white, staring straight ahead as the car rolled along.
"Hey, man, it's over," I said, trying to calm him. "You're out of the sewer. Lay it down and let it go."
"If I can't talk to you guys about it, who the hell can I talk to?"
That, I thought, was the most insightful question I had heard in years. Be that as it may, I still didn't want to chin about Iraq with Al Salazar or anybody on planet Earth.
If I never again set foot in Iraq, that would be fine by me. Remembering Grafton's promise, I silently vowed to make this assignment my very last for the agency. After this, you can color me gone. Au revoir, baby.
The French spooks, the DGSE, had their offices in an unlikely building, the Conciergerie. This was an old, old building on the He de la Cite that had been used for a lot of things down through the centuries, including a prison. Here the revolutionaries imprisoned Marie Antoinette and Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Marat, as well as Danton and Robespierre before they each made their oneway trip to the guillotine. The history came from Rich Thurlow, who had apparently spent a few evenings with a guidebook. He said that during the Revolution over four thousand prisoners were held here. We found a place to park and did some walking.
Standing on the right, or north, bank and staring at the building, I thought it looked ominous. It was made of cut stone and stood about six or seven stories high—it was hard to say because I didn't know how high the ceilings inside were. There were towers where the walls cornered, and the whole thing had one of those Paris roofs broken with dormers. The place had obviously been built as a medieval palace. In those happy days a palace was a fortress, a stronghold, where the king's men could hold off starving mobs or armies led by unhappy lords and barons. The river had been the moat. No crocodiles, but since the Seine was the city sewer, who needed them ?
"When was that thing built?" I asked Thurlow, our walking Baedeker.
"Thirteenth or fourteenth century. It's roughly contemporary with Sainte-Chapelle, which is immediately on the other side of it."
I knew about Sainte-Chapelle, a magnificent medieval church that King Louis IX built in the thirteenth century to house Christ's crown of thorns and fragments of the true cross. He purchased these relics, properly authenticated, of course, from the emperor of Constantinople for an outrageous fortune. No doubt the emperor laughed all the way to the bank. This transaction set the record for the largest swindle ever successfully completed, a record that stood for centuries. If you take inflation into account, it may still be the con to beat. The pope was so impressed that he made Louis a saint; the good folks in Missouri even named a city after him.
Staring at the walls of the Conciergerie, I wasn't in a laughing mood. I saw my share of old black-and-white movies when I was growing up, so I knew damn well what they had in the dungeons of that rockpile: lots of cells and a torture chamber. Probably had a rack and screw and a wall where they hung people in chains, the way the King of Id tortures the Spook. Just looking at those massive sandstone walls gave me the willies. I turned and looked the other way. Well, heck, half of Paris was to the north, and half to the south.
"You going in there?" Rich said, jerking his head at the building.
"I sure as hell hope not. But I do what Grafton tells me. He says go, I'm off like a racehorse."
"More like a mouse."
"That's probably a better analogy, I suppose."
"Better you than me."
We discussed equipment, what they had on hand and what they could get in a reasonable amount of time. "Bugs," I said. "Audio and video. How many?"
"We got about twenty of each on hand. Most of them are the new ones, so tiny you could swallow them and listen to your lunch digest."
I grunted. One of my instructors had done just that to demonstrate the capability of the new units. It had been funny ... then!
"Take me to
"Hey, man, it's over," I said, trying to calm him. "You're out of the sewer. Lay it down and let it go."
"If I can't talk to you guys about it, who the hell can I talk to?"
That, I thought, was the most insightful question I had heard in years. Be that as it may, I still didn't want to chin about Iraq with Al Salazar or anybody on planet Earth.
If I never again set foot in Iraq, that would be fine by me. Remembering Grafton's promise, I silently vowed to make this assignment my very last for the agency. After this, you can color me gone. Au revoir, baby.
The French spooks, the DGSE, had their offices in an unlikely building, the Conciergerie. This was an old, old building on the He de la Cite that had been used for a lot of things down through the centuries, including a prison. Here the revolutionaries imprisoned Marie Antoinette and Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Marat, as well as Danton and Robespierre before they each made their oneway trip to the guillotine. The history came from Rich Thurlow, who had apparently spent a few evenings with a guidebook. He said that during the Revolution over four thousand prisoners were held here. We found a place to park and did some walking.
Standing on the right, or north, bank and staring at the building, I thought it looked ominous. It was made of cut stone and stood about six or seven stories high—it was hard to say because I didn't know how high the ceilings inside were. There were towers where the walls cornered, and the whole thing had one of those Paris roofs broken with dormers. The place had obviously been built as a medieval palace. In those happy days a palace was a fortress, a stronghold, where the king's men could hold off starving mobs or armies led by unhappy lords and barons. The river had been the moat. No crocodiles, but since the Seine was the city sewer, who needed them ?
"When was that thing built?" I asked Thurlow, our walking Baedeker.
"Thirteenth or fourteenth century. It's roughly contemporary with Sainte-Chapelle, which is immediately on the other side of it."
I knew about Sainte-Chapelle, a magnificent medieval church that King Louis IX built in the thirteenth century to house Christ's crown of thorns and fragments of the true cross. He purchased these relics, properly authenticated, of course, from the emperor of Constantinople for an outrageous fortune. No doubt the emperor laughed all the way to the bank. This transaction set the record for the largest swindle ever successfully completed, a record that stood for centuries. If you take inflation into account, it may still be the con to beat. The pope was so impressed that he made Louis a saint; the good folks in Missouri even named a city after him.
Staring at the walls of the Conciergerie, I wasn't in a laughing mood. I saw my share of old black-and-white movies when I was growing up, so I knew damn well what they had in the dungeons of that rockpile: lots of cells and a torture chamber. Probably had a rack and screw and a wall where they hung people in chains, the way the King of Id tortures the Spook. Just looking at those massive sandstone walls gave me the willies. I turned and looked the other way. Well, heck, half of Paris was to the north, and half to the south.
"You going in there?" Rich said, jerking his head at the building.
"I sure as hell hope not. But I do what Grafton tells me. He says go, I'm off like a racehorse."
"More like a mouse."
"That's probably a better analogy, I suppose."
"Better you than me."
We discussed equipment, what they had on hand and what they could get in a reasonable amount of time. "Bugs," I said. "Audio and video. How many?"
"We got about twenty of each on hand. Most of them are the new ones, so tiny you could swallow them and listen to your lunch digest."
I grunted. One of my instructors had done just that to demonstrate the capability of the new units. It had been funny ... then!
"Take me to
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