The Apocalypse Watch by Robert Ludlum Read Free Book Online

something else.”
    “I fail to see your point as it pertains to Jean-Pierre, my friend.”
    “Jodelle’s enemies, the group here in France that I’m convinced is linked to the Nazi movement in Germany, are way down deep, but they’ve got eyes and ears above the ground. If the old man made contact, the least they’ll do is follow up on his suicide. They’ll be on the lookout for anyone asking questions about him. If there’s any truth in what Jodelle claimed, again they can’t afford not to.… And that leads me back to the missing OSI files in Washington. They were stolen for a reason.”
    “I see what you mean,” said Bressard, “and now I’m definitely against Villier’s involvement. I’ll do my best to stop him; Giselle will help. She’s as strong as he is, and he adores her.”
    “Maybe you weren’t listening a while ago. He said none of us could stop him. He wasn’t acting, Henri, he meant it.”
    “I agree, but you’ve brought in another equation. We’ll sleep on it, if any of us can sleep.… Do you still have your flat on the rue du Bac?”
    “Yes, but I want to stop at the embassy first. There’s someone in Washington I have to call on a secure line. Our transport will get me home.”
    “As you wish.”
    Latham took the elevator down to the embassy basement complex and walked through a white, neon-lit corridor to the communications center. He inserted his plastic access card into the security receptacle; there was a brief, sharp buzz, the heavy door opened, and he walked inside. The large air-cooled, dust-filtered room, like the corridor, was pristine white, the panoply of electronic equipment lining three walls, the metal glistening, a swivel chair placed everysix feet in front of its own console. Due to the hour, however, only one chair was occupied; traffic was lightest between two and six o’clock in the morning, Paris time.
    “I see you’ve got the graveyard, Bobby,” said Drew to the sole occupant across the room. “You holding up?”
    “Actually, I like it,” replied Robert Durbane, a fifty-three-year-old communications specialist and senior officer of the embassy’s comm center. “My people think I’m such a good guy when I assign the shift to myself; they’re wrong, but don’t tell them. See what I have to work on?” Durbane held up a folded London
Times
, the page displaying the infamous
Times
crossword puzzle and lethal double crostic.
    “I’d say that’s adding masochism to double duty,” said Latham, crossing to the chair to the right of the operator. “I can’t do either one, don’t even try.”
    “You and the rest of the youngsters. No comment, Mr. Intelligence Man.”
    “I suspect there’s gravel in that remark.”
    “Wear sandals on the driveway.… What can I do for you?”
    “I want to call Sorenson on scrambler.”
    “He didn’t reach you about an hour ago?”
    “I wasn’t home.”
    “You’ll find his message … that’s funny, though, he spoke as if you and he had been talking.”
    “We did, but that was nearly three hours ago.”
    “Use the red telephone in the cage.” Durbane turned and gestured toward a built-in glass cubicle fronting the fourth wall, the glass rising to the ceiling. The “cage,” as it was called, was a soundproof, secure area where confidential conversations could be held without being overheard. The embassy personnel were grateful for it; what they did not hear could not be extracted from them. “You’ll know when you’re on scrambler,” added the specialist.
    “I would hope so,” said Drew, referring to the discordant beeps that preceded a harsh hum over the line, the signal that the scrambler was in operation. He rose from the chair, walked to the thick glass door of the cage, and let himself in. There was a large Formica table in the centerwith the red telephone, pads, pencils, and an ashtray on top. In the corner of this unique enclosure was a paper shredder whose contents were burned every eight