Leon Uris Read Online Free Page B

Paris. You know as well as I how leaky the SDECE is and how careful we have to be in turning over information to them. Question, is, do we share this secret with the French?”
    “On the other hand,” Sanderson Hooper intoned, as if debating it out with himself, “Kuznetov made a well-calculated, deliberate request. He wants to see Devereaux for a particular reason. Perhaps the reason is that he’s ready to open up.”
    “What do you think, Mike?” McKittrick asked.
    “I’ve had the feeling he’s ready to talk. We have to take the risk of sharing Kuznetov with the French.”
    “Whatever,” Hooper added, “the Russian holds the cards and he’s playing the hand.”
    “All right,” McKittrick said decisively, “take Devereaux to see him.”

6
    “K ILL HIM! H E IS A thief and a robber!”
    “André! Will you stop making a spectacle of yourself.”
    “But my God, woman. Did you see that play? He was safe by a mile!”
    Nicole Devereaux tugged at her husband’s jacket, and he sat down as the argument raged around the umpire at home plate. “Safe! Safe! He was safe!” yelled Devereaux. And, being French, he made a brandishing gesture at his throat to the umpire and sulked to regain control of his temper. He chomped through the hot-dog bun, then fished around beneath his seat for the paper cup of beer.
    He was what one would define as a charming-looking man in his mid-forties, complete with graying temples. Most women thought him sexy. He had a way with his eyes, with his gestures.
    As play resumed, Nicole returned to her deliberate mask of boredom.
    Mickey Mantle strode to the plate.
    André caught her fixed icy glare from the corner of his eye. Oh, well, he thought, she will only have to suffer two more innings.
    The drive home was in silence. André took the long way, past the Capitol and along the Mall. The cherry blossoms were ready to burst and the city was bathed in the full breath of early spring. He looked at the Lincoln Memorial, never tiring of it. It was his city, this Washington, in many ways, even more than Paris.
    The Georgetown suburb had been the beneficiary of a large restoration program. They had one of the high-ceilinged period houses near Dumbarton Oaks, which, over time of a decade, Nicole had furnished with taste and distinction.
    They entered. The truce was over.
    Nicole slammed the door and whirled on him. “A hell of a Frenchman you are! You baseball watcher! You ... you bourbon drinker!”
    “Madame Devereaux,” he said, oozing cynicism, “I do not consider these pleasures an affront to the honor of France!”
    “But you like everything American, my dear. Particularly their women.”
    “What is that supposed to mean?”
    “Nothing, darling, but I do hear Virginia McHenry is quite a piece.”
    “So that’s it. Nicole, when are you going to stop listening to gossip and eating yourself up on rumors?”
    “I did not mean to insult you about American women. You’ll jump into bed with anyone.”
    “You’re the one who sounds like an American wife! Complaining, jealous, shrewish. No wonder they’ve got a country of rich widows. And you act just like one of them.”
    The dogs, Robespierre and Picasso, entered to greet them, but retreated quickly.
    “I happen to like baseball,” he said, calming, “and the Yankees are in town.”
    “And it also happens that this is your first night off in three weeks.”
    “So you want to drag me to New York to sit in a theater ... a drafty theater ... and watch a rotten play and drag me back to Washington in the middle of the night, and you’ll complain about the damned play all the way home. Don’t you know you complain about everything, woman? This house, my position, your social duties, the maids, the car, your clothing.”
    They made it to their separate but equal bedrooms.
    André Devereaux had explained to his American friends that separate bedrooms was one of the most civilized contributions of the French bourgeoisie.
    Tonight, for