Beyond Revanche, page 19
“You are aware, Sir, that we have concerns about Monsieur Zaharoff’s safety, even here.”
Eyebrows automatically lifted across the room at the absurdity of anyone daring to attack a visitor in the presence of Papa Joffre. “I have had previous dealings with one of the gang and would recognize him. May I have your permission to assume an army uniform and stay on the periphery during Monsieur Zaharoff’s visit to keep watch, but remain incognito?”
If Mathieu had expected an objection, none was raised. Ten minutes later, he stood before a mirror dressed in the blue uniform of an aide de camp.
Night crept down upon the chateaux with the stealth of a seasoned ninja. Lights were doused and heavy satin blinds drawn over the great windows whose chandeliers would have, in better times, shone like beacons of wealth amidst the rural poverty. Mathieu needed to clear his mind and strolled outside. Darkness rested under the ample woods beyond the chateau but a clear sky and waxing moon spread strange shadows towards the right. Far off he could see the faint glow of a stellar pulse throwing reds and yellows into the night. There was no sound or self-explained explosions. That was what bothered him. Was the front line on fire?
“I would advise you stay inside the building, Sir.”
Mathieu had not been aware that there was another night watchman breathing the outdoor air. Cold but pleasantly so, devoid of any wind to chill the bones. He turned to see a uniformed colleague, cigarette hidden from view but its presence confirmed by stale nicotine breath whipping into the ether.
“What’s that? In the distance?” Mathieu pointed to the ghostly pulse, confused by its far presence. His colleague moved closer and looked round to confirm that no one else had come outside to smoke. They were alone.
“That’s the glare from our blast furnaces at Briey. You don’t normally see them, but it’s cloudless tonight.”
“Our blast furnaces?”
“Should be. Would have been until someone,” he whispered, “decided that the Germans could keep the mines and smelters intact. Once produced ninety-percent of our iron and steel. Germans took them 1871 and have them still. Scandalous.”
“What?” Mathieu failed to grasp what the officer meant. “Are you saying that we deliberately failed to protect the mines, furnaces, and smelters and left them intact for the Germans? That this is where they produce the materials for their heavy guns and munitions and… we let them?”
The stranger was uncomfortably hesitant, as if he had yet to decide if Mathieu could be trusted. “Yes,” he conceded softly, with a hint of shame in his voice.
Mathieu couldn’t see his unexpected informant clearly for a shadow crept across the grass like an incoming tide licking the edges of the ancient chateau walls, rising noiselessly to embrace them as a single cloud passed above.
“How do you know?”
“I was there.” He double-checked that they were still alone. “In the first days of war, units were formed into a group known as the Army of Lorraine by our High Command, but for whatever reason, we didn’t move. A full-blown army sat in the woods and waited for orders that never came. We were established on 19 August to take the mines, brought together on the 21st, and dissolved on the 25th without firing a shot. It would have been a great victory. There was no one to stop us. At the very least we would have ensured that the Germans couldn’t use the coal, iron ore, and smelters.”
“You must be mistaken, Sir, the records would show…” Mathieu protested.
“Check for yourself. You’re Deuxième Bureau.” He retorted. The stranger’s assuredness hung in the cold, biting back contempt. “And why do you think that tonight’s meeting has been called? Take great care.” He stamped out his cigarette and slipped into the shadow, leaving Mathieu confused.
“Wait,” he called, but no one was there.
A flurry of voices sounded from the front of the chateau capturing Mathieu’s attention. Visitors had arrived. The guard of honor stood to attention and senior aides ushered the new arrivals into the great reception hall. While some were unknown, Mathieu recognized Wendel from the Iron and Steel Combine, Zaharoff, his minder deep in conversation, and several assemblymen. At a rough guess, it was basically the same group he had seen in the Paris suburbs three months previously. Simply more of them. Paul Dubois appeared a minute or so afterwards, straining to see if Mathieu was in the room. The hall doors, inlaid with amber to reflect the rich golden-brown excess of another epoch, were closed by Joffre’s order. Zaharoff’s man was not allowed into the meeting. No outsiders. Without exception. The proceedings were to be secret.
Dubois felt himself forcibly drawn out of the throng and into an ante-room by a uniformed officer. His protest fell short as he recognized his friend and colleague in the borrowed uniform.
“What has been going on? Zaharoff took his time, did he not? Where did Wendel come from?”
“Give me a chance to speak, Mathieu. We had to travel very slowly, lights off, and dozens of roadblocks to pass. Unscheduled stops, too. Thank God we were with Zaharoff. That made life easier. The closer we came to Monthairons, army units appear to have expected him.”
Mathieu led Dubois into the garden, aware that a passerby could overhear their conversation.
“And Wendel?”
“Met him about two hours ago with the Assembly representatives and others I did not recognize. I’ve a list of names, as far as it goes.” He patted the inside of his jacket. “About an hour ago they drove closer to the front, got out, and had a full-blown row about something. We had a problem with the car. It hit a rock and stalled. Timon came over to help us.”
“Timon?”
“Zaharoff’s doorman, his personal guard. The one who nearly caught you.”
“Ah, that Timon.”
“Still carries a limp, you know?”
“Stick to the story.”
They walked on, outside the perimeter of light which spread from the chateau.
“Well, he said he knew about motor car engines, and after about twenty minutes it restarted. His driver brought over a flask of coffee and stayed to pass the time of day. He blocked us off from Zaharoff so I stretched my legs and saw that more men had joined the original group. They must have been there, waiting. Too far away to be sure. Some of them were speaking German, but they do in that neck of the woods.”
“Did you hear the word Briey?”
“Hear it, no. But there was a road sign that pointed in its direction. Briey 34 kilometers.”
“So they were pointing towards Briey or the flashes in the sky?”
“Possibly.”
“Very likely?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what Briey signifies? Treason.” They sat in the sobering air while Mathieu explained its significance.
“Do either of you gentlemen have a light?” Mathieu instantly knew the voice but still turned around. Paul Dubois, more generously said, “Timon. How good…”
Zaharoff’s man sprang at Mathieu, both arms extended towards his throat, his left leg kicking out at Dubois. Rule 1: never stand still. Rule 2: never play fair if a man intends to kill you. Mathieu feinted left and spun round to hit the angry bodyguard. One punch was seriously insufficient. Dubois lay still. The bastard must have caught him in the head. Concentrate. Keep moving. Both men circled each other like rabid dogs, aware that the first serious bite would poison their prey. They entered a strange dumb-show of silent movement. A dance macabre. Concentrate. The heavy Timon snorted in the moonlight as if to clear his mind. He lashed out with his left foot but failed to make contact. If Joffre or Zaharoff or even one of the steel men saw them, Mathieu knew that he would be in trouble, but no one appeared to notice. No word was spoken. No threat, empty or real, was made. Again they circled each other, this time, in a counter-clockwise direction, eyes locked. They might have continued till dawn, but Mathieu’s leg caught on a man-sized root and he fell over the sprawling body of the semi-conscious Dubois. Timon flew at him, but reeled back in mid-flight.
Two shots pierced the night with deafening consequences. Timon roared in pain. Movement on the left edge of the wood caught Mathieu’s fleeting attention. Shaken by the noise, Dubois found life in his limbs and struggled to his feet. Armed soldiers rushed from the chateau, guns raised.
“Over there, about one hundred meters to the right,” Mathieu pointed, sending a zealous troop of aides and clerks in the wrong direction. “Watch out, he’s dangerous.” That slowed the pursuers in their hasty tracks. He pointed to the fallen Greek.
“Get him to a field hospital immediately.”
Timon lay wounded, unable to object. Blood was seeping from a hole close to his left shoulder. His thigh looked pink and wet in the moonlight. The second bullet had also struck home. Whoever the assailant, he was an excellent shot. Well, almost.
“I think you should get him to a field hospital quickly. he’s lost a lot of blood. Are the general and his guests safe?” Mathieu brushed the dirt from his borrowed uniform and sought to confuse the issue by raising concerns in another direction.
“Yes, yes. Perfectly safe.” Joffre’s senior aide de camp led him back into the building where rumor of an attempted assassination became accepted fact before it reached the grand hall.
“Don’t worry, Inspector, the general sends his apologies, but his guests left ten minutes ago, by a side exit in the east wing. As soon as the amber doors were shut, they passed through the hall, into a private office, had a brief conference, and were gone.”
“What?” Mathieu was incredulous. Duped by his own military commander. Clever.
“They are on their way back to Paris as we speak. Perfectly safe.”
“Are you telling me they came all the way here and there was no meeting?”
“No, no, Monsieur. They met. Indeed they did. I understood your man Dubois was with them.”
“Paris.”
Mathieu changed into his own clothes, grabbed his hat, and met the police Renault, its engine purring, all within two minutes.
“Don’t know how much of this makes sense, Paul. A secret group meet in the forest with other unknown persons, then come to Monthairons as a blind, would you say? So we think that the meeting was with Joffre? We were allowed to see the people they wanted us to see.”
“The question becomes who didn’t they want us to see?”
Mathieu leaned forward in the passenger’s seat. “You said you had a list.” Dubois pulled out a small notebook and handed it to his lieutenant. The writing sprawled across the page, in parts illegible. Never easy to put down a list of names in a moving car on a rutted road. Mathieu read the names but failed to grasp what they meant. It said:
Francois de Wendel.
Henri de Wendel.
Basil Zaharoff + Timon+ 1 or 2
Édouard de Rothschild.
A banker from the Banque de France? Maybe.
Two Deputies from the National Assembly, names?
Charles somebody…it could have been another Wendel
An American or an Englishman.
Iron and steel men from Briey??
And?
Chief Superintendent Roux met them next morning with a cup of consolation coffee and a croissant.
“I’m glad you both survived the ordeal without permanent damage. You’ve kicked over a whole field of wasp hives. The darker corridors of power are swarming with stories of attempted assassination and secret evacuations. Brief me, please, but we have to keep this meeting short. I’ve to be at the Élysée in an hour.” Roux checked the ornate Louis XIV gold-gilt clock on the mantelpiece, guarded as it seemed by cherubs and nymphs.
“Can we focus on what we know for sure. No guesswork, no intuition. Facts only.”
“There is reason to believe that there is a scandal looming over Briey.” Mathieu spoke first. God the coffee was wonderful.
“Not a fact. It is a statement we have yet to establish.”
“Zaharoff and the Wendels are involved in an illegal…arrangement of some kind and Papa Joffre and President Poincaré know.”
“Big list of assumptions there. Where’s proof of wrongdoing?”
Mathieu tried again. “A relatively senior soldier, could be military intelligence, knows that orders were given to form an army unit which was disbanded before it could retake or blow up Briey in August.”
“Can’t accept that. At the moment it is simply a wild allegation. Where is the proof? Who is the soldier? Show me the orders.”
Silence.
Mathieu found a fact. “Zaharoff’s bodyguard, what is his name again, Dubois?”
“Timon.”
“Timon knows who I am and tried to kill both of us last night.”
“OK, I can accept that.” A Gauloises was extracted and lit. “Carry on.”
“Secret meetings have taken place, and the men involved don’t want anyone to know what they are plotting.”
“You’re assuming a plot. What if they were simply fixing the international price for iron ore?”
“In a forest outside Briey in the dark of night?”
“Where better?”
“Chief, you know this stinks. You insist that nothing is written down to protect us from unnamed vested interests, but some kind of racket is going on here.”
“So give me the facts.”
Dubois dug deep into his pocket to find his notebook. He handed the list to the chief. Roux’s face darkened. The Gauloises almost fell from his mouth. He rescued the perilous cigarette and stole a last drag of nicotine. To their amazement, Bernard Roux rose from his seat and dropped the list unceremoniously into the fire. Paul Dubois reached out to save the evidence before it disappeared, uncertain if Roux had made a mistake. The chief superintendent stopped him short and beckoned him to sit down.
“Both of you need to understand very clearly. There was no list. Nothing was ever put in writing. Nor will it be. Believe me, the people on that list are so powerful that they could have us killed within the day if they knew we had this information. You do know what it means?”
Neither man spoke. Dubois looked stunned by the boss’s alarm. Bernard Roux placed his right hand on his moustache, stroked it as if it was a talisman, and made his decision.
“The names that didn’t go all the way to Monthairons? Charles Wendel? Former member of the Reichstag? An American with a Rothschild? Isn’t the Banque of France hosting J P Morgan from New York? You almost solved the conundrum yourselves. They are checking out our assets before agreeing to a massive international loan. These are the moneymen. These are the bankers of death and Briey is their major asset.”
Mathieu protested his frustration. “This is all wrong. How can you say that Briey is their asset when it’s held by the Germans. And why is it still operational? The smelters should have been destroyed. The mines, too. No, more than that. The whole area should have been blown apart. Wendel and the Iron and Steel combines must be colluding with Basil Zaharoff. That’s treason, if it puts one Frenchman at risk.”
“Of course, but we can’t prove it.” Bernard Roux needed him to calm down. “But the one question we’re not asking is, who owns the entire complex?”
Dubois reasoned that since it lay in German hands, it must be Germany.
“But that’s not what you found, did you?” Roux rose from his seat and wandered back and forth, understanding for the first time the enormity of their conclusion. “Your list, which never existed, contained the names of Frenchmen, Americans, Englishmen, and the mysterious Zaharoff. And who are they? Bankers, arms manufacturers, men who can move money across continents, and they think it’s their asset, because it is. They own it no matter which country claims it.”
“So what do we do?” Dubois rose from his chair and moved towards the nearest window, shaking his head. “Are you saying we can’t do anything, chief superintendent?”
Bernard Roux reached back to his desk and grasped a packet of Gauloises. “No, I’m not saying that at all. We’ll follow this up quietly. But we must resort to their tactics. We do it secretly and we share nothing, except with each other; not even within the Bureau. No records. Nothing that can be traced to us. We have to tread water until the time for retribution comes. Which reminds me, where did you put the files on Zaharoff when we moved into the building? I can’t find them.”
The telephone’s shrill ring interrupted them. “Yes,” he growled. His manner changed. “Very good, Sir. Yes, they’re with me now.” Long pause. “No. Nothing to report. Both are fine.” Much longer pause. “Yes, certainly. Oh, that’s…ehm…that’s much appreciated.”
He replaced the receiver and sat back. “Interesting. That was the minister of the interior. Called to congratulate you both on your sterling work last night. Sadly, the would-be assailant escaped, dressed as an officer. He wanted to know if we had learned anything about the goings on at the Chateau. Did I know who was there? You heard my response. We must never, ever let slip that we know what we know. Understood?”
They did and it frightened them.
“One more thing, Messieurs. Unfortunately the two bullets which hit this Timon thug missed his major organs. He lost a great deal of blood, but should recover. Monsieur Zaharoff thanks you most sincerely. Apparently one of you idiots told Joffre’s men to take him to a field hospital.” Spurred on by the loyalty of close friendship, Dubois pointed at Mathieu.
“Zaharoff will know for sure that we’re on to him.”
“He knows already. That’s why he played you as fools at the Chateau. And if those files are in his hands, believe me, we now need to be smarter than ever.
Raoul’s Story
Bad Memories
I felt less confident; less trusting. Had I done the right thing? Again doubt? Couldn’t ever shake it off.
As a boy in Reims I would blame anyone I could. I needed to have the admiration of my father, my teachers, family friends, neighbors, and gullible adults. The gendarmes knew that I would tell them anything I knew if asked, but now certain persons believe that the truth could not be tortured from me. Well, it could. Usually. Except… not this truth. Not the truth which explodes in my dreams. I have watched reruns in my mind like newsreel in the cinema. A silent movie slinks around my mind, uncontrolled, like a venomous viper, poisoning sleep.
