“Good.” Wilson slapped him on the back. “Get to the bottom of what in the hell happened in Paris last night, and keep a lid on it. Report only to me. We don’t want the CIA airing its dirty laundry and embarrassing the president.”
“No FBI?” Cooked asked, feigning surprise.
“If we can avoid getting them involved, great. If we have to bring them in, the president will make that call.” Wilson wasn’t about to tell him he was making this up as he went. Part of his job was to insulate the president from scandal, and that’s what he was doing. “Focus on Stansfield and Hurley. Find out what they’ve been up to. Bring it to me, and we’ll have them dealt with. And then you will enjoy one of the quickest confirmations this town has ever seen.”
A broad smile spread across Cooke’s face. It wasn’t born simply of confidence, or of the thought of occupying the corner office on the seventh floor of the Old Headquarters Building. Cooke had been building a nice thick file on Stansfield and his old friend Stan Hurley.
CHAPTER 10
PARIS, FRANCE
PAUL Fournier looked up at the massive Sacre-Coeur Basilica shining on the hill—a stunning blend of Roman and Byzantine architecture. The church was a thing of genuine beauty that was almost certainly unappreciated by the men he was about to meet. Fournier took a deep drag from his cigarette before flicking it to the curb. Even at this late hour tourists were climbing all over the basilica grounds like ants. Two of Fournier’s men were with him. One had already gone ahead to make sure no one was lurking in the shadows and the other was following twenty steps back.
It had been a long day and Fournier wanted some answers, although he thought he had a fairly good idea of what had gone wrong. He walked around the front of the church and continued down a sidewalk, the crowd of tourists thinning as he went. His man flashed him the clear signal and Fournier moved up a short flight of steps, under a stone arch, and tapped on a door three times. A moment passed before the heavy door opened, revealing an old priest with hunched shoulders and cloudy eyes. He gave the intelligence agent a knowing smile but did not speak. With a gnarled hand, he waved for the visitor to enter and then closed and locked the door behind them.
“Thank you, Monsignor,” Fournier said in a tender voice. “How have you been?”
The priest answered in a weathered voice. “Life has been good to me, young Paul, but I’m afraid my days here on earth are drawing to an end.”
Fournier had been hearing this same line for five years. He did not know the exact age of de Fleury, but he looked to be at least ninety. The monsignor was a legend in the intelligence community. When the Nazis occupied Paris in 1940, de Fleury was a priest at the famous Dome Church in the Invalides Quarter near the Eiffel Tower. The church was the focal point of a grand gesture by Louis XIV, founded in 1670 to honor his wounded and homeless veterans, and of course the Sun King himself. In the subsequent years, the area around the church and veterans’ home became an administrative hub for the French military, and most famously in 1840 the final resting place of Emperor Napoleon. Hitler himself came to visit the church and pay homage to the tomb of the man and military tactician he so greatly admired. German troops were billeted in the surrounding buildings during the occupation. Many of them were Catholic, and de Fleury was fortunate to be fluent in German. These German soldiers lined up at his confessional weekly, divulging bits of information, but that was only the start. De Fleury insinuated himself into the company of the high-ranking German officers who were in charge of the occupation. He passed himself off as a Jew-hating Catholic who owed his allegiance to God and the pope. God had not spoken to him, but the pope had made it clear that the Church was neutral in this war. De Fleury passed along crucial information to the French Resistance, and after the war was over, he was privately awarded the Legion of Honor by General Charles de Gaulle.
Fournier had been introduced to him by his old boss years before. The introduction came with the assurance that Father de Fleury could be trusted in all matters involving the security of the Republic.
Fournier placed a gentle hand on the priest’s shoulder and said, “But what a great life it has been.”
De Fleury gave him a sideways glance. The hint of a grin spread across his lips, and he thought to himself,
“They are early,” Fournier responded, not able to hide the surprise in his voice. He himself was thirty minutes early.
“And very nervous.” De Fleury kept his eyes on the well-worn stone floor. Shuffling his feet as he moved through the shadows, he added, “And not the most well-mannered men, by the way.”
Fournier allowed himself to show some anger. The old man was too blind to see it, and if he did, Fournier didn’t see the harm. De Fleury was not long for this world, and his contacts back at the Directorate were all dead. He sighed to release some of the tension that was building in anticipation of the meeting. Dealing with these idiots was testing his resolve. “I’m sorry for their behavior. I will have a word with them.”
The old priest stopped at the top of a flight of stairs. He looked down into the dim light of the crypt below. “You will have to excuse me, but my legs will no longer carry me down these stairs, and I will be taking up permanent residence there soon enough.”
Fournier laughed lightly at the old man’s humor. “I understand, Monsignor.” Fournier pressed an envelope into the man’s hand. “Your service to the Republic is admired by many.”
“We all do our part.” De Fleury took the money and slid it into a fold in his vestments. He would count it later when he was alone in his room in the rectory.
Fournier started down the steps. The air grew thick and stale with a mixture of incense and decomposed bodies. When he reached the lower level he looked down the length of the crypt with its vaulted ceiling and alcoves that sprouted to the sides every twenty feet. Fournier moved briskly across the floor, ignoring the various famous people interred in the basement of this celebrated basilica. At the end of the hall, he stepped into a small private chapel and felt the presence of the men off to his left. Fournier put on his mask of calm and approached them. From five paces away, he saw the bandage on Samir Fadi’s face.
“Why are you making us meet in such a place?”
“What is the problem now, Samir?” Fournier had known this degenerate for less than a month and he was already tired of this man’s caustic attitude.
“This is a fucking Catholic church,” Samir snapped. “A shrine built to honor the crusaders who killed my ancestors.”
