Red Crystal (9 page)

Within ten minutes he had fifteen out of the seventeen names. He’d probably missed the other two in the crowd. He watched the last passengers pass through the channels, but there was no one else.

He made his way back to the immigration office and waited. The local man came in and announced, ‘All accounted for.’

‘I missed two,’ Nick admitted.

They checked their lists and decided he’d missed the two who had passed through first.

‘Well, that’s nice and tidy for once, then,’ said the inspector.

‘As long as none of them sneak back into France,’ Nick pointed out, ‘or decide to start something similar here.’

The local man shrugged and put on a look that said don’t let’s worry about that now.

Nick made a call to Claude Desport at the DST in Paris and said, ‘Can’t say I’m grateful, but all seventeen have been received. Will there be more?’

‘Another nine or ten tomorrow,’ Desport replied, and gave him a list of names. ‘If we find any more you’ll have them within twenty-four hours.’

That’s what Nick liked about the French system: any aggravation and it was immediate expulsion, with no chance of appeal.

‘But there are – let me see –
three
we cannot send back to you,’ Desport was saying. ‘Two decided to go over the Belgian border, and a third decided to – er, stay.’

‘Stay?’

‘She got away. Her name is …’ There was a pause. ‘Wilson, Linda. If we pick her up again, we will let you know.’

Linda Wilson. The name rang a bell, but it took a moment for Nick to place it. Of course. The raid after the Linden House Hotel affair. The girl on the stairs. He had a fleeting vision of her body, long and beautiful, then, with an effort, closed his mind to it.

Three unaccounted for.

Nick reflected that the local man had been somewhat premature. Nothing was ever neat and tidy.

Gabriele forced herself to stand up. A moment later, when the dizziness had passed, she walked unsteadily from the bed to the window. She looked down into the street. It was quiet. There was nothing to suggest that, five days after the Night of the Barricades, the country was virtually at a standstill. Six million were on strike, so the radio said: train drivers, dustmen, car workers, lorry drivers, professional people; and the numbers were still increasing. The uprising had grown beyond the students’ wildest dreams.

The street was quiet because the quarter was quiet: this apartment was a long way from the Latin Quarter. Gabriele was restless. She wanted to get back to the centre of things. She had already decided to leave the next day and go in search of Petrini and Giorgio.

Not that she hadn’t been looked after. The apartment belonged to a young priest who brought her food and occasional news. A doctor came twice a day and shone a light into her eyes and gave her tablets to take away the pain in her head. Then there was a woman journalist who called every evening, to check on her. It was almost as if these people were part of a well-established organization. But this was never confirmed and, after asking twice, Gabriele did not ask again.

Now she went back to bed and slept until evening. When the priest returned she told him she would be leaving the next day.

He frowned and suggested it would be unwise to be found on the streets without papers. After he left the room, Gabriele heard the slight ping of the telephone bell. Later, when the priest reappeared with some food, he said, ‘You will be collected at three tomorrow afternoon. To make arrangements about your papers.’

Then Gabriele knew without any doubt: there was an organization. She wondered what else it provided.

She was dressed and ready by three the next afternoon. She felt much better; the worst of the headache had gone.

At half past three the doorbell finally rang.

It was Giorgio.

She said, ‘You’re late.’

He shrugged good-naturedly and ignored the remark.

As they went down to the street Gabriele cast him a sidelong glance. He had come to visit her at the priest’s apartment three days before, but only stayed ten minutes. He’d been restless and impatient, and she’d had the feeling that he was irritated by her incapacity. But now he was bright and attentive, and she was aware that he was trying to please her again.

‘Your head is mended?’ he asked as they got into his car.

‘I’m all right.’

‘Ah. That is good.’ He seemed relieved.

He drove off fast, ignoring one set of lights that had just turned red, and shooting rapidly into the Avenue Leclerc. There were few cars about and no buses or traffic police. The city seemed half-abandoned.

Giorgio laughed. ‘In the car, when we took you from the hospital, you moaned so much I thought you were dying.’

‘My head was hurting. But it’s all right now.’ The memory of the pain was fading. She remembered feeling sick and feverish, but she could no longer conjure up the agony of the pain itself.

But she had forgotten nothing about the Night of the Barricades nor the way in which she had been injured. She had played the scenes of the two assaults over and over in her mind until each moment was etched vividly on her memory. She cherished the details; they were valuable.

Giorgio was driving steadily north towards the Latin Quarter.

She asked, ‘Where exactly are we going?’

‘I was given an address. A photographer’s. I was told to take you there.’

‘Who by?’

He shrugged. ‘Friends of Petrini. But I don’t know who
precisely
.’

She looked at him sharply. Was he telling the truth? If not, why was he holding back? He must trust her now, surely.

‘What happens after the photograph?’

‘You will have papers. You’ll be free to move around.’ He paused. Looking across at her, he added, ‘I am staying in the apartment of a friend, near the Sorbonne. There is room. If you like.’

Gabriele thought: He trusts me after all.

She considered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get too involved with this man. She sensed he was unpredictable, difficult even. On the other hand, his connections were too useful to give up. Particularly since he was in contact with this organization.

She said, ‘All right.’ Then added, ‘It’ll be much more convenient.’ She didn’t want him to think she was moving in because of him.

They parked to the south of the Latin Quarter and picked their way on foot through narrow streets whose surfaces had been almost completely torn away, and whose sides were still littered with stones and burnt-out cars. Finally they entered a doorway beside a secondhand bookshop, and climbed some stairs. On the first floor was a small photographic studio. A man emerged from a back room and shook hands. He did not offer his name.

He sat Gabriele on a stool in front of a camera and rolled down a plain black background.

‘Look straight at the camera.’

There was a flash and Gabriele blinked.

The photographer said, ‘I’ll need some details.’

She gave him her height and age. ‘What languages do you speak?’ he asked.

‘English, French, a little Italian and German.’

The photographer scratched his head. ‘At the moment I can only offer you Turkish, Dutch, or Argentinian. Perhaps Argentinian would be best. There are many people of English origin living there.’

Giorgio said, ‘Take Dutch. It’s safer. No one speaks Dutch.’

The photographer indicated that it was all the same to him. ‘What about names?’

They went through some ideas, and decided upon Anneke van Duren because it was easy to pronounce. The photographer said, ‘It’ll be ready by tomorrow evening at six. Will you pick it up?’

As they emerged into the street, Gabriele looked for the house number. Eleven. And the name of the street: Rue Vauquelin. She filed it away in her memory. She still did not know the photographer’s name.

They walked back towards the car.

Giorgio said, ‘We’ll go back to the priest’s and pick up your things.’

‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘I’ll move tomorrow. When I have my papers.’

He shot her an angry look, and strode on ahead. He drove her back to the Porte d’Orléans in silence.

Outside the priest’s she said soothingly, ‘We’ll have dinner tomorrow night.’ She brushed his cheek with her hand. ‘It’ll be nice.’

He looked at her resentfully. It was his turn to be piqued. She was glad. It wouldn’t do him any harm.

Eventually he gave a faint nod of resignation. ‘Tomorrow.’

She got out of the car and watched him drive away. The moment he was out of sight she turned her back on the apartment and set off down the street. In the Avenue Leclerc she looked round uncertainly. She knew the buses were on strike, and probably the Métro too. She didn’t have the money for a taxi. In the end she put out a thumb and a motorist stopped. He dropped her near the Latin Quarter.

She walked back through the narrow streets until she came to the Rue Vauquelin. She went to number eleven and looked at the name plates inside the front door.
Studio Vincenne – photos commerciales et portraits
.

She mounted the stairs, and listened outside the photographer’s door. The sound of voices came from inside. She went down to the street and waited in the second-hand bookshop, browsing through the shelves near the window.

Half an hour later two men emerged from the side door into the street. One of them was the photographer. He shook hands with the second man and walked off.

Gabriele replaced the book she had been reading and went out into the street. The photographer had crossed the road and was walking unhurriedly away with his hands in his pockets.

Gabriele took a brief look over her shoulder and followed.

In the quiet embassy building on the Boulevard Lannes the Soviet Second Trade Secretary scanned the back copies of
Le Monde
for any last scraps of information that might flesh out his report. The report needed all the padding it could get. As the senior officer of the Paris Residency’s Directorate K (First Chief Directorate, KGB) it was his job to know what was going on. Normally he liked to think he did. He had excellent contacts in the PCF (the French Communist Party), the FGDS socialist alliance, and the left-wing trade unions such as the communist-controlled CGT. But themselves taken by surprise, they had not been able to tell him very much. This uprising had sprung from small student groups about which there was little information. For one thing, they were newly formed; and for another, the groups were for the most part vehemently anti-Soviet. He had re-emphasized this in his report, both to explain his failure to predict events and to prepare the Centre for a continuing lack of information in the future. He hoped the message had sunk in.

Having said that, he had to try to discover what these students were all about. Over the last month
Le Monde
had carried interviews with most of the student leaders, who had talked of capitalist repression and reactionary forces and of the need for a socialist revolution in the Third World. This, he felt, was the key. This was the spot where they could be reached and their idealism turned further to advantage.

He fiddled with his pen, wondering whether to stick his neck out. Putting forward policy ideas was a risky business – it could earn you credit or a firm slap down and delayed promotion. He hesitated a moment then added a footnote: ‘Despite the idealism and independence of the various new extremist groups in France and other West European countries, they are unlikely to be averse to logistical support when it is offered
indirectly
, through pro-Soviet Third World countries whose cause they champion, or by established organizations such as Aide et Solidarité. Help in the form of direct funding will be met with suspicion. It is suggested, therefore, that the support offered by Aide et Solidarité be stepped up to meet the requirements of these new groups.

‘It is unlikely that we will be able to exert any influence over these groups either by infiltration or by threatening to control their logistical support. However, this need not be a major concern, since any acts of a disruptive or terrorist nature carried out in capitalist countries will, by their very nature, be destabilizing.’

He laid down his pen. It was a fair assessment, though perhaps he had stuck his neck out a bit far on that last statement. Until now Aide et Solidarité had mainly provided support for Third World groups. Now he was suggesting that all other subversive groups, regardless almost of doctrine, should be encouraged. He just hoped it matched the current line of thought in Moscow. He switched a few words round to improve the flow, then sent it to be typed and encoded.

Later he made a telephone call across Paris, to a director of the Banque Commerciale de l’Europe du Nord (BCEN) in the Boulevard Haussmann. ‘I have put in a few words for additional funds for your export friends,’ the Second Trade Secretary said. ‘I feel confident they will get all they need.’

The statement was acknowledged and the call terminated. The bank director wrote a brief note on a pad to remind himself to call the import-export company, which was a customer of the bank’s, and speak to one of its directors. There was no point in calling just at that moment, as he knew the director would be out. And there was no secretary to answer the call. That was because the company did very little business.

The bank director knew a great deal about the import-export company because the bank covered the company’s frequent overdrafts with loans. The loans were made without collateral and no interest was ever charged. Furthermore, all payments for goods and services imported or exported were made by draft through the bank. Not that any goods were actually transported. They existed solely on paper, and were merely a means of channelling funds into the import-export company. These funds – like the loans – originated from the country which owned and controlled the bank, which was the Soviet Union.

The two directors of the import-export company were both Frenchmen who also kept personal accounts at the bank. One of the few employees of the company was Bernard Duteil, known as Raymond, the head of Aide et Solidarité. In fact, his salary from the import-export company was his sole source of income, and Aide et Solidarité itself existed on funds provided by the import-export company.