example. For this reason, certain safeguards were built into the system at the highest levels to make sure no irremediable mistake was made. And none had ever been made, until yesterday.
After Gideon’s call to Marks the evening before, Delvaux had become suspicious and had immediately called the director of NSD at SHAPE—Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe—in Mons, Belgium. A series of conference calls to the far-flung outposts of the NSD empire, and face-to-face meetings in Mons and Brunssum, Holland, had brought out the facts.
The dead man was certainly Joe Monkes, and he had definitely been on Gideon’s trail since somehow learning about Gideon’s schedule at the crucial bases. Even though he had turned up nothing in his search at the Hotel Ballman, he had convinced himself that Gideon was the traitorous USOC source who was turning over vital military secrets to the Soviet Union. Since then, he had been hounding Gideon through three countries.
“Was he behind the attack in Sicily?” Gideon asked.
“No. He was a vicious man, but that he did not do. That I will come to later.”
Gideon shook his head slowly as he poured cream into his coffee. “I thought you said there were safeguards against this sort of thing.”
“There are, and they are strictly enforced. But Bureau Four agents are different—I told you, like the SS. They are individualists, free thinkers. They do things their own way, and there are not many who dare quarrel with them, including sometimes their own supervisors.”
Monsieur Delvaux had finished with his coffee. He gazed thoughtfully at the grass and trees of the patio, then looked directly at Gideon. “His superior believes Monkes was emotionally unstable, that perhaps your resistance to him and his colleague in Heidelberg created a personal hatred toward you that became an obsession.”
Gideon could believe it. Again he slowly shook his head. “I’d say your need-to-know principle needs looking at.”
Delvaux laughed; he seemed delighted with the phrase. “Yes, needs looking at! It certainly does. And already certain changes are being made so that this can never happen again. In the present case, the principle is being superseded entirely. I have been placed in charge of all aspects of this matter. All.” He sat back with a childish pride that Gideon found charming, and waited for Gideon to say something.
“Congratulations, Monsieur Delvaux.”
“Thank you, my good friend.” He smiled merrily at Gideon. “Have you finished your breakfast? Shall we walk outside? The day seems pleasant.”
The day was not pleasant. The unsubstantial clouds of the day before had thickened, so that an unusual gray sultriness enveloped the base. There was, however, a welcome normalcy in the simple white buildings; the neat, wide lawns; and the sounds of plain, homely American speech around them. Delvaux seemed content to walk in companionable silence, his hands clasped behind him. After a while, Gideon spoke.
“What you’ve been telling me is extremely interesting, of course…”
Delvaux peeked sideways at Gideon from under his wild eyebrows. “I should think so.”
“But I don’t understand why you’ve taken the trouble to come here to give me the information. Why
“We have caused you a great deal of trouble,” Delvaux said. “I felt we owed it to you to explain it. As I had to come to Spain in any case—to examine the bodies, to secure certain effects of Mr. Monkes, and so forth—it was little trouble to take an hour or two with you. Besides,” he said, smiling up at Gideon, “obviously, you already know a great deal more about this than you pretend.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your excellent friend John Lau was very free last night in telling me about the information he has been passing on to you.”
Frowning, Gideon halted again. This time Delvaux stopped with him. “Monsieur Delvaux, is John in trouble over this? I can assure you, he didn’t give me any… sensitive information—”
“—which you would not, in any case, recognize should it bite you on the nose, eh?” Delvaux laughed. “Don’t worry. John has been a little indiscreet, but it is to his credit that he realized before the rest of us that you were in danger. It would have been better if he had gone through formal channels… but who knows? We probably would not have listened. In any case, I am satisfied that he neither passed on nor obtained—nor tried to obtain—highly sensitive information.”
They began to walk again. “In one thing Mr. Monkes was very meticulous, which is to our good fortune,” Delvaux said. “Apparently he was taking punctilious care in documenting a case against you.”
“Yes, good fortune has always smiled on me.”
Delvaux laughed. “He kept a very careful diary. We deciphered enough of it this morning to answer many of our questions.”
They had walked several blocks. At Delvaux’s suggestion, they seated themselves in the bleachers of a Softball field on which six or seven youngsters were playing a desultory game. Delvaux’s facetiousness had disappeared. He spoke seriously.
“Monkes watched you or had you watched from the minute you arrived in Torrejon, but he never saw you do anything suspicious. Nevertheless, he was convinced you had somehow obtained the information you were after.”
“Whatever it was.”
“Whatever it was. He followed you to the Prado. He was convinced that you were going to meet your case officer—your contact—there. He hoped to catch you in the act of turning over the information.”
“But John was with me. He must have known John’s with NSD… ?”
“Well…” Delvaux gave one of his Gallic shrugs. “Perhaps he thought John was also a turncoat. In any case, the moment he saw Sholokov in the museum, he was certain he was correct.”
