución to bring Juanita to his boss, she had an ominous feeling that something was wrong. But then, there was always something ugly about the place. They drove along a long palm-lined dirt road that hugged the Bahía del Sol. It was unusually quiet, devoid of the general activity of the guards and gardeners and men working on the pier. She got out of the car and looked around. Rico’s speedboat bobbed at the anchor buoy. A gloomy overcast was moving in from the sea, dulling out the defeated sun. It would be a long, cold, morbid weekend.

  The chauffeur followed her into the villa.

  Juanita screamed as she saw Hernández, Rico’s bodyguard, on his back staring up to her in death with blood still oozing from the bullet wounds in his fat stomach and chest.

  The door slammed behind her and a pair of G-2 men seized her and another pair disarmed Rico’s driver and held him at gunpoint.

  The room was in a shambles!

  Muñoz came from the bedroom with a wet rope whip in his hand. The room swayed around Juanita as the nightmarish scene closed in but she steadied herself quickly realizing what had taken place. She walked toward the bedroom. Muñoz stepped aside and ushered her in with a mock bow.

  Rico was spread-eagled, lashed at the wrists with leather thongs and tied to a pair of wooden ceiling beams. From the appearance of Muñoz’s men, Rico had not been an easy customer to take alive.

  Once they had gotten him strung up in the crucifix position he had still been able to get off a good kick that landed between Muñoz’s legs. Then his feet were tied together and he was raised so that his toes barely touched the floor.