L'Assassin

by Peter Steiner

  “Send me the French transcripts and tapes then. I’ll start there.”

  “Thanks, Hugh,” said the president, rising from his chair and opening his arms to indicate that the meeting was over. Everyone else in the room rose. “We’re grateful, as always, and sorry to take you away from your work. Frankly, we’re just a little stymied, as you can see.” Phil looked down at his shoes. The president continued, “The information has to be there somewhere, Hugh. Our people are just missing something. Give it a look, would you?”

  “Whatever I can do, Mr. President. I am glad to be able to help.”

  Later that afternoon six cartons of documents and tapes were delivered to the offices at Bowes, Powell, and Clayton by Secret Service men wearing dark suits and sunglasses and pushing hand trucks. The office manager signed for the cartons and led the couriers to Hugh’s office. The office manager watched from the door with his arms folded while they rolled the trucks across the deep pile carpet and stacked the cartons beside Hugh’s desk.

  Hugh arrived as evening was falling. The sun had set, and the sky was turning dark. He sent Seymour away. The office manager was the last one left in the office.

  “Do you need anything else before I go, Mr. Secretary?”

  “Would you lift those cartons down for me, Arthur? Just place them side by side. There. Thank you. That will be all. Now you go home to your family.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said the office manager, and left the office.

  Hugh settled into the great leather desk chair. He swiveled to the side and opened the cartons one by one. He sorted through them from front to back, pulling files halfway out, looking inside, and then letting them slide back, as though he were searching for something in particular.

  In the fourth carton he found what he was looking for. He removed a disk from a bundle of disks and slid it into his computer. The machine whirred briefly. A grainy gray image appeared on the screen. Hugh tapped a few keys and the image became sharper.

  Hugh saw a room with a long table surrounded by mismatched chairs. The date and time of the recording—18.2.2004, 14:14:36—was displayed across the bottom of the screen in yellow type. Hugh clicked on FAST-FORWARD and watched the minutes, then hours flash by. Suddenly a figure appeared and dashed across the screen.

  Hugh stopped the disk and reversed it. He searched until he found the figure again. He clicked on PLAY. The figure—a man—carried dishes to the table. He disappeared and then reappeared with cutlery, then with a bottle of wine. He held the bottle up and studied the label. “Champalou,” said the man. Hugh zoomed in on the figure’s face and froze the image. He studied the look on the man’s face.

  “Hello, Louis,” whispered Hugh, as though Louis might be able to hear him.

  Hugh sped through the rest of the disk. He inserted another into the reader. He sped through that one too, through many days of Louis eating, walking past the camera, reading the newspaper, drinking coffee. On the next disk he heard Louis and Renard talking about cooking, about the weather, about Renard’s wife, Isabelle, about Solesme’s recently discovered cancer, about art. He saw Louis having dinner with his friends. He stopped now and then and listened to the conversation, as though he might want to jump in with his own contribution. He went through several more disks until there were suddenly four men on the screen.

  Hugh stopped the disk and played it from that point. The four men sat at the table. One sat with his back to the camera. You could not see his face. The men were drinking tea. You could hear their voices clearly. They were speaking French. Hugh knew the language well enough to recognize that they spoke with foreign accents. Hugh followed the French transcript.

  Man 1: When?

  Man 2: You got this …?

  Man 1: From him.

  Man 2: From him. He says millions should be involved.

  Man 3: He is certain?

  Man 1: It’s big. Let’s put it that way.

  Man 3: Yes, but when?

  Man 2: That’s up to us. I’m just saying …

  Man 3: How about Roland Garros? How about the French Open?

  Man 4: Tennis? What’s the point?

  Man 2: Like I said. It’s up to us. Just remember: the flics are onto us. The phones are tapped. I’m sure of it. Still, we’re too far to turn back now.

  Hugh fast-forwarded the disk and began playing it again.

  Man 3: They’re not that smart. I know them. I worked for them.

  Man 2: We still have to stay loose. And careful.

  Man 3: Meaning what?

  Man 1: Did he say when?

  Man 2: That’s up to us too. It’s all up to us.

  Man 4: I mean, fifteen kilos.

  Man 1: Marseille?

  Man 3: He’ll let us know.

  Man 1: But where should we stash it?

  Man 4: I’ve got the place in Paris. [Incomprehensible.]

  Man 1: Got it.

  Man 2: [Incomprehensible.]

  Man 3 rises and leaves. He returns with a book, which he opens.

  Man 3: Read this.

  Man 1, 2, and 4 read the book.

  Hugh sent the recording forward again.

  Man 2: Allah be praised.

  Man 1, 3, and 4: Allah be praised.

  Hugh stopped the disk.

  If Louis had been there watching with Hugh, he would have recognized himself and his friends coming and going in his own kitchen. He would not have recognized the four men, but he would have seen that the conversation among the four had taken place around his kitchen table. He could have deduced that Man 3, whose face remained out of sight, was supposed to be him, and he would have recognized that Man 2 was Pierre Lefort. As he had surmised, the bug had been planted and the drama with the four men had been staged well before the burglary had taken place. The actors in the elaborate charade had let themselves in and out of Louis’s house without his ever noticing.

  The page that covered the surveillance transcript Hugh was reading was gray with a red border. It was marked at the top and bottom in bold letters: TOP SECRET. EYES ONLY. In that regard, it was like all the other transcripts of all the other recordings Hugh had sorted through. At the bottom of this one, however, there was a small label—Sécurité Nationale Algérienne—indicating that the recording had been made by Algerian agents.

  Hugh had forgotten how hard-pressed and ill-equipped American intelligence services were. They did not have time to carefully assess which reports were reliable and/or useful and which were not. Most likely the American intelligence officer who had received this set of recordings and transcripts from the Algerians was inundated with work and had, after brief consideration, written LOW PRIORITY on the routing slip (it was Algerian intelligence, after all), initialed it, and put it on a growing stack of similar papers.

  The entire stack had been shipped to Washington in the next diplomatic pouch and had found its way into the CIA’s voluminous French files, where it had quickly gotten buried. It had not surfaced on its own, as Hugh had hoped it would, but that did not matter. In fact, he had now been given the opportunity to “discover” the disks and reveal their significance to the astonished president and his embarrassed staff. Hugh read through the complete transcript and found it to be highly satisfactory.

  V

  A few days later Seymour drove Hugh onto the White House grounds once more. He helped Hugh out of the car and pushed the wheelchair up the ramp into the reception area. The pretty colonel wheeled Hugh into the Oval Office, where Hugh greeted the president and the other men gathered about him. With great effort, and some help from the colonel, he stood up from the wheelchair and lowered himself onto an overstuffed couch. He reached into his briefcase and withdrew a sheaf of papers, which he quickly put in order on the low glass table in front of him. He took the Algerian disk from the briefcase and slid it out of its acetate envelope. “Mr. President, you will forgive me, I hope, if I get right to the point. I have just made an important and, I fear, alarming discovery.

  “On a hunch, really, I
began my research with France,” he said, “and it is fortunate that I did. This is what I found.” He waved the disk in the air. “We know, of course, there are a number of terror cells operating in France. That is nothing new. That is why I started there. I know your people”—he nodded toward Phil—”have been keeping track of them, and I congratulate you for finding and tracking them.

  “There is one cell, however, and I fear it is a most dangerous one, which seems to have escaped your notice. It is not in Paris, and that is perhaps why it eluded you. In fairness I should add that it might have escaped my notice too”—a smile flickered across his face—”but for the curious, even astonishing, fact that I actually recognized one of the terrorists involved. I know the man. Personally. Or rather, I knew him once.” The president and his men looked back and forth at one another in amazement.

  Hugh held up the disk once more. “Would you mind playing this for the president?” he said. One of the intelligence officers retrieved it and inserted it in the DVD player, which was stacked along with other electronic equipment on a tall metal stand beside the president’s desk. He turned on the television and stepped aside. Louis’s kitchen came into view. After a few seconds Louis appeared.

  “Fast-forward, please. Does this tape seem familiar to you at all?” said Hugh, knowing full well that it would not. Louis dashed back and forth across the screen until the four men appeared, at which point Hugh instructed the officer with the player’s controls to slow the disk to normal speed. The little drama played itself out while the president, his various military and security advisers, and his secretary of state stared at the television. They watched in silence for a full ten minutes before Hugh finally instructed the officer to stop the player. The image of the four men froze on the screen.

  “I am certain you speak enough French,” said Hugh, knowing that they did not, “to recognize that the men we have just watched are involved in what appears to be a drug smuggling operation.” The president and his men looked at him blankly. “It’s in the transcripts,” said Hugh, brandishing a sheaf of papers in their direction.

  “The fact is, however, that the references they make to kilos, which might seem to refer to drugs, is, I fear, a reference to something far more ominous. These conspirators are speaking of some deadly agent that they do not name, whether biological or chemical is not quite clear. Quite possibly it is sarin or some other nerve agent.” Hugh paused to allow this terrible idea to sink in. The president scowled. He leaned forward slightly, as though he were uncertain that he had just heard what he thought he had just heard.

  “And you know one of these guys?” the president said.

  Hugh continued. “If you will allow me, Mr. President, I’ll explain that in a moment. But first: the millions they speak of refers, not to money, but to the numbers of people who might be killed or sickened by the release of this agent. Roland Garros refers, of course, to the French Open tennis tournament, which begins shortly and which they consider and then, fortunately for us, dismiss as an occasion for the release of this agent. They have not agreed on a target, at least as far as I can tell from these surveillance tapes. I assume surveillance is ongoing.

  “Now to your question, Mr. President. What makes a grave matter even graver is the man who appears to be the central figure in the enterprise, at least as far as we can tell. He is the man you see at the beginning of the tape and then in conversation with three other men. The tape was made in his home in …” Hugh looked at the papers in front of him. “Saint Leon sur Dême, a small town in the Loire Valley, southwest of Paris.

  “As I said, this man is known to me, or rather he was known to me—was well known to me—some thirty years ago. I have not seen him since then, but he represents a painful episode in my early career and in the history of the State Department, and I would not forget him easily. He has changed a great deal, but I recognized him immediately. His name is Louis Morgon. I doubt that the name means anything to you. Did you know him, Mr. Secretary?”

  The secretary of state shook his head.

  “Louis Morgan?” said Phil, the man in the glittering glasses. He began writing in a small notebook.

  “Louis MorgON,” said Hugh. “M-O-R-G-O-N. Louis Morgon.”

  “How do you know him?” asked Phil, sounding as though he were beginning a police inquiry.

  Hugh turned to peer at him and waited until he had lowered his pen. “Louis Morgon is an American expatriate,” he continued. “He was once an important adviser to me when I was an undersecretary of state under President Ford. He occupied a position … similar to yours.

  “Morgon came to us from academe. He was smart—a young professor who had done some interesting work on the balance of power in the Middle East. He was a rising star in the State Department and pretty soon he moved to an important post at the CIA. Then it was discovered that he was undercutting our efforts in the Middle East.

  “There was evidence that he was a foreign agent. Morgon was dismissed from service and investigated. But, while the evidence was strongly suggestive, they could never get enough on him to charge him with a crime. He was too smart for that.

  “When he was fired, he became embittered and vengeful, so much so that he eventually left the country. And he has lived in France—where they tolerate such people—ever since. That is a long story made short,” said Hugh, gathering his papers together and forming them into a neat stack on the table in front of him. “I will leave all this information with you. You can find all the historical details you need in his State Department and CIA files.”

  The president and his men leaned forward in their seats and peppered Hugh with questions, which he patiently and frankly answered, even to the point of admitting his own failure to recognize Louis Morgon’s dangerous tendencies those many years ago. There followed a brief discussion about how best to proceed with this startling new information. Hugh offered to help in any way he could, although he cautioned that his previous relationship with Morgon might suggest to some that he should not be too closely involved. “I know the limits of my objectivity,” he said. “I am not impartial when it comes to this man.”

  “Nonsense, Hugh,” said the president. “Impartiality isn’t at issue here. Your knowledge of the man’s character will be a big help as we decide how to proceed. We’ll study the matter and keep you in the loop as we figure out our course of action. Whatever we do will obviously have to happen quickly. There is obviously not a moment to lose.”

  The president rose from his chair and so did everyone else in the room. “Thank you again, Hugh, for all your help. As always, it has been absolutely indispensable. I don’t know what we would have done …” The president’s voice trailed off as he thought about the dire possibilities.

  Two days later Hugh was called back to the Oval Office. An intelligence officer who had not been at the earlier meetings reported that Louis Morgon’s files at the CIA and at the State Department were sealed. “It looks as though someone has maintained a special interest in our man all these years. The files also appear to be incomplete.”

  “Which could mean any number of things,” said Hugh with a wave of his hand.

  “Of course,” said the intelligence officer. He continued. Louis’s current whereabouts had been easily discovered, since he had not moved and his address and phone number were listed. Apparently he did not know or care that he might be under suspicion. French security knew nothing about him either. However, they were dispatching agents at this very moment to the village of Saint Leon sur Dême to make their own appraisal of the situation.

  “An extremely cautious appraisal, I would advise,” said Hugh. “You should warn them to proceed carefully. Not to be too dramatic, but they are dealing with a highly experienced intelligence officer and a cunning man. He will spot anything the least bit suspicious, and the consequences of that could be deadly serious.”

  The officer continued. “The translation into English of the Algerian disk has borne out entirely Secretary Bowes’s inter
pretation of the discussion among the four men. Nor can there be any doubt that Louis Morgon is the leader of the cell. We only saw four men, but it is safe to assume from their words that others are involved, in Paris and elsewhere, perhaps even in the United States.

  “Morgon’s bitterness against our country is well documented and obviously remains active, as do his treasonous ways. It is unclear just what he and his cell might be up to. The large terror event scenario is a distinct possibility, but the recorded language just isn’t conclusive enough. Too much is missing. We are hoping the French agents will fill in the blanks until our own people can arrive on the scene.”

  “You are right to be cautious in your interpretation,” said Hugh. “I am inclined to be cautious myself.” He paused briefly and looked around the room at the men gathered in front of him. “Having said that, however, I feel compelled to add, Mr. President”—and here he turned to look the president in the eye—”I know the man. I know and have vivid firsthand experience with his venality. I know the full depth of his hatred for the United States. When his career ended, he lost his wife, his children, his country, and his entire significance. He lost everything.

  “You have found evidence in his file, I am sure, of his desperation and rage. And while I have only circumstantial evidence for this—it is certainly possible that I am wrong—I believe Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda have provided him with the perfect channel for the expression of his hatred.” Hugh paused. “That is only my opinion, sir, and it is, as I have already said, a biased one. But there you have it, Mr. President. Gentlemen.”

  There is a curious quality, more a failing, really, that all humans share, even the most intelligent and reasonable among us. It is this: fear and uncertainty can, and usually do, overwhelm even the most unassailable facts. Fear and uncertainty are stronger and more compelling than factual evidence can ever be, especially when the evidence is ambiguous, as evidence almost always is. And the weight of evidence has a peculiar way of turning in the direction in which fear directs it.