Jack in the Box

by John Weisman

  Even so, the often-prickly Paris-Washington relationship had produced many first-rate intelligence successes. François Mitterrand, France’s late Socialist president, bonded closely with Ronald Reagan in July of 1981 by giving the American president access to material from France’s top Soviet agent, a high-level KGB Line X31 officer code- named ADIEU. Until he was caught by KGB counterintelligence and executed in 1984, ADIEU, whose real name was Vladimir Vetrov, was instrumental in making it possible for the U.S. to put a halt to a ten-year Soviet espionage program that siphoned off much of America’s cutting-edge defense technology.32

  The French had been helpful in keeping track of Islamist extremists and other Middle East and European-based Muslim terror organizations through productive networks of agents in the Algerian, Moroccan, and Palestinian émigré communities. DST also provided support to U.S. intelligence during the FBI’s botched investigation of American diplomat Felix Bloch.

  Corporate spying, however, was another matter. The Americans resented DST’s habit of breaking into the rooms of American businessmen to steal corporate secrets in order to allow French companies to underbid lucrative contracts. During Sam’s Paris tour, French agents broke into a suite at the Ritz, copied a proposal sitting in the briefcase of the vice president for international sales of a huge U.S. petroleum services corporation, and passed the document to a French conglomerate. The Americans lost a two-billion-dollar contract with the Saudis.

  But the U.S. company had given half a million dollars in soft money to the Democrats during the 1992 election cycle, and so a call was made to the White House. Three months later, sixteen of CIA’s Non-Official Case officers, nine of them female, were sent to Paris to initiate an aggressive program targeting French businesses. The operation was a bust. The NOCs, woefully undertrained and lacking in sophisticated French-language skills, were quickly identified and caught by DST, much to Langley’s embarrassment.

  The unlucky Americans escaped jail sentences only through the direct intervention of the ambassador’s close personal friend, the president of the United States. At Pamela Harriman’s urging, Bill Clinton called his French counterpart François Mitterrand, begged for mercy, and promised never again to taiget spies against French business interests.

  Clinton kept his word, too. Instead of human beings, he ordered NSA’s sophisticated eavesdropping capabilities to focus on French corporations. It didn’t take La Piscine long to figure out what was going on, either. So, in return, the French subjected CIA’s Paris Station to the kind of aggressive blanket surveillance and intrusive eavesdropping that is usually reserved for adversaries. The prickly relationship had continued into the present, even though France and the U.S. were working closely in the current war against global terror.

  Sam had arrived in Paris and registered at the Cercle under his true name. Within hours—perhaps even minutes—of his arrival, DST’s 24/7 computer scan of Paris’s hotel registries would ping on his name and alert the bureau’s counterintelligence branch, which is located in the basement of an anonymous Ministry of Interior office building tucked away on rue de Penthièvre. DST wouldn’t mount a full-court press. Sam wasn’t a significant enough target. But there would probably be some sort of response. Perhaps they’d do a sneak-and-peek at the Cercle. Still, Sam had decided that a cleaning route might be in order.

  9:25 A.M. Sam ambled east on Boulevard Haussmann. At rue Tronchet, he darted across the heavy traffic against the light, descended into the Havre Caumartin metro stop, where he shouldered his way through the crowded station to the caisse and bought a carnet of ten tickets. Then he climbed the stairs and quickly loped into one of the twenty entrances to Au Printemps. He jogged up the escalator to the second floor, walked quickly through aisles of trendy women’s clothes, found a staircase, scampered down to the first floor, crossed several aisles, and then made his way quickly across a glass-and-steel skyway thirty feet above a narrow alley to the men’s store.

  He walked past racks of suits and blazers to the end of the aisle, where the fall coats were displayed. He examined several, his radar searching the area for any untoward signals as he moved between the racks. Except for several bored-looking salespeople, the floor was largely deserted. Sam spent a quarter of an hour trying on a series of overcoats and then replacing them on the racks. When he was certain he wasn’t being observed, he sauntered off, took the escalator down to street level, made his way to the rear of the store, and slipped out a side door. He walked quickly against the traffic flow, crossed the boulevard, went past the American Express office, down rue Scribe, and across Place de la Madeleine.

  From there he walked down rue Royal to the Place de la Concorde, and entered the Hotel Crillon. Inside, next to the lavatory, was a pay phone. He ran his phone card through the reader, dialed a number from memory, and made a lunch reservation under the name Miller. He hung up, walked back outside into the chilly sunlight, and crossed the broad street, pausing to look past the obelisk across the bridge to the National Assembly. Then he galumphed down the metro stairs, ran his ticket through the turnstile, caught the next east-bound train, and rode four stops to Châtelet. There, he waited six minutes, caught the second Porte d’Orléans train, and rode three stops to Odèon. At Odèon, he trudged up the well-worn stairs into the diesel fumes and bustle of Boulevard St. Germain.

  10:38 A.M. Sam came out from under the metro marquee and paused on the narrow concrete island. Behind him lay the dark stone walls of the Sorbonne. Across the boulevard lay a string of bars, cafés, and small restaurants interspersed with boutiques, tabacs, and bookstores. He waited for the light to change, then crossed while taxi drivers gunned their engines as if they were waiting for the starter’s flag at Le Mans. He walked west, window-shopping. Just off the corner of the rue Grégoire de Tours he pushed through the glass-enclosed terrace of a small, sparsely populated café, sat down at a table with a view of the sidewalk, ordered a double espresso, opened his newspaper, and perused the headlines.

  Six minutes later, a tall, attractive redhead dressed in the sort of urbanely chic style that Parisian women affect pushed through the door, plunked herself and her Vuitton shopping bag three tables down from Sam, pulled out a newspaper, and started to read. The ping was so loud Sam almost reacted physically. He took a second look. Her hair was too perfect. It was a wig. A very good wig, but a wig nonetheless.

  She ordered a bottled water and paid for it in advance. That was final confirmation for Sam. You don’t pay in advance unless you might have to leave quickly and you don’t want to draw attention to yourself by having an angry waiter pursue you into the sidewalk.

  The question was why. He hadn’t sensed anything untoward all morning. He certainly wasn’t in Paris to work against French targets. All he wanted was a quiet conversation with an old source who might give him some insight about Edward Howard’s motives. And now here were the French, putting on a full-court press.

  It didn’t make any sense. Unless, of course, Alexei had given les Frogs a heads-up. That was possible. He lived here. He had to do business. Maybe he was just protecting his interests—providing advance notice about a meeting with an old colleague.

  She sat on his blind side. Good tradecraft. He wondered how many others of them there were. And then he realized that it didn’t matter how many there were, or why they’d decided to target him, or whether Alexei had told DST or not. Sam shook his head, sipped his coffee, and turned his attention back to the newspaper. This had nothing to do with the French. So let them follow. Let them work overtime for all he cared.

  AT ELEVEN-THIRTY he tossed a handful of euro small change into the saucer in front of him, tore the bill in half, folded his newspaper, and, tucking it like a football under his right arm, walked out of the café. He turned left, walked around the corner into a bustling neighborhood market street crammed with vegetable stands, butcher shops, fishmongers, and bakeries. He shouldered his way through the morning shoppers, turned left, walked another block, then turned right, onto the qu
iet rue de Seine.

  It had been almost a decade since Sam had walked this route, but nothing, it seemed, had changed. The narrow cobblestone street was one of Paris’s oldest. The houses, mostly eighteenth and nineteenth century, were narrow three-and four-story stone-and-brick structures. The ground floors of most had been converted into art galleries and artisans shops. Sam took the time to look around. Except for the steel and glass, this was Hemingway’s Paris, or Toulouse-Lautrec’s.

  He made his way slowly, pausing to peer through the plate glass at the displays inside, until he reached his destination, a small gallery that featured nineteenth-century posters. Alexei Semonov, dressed in a thick black turtleneck and an expensive, muted gray herringbone suit, was standing outside, his hands jammed in his trouser pockets, peering at the Cheret posters in the window. He had a folded newspaper tucked under his left arm. It was his VSS—the visual safety signal. If the paper had been rolled and tucked under his right arm, it would have meant Semonov had detected conditions unsafe for a meeting.

  But all was clear. Sam said, “Morning, Alexei.”

  The gaunt Russian’s eyes flicked in Sam’s direction. But he didn’t shift his body. “Richard,” he said, pronouncing the word ree-charr. “Bienvenue

  Sam responded in French. “Nice to see you again.” He stared at the posters in the gallery window. “You look very well, Alexei. How’s your wife?”

  “Mona? Fine, thank you. She’s just off to Lebanon, visiting her parents. They’re close, these Lebanese, y’know.” He laughed. “I discovered that you don’t marry the woman, Richard—you marry the entire damn clan.” The Russian paused long enough to give Sam a cursory head-to-toe glance. “You look good. Fit.” Semonov gestured with his head, pointing down the street. “Shall we walk?”

  “Of course.” Sam looked around. The street was largely empty. He saw no sign of the woman from the café. “I thought we could have an early lunch. I’ve booked a table at Ma Bourgogne at noon.” Ma Bourgogne was a bustling wine bar in the eighth arrondissement. Using the name Miller, Sam had reserved a specific table in the rear, a location he knew from experience would be impossible to eavesdrop without being obvious.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Semonov said, running a hand through thick, graying hair combed straight back, “I’d rather eat in this neighborhood.” He glanced down at a thin gold Piaget on a crocodile band. “I have an appointment afterward.”

  “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  Semonov stopped long enough to peer into a shop window. “I booked a table. The restaurant is close by.”

  “Anything you say, Alexei.”

  “Thank you.” They came to an intersection. Semonov gestured right. “We go this way.”

  They turned into a cobblestone street no more than eight feet wide, rimmed by narrow sidewalks. At the far end, a red, white, and blue tricolor fluttered from the gated, padlocked rear entrance to a government building. The street was deserted except for a dozen parked cars. Semonov walked slowly, hands clasped behind his back. “So, Richard,” he said after half a dozen leisurely strides, “what is it you wanted to talk about?”

  “The old days,” Sam said. “I wanted to gossip about Moscow Center.”

  “Just like that.” Semonov’s pace never changed. “No, ‘Sorry Alexei.’ No, ‘Here’s what happened.’ You want to pick up where you left off nine years ago.”

  “Alexei, I—”

  “How typically American of you. No wonder the Europeans see you Yankees the way they do. Blunt. Obtuse. Clumsy. No finesse.” He stopped walking just long enough to stare down at Sam’s feet.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “I thought you might be wearing cowboy boots and spurs.” He glanced up. “Watch out—” The Russian nudged Sam out of the way as a low-slung BMW convertible careened around the corner toward them. The two men sprang to opposite sidewalks to let the vehicle pass.

  “Éperons”. Sam cracked a bemused smile. “That’s funny, Alexei.” He stepped back onto the cobblestones. “I’m sorry to be so direct, but there’s no other way.”

  The Russian sighed. “Then get on with it.” He paused. “Are you still working? Is this official?”

  “I’m retired,” Sam said. “This is personal.”

  “Retired? You’re still a young man, Richard. You never seemed much the type to retire.”

  “It wasn’t my choice.”

  “Ah. They cut you loose.” The Russian’s head bobbed up and down. “Just like you cut me loose.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m sorry.” Semonov walked on. Finally, he said, “I wish we’d gone to Kiev.”

  Sam looked at his former agent’s face. “So do I, Alexei,” he said honestly.

  Semonov said: “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “The op was scrubbed.”

  “It was scrubbed because of me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “We went to the safe house. Your technician put me on the polygraph. Less than a week later you and I meet. You tell me the op is canceled, and that our relationship is over. Au revoir. Bonne chance. Fin. Poof—all gone.”

  Sam tried to sound sincere. “It wasn’t you, Alexei. It was us.”

  The Russian pulled at the skin under his right eye with an index finger.

  Sam shrugged. “Believe what you will.” He looked up as another car bore down on them and he pulled the heedless Russian out of its path. They’d no sooner stepped back into the street than they had to give way once more for a loud Ducati whose leather-clad driver cut a little close for comfort. “Careful, Alexei—”

  When the motorcycle noise subsided, Sam said, “Alexei, did you ever hear anything in Moscow about American agents?”

  “American agents?”

  “Soviet moles buried in Washington.”

  Semonov pulled at his ear. “I was only a junior officer, Richard. I had no direct knowledge of such things. Besides, it wasn’t my area. I was Second Chief Directorate—and way down the totem pole, as you Americans say. You know as well as I do that agents were run by the First Chief Directorate out of Yasenevo.”33

  “But there must have been stories.”

  “There are always stories. Gossip.”

  “And?”

  “And? Of course there were rumors.” They’d reached the corner. Sam could hear the rumble of trucks, buses, and cars on the busy quai. Beyond the three lanes of fast-moving traffic, die-hard art dealers were opening their kiosks for the tourists. Semonov turned right, heading upstream against the traffic flow. “We go this way.” He took Sam’s elbow to guide him. “There are always rumors, Richard. You can’t have an intelligence service without rumors, can you?”

  Sam allowed himself to be led. “No, I don’t suppose you can.”

  “But to be honest, I heard more rumors that the Americans had a mole inside Moscow Center than I heard rumors about KGB moles in Washington.”

  “I wish we’d actually had one.” Sam paused. “You heard nothing at all, Alexei?”

  “Like I said, only the usual gossip.”

  It didn’t make sense. Howard claimed the Russians had considered a wet operation to silence Semonov. That’s what he’d told Sam at Rand Arthur’s house. It was the info-shard that had brought Sam to Paris. And now Howard’s lead turned out tabe just another dry hole. And yet, Sam couldn’t get the defector’s voice out of his head. There are no coincidences.

  The two men walked in silence for a few hundred feet. Sam could hear police sirens coming from the préfecture de police on the île de la Cité. He glanced toward the Seine. The quai’s art dealers had given way to bouquinistes—used-book dealers—whose dog-eared wares sat inside huge, green-painted boxes that were bolted to the quai’s walls and parapets. Ahead of them was the Boul’Miche—Boulevard St. Michel—and beyond it Notre Dame. On the corner of a busy one-way street Semonov turned right, then opened a heavy glass door for Sam. “Please.

  CHAPTER
22

  THE RESTAURANT was called Les Bouquinistes. The place was modern—trendy earth tones, with plank wood floors accented by woven rattan rugs and dark bamboo shades. They were met by a maître d’ in a somber three-piece suit who greeted Semonov warmly (and by name) and ushered them past empty tables to a large corner banquette set for two where both men could sit with their backs to a wall and still command a view of the entrance. The table settings were formal. The crisp, pale, lemon yellow tablecloth was counterpointed by a flower arrangement in a simple but exquisite blue-and-charcoal-patterned vase. Three stemmed crystal glasses—a tulipe for white wine, and ballons for Bordeaux and Burgundy, fanned out from each austere service plate. The silver—it was real silver or good plate—was oversize and heavy. Semonov winked at Sam as they settled onto firm black leather. “They know me here.”

  No sooner had they unfurled the starched napkins than a trio of waiters appeared. One presented a woven African bowl holding slices of rustic pain Poilane sourdough and a crock of pale Normandy butter. A second presented a square white plate on which were four small triangles of toast, each holding a perfect round of foie gras on top of which sat a dollop of port wine sauce accented with crème fraîche. The third waiter brought a bottle of Pommery Apanage, two long-stemmed flutes, and a champagne bucket on a stand to the table. He set the stand at the Russian’s elbow then displayed the label to Semonov. The Russian nodded approvingly and watched as the bottle was uncorked and the champagne poured.

  “If you don’t mind, Richard, I have taken the liberty of ordering in advance.” Semonov lifted his glass. “Za vashe zdarov’e.”

  Sam swallowed. It was very good champagne. “To dead comrades, Alexei.” He watched as the Russian plucked a toast triangle off the plate and put it in his mouth. The restaurant had started to fill up. Sam’s internal radar flicked on, but picked up no bogeys.