one, he snapped his lighter, and the smoke diffused instantly in the rush of air from the vents above. He looked at his watch; it was 12:20. They were due at Orly Airport at 3:35, French time. Allowing for the zones, it was a three-hour flight, and during those three hours he would commit to memory everything he could about General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier—ifBeale and the dead Halliday were right, the arm of Aquitaine in Paris.
At Helikon he had done something he had never done before, something that had never occurred to him, an indulgence that was generally attributed to romantic fiction or movie stars or rock idols. Fear and caution had joined with an excess of money, and he had paid for two adjoining seats in first class. He wanted no one’s eyes straying to the pages he would be reading. Old Beale had made it frighteningly clear on the beach last night: if there was the remotest possibility that the materials he carried might fall into other hands—
any
other hands—he was to destroy them at all costs. For they were in-depth dossiers on men who could order multiple executions by placing a single phone call.
He reached down for his attaché case, the leather handle still dark from the sweat of his grip since Mykonos early that morning. For the first time he understood the value of a device he had learned about from films and novels. Had he been able to chain the handle of his attaché case to his wrist, he would have breathed far more comfortably.
Jacques-Louis Bertholdier, age fifty-nine, only child of Alphonse and Marie-Thérèse Bertholdier, was born at the military hospital in Dakar. Father a career officer in the French Army, reputedly autocratic and a harsh disciplinarian. Little is known about the mother; it is perhaps significant that Bertholdier never speaks of her, as if dismissing her existence. He retired from the Army four years ago at the age of fifty-five, and is now a director of Juneau et Cie., a conservative firm on the Bourse des Valeurs, Paris’s stock exchange.
The early years appear to be typical of the life of a commanding officer’s son, moving from post to post, accorded the privileges of the father’s rank and influence. He was used to servants and fawning military personnel. If there was a difference from other officers’ sons, it was in the boy himself. It is said that he could execute the full-dress manual-of-arms by the time he was five and at ten could recite by rote the entire book of regulations.
In 1938 the Bertholdiers were back in Paris, the father a member of the General Staff. This was a chaotictime, as the war with Germany was imminent. The elder Bertholdier was one of the few commanders aware that the Maginot could not hold; his outspokenness so infuriated his fellow officers that he was transferred to the field, commanding the Fourth Army, stationed along the northeastern border.
The war came and the father was killed in the fifth week of combat. Young Bertholdier was then sixteen years old and going to school in Paris.
The fall of France in June of 1940 could be called the beginning of our subject’s adulthood. Joining the Resistance first as a courier, he fought for four years, rising in the underground’s ranks until he commanded the Calais-Paris sector. He made frequent undercover trips to England to coordinate espionage and sabotage operations with the Free French and British intelligence. In February of 1944, De Gaulle conferred on him the temporary rank of major. He was twenty years of age.
Several days prior to the Allied occupation of Paris, Bertholdier was severely wounded in a street skirmish between the Resistance fighters and the retreating German troops. Hospitalization relieved him of further activity for the remainder of the European war. Following the surrender he was appointed to the national military academy at Saint-Cyr, a compensation deemed proper by De Gaulle for the young hero of the underground. Upon graduation he was elevated to the
At Helikon he had done something he had never done before, something that had never occurred to him, an indulgence that was generally attributed to romantic fiction or movie stars or rock idols. Fear and caution had joined with an excess of money, and he had paid for two adjoining seats in first class. He wanted no one’s eyes straying to the pages he would be reading. Old Beale had made it frighteningly clear on the beach last night: if there was the remotest possibility that the materials he carried might fall into other hands—
any
other hands—he was to destroy them at all costs. For they were in-depth dossiers on men who could order multiple executions by placing a single phone call.
He reached down for his attaché case, the leather handle still dark from the sweat of his grip since Mykonos early that morning. For the first time he understood the value of a device he had learned about from films and novels. Had he been able to chain the handle of his attaché case to his wrist, he would have breathed far more comfortably.
Jacques-Louis Bertholdier, age fifty-nine, only child of Alphonse and Marie-Thérèse Bertholdier, was born at the military hospital in Dakar. Father a career officer in the French Army, reputedly autocratic and a harsh disciplinarian. Little is known about the mother; it is perhaps significant that Bertholdier never speaks of her, as if dismissing her existence. He retired from the Army four years ago at the age of fifty-five, and is now a director of Juneau et Cie., a conservative firm on the Bourse des Valeurs, Paris’s stock exchange.
The early years appear to be typical of the life of a commanding officer’s son, moving from post to post, accorded the privileges of the father’s rank and influence. He was used to servants and fawning military personnel. If there was a difference from other officers’ sons, it was in the boy himself. It is said that he could execute the full-dress manual-of-arms by the time he was five and at ten could recite by rote the entire book of regulations.
In 1938 the Bertholdiers were back in Paris, the father a member of the General Staff. This was a chaotictime, as the war with Germany was imminent. The elder Bertholdier was one of the few commanders aware that the Maginot could not hold; his outspokenness so infuriated his fellow officers that he was transferred to the field, commanding the Fourth Army, stationed along the northeastern border.
The war came and the father was killed in the fifth week of combat. Young Bertholdier was then sixteen years old and going to school in Paris.
The fall of France in June of 1940 could be called the beginning of our subject’s adulthood. Joining the Resistance first as a courier, he fought for four years, rising in the underground’s ranks until he commanded the Calais-Paris sector. He made frequent undercover trips to England to coordinate espionage and sabotage operations with the Free French and British intelligence. In February of 1944, De Gaulle conferred on him the temporary rank of major. He was twenty years of age.
Several days prior to the Allied occupation of Paris, Bertholdier was severely wounded in a street skirmish between the Resistance fighters and the retreating German troops. Hospitalization relieved him of further activity for the remainder of the European war. Following the surrender he was appointed to the national military academy at Saint-Cyr, a compensation deemed proper by De Gaulle for the young hero of the underground. Upon graduation he was elevated to the
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