Blue with Black Dots (The Caprice Trilogy Book 2)

by Cole Reid

  “Were you found out?” asked Georgia.

  “I was never found out,” said Simone, “But I was rewarded. I moved back to France in 1960 at the behest of the gentlemen who was my contact at military intelligence. They gave me a job at the DST. That’s how I was able to research about my father’s friends. Why they stayed rich and my father was killed. Then I did what I’d been doing in Algeria. I used their secrets against them. And that’s why we sit here in my father’s house, Agent Georgia Standing.” Simone took the time to light another cigarette. Something seemed to change in her. It was clear to Georgia that she didn’t tell the story to everyone. She took one of her expensive cigarettes and handed it to Georgia. She even passed her gold-plated lighter to Georgia. Georgia lit the cigarette without hesitation and passed it back. The cigarettes were a twist. They shared wine. They shared goose. They hadn’t touched the cassata cake. But cigarettes were addictive and Simone was an obvious addict. Georgia knew something else was coming; Simone wanted to get an early start on the cigarettes. It seemed she was getting a late start on telling the story she really wanted to tell. Her buzz from the wine was wearing off. She needed a new fix.

  Georgia sat quietly. She let Simone sip her cigarette alone, inhale and exhale. She would ash her cigarette while Simone took her drag. When Simone was done, Georgia took her turn. They smoked together, just not at the same time. It was Georgia’s way of paying her respects to Le Poq. They were similar but not on the same level. But that wasn’t the point.

  “I need your help,” said Simone. She let the question sit next to them as they smoked. They finished their cigarettes at about the same time. Simone offered a refresher to Georgia before she took one for herself. Georgia lit her cigarette and Simone leaned in to get a light. Simone didn’t say anything. Georgia felt like Simone was waiting for permission to continue.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” said Georgia.

  “Two,” said Simone, “Depending on how you look at it.”

  “Can we start in order?” said Georgia.

  “We have to,” said Simone, “We have to go back to 1946 when I was in Tahiti, thirty years ago—before you were born. I told you I got island fever. I was putting it mildly. I went crazy. I would be gone for days at a time. My mother called the police to come looking for me three times. Maybe it was four times. She was always worried something would happen to me. Papeete was a bit more dangerous for a French girl than for a Tahitian.”

  “Where did you go?” asked Georgia.

  “Where the boys were,” said Simone, “Where the fun was. That’s when I started smoking. I learned to ride motorcycles because I had boyfriends that had them. We’d hangout by the waterfront. We went camping, took the boat to Moorea and camped out on the beach with friends. I suppose Freud would say I needed a male figure out of some latent sexual obsession with my father. But my sexual obsession wasn’t with my father. It was with the Polynesian boys. But that strategy backfired. To be honest, I didn’t have a strategy. I just wanted to be cool. I was young and I was stupid. I wanted to be that girl who always had the coolest boyfriend, but the coolest guy changed from week-to-week, so I changed with the times as a manner of speaking. When I got pregnant, I honestly wasn’t sure who the father was. And you know what happens when that happens, you’re called a whore and no one wants anything to do with you. I went to the one guy who I had been with the longest and he just said I was a French whore and he knew I had slept with two guys he knew. They had bragged about it. I told him I thought the baby was his but he just called me a French whore and his family denied anything happened between us. So there I was, I wasn’t even sixteen yet and I was already pregnant. I switched schools from Papeete to Paea, but Tahiti isn’t all that big an island. People knew my story. In Paea, they just whispered more and talked less. After my pregnancy, things changed for me. My attitude changed.”

  “Did you consider an abortion?” asked Georgia.

  “For all of five minutes but the risks were great,” said Simone, “It was 1946 in Tahiti, not exactly the safest place to have abortion surgery. And my mother was afraid of the damage it could do to my body because I was so young. It was actually the time in my life where I saw my mother be most like my father. It was obvious she had learned from him. I wanted to leave the island and go back to France. I cried. I was humiliated just about daily, constantly called a French whore. But my mother thought like my father always had, long-term. She told me I was the one to get pregnant at fifteen so I had to deal with the consequences. She said I had to finish high school before we left Polynesia because it wouldn’t be suspicious for me to leave after graduating. So October 22nd 1946, I had my son and called him Joseph. It was my mother who said we could keep his origins a secret when we left Polynesia and could say Joseph was my little brother and not my son. Tahiti was on the other side of the world from France. No one had to know Joseph was mine. We raised him together. Mama kept him during the day while I was at school, but when I came home he was entirely my responsibility. I changed him. I made his food and put him to bed. I never knew I had a motivation to do such things. I was like so many other girls my age. I wanted to be cool. There is nothing cool about being sixteen with a small baby but there’s more to it than being cool.”

  “What happened to your son?” asked Simone.

  “I finish high school in ‘49 and my mother decided it was time to leave Polynesia,” said Simone, “At that time, so many Jews were moving to Israel. It was a newly formed Jewish State at that time. It literally got recognized the month before I graduated high school. Joseph turned two a few months before that. My mother spent a lot of time and money on long-distance phone calls back then. She was calling Israel. I only found out why when we discussed our move from Polynesia. Maman had made arrangements with some relatives. Some cousins of hers who were moving to Israel.”

  “What arrangements?” asked Georgia.

  “To take Joseph,” said Simone.

  “She decided that I was too young to have a child,” said Simone, “She told me when we moved back to France, we couldn’t get back into society, if I was thought of in such a way. After the war, it was bad enough that we were Jews. We would automatically be looked down upon. She was getting near the bottom of the money that Papa had sent us away with and she hoped to return to France and get back our assets and our place in society. Sometimes she was as stupid as my father was intelligent. I told her we should move to Israel like so many other European Jews. But she held on to this idea of us returning to French society. That’s why she chose Algeria. At that time, it was still part of France and it was close enough to France that she felt like she could start reconnecting some relationships by making visits. She wasn’t so stupid to think we could just show up on French soil and be welcomed back with open arms. Even she understood that such a thing would take time. But that was her goal—for us to come back to this chateau, to drink wine, eat cheese and speak French, like they spoke French. It’s how we lived when my father was alive and it’s how she saw us. She had arranged with her cousins to take Joseph and raise him in Jewish tradition. I had no choice but to protest, but I had lost a lot of my thunder after getting pregnant. I lost that youthful rebellion. To see how so many of my so-called friends had so quickly turned against me, made me realize it wasn’t just unique to Vichy France. It happens everywhere. At that time, my Maman was the only one I felt and knew would not turn her back on me. And let that be Rule Number Six, Agent Georgia Standing, when your heart and mind are synchronized you obey. So I did. I said goodbye to my little son in Anderson Airport on the sixth of August 1949. He boarded a plane with my mother for Israel and I flew to Algeria to start at university. Maman stayed in Israel for six months to help Joseph adjust to new family and to have some of her cousins help her find contacts in Algeria who could set us up there. So when Maman came, it was nice because she got us a flat in a Sephardi neighborhood. I stayed on campus during the week and stayed at the flat with her on weekends.”

  �
�And how is it that I’m able to help you?” asked Georgia. Simone pointed to the end of the long table. A folded newspaper that had gone unnoticed had been left by one of Simone’s retainers. Georgia leaned to reach the newspaper. And unfolded it to see it was thirteen months old May 2th-7th 1976.

  “Page four,” said Simone. There was no picture on page four. But the only article that had any relevance was from a speech made on Wednesday, May 5th 1976 by a twenty-nine year-old Israeli parliament member in Brussels at NATO Headquarters. Although Israel was not a member of the NATO alliance, the young politician was described as trying to make a name for himself in Israeli politics by expressing his support for NATO and being a staunch anti-communist. His name was Daniel J. Biram. Mr. Biram was given high praise for his speech and compared to great orators of the past.

  “Daniel J. Biram,” said Simone, “What do you think the J is for?” Georgia turned her head to the left and looked seriously at Simone.

  “Joseph,” said Georgia.

  “Apparently my mother’s cousins didn’t like the name,” said Simone, “So they change his name to Daniel Joseph. Biram is their family name. I suppose that makes him more theirs than mine.” Simone picked up the white envelope she brought from the dining room and had been trying to conceal. She handed the envelope to Georgia. It had already been opened. Georgia put her hand in the envelope and pulled out eight photos. The photos were strange. Georgia noticed immediately. The photos had been taken on duplitized film stock but weren’t converted to color. Instead, the photos were left black and white without removing the yellow dye. The result was the pictures were black and white with yellow toning. But the images were clear. The first few images were of an elderly looking woman from a profile view. She had on reading glasses and pulled back graying hair. She had no wrinkles around her eyes or mouth. The second photo showed the elderly woman turning her head. Her face pointed almost directly at the lens. Georgia could see the woman more acutely. She recognized the woman but couldn’t make out from where. Her mind worked fast. The woman was sitting right next to her. It was Simone, disguised with glasses and a graying wig. There were two more photos of Simone in disguise. The last photos were of a young man. First he was seated at a panel table with other men, in military uniforms. The lens was clearly focused on him. The next photos showed him behind a podium. His mouth was open and his eyes were excited. He enjoyed speaking.

  “This is Joseph,” said Georgia, “You were in Brussels to see him speak.”

  “I hadn’t seen him since that day in Anderson Airport,” said Simone, “Nearly twenty-eight years ago.”

  “Why did you go to Brussels?” asked Georgia.

  “Do you have children?” asked Simone.

  “No,” said Georgia.

  “When you do, we’ll talk,” said Simone, “I read that he was a great speaker. I wanted to see that little boy I once knew speak. I thought I was careful. I sat in the back. I wore the wig and glasses.”

  “Who took these photos?” asked Georgia.

  “It doesn’t matter who took them,” said Simone, “It matters who gave them to me.”

  “Who gave them to you?” asked Georgia.

  “Your Deputy Director Arthur Witt,” said Simone, “Six weeks after I got back from Brussels.”

  “How did he make the connection between you and your son?” asked Georgia.

  “He had photographers there,” said Simone, “Probably posing as press. They photographed everyone there and matched them to their CIA profiles. When they matched me they had to wonder why I was there. That’s when they went to work. I don’t know how long it took to find the connection between my mother’s family and his family but from there it was easy. My mother had never had any other registered children and she was forty-two when Joseph was born. Women didn’t have babies so late back then. They traced the time he was born and found out where my mother and I were. I think my mother took the hospital records but they could have sent agents to Papeete to ask about. They could have pieced it together. You know that. Most often that’s how it works. In France anyways, maybe the CIA only gets direct information. I don’t know.”

  “So Witt knows that Joseph is your son,” said Georgia, “And he’ll use that against you.”

  “More than that, Agent Georgia Standing,” said Simone, “He knows what you don’t.”

  “What?” asked Georgia.

  “He knows my real name,” said Simone, “And he has already used it against me. Why else would I let him use France as a neutral zone to make his swap with the Soviets?” Simone took a long drag off her cigarette followed by a long exhale.

  “You tell me what was the bigger mistake,” said Simone, “Having my son or going to see him after all these years.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Georgia, “How do we fix it?”

  “I have a way,” said Simone, “It’s beneficial for us both. And remember one thing, Agent Georgia Standing. If you help me protect my family, you and I become family. And I’ll protect you like I would my own. I want you to decide what kind of intelligence career you want to have. And think if your ideal career would be aided by someone like me watching over your shoulder. You’ll always have access to me—to this place. This will be the first of many girl talks. Because right now I want you to understand that I am compromised. Le Poq cannot be compromised.” Simone took one more cigarette out of her gold-plated case and lit it. She patted Georgia on the thigh and stood up. Leaving her cigarettes and lighter on the table.

  “Take some time to think, Georgia, whose side do you want to be on in this game,” said Simone, “Ask yourself if you like this little country of ours and if you’d like to have friends here. Think about it. I’ll be at the dining table. When you’ve made up your mind come see me. Bring our cake, we’ll eat and talk.”

  Chapter Thirteen Eat and Talk

  Georgia needed something to focus on, something simple. She found her cappuccino cup. The coffee and milk inside had long gone cold. Cold-tasting coffee had little upside. The only advantage was the caffeine. Georgia felt the picture of her sipping cold coffee by herself was out of character. She was supposed to be an intelligence siphon, a seductress. But cappuccino wasn’t as sexy without the heat. Somewhere in the recesses of Georgia’s mind it fit. She didn’t feel sexy because of the words in her head. She already made her decision but her mind was searching for a label. Some words were sexier than their real world counterparts. Intrigue. Deceit. Mystique. They sounded as good as the cappuccino, if it were warm. But there was another word in her head, betrayal. Her loyalty was to the Agency not the Director and she still worked for the Agency.

  Georgia almost finished her cold cappuccino. She drank most of it before its cold consistency became an annoyance and she decided she had enough. There wasn’t more for her to do out on the veranda. Between drinking and thinking, she was done. She got up leaving everything where it was. She opened the door to the house and went back to the table for the cassata cake—two plates, two slices. She took the cake with her to the dining table, where she had goose with Simone. The table had been cleared but Simone sat in the same spot but Georgia’s chair had been moved. It was right next to Simone, sharing the same corner of the table. Georgia set Simone’s plate of cake in front of her and set her own on the table. She sat down realizing Simone wasn’t going to say anything. Along with the pieces of cake, Simone’s proposal sat on the table. She didn’t have to say anything. But Georgia did.

  “My mother used to say one thing a lot,” said Georgia, “History is everywhere, in everything. I used to always think she was talking about the War but she wasn’t.”

  “What was she talking about?” asked Simone.

  “I work for Arthur Witt, the Deputy Director of Operations for the Northern Hemisphere, and that’s all I know of him. I know his job,” said Georgia, “I know what he does. But apparently even that I don’t really know. But you just gave me your life on a dinner plate, even though we just met. You introduced yourself by introduci
ng yourself. I see the difference between someone coming in with a title saying that’s who I am and someone saying this is who I am and I want to offer you a job. I wouldn’t mind working for you. I don’t know your name but I know your history. It’s the opposite with the CIA. I know the name of my superiors but I have no idea who they are.”